In His Word Wednesday- Heartily for the Lord

Colossians 3: 23 And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as to the Lord, and not unto men.

It is so easy to want to please men, and even easier to want to please ourselves. I can't tell you how many times during a day I think of myself, and it keeps me from giving my best to God. We know from Colossians here that God wants us to do everything heartily for him. Not for men, and not for ourselves. How much better would our marriage, and our parenting, or our friendships, and relationships with family be...if we took this verse more to heart. If everything we ever did or said was for the pleasure and delight of our savior, and not for any other reason! I think we would see a level of joy in our lives that we are not accustomed too.

I don't know about you, but when I am working for others, or for myself, I often find myself lacking joy because it never seems to be quite right. It's easy to let yourself down, or to let others down. It's easy for others to let us down. But, if we are working only for the praise of our savior, then we know that He can see our hearts, and He will be pleased with our efforts.

Lord, I pray that you will help me to remember daily to do the work you have called me to do, and to do it only for you, not for others, or myself. Give me a servants heart, and remind me daily of all the things that you want me to be doing, so that I can do them heartily as unto you. Thank you for your Word, and thank you for guiding my steps. Help me to be a good example to my children every day of a mother who works heartily for the Lord.

Join Megan today for more In His Word Wednesday.

Check out my new blog..oh..and apologies!

Hello to everyone! I know I have been less than diligent in my blog posting lately. Life around here has been quite crazy with catching up. After being down in Indianapolis for a week, and really still getting used to our school year to begin with...I have neglected my poor blogs. I doubt anyone has been pining away for me..but I still thought I should apologize. Priorities often have to be made, and sometimes the things we enjoy the most get put at the bottom of the list. As things are starting to settle down a bit, I am again attempting to start posting regularly on my blogs.

I started up a new blog yesterday for the other thing that I really enjoy doing...photography. I am working to learn to get better at it, and I would even love to be able to some day make some money doing it. But, until that time I wanted to have a place to share what I am learning, and the pics that I feel are the better ones that I have either taken myself, or the ones that Rob has taken (he also enjoys photography), that I have fixed up! If you are at all interested in photography and can give me any feedback, I would love for you to check it out! Or....if you just like to see pictures, mainly of cute children and nature...than please head over and follow me! It can be found here: http://elizphotos.blogspot.com/.

I have been learning many things from the Lord in recent months that I look forward to sharing again on my blogs, and of course, my children are always doing things that are worth bragging (I mean sharing :-)) about!

You will notice if you visit this blog, that there are some issues with my sidebar, that are kind of...annoying. A very kind brother in the Lord who knows WAY more about computer stuff then I do, is trying to help me fix it, and hopefully that will be resolved. If not, I hope that you would continue to visit me, simply for content and not be concerned about how it looks!

I will be talking to you all again real soon! Blessings in the Lord today!

Elizabeth

I Heart Faces "candid"

This weeks theme for I Heart Faces is candid. I had a hard time choosing which picture to use for this one, but I finally decided to use this picture of Audrey as we were just leaving the beach a few summers ago. She was peeking around the van with her towel wrapped around her, and I captured the shot. This is one of my favorite pics of Audrey when she was real little.

update on my Dad

I just wanted to give an update on how my Dad is doing. He went down to Indianapolis on Monday for a second attempt at the surgery to remove his pancreatic cancer. The surgeon believes he was successful in removing all the cancer. Dad has been in the hospital down there recovering all week, and he is doing remarkably well. The doctors are actually amazed at how well he is doing. There are tests being done on his tumor, and the lymph nodes that were removed, that will tell us more about whether any cancer might remain in his body, and what the future might hold as far as prognosis. We are still awaiting the results of those tests.

Dad is in good spirits, which is such a relief for my brother and I, and we are hoping he will be released to come home in a couple of days. This last week was challenging as my family was seperated for the week. I was staying down in the Kokomo area all week with my four oldest kids, and driving back and forth to Indy every day from there with the kids. Rob and the littlest ones were up here staying with his parents, and Rob had to work a lot also. It was a rough week, but we are all back together for now, and if Dad continues to be well, we will likely not seperate again, and hopefully just bring dad home here soon.

Thank you everyone who has been praying for our family through all of this. The prayers were definitely felt this last week!!

I Heart Faces- Contemplative

This weeks challenge for I Heart Faces is Contemplative. This is a shot I took of Lillian at the local Tea Party that we attended on the Fourth of July. She was just standing all by herself, and you can just see the contemplation in her face! I also love her hands in this photo! I actually had a few pictures of Lily that I couldn't decide between..she's such a beautiful subject :-)!

Join I Heart Faces for more great contemplative pictures!

At the Well- Change and Clinging to God

At the Well today the discussion is on change. Much like the author of todays post, I struggle with change that I cannot control. Oh, I like to change my hair, or my furniture. I like to change things for myself, or my family. But...I really hate when change is thrust upon me! However, many times in our Christian walk, God, not only wants change in our lives, but He often demands it. He will often allow circumstances of tremendous change in our lives to grow us, and make us more like Him. Some of the changes are scary ( a new job, a new baby, a new house or church), and some are just very sad (losing a friendship or family member, or moving far away). God doesn't ask these things of us just to make us mad, or frustrate us. He does it because He loves us. He knows that learning to deal with change and trust Him through all of it is one of the most important things for our lives.

Many Christians in other places in the world have to live with continual changes in their lives, because of their faith. They may lose their homes, their jobs, or their family members, simply because they believe something that is not too popular! I often remind myself that we may also be in that situation in America some day and I would contend it is happening in small doses already. If we can't learn to deal with changes in our lives, we may falter when it comes down to standing up for the Lord. If we can't handle change, we may miss out on a tremendous blessing in our lives, because we disobey when He calls us to do something simply because we were afraid.

When I think about change it brings to mind for me..stress! Thinking about stress leads me to think on Psalm 23... The Lord is my Shepard, I shall not want.

He makes me to lie down in green pastures;

He leads me beside still waters.

He restores my soul;

He leads me in paths of righteousness

For His names sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley

of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil;

For you are with me;

Your rod and your staff they comfort me.

You prepare a table for me in the presence of mine enemies;

You annoit my head with oil;

My cup runs over.

Surely goodness and mercy

shall follow me

All the days of my life;

And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Read it carefully, it is a wonderful reminder that no matter what kind of change God brings into our lives, whether it's good change or bad, it is for a purpose! Everything that God brings into our lives is there to serve His purpose for us. So, if you are experiencing a big change, and it has you scared to death. Read over this Psalm again and remember that God is there, walking with you, and using you for a plan that will last for eternity! As I wrote this Psalm just now, it touched my heart, and reminded me that the big changes that may be surrounding my family are for God's purposes, and that I have nothing to fear in allowing them to happen. I hope this will do the same for you today!

A Little Frustrated

I'm a little frustrated with my blog. For some reason it has been doing some really strange things, and I can't figure out why, or how to fix it. The sidebar is stuck on the bottom instead of on the side where it belongs. I've tried taking out a couple of things to see if they were causing the problems, but to no avail. If anyone has any thoughts on why my blog is doing this, and how I could fix it...I would love to hear about it. My homeschool blog has had no problems, so I'm not sure what is going on with this one! I would like to get back to posting more on it again, but I want to fix it first.

Any ideas would be wonderful!!