A LITTLE BIT MORE. . . . . .

We’re leaving the room and this you know

Walking not running is the way to go. (drawing goes here)

This will be fun

          This will be exciting

                   This walking we’ll do

                             Is so inviting.

“Inviting?”, You say.  “What do you mean?

Walking is boring and makes me turn green.” (green little girl)

Who wants to walk when there is running to do.

What fun can I find in following you?

When will we move, shake, rattle, and roll?  (I can see lots of girls shaking)

Where is the prize at the end of this stroll?

Why? Oh why, must I move so slowly,

How do I do it without getting holey?   (a holey child)

We will move, 
      we will shake, 
              we will rattle, 
                     we will roll!

As we move toward the prize of this short stroll.

Now order yourselves in a very straight line,
Follow your leader and please do not whine.

You will walk in line to the lawn at your church
Where a clue is awaiting you on a high perch.

(At this point the girls will line up and go outside of their church.  The clue will be "perched" on something high.  This is where the girls will learn about the first of four Greek words meaning love.  "EROS"

TaaaaaaaaaaaaaaDA

 

This is FUN and oh so HARD

Writing so girls will learn and in the process think they are having fun can be HARD.  But it is so FUN.

Rewrite for the first scavenger hunt continues:

We’re leaving the room and this you know

Walking not running is the way to go. (drawing goes here)

This will be fun

          This will be exciting

                   This walking we’ll do

                             Is so inviting.

“Inviting?”, You say.  “What do you mean?

Walking is boring and makes me turn green.” (green little girl)

Who wants to walk when there is running to do.

What fun can I find in following you?

When will we move, shake, rattle, and roll?  (I can see lots of girls shaking)

Where is the prize at the end of this stroll?

Why? Oh why, must I move so slowly,

How do I do it without getting holey?   (a holey child)

Holey you say so seriously and yet –

That is the quest of this study I bet.

You see our goal is to run

THE BEGINNING

I have FINALLY begun writing the Young Girls' Bible Study for the fall.  I learned last year that they love to go on a scavenger hunt.  So this year we will hunt for the fruit of the Spirit each week. 

A peak at how we will begin the first hunt is below.  The girls loved and I mean loved running from the first clue to the last during our previous studies.  It became a game just to keep them together.  I am excited to lead them again and to learn right along with them.

We’re leaving the room and this you know

Walking not running is the way to go.

This will be fun

          This will be exciting

                   This walking we’ll do

                             Is so inviting.

“Inviting?”, You say. 

“What do you mean?

This walking sounds lame,

Not at all like a game.”

 

THREE GIFTS FOUND IN DIFFICULT PEOPLE

Yesterday was difficult.  I encountered a difficult person.  This difficult person is a family member.  This family member is not always a difficult person.

This morning as I began my quiet time I was drawn to the "Joy Dare Collection" from Ann Voskamp's blog.

The challenge for this day is to write Three Gifts Found in Difficult People.

I love when God shows off and brings all things in my life right back to Himself.

I wrote the following in my quiet time notebook:

3 Gifts found in difficult people

1. prayer - turns me back to Christ - reminds me that I was created for good works (Eph 2:1) and that I should do all things as if for God not for men (Col 3:23).
2. laughter - because sometimes people are so absurdly difficult, the situation becomes hilarious. 
3. lessons learned - the lesson of how not to treat others

So, (I crossed that word out in my notebook, don't know how to do that on her)
I read yesterday that in removing the word "so" from my conversations will help me present myself clearer when I speak. 

My prayer today is:
     through the guidance of the Holy Spirit
             I will seek to see others a Christ does,
                  I will look for the joy and laughter in the hard moments and
                          I will treat others as if they are Christ.

What a lesson I have to share with the Young Girls' Bible Study.

Thank you Ann Voskamp for the reminder to find the gifts.

     https://www.facebook.com/AnnVoskamp
     http://www.aholyexperience.com/

HOW DO YOU LOVE?

Notes taken from a 2005 Bible study - THE PROOF IS IN THE FRUIT - led by Betsy Bird.

There are four Greek words for love:

1. Eros - a self satisfying love
2. Storge - the love of kinship
3. Philia - the love of friendship
4. Agape - a love that seeks the highest good of the other person

In the fall Young Girls' Bible study my plan is to go on a scavenger hunt to teach them the four Greek words for love.  They say, "we love scavenger hunts!"  They love moving, being active.

My prayer is by the end of that evening they will understand the difference between the four and know that above all else God's love is Agape.

Today my examples of the four Greek words for love are:

1. Eros - I love a Sunday nap.
2. Storge - I love my husband, Jeb.
3. Philia - I love Debbie Trussell - my best friend
4. Agape - Only through the love of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit can I even pray to love this way and to live out the love of God in me.

I have much studying to do.  This is just the beginning.

How about you?  How do you love?

Please help by responding to the four Greek words.

 

FORGIVENESS FOUND IN THE SONLIGHT

When I think of Saturday I smile.  I did some HARD work.  Physical work.  I enjoyed almost every minute of it.  Near the end of the HARD work, I counted each thing I did.  If you had been inside my head you would have probably yelled - ENOUGH COUNTING ALREADY!!!!!!

A little information about a blue house.  There was a big bad hail storm in the year 2000.  This hail storm hammered a white siding house.  Destroyed one side of the siding and broke numerous windows.  It ruined a perfectly good roof, too.  Picking new siding was exciting.  The color seen on the color board was not the color of the siding when it arrived.  The color on the color board was a gray - a blue gray.  Well, the color, when enough siding for an entire house was delivered was blue.  Oh my, when timidity jumps in and no words come out the house changes from a beat up white house to a blue house.

Also, when a southern town has a very wet winter, green algae/mold will begin to show up on siding of a blue house.  On the white trim of windows and doors it just looks black.

So yesterday I decided it was time to clean up this blue house. I bought an attachment for our garden hose.  I was going to wash down my house with bleach and water.  I sprayed the entire back of my blue house and then waited for a little while.  Nothing really happened.  That's when I decided to just do some HARD work.

Rags, buckets, ladders, bleach, water, and some good physical labor.  And it was good.  I spent almost all of my time praying for people as I thought.  If someone popped into my mind I prayed for them. 

     Dusty, Dusty's mom (she fell Friday and shattered her hip), Tripp, Liz, Jack, Jeb, Lisa, Debbie, Morgan, my Pastor - Jeff, Lorie, momma, Cynthia, Jim, etc, etc, etc.  

And I sang the Fruit of Spirit song by Steve Green a gazillion times.  

And I thanked God for unexpected lessons seen in cleaning out gutters and washing away stains.  I thanked God for the physical abilities of walking, climbing, flexion, extension of all my limbs.  I thanked God for quiet and sweat and thirst and I don't even remember - oh for pinecones that helped steady a ladder.  And I thanked God and smiled when Jeb and Jack came back home and began to help me.

The last side of the blue house that was washed receives the morning sun when it is not cloudy.  It was the easiest to wash.  I was so glad because I was tired.  I thought - the sun dries away the dampness that leads to the mold/algae. The sun takes away the cause of the stains. 

AND that's when I learned a lesson I can share with others. 

It's a picture of how staying in the presence of the Sonlight just makes life better. 

  It was easier to clean the side of the blue house that almost always receives sunlight. 

  I need to stay in the presence of the Son because it will be easier to clean up when I mess up.

  The winter was cloudy/damp.  It was miserable and not fun at times.  But it didn't last.
             I need to remember the cloudy, damp, miserable, not fun times of life will not last.

  Bleach, water and some hard work turned the dirty house back to the blue house.    
             I need to allow the Son to do work in me when forgiveness is needed.
               

I thought and prayed:

     Help me stay in the light of your Son so that when I mess up, and I will, it will not be so difficult

     to be cleaned up.

          Help me when my life is cloudy/damp to not allow the dampness to become a part of me.

Help me to receive the Forgiveness Found in the Sonlight.

 

I have a clean blue house and  I have a story to share with my Young Girls' Bible study in the fall.  

WRITING FOR 30 MINUTES

There comes a time when you just have to do what you've been putting off.  The time has come.  Doing this blog right now is not the actual thing I've put off, but it is the beginning of purposefully engaging and actively responding to life. 

I've set an alarm for 30 minutes from right now.  At the end of 30 minutes I will stop writing this entry and publish it with all it's errors.  I will do this because it is time to keep a promise and to serve.  (If that last sentence doesn't make sense then go back and read what I wrote yesterday.)

In a couple of months I will begin leading a Young Girls' Bible Study.  We will study Galatians 5:23-24
 

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patientce, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

I've already found two songs and sign language on the internet that we may use.  You can find them here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiBMSHcu4ZQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e47FnjKaT3Q

AND MY FAVORITE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxpbThVMdlg 

I just spent the past 3 minutes singing the last song mentioned.  That one is so much fun.

During the fall of 2005 I had the opportunity to study under Betsy Bird of Just For Women Ministries.  The study was titled, THE PROOF IS IN THE FRUIT.  The first night she illustrated the fruit of the Spirit in this way:

              Just spent about 5 minutes trying to figure out how to draw a picture on here with no success.
 So I will use words.           

When light passes through a prism and we will see colors.

    We will see RED

                            ORANGE

                                       YELLOW

                                                 GREEN

                                                           BLUE

                                                                 INDIGO

                                                                            VIOLET!

When the Holy Spirit indwells you - the Holy Spirit is the light - you are the prism.

     Others will see LOVE

                                   JOY

                                       PEACE

                                              PATIENCE

                                                       KINDNESS

                                                               GOODNESS

                                                                        FAITHFULNESS

                                                                                     GENTLENESS

                                                                                                SELF-CONTROL!

Thirty minutes up.  

                        I kept a promise!
          
                                                  I served! 

 

KEEPING A PROMISE TO SERVE

All I wanted to do was to get out of the driver's seat of my van, open the side sliding door, put down everything in my arms, and get organzied.  That's all I wanted to do.

BUT there was a red small pickup truck in my way.  It's was in my way because the man driving the truck was waiting for me to move so he could pull into the parking space beside me.

I don't know what kind of face I made, I don't know if my impatience was evident on my face, I don't know if I looked huffy, I don't know.

So instead of opening the side sliding door, I walked to the back of the van and open the tailgate.  I put my stuff down, stood up, took a breath and organized all of my stuff and then picked it up.

By that time the man was out of his truck.  He was a tall, older than me, man wearing a red jacket.  That red jacket told me that this tall, older than me, man was a volunteer at the hospital where I work.  I wondered how he had perceived me getting out of my car.  I wonder if he saw how impatient I had been and I wondered how I could turn this all around for both of us.  (This all happened in a couple of seconds.)

So I said good morning and asked him, "So what do you do here?"

He was so pleasant.  He smiled just a little and said something like this:
     "Well, I help out at the information desk.  I help to discharge some patients.  I take patients where they need to go.  I do just about anything.  I serve.  You see I worked in Washington, DC for 41 years and I made I promise to God.  If he would help me to do my work there, then when I retired I would serve.  So I'm just paying back.  You know sometimes people just need someone to come sit in their room with them, they just need someone to read to them.  Sometimes they don't have anyone that can come see them.  So I do that.  Times are hard and if I can help someone then that's what I will do."

By this time we were at one of the entrances at the hospital.  He was going in and I was heading toward a different entrance.  He was a little ahead of me and to be honest I didn't want to end our conversation.  So I held out my hand and said, "My name is Beckie."

He turned and said, "I'm Stoats."  (I really don't know how to spell his name.)

And with a big smile that can only come when your day has been turned around 180 degrees I said,
"Have a wonderful day Stoats." He replied, "You too Beckie."

I don't really know Stoats.  I don't know if I will ever see him again.  I will look for him when I go to the hospital the next time and the next time and the next time.  I will seek him out.  I will seek him out because he made a huge impression on me.  I will seek him out to remind me to keep my promises and to remind me to serve.

ARE MY WORDS . . . . . .

Psalm 19:14 (NIV)

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, 

O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

Meditating on Psalm 19 this morning because that's what we were asked to do at SheReadsTruth.com.

I read.  Prayed.  

     I read.  Meditated.  

          I read.  Looked up words.  

               I read.  I wrote in my notebook.

                    I read.  I wondered. . . . . . . 

Are my words and are my meditations following the directions I received in the first 13 verses.

Are my words/meditations declaring, proclaiming, pouring forth, displaying, being heard, and going out to God's glory and His works?  (vs 1-4a)

Are my words/meditations coming forth, rejoicing, rising, making a circuit so everyone around me see God's glory and His works? (vs 4b-6)

Are my words/meditations reviving, giving wisdom, giving joy, giving light, enduring, precious, sweet, warning so that God's glory and His works are the reward?  (vs 7-11)

Are my words/meditations discerning, forgiving so I am kept and found blameless?  (vs 12-13)

No.  My words and meditations are not always doing the above.  

BUT now when I pray or hear prayed, 

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be 

pleasing in your sight, 

O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

 I will think a little harder on what exactly my words and my meditations should be.  I will remember to take Psalm 19:1-13 along with me so that I can live Psalm 19:14.

now, leave it alone

Last night I heard a whisper.  It wasn't loud and terrifying.  It was just -

now, leave it alone.

I recently completed the study GIDEON by Priscilla Shirer.  On page 101 she stated:

"4 steps in Giving Our Gifts to God

    1.  Prepare it.

    2.  Present it.

    3.  Put it down.

    4.  Pour it out."

I have been praying (preparing it) for the right time to ask my husband a question.  It's wasn't a huge question.  I just have a way of presenting ideas that allow others to respond with a "no" without hesitation.  So I prayed.  And I prayed.  And I prayed for the right time.

Last night I asked (presenting it).  He asked me a couple of questions; which I answered.  Then he walked away without answering THE question.  

I heard a whisper - now, leave it alone - (putting it down).

And now I am back in prayer (pouring it out) so that I will be obedient to the instruction I heard.

#LessonFromGideon

 

WHAT DO I LIKE?

A friend of mine "liked" something on facebook.  My first thought was, "Why would she like that"?  Then I heard my first whisper from God of the day.

What do the people around you see when they notice what "you like"?

As I have been getting ready for work, I have been thinking about this.  It is not just what I like on facebook, or twitter, or any other social media.  What do I show to my family, my friends, the people I encounter every day that I like?

 

PRAYING FOR MY CHILDREN

I pray for my children every day.  During this season of their lives I want them to be working full time jobs with benefits.  But when I pray that first, I am convicted by the Holy Spirit.  I hear the question - Is that really the first desire of your heart for them?  And I must admit it runs a very close second to my very first desire.  My first desire is that they would love God and seek him above all else.  

So to help me keep my desires and my wants in the right place I have been using the small version of this book:

I am thankful Stormie Omartian has chosen to write prayers that can help me when I just want my way to happen with my children.

I love you Tripp Potterfield.

 

 

I love you Jackson Potterfield

 

I love you Liz Yates - my future daughter-in-law

Building A Memory (BAM)

IT'S A BAM KIND OF DAY

I have a snuggie - it looks kinda like this:

I put it on backwards this morning and discovered that it is very large.  It is so large and long that I can use it for a royal robe - it just trails behind me.  I am short - 4'11.5".  Yep that's eleven and one half inches.  I will take every piece of that one half inch.

So I paraded around and remembered that I have a tiara.  Well, really I have three tiaras.  The one I wore this morning looks like this:

It was fun, made me smile, and made my husband laugh.

Just a good Saturday morning memory to hold onto for the future.