Yes! I am blessed!

A few of my dearest blessings!!!

     Some time ago, I mention I wanted to write a post about what being blessed meant someday. I will do that at some point but for now I am under some time constraints because I am still working full time and taking three college classes. This of course is why my blogging fell off these last three months. I have so much I want to blog about, just not enough time. I must say though; being in school this last year I have learned so much about time management and how to really prioritize.  I miss blogging so I thought maybe I could combine school and blogging. I write quite a bit for my classes, some for homework and some for me personally. This morning as I was work on some homework I thought I might pull out an old discussion question, tweak it for the blog and post it. This is from one of the classes I am taking now called Receiving from God. The discussion question was:

Do you believe you’re blessed? What is your belief based upon – the things you have or the Word of God? Please justify/explain your answer.

     I grew up in a denomination that certainly knew the overall account of the Bible and had knowledge of certain key and foundational truths in the Bible. Though it breaks my heart to see the bondage some of those in that denomination live in because they will not free themselves from legalistic doctrine and enjoy their walk with the Holy Spirit in them, I am quite thankful that at least I did grow up in a denomination that taught salvation, Christ crucified and resurrected and did focus on memorizing scripture. I was saved in that church and just as God promised, the Word put in me back then is still in my remembrance and  since it does not come back void it is producing fruit in my life. Having said that I will say God is good and His Word reiterates that over and over and over. Throughout scripture we see a loving God reaching out to a rebellious people all the while just trying to bless them. Nothing has changed, man still rebels against God, but God does not change, He is still trying to get the blessings He promised us actualized in our lives. 

     I think for us to know we are blessed, we must know God because to know Him is to know His mercy, grace and goodness. When I say “know” I mean the kind of knowing that really perceives, understands and realizes in a revelation sort of way, the kind of knowing you get by personally encountering God’s goodness. If we do not know God’s mercy, grace and goodness, we can not truly trust Him. If you don’t trust someone you are not likely to receive from them, especially those unseen things you must receive by faith. If you do not trust your friend, child or spouse to tell you the truth, when they tell you they have done or not done something you will doubt them and not receive what they are saying ~ even if it is the truth. I love football. I am so ready to see those Packers on the field again. Every time I see Greg Jennings or Donald Driver put everything they have into putting themselves into a position to receive that ball on a pass so they can take it to the goal for a touch down, I think how I want to be that kind of aggressive receiver of all God’s blessing, all He has for me.

     Yes!! I am blessed because I am a descendent spiritually of Abraham and God says all of the blessings for Abraham were for me as His child. I am blessed because I have given my life to Jesus and by the Holy Spirit He lives in me. That is such an amazing blessing, to have the Holy Spirit of God living in me!  And, I have welcomed the Holy Spirit to freely and at His pleasure operate in me and through me. What do I base I my belief on? Well, I have seen it first hand over and over in my life, God’s blessing that is. I am speaking of blessings that could not be manufactured at the hands of man. Historically we have seen God’s faithfulness to His covenant in scripture, Genesis through Revelation. But most of all, because God said so in the Word He left me, the Word He sealed with His own Son’s blood. And that is plenty good enough for me.

Psalm 119:50  “...For Your Word has given me life."

Greetings!

I have been gone from posting on my blog far too long. There is much I want to write about, but I am going to condense so that I can just jump back in. If I were to set everything to writing in this post I suspect it would be too long and not make for enjoyable reading.

Jon and I looked for months for the neighborhood and house we wanted to make our home in. Needless to say, that endeavor was bathed in prayer. Of course I approached it much like I do everything else, methodically, with type A decisiveness, and with determination. I have to say though, we were listening to and following the leading of the Holy Spirit, and that is how our decision was made. We did after months of house hunting, with a wonderful couple that do real estate together, find the home we were looking for. We bought our home the first week of April, and moved in that next weekend. After living here in this neighborhood and home, it is clear to me that while we were diligent and persistent and did all we knew to do, it was in fact the Lord that brought this home and Jon and I together. We contemplated building a home, and our next and most likely last home we will build. But this was the home for us. The layout of the home suits our lifestyle perfectly. There are a number of just “small things” that are perfect in this home for Jon and I. The location is very comfortable as far as where each of us work. The setting is a wonderful neighborhood with the great neighbors on our lane. There are two large malls in Oklahoma City, and one of them is very close by with the other less than 20 minutes away. Anything you can imagine in the way of shopping, eating and recreation, and everything we need is so close by. Yet, if you go in the opposite direction of all the shopping, churches, eateries, recreation, etc., you are in beautiful spacious country.

I want to go into just a small bit of detail on one aspect of moving into this house as I suspect it will prove to be future blogging material. This aspect of living in this particular house, in this neighborhood, we could have had no way of knowing. This is where how good God is really shines through. Before half of the U~Haul truck was emptied, the lady cater~corner across the street brought over her version of a Black Forest Cake for us to enjoy. While dropping off the cake she gave us a printed list of nearly every family on the lane, complete with phone numbers and email addresses. The next day, the woman on one side of us came over with a hardy welcome wanting to make sure we knew if we ever needed anything to let her know and that she is home most of the time as she has a home business. Within two days we were visited yet again. This visitor from the lane wanted to give us information about events the neighbors do throughout the year. The ladies have a Spring High Tea. Summer brings a backyard neighborhood barbeque and little later in the Summer an ice cream social where everyone makes ice cream and gets together for a frozen yummy feast. Autumn brings a chili bake off and the holidays bring a Christmas party with a fun gift exchange. I may have missed something here as I am new, but you get the idea. Within the week of moving in, I was invited to the Spring High Tea where I would meet the ladies of ******** Lane, which I did. I must comment here on the authenticity of the High Tea. The woman that does this every year is very familiar with proper tea etiquette and displays it beautifully. What a treat and delicious blessing that was! I have made some good friendships with these women, two in particular. More on those later... I will be here for a while. Suffice it to say, Jon and I are very happy here!

I have some interesting things to post about, complete with photos, but I will do those in later posts so as to keep this catching up shorter. I will share this with you though. In the weeks following the initial move~in weekend, I had the long and laborious task of scrubbing everything, lining shelves and preparing the house so that I could just put things away... a huge task in itself even with my overly thorough organizing, packing and labeling. Working full time left only a few hours in the evenings and weekends. I worked at it for five weeks straight before I stopped to do anything else. I will of course be painting, making window dressings, shopping for bedroom and bathroom linens and pieces of furniture for different rooms, but short of that, the house is almost done. What I mean to say is that the garage has little left in it to put away. Gardening and yard work has been at a minimum. Some pruning and little planting has happened. As I redecorate I will take photos and share my progress. I am very excited to get about the business of making this blessing of a house, our home.

By late May, most work around the house had come to a stop, and by June 10th and since then work around the house has been at a standstill. I have debated sharing this next part for a number of reasons. But, now that the worst of it is over I am going to go ahead. By the time we moved in here I was already seeking medical advice for something I had struggled with since the beginning of 2004. And truth be told, discomfort had set in some years before that. After one week of packing and moving while not missing any work, then five weeks of cleaning and unpacking and not missing any work, the situation became too much to bare. On June 10th, the problem was fixed in surgery. I must tell you, I felt better the day after surgery in the hospital than I had for years, and definitely for the last six months. Day after tomorrow marks four weeks and I will go back to the doctor for my post~op appointment. I have been off work since surgery and expect to go back Thursday or possibly the following Monday. I am pondering the notion of blogging about the things I have discovered during this medical adventure. I am leaning toward doing so just to share information you may be interested in regarding all of this and, maybe getting valuable information I am sure some of, if not all or you ladies could share with me. We will leave that for another post though.

Please forgive me for not posting and being away for a while. I have tried to focus on recovery. They say the better you tend to recovery in the first month, the better your overall success will be. I have stayed up on all of your blogs. Actually, it has been in reading some of the things you have posted that has made my down time more enjoyable.

The other thing I will say here is that in this time of not being able to do much physically, I have spent time working on a Bible Study God laid on my heart quite some time ago. I am not done with it, and in fact it seemed the more I did the more I found to do. But, God has given me clear direction on where He wants me to go with this and that has been my biggest obstacle. It has been in spending quiet time before Him, and diligent time in His Word that the Holy Spirit has been able to get through to me and show me what I am to focus on. The busyness of working and trying to do all that is needed to be done day by day, week in and week out, prevented that. With the direction I have now, I will even be able to use the time on my breaks at work to work on this project. I am so very excited about what God is showing me.

It is good to be back blogging! It is good to be back and functioning physically! Life is just good... period.

‘nuff said for now.

Much love and......