31 Days of DaNella's Brain... Microbursts! day 15

Whatever state you are in…

This year I have accused Christeonnah (11) of trying to get a medical degree vicariously. Why? She has had too many ailments! Ok here is the list;

• Tonsillectomy
• Tibial tubercle fracture (broken tibia)
• Broken tooth (baby tooth thankfully)
• Had to have her eyes checked
• Had to be tested for glaucoma
• The worst case of lice I have ever seen (another medicine she was on had itching as a side effect so that hid the itching from the lice)
• Very bad Poison Ivey
• Been diagnosed with migraines
• Sty’s in her eye
• Trip to emergency room with a very sprained knee.

The thing about it is through it all, with all that has gone on, she is still always, always, almost without exception, in a good mood. She is the epitome of Philippians 4:12

I have learned to be content, no matter what the situation.

31 Days of DaNella's Brain... Microbursts! Day9

Nana Minion

Of my four kids, the oldest, Matt (12) and the youngest Juliannah (6) have very similar personalities, and get along well. They could be twins if not for the age and sex difference. The same thing is true of my two middle children, Christeonnah (11) often called Nana (Non-nah), and Tymothie (8) are definitely cut from the same cloth. It is almost to the point of the little ones worshiping the big ones. As a matter of fact, Matt got mad at Tymothie, the other day, and the best insult he could come up with is to call him a “Nana Minion.”

He wasn’t far from wrong; a minion is a servile or slavish follower of somebody generally regarded as important. Tymothie definitely thinks Nana is someone important.

We can only hope to be accused of being a Christ Minion.

Those who serve me must follow me. My servants will be with me wherever will be. If people serve me, the Father will honor them.

John 12:26

31 Days of DaNella's Brain... Microbursts! day 8

Stitch Rippers.

Any of you sew? Got a Grandmother that sews? Have you ever seen a Stitch Ripper? It is a sharp pokey thing with a small razor blade in it that you can use in sewing to rip out seams if you have sewn them wrong, or just changed your mind. Recently I have felt like someone has been using one on me. Lately I have had a lot of things going on. Let me name a few:

· Trying to start my own photography business

· Attending college to get a Psychology degree

· Trying to get a book published

· Home schooling my two oldest kids…(12 & 11)

· My two youngest in public school

· My boys in Wrestling

· All four of them in Junior Bible Quiz (shameless plug)

· My husband working 2 jobs, so I am almost a single mom

Stress stress every where, and not a place to hide! Sometimes I feel like I am being ripped apart at the seams. Then, I realized, I am being ripped apart at the seams, but it is ok, God will sew me back together and probably let some bad stuff fall out in the process! After all, Psalms 139:5 says “You hem me in, behind and before….”

31 Days of DaNella's Brain... Microbursts! Day 6 (3)

You can always make me smile... ^ Matt and Nana, below is Tym and Ann

Make God Smile

My daughter Nana (12) woke me up last night at about 2 am with tummy troubles. So I had to get up and get her some medicine. My bedroom opens straight in to the living room, so as I walked from my room through the living room to the kitchen to attend to the Nana, I smelled something. Suddenly I realized I was smiling, without me even thinking about it.

You must understand I don’t usually deal very well with getting woken up. If I am awakened for no reason, I can be an absolute bear (the kids often refer to me as Grizella at those times). This at least was a good reason; I don’t want my Precious Nana feeling bad. However, for me to actually smile when I have been awoken at 2 am is very unusual.

Once I smiled I became curious as to what had brought about this strange phenomenon. Then I recognized the smell of vanilla, and remembered that earlier that day I had bought one of those plug in air fresheners and as I smiled I had just passed the spot where it was plugged in. I must have caught a pleasant whiff of vanilla

That reminds me of the verse in Ephesians 5:2 “Live in love as Christ also loved us. He gave his life for us as an offering and sacrifice, a soothing aroma to God.” That says our praise is as a sweet, soothing aroma to God I bet it makes him smile!

31 Days of DaNella's Brain... Microbursts!

Grab What You Can!

My older daughter, Christeonnah (12) had bought some candy, small round tart balls, and she was keeping them in a cracker box. Of course we accused her (just teasing) of trying to hide them from her younger siblings, to which she replied that she was merely “being creative.”
However at one point during the night when she went to reach in the box to get one, it tipped over and began to display a lot of tiny balls on my floor. This alone would have been funny, but since we have hardwood floors, as they scattered they bounced, making a fairly loud noise. It was loud enough that Juliannah (8) in the next room heard it, and she yelled “Spill on isle three; grab what you can!” and proceeded to run into the living room and try to steal all of Nana’s candy!
Too funny, but do you realize that is exactly how we need to be? We need to run to God, seek His presence, and long for His touch. We need to read our bible, and immerse ourselves in Him so deep that we can’t be found. He tells us to be filled to overflowing with His spirit.
Eph 5:18 Don't get drunk on wine, which leads to wild living. Instead, be filled with the Spirit

God Has A Plan! and URNIt!

GHAP God Has A Plan! and You are in it! God tickles me. I have all these plans, all these things I think I want to do, but God has different ones. We had a plan, we were gonna be Youth Pastor's for a while, a maybe even throw in some Kids Pastoring in there, and then move on up to Senior Pastors... That is exactly what we did... after 13 Years or so of Kids and Youth Pastoring, we became Senior Pastors. BTDT GTTTP (Been There Done That, Got The Tshirt To Prove it.) And now we are Youth Pastors again, and THRILLED about it.

We are the Youth Pastors at Christian Life Fellowship in Calera Al. Yesterday we took our teen Drama Team to Fine Arts. We had ten entries, from Male Vocal Solo, to Guitar Solo, to Small Group Human Video, Large Group Human Video, Large Group Spoken Drama, and Small Group Spoken Drama. ALL TEN ADVANCED TO STATE! We are so proud!

A huge thank you to Lorna Davis, and her assistants Andrew Davis, and Stacey Meadows. They did all the hard work.

Oh and bonus, my two oldest kids, Matt and Nana are on the Drama Team!

Final day of summer...

For Nana's birthday we went swimming. Well four of us did. Que was working on some stuff and Matt was "too cool" to go... (my words, not his). This is one of my favorite shots, "One, two three, Go!" and they did. They all started at the same time, but wound up landing in the water at different times... Perfect Photo Opp!

I love you baby girl!

Praying for my Sons and Daughters-in-love

No, you haven't missed anything, it hasn't been that long since I blogged. My kids are only 15, 14, 10, and 9 respectively. None of them are married. However I believe they all will be one day, and a couple of years ago one of them (I won't say who...) was crushing (infatuated, twitterpated) with someone one I didn't really like. This other person was not on the same level spiritually as my kid, and had no desire to be. I started then praying every night for my one day 'in-loves'. When I pray with the kids each night I say "and I pray that even now you would prepare the wonderful Godly men and women that they will marry someday."

Just like my friend Deanna recently mentioned in her blog, this is a very important decision, I want it made wisely, so I pray. A LOT. None of them are allowed to date yet, but that is a whole 'nother blog. This reminded me of that Wayne Watson song...

Somewhere in the world today

A little girl will go out to play
All dressed up in mama's clothes
At least the way that I suppose it goes
Somewhere in the world tonight
Before she reaches to turn out the light
She'll be prayin' from a tender heart
A simple prayer that's a work of art

Chorus
And I don't even know her name
But I'm prayin' for her just the same
That the Lord will write His name upon her heart
'Cause somewhere in the course of this life
A little boy will need a godly wife
So hold on to Jesus, baby, wherever you are

Somewhere in the world out there
That little girl's learnin' how to care
She's pickin' up her mamas charms
Or maybe, swingin' 'round in her daddy's arms
Somewhere in the world to be
Though the future's not real clear to me
Their's could be a tender love
Grounded in eternal love above

My husband got saved 6 mos before I met him, I firmly believe that was an answer to my parents and grandparents prayers.

Nana's critters...

Nana is constantly coming home with something. This one she found at little miss Natalee's photo shoot. Ms Renee cringed... lol

Anybody know what this is???

Matt and Nana

They are a little tooooo litteral about the verse "a brother is born for adversity."
Usually they are up to something.

Rarely they agree. Roll Tide Roll!

I'm Backkkkkk

Did ya miss me? Well I've missed you! I haven't had Wifi at home for the summer, since I lost my job, so I haven't been able to post very easy. Here are some pics from our traditional first day of school pics.

Juliannah,
Tym

Nana

Matt

All of em!

I love these guys!

Photographing them can be a chore sometimes... but they are worth it!~

Lunch at Mama's

We had lunch at mama's sunday. My sister, her husband and 5 kids were there. I did manage to get one good shot of Seven of them.

I was gonna show you what I had for Supper...

THE love of my life and my very reason to breathe next to God.
Ha... I was playing with timed release of the shutter, and trying to make a heart.


Sam didn't want her picture taken, and Nana was trying to hold her still.

Sorry this is all that was left of my food by the time I went to take a picture... It was good.

This WAS my lap top...

If you are looking at this on facebook, the pictures may not load, so follow this link to get to my blog site, www.beyondmicrobursts.blogspot.com

No this is not a picture of a kid in trouble... Yes that WAS my laptop, but about 18 mos ago I bought a new one, because the chassie on that one broke.

However, Nana continued to use it, she just left it open all the time.Then, the space bar fell off... then the u popped off... before it was over several letters were gone. How did she use it? she found a onscreen keyboard that she could use to input data... lol Finally she brought it to me about a week ago and said, "It's dead... here ya go." So today, she and her brother wanted to take it apart, so we let them.

This is my favorite picture, I love how you can see her smiling face in the old monitor glass...

She's Worth It!

God blessed us with this ring to be able to give to Nana for Christmas. The cool thing is it is three diamonds, and three sapphires. Nana's birthstone is Sapphire. I told Nana that the Sapphires represent her and the Diamonds represent Christ and as she grows, the bigger she gets, the bigger Christ gets in her.