Think On These Things

This semester I have been doing a precept study in Philippians with some ladies from church. This week we focused on chapter 4 verses 8-9.

8 Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things.

9 The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me practice these things; and the God of peace shall be with you.

These two verses really focus on our mind. Dwell on these things and the God of peace shall be with you. So we have to replace the thoughts of fear, anxiety, worry, etc. with what is true, right, pure, lovely, of good repute, and worthy of praise. So if we obeyed these teaching......how would our lives change? Would it change what we read, watch, listen to, talk about, think about? How can we do this? First we must take every thought captive (2 Corinthians 10:5).

But then we must replace those thoughts with something new. A friend of mine gave a great illustration of this. Imagine you have an empty toilet paper holder. You take some of the toilet tissue and stuff it inside the holder. To get that tissue out you have to replace it with more....something new. That's the way our mind works. We must replace the anxiousness with the peace of God. I love this. If you are like me and struggle with worry this is a great thing to put into practice. Back to the question, how would this change what we watch, etc. I think we have to rely our conscience unless it is obvious sin. Can you watch it etc. and still dwell on whatever is......lovely...etc. I'll finish this post the way Paul ended Philippians.....the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your Spirit.

April Showers Bring May Flowers

Samuel's first soccer game.

Friday we took a field trip to the Space and Rocket Center. The kids favorite part was the rock wall. They had a great time with their friends. It would have been more educational if we had done a guided tour. But you live and learn. Right?

Saturday was Samuel's first soccer game. He did so well. I loved watching him play. He scored once and did a great job blocking. ( I don't really know how to play soccer....so not sure of all the terminology). When we got to the game he asked me if it was too late to cancel the game. They have postponed the games so many times he was afraid they would cancel it again. He was so cute in his uniform. :)

Dave and I had a great date night on Saturday. It was a nice to just hang out with him. We saw the movie The Soloist. I would highly recommend that movie. So a good meal, a movie, Ben and Jerry's ice cream.....and of course a trip to the grocery store. What else could a girl ask for:)

This week is SAT testing for Abby. She was pretty nervous last night. She was OK after we got to the testing center and she saw some of her friends. The other two and I are doing our school work at the library during the test. They like that....anything different.

Its hard to believe its almost May. The weather is beautiful and we just want to be outside. Only 14 more days, then our summer begins!!

Monday

Good news. The air conditioner is working and it was only a small problem that was easy to fix. I always dread calling the repairman, I'm so scared he will tell us we need a new unit. Thankfully not this time.

This is a busy time of year for us. Our life seems to run in semesters. We are on a sprint...then we slow down and have some down time. With Dave teaching again, doing college ministry, us being in school, homegroups at church, everything is really busy during the Fall and Spring and we wait for summer to slow down and relax. We are getting ready for our end of the year school program. Each family chose a person to focus on and study this semester. We chose Martin Luther. We all learned alot about him and how he was such a great leader in the reformation of the church. We have a presentation to do at our open house. So we are working on that. Abby is getting ready for her spring piano recital. She will be finishing her first year of piano. Erin is ready to start playing something. She really wants to play the violin. I for one am ready for this school year to come to an end. It's hard to believe Abby will be in 4th grade, Erin in 3rd and Samuel in 1st. Where does the time go? It really just seems like I blinked my eyes and they were not babies anymore. So no more blinking!

Air Conditioner Issues

If you read my 100th post you would know that one of the things I really love, I mean really love, is air conditioning. I am so thankful to live in the time in which I do. You know, a time when cars have air, most homes have air, restaurants, schools, most buildings have air conditioning. I think I took air conditioning for granted until June 14, 1998. That is when my love/hate relationship with air conditioners began. Dave and I got married on June 13, 1998 and the next morning we were leaving for our honeymoon. We got into the car headed out and realized the air was not working. So you can imagine how HOT it was riding in that car in the middle of June. But we managed and it was a great trip and it gives us a good story to tell. We got back home to our little rental house in Gordo and our air conditioner did not work more than it did. This was a character building experience for me and Dave. Once when the twins(my sisters) came to visit, they were so hot that we went to the grocery store just to cool off. Oh the memories:) So then we moved to the east side of the state. Our central air unit went out and we had to replace it....which was a big chunk of cash!! Now 10 years, almost 11 years later we are still having air issues!!! Every year it seems we need to have our unit repaired. A few years ago we had the repairman out to fix our unit and he found a snake wrapped around the inside of the outside unit. Thankfully it was dead. So here we are again. The beginning of another summer and our air is out. What do you think God is trying to teach me? I guess I haven't gotten it yet. So tomorrow we will have an air repairman come and work on this old unit again. Thankfully today was in the 60's.

Spring Pictures

Wisdom for Today

I was reading one of my favorite blogs today and wanted to share it with you.

Jesus Led With Silence

http://www.praiseandcoffee.com/



Its often hard not to defend ourselves against lies, but Jesus was such a perfect example for us.