Hi Dear Friends,
I have three important questions that I need your help with. Would you please contribute?
Pretty please. The information that you give me could really be so vital.
1. Have you used Precept materials, any form of them, for your personal family study time, and if so, would you please describe what your family's experience was?
2. If you are a homeschooling parent, would you please tell me what curriculum(s) you've used for Bible, and what you liked about each, as well as what you found to be lacking in each?
3. If you were asked to volunteer your time to help promote Precept at a given event, would you be willing to do so?
If it meant talking with people about how using Precept materials had changed your life, what would you tell them?
Oops! I snuck a 4th question in there...it just flowed right out, couldn't stop it...
You may either leave your thoughts in the form of a comment here, on Facebook (just ask to friend me if we aren't friends already), or in an email to me at: whatilearnedfromthewordtoday@gmail.com
Thank you so very much for your time and help!
Love ya'll tonight,
Jes
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Is This How You Felt a Year Ago?
It's been a year...almost to the date, since I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.
What a year it's been!
Were it not for this blog, I don't know that I'd truly be able to remember the myriad of emotions that I felt prior to, and just after being diagnosed.
I did such a poor job of looking outside myself during it all.
I still grieve deeply over the fact that after days in the hospital, and after having just missed their big choir performance at church that very day, my sweet children finally got to come and see me at the hospital one Sunday afternoon.
You see, each day the Doctor had been telling my husband that I'd be going home that day or the next...yet one day stretched to another, and my sweet children experienced heartache upon heartache as each day they realized I wasn't yet coming home.
I didn't know about any of this, because I'd been told from the start that it would be a 5 day stay.
So Sunday came, and my darling kiddos were finally able to come and see me. I'm sure they weren't prepared at all for what they'd find....Mommy full of wires and I.V. tubes, and pretty unlike herself.
They'd been there only minutes when other friends came in, and I devoted my time and focus to the friends, and not to my children.
They ended up piled on the couch watching a movie on the portable dvd player while I spent my time with our friends.
Oh, to rewind time and do it differently!
We've shed many a tear over that. I hurt them deeply.
It was unintentional, as I was on hospitality auto-pilot, and pretty drugged up, but they were little...just children. All they knew was that they were finally able to see Mommy, and Mommy seemed to care more about spending time with everyone else.
Breaks my heart, and likely always will.
I didn't think about the impact that all of this was having on my family!
I suppose that I was just trying so hard to make it through the life changing news of a diagnosis, that I also didn't give a lot of thought to how my friends were processing the news.
What I saw from all of them was love in action...I'm still amazed by how the precious people in our lives reached out to us and ministered to our every need!
But I never stopped to think much about how they might be feeling about what I was going through.
Until tonight.
Tonight I received "the call" from one of my closest and dearest friends.
The call that told me that all was not well in her world.
I heard it in her voice from the moment that I picked up the phone.
I know her.
I love her more than you could begin to imagine.
And I could tell...she had something to share with me, something that was going to deeply affect my heart, and my life.
So here I sit, my hands tied.
I can't fix it.
I can't research it enough to make it go away.
I can't offer my body as a sacrifice for hers.
I can't even love her enough to heal it all for her, although that's what my heart cries out in desire to do.
What I can do, and what I will do, is take great comfort in knowing that she knows and loves the Lord Jesus Christ, and that through Him she has been reconciled to God.
Whatever may come, she is His, and should He call her home, she is ready.
Now, I will go and cry myself to sleep, as I beg my Lord on behalf of my friend, to heal her and to restore her to health.
And through those tears, I will praise His Name for giving her to me.
Oh, to have the love of a friend like her in my life...she's amazing!
I see Jesus in her. :)
My prayer for you tonight, sweet reader, is that you may be blessed with even ONE friend like her.
________________________________________________________________
Is this how you felt a year ago?
It's a crummy place to be...this place of helplessness.
If so, I'm sorry that any of you had to go through it, and I'm sorry that I couldn't see outside of myself enough to consider how you might have been feeling.
Would you please pray for my friend....please?
I love you tonight,
Jes
What a year it's been!
Were it not for this blog, I don't know that I'd truly be able to remember the myriad of emotions that I felt prior to, and just after being diagnosed.
I did such a poor job of looking outside myself during it all.
I still grieve deeply over the fact that after days in the hospital, and after having just missed their big choir performance at church that very day, my sweet children finally got to come and see me at the hospital one Sunday afternoon.
You see, each day the Doctor had been telling my husband that I'd be going home that day or the next...yet one day stretched to another, and my sweet children experienced heartache upon heartache as each day they realized I wasn't yet coming home.
I didn't know about any of this, because I'd been told from the start that it would be a 5 day stay.
So Sunday came, and my darling kiddos were finally able to come and see me. I'm sure they weren't prepared at all for what they'd find....Mommy full of wires and I.V. tubes, and pretty unlike herself.
They'd been there only minutes when other friends came in, and I devoted my time and focus to the friends, and not to my children.
They ended up piled on the couch watching a movie on the portable dvd player while I spent my time with our friends.
Oh, to rewind time and do it differently!
We've shed many a tear over that. I hurt them deeply.
It was unintentional, as I was on hospitality auto-pilot, and pretty drugged up, but they were little...just children. All they knew was that they were finally able to see Mommy, and Mommy seemed to care more about spending time with everyone else.
Breaks my heart, and likely always will.
I didn't think about the impact that all of this was having on my family!
I suppose that I was just trying so hard to make it through the life changing news of a diagnosis, that I also didn't give a lot of thought to how my friends were processing the news.
What I saw from all of them was love in action...I'm still amazed by how the precious people in our lives reached out to us and ministered to our every need!
But I never stopped to think much about how they might be feeling about what I was going through.
Until tonight.
Tonight I received "the call" from one of my closest and dearest friends.
The call that told me that all was not well in her world.
I heard it in her voice from the moment that I picked up the phone.
I know her.
I love her more than you could begin to imagine.
And I could tell...she had something to share with me, something that was going to deeply affect my heart, and my life.
So here I sit, my hands tied.
I can't fix it.
I can't research it enough to make it go away.
I can't offer my body as a sacrifice for hers.
I can't even love her enough to heal it all for her, although that's what my heart cries out in desire to do.
What I can do, and what I will do, is take great comfort in knowing that she knows and loves the Lord Jesus Christ, and that through Him she has been reconciled to God.
Whatever may come, she is His, and should He call her home, she is ready.
Now, I will go and cry myself to sleep, as I beg my Lord on behalf of my friend, to heal her and to restore her to health.
And through those tears, I will praise His Name for giving her to me.
Oh, to have the love of a friend like her in my life...she's amazing!
I see Jesus in her. :)
My prayer for you tonight, sweet reader, is that you may be blessed with even ONE friend like her.
________________________________________________________________
Is this how you felt a year ago?
It's a crummy place to be...this place of helplessness.
If so, I'm sorry that any of you had to go through it, and I'm sorry that I couldn't see outside of myself enough to consider how you might have been feeling.
Would you please pray for my friend....please?
I love you tonight,
Jes
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
WHOO-HOO and a Quick Update
1. OUR FAMILY GETS TO GO TO BOSTON IN A FEW MONTHS! Whoo-hoo!
2. Our move to Chattanooga has helped my health improve by 80% or more. The past 3 days have shown some crippling of my hand and foot, which is terribly painful, but compared to how I'd be feeling in Phoenix right now, it's a marked difference.
3. God has placed the most precious new friend into my life. She is such an inspiration to me as I watch how lovingly and Biblically she mothers her children. She has such a tender heart, and is so very desperate for Jesus. What more could one ask for in a friend? I love her!
4. Our new church is such an answer to prayer. As you all know, I loved my church in AZ. I love the people there, the teaching, the worship, the youth, the pastor and his wife...the list goes on and on.
What's exciting is that so many of those same elements are here for us at our new church, just on a larger scale.
We have a new pastor, and I am so deeply in love with he and his wife's heart for the body, and for the lost in our community. There is scarcely a Sunday that he preaches, that he doesn't passionately remind the body of our responsibility to single mothers.
I LOVE THAT!
5. I'm happy here. We all are. The kids spend at least an hour a day just in awe of all of the bugs they have to choose from as play mates. I look out any window of my home and see GREEN. It's so pretty!
I get to see my Janan and Ed. Oh, how I love them! I could just bask in my time with Nanner!
6. I do miss my precious, amazing, breathtakingly gracious friends in AZ. Oh, how I miss them. Some days, the tears still come when I think about you all...and Brennan is known to have a good cry at least once a week, too.
Yet, we know that we are right where God has us.
If you would pray for these requests, I'd be so grateful:
1. God's hand of favor over the new Chattanooga office. That He would fling wide open the doors through which work will pour in.
2. For my health, my friend Anna's and my Facebook friend, Michelle's. We all have MS and are all battling right now.
3. For a Bible study on Forgiveness that I'm currently leading with 2 amazing young women in their very early 20s. These are amazing girls that I feel so blessed to be with, and I just want our time in God's Word to change all of us for His glory.
4. That I would know, that Shane would guide me, as to where my place of ministry within our new church is to be. And, am I to offer to lead a children's Bible Study at our local homeschool co-op?
5. For God to send some precious soul who loves to work with wallpaper, to come and rip all of this baby blue floweredie stuff OFF of my walls. (OK, I'm only joking about this one!)
Love ya'll tonight,
Jes
2. Our move to Chattanooga has helped my health improve by 80% or more. The past 3 days have shown some crippling of my hand and foot, which is terribly painful, but compared to how I'd be feeling in Phoenix right now, it's a marked difference.
3. God has placed the most precious new friend into my life. She is such an inspiration to me as I watch how lovingly and Biblically she mothers her children. She has such a tender heart, and is so very desperate for Jesus. What more could one ask for in a friend? I love her!
4. Our new church is such an answer to prayer. As you all know, I loved my church in AZ. I love the people there, the teaching, the worship, the youth, the pastor and his wife...the list goes on and on.
What's exciting is that so many of those same elements are here for us at our new church, just on a larger scale.
We have a new pastor, and I am so deeply in love with he and his wife's heart for the body, and for the lost in our community. There is scarcely a Sunday that he preaches, that he doesn't passionately remind the body of our responsibility to single mothers.
I LOVE THAT!
5. I'm happy here. We all are. The kids spend at least an hour a day just in awe of all of the bugs they have to choose from as play mates. I look out any window of my home and see GREEN. It's so pretty!
I get to see my Janan and Ed. Oh, how I love them! I could just bask in my time with Nanner!
6. I do miss my precious, amazing, breathtakingly gracious friends in AZ. Oh, how I miss them. Some days, the tears still come when I think about you all...and Brennan is known to have a good cry at least once a week, too.
Yet, we know that we are right where God has us.
If you would pray for these requests, I'd be so grateful:
1. God's hand of favor over the new Chattanooga office. That He would fling wide open the doors through which work will pour in.
2. For my health, my friend Anna's and my Facebook friend, Michelle's. We all have MS and are all battling right now.
3. For a Bible study on Forgiveness that I'm currently leading with 2 amazing young women in their very early 20s. These are amazing girls that I feel so blessed to be with, and I just want our time in God's Word to change all of us for His glory.
4. That I would know, that Shane would guide me, as to where my place of ministry within our new church is to be. And, am I to offer to lead a children's Bible Study at our local homeschool co-op?
5. For God to send some precious soul who loves to work with wallpaper, to come and rip all of this baby blue floweredie stuff OFF of my walls. (OK, I'm only joking about this one!)
Love ya'll tonight,
Jes
Saturday, June 05, 2010
Andrea Bocelli Ministered to Me Tonight...
I don't profess to know why, but I seem to have some of my sweetest times in prayer when I'm in the shower. Go figure.
I think it's the water. I'm a water girl...
Anyway, tonight as I was taking a shower, my heart was pricked to write another post about abortion.
Then I snuck into the office to do a little work, and took a break from it to hop over to Denny Burk's blog.
He shared this video with his readers, and it took my breath away.
Andrea Bocelli has long been one of my favorite artists. Listening to this man sing, reminds me afresh that God is the One who has intimately created us, and that our lives have intrinsic value...both to us, and to countless others.
Thank you, Lord, for creating Andrea Bocelli!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)