The Dailyness of God

Praise the Lord!! I think the flu bug has left our house! Both babies are doing much better. That Tamiflu works wonders, second only to a whole host of folks who have been praying for our little ones. JennaBeth still has a little congestion and cough, but is fever free and feeling good enough to be a little stinker! Bentley, well he's back to being Bentley and I love it! I think :)

This past week was difficult on many fronts. It is very hard to see your little five month old suffer and there be only a limited amount of things you can do to relieve her suffering. It is also hard to take care of sick children and keep up with other household things on very little sleep!

But as crazy and energy depriving as this past week has been for our family, I have also become aware of several other situations that would just break your heart.

Like the Rowe Family in Arkansas who lost their sweet baby just days after birth. I can't even imagine their pain today as they have the memorial service for their sweet baby Reese.

Or like the sweet ministry family whom I have recently come to love, due to church conflict have been forced resign their position with an unclear future laid out for them.

Or like the numerous people I know with just broken hearts and situations they are up against with no clear answer in sight.

There are SO many situations I am thinking of right now and my heart is SO heavy for all of them.

I wish I had the answers. But, I don't. But God...I love those two words!
But God does! He has the answers!

Just the other day, while JennaBeth and Bentley were both resting and Cecily was doing her thing, I cleaned out my bedside table drawers. You know those things that catch all the stuff you can find no other place to put. Yea, they were really getting on my nerves! Anyway as I was cleaning, I came across a piece of paper that I had printed out with a verse from Psalm 68 on it. I remember doing a little study on this verse some time ago, when it really ministered to me.

"Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior,
who daily bears our burdens.
Our God is a God who saves;
from the Sovereign Lord comes escape
from death."
Psalm 68:19-20

I wanted to get a good grasp of the verse, so using Bible Gateway, I looked this passage up in several different versions of the Bible.

The Amplified Bible:

"Blessed be the Lord, Who bears our burdens
and carries us day by day,
even the God Who is our salvation!
God is to us a God of deliverances and salvation;
and to God the Lord belongs escape from death (setting
us free)."

The Kings James Version:

"Blessed be the Lord,
who daily loadeth us with benefits,
even the God of our salvation.
He that is our God is the God of salvation;
and unto God the Lord belong the
issues from death."

The New Living Translation:

"Praise the Lord; praise God our Savior!
For each day He carries us in His arms.
Our God is a God who saves!
The Sovereign Lord rescues us from death."

Now first of all, God is Mighty to save! The Hebrew translation of "God" in these verses is "El" and means God, mighty one! Next, He is our Sovereign Lord! God IS most assuredly in control. Our pastor reminded us of the powerful and comforting truth several sermons ago that there is at no place and at no time that the sovereignty of God is not ruling and reigning. We can rest and lay our heavy burdens down at the feet of our Lord. He is in control. And He knows best what will glorify Him first and foremost and secondly what will bring us ultimate good in our lives; what will mold us into His image!

This Mighty and Sovereign Lord loves us so much. He daily bears our burdens! He carries us day by day, is a God of deliverances, loadeth us with His benefits and carries us in His arms.
I get a mental picture of this idea every time I watch Mike carry JennaBeth around in his arms. She quietens and calms down. Not just because she is spoiled to her daddy carrying her (okay maybe just a little bit!), but because she knows she is safe!

We are safe in our Heavenly Father's presence.

Matthew Henry has this to say in his commentary on these two verses:
"The gracious intention of Christ's undertaking was to rear up the tabernacle of God among men, that he might dwell with them and they might themselves be living temples to his praise. The glory of Zion's King is that he is a Savior and benefactor to all his willing people and a consuming fire to all those that persist in rebellion against him. Those that take God for their God, and so give up themselves to him to be his people, shall be loaded with his benefits, and to them he will be a God of salvation. If in sincerity we avouch God to be our God, and seek him as such. He will continually do us good and furnish us with occasion for praise. It is owing to the mediation of Christ that we live, and live comfortably, and are daily loaded with benefits. So many, so weighty, are the gifts of God's bounty to us that he may be truly said to load us with them; he pours out blessings till there is no room to recieve them. So constant are they, and so unwearied is he in doing us good that he daily loads us with them, according as the necessity of every day requires. He will at length be unto us the God of salvation, of everlasting salvation, the salvation of God which he will show to those that order their converstion aright, the salvation of the soul. He that daily loads us with benefits will not put us off with present things for a portion, but will be the God of our salvation; and what he gives us now he gives as the God of salvation, pursuant to the great design of our salvation. The keys of hell and death are put into the hand of the Lord Jesus."

My prayer today is that you will know without a doubt that your Heavenly Father loves you and He daily carries you. If you have happened upon this blog post and you don't know this God Who is Mighty to save and you would like to then please email me at jenmom1707@yahoo.com. It would be my pleasure to talk to you more!

Blessings,
Jennifer

Safe Sitter in the House!

Cecily completed the Safe Sitter program today at one of our local hospitals. She is excited about taking on this responsibility. It is exciting to watch as she grows and matures into a supreb young lady. I also happen to think she is very well qualified. After all, she helps me take care of this little guy....

and this little girl.....

Yep! She is indeed QUALIFIED!!!

Blessings,
Jennifer

Just a Regular Wednesday

Desiring God Wednesday will be back next week. I've not been able to do much reading, actually no reading at all.

We have had the Flu bug make a landing on our house and apparently he has decided to stay around for a while. Mike brought this bug back with him from youth camp and was sick for about five days last week. JennaBeth made her visit to the pediatrician on Monday morning and tested positive and was given Tamiflu. She has turned the corner today. She is still running fever and coughing but the brightness is coming back to her eyes!

Bentley was the next victim. He made his visit to the doctor's office this morning and yes, tested positive for the flu and was given Tamiflu. He's asleep in the recliner right now. He was so sweet this morning. While we were waiting to see the doctor, he watched as some of the other kids left the office be given a sticker for being good patients. So, of course, when we were checking out he asked about a sticker. He told me, "I need that ticker to take to babytister. She will smile and be well with that ticker." Melted my heart, yes it did! He was not feeling well, but was thinking of his baby sister, excuse me his "tister". I love that boy!!

Hopefully Cecily and I will be able to avoid getting sick. I've never washed my hands so much in my life nor have I repeated the phrase, "Go wash your hands", as much as I have the past several days. Cecily is really hoping to not get sick, because she has her Safe Sitter course at a local hospital on Saturday.

I guess it is at times like these that I need to be reminded about God's extravagant love for me. It's no small thing that just a few days prior to this bout of sickness,during family devotions, Mike talked about how "crazy" God is about His people. He read the following passage from Zephaniah chapter 3:

"Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout aloud, O Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O Daughter of Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away your punishment, he has turned back your enemy. The Lord, the King of Israel, is with you; never again will you fear any harm. On that day they will say to Jerusalem, 'Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands hang limp. The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing."

In the ESV, that last phrase reads like this, "He will rejoice over you with LOUD singing."

I also came across this verse this week:

"For the Lord takes delight in His people;
He crowns the humble with salvation."
Psalm 149:4

And this one:

"The Lord is righteous in all His ways and loving
toward all He has made.
The Lord is near to all who call on him,
to all who call on him in truth.
He fulfills the desires of those
who fear Him;
He hears their cry and saves them.
The Lord watches over all who love Him..."
Psalm 145:17-20a

I love word studies in scripture, so I was interested in the phrase "watches over" in that last passage in Psalms. The Hebrew word for "watches over" is Samar and means to keep, guard.

May the God who keeps and guards His people be with you and yours,
Jennifer

The Next Food Network Star

All I can say is "Move over Bobby Flay"!

My children were in rare form yesterday. Cecily (11 yr. old) and Bentley (3 yr. old) played together so sweetly. Cecily was good to entertain her little brother. Her Aunt Julie and Uncle Jason gave her a cupcake maker for Christmas and she and Bentley made a gourmet cupcake dessert TOGETHER!

Doesn't it look yummy?

They had fun enjoying the fruits of their culinary labor!

I know that there will be years ahead of fusses and fights and many "I don't like yous", but my prayer for the two of them really is that they will always love each other.

And I must not forget the littlest one in the bunch.....
who has enjoyed her daddy the past two days! Mike couldn't have much to do with her most of the week due to a nasty upper respiratory infection that we were afraid was or might turn into the flu like many of our other youth camp attendees. But when he felt better, she sure enjoyed having his attention.

She was licking and drooling all over that bald head, when....

she decided that she didn't like the taste anymore!

Blessings,
Jennifer

Desiring God Wednesday

What do you treasure most?

John Piper, in the introduction (yep I'm still in the introduction) to "Desiring God" says, "Christian Hedonism does not make a god out of pleasure. It says that one has already made a god out of whatever he finds most pleasure in."

Hmmmm....convicting, at least for me.

Piper also says, "God is not worshiped where He is not treasured and enjoyed."

Psalm 37:3-5a
"Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the LORD and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD..."

Notice the words in bold print...trust, dwell, commit...those are words of endurance not just a haphazard way of doing things.

• Trust - In the original Hebrew this word is "batah" and means to attach oneself, confide in, feel safe, be confident, secure. The basic idea signifies firmness or solidity. Denotes a confident expectation.
  
• Dwell - In the Hebrew, this word is "sakan" and means to reside, inhabit, abide, to rest.
• Commit - Here the Hebrew word is "galal" and means roll oneself upon, to be rolled (in blood), be dyed red.
  

What I think Piper's point is, is that we are supposed to have a joy about us as we trust in God. We treasure not the things God can benefit us with, but that we treasure Him! God is our Treasure! And we learn to do this by gazing at God, not just glancing at Him (Thanks for the word picture Grace P.).

I'll leave you with a prayer from "The Valley of Vision: A collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions" titled "God Enjoyed":

"Thou incomprehensible but prayer-hearing God,
Known, but beyond knowledge,
revealed, but unrevealed,
my wants and welfare draw me to thee,
for thou hast never said, 'Seek ye me in vain'.
To thee I come in my difficulties, necessities, distresses;
possess me with Thyself,
with a spirit of grace and supplication,
with a prayerful attitude of mind,
with access into warmth of fellowship,
so that in the ordinary concerns of life
my thoughts and desires may rose to thee,
and in habitual devotion I may find a resource that will
soothe my sorrows,
sanctify my successes,
and qualify me in all ways for dealings with my fellow man.
I bless thee that thou hast made me capable
of knowing thee, the author of all being,
of resembling thee, the perfection of all excellency,
of enjoying thee, the source of all happiness.
O God, attend me in every part of my arduous and trying
pilgrimage;
I need the same counsel, defense, comfort I fount at my beginning.
Let my religion be more obvious to my conscience,
more perceptible to those around.
While Jesus is representing me in heaven, may I reflect Him on earth,
While He pleads my cause,
may I show forth His praise.
Continue the gentleness of thy goodness towards me,
and whether I wake or sleep, let thy presence go with me,
they blessing attend me.
Thou hast led me on and I have found thy promises true,
I have been sorrowful, but thou hast been my help,
fearful, but thou hast delivered me,
despairing, but thou has lifted me up.
Thy vows are ever upon me,
And I praise thee, O God."

Let me hear from you,
Jennifer

The Journey 2009

Each summer the youth from our church go to youth camp in Black Mountain, North Carolina. Mike is Associate Pastor at our church and he goes with the group on this trip. Here is a group pic of he and the kids.....



One of the nights during the week, a talent show is held. Here is Mike and Grace, one of our youth girls singing as part of the show.


Isn't this scenery beautiful?


I don't know why, but these pictures make me think of Fall coming. I guess I'm just ready for some cooler weather.


Now, what you need to understand is that my husband can be the biggest kid of them all sometimes. Naturally, he got involved in the paintball event this year at camp. Here are some of the girls...


And here is my dear, sweet husband...

covered...

in green paint! I think the girls got the best of him.

Despite the week getting off to a rocky start for Mike and the week ending with the church bus breaking down and Mike and the other counselors with him having to scramble and rent cars to get the youth back home, it was an awesome week in the Lord.

I am amazed at the times God will present us with a truth in scripture and then immediately give us life circumstances to put what we've been taught into practice. That's exactly what has happened with our youth and counselors.

Please pray for the Northside youth group if they come to your mind after reading this post. Apparently the Flu bug was beginning to make its way around camp and many of our youth have come back with it. Mike has been in bed for two days and isn't feeling well himself.

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." James 1:2-4

Blessings,
Jennifer

Mississippi Friends - Part Three

I promise! This is the last post of our MS friends. You have to know that two mamas plus two cameras plus five kids equals an enormous amount of pictures!

One of the wonderful surprises of the visit was the awesome gifts Amy brought for JennaBeth from Aunt Pooh. Now Aunt Pooh (Lisa Tadlock, Amy's sister-in-law) is not actually JennaBeth's real aunt, but we absolutely claim her in every sense!

She is a sweet, sweet woman with an extreme amount of talent when she sits at a sewing machine. Have a look at these beautiful dresses she made for JennaBeth:

Pink Flamingos

Rainbow Butterflies

Polka Dots (This one is my favorite)

Lady Bugs

Aren't they amazing? I can't wait for JennaBeth to wear them!!!

Here is the quilt Aunt Pooh made...I just about had a hissy over it! For all you Florida friends reading, "hissy" is Mississippi speak for "fit".
I love, love the detail Aunt Pooh added, like baby girl's initials...

and the polka dot bow in one corner...


And if that weren't enough, JennaBeth has a diaper bag to match her quilt...

Aunt Pooh we love you, not so much for the gifts as for the time and effort you put into these sweet things for JennaBeth. You have an amazing talent! Thank you for thinking of our newest addition to the family in such a sweet way! Bentley loves the Batman back pack you made him and Cecily loves her purse as well. You are special to our family!

I'll end with some wrestling pictures....



I'm not sure if the boys or the girls won, but as you could tell Bentley seemed to be the one to pin down. What can I say, that boy is ALL boy, ALL testosterone, ALL the time!

Tomorrow I will post about Mike's trip to Black Mountain North Carolina with our youth. Please come back, the pictures of the scenery are amazing!!

Have a blessed week,
Jennifer