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 7 (4 for me cause I started late)

Satan is such a goof ball!!!!

I recently embarked on a huge adventure for me. I committed to fast part of my day for 47 days.

Now you have to understand, I could NEVER be mistaken for an anorexic, I love my food. This was not an easy commitment for me, but I felt it was an important step in my growth with God.

Three days into my fast, satan started throwing everything including the kitchen sink at me.

A mysterious charge appeared on my checking account, and the company listed, “no longer exists”. Our bank can reverse it, but it will take 10 days. In the mean time, we racked up a couple of hundred dollars in overdraft fees.

I delivered some food for my church and nearly ran out of gas. We are out of sugar, bread, butter, even out of trash bags!

Q’s steel toe boots bit my little toe. You should see it, it turned all kinds of pretty red, black and purple colors. Then his tool box reached out and bit me. On top of all that, I fell off a stoop, not even a stair, a little 5 in step, and bruised my bottom.

However, God blessed us with a full tank of gas that we didn’t have to pay for, and our church was kind enough to give us the money to fix our checking account.

I have a few war wounds, but nothing permanent. Has it affected my commitment to fast? You bet it has; now I am more determined than ever, because satan is a goofball. He can throw everything he wants to at me I’ll never give up on God!

I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love which Christ Jesus our Lord shows us. We can't be separated by death or life, by angels or rulers, by anything in the present or anything in the future, by forces or powers in the world above or in the world below, or by anything else in creation.

Romans 8:38-39

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

Ok I'm gonna do it! 31 days of Microbursts!

I am starting today and I'm gonna post 31 days of Microbursts... So that means I better get busy, It's part of the 31 Days of... you can check that out here. There are over 700 blogs participating...

Here we go! Joy Unspeakable!

Today at work was a day! I was glad it was only eight hours! I wasn’t sure it would ever end.,. Unfortunately I started off the day with a sinus tooth ache… It was almost as bad as a migraine. Nice huh? That alone was pretty bad, but then two people in my class kept arguing… loudly over the TV. They each wanted to watch their own show. At the same time…, with only one TV. Needless to say one or the other was constantly losing and protesting, loudly!

As if that were not enough, “it” chose today to hit. Yeah you ladies know exactly what I mean, that lovely monthly thing some call “Happy Time…” I was not happy!

I began to wonder “Is this day over yet? “The answer to that came in a beautiful rainbow of wax cylinders flying thru the air and landing all over the floor in my room…Yep you guessed it, someone spilled our huge box of crayons all over the floor.

Finally as the day was winding down, I had peace that I had indeed survived. As I was doing one of my last duties, helping load the busses for the trip home, one of the drivers asked me “How are you doing?”

Since I knew he was a Christian, and I knew he would understand, I said, “If I only had happiness, and didn’t have joy, I would have had a bad day! My happiness left long ago, but it left joy in its wake.”

He just kind of laughed and said, “Yeah sometimes it’s joy unspeakable huh?”

I’m not totally sure how he meant it, but I’ll tell you how I took it, Sometimes the joy that God gives, joy in the midst of struggles, joy when the world is in turmoil, joy at unexpected moments, that joy that makes absolutely no since shouldn’t even be there.

That is Joy unspeakable!

Although you have never seen Christ, you love him. You don't see him now, but you believe in him. You are extremely happy with joy and praise that can hardly be expressed in words

I Peter 1:8

Blog? Oh yeah I have one of those...

Ok So I have totally sucked at the blog thing for a while now... trying to get back on track... I think part of it is as I get closer to graduating I know I will be job hunting, and I don't want this to disable my chances of being hired... I don't think anything here will but it still has me a little scared.

We just got back from Youth Camp with the teens. LOVED IT! So glad God allowed us to go. God is good.

Photo Shopped or Real?

What Am I?

Here's What I am...

A Dandelion puff...

What Am I?

I think this one is easy, but then again... I took the picture... lol

Here's What I am...

Here's what I am... a piece of dried kiwi.... Angie nailed it!

Monday Morning What Am I

this one is a little easier... but remember yall are good, I have to try to make it a little hard... No I did not change the color...

An Honor to Serve.

This is the cool leadership team at the church where we are youth pastors. It's neat to serve with such a good team.