When I was in college, I spent one summer in a small town outside of Houston, TX working as a Children's Minister. It was a wonderful summer to be truthful. The Lord allowed me to experience many new things that summer, and He also shared with me many verses, which at the time were very applicable to certain life situations I was in. I remember thinking "He wrote that just for me". One of these verses was Psalm 147:3 "He heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds". At the time, I was "getting over" a guy who now means nothing to me. But at the time, it was one of my first "relationships" and I thought of my was so hard. It really wasn't, just felt that way. I felt broken hearted so the truth of Psalm 147 rang loud in my ear. I would pray and cry out to God to be faithful to this promise, and He was. Over the years, I've experienced more and more "heart break", but honestly, not because of a romantic relationship. The fall semester following that summer, I met my husband, and although we didn't start dating for about a year, I think I knew we would end up together. He was so loving and compassionate to me during those 12 months prior to us dating, I knew there was something special about him.
Back to being broken hearted. So, my heart break has come for other areas: seeing friends lose loved ones. The constant turmoil in our country leaving so many people groups vulnerable (children, elderly, middle class, etc). Once again my heart to learning what it means to be broken hearted. Last week, my husband and I were in a Barnes and Noble killing time when I saw a note pad with this verse on it. It immediately made me think of a friend who has been going through a lot lately. How she feels broken hearted and longs for someone to bind up her wounds. Think of what that looks like: I think of a surgeon who is sowing together an open chest or wound. That's what God does for us. It's what He PROMISES to do for us. What a great comfort comes to me because of this truth!!
I am so thankful for my Great Physician who Heals and Binds Up Wounds! Are you??
Love, Mrs. M.
Wednesday, February 23
Wednesday, February 16
Thoughts on Valentine's Day
So, I know it's like 2 days late, but here is my thoughts on this day. I honestly LOVE it! (pun intended) Who wouldn't enjoy a day where you celebrate your special connections with others? I think that if you are a person who "doesn't believe in" or "agree with" or "thinks it's a day made up by candy makers and jewelers" then I wonder, do you celebrate Mother's Day/Father's Day? How about Easter or Christmas? What about any other holiday?
The argument that I hear most often from a person who doesn't observe Valentine's day is that you shouldn't need to have a "special" day to show your significant other how much you care about them. Well, couldn't the same be said about all holidays? Shouldn't we Celebrate our Lord's birth and mourn His death daily? Shouldn't I love on my parents the other 364 days a year? Well of course the answer to these questions is "Yes, I should". But do I? No, not always. That's why it's so important that once a year, we take the time to show all these people just how much they mean to us and just how appreciative we are of all they've done for us over the years. That's what Valentine's day is to me. It's a day for my husband to show me in an extra special way how much I mean to him. That's why the photo he gave me meant so much. He knows that passage in scripture is my mantra some days. As I put in my original post, I believe we are to LIVE the love Paul speaks about in Corinthians. My personal favorite is the beginning of Vs. 8 "Love never fails". I once heard it said "This means love never flunks out". I loved the imagery of this statement. Now, my husband could have used that quote "Love never fails" because he knew it was my favorite. However, he chose to use the statement that meant the most to him "Love endures all things". To some this may seem like it's the same saying just with different words, but I know God is very intentional about the use of words in scripture, so I believe Paul is talking about two different instances. In our marriage, I know it means two different things. "Love never fails" means that if I love you, I never leave or even threaten to leave. "Love endures all things" means, no matter what we go through: times of prosperity or times of poverty, times of joy or times of strife, we endure it.
The online Webster dictionary had this definition of "endure": To remain firm under suffering or misfortune without yielding." What a beautiful picture of how my husband loves me! I truly believe this is the best Valentines Day present he's given me to date. I can't wait to see what next year has in store!!
Love, Mrs. M.
PS- Just to brag on him a little bit, I also got a dozen BEAUTIFUL white roses, a box of chocolates, and he made dinner for me Monday night. Nothing fancy, just tostadas, but to me, it was better then Craftwood Inn!!
The argument that I hear most often from a person who doesn't observe Valentine's day is that you shouldn't need to have a "special" day to show your significant other how much you care about them. Well, couldn't the same be said about all holidays? Shouldn't we Celebrate our Lord's birth and mourn His death daily? Shouldn't I love on my parents the other 364 days a year? Well of course the answer to these questions is "Yes, I should". But do I? No, not always. That's why it's so important that once a year, we take the time to show all these people just how much they mean to us and just how appreciative we are of all they've done for us over the years. That's what Valentine's day is to me. It's a day for my husband to show me in an extra special way how much I mean to him. That's why the photo he gave me meant so much. He knows that passage in scripture is my mantra some days. As I put in my original post, I believe we are to LIVE the love Paul speaks about in Corinthians. My personal favorite is the beginning of Vs. 8 "Love never fails". I once heard it said "This means love never flunks out". I loved the imagery of this statement. Now, my husband could have used that quote "Love never fails" because he knew it was my favorite. However, he chose to use the statement that meant the most to him "Love endures all things". To some this may seem like it's the same saying just with different words, but I know God is very intentional about the use of words in scripture, so I believe Paul is talking about two different instances. In our marriage, I know it means two different things. "Love never fails" means that if I love you, I never leave or even threaten to leave. "Love endures all things" means, no matter what we go through: times of prosperity or times of poverty, times of joy or times of strife, we endure it.
The online Webster dictionary had this definition of "endure": To remain firm under suffering or misfortune without yielding." What a beautiful picture of how my husband loves me! I truly believe this is the best Valentines Day present he's given me to date. I can't wait to see what next year has in store!!
Love, Mrs. M.
PS- Just to brag on him a little bit, I also got a dozen BEAUTIFUL white roses, a box of chocolates, and he made dinner for me Monday night. Nothing fancy, just tostadas, but to me, it was better then Craftwood Inn!!
Wednesday, February 9
Thoughts on Valentines Day...
I know it's still quite a few days away, but my husband gave me one of my gifts tonight. I'll post more about the day/gifts on Monday, but I love my present so much that I wanted to share is with you today.
This is from Paul's 13th Chapter in Corinthians. It was also read at our wedding. It's also probably my favorite chapter in the bible.
More to come....
Love, Mrs. M.
More to come....
Love, Mrs. M.
Sunday, February 6
Thoughts on getting older
Tonight, my brother in law called and we were chatting about this and that and one of the topics we spoke about got me to thinking about how I'm getting older. Or rather, am older, then I once was. This may seem like a "Duh" moment, but seriously. Just now, as I was brushing my teeth, I smiled at myself in the mirror and for the first time I saw a wrinkle around my mouth...and I wanted to cry. Then, I looked at my hair, and saw all these "beautiful" slivers of gray. I feel SOO much like that country song, you know the one, "I'm much to young to feel this d*#@ old". I started thinking about my life and how I'm 26. I just read a novel this week, not one that I recommend so I'm going to leave the name, but in this novel, 3 best friends, live in New York and have wonderful social lives, live in fabulous "flats" and all have exciting careers. They were all 30. This also made me feel old. I am 4 years younger but feel like I'm 24 years older. What happened? I remember being in college, not having any cares except if I was going to have money for the weekend trip to Abilene. Now, I'm worried constantly about money: Do we have money for groceries this week? Will we have enough for rent next month? I hope we don't use to much money on gas because we'll be out of luck...And on top of money worries, I worry about whether I'm doing a good enough job at keeping the apartment cleaned up (most likely not by the way) or if I'm being patient and loving enough to my husband (something I'm sure I fail at daily) or what happens if I just don't go to work? Is that allowed? (Which of course, IT'S NOT!!).
Getting older...I just told my husband what I'm posting and he says "But isn't that what you want when you're little? You can't wait to grow up and drive places?" I told him "I honestly don't know if I ever wanted to grow up!!" I loved the independence of adolescence and early adulthood (really, psychologically speaking, I'm referring to later adolescence). I just went and pulled an old text book about the stages of life and it talks about how my age group of individuals (ages 24-34) should be dealing with:
All of this may seem insignificant but honestly, I find this information some what comforting. Aside for the childbearing, which, let's be honest, I don't see happening, I'm right where I'm "supposed" to be with my peers. The 30 year olds who are still having very active social lives and are career hopping are actually BEHIND in their development and our society has seen fit to no only embrace this delay but often ENCOURAGE it (such as in the novel I recently read). I guess I should have paid more attention to Mrs. Sneed's HBSE II class and maybe I wouldn't have had this little melt down tonight!
Oh the Sneeds...I miss this. Maybe that will be a blog one day. Sharing my favorite stories from college (including my college profs. They were pretty great...)
Love, Mrs. M.
Getting older...I just told my husband what I'm posting and he says "But isn't that what you want when you're little? You can't wait to grow up and drive places?" I told him "I honestly don't know if I ever wanted to grow up!!" I loved the independence of adolescence and early adulthood (really, psychologically speaking, I'm referring to later adolescence). I just went and pulled an old text book about the stages of life and it talks about how my age group of individuals (ages 24-34) should be dealing with:
- Exploring intimate relationships
- Childbearing
- Work
- Lifestyle
All of this may seem insignificant but honestly, I find this information some what comforting. Aside for the childbearing, which, let's be honest, I don't see happening, I'm right where I'm "supposed" to be with my peers. The 30 year olds who are still having very active social lives and are career hopping are actually BEHIND in their development and our society has seen fit to no only embrace this delay but often ENCOURAGE it (such as in the novel I recently read). I guess I should have paid more attention to Mrs. Sneed's HBSE II class and maybe I wouldn't have had this little melt down tonight!
Oh the Sneeds...I miss this. Maybe that will be a blog one day. Sharing my favorite stories from college (including my college profs. They were pretty great...)
Love, Mrs. M.
Wednesday, February 2
Thoughts on being "snowed in"
So, Monday night/Tuesday morning, DFW got "hit" with quite the little winter storm. Ice pellets, wind gusts and below freezing temperature have kept my husband and I home for work for the past two days. It's been a nice break from the daily grind, but I keep thinking of all the things I could be doing such as typing up a home study, preparing for a home visit that I've had to postpone because of the storm, do a little grocery shopping, get a pedicure (I can dream, right!). Yesterday, we didn't leave the house. Today, we had to run to my parents, but returned as quick as we could. The temperature gauge in my car read, at it's lowest, 22 degrees, at it's highest, 31. Allow me to show you a photo from our recent trip to Colorado:
This was at 1pm on Thanksgiving day. And it doesn't include the wind chill, which I'm sure was substantial. While we were in Colorado, this seemed very cold, but we still got out and about. Maybe that's because we were tourists. I don't know. But I do know that we were not the only ones out and about. Most of the town was out and about. Now, I know you're probably thinking, "Yes, well, they're used to it." or "They just know how to drive in it because they do it all the time" and I would 100% agree with you. Don't get me wrong, I live in Texas, and as a TEXAN the weather should not be as it has been the past 2 days!!! I'm digressing...
Back to being snowed in: Yesterday, we watched the TV show The Unit. We love this show. We also watched "Up In the Air" which I had gotten from Christmas and haven't been able to watch yet. All in all, it was a "good" day. Today, we were bored and flipped through "daytime" TV for as long as we could (Really only watching The Price is Right" and "Jeopardy" and then we started watching "Jurassic Park". My husband has all three and I had never even made it through the first one. Way creepy. But today, we watched all three. And I'm sufficiently freaked out and very thankful that My very loving and gracious Father chose to have those creatures leave this earth BEFORE He had me roam it. I just don't see how I could have coexisted with those things! Eek!!!
Today, my husband made this for me out of photos we took on our Colorado trip. He's so talented!!
One last thing, while on the way home from my parents, I heard this song on the radio. It was so awesome, I came straight home, looked it up on YouTube and proceeded to buy it from Amazon.com. I hope you enjoy it like I did!
Love, Mrs. M.
This was at 1pm on Thanksgiving day. And it doesn't include the wind chill, which I'm sure was substantial. While we were in Colorado, this seemed very cold, but we still got out and about. Maybe that's because we were tourists. I don't know. But I do know that we were not the only ones out and about. Most of the town was out and about. Now, I know you're probably thinking, "Yes, well, they're used to it." or "They just know how to drive in it because they do it all the time" and I would 100% agree with you. Don't get me wrong, I live in Texas, and as a TEXAN the weather should not be as it has been the past 2 days!!! I'm digressing...
Back to being snowed in: Yesterday, we watched the TV show The Unit. We love this show. We also watched "Up In the Air" which I had gotten from Christmas and haven't been able to watch yet. All in all, it was a "good" day. Today, we were bored and flipped through "daytime" TV for as long as we could (Really only watching The Price is Right" and "Jeopardy" and then we started watching "Jurassic Park". My husband has all three and I had never even made it through the first one. Way creepy. But today, we watched all three. And I'm sufficiently freaked out and very thankful that My very loving and gracious Father chose to have those creatures leave this earth BEFORE He had me roam it. I just don't see how I could have coexisted with those things! Eek!!!
One last thing, while on the way home from my parents, I heard this song on the radio. It was so awesome, I came straight home, looked it up on YouTube and proceeded to buy it from Amazon.com. I hope you enjoy it like I did!
Love, Mrs. M.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)