School Supplies

This is the time of year when we dutifully purchase our school supplies for the upcoming school year. The supply aisles at Walmart and Target are filled with parents carrying lists and children selecting their favorite notebooks and pencil cases. I enjoy looking for bargains, especially when you find colored pencils and markers for $0.88 and crayons for $0.22. It's also a great time to start making purchases for our Operation Christmas child project that will be coming in October and November. Every year we make a church goal to send a specific number of boxes through Samaritan's Purse's Operation Christmas Child. Please pray about participating this year and let me know the bargains you find! In these budget stretching times it's helpful to save wherever we can!

A Promise to Remember

Our next women's ministry activity is book club next Monday, August 18th. Please note the change in date from Tuesday to Monday. It will still be at Deanna's house from 7-9 pm. The book is "A Promise to Remember" by Kathryn Cushman. It's a quick read with something for everyone and many of the life situations that surround us every day. I hope you'll be able to be there!

Change is coming...you'll be hearing a lot about it in the upcoming weeks. I love the change of pace in our summer weather this year. This is what I remember summer to be like when I was growing up. Are you ready for some change?

The Battle

This summer I'm doing a Bible study on prayer with my closest friend. Prayer is one of my weakest areas in my walk with God. I keep thinking that I'll be a better pray-er when I get organized...which somehow never happens. So, when my friend said she wanted to work on her prayer life, I quickly agreed to join the journey. We chose a well known Christian author who wrote both a book and study guide...perfect for our needs! But...I struggled so much with this study. I didn't want to do the work and when I did read, I felt like saying "I already know this, tell me something I don't know!" Yikes, what an attitude and I had some guilt over that as well!

The one thing about doing a study with a friend is that there is accountability to do the work, so I fulfilled my duty and whined a bit in the process. Then I decided that I should pray (DUH!) about my struggles. I felt that Satan was really trying to pull one over on me, which would lead to a path of frustration. I also decided to try doing the workbook before I read the chapter in the book and believe it or not, between the change in process and prayer, I'm now enjoying this study, seeing the power of prayer and even getting tips for how to organize my prayer life.

Why was this a battle? I believe Satan would rather have me be frustrated and ineffective while God wants me to have His strength and guidance for each day. I suspect we all have different battles going on in our lives at any given time. So, the purpose of me sharing this is to encourage you to hang in there with whatever you need to hang in with...a Bible study, Christian book, relationship or just managing daily life and PRAY! I'd love to pray for you as well, just let me know how I can pray for you!

Prayer Requests

This week our youth are away in Maine on a mission's trip. Accompanying them are Donald and Kristie Buttram and Russ and Deanna Wells. It is wonderful to have such great leaders to be with our kids and guide their spiritual growth. I'm thankful for each of them and the great teens we have at our church

Please continue to remember the Markle family with the birth of Nicholas. I got to see him this afternoon and he is a beautiful baby! Mom and baby are adjusting well, but those of us who have had children can remember those first few weeks and all the adjustments.

Continue to pray about women's ministries at the church. Our next activity is a book club on Tuesday, August 19th at the home of Deanna Wells. We'll be discussing the book "A Promise to Remember" by Kathryn Cushman. If you have any ideas or would like to be part of the women's ministry team, please let me know!

Inconsistency

It is quite evident from this blog that I have inconsistency issues and to be quite honest it's not just the blog I struggle with. In fact, I'm struggling with consistency in most every aspect of my life right now. There are some valid excuses, some not so valid, but excuses none the less. I can promise to do better (which I've done over and over on this blog) but I need God's help. Help arrived the other day as I read a verse from Psalm 143:10. This verse has become my prayer... "Teach me to do Your will, for You are my God; may Your good Spirit lead me on level ground."

Mudjacking

I've recently learned about a new profession...mudjacking. Our patio has settled over the years..5 inches in some places and was causing water problems in our basement with the heavy rains. It seems that the dirt around our foundation has shifted and settled which made the patio fall and in turn made the water run against the foundation and into the basement. The "mudjacker" drilled holes into the bricks then pumped a concrete mixture into the holes to fill all the empty spaces. Amazingly, the patio is back where it belongs and I'm waiting for the next rain to see if our water issues are solved - which they should be.

It got me thinking...we can have a strong foundation in our spiritual lives, but sometimes the dirt around us can settle and water or other influences can creep in and cause problems. Sometimes our lives need a bit of mudjacking - intentionally filling those spaces though with God's Word instead of mud. I know I've needed some mudjacking in my life, how about you?

Time

Guilt. We all struggle with it from time to time. I suffer from bloggers guilt - or perhaps not-blogging guilt. Blogging is one of those things I do think about, want to write something meaningful, and find little time to execute. This is such a busy time of year (though I think there is busy-ness to every time of year) with sports ending and beginning (for my family little league ending, travel baseball and swim beginning) and the end of the school year. Caleb keeps me posted on the # of days remaining...has the school year really blown by...already!? I'm not sure where the time goes, but see the evidence that time flies...it seems like only a short time ago that Josh, my 16 year old was Maryn's age (20 months) and have we really had her only 10 short months? That time has flown as well. Last year I was wishing that time would fly a bit more, as we were still waiting to be matched to Maryn. What a difference a year makes!

Well ladies, summer is upon us. We have quite a women's ministry activities planned - check out the women's ministry page on the church website www.lifecc.us for details. I'd love to see each LCC lady involved in some way. As I reflect on how quickly time passes I want to take the time to treasure the everyday moments, to thank God for all His blessings, will you join me? Let's remember to share God's blessing when we meet at our book club in August.