A Pajama Mama

A little Mozart, a little Vivaldi,  a little Beethoven, even a little Michael Jackson. And a little Rayray  and a little orchestra  with a big sound!

Lysa posted this timely video this morning on her blog. In light of the events of the past week, this message is straight from the heart of God for us all. I love the raw authenticity of the message...no "fixing up", no staged theatrical event. Just one woman with passion for Him who had a burning message to share from her home this morning.

Just can't keep the powder off the feet! Easter morning 2010, our family had a very meaningful sunrise celebration together...just the 5 of us. I taped off a rectangular path and placed a clean flat board on one end. I filled the path with baby powder. Each of us was challenged to find a way to hop, skip, or jump down the path, landing on the board with not one, single speck of powder on our feet. An impossible feat. (Feet? Sorry, couldn't resist.) The board represents a holy area.  Holy, set apart and completely clean from sin. Of course, the board couldn't even have one speck of dust on it to be truly Holy, but that was impossible. God IS Holy. He is completely clean, without even the tiniest speck of sin on Him. The powder represented sin. Like our feet covered with powder, our lives are covered with sin. Hero and Butter, nails in the cross We walked across the yard to our wooden cross that the Butter and a friend made a few years ago. Each of us hamm...

Twenty years ago this week, I said yes. Flashback to April, 1991: He cooked dinner for me. Steak and baked potatoes. I took pictures of the food, of him, of me. After dinner, we were sitting side by side and he gave me a beautiful Easter basket, full of chocolate candy, jelly beans and one huge, hot pink plastic egg in the center. More pictures. He said,excitedly, "See what's inside the egg!" I opened the huge pink egg to find a small egg. I smiled and rolled my eyes. I opened the small egg to reveal yet another smaller egg. I looked at him inquisitively...my pulse began to quicken, palms got sweaty...like something vastly important was taking place. I opened this next egg to find a teeny, tiny plastic pink egg. "Wait." he said. And as he moved from the chair to his knees, I thought my heart would pound clean out of my chest. Was I dreaming? Is this it? Together, we opened the last tiny egg to reveal a circle of gold with a pear-shaped diamo...

Last night was opening night for Soul Surfer .....based on Bethany Hamilton' s true story. It's a fantastic movie about courage, strength and faith. We took the whole family. When my 7 year old crawled upon my lap during a particular dramatic, emotional scene, I wondered if we had made the wrong decision by taking her. But this movie made an impact on her.....she woke up this morning talking about how brave and strong Bethany was. She said it's the best movie she's ever seen....and that includes every single princess movie!

We've been pondering the word hope  this week. When we chose the words for the kid s in January, I did quite a bit of word studying...using the Strong's to look up Hebrew and Greek meanings of words. I found that the words hope and expect/expectation s are used interchangeably, especially from one translation of the Bible to another. Hope - a strong and confident expectation . In searching for fresh meaning in the word hope , I opened my Kindle and searched my ESV Bible for hope ....and came up with 42 pages of references. As I jotted down the ones that popped out at me, I noticed a common theme. At the top of the journal page, I wrote in big letters..... SECURITY . We have security of the heavenly kind when our hope is in the Lord and when He IS our hope. For me personally, security is a pretty big deal. I spent my teen years fighting with insecurities in many areas..appearance, abilities, relationships.  Even now, when my hope isn't in the Lord...when I'm believi...

This is a repost from last St. Patrick's Day. I was encouraged once again by this prayer. I hope you are, too. Around 1500 years ago, a young British teen was kidnapped by Irish Raiders and forced into slavery in Ireland. Six years later, he escaped and returned to his home in Britain. This young man became a Christian and took the Christian name of Patrick. Through a vision/dream (as it's told), the Lord put it on his heart to return to Ireland as a missionary. He did just that....sharing the love of Christ and building schools and church buildings. Did you catch that? Just in case you missed the point....Patrick RETURNED TO IRELAND...the place where he was enslaved for 6 years. Could I do that? You? By the 8th century, he was a patron saint of Ireland. March 17 is believed to be the date he died. Irish Catholics began celebrating this day in the 17th century. Irish-Americans introduced the celebration of St. Patrick's Day on American soil during Colonial times. ...