Your Marriage Restored

This Two Shall Become One ~ Tuesday, I want to share with you a really great website about marriage. This couple shares a wealth of information with us and offer some great videos also.

Check them out!

Your Marriage Restored

They have a really great post on right now about "Making Love"!

August Winner!!

The winner of the August Praise and Coffee is:

Just Mom!

I love it when a friend I've been blogging with for a long time wins!!!

Hop over and check out her blog, you'll love her!!

Loving Women That Despise Us

Jesus was asked this question:
"And who is my neighbor?"

Here is His response:

Luke 10:30-37
30 In reply Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.

31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.

32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.

34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him.

35 The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'

36 "Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"

37 The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him."
Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."
NIV

Mark spoke at a Backyard Bible Blast this week and his message was: "Who is my neighbor?"

He did a great job teaching the kids about helping others and reaching out to those people who need us no matter who they are. Under normal circumstances, the Jews would have had nothing to do with the despised Samaritans, but that was exactly who ended up reaching out to this Jewish man, a despised Samaritan.

I was thinking about this for myself and the girlfriends in my life (including you!), who is my (our) neighbor, and how do we reach out to them?

Looking at the story literally, I can not imagine walking by a woman who is laying there bloody after an attack or having been abused by someone. Of course any one of us would reach out and take care of her wounds.

But let's look at this from another point of view.

What about the women who are hurting emotionally around us? What about those women that are living with pain in their hearts everyday?

It's easy to love the one sitting with us over coffee while tears in her eyes telling us her story of pain. But let's think about the women in our lives that have hurt us. What about the ones who've spoken bad about us or our family. What about the women in our lives that are despised?

AND: What about the women that despise US?

Who is our neighbor?

Will we love those women who have not always been so good to us?
What about the ones who have hurt us?
What about the ones that don't like us at all?

Jesus' message of love goes so much deeper than I have even begun to understand. I pray that He shows you and I how to reach out to women around us that need us, and ultimately that need Him.

Backyard Bible Blast ~ Otsego, MI

Two Shall Become One~ Tuesday will return next week!

If you're from my neck of the woods,

I want to invite your kids out this week for a great time.

"Backyard Bible Blast!" It's like VBS on RedBull!

Before my husband was a pastor he cut his teeth in children's ministry and still has a huge passion for kids. Northpoint Church in Plainwell asked him to speak at their event and he's excited to be a part of it. He has some fun stuff planned for these kids, I promise they won't be bored!

Here are the details:
August 4-7th (Tuesday-Friday)
6:15-8:00 pm
It will be held at 206 ~15th St, Otsego
(Right off of 102nd which is the road Plainwell Schools is on)
And just to clarify- this is not my home.

The theme is: "Who is my Neighbor?"

based on the story of the Good Samaritan.

All kids ages 4 through (completed) 5th grade welcome.

Expect games, snacks, crafts and LOTS of FUN!!

Note: I am not leading any part of this, if you have any questions, email me and I'll forward them on to the proper authorities :)

Secrets of Peaceful People

I'm over at the cafe today,

I'd love you to stop by and leave me your input over there!!

Have a wonderful day!

Click here for article: Secrets of Peaceful People

August Praise and Coffee Giveaway!

I can hardly believe I wrote AUGUST!!
Hope you are having a wonderful summer, sorry I have not been blogging much, I've been outside playing a lot!

This month's Praise is this devotional on praise:



You'll also get "Praise and Coffee" label coffee!!
You're going to love it!

PLUS, our good friends at Bayview Cards are giving you a beautifully handmade box of cards!

TO ENTER DRAWING:

~> Post a comment to THIS post telling me if you took a vacation this year...where did you go, and did the economy affect your choice??

~> Please make sure that I have a way to contact you-PLEASE!

~> If you have one of my "Praise and Coffee Giveaway" buttons on your blog, let me know and you will be entered twice. Here is a link to all my buttons: Blog Buttons

Guest Post ~ Rockin' Worship!

Another guest post from one of my favorite girlfriend's Denise!

She wrote this after the last Praise and Coffee Night, it was such a cool evening worshipping with Trinity ftL all those ladies, I loved it!!!

Rumor has it, their CD is out...I plan to have it available at the Praise and Coffee Night August 13th.



Ok, now on to Denise's article! Be sure to click on her logo and visit her blog too, you will love it!

Rockin’ Worship

I had to clean my porch. Well, let me start farther back than that. We live in a very old farmhouse, and the front of our house is an old porch that the previous owners remodeled with windows to connect it as a room of the house. It has no insulation, it slants toward the door, it has no electric and it is my second favorite room in the whole house. The reason I fell in love with the house in the first place. The ceiling is robin’s egg blue and I painted the trim super bright yellow when we moved in and the floor is chipped dark blue. Everyone loves my porch.

We used it as a mud room this winter for the first time. It was a little odd to take a cute room and make it into a ‘drop’ room but it worked. And it has stayed that trashed drop room since winter and it was well past time to clean it out. It was so nasty I ended up just taking the garden hose into the porch and spraying it down. It was gross. Dirt I didn’t know existed came pouring out.

I took everything out of the porch, cleaned it and brought what I needed back in. It’s all cute again with two rocking chairs just waiting to be rocked in and chat with someone special. Our youngest was exceptionally impressed with the rocking chairs. “Come sit wid me!” he said to me, rocking back and forth.

“I really need to keep cleaning,” I’d say, but I did think he sure looked cute in the big rocking chair. I kept to task and soon S4 was rocking again, “Come sit wid me, Moma. I got you a piddow.” And sure enough, he drug the pillow from the couch to the rocking chair for me.

“Oh, okay,” I agreed and sat in the other chair. He rocked away with a smile.

“This nice, Moma,” he told me.

And it was. It was sweet rocking there with my little boy on my clean porch. I had been so busy putting it back together that I hadn’t realized just how nice it was to just sit there.

Later in the day I was frantically getting around for the Praise and Coffee night. I was so late! I hurried out the door without dinner; I made it too late to help out, too late for a sandwich but in time for coffee. Which I needed because I was so tired from all the work of the day.

Trinity FTL was playing and I had been looking forward to this day. But as they began to play I just kept thinking of all the busyness of the day, the things I had left undone at home, the things I had yet to do when I got home. And while the music was unbelievable great, I wasn’t ‘feeling’ it.

All the sudden the sun came thru the window and shown brightly on me just as Sue was praying for the Holy Spirit to be felt in this place and they began to play a Kari Jobe song I most love. It was one of those “frozen in time” moments, surreal. And I thought of my little boy sitting in the rocking chair asking me to sit with him. And it was like God said to me, “Are you going to give Me any of your time?”

And just like I had used the hose to clean out the ick of the porch to get to that moment where I could enjoy some special time with S4, God just hit me then, showing me all the ick that was blocking me from truly worshipping Him.

I cried. I don’t cry in public and I stood there and cried.

Thank you, God, for giving me a son to show me more of You! To show me how to have a “rockin’ worship” moment with You.