Rough Night BUT Great Morning

After a busy day in the office for me and Ron fixing multiple plumbing problems in the campground and at some of the rigs of guests we were both exhausted so decided to go out to eat.  We like to go to Grand Country  for their buffet as we have a Buy 1 Get 1 Free so we decided that is where we would head...on our way we decided to see if we could get tickets to see the Grand Jubilee because a little voice whispered to us that it was the first night of the new show and you know us, we can't pass up a free show!!  So we had dinner and then made our way to the theater and got situated in our seats. 

As we were sitting there my head started pounding and I was freezing...I had Ron's jacket on my back/shoulders and my fleece on my lap and I just could not get warm.  We enjoyed the first half of the show, especially Dolly Parton making a guest appearance...what a hoot.  By the time intermission came around I was feeling horrible so asked if we could go home...even though Ron would have enjoyed staying for the second half he obliged me and brought me home.   

I immediately got ready for bed and was off in slumber land.  Ron was watching football & basketball waiting for our very first Couchsurfer, Josh to arrive.  Josh is from Madison, WI and was running in a half marathon in Springfield and found us through the Couchsurfing.org website...I had signed up on that as we are looking for places to stay on our trip out to OR/WA in February and since we love to meet new people and have a spare bedroom here in the apartment...well as they say the rest is history.  I heard Josh come in about midnight and him and Ron chatting for a few minutes but dozed back off without moving a muscle in the bed :)  

I did a lot of tossing/turning/tumbling in the bed most of the night, got up and got a few drinks of water and even a little bit of 7-Up...and at 6:05 this morning found my mind racing and riding that "awfullizing train."  You know the one where you imagine the worst thing that could happen and your brain just continues to snowball through the thoughts.  After a few minutes of heart racing/pounding I turned to the Lord and asked Him to take those thoughts captive...I knew they were of Satan trying to attack me and ruin my day.  After about 10 minutes of yucky thoughts, prayers to God, tossing and turning I decided the best thing to do was to get up and spend time in the Word...and what a blessing it was.  Filled with reassurance from the Lord...beginning with Hebrews 12:11

,

This was a verse I have claimed over and over during difficult times and I was reminded that though I may face difficult times, horrible experiences or in this case those awfullizing thoughts and they are troublesome that once I call on the Lord...things begin to look better...and this morning I gave thanks to the Lord that the thoughts didn't last a long time, that I turned quickly to the Lord and He filled me with peace and the reminder that I am never alone!!!

And from Psalm 143

that God hears my pleas, 

He encourages me,

never leaving me alone

And from Ephesians 1:3-6

He chose me before I was even born!

He wanted me!!

I am not one of his mistakes!!

I am His Beloved!!!

And that is the best thing any child could ask for...

...to be loved, chosen, and wanted!!!

And God, my Abba Father,

wants only the best for me...so now I am

encouraged and looking forward to this new day

that the Lord has made!!!

After this time with the Lord, reading His Word, 

listening to the song "This is the day the Lord has made"

I turned to my 2014 Guideposts Daytimer

to read the prayer and the verse for today.

"Dear God...show me how I can welcome the visitor you send to my door.  Amen."

Haven't we all been little children at one time?

And doesn't God's word tell us to love one another?

And to bless those we come into contact with?

I don't know Josh's beliefs but I do know

I look forward to getting to know him a little bit this morning

and sharing God's love with him!!

Who knows?  Maybe he will become a new life-long friend!!

So I leave you asking...who can you bless today?

And remember You are HIS BELOVED!!!

A little snippet of what we did last night

It is a busy time of the year.

This guy is definitely in demand.

Santa loves to share ~

And sometimes he gets hungry...

....so we stopped at Chili's after the festivities of last night.

And we were blessed by an unnamed guest

who paid for our dinner last night.  

When we asked for our check, 

Hannah (the one between the two guys) said

...Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas, your bill has been paid!

And Santa asked by who...she said she couldn't tell :)

Now wasn't that a blessing!!!

Hope y'all have a 

Merry Christmas!!!

Encouraged

I am so encouraged tonight.

Our home church is in the process of updating our picture directory.

I was asked to submit a new picture of us.

So I did.

This one was taken this past Sunday, December 1st

celebrating my birthday.

And is the one I sent to Bernadette.

She sent this one back to me.

It was taken March 21, 2010 the day we left Blaine to go work

for the carnival (check out the archives March 2010 to September 2010)

Wow...what a difference.

As many of you know I had a heart attack in August 2013

and was told to lose weight!!!

and exercise!!!!

I have lost a total of 24.4 lbs

and Ron has lost just about 30 lbs 

(he got a kick start working for Amazon 

otherwise known as the Amazon Fitness Center)

Wow is all I can say!!!

And I needed to see this

I have been slacking on my exercising 

but woke up early this morning

and gotten back on the bike

did 45 minutes, 9.87 miles, burned 437 calories.

Seeing this picture tonight

just encourages me to keep going.

I have 15.4 lbs to lose to reach my first goal.

I had set 1/1/14 as the day I wanted to reach that goal

Realistically with what I have been eating

and not exercising I know that is not possible

so my goal is to reach that by 2/1/14!!!  

I can do it!!!

With God's help....I know if I pray at night to wake up early 

I do, just about 6 a.m. which is what I need to do to get my exercise

in first thing in the morning.

Would you pray with me that 

I wake up every morning between 5:30 and 6:00 a.m.

Stay tuned for the rest of the journey!!!

Do You Ever Hear a Little Voice?

I seem to have been in a fog lately, not the fog that has been hanging around outside each morning for the last week or so but more like just going through the motions and being way too busy for my own good.

The last three days though, a little voice has been whispering in my ear

"Umm...where am I in all this busyness?"

Tuesday while at Forever Friends I kept hearing "But God" over and over

and I couldn't figure out what was going on.  

We heard a wonderful testimony from Paula Hall of how God delivered her from a Meth addiction and being wrongly accused of murder.  If you are in the Branson area this weekend, she will be sharing her testimony at the worship service hosted by Barbara Fairchild at the Doug Gabriel Theater this coming Sunday morning, December 8th at 10 a.m.

And those two little words kept echoing in my head "But God."

Yesterday I had an eye appointment in Springfield.

I was a bit worried going into it because my eye socket had been sore for the past few days and was very tender in the corner of the eye by my nose.  

After taking my eye out (for new readers I have an artificial eye) and checking the socket it was decided that the eye needed to be built up a bit more around the bottom, along the top and fill in a bit more of the back.  Ugh...that means walking around with an eye patch on :(

The first thought was "Oh no, this is going to be a $200 visit.  Oh well, nothing I can do about it."

So after getting the molding put on, put in, checked, taken out, tweaked, adjust the molding, put in, checked, taken out and tweaked a bit more we were told to come back about 1:30 p.m.

And off we went to Bass Pro Shop.

What a huge store.

And great museums.

We ate lunch at Heminways Blue Cafe and watched the many fish in the aquarium, we then wandered around the store, the archery museum, the Theodore Roosevelt display of hunts and reading about a lot of his work in the National Park Systems and then the actual store it was time to head back to the doctors.

When we returned to the office the waiting room was packed.

So we took a seat and prepared for a long wait.

But, Randy walked out and called me in right away.

After cleaning the socket he put my eye back in...it was uncomfortable at first but then it seemed to settle in...Randy was pleased with how it looked.

And so were we.  Now for the bill.

I asked Randy what we owed, he hesitated a minute,

I took a deep breath and he said nothing...this one's on him.

BUT GOD is so good and only God knew we really didn't have any money for this eye appointment.

I asked again "are you sure.?"  He said, "go get out of here and have a Merry Christmas."

Thank you Dear Lord for providing in ways that always astound me.

(And by the way, by the time we got home the swelling had gone down a little in the eye socket and the eye is tracking the way it should be.)

BUT GOD...But God...But God

And then this morning, I woke early, something I have not been doing for the past few weeks...no early morning exercise, no time in the Word, just bounding out of bed and getting right to work...

BUT GOD....where am I in your life?

My devotional this morning was titled "Need a Lift?"

Yes, a little one but more like a kick in the butt I think.

BUT GOD is good and loves me and this verse came to mind

and then the verse for the day

And I am reminded that when I measure my troubles or burdens against others or feel overwhelmed and like every where I turn it is one more thing that is heavy laden on my heart

BUT for GOD when I measure the things that are weighing heavy on my heart and mind against GOD they are just tiny little things compared to how big our GOD is!!!

He is big enough to handle anything that I am dealing with.

Thank you for the reminder this morning when I looked in the mirror at my eye...it is clean and sitting properly in the socket.  Yes, I still have a bit of a headache and who wouldn't after having their eye taken in/out and jostled around like I did yesterday, but the headache is not as intense this morning as it was yesterday and for that I give thanks.

And I am reminded when I am feeling down and slumped over, feeling the weight of all the things I am dealing with and need to deal with IF I look up towards the Lord and give thanks for the things I do have: a loving husband, great son's, delightful daughters-in-love and the five most precious grandchildren along with a warm place to lay my head at night, food in the freezer and a job that fits us to a T...the world seems a bit brighter and load a lot less heavy.

I am reminded again BUT GOD is the answer to everything.

And then I moved onto Joshua 5 where God called the Israelite's to be circumcised and to put their trust in HIM and the Lord provided fresh food and water for them, kept the armies away from them

I am reminded

that I need to trust in Our Lord Jesus Christ

and not in man or things

BUT only in GOD!!!

To stop trying to do things on my own,

BUT to TRUST GOD

And for that I am so thankful.

And I am reminded

when I am feeling down,

overwhelmed,

alone,

like nothing is going right

BUT GOD 

is with me

and has never failed me yet!!!

Today I am thankful for so much

but most importantly for a God, Abba Father

who loves me just the way I am

and that he is the best DAD anyone could ask for.

Forever Friends Christmas Party 2013

I have shared often about a Ladies Fellowship group that I attend

Forever Friends

here in Branson, MO

Monday, December 2nd

I had the pleasure of hosting our

Forever Friends Christmas Party

And of course no party would be without its food!!!

We had baked spaghetti, green salad, green beans, corn casserole

deviled eggs and lots and lots of desserts :)

And then we visited and learned more about each other.

Lots of laughter, good conversation happened until

SANTA arrived!!!  

He brought candy canes for all

and then he snuck in a kiss from Mrs. Claus.

And then it was time to open Christmas gifts.

There was not much stealing of gifts (we played dirty Santa) but a few gifts did get passed around.

Everyone enjoyed what they ended up with.

The biggest laughter was Barbara F. receiving a Day Planner!!!

Two beautiful blankets passed around a few hands...

there was a purple/white fleece one and a multi pink afghan.

We then had a bit of sharing time

and encouraging of each other.

We missed many of our Forever Friends

and hope next year we can all be together!!!

If you want to be a part of our Forever Friends,

Branson Group

we meet on Tuesday mornings at 11:00 AM 

at Golden Corral 

on Shepherd of the Hills' Parkway.