Hearts in Service

The pies are made, cornbread is done and waiting to be turned into dressing. The rolls have been baked and cranberry-orange & ginger relish is chilling in the refrigerator. I spent yestereday baking and prepping for Thanksgiving. Dan & I arrived home on Monday night to find that Stephen had put the tree together for us so I decorated it yesterday. Our tradition has always been to do it the day after Thanksgiving, but Thanksgiving came late this year and nothing is normal anyway with the move so I thought, "Why not do it now?" It adds a festive touch to the day. I have much to be thankful for and God has shown His hand on our lives in different ways. At times I fixate on the problem and forget to trust Him and see how He is orchestrating things in our lives. He is already working out some of the huge obstacles ahead of us in this move. Stephen needs to find a place to rent but the rents are outrageous for his income. He really coul...

Thanksgiving. We celebrate it every year. We eat turkey and dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, and pies for dessert. We stuff ourselves so much we barely can move. We pray and thank God for the food and perhaps a few blessings. But do we really understand thanksgiving? Do we give thanks every day or is it just a once a year event? And if we do thank God, do we tell others about His wonderful works in our lives? Read Psalm 145 and you will see that thanksgiving is not just vertical, but also horizontal. We should give thanks and praise God, but we should also be telling others about what He has done for us. Words that show vertical thanks are exalt, praise, extol, and meditate. However, there are many more words that show horizontal thanks. They are commend, tell, speak, proclaim, celebrate, and sing. They are listed over and over again. We are to give God praise and thanksgiving for all of His wonderful works, but we are to tell others about those ble...

Now that a move is looming in front of us, I often feel like a person who takes a huge bite of food and finds it's too much for their mouth. In other words, I've bitten off more than I can chew! I feel a bit overwhelmed with all that needs to happen before we can move, especially with the holidays in front of us. I need to find boxes, pack them up, get things transferred over, finish up a couple of sewing jobs, plan Christmas services, help Stephen find a place to live, get him moved in, get Nathan set up with the services he's going to need in our new place, get us moved out, and on and on. However, I'm going to tackle this by making a list and just  start plugging away at it. I did manage to pack two boxes yesterday just because there were two boxes laying around. Nathan is supposed to be bringing me more from his job. The biggest issue I'm going to run into is we just have no storage here for either empty boxes or full ones so timing is key. We...

The sewing machine whirred and hummed as I sewed a seam on a project. As it buzzed along, my thoughts buzzed with it. Suddenly, tears welled up, rolled down my cheeks and deep sobs shook my chest. I stopped the machine, put my head down and let the grief spill out. Dan and I have served in our current church for the past 6 years. We have grown to love these people we call friends. We have laughed with them, cried with them, been with them through their worst, and through their best. We have done ministry together and have prayed with them. It's been a good six years. I often forget that as a pastoral couple the congregation we minister to are on loan to us for a brief time. We are given a period of time to minister to them, but sometimes God calls us elsewhere. I struggle with that part because I lose sight of the fact that I committed myself to God long ago to use as He sees fit. Dan and I have accepted a call to minister in a church on the other side of the state. We wil...

I haven't done a Frugal Friday post in a long time so thought with the holidays coming up it would be a good time to do one since there are always extra expenses this time of the year. I love trying to make our dollars stretch and one way I do that is by using up the bits. I've been making hot and cold therapy bags recently. I started out having the outside covering close with Velcro but as I thought about it and fiddled with the material, I decided to get rid of the Velcro closing. Some of it is that Velcro is expensive and also messes with my machine. So I was able to change how I made it so that the outside cover encases the inner bag with a pocket. These are easy to make and use up some of my bits of fabric. I've been making cookies for different events for a while now and whenever I have something leftover such as cinnamon and suger to roll the cookies in, I save it in a separate container so I can use it again the next time. I was able to pull...

Why do I never have my camera when I need it? Emily sent me a picture of her latest art work and I love it! Rice and Flax Seed Hot and Cold Therapy Bags We've been in a snow globe the past few days and while it's pretty, it seems very January-like. I'm very thankful that the temperatures are supposed to warm back up over the next few days. I went next door for a meeting the other night and there was the most beautiful full moon. I wish I had my camera with me because the cell phone camera just doesn't capture it's beauty. The holidays are upon us and I've been busy sewing and filling some orders, baking cookies for my consecration service, for an upcoming holiday farmer's market, and for Christmas. I just put them in the freezer until I'm ready for them. I love this time of the year and everything about it. I need to pull blueberries out of my freezer and turn them into jam for the farmer's market. I'm not sure I'l...

Did you ever put something in your mouth and expect one taste, only to receive a totally different flavor?  It can be quite a jolt to your system.  Generally, it’s not a pleasant surprise either. In this passage, God sends Ezekiel to give words of mourning and lament to the Israelites for their disobedience.   However, Ezekiel received a surprise when he tasted the scroll.  Even though the words were not pleasant to hear or to give, Ezekiel said they tasted like honey in his mouth. When you read God's word, does it leave a sweet taste in your mouth or a bitter one? Can you say that the words are as sweet as honey, even when you are being convicted of something? Ezekiel filled his stomach with God's word. Do you fill yours every morning this way? Do you look forward to spending time reading His word?  Do you spend time feasting on the Lord’s word or do you choke down a few words here and there?  It’s so easy to place spending time i...

I'm having a difficult time focusing on things this week and have been struggling with a headache the past few days, as well as being distracted with waiting for something. I thought I should go back to my old standby of making a list. I've always tried to plan out my work and then work my plan so I'm not looking back at the end of a week and not seeing anything accomplished or having what I'm experiencing this week and having a hard time getting started. So I'm putting things down on paper (or blog, in this case) so I can have something for which to aim. I find if I don't aim at anything I generally will hit that every time. So having some goals for each week is helpful. Here are the major things I would like to get done this week:  Write up a quarterly report for our district executive committee  Follow-up on something with the hotel where we are having a spring conference   Sew a custom order for two clients  Deep clean...

We had our first snowfall yesterday and while I really am not a happy camper by February, I do love it when it first starts. It came quickly and accumulated quite a bit in a short time. I happened to look out the window right before dinner as the sun was setting and everything had a pink tinge to it. Beautiful! We got a few more inches overnight and it has officially put me in the holiday mood. I started doing some decluttering the other day and cleared out my pantry of jars of things we never got to. Pickles, jams and jellies, and all sorts of other tidbits that were quite a few years old. I dumped the contents, cleaned the jars and stored them away in our shed. I have quite a few bins of canning jars and part of me wants to get rid of some of them but yet, they are expensive and I never know when I'm going to need them. I started baking some cookies for my consecration service which takes place on the 24th. These went into the freezer yesterday. The c...

Dan and I were away for the weekend and one afternoon went for a walk. This gorgeous beauty was vibrant with leaves that hadn't yet fallen. As I took in it's massive size, I thought about how many years it must have stood there and seeing each new grave stone being added to the cemetery it resides in. Each stone represents a life lost; some young and some old. Some died of natural causes and perhaps, some died unexpectedly.  It seems a bit ghoulish, but I enjoy walking through a cemetery and reading the headstones. I think about the person buried there and wonder about their life. Were they outgoing and vivacious? Were they shy and reserved? Were they loved by many or hated by many? What did they do professionally? What were their hobbies or philanthropic interests? We have a brief moment on this earth to touch those around us. What will people remember about us? Will they miss us? Have we lived our lives in such a way to bring joy to those around us? The dash we see...