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Refreshed

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  This past week has been extremely busy for me. After serving at Jr. High week of camp, I returned home with much work lined up . My husband rented a power lift to place vinyl siding on my daughter's newly moved mobile home. For two days, we braved extreme temperatures in order to put the double wide mobile home back together. After long days in the sun and heat, the most refreshing thing was cold water and a cool shower. It revived us. It made me think of Jesus talking to the woman at the well. She was shunned by those around her and forced to get water at the hottest time of day. This was very typical for a woman committing adultery during that time period. Jesus found her at the well and told her that he knew her past. Yet He still offered her more than just water from the well. He offered her living water that would not turn dry. As we drill for a well at the mobile home, we see the importance of a consistent supply of water. We do not want it to dry up. Jesus showed not on...
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When the Vines Choke Out Life

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  I am not gardener. I've mentioned multiple times that a black thumb or green thumb are not my issue. I am a smother plant mother. I see a plant and try too hard to love it, leading to overwatering, too much sun, or too much shade. This brings me to my current predicament. My husband brought in a landscape/tree removal company to clear overgrowth around our property. After two days of chainsaws, weed wackwackers, a woodchipper, our property has increased considerably. Here lies the dilemma. Along the path of chainsaw destruction is piles of undergrowth leaves and sticks. My husband works during the day and I am off briefly for summer break, so the task fell to me to remove the debris. Yay! As I tugged and pulled, my rake continued to snag on the vines and brambles that had wrapped itself around all plant life. It wasn't as noticeable until the tree people removed the overgrowth. The landscapers told us that unless we treat the parasitic vines and weeds with spray regularly, t...
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What Does Freedom Look Like?

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  As our country celebrated the 250th anniversary of independence, something stirred in my mind. On the Fourth of July, the remembrance of independence was ushered in with patriotic songs, red, white, and blue everything, and lots and lots of fireworks. I was able to sit on my front porch and watch a fireworks display the equivalent of a small city's. The pounding of artillery and bursts of light surrounded our house as the acrid smell  of smoke lingered in a soft haze. For many, this represented freedom. However, true freedom looks very different. When God sent His son, Jesus, to this earth, it was not to grant us the ability to do whatever we want to do. It was for freedom. Let me explain. When Adam chose to eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he didn't need to know what good was. He literally was able to be in the presence of God's goodness every single day. He wanted to experience and know the evil part. He wanted to decide for himself what wa...
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Out of the Muck

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  My husband sees himself as a bit of a farmer, so when the opportunity arose to get chickens, he jumped at it. I, however, am not a farm girl. When I was young, I grew up helping my grandparents with gardens and farm-like, country things. As an adult, I gladly left the farm life behind. My husband happily pulled me back into farm things. Enter chickens. We put together a coop and became chicken people, again. I say again because we have done this a few times in our marriage. The issue with raising chickens is the poo. Chickens are quite messy. Unfortunately, the never-ending rain has not helped the situation. After a month of rain almost every day, we were practically tossing a coin over who had to wade through four inches of muck and crawling into the laying house to get the eggs. It was disgusting. We were so excited when we found a chicken tractor that allowed us to always keep our chickens on clean grass while accessing the eggs outside the chicken  house. This is when w...
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A Father's Love

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  This weekend was very monumental for us. On Father's Day weekend, we watched one of our daughter's marry her high school sweetheart. It was a beautiful wedding all throughout the day, but one moment brought tears to my eyes. I watched the father/daughter dance. It was a very emotional moment of seeing the love and pride in her father's eyes and the joy on her face. It brought to my mind our relationship with God. Zephaniah 3:17 NIV  The Lord your God is with you,   the Mighty Warrior who saves.  He will take great delight in you;   in his love he will no longer rebuke you,    but will rejoice over you with singing.”   Some translations say, " He will dance over you with singing. " I picture that moment with my husband and dau ghter. God's love for you is so great that He, your Heavenly Father, delights in you. He is not a God who is uninvolved or only planning wrath for you. He loves you so much that He rejoices when you spend time with Him, ...
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What's Behind That Door? When God Says No.

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When my children were little, I never had a chance to use the restroom without one of my toddlers wandering in to visit me. After they grew up, I falsely thought I would finally have quiet time to myself in the bathroom. Now, my kids' dogs have taken up where my children left off. They love following me into the bathroom. If I'm taking a shower, they try to drink water that leaks between the shower door and the water guard. One Saturday, as I was cleaning the shower with a caustic cleaner, I worried that the dogs would try to drink the chemicals in the shower, so I shut the door. Everytime I attempted to go in the bathroom, my daughter's dog tried to sneak in beyond the cracked door. No matter how many times I warned him, he still wanted to go to an unsafe place. Isn't that like us at times? God warns us not to do something, yet we still press to do it anyway. God sees beyond the door to the danger our choices can bring us- broken relationships, addictions, or damage ...
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Broken People

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 As I sat in my house tonight, I heard my daughter yelling from my front yard, "Mom!" After a few screams and I still hadn't appeared, she progressed to calling my cell phone. As she quickly beckoned me outside, I found her standing over something moving in the beam of her cell phone light. As I approached, I saw that it was a fairly large bat with a broken wing. We were arguing over how to tell if it was alive while keeping my cat from feasting on it. I had the brilliant idea to scoot it with a dustpan from my broom. As I slowly lowered the dustpan under the bat, it began to flop towards my daughter and me. My husband drove up to both of us flapping our arms and squealing like the slugs from Flushed Away . We left my son and husband to handle the hurt bat and gladly took refuge in the house. Have you ever heard the phrase, "hurt people, hurt people?" In ministry, I've found that broken people tend to strike out at those trying to help them, much like the b...
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