My Blessing Prayer For You Today

“The LORD bless you and keep you;

The LORD make His face shine on you,

And be gracious to you;

The LORD lift up His countenance on you,

And give you peace.” 

Numb. 6:24-26

Boys, Boys, Boys

There are still several absolutely precious boys waiting for their families to find them HERE on ASIA’s site.

Could one of these darling boys be your son?  Let’s spread the word for these boys and the others who wait and help their mommy and daddy find them!!!

Wordless Wednesday...

Prescription For Joy

(Picture by Karlie, edited by me)

I have been thinking on a verse for a few days now, wondering at it and asking the LORD to teach me from it....

“For thus said the LORD God, the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; In quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” (Isaiah 30:15)

Our Lord knows us, and He desires what is best for us!  

Do you need strength to do what is required of you?

Are you feeling heavy-hearted, weighed down?  

One of the LORD’s most precious words of love to us is sprinkled through out the Bible...return to Him. I am learning to say to my soul “Return to your Lover”.  There are many things in a day that may distract me or cause me to “look” another way...may be a stress, or a problem, a worry, or struggle...so moment by moment I want to remind myself where I should be.  Another thing is that when I am focusing on those stresses, problems, worries or struggles, I am most likely not feeling the “rest” that I am longing for.  That is because I am trying to fix things and not submitting my heart and soul to Him who loves me...which is why I must first tell myself to “return” to the LORD because it is in Him and Him alone that I will find rest.  

Here’s an example...

I am feeling troubled as a mother by some training issues with a few little ones.  I feel tired and weary as I seek the best way to handle some things.  However, if I tell myself to “return” to the LORD, I am not ignoring the problem, but I returning to Him with it, talking to Him about it, handling it FROM my relationship with Him, instead of handling it by myself.  Obviously, this is a more restful place, because I am submitting willingly and lovingly to Him and I will find rest and be saved....

be saved from what?  My own sins for one.  Doing it My way;  seeking what I want to happen in a particular situation; my expectations of what SHOULD happen.  I can tell you from lots of experience (confession here), that when I am trying to get things the way I want them (even good things), I am not feeling so restful...it’s HARD to try to be god and solve the problems of my world!!!  When I return to the LORD though, and make myself rest in Him, I can be sure that I will be saved!!!

HOWEVER,  there is an important MORE in this verse;

Remember, I asked you (and me) if you need strength to do what is required?

Then we must also seek it IN quietness and IN trust.  

Have you ever wanted a “white knight” to come in and save you and just solve all your problems?  We all have!!!!  I have always loved, LOVED these words that my dad has said to me many times in my life - “It’ll be all right”.  What ever I was going through, I felt better because my dad had assured me that things would be O.K.  I have come through a few hard things, as I know you have, and I can tell you, I hung onto those words spoken by my daddy like they were a life line.  In fact, they mean so much to me that when we first were married, I was frustrated at Steve because he didn’t say those words to me when I needed to hear them...and I felt scared!!!  He has learned, and I have even told him that I needed to hear him say that things would be O.K.  See, I BELIEVED my dad when he said things would be ok...I trusted him, and I found strength to keep going.  

We must be like that child in me that believed and stills believes that my dad can and will make things OK;

only we must believe it of our Heavenly Father.  We must rely upon God with a holy confidence that He can do what He will and will do what is best.  And this is our strength!

I called this post “Prescription For Joy” because I believe the LORD wants to fill us with His joy, and I believe we will begin to find that joy as we remind ourselves to “return” to the LORD, may be SEVERAL times a day (I have and do so almost hourly sometimes!!!).

Did you notice the two titles that I used for the LORD in this post?

Lover and Father.  

That is the cry of my heart....to be loved by my Heavenly Lover and to be cared for by my Heavenly Father.  

Let’s start returning....

What A Great Day

 To celebrate Caresse’s 13th, we started the day with her favorite breakfast made by daddy - pancakes, whipping cream, and strawberries.  For lunch we ate at a yummy mexican restaurant and then enjoyed a Lantern Cave Tour at Cave Of The Winds.  

 We had a wonderful time and then came home for daddy’s special steak!!  

As all parents know, it is so hard to believe how fast our children grow up.  This little darlin’ was born in our bedroom (we were blessed to birth two of our children at home), after a very difficult and life threatening pregnancy.  I have never regretted giving birth to this one, even though it was hard getting her here.  Caresse is our “Beloved Victory”, as her name means and I am so thankful to the LORD for giving her to us. 

Chip-In Up

On MY...What a day...I have pictures of the carnage, but will have to try to show that later to you.  
I wanted to show you something else right now!!!!
Yes, our chip-in is up...so would you please share the word and help us raise the money to bring our little darlin’s in China home...adding our little girl will require at least an additional $10,000.00;
but that’s not what I wanted to show you!  Are you ready?

Yes, here they are...Asher and if she wants, we 
would like to give her the name Noelani - beautiful 
girl from heaven. 
Our little girl had a family that came for her to adopt her, but then they were unable to do so.  Our little girl went back to the orphanage that day believing that her forever family had not yet found her.  This is as much as I feel I should share publicly about her story at this time, but I can tell you what the LORD did to bring her to us!!!  When we fell in love with our little Asher, we also noticed a little girl that captured our hearts.  We were unable to adopt two at this time because of policies, etc.  So we began to pray that she would find her family.  We advocated for her and many families looked at her file...yet, it was obvious that her family had not found her yet.  We continued to pray for her.  Long God story turned short, we had always asked if we could consider adopting this precious girl, but because of various things, it just wasn’t really possible.  Then the week before Thanksgiving, we were able to look at her file, and, what can I say...we knew....we were hers and she was ours.  We sent in more paper work and prayed for pre-approval...and received it.  
So what seemed impossible, well, with the LORD all things are possible, and I have noticed that the LORD will bring His children home when we pray for them.  So, in faith we started out adopting one, and in faith we will bring home two....
ARE THEY NOT BEAUTIFUL!!!  Oh my, I love them so, and I am scared...
but that is a different post.
I believe that the LORD will bring them home and create a family for them...
and I am the blessed woman who has been chosen to mother these little darlins.  
Please pray for us and for them!!!!

Wordless Wednesday...

...cuz, who needs words when you are in love.  (It’s a lot of pictures...I know, I just couldn’t help myself)