Hearts in Service

January tends to be quite gray and drab or snowy and white. Either way there is not much color and because we live near two Great Lakes, as well as a smaller one, we get very little sunshine during the winter months. And that tends to make my mood just as bleak as the sky. I do struggle with seasonal affective disorder and it's amazing how when we do get the occasional sunny day how much better I feel about everything and how much more energy I have. But in my desire to carry out my yearly goal of finding beauty each day and focusing on those things, I managed to find all the colors of the rainbow. And in each of these items is also a bit of what I love to do so a double blessing.  Red cranberries being turned into juice. Yellow and purple birthday flowers from my daughter and her boyfriend. Sugar cookies with blue icing and tasty bits of prettiness. An orange candle from my sister-in-law. Green houseplants that are producing new leaves prolifically  Jars of purple goodness - conco

I celebrated my 61st birthday yesterday and one of the gifts I received from my husband was this clock. The front of it is an old map, but the reason I like it so much is it reminds me of the calling into ministry I received as a young girl. It was a calling to share the gospel to the world. Now I didn't end up as a missionary overseas, but that passion is being used in my role as a missions leader in our church and district. It's being used as Dan and I were church planters and now as we are in an established church.  I woke up from very weird dreams last night and like a lightning bolt, a memory from my senior year in high school popped into my head. A friend was teasing me and my boyfriend about what we'd be like in the future. When it came to me, he said, "Terri will be reading the Bible to us." I'm not sure why that particular memory arose, but it reminded me that God was guiding my path from a young age. Enough so that other 17 year-olds noticed. I get d

I'm 24 days into the new year without having written down one goal for the year. But today is finally the day when I set my pen to paper or I should say my fingers to the keyboard.  This year, my goals are going to look different as I enter 2023. I'm going to try and stop putting so much internal pressure on myself which just leads to me feeling dissatisfied and uptight with myself. My goal this year is to cease and desist the "busyness" and slow down to smell the roses. To do a better job of delegating and actually enjoying my life. To let go and realize I do not have to do it all! But the things I love - walking in nature, photography, sewing,  writing, creating, decorating -- are the things that rejuvenate me and give me joy. So I want to spend some time each week making space to do those things. Another goal is to move more. Because so much of what I do is administrative type work, I sit for most of the time. But as I'm getting older I'm noticing a negativ

I haven't done a Frugal Friday post in a while and thought it was time. I love being able to preserve foods to make them last and also to find ways to use up the little bits of leftovers. I had the bright idea on Monday to go through my chest freezer and pull out the Thanksgiving turkey carcass and bag of veggie scraps and make broth.  That idea turned into a chain reaction of kitchen activity that made for a very busy few days.  I saw a bag of plums in there which I had bought when they were on sale, but because they were very ripe and I didn't have time to deal with them, I put them in the freezer. They were taking up quite a bit of room so I made 12 half-pints of plum jam with them.  The turkey carcass was spread over 2 gallon freezer bags and the scraps were also in 2 gallon bags and that cleared out another large space in the freezer. That was turned into 7 quarts of broth. While rummaging through the freezer, I discovered a bag and a half of blackberries that I had picked

Psalm 63 (HCSB) ~   God, You are my God; I eagerly seek You. I thirst for You; my body faints for You in a land that is dry, desolate, and without water. So I gaze on You in the sanctuary to see Your strength and Your glory. My lips will glorify You because Your faithful love is better than life. So I will praise You as long as I live; at Your name, I will lift up my hands. You satisfy me as with rich food; my mouth will praise You with joyful lips. When I think of You as I lie on my bed, I meditate on You during the night watches because You are my helper; I will rejoice in the shadow of Your wings. I follow close to You; Your right hand holds on to me.   Desolate, unending, parched and dry.  Stinging sand, blazing heat, scorching sun, and exhausting are just a few words to describe the desert. There have been times in my life when I feel like I'm in a desert place.  The scenery is the same, day in and day out.  Nothing new or exciting happens.  I stumble and wan

I was at a conference last week and spent it in a really beautiful hotel. I jokingly said that it was going to spoil me for anything else.  It was 4 days connecting with old and new friends, being encouraged in how to better care for our denomination's International Workers and spending time hearing from the Lord in relation to my own church and district ministry. The main challenge I face when I go to these conferences is trying to figure out what are the one or two things I can implement in my ministry. I hear so many great ideas and I want to do them all, but that is not realistic. So I'm trying to figure out which is feasibly doable given our church and ministry. One of the fun aspects of the conference was that I went with friends and because the city we were in had so many different nationalities living within it, the food choices were fantastic. We had Korean, Indian, Somalian and Vietnamese cuisine and it was all delicious.  I am thankful to be back home with a slower p

Epiphany was the manifestation of God in human flesh, God with us . And God's manifestation to not just the Jews, but to the Gentiles. Yesterday was Epiphany Day and orthodox Christians around the world celebrated it.  Much of my life has been spent trying to rise above. The message that was communicated to me growing up was, "Make something of yourself." "Don't settle." "You are better than this." and "Be somebody." Many have received that same message and it is prevalent in our society. And yet, the God of the Universe, humbled himself and made himself less and willingly took on this frail human form. He allowed himself to experience emotions, pain and exhaustion. He came under the care of two human parents. He was betrayed by friends who were fickle. And ultimately was tortured and died. Why would He do that? We go out of our way to numb those negative emotions and events in our lives. Yet, the King of all, embraced them in order to pr

I've been feeling very dissatisfied with myself and the amount of time I spend each evening scrolling on Facebook. I'm busy and I'm productive, but I do waste a ton of time on something that seems to cause more harm than good. I am a very social person and while I probably won't give it up totally, I have seen the need to dial way back. And like ripping a bandage off a wound, I knew I had to do it quickly. I stayed off it totally for about 4 days and then did pop on yesterday, read a post that caused me to feel immediately insecure about my own ability in a situation and realized how many times it breeds negative emotions in me. It reinforced my decision to make some changes in my habits. I am the administrator on three pages on Facebook, but I've found a way to pop on and only look at the pages so I can post what I need to there. This way I don't have to linger on my own personal page. My blog is linked to my Facebook page and I do pop on a couple of times to a

When the new year rolls around everyone starts thinking about exercising and getting into shape. What about starting an exercise program for your faith?  I Peter 1:6-7 ~ "In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed." "I can't take one more thing!" I cried out to my husband. A number of years ago, it had been a tough month in our household. We were faced with a major move, a $3,300 tax bill, I had pneumonia and then to top it off, our car bit the dust. I was sapped physically, emotionally and financially. Through my human eyes I could not see how we were going to manage. Yet, as I read this passage in I Peter 1:6-7 I was being told to be joyful in the middle of my trials. How in the world can

s   Happy New Year! 2022 flew by and here we are in a brand new year. Yesterday, we enjoyed a fun afternoon with all of our children home to celebrate. I decided to make it easy with some party-type foods instead of a big sit down dinner. This way everyone could just pick and choose what they wanted and it would be low-key.  A new year is when I normally set some goals for myself. As I looked back over 2022 and the goals I had set, I was happy to see that I achieved many of them. There were some that fell flat, but for me it's not about getting them all accomplished, but to have something to aim for. I find that if I aim at nothing I'll hit that every time. So I always want to at least aim at hitting a few targets. To be honest, I've been so busy lately that I haven't even had time to think about it. I do know the few goals I had on last year's list that didn't get done will carry over to this year. In the past I've also spent some time reflecting and prayin