I've BeenTagged

Schotzy, a friend from Mitford bb, tagged me on her Wings of Eagles blog. I'm to write about five things I love most. Some of you might guess what these will be but I'll put it down in black and white anyway.

1. My salvation through the shed blood of my Savior, Jesus Christ. What a blessing He has given us to enter His throne room through praise of Him. I love singing to Him and about Him.

2. My family, including husband, children, grandchildren, sisters and their families. I love them with my whole heart and know that I can count on them the same way they can count on me. What a blessing it is to have a family who loves each other.

3. I love my church and church family. Having come from a horrible church situation several years ago, I fully understand and appreciate what we have in our church. Our first Sunday there, I walked in, sat down and just took a deep breath. I felt as if I were breathing the exhale of the Holy Spirit and to this day, I feel the same way. I can't imagine going to church anywhere else and won't unless God calls me to somewhere else.

4. I love flowers...I LOVE flowers. I love digging in the dirt and then seeing the flowers of my labor in a few weeks. What a gift God gave us in the beauty of a bloom.

5. I love Saturday morning breakfast at Tommy's Country Ham House in Greenville, SC. I don't know when we got in the habit of having breakfast out on Saturday morning but Tim knows I love it and yes, he spoils me, so I go to The Ham House almost every Saturday that we are in town. What a generous portion of grits... two homemade sausage patties...two scrambled eggs, whole wheat toast with blackberry preserves and a hot cup of coffee to wash it down. No breakfast anywhere compares to Tommy's Country Ham House.

Now I have to tag 5 people:

Diana, my daughter (maybe this will inspire her to REALLY blog)

Kathy, my sis

Amy, my niece

Missy, my niece

Sherry, a new friend


Happy blogging everyone. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do...Martha

A Great Time was Had by All!

Well, the GREAT FAMILY VACATION 2008 was wonderful. We ate and swam and ate and played in the sand/sun and ate and shopped and ate and played Wii! What fun it was to all be together at Surfside.

At the last minute, Maggie decided to stay home and Charlie couldn't make the long trek from Oklahoma City so it was Diana and her family, Kristy and her family and Tim and I. We laughed until we cried and even shed a sad tear or two.

Kate, our 4 year-old extra extrovert was enamored with the 5 year old and 6 year old little girls staying next door to us. The first day there, she wanted to invite them over to swim with her. Made it to the second day and Kristy told Kate it would be fine if the girl's mom and dad said OK. They came over and the first words out of Kate's mouth were, "Look, I can roll my tongue" as she proceeded to show them her trick of rolling her tongue. I thought I would die laughing. Later, as you can see from the pic, Kristy showed us her trick also :).

Family is soooooooo fun to be with. I am so glad that we are a close family and that we enjoy each other's company. We are content to do our own thing and content to be together doing the same things. I love you, family, and hope it won't be long before we can do it again!

A Me-me for Today

Outside My Window... outside our bedroom window, our crape myrtle has gone crazy this year. It is absolutely covered in the most beautiful pinkish purple blooms. Love it! It must really be a HOT and DRY tree. Also the front yard/porch flowers are doing their thing. Beautiful!
I am thinking... Yuck! Just scheduled my colonoscopy for August 4 at 7 a.m. and I DREAD IT already!
I am wearing... a hot pink shirt with black capris and black shoes.
I am going... to Surfside Beach, SC on Friday! YEA!
I am reading... my Bible...nothing else right now but may start something new next week at the beach.
I am hoping... that all goes well....(everybody won't know what this means but God and my sis know).
I am hearing... office sounds: a copier running, a dehumidifier running, my office mate talking on the phone.
Around the house...I will need to do laundry, pack and get ready for vacation.
One of my favorite things...My HE front-loader clothes washer.
A Few Plans For The Rest Of The Week...In addition to working today-Friday, I get a haircut tomorrow afternoon; church tomorrow night; dermatologist Thursday morning; laundry and packing Thursday and Friday; leaving Saturday a.m. for vacation.

Is this a beautiful child or what?

You know, every once in a while a grandma just wants to brag. Isn't this the most precious picture and the most precious little girl? This is 4 year old Kate. I've had the wonderful opportunity of having Kate, her 7 year old brother, Duncan and Meg, 10 (going on 20)years old to stay with us since Wednesday afternoon until this evening. They live in Belo Horizonte, Brazil where their parents are Campus Outreach missionaries. We don't have the opportunity to have them stay with us much since they are so far away so this was a real treat. In addition to being a missionary, Kristy, my daughter, is a children's book author. Each year Highlights Foundation hosts a wonderful conference for children's authors in Pennsylvania. Kris was fortunate to be able to go this year, thus, we were fortunate to be able to keep the children. Tonight we pick Kris up at the airport at 10:45 p.m. so our time with the kids will come to an end. We do look forward to all being together next week at Surfside Beach, SC for a week and that will be loads of fun.

Meantime, I just wanted to "show-off" one precious little girl. Enjoy her pic while I get to love on her for a couple more weeks.

A Bunch of Randomness

None of these things are connected but I thought I'd get my racing thoughts down on paper:

• I really really don't like bad grammar or bad spelling. Please don't use their for they're; accept for except and vice-versa. Please do use I before E except after C. The plural of berry is not berry's; it's not even berrys...it's berries. That brings up another pet peeve. Don't use a plural apostrophe unless it is possessive. The plural of interest is interests not interest's. Don't use fill when you mean feel.


• I love being a grandmother. I've had my grandchildren for a few days this week while parents are out of town and it's been great. We've had FUN. Having young ones in the house this week has "livened up" the place. We went to the community pool yesterday and it was fun to pretend to be young again.


• I love days off work. I've enjoyed yesterday afternoon and today being home with the grandchildren. Not a planned vacation but a spur of the moment "I'm gonna stay home with the kids today."



















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• My flowers are so pretty right now. The gerbera daisies, petunias, portulaca and lantana are all in full bloom. Thank you, God, for the gift of beautiful flowers.
  
• I love playing scrabulous and scrabble; in fact, I love word games of every kind. I love to work crossword puzzles, play pathwords and text twirl. I have several friends and a sister who love it as much as I do and we have fun!
• I don't like car air conditioners that won't work. Mine has been "broken" since last summer. The mechanic told me it would be $1200 to repair and my car isn't worth that much :) sooo.....I've been trying to survive without. It ain't fun.
• Speaking of cars, I also don't like $4/gallon gas. What are we gonna do?
• I love the smile of a little girl who just got out of bed :)...Kate! I don't like the cough she's had in the middle of the night.
• I'm excited about vacation July 19-26. The whole family with the exception of Charlie who can't get off work, is going to the beach and staying here. We're gonna have FUN!
• My sisters are my best friends. I'm so grateful that we are a close family. We love each other and would do anything for each other. I can't imagine life without either of them. I love you, Bibby and Kathy.
• The hummingbirds at my feeders have been beautiful and abundant. I love watching them stop in mid-air to take a sip.
  
• I don't like dirty dishes sitting in the sink. Maggie promised when she moved in with us that she would unload the dishwasher if I would load it. She's fallen down on her end of the bargain!
• I really pray that all my spelling and grammar is correct in this post. It would really embarrass me if I've messed up after #1 above :).

New Lungs

David Gaines, a minister at our church, Biltmore Baptist in Arden, NC, was diagnosed in January 2007 with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis. The complete story is on David's caringbridge website. Over the months since his diagnosis, many people have prayed and asked God for intervention for David.

David is a wonderfully talented musician, playing several instruments; he is the director of our orchestra at church and arranger of LOTS of music that we use and that many churches across America uses. When you hear him play the piano, you know that he plays to an audience of One.

This week on Wednesday, I was sitting at my desk and decided to check my e-mail. The Exalt Ministry office at church had sent out an e-mail marked URGENT! As I read it, my tears came. New lungs were available for David!!! It is a wonderful feeling when you get such a visible answer to prayers that have been prayed for 18 months. When you read the caringbridge website, you can see from the guestbook that people all over the world have been lifting David to the Father. It is awesome to see God's hand at work in so many lives through what he has done for David and his family.

When David was first diagnosed, I sent a prayer request to Kristy (among others). Kristy forwarded it to other Campus Outreach staff in Brazil. It really is such a small world as another of the CO staff, Kent Bailey, recognized David's name as a friend he had grown up with in Nashville. Kent's dad was the pastor of the church where David and his family attended in Nashville and Kent and David were good friends. They had lost touch with each other over the years but have now reconnected because of Kristy sending out the prayer request.

I am continually amazed at what God desires to do in our life, whether it is through blessings or our dependence on Him through the trials of life. It is up to us to keep on singing and keep on trusting and keep on praising Him, just because He's God.

I Will Sing Praise

I will sing praise,

I will lift my voice,

I will sing praise,

I’ve made my choice.

I will sing praise in all I do.

I will sing praise to you.

No matter the storms that come my way,

No matter the trials I may face,

You promised that you would see me through.

So, I will trust in You.

Freedom

What a blessing to live in the United States of America. For those of us who have traveled out of the country, we understand just how valuable our freedoms are. I think nothing of planning a week ahead knowing I will be in church on Sunday. I don't have to pass through any checkpoints to get there. I don't have to go in the dark of night so no one will see me. I am free to carry my Bible with me anywhere I want to. I am free to sing praises to my Heavenly Father and can sing them as loud as I want to. I heard once of a house church meeting in China and all they could do was whisper/sing their praise. God has truly blessed us as a nation and a people to have the freedoms we enjoy in America.

There is another freedom that God gave us that means even more and is more valuable than the freedoms we enjoy in our country. That is the freedom we have in Christ Himself to live our lives truly free. John 8:36 says, "So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." Because of man's inherrent sinful state, we are slaves to sin. Christ came so that our freedom from this "sin slavery" could be bought through the shed blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. There is nothing we can do to obtain this freedom; the price has already been paid on the cross. We can't be "good enough" to purchase our own freedom. We can't do enough good things to merit eternity with Him. The only way to be truly free is to acknowledge our sin, believe that Christ can save us and confess to Him our need and repent. What is repentence? It is a 180 turn-around. It simply is a u-turn away from our sin and toward a life lived for Him.

I like to use the analogy of a beautifully wrapped package. It is sitting on a table in my house and has my name on the gift tag. If I don't accept the gift, open it and use it, it isn't mine. Romans 6:23 "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Christ gave His life so that we might have eternal life. John 3:16"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." All we need to do is accept the gift. If you don't know Him as your personal Savior, today would be a great day to begin a new life in Him. He's waiting on you. He stands ready to save you. Trust and believe. Your life will be eternally changed.