God's Grace - Part 2

Where do I begin?  God's grace has been displayed in my life so many times, it really is amazing.  The most important and prominent occurence of grace, of course, being my salvation through Jesus Christ. 

Grace, an unmerited gift.

Number 1 - In April of 1997 my husband's brother was killed in a car accident.  I know this seems like a strange circumstance to see the grace of God but there's something I saw.  That morning before the accident I cleaned my house spotlessly clean, not just the usual cleaning...every drawer, closet, nook and cranny of that house was clean.  I also went to the grocery store and stocked up on groceries.  My in-laws, James' parents, were the managers of Bristol Manor (a residential care facility).  They were remodeling their house so they stayed with us during the funeral.  All of James' family were at our home during this time.  This may seem like a petty and coincidental thing to have tons of company and a clean house but not to me.  To me it was God preparing ahead of time, such a tragedy in our family and God gave me an unmerited gift of not having to think about doing anything to my home or finding something to eat for people that were there.

Number 2 - August 2005, I was pregnant with our third child, about 11 weeks along.  I was reading a book, not a pregnancy book or anything, just a novel (fiction at that) but a christian novel.  I had the book for a long time, I don't know why I hadn't read it before...well I guess now I do...but the book, I believe, prepared my heart for my miscarriage.  I know this sounds weird but it's true, I'm not saying losing our baby was easy because of a book I read but God used the words on those pages along with scripture to strengthen me and give me a sweet peace.

Number 3 - June 2010, out of the blue James felt compelled for he and I to make a covenant each morning to each other and God.  To say only uplifting and encouraging words to each other.  We had a very difficult summer and I know that if James and I had not been making that covenant with each other we would have been fighting, instead we clung to each other, grew in our relationship with God and with each other.  God's amazing and incredible grace.

All of these events seem to be preparedness, God preparing me for tragedy, hurt, anguish...wow, and I am so unworthy.  An unmerited gift...my Jesus on a cruel cross dying to set me free...grace.

God's Grace - Part 1

For the last several weeks I have been attending a Sunday School/Bible Study about God's grace.  It has been wonderful, the class is wrapping up and next week we are going to talk about our own personal experiences with God's incredible grace.  James is preaching the next two Sundays so I am going to miss my class, I figured I could blog about it.

There are several instances I can think of that have prompted me into thinking "this is a display of God's grace"...the one I want to share is about my grandpa.

Let me back up a few months, January 2011, if you are an avid follower of my blog you will recall a short blog entry called "5 People".  Our Pastor had challenged us, me, the congregation to compile a list of 5 people, lost family or friends, and diligently pray for their salvation...every day.  My grandpa was on my list, I have been praying for him since that day in January.

Last Sunday afternoon my aunt called and said my grandpa had passed away that morning.  He died in his sleep.  She said she knew that I'd want to know about his spiritual condition.  She said she was having a conversation with him in June and an opportunity presented itself for her to talk to him about Jesus.  Amazingly, he relayed more to her than she even imagined he would.  He told her that during one of his recent hospital stays a "baptist" (not that it matters) minister came to see him and my grandpa asked him if he was a bad person for not going to church and if he could be a believer even though he hadn't been in church.  All these glorious questions and answers led him to Christ and my precious aunt retelling his story to me.  The grace I see is God just letting me know, He doesn't have to do that but He did for me and I am so grateful. 

Women's Conference 2011

Cornerstone Baptist Church is hosting a Women's Conference on September 16 & 17.  Sylvia Harney is the speaker and she is absolutely wonderful!  Not only funny but really moving, when I saw her a couple years ago in Branson I was transformed, it really changed me.  I began being more bold with evangelizing to people around me and began a book study with women from all walks of life.  It was really amazing.  I am thankful that God used Sylvia to touch my heart and move me into a closer walk with Christ. 

Below is a jpeg, copy as many times as you like, if that will work, ha or email me and I will send it to you as a Word Doc or PDF, or just call me to register and I will fill it out for you over the phone!

Parenting Tip #4

Now this is advice we can all use.  Somebody else.  Yes, sometimes we can use somebody else to parent our children!  As some may know, our young son has problems picking out girlfriends.  We already went through this last summer with tears, etc.  But this one got nipped in the bud thanks to a dear friend. Anyway, last week we had VBS and son #2 met a girl, also helping with VBS, and took a liking to her.  Unbeknownst to me they were soon girlfriend and boyfriend.  Then last Sunday night at Youth, son #2 just wasn't his quirky, funny self and it irritated me.  Nobody should change the way they are for somebody else.  Well, our lovely friend felt the same and had a short and loving chat with son #2 about being unequally yolked, that sort of thing.  He seemed kind of somber after that but snapped out of it quickly.

Last night at the dinner table he said he broke up with the young lady after the talk Miss "what's her face" had with him.  He said "what's her face" was a good girl (she's 21).  He has a lot of respect for "what's her face" and it really made an impact on him.  It's not quite the same as old mom and dad telling him what's good for him.  We really can make a difference in the lives of others if we just pay attention and care.  Thanks "what's your face", you're an angel :)

Family Night

Each Wednesday evening we do a "different" kind of service, it's called Family Night.  It is so much fun!  We have skits, music, and crazy things to display God's love and share a virtue from God's word.  Here are some of our finer moments.