Month: January 2010

Categories
God Life Music Radio

My Fantastic Journey: It’s In The Lyrics

After more than 40 months on this fantastic journey there are hundreds and hundreds of inspirational pop, rock, and hip hop tunes that define this new Life of mine. They are the soundtrack of the light of the Good News that now guides and directs me to my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ – the Almighty One !

Here’s a song that gives me the chills whenever I hear it, for it was one of the biggest hits of its time back during the very early portion of my fantastic journey as I was slowly building its fragile foundation. It’s a song that tells it like it is:

I was made to Love You
I was made to find You
I was made just for You
Made to adore You
I was made to Love
And be Loved by You

You were here before me
You were waiting on me
And You said You’d keep me
Never would You leave me
I was made to Love
And be Loved by You

God created us to Love Him – and all of His great creations – for God Loves us all of his children. He Loves those who believe – and those who don’t yet believe. He will always wait for you to find the light of the day. He will always welcome you to His Kingdom with Loving arms wide open. He will never abandon you. He will always Love you.

It’s in the lyrics:

Categories
Blogging Home Weather

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

I.  As other blogs arrive on the scene, gain in popularity, prosper, peak, diminish in relevance, suffer through neglect, and then disappear into thin air one durable and dependable blog just keeps on churning time and time again. That would be this one – thanks to your continued loyalty and support through the years. You can always count on this blog to deliver fresh new content on a daily basis throughout much of the new year. Every Tuesday night you know how we do it with the flagship weekly series of this blog – a garden variety assortment or ‘Grab Bag’ of my personal thoughts since October of 2007.

II.  Our longest cold spell in a couple of decades continues all across America’s Riviera. (Thank You El Niño !) This morning was the 4TH morning in a row where the low temperature bottomed out in the 40s. That won’t happen tomorrow morning – because we’re dropping down to the 30s instead !  There are a few local TV station weather forecasters that are forecasting temperatures in and around Homestead to drop to the freezing mark or even a few degrees below that with wind chills in the 20s !  My forecast is not quite that extreme. I’m looking at an early-morning minimum temperature of 36°F / 2°C between 6 AM and 8 AM. We’ll see what happens, but one thing is certain. It will definitely be bonechilling COLD !  Bundle up my friends and neighbours. Stay warm.

III.  I finally surrendered to the cold air inside my home late last night as temperatures continued to plummet further towards the lower-60s (at least a dozen degrees below normal for my normally air conditioned home). I turned on my ‘fake’ (reverse-A.C.) heater for the first time since last winter. Of course once the lukewarm air hit the dust on the coils it emitted a rather pungent aroma all throughout my home sweet home. It sort of smelled like burnt low-quality microwave popcorn. I proceeded to saturate much of my home with Oust Air Sanitizer spray, and that eventually made the smell of my home a bit more pleasant – like that of hot blueberry pie cooking in the oven. When I awoke this morning I was not shivering. It felt really nice with that lukewarm air floating all around. It felt so nice that I’m cranking it back on again for an encore tonight.

Be sure to check out my ‘Thursday Night Mini Thoughts’ in just 48 hours !

Categories
Humor

Monday Night Funnies

Farm Kid In The Army

Dear Ma and Pa,

I am well.  Hope you are. Tell Brother Walt and Brother Elmer the Army beats working for old man Minch by a mile. Tell them to join up quick before all of the places are filled.

I was restless at first because you get to stay in bed till nearly 6 a.m. But I am getting so I like to sleep late. Tell Walt and Elmer all you do before breakfast is smooth your cot, and shine some things. No hogs to slop, feed to pitch, mash to mix, wood to split, fire to lay. Practically nothing.

Men got to shave but it is not so bad, there’s warm water. Breakfast is strong on trimmings like fruit juice, cereal, eggs, bacon, etc., but kind of weak on chops, potatoes, ham, steak, fried eggplant, pie and other regular food, but tell Walt and Elmer you can always sit by the two city boys that live on coffee. Their food,  plus yours,  holds you until noon  when you get fed again. It’s no wonder these city boys can’t walk much.

We go on ‘route marches,’ which the platoon sergeant says are long walks to harden us. If he thinks so, it’s not my place to tell him different.  A ‘route march’ is about as far as to our mailbox at home. Then the city guys get sore feet and we all ride back in trucks.

The sergeant is like a school teacher. He nags a lot. The Captain is like the school board. Majors and colonels just ride around and frown. They don’t bother you none.

This next will kill Walt and Elmer with laughing. I keep getting medals for shooting. I don’t know why. The bulls-eye is near as big as a chipmunk head and don’t move, and it ain’t shooting at you like the Higgett boys at home. All you got to do is lie there all comfortable and hit it. You don’t even load your own cartridges. They come in boxes.

Then we have what they call hand-to-hand combat training. You get to wrestle with them city boys. I have to be real careful though, they break real easy. It ain’t like fighting with that ole bull at home. I’m about the best they got in this except for that Tug Jordan from over in Silver  Lake. I only beat him once. He joined up the same time as me, but I’m only 5’6′ and 130 pounds and he’s 6’8′ and near 300 pounds dry.

Be sure to tell Walt and Elmer to hurry and join before other fellers get onto this setup and come stampeding in.

Your loving daughter,
Alice

Categories
God

Life Pointe Church Sunday Morning Tossed Salad

– It was a near freezing cold morning here in Homestead.
– Air temperatures were in the low-40s with wind chills in the upper-30s !
– But it was actually warm and pleasant inside the Flagship Cinemas 14.
– For the first time in a long time I did not attend the first (9 AM) service.
– I mostly hung out with Linda M. at the pier door.
– Linda is as encouraging and inspirational as can be.
– She’s come a long way on her journey in the short time that I’ve known her.
– After hosting the first service several times God blessed me this morning.
– He gave me the opportunity to host the second service, and I ran with it.
– This morning’s Communion Scripture came from Luke 22:14-20 (NLT, 2ND Ed.)
– It’s a brand new month – a brand new year – and a brand new decade.
– God LOVES to make everything brand new again.
– He LOVES to give us all fresh new starts.
– We had a Special Guest Pastor with us this morning.
– He’s a son of God, a husband, a dad, a church planter, and a Pastor.
– He drove over 600 miles yesterday to deliver the Good News of God to us.
– He’s starting up Baypointe Church on the white sands of Panama City Beach.
– He’s Pastor Ben Liles, and he loves Jesus Christ intensely.
– He continued our ‘LoveWorn’ message series.
– Our acceptance of others is a direct reflection of our faith in God.
– How accepting are we of all of God’s children and creations ?
– How intensely do we believe and trust and love Jesus ?

John 1:10-13 (NLT, 2ND Ed.)
10  He came into the very world He created, but the world didn’t recognize Him.
11  He came to His own people, and even they rejected Him.
12  But to all who believed Him and accepted Him, He gave the right to become children of God.
13  They are reborn — not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.

– He was a foreigner – just like we were all once foreigners of God.
– He knows all of us, but how well do we really know Him ?
– Do we know Him only on Sunday mornings, or do we know Him always ?
– I always believed in God, and acknowledged His existence.
– But I didn’t know who He was until 40 months ago when He saved me.
– No matter how deep into the dark you are now God can save you now.
– The enemy is always trying hard to reach you, but God is the only Almighty !

Ephesians 2:12-13 (NLT, 2ND Ed.)
12  In those days you were living apart from Christ. You were excluded from citizenship among the people of Israel, and you did not know the covenant promises God had made to them. You lived in this world without God and without hope.
13  But now you have been united with Christ Jesus. Once you were far away from God, but now you have been brought near to Him through the blood of Christ.

– I’m no longer a foreigner to God, for I’m now a foreigner to this world.
– The world does not dictate to me how I should act and what I should say.
– I’d rather stand up to the world and reject all that it throws at me.
– If the world calls me out as a radical extremist then I concur.
– Jesus Christ was a radical extremist, and I wish to follow Him aggressively.

1 Peter 2:11-12 (NLT, 2ND Ed.)
11  Dear friends, I warn you as “temporary residents and foreigners” to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls.
12  Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when He judges the world.