Break...

Just so no one thinks I've gone off into the sunset, I'm letting you know that I'm taking a break...

It's funny, I never really wrote anything before I started blogging 3 years ago, never even felt the urge to write.

Blogging began almost accidentally for me, and it continued all during the last 3 years.

I'm not a true writer, not with the passion and gift that many of you have, but I do love the way it enables me to express my heart, and it has grown on me as I've shared and gotten to 'know' so many of you.

This is a time of 'other'... there are many things going on within our family and business that are new chapters, so for awhile, I'm focusing my time and heart on those areas.

I'm sure I'll be back, just not sure exactly when.

I'll be checking in with you, and for now, I'll miss your comments and fellowship on this page.

I'll see you after awhile.

Love,

Gracie...

Gracie is due to arrive in the middle of April.

Gracie is a miracle.

Molly and Joe are preparing each day to become Gracie's parents. Their first baby.

Joe is our son and Molly is our daughter in law. Their journey to April has been long and tedious and at times seemed nearly hopeless... But God...

Background... Joe & Molly met at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. Molly went to Bolivia and served in missions for 3 years. Joe went on to seminary in Fort Worth, graduated, and they were married and both went back to Bolivia for a year. When they returned, Joe pastored a church and during those few years, with Molly working right by his side, she was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma.

Right from the start, they knew they wanted a family. Molly went through chemo and radiation, lost her hair, and was sick, and during most of it she continued to teach school. Chemo and radiation however, pretty much destroyed their chances of pregnancy. But God...

After her hair grew back, and it ALL came back... (and Molly has the thickest curly beautiful dark hair you can imagine!) and her health returned, they began to do the background and work to prepare for adoption. During this time they were learning about 'snowflake babies'. (Click for more complete information.)

Molly's doctor said he thought her ability to implant and carry a snowflake baby with a normal pregnancy should work fine for her. It did. And so we are all waiting with real joy and anticipation, for Gracie.

On March 4 we are giving a baby shower for Molly and Gracie. These will be the favors. I ordered 250 of these tiny buckets years ago when I was in a creative phase and the company was ending this product. I've used these buckets for everything from 'soup to nuts'!!

I can't wait to share the good news when the big day arrives, and Gracie is home!

God has so much ahead for this family who is so precious to all of us, there are aunts, uncles, mimi, poppa, grandpa, and a boatload of cousins who can hardly wait for Gracie to come home.

She's been hoped for and prayed for by all of us for a long time, especially Joe & Molly.

Proverbs 13:12
Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life.

Practicing what I preach...

"Be not weary in well doing, for in due season ye shall reap, if ye faint not."

Those are the exact words of this verse in the King James we memorized as kids in our home.

Can I tell you how many times through the years I have claimed that verse?

I'm claiming it right now too. There are seasons in our lives that make us weary. It can be for many different reasons. I've been in the middle of one and here is what I know.

During the gray periods, the temptation to wring my hands and introspect to the point of distraction, is a very real one for me. What can I do? How can I fix this? What if this or that or blah blah blah blah blah.....

Yet, right on the heels of all of that, is the anger that my feelings one more time are getting in the way of standing straight up in faith and saying okay Lord, this is NOT from you.

I've written about the 2 R's before. They are key to how I choose to let life and my circumstances affect me. These 2 R's were woven throughout my dad's life. He saw early on that those 2 words changed his course, for the good or bad.

RECOGNIZE IT!

Satan will use the stuff that is our particular weak area to defeat us. Don't ever underestimate his ability to hammer away and try to find a place to plant his seeds of doubt and discouragement.

REFUSE IT!

Very quickly I realize that I could go either way with these temptations of the spirit. I also know that pursuing areas of gray and allowing them to pull me down, is not from God. So the choice to quickly refuse them and claim God's strength and stand in faith is always my best course..

When the gray fog begins to creep in and affect our lives, we have options. It amazes me sometimes that I can be so victorious and alive and strong in my heart and then be knocked down so quickly and begin to 'murmur'.

The children of Israel are very close to my heart. I thought I was so beyond their ability to forget God's goodness from yesterday. A new set of trials reminds me that their manna needed to be fresh every morning. So does mine.

And it IS!

Over and over again I am finding that I need to practice what I preach! I can't tell others about how God changes everything, and not practice the same principles of faith based on who He is.

So... one more time... I choose Jesus. I choose to stand and to trust and to move forward with Him. See those gray clouds up there? I am also seeing the rays of light just beyond them. :)

LOVE...

I'm joining my good friend Debbie at Heart Choices.


She has selected the perfect scripture for today.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

This passage from I Corinthians has followed me around from the first time I read it as a very young child. It was taught in my home growing up, and later, as we raised our own kids.

I am thinking of a particular tough season while our 3 kids were young, during the teen and pre-teen years, and we were trying to teach them good behavior toward one another. One day all 3 of them were bickering and 'murmuring' to say the least! My hubby sent each to their rooms and instructed them to read I Corinthians 13... 13 times!! :) They did it. (And on that day we probably needed to do it too!)

All these years later, I still find myself going to this chapter over and over again to define what I know LOVE IS, rather than what I may be feeling!

In my relationship with Him, with my husband, my family, friends, and my daily world, LOVE, by God's definition, is so much more than what I so often am feeling.

God didn't say LOVE is what we feel, or that it depends on someone else, etc. etc. etc.

He is always clear.

His description of love is a lofty and high goal. It's an impossible goal apart from His love abiding in my heart. Even with His LOVE, I fail and fall over and over in the living out of I Cor.13. But even though I stumble over myself, I am also moving into this chapter in new ways every day.

Yesterday's choices regarding LOVE are teaching me that today's choices must be wiser, more in line with the obedience He desires for me.

February 14, the day we all associate with love and hearts and all things lovely. What a perfect day to remember that the standard for real LOVE was set by our Saviour when the greatest love gift ever given came for me, and for you, to die so we may have life and LOVE both for today and for eternity. There is no greater LOVE.

We LOVE Him because He first loved us.

I've joined the club!...

I'm the newest member of a club I should have joined a long time ago. The club has always existed... I've resisted.

Janette and Debbie, it's your fault!

Actually, my hubby's low blood sugar started it, but many years before that, my own dad was one of the founding fathers. It's like most things, you start to read and study, and pretty soon, you are looking at labels, freshness, un- processed, etc.

This morning at the grocery store I was in the produce department and a size 1, maximum 2, little housewife was filling her cart with plastic bags of all things green. I asked her about kale, since I don't love kale... she said the place she uses kale is in homemade soups. So far so good. I can do that too.

Grocery shopping is an art form. I MADE myself stay in the fruits and veggies area for a long time, and I LIKED it! I filled MY cart with plastic bags too!

I have spent a lot of time online, what great resources there are. I am becoming aware of not only fat and sugar, which I've looked at for a long time, but carbs. The way carbs process into sugar in our bodies is a concept I'd never thought much about.

I have to throw this one in too, for all of you who have said you don't like cooked spinach. I am trying to pinch my face to remove the proud look when I say this... I reallly love steamed spinach! :)

I haven't gotten so righteous that I want a green smoothie yet, Debbie, but who knows??

I'm such a big believer in God desiring 'the whole man', spiritual, physical, and emotional. I may be a late bloomer, but I've joined the club.

What shall we call ourselves?

The green girls...

The food group fruit loops...

...or maybe even

The fresh females...

I think that does it for today!

Dreams...

Do you still have dreams?

Dreams for your life?

Hopes and desires for what you would love to see?

Dreams for changes in your own life, or your family?

Are these dreams good for us?

My answer to all of the above is YES!

I believe God puts dreams in our hearts, it's part of how He created us, we dream for more than what we are, where we are... to be more, more of what God intended, both for us and our families and the world around us.

I DON'T MEAN DREAMING FOR PROSPERITY, or for selfish gain, (although having enough and a little more is sure comforting... like the guy said, 'I've been rich and I've been poor... rich is better!') I am NOT rich. I don't even desire to be rich, I do desire to be upright, responsible, and at peace with my Lord.

THAT is my desire, my dream. And the rest of that dream is to be MORE, more than who I am today, always MORE tomorrow!

But I also have dreams and goals for the day to day as I live out this life. Dreams of places to go, things to achieve, even things that are just for fun, as well as dreams of things that may be a little far fetched, nevertheless... I dream.

I think my dreams and my plans and prayers get all rolled up into a big ball some times... all of those dreams and plans need to be put before the Lord, to be sure it's what HIS dreams and plans are for me.

This is the best part!

God understands me, He knows my heart, He knows my dreams, and He also knows what is best for me!

He knows how to distinguish the fluff from the real stuff, and He also has blessed me by sending a lot of the fluff my way too. I am convinced that those 'icing on the cake' things that I dream of, are important to God too, and He loves to give good gifts.

It's when I get the sense that none of my dreams are coming true and I should just quit dreaming, that the discouragement satan loves to see, fills my heart.

So I AM a believer in dreams... goals... plans... and heart desires.

Through the years those dreams and goals have done some shifting and rearranging, but ALWAYS... I must dream, I must have goals.

And ALWAYS, the dreams and hopes in my heart are subject to His plans for me.

What does God say about all this??

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (Jer.29:11)

May he give you the desire of your heart
and make all your plans succeed. (Ps.20:4)

Commit to the LORD whatever you do,
and he will establish your plans. (Prov.16: 3)

Faith heroes...

I miss my heroes of faith.

I look around sometimes and wonder where they have all gone? The heroes of the faith that I grew up with were my dad and mom, and their friends. Almost all of them are in heaven now, Billy Graham is one of the few of that group left, and I know his eyes are looking upward these days.

There was so much strong faith among them, refusal of satan's darts, and genuine digging in to go deeper with God, in their lives. A determined desire to obey God no matter what the cost. The example of their lives were a lamp on my path, that illumined and pointed me in the right direction. The way they STOOD, all through the trials and joys of life, were an example that I now know is not typical. I assumed, during those younger years, that it would always be like that.

It isn't.

I am not God's grandchild... for many years I thought THEIR faith somehow covered me too.

We come, each of us, in our own way, to understand just what kind of a God we serve. We find Him and we understand, He deals with each of us, one by one, His created, and He KNOWS our hearts. No one rides into the kingdom on anyone elses coat tails.

I confess to being disappointed in so many who talk their faith, even in the pulpit, and who live differently than what they say. I know there are steady honest and faithful followers, but the heroes who showed me by their lives that nothing else but God mattered... they seem to be fewer in number.

I am struck anew as I continue this journey, with just how unusual was the 'faith of my fathers, and mothers'...

Having said that, I want to add this..

I have seen through many of YOU, the desire and the longing to be more... many of you through deep trials, some through their own study of His word, but I have been ministered to over and over by your words and your honesty, and I SEE Jesus in you. He has always had HIS people, and our hearts are joined on these pages. There is a fellowship of both the mundane and the deep heart in your words, all around this world.

Too often though, when I look around, and inside of myself... I see that dreaded 'lukewarm' word...

So what is the answer?

The answer is the same as it has always been.

JESUS

I read an excerpt from Tullian Tchividjian's book, and am so taken with the simple title, JESUS + NOTHING = EVERYTHING.

The baton has been passed from my parents generation, to me... to us, and JESUS CHRIST IS THE SAME, YESTERDAY, TODAY AND FOREVER.

That is the answer. HE is the answer. He has promised that when we seek Him with our whole heart, we will find Him, and MORE of Him...

JESUS + NOTHING = EVERYTHING.

P.S... If my parents happened to be peeking through the clouds today, they would be chuckling at their middle child's sermon. :)

I'm still here...

I AM still here, and a lot of my favorite blogs are still there, but there is no way to leave a comment on some of your blogs anymore.

It's not you... it's me.

I would have emailed some of you, but I also don't have your email address. I know Blogger is doing some changes, and I know they are telling me to use Google Chrome, but so far I haven't added it or switched to it.

I use this computer for business, so I am always leary of adding and subtracting anything, as it seems to mess things up. I can still read all blogs, just can't leave a comment on some of them.

So if you haven't heard from me lately... please know that it is only because I am a scaredy cat and also very UN techie. I may get braver, but in the meantime, I hope I don't end up after their March first deadline, losing all of you and me both!!

If you haven't heard from me, and would like to email anytime, please do! My email is pangold101@aol.com

In the meantime, I'll be here, and I'm still reading your pages, even if my lips seem to be sealed. :)

Special day, special guy...

This is MY guy!

This is him then... when we first met and married.

He's always had my heart... never more than now!

The years have taught us both so many things. His birthday is coming right up, and I love him more than ever.

The years have done that... increased, changed, strengthened and renewed the love in my heart for this man.

GOD has done that for both of us, and we know it!

We have shared a lot of days, and years together. I know my husband, and he knows me. There is something that happens along the way that makes these days together sweeter than ever before.

Happy Birthday to God's precious gift for my life... Joe

Happy, humble & poor!...

My mother used to say this often when she spoke to women at christian conferences.

'We have 3 children, and they keep us happy, humble and poor!'...

I know for a fact that all 3 of those things were true. We had a lot of laughter in our home growing up. We also never had a lot of money, but always a lot of fun! And finally... the humble part probably came many times from the raising of 'me'.

She also said many times that what happened to me, or my sister or brother, was for THEM as well. Our experiences and pitfalls brought my mom and dad to new places of faith, and caused them to 'dig deeper' in their own lives, and to pray with greater depth and need.

It was the same for Joe and I as we raised our own 3... God uses our families to teach us His ways!

Amen??? If you can't say amen to that, you don't have kids, or relatives... :)

Lessons in patience, trust, forgiveness, kindness and on and on.

He also uses them to teach us about love.

There is no more unconditional love than that of a parent for their children. It was all designed by God, He set the standard and it was His plan.

God's only son, Jesus... sent by his Father, the ultimate sacrifice of a parent. For us. Unconditional love.

It was impossible for the bar to be set any higher.

So, as we raise our kids, and many of us now watching and praying for our grandkids, remember that each circumstance and trial is teaching US as it teaches them. We are digging deeper.

The snapshot above was my sister and brother and I, during the very days that we were busy keeping my parents...

...happy
...humble
...and poor!