Christian Momma

Our bible study is doing one of Beth Moore’s bible studies…Stepping Up…A Journey Through The Psalms of Ascent.

The description from LifeWay is this:

Stepping Up: A Journey Through the Psalms of Ascent – Member Book by Beth Moore provides a personal study experience five days a week plus viewer guides for the group video sessions of this in-depth women’s Bible study of Psalms 120-134. Traveling pilgrims sang these psalms both on the way to the great festivals of the LORD and as key elements of the worship at those festivals. Just as a song or poem can express feelings of fear, doubt, hope, and joy, these 15 psalms model how we can voice our own petitions and praises to our God, who is always available and ready to hear us.

Explore the major feasts of Israel and journey with Beth through this 7-session study. Themes of unity, joy, gratitude, redemption, repentance, the power of blessings, facing ridicule, and more are explored in detail. Modern-day believers in Jesus Christ can learn much from these treasured Psalms in their journey toward greater intimacy with God.

Something that Beth said in our first session that struck me is “Mean what you sing…Sing what you mean”  How many times have you stepped into worship and just weren’t “feeling” it?  Did you just sing the songs from worship without any real thought behind what you were singing?  Wow, I had never realized that sometimes I do this.  Now I make a conscious effort into making sure the words I’m singing are words I mean…if they aren’t, I take time to pray that God would get me to that point of meaning those words.

“Songs move us and God fully intended it to” ~ Beth Moore

I am amazed at how God takes different bible studies and ties them all together.  I started reading a book a few weeks prior to our first bible study meeting called “Worshiper By Design: A Unique Look At Why We Were Created” By John W. Stevenson…some of the things that I’m learning in that book were confirmed in the bible study with Beth Moore!

God is Awesome!!!  I just love when He speaks to me and shows me new things that I need to know, things I need to learn, or just things I’ve never really thought about before!   I am forever being changed by God…and I love it!

So, I received this in the mail a few weeks ago.  It’s Scrubbing Bubbles One Step Toilet Bowl Cleaner.  I wasn’t sure how well this would work…I mean how can just spraying a toilet keep it clean without scrubbing?

First thing we had to decide is which of our 4 toilets that we would try this on…we decided that we would put it in the master bathroom…I mean, putting it in the boys’ bathroom may help with the cleaning, but the product would have been gone in a few days and I don’t use their toilet, so I won’t know how it works.

After opening the package, there was a bottle, a foot pedal and attached to it was a hose with a clip.  After looking at the picture directions (yes, they had words too, but who reads directions when they have pictures?), I was able to put the product onto the toilet…not problems.  It adjusts to fit the rim of the toilet.  After placing the product into the foot pedal, I decided to step on it to see how it worked.  The chemicals were sprayed into the toilet.  Seems easy enough.  The directions say to step on the pedal for a second or two and the spray will cover the whole bowl (360 degrees).

This has been on my toilet now for 2 weeks…so far, it’s working great!  My toilet is clean and I haven’t had to scrub it!!  I’m sure to step on the pedal a couple times a day.

So the question…would I recommend this product?  Absolutely!   I’m planning on getting one for each toilet in my house!!

The above is my opinion and I was not paid in any way for giving this opinion.  I’m a BuzzAgent and have signed up for this campaign.  Once I sign up for a campaign, they send me the product to try and give my honest opinion, then report back to them of any times I’ve recommended this product to others and their reactions.

Noah turns 11 years old today!

He’s getting to be such a wonderful young man!  Happy Birthday Noah!!

Our 31:30 Women’s Ministry at The River Church, is getting ready to have a game night for our fall kick off!  I’m excited!  I’ve missed getting together with women and just hanging out.

There will be games, food, fellowship, and don’t tell anyone, but I think there may even be prizes!!

Hope to see you there!!!

Dear Blog,

Please know that I haven’t abandoned you.  I have many, many blog posts that are swirling around in my head, but I just haven’t been able to focus on any of those posts.

I will be back, someday…soon!

Until then…

I have been thinking a lot about friends…the ones I have now and the ones that have drifted in and out of my life.  I sometimes get so frustrated wondering why some have drifted away, but know that God had a purpose for them in my life and sometimes it’s time to let go.  Not that we won’t be friends any longer, just won’t be as close as we once were.  It saddens my heart at times.

I came across this poem on the internet and thought I’d share…

Reason, Season, or Lifetime

People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime.
When you figure out which one it is,
you will know what to do for each person.

When someone is in your life for a REASON,
it is usually to meet a need you have expressed.
They have come to assist you through a difficulty;
to provide you with guidance and support;
to aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually.
They may seem like a godsend, and they are.
They are there for the reason you need them to be.

Then, without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time,
this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end.
Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away.
Sometimes they act up and force you to take a stand.
What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled; their work is done.
The prayer you sent up has been answered and now it is time to move on.

Some people come into your life for a SEASON,
because your turn has come to share, grow or learn.
They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh.
They may teach you something you have never done.
They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy.
Believe it. It is real. But only for a season.

LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons;
things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation.
Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person,
and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life.
It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant.

— Unknown

Michael turned 14 years old today!

It’s amazing how much he’s growing!  Happy Birthday Michael!

So last week we had quite a bit of excitement around here!

On Monday, the tornado sirens were going off.  The storm moved through, but no tornado, just a lot of high winds.

Then on Wednesday night, we had tornado sirens going off again around 6 pm.  We have group at our house at 7 pm, so we were a bit worried, but watching the news stations, we saw that the storm moved to the North of us.  After group was over, I watched the news and saw that another line of storms were heading this way, so I went ahead and stayed up to watch the news.

As I was laying there, around 12:30 am, the newscaster stated that “the chance of a tornado is minimal”.  So I started to get comfortable in bed.  Just then, we heard this HORRIFIC noise and Kevin shot straight up out of bed…we went running up stairs to get the boys into the basement.  Once we finally got down there, we waited for Kevin to finally get the dog to go down.  He had peeked out the window before heading downstairs and told me that our table outside (that has 4 big tiles in it) was flipped over.

After the storm had died down, we sent the kids back up to their bedroom, Kevin and I headed outside to take a look at the damage.  Our grill had been flipped, our table flipped, chairs scattered all over, out front, we saw the news crew driving through, ambulances coming into the development, and some siding in our front yard.

The next morning, Kevin called to let me know our chair was across the street and we should go get it.  Here are some photos of what I saw once the sun was up!

Our Grill

Our Table

Our Neighbor’s play set with a gutter wrapped around it

Can’t see it well, but there’s a lot of debris over by the fence

The street near us.many trees down, lots of damage

A neighbor’s damaged roof

Another neighbor who had damage and people out fixing it

A flipped over car

Same debris that I tried to show you from my yard…it’s from the next photo’s house!

House lost most of the 2nd story!

The national weather service decided that a F1 tornado had hit our neighborhood.  Now why they didn’t sound the sirens during this storm, we have no idea.  Had this storm hit at a different spot, we could have lost so much.  All 4 of our boys were upstairs sleeping when this hit.  I just Thank God for our protection during this storm that came out of nowhere!

I am on the 31:30 Women’s Ministry team at The River Church.  We just had our retreat called “Freedom in Obedience”.

We had 3 speakers (women from our church) speak on different aspects of obedience.  Freedom in Obedience, Daily Obedience, and Blessings of Obedience.  All 3 of their talks were wonderful!

On Friday night, we had dinner, then after dinner was Worship time and then our first talk entitled “Freedom in Obedience” we heard about how to hear from God, that we can gain courage and freedom from sin through steps of obedience, and how we will “make it right”.  Most of the teaching was from 1 Samuel 3.

After a time of discussion we had a game night.  The first thing we did was an ice breaker game…all the ladies stood in a circle and a stuffed animal was thrown from the first person to another then to another.  The one thing you had to remember is the person you threw to and the person who threw to you (always the same 2 people).  As it went on, they would add more stuffed animals until we had a good 10+ animals flying.  I’ll say that there was a lot of laughter!!

Then there were 2 other main games going on, Bingo and Bunco.  Of course we had other games, like Apples to Apples, decks of cards, and a variety of other games for the women to play until they were tired.

The next morning, after breakfast, we had more time of worship before going into our next talk called “Daily Obedience”.  We learned things that can keep you from being obedient to God, like fear, lack of time spent in prayer and reading God’s Word, and complacency.  We learned why we should be obedient, what the result from being obedient was.  Our speaker sited many verses out of the bible during her talk.  A couple things that stuck out to me was “God is calling me to be obedient today…not 5 years from now”, and “Define yourself by Jesus and who he says you are”…meaning I am a Princess, a Child of the Most High God.  Also to “Choose life in all the decisions you make”.

After some discussion and a break, we went into a Panel talk,  our 3 speakers were part of the panel and questions were written on cards and placed in a bucket prior to break.  We had our MC asking the panel the questions (all anonymous) and they each had a chance to answer the questions our women had.  This takes the pressure off of the women having to speak up during a Q/A time on their own to ask the questions.

After a break and lunch, we came back in to our last talk of the weekend called “Blessings of Obedience”.  Again our speaker sited many verses throughout the bible.  We learned what blessings looked like, the power we have when we obey and so much more.

Overall it was such a great experience.  Many of the women I talked to really enjoyed the retreat.

I want to publicly thank all those ladies who helped make this retreat happen, you know who you are!

I cannot believe in 15 days, Daniel and Andrew will be joining their class on the stage to graduate from Preschool.  They are so excited to be graduating too…they keep singing their songs all day.

They’ve learned their ABC’s, their numbers, and so much more!  This summer we are going to work on reading…hopefully when they get into Kindergarten they will at least have their sight words down.

In March, I signed Michael up for High School…I just can’t believe that!  (oh and the twins were signed up for Kindergarten 2 weeks later…who does that?).  My boy will be in high school!  After looking over all of his schedule, we decided to have him take a class online this summer to free up one of his periods for Spanish.

As for Noah, he’s been working so hard on his reading this year.  I have seen a lot of improvement!  He’s going to be going into the 5th grade next year.

When did my boys get so big?  When did they grow up?