Thursday, October 29, 2015

Bacon: Five Minute Friday

Another week, another chance to write on a one-word prompt for only five minutes. We set timers, type quickly, and let it flow without criticism. Then, we link-up our posts so we can read others' posts and they read ours and we have a community that grows from one word each week.
Five Minute Friday.

Go!

Pop! Sizzle! Crackle! Mmmm. The warmth of the oven as I broil bacon gently wafts up around my feet and legs and embraces me like an old friend. The aroma of the savory meat gradually heating up to delicious crisp protein causes my mouth to water.

From the time I can remember, our Saturday morning routine began with my Dad whistling or singing in the kitchen. I can still smell the lemon-scented dish soap as he cheerfully cleaned dishes, wiped down the counters and simultaneously cooked a full "big" breakfast for the family.
After our breakfast, we all had chores to complete. A family of seven can quickly clean a week's worth of mess, when working together.
Often he would play music. Some vintage Maranatha Praise Strings or Keith Green "Songs for a Shepherd". Once in a while, Harry Chapin crooned "30,000 Pounds of Bananas" and "The Cats in the Cradle".

I always loved our time on the weekends with my Dad. I realize now, as a school teacher, how much my mom needed his help. My own husband carries on the same tradition of getting up and cooking us a hot breakfast on Saturday mornings. We have eggs, potatoes from our garden, and bacon. (other weekends, we'll have sausage instead).

I'm a little more conscientious about the bacon I purchase. It's usually hardwood smoked, uncured, without nitrates, and costs more, I'm sure, than what I grew up eating, but deep down, it's the love that gets cooked into the bacon that makes it so special.

I hope and pray that my girls have as rich a relationship with their Daddy as I had.
During the week, he and my mom were both "bringing home the bacon", but on the weekend, they were still a team. His servant's heart was something that showed his love and respect for my mom. I am blessed to have a husband with that same heart.

And, as the president of the "Super Swine" 4-H club, bacon was a big part of my husband's life.

Tonight, I am blessed by bacon.

~Tammy


Thursday, October 22, 2015

Joy: Five Minute Friday

Another week, another chance to write on a one-word prompt for only five minutes. We set timers, type quickly, and let it flow without criticism. Then, we link-up our posts so we can read others' posts and they read ours and we have a community that grows from one word each week.
Five Minute Friday.

Go!



This week's word is "Joy". What a fun word! Truly, it's pretty difficult to say "joy" in the English language without the corners of your mouth turning up. And, it happens to be my OneWord365 for the year. Joy, however, is not equal to happiness. In our language, we always equate happiness with joy, but sometimes joy is a choice. I am resolving to make the choice of joy, so I combine those three words and get re-jo-ice.

There are lots of verses encouraging us to rejoice in everything. I think it comes down to that deep, deep, non-temporary part of us.
I've finally figured out that joy is as simple as counting backwards from five.

"Will this matter in...
5 hours
4 days
3 weeks
2 months
1 year?"

And, if it's a temporary upset or annoyance that will have no bearing in the long-term, I can choose to let it pass. I must take a deep breath and relax. I will not let Satan steal my joy.

This summer a movie called "Inside Out" was released. It's a children's film all about the struggle for control inside the mind of an 11 year old girl. She has five main emotions, and Joy is at the head of the control. She's joined by Sadness, Fear, Disgust and Anger.

So during school spirit week, I dressed up as "Joy".





We were supposed to dress as superheros.
I explained to the students that the power to bring Joy is very important and a supernatural gift.

What brings you joy? For me, it's causing others to smile and laugh. To solve problems. To bring peace. To encourage somebody that's weary. To build others up.

The best part about bringing joy to others is that it gets your focus off of those non-joyful temporary circumstances (or permanent ones) for the moment, so you can focus on what really matters. Eternity. Will people be drawn to Jesus because they met you?


Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. (James 1:2-4) (NLT)

"For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!" (2 Corinthians 4:17) (NLT)

Choose joy, my friends. We may be tired, or weary, or weepy for no reason, but those are not our truest truths. Our bodies are temporary and dying, but our spirits are eternal. Let the Joy of the Lord lift us up like it did for Nehemiah and the Israelites rebuilding the temple. It is in His Strength and Power that we can shine with joy when we're facing the bleakest moments of our lives.

~Tammy

P.S. Please tell me your url or linkup number at Kate's blog this week so I can find your post too! :)



Thursday, October 15, 2015

Green: Five Minute Friday

Another week, another chance to write on a one-word prompt for only five minutes. We set timers, type quickly, and let it flow without criticism. Then, we link-up our posts so we can read others' posts and they read ours and we have a community that grows from one word each week.
Five Minute Friday.

Go!

Green is my favorite color. I was so super excited when this became the prompt for our week! You see, for me, green represents life, strength, vigor, hope, energy, everything! Two of my three daughters have green birthstones, which makes my mother's jewelry absolutely delightful.

And writing to you on life? Well, where do we begin?
Let's begin at John 10:10. This was the immediate thought after green represents life.
"A thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance."


I have come to give you life and that abundantly...even though I am truly a winter bird and love the beautiful snow, the green of spring is something to behold. Someday I'll visit Ireland. That is my long lost musical love. I'll quickly slip into a Celtic accent when I worship with Robin Mark on my CDs from the early turn of our century.

Recently I was transported to that moist but dewy glowing atmosphere while hiking some beautiful waterfalls. They're all on Highway 138 in Southwestern Oregon. There are more than we stopped to see, but I included some of my best photographs for you.

I imagine Heaven as green and luscious with beauty all over. Soft green grass under my feet and fresh mountain air as I stare out over the landscape. (I am Colorado-born, so there's a natural love for the peaks of mountains inside me.)

Sometimes we lack life. We lose luster. We become dull and dry and weary. Then our beautiful Savior leads us back to the Psalms. Since September, I've been journeying through the Psalms. First 121-150 in September. Now it's 1-31 this month. And in a week? Psalm 23 will be here.

He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul;





Does your soul need green, peaceful pastures? Empty of cares and full of life? Can you listen to the babbling brooks and restore your soul?
In our study through the book of Revelation right now, Jesus' voice is described as thundering waters. Waterfalls and oceans must be an earthly representation for us.


Praying that you can take a few minutes this week to allow Him to soothe you into a warm, sunny summer day where you lay on green grass and let the sun warm your very soul.
I keep this 40 second video on my phone for those moments I need to still myself. The water was so loud that I was not aware of anything but the water. It was so large I couldn't take it all in. God is like that. He's all around us and He's everywhere we're looking and He fills our senses in ways we cannot describe!

Find me on Facebook and you can join our journey through Psalms. :)
(and list your url or linkup number if you comment so I can visit you too)

~Tammy

 
"In The Beauty of Holiness" ~Robin Mark

 
 
"Jesus, All For Jesus" ~Robin Mark



Thursday, October 8, 2015

Trust: Five Minute Friday

Another week, another chance to write on a one-word prompt for only five minutes. We set timers, type quickly, and let it flow without criticism. Then, we link-up our posts so we can read others' posts and they read ours and we have a community that grows from one word each week.
Five Minute Friday.

Go!

(I did edit a couple dates for clarification, so you can call me a cheater if you need to. :) )





I'm so blessed to have some life experience to pour into this week's blog. My Oneword365 for 2014 was "trust". At the time, I did not feel that I really trusted God. My head knew, my heart knew, but connecting the two was still absent a piece.

Part of it was dealing with the grief of a planned pregnancy that only lasted seven days. Part of it was the great challenge of parenting a gifted daughter whose spiritual enemy wants to crush her. She has a gift of prayer and God has huge plans for her. I hit rock bottom that year. In April 2014, I told God. I was done. I wanted Him to take me and give her a mommy that would treat her like He would.

I didn't want Him to trust me. I didn't trust me at that point. Instead, He began to show me that if I would trust Him, then He would equip me to be her mommy-and a very good one at that.
And if you want to read more about that...God used Taylor Swift to help me, of all things!

Trust means yielding all control. Control of the outcome. Control of the process. You have nothing. You must COMPLETELY trust and give up EVERYTHING.

Remember that verse, "in everything give thanks"?? Christine Caine recently said in a devotional, "Note that it says "IN" everything, not "FOR" everything.

When we praise with our lips though we feel cursed, we defeat our enemy. We rise above his summary of the situation and lift our eyes to the redeemer of all. For it is for His glory that we endure, and exist and persevere.
Somehow, by the end of 2014, He had transformed me and I could actually say I trusted Him. Completely.

Last week I had some anxiety facing a situation. I'm not normally anxious, but I was shaken to the core with this one and not knowing the outcome.

My beautiful God then called my attention to a bright yellow paper with bold black letters,

"The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?"
-Hebrews 13:6

(my girls brought it home from Sunday school this summer and it was mixed with other papers that morning)

If man kills me, it means God used me to the maximum and I'm released from my learning experience.
If man does not kill me, my God is protecting me through each step and He trusts me to experience things that will bring glory and honor and praise to Him.

I do not understand pain and suffering, but am sure that we are also unaware of times we've been spared some awful things.

Though they slay me, yet will I praise Him.

And, just because I needed a powerful praise song this week, here's a gospel version of a powerful hymn. May it encourage you that God is indeed worth Trusting!!




Thursday, October 1, 2015

Family: Five Minute Friday

Another week, another chance to write on a one-word prompt for only five minutes. We set timers, type quickly, and let it flow without criticism. Then, we link-up our posts so we can read others' posts and they read ours and we have a community that grows from one word each week.
Five Minute Friday.

Go!

Tonight's prompt is "Family". I come from a larger family. I remember my first Christmas away from "home". I was a newlywed with my husband, his sister, and his parents. I kept feeling like there was somebody missing. We've now been married 11 years. His sister married her husband a year after we were married. We have three girls and they have three boys, all fairly close in age. We had two overlapping pregnancies.

Though I have his family only 100 miles from our home (my parents and most of my siblings are over 400 miles away), our "family" where we live is our church family. My daughters are at a Christian school where I've been so blessed to teach this year. That is another part of my "family".
My third family has come from the relationships that have sparked after beginning the Five Minute Friday journey in January. Through reading other peoples' blogs and leaving comments, and the same receipt of reads and comments, I have gotten to know some beautiful souls. I will definitely forget some if I try to list them...but you know that you touch my heart, friends. :)

These people will still be with me in eternity. As my friend Kristy refers to it, "eternal friends". But for some of these relationships, there is such a deep bond that it's not just friendship. It's family. When we rally around each other in prayer, we bond. We become family.

I've had friends in crisis recently. We spread the word and lifted them up and checked in frequently and they're finally coming home after a week and a half. We have become their family.

Family is who you do life with. Your "life group" at church can become your family. Ours has. We help each other with meals, moving, babysitting, and just listening when we need a friend.

I'm so thankful for the growing family that I'm a part of. There are so many people that I have yet to meet that will be part of my family forever!

And, if you want to keep connecting with me, would you list your url or linkup number when you comment? I won't be able to find you otherwise since bloglovin doesn't give me a blogger option. I guess wordpress is the best. Wish I'd have known that in 2011 when I started. :D


~Tammy