New Year's Resolutions

Today, my pastor talked about New Year's Resolutions. Always I've said I'm gonna loose weight. Ok, last year I said I'm gonna get healthy (meaning the same thing). Still the same weight. Oh well! Maybe this year.

Pastor Greg talked about New Year's Resolutions @ what are you gonna do for God this year. If you hadn't thought about it. He asked us to pray what it is in 2009 that God wants us to do for him........ Never really thought about it like that. What an eye opening, ear opening message.

I hope that all of us start to think like that.

Imagine what could be done this year if we all listen to God about what to do this year.

Leslie

Thanksgiving Day

Well it's here and I need to write what I am thankful for:

1. God saving my soul

2. Family- immediate and extended

3. Home

4. Job- in this economy

5. Friends

6. Car

7. Church family

8. Health

9. Food

10. Clothing

11. being able to read (my bible)

I'm sure I could go on and on and on. But I think this will help me begin this day with the correct thought in mind.

Now, I gotta go call my sister, cuz we always talk to each other on the phone while we watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. One day when our kids are grown,we laugh and say we're going to that parade, because we've watched it since we were little.

Thanksgiving

I'm so excited tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I decided to take our pastor's suggestion, that the first thing I do tomorrow is to make a list of what I am thankful for. Before running around to everybody's house, before cooking, etc. I want this to truly be a season of THANKS to God.

WOW what a year

This year I went back to teaching Science. I have really missed teaching the subject that I love. I was able to keep my TV news show. It has become an extra-curricularclass and we meet @ 7:30 a.m. on Mon. & Wed. I am so proud of what we have accomplished in a few weeks

God Speaks

This week as I was sitting home, I began feeling guilty about not ever reading the bible all the way through. Now, for a Southern Baptist gurl. I felt ashamed. I've been lead to believe the bible and have read many books and completed many bible studies..... Anyway, I knew it was God. So I picked up my handy little piece of paper "read the bible through in a year". When I started this a few years ago. I had gotten to I Samuel Chapter 3 or 4. So, I began I Samuel Chapter 1. Now, I'm not talented and can't read many things at once. So I decided to read through the chapters in one book instead of skipping like the paper suggested.
On Sunday, I knew this was God, because, Pastor Williamson started preaching from Acts, about Paul, etc. And we ended up talking about David and Johnathan just what I'd been reading this week.
ISN'T GOD GREAT!

Washington D.C.

Our Beta Club from our school just took a trip April 30-May1 to our Nations Capitol. What a blast to take @ 50 kids who would otherwise never leave our small town to Washington. We were very fortunate, we got to tour the White House. (first time ever for me). AWESOME

GodStop

Ok It seems like I'm having a hard time doing this on Friday. I guess it is the devil. But I'm giving God the glory he deserves even if it's Sat.

My GodStop this week comes throught the eyes of my 14 year old. Last Sun night we were at church and the preacher was preaching from 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 For the LORD himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the LORD in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. The preacher said that it would seem as we just disappeared to those nonbelievers left here on Earth. My son was so amazed. He said does the bible really say we will just disappear and go in the clouds. He was so excited. God is so awesome! My son has been in church his whole life, it's amazing to see how he is maturing into a Godly young man. Praise God!

I do have a prayer request, that I wish anyone who reads this will commit to pray with me about this. I have a very close friend and co-worker who just found out yesterday she has cancer. They're not sure what kind or where. We've committed to pray for a miracle. I know God performs them everyday. We would like to see one done in this life.

GodStop

My GodStop actually came yesterday on Easter. All week long I'd been praying for my husband to go to church with me and the boys. Saturday night he announced he was going. PRAISE GOD!

As you can see from the picture at the side. I also was allowed to take my cousins little boy, he' 3.

Another GodStop, last Sun. night at church a young adult man got saved. It was very emotional. One of the older gentleman was so filled with the Holy Spirit he shouted. My 2 sons have never been in a church service where someone shouted from sheer excitement from the Holy Spirit. I'm happy that they were there to see and share in this event.

God Stop

I apologize for being a little late to God Stop Friday. The last 2 days my TV crew & I have been taping the JCHS Senior Play. I must say it's wonderful.

My GodStop this week is that God is opening doors for my advancement in the education field into administration. When I added this degree @4 years ago, I thought I was just doing in for the pay increase, I guess God had other plans. I didn't think I would be interested, but when they called me for an interview I was overwhelmed with excitement. I don't know how it will turn out, but I lay it all in God's hands. If I'm suppose to get the position, I will. If not, then he's just preparing me for what is to come.

My second GodStop is really for my nephew, I've been praying for him to receive approval from his medical insurance to receive his growth hormone. He's apparently not growing like he should. He is 13 and a foot shorter than my 12 year old. This has really bothered him for sometime. Praise God the drug company called and he's been accepted for a grant. So, he'll receive his medicine whether the insurance pays or not.

God is awesome. I look forward to seeing what he's gonna do each week for me to brag about him.

SNOW

I was so excited to wake up to some snow. Even though it is Sat. morning. I know I'm as bad as my students, I love to get out of school because of snow! But I'm glad to see that Yes, it does still snow here in East Tennessee.

I've heard all my life if you don't like the weather here, just wait around a little while it will change.

This picture I took last Sun. March 2nd. It was beautiful and 70 degrees. My youngest son went fishing off the dock.

Today March 8th my oldest son took this picture as the snow fell. It was beautiful. My youngest tried to snow board when the ground got a little more covered with snow.

God is so Wonderful to delight us all with different kinds of weather.

GodStop Friday

I have 2 GodStops this week.

#1 Praise God- my sons have not wanted to go to SS since we left our previous church. They don't know anybody they said. We'll I made a deal they could sit in my mom's office at church while I attended SS. They agreed. So last Sunday, I left them and went to class and when I met them for church, my oldest said mom I went to SS, but Brody didn't go. Still praying for him though.

#2 We had a great lunch yesterday. However, my 2 aunts were sick and could not attend. My mom, my sister and me had a great time. First time in the past 16 years.

A Special Day

Today would have been my granny's birthday. A couple of months ago. I had a thought, why shouldn't we celbrate Granny's Birthday. So, I called my mom. my sister, and my 2 aunts and asked them could we meet for lunch on this day. Which means we had to rearrange our schedules (Lay out of work) to meet with one another. We've never had such a day like this. I can't wait. My sister is on her way to pick me up. I have a surprise for them. I have a picture that we took 6 years ago of granny, the grandkids & the great grandkids. I had them all a copy made and will give it to them today. I wanted to share this picture with you guys. So, look out Olive Garden, here we come.

I plan to take pictures of us today. This is so cute, because my sons are now 12 & 14. Here they are 6 & 8. Such a precious time.

My GodStop

Today, I've thought about all day what to post. I guess my biggest GodStop this week has to have been when i couldn't sleep Sat @ 2a.m. As some of you know I am a middle school teacher. My principal told me that a class that I dearly love may not be allowed to continue next year. I help 15 14 year olds produce a school news program. I gave up my planning period this year for this class to continue.(The teacher who started this program left our school for a better paying job, imagine that. Anyhow, I was shocked and didn't know how to respond. So God and I talked for quite some time Sat. morning. Monday afternoon I had the opportunity to share with my principal that I would love for this program to continue. I told him that God and I talked and came up with some solutions. He allowed me to share those and he said he'd think and pray about it.

Now, I think my GodStop is that God cares even about the little things in my life that I am passionate about. Also, to be able to have a boss that I can openly say God & I were talking and he jokingly say well that's why he was busy when I was trying to talk to him at the same time. I'm very fortunate and blessed.

The last thing that I would like to share as another GodStop is that while I was studying my SS lesson the other night and it was talking about Timothy's mother and grandmother teaching him about God. It made me very proud that my own mother and grandmother made sure that I knew who God was. One of my fondest memories of my granny(whose in heaven now), we would all go to bed and she would sit in the living room and read a chapter from the big family Bible every night aloud to all of us. What a legacy she left.

Praise God for Godly men and women who brought me up to love the LORD.

Understanding From God

As I was studying my SS lesson last night, the LORD really helped me understand a few things that I thought might help someone else. We read 2 Timothy 4:1-4In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage-with great patience and careful instruction, for the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine, Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

A church that I used to attend some things happened and it was like the leaders turned their ears away from the truth or didn't care to hear it. I felt like they were surrounding themselves with people who would think like them instead of listening to scripture and reasoning. This incident has deeply hurt my family. My boys don't want to go to SS at our new church.

I pray that God will use this verse to help me teach my family that we are to (as the authors of my SS lesson put it) "declare the truths of God's Word even when it is not convenient, & we must endure long suffering, for God's enemies constantly will test our resolve and try to keep us from sharing the gospel."

Leslie

A Word from God

This past weekend I had been praying for a friend who is having a rough time right now. Her husband is being witnessed to and being persuaded to attend a different kind of church. We believe in the virgin birth, Jesus died and rose again, etc. God has used her once to fend off the spirit of these people. As the elders were at her home trying to get her to join their church, saying that we were in heaven with Jesus before we came to Earth...... God spoke to her and told her to open your mouth and I'll give you the words. She began asking questions, the elders couldn't answer.
Long story short, I felt God wanted me to tell her that she has to be the spiritual leader of her family now. Apparently, he's grasping for something ( I think it is because he's surrendered his call to preach and he's not doing that). She said she didn't like being the leader of anything. I told her she owes this to her 11 year old daughter. She deserves to be around Godly people other that her parents, she needs mature christian influences in her life.
Please join me in praying that God will make her want to be the leader for her family. Also, that she and her daughter can be used of God to show the man of the house where his focus should be " ON GOD"


Leslie

God Stop

I'm so excited to post my God Stop for this week. For about 2 years I've prayed for God to move people out of my life who are such a hindrance to me. Thursday, God revealed to be that this might be coming true. I praise God in advance for what he's doing in my life.

My GOD Stop
This past Saturday, my sons had a wreck on their 4 wheeler. My oldest broke his arm. This has crushed him. As he plays baseball year round. It's killing him. Praise God it was only a broken arm.
On the way to the local ER I called my sister, she works for the local 911, to ask how do i get him into the ER quickly he's in a lot of pain. She called the ER, there was no Orthopedic on call. She said go to Children's. We got there about 5:40, after good medication and several x-rays, they confirmed his radius was broken in his growth plate. However, the doctor said you're in luck, the doctor that is coming in at 7:00 has the certification to set his broken bone. Luck I think not. God directed us to that hospital.
Thank you LORD