Dont Forget the Third Person!

God is amazing!
He gives me what I need, when I need it.

What he gave me recently is a reminder of the third person. In our christian faith, we need to take advantage of all three! God, Son, and Holy Spirit.

I was recently listening to a sermon on line where he was expressing four key things that he is committed to in this journey called life. He was committed to 1. living 'all in' 2. to follow leadership of the Spirit 3. to finishing the course 4. to doing life in relationship. All this was taken from a passage in Acts/admiring the work of Paul the apostle. (If your interested in listening, go to fellowshiponline.com The sermon is called A Call to Commitment by Tim Lundy)

What moved me the most was the commitment to follow leadership of the Spirit. These following verses encouraged me and empowered me to a deeper love for who I serve and how I live that out.

Ephesians 1: 13-14 "And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession-to the praise of his glory."
We are sealed by the Spirit. I am in His grip and will never let me go!
"a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance" - I have the Holy Spirit to walk with me and guide me, and gives me the best retirement plan EVER!

Galatians 5: 16-18 "So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law."
This passage convicts me to be aware of spiritual warfare and to spend time with Him, to walk in the Spirit. I need to know Him and His character in order to know how to follow him. I read in a book recently, 'Sometimes he invites us to draw close and listen as He reveals Himself...Other times He calls to us to participate in His purposes" (L.Terkeurst) I cant just Do,Do,Do! It includes sitting down to learn and listen to His will.

Ephesians 5:18-20 "Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in you heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
ALWAYS give thanks! What are my thoughts? Where is my heart? Am I looking vertical or horizontal? Am I being filled with the Spirit?

Romans 8: 14-18 "...those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children."
We can choose, to be a slave to sin or to be a slave to the Spirit. A slave to the Spirit is eternal and freeing. I can rest in that no matter what, this day can work for good if I choose Him. Him, an intimate God(Father) that claims me as his child.

This is your certificate for a walk in City Park with me.

Quite the Mother's Day gift, wouldn't you say?

I think my oldest son, Athan, has grasped the idea that time is a gift.

I also think that he is pretty observant for his age. He knows how much I love that Park.

It also shows me his generosity, for they did not actually go anywhere and get me a gift. He couldn't even bring me breakfast in bed because they spent the night at their Aunt and Uncles! He couldn't NOT give me something.

I am so grateful to be a mom to two boys that God specifically chose just for me and Alf.

Im particularly moved at the idea that time is a gift. Time is precious and it does have limits. We ought to treat the time we have with this person or that person as precious and a gift. More then that, are we giving enough time to those we love the most? One step further, are we giving God our time?

Some Things Never Change

Soooooooo,
my birthday weekend was last weekend. I was actually born on April 1st
a.k.a April Fools Day! Yep, lucky me:)
When I was a little girl, my brother would come up with all sorts of things to fool me with. Take for instance, the time he decided to wake me up the morning of my birthday and tell me there was a limousine in the front of the house waiting for me. Uh-huh.
I've tried to wipe some from my memory.

I am now way into my thirties, and some things never change.
You see the box? That is a Mignon Fagot box. A very fine jeweler in the city of New Orleans. When I unwrapped the box to find that it was a Mignon Fagot box....lets just say that I got a little excited. Turns out the only thing in the box was a key. It was a key that I just simply needed so that I can have access to my brothers house, probably for the times he needs me to go over and let his dog outside or something.
Soooooooo, there you go - some things never change.

City Park + 'Perfect Weather' = Fun, Fun, Fun!!!

Family time was had at the park Sunday!
Last week we went in the paddle
boat....with our dog, Annie....yes, she jumped in:)
This week we
walked the sculpture garden and the boys enjoyed bike time as well. The sculpture garden is fairly new to the park, near the New Orleans Museum of Fine Art. It is an outdoor oasis with beautiful landscape and some very large sculptures.

I LOVE family time and I LOVE City Park.

By the way, the picture above - Yea, I don't know. I have no clue how it is held up!

Daddy and sons looking at fish

This one (and many others) made me chuckle. It was called Conversation with Moon :)

So, I have that kind of man that sighs when I want a picture with him next to the LOVE statue, but he is also the man that has fun with us making our own art(pics below). Not so much the romantic but he is funny:)
I'll keep him!

The piece above is called Nelson Shadows and the one below is called Ninja's weapon

Whether it be with the family or without, this park is a sanctuary to me. Lets just say, it fills my bucket every time I go! City Park is 1300 acres of fun! Memories are made here by many adults and children. Im thankful that I live so close and can enjoy it anytime.
In the above picture we were standing under a very large Oak with various sizes of wind chimes.
They named it Singing Oak.

-my jewels-

The Leprechaun Trap

Follow the Pattern to the treasure!

Aiden had to make a Leprechaun Trap for his Kindergarten class. (I know, I am a little behind on posting this) It was a fun activity for him and I to do together. We first googled Leprechaun Traps and saw multiple ideas, chose one and we were off! Great ideas come from other peoples great ideas, right? :)
Aiden came up with the pattern idea.....


and I helped him with the idea of using beads for his rainbow. Its not a New Orleans school project without using Mardi gras beads!


On St Patrick's Day, Aiden and all his class mates showed up to their classroom with green Leprechaun footprints all over the room. The Leprechaun bombarded the room, sprinkled green glitter everywhere and left a note and some gold coins. Aiden shared with me on the way home that day that he thought the Leprechaun was in the art room (the teacher did not let them go in the art room). He then went to bed that night saying, 'I a lot of reallys want to trap him tonight at our house.'

The imagination is a fun and beautiful thing!

I Want To Be Brave

One Thousand Gifts - a dare to live fully right where you are

"I know there is poor and hideous suffering....I only deepen the wound of the world when I neglect to give thanks for early light dappled through leaves and the heavy perfume of wild roses in early July and the song of crickets on humid nights....and all the good things that a good God gives.

Why would the world need more anger, more outrage? How does it save the world to reject unabashed joy when it is joy that saves us? Rejecting joy to stand in solidarity with the suffering doesn't rescue the suffering. The converse does.

The brave who focus on all things good and all things beautiful and all things true, even in the small, who give thanks for it and discover joy even in the here and now, they are the change agents who bring fullest Light to all the world. When we lay the soil of our hard lives open to the rain of grace and let joy penetrate our cracked and dry places, let joy soak into our broken skin and deep crevices,

LIFE grows.

How can this not be the best thing for the world? For us? The clouds open when we mouth thanks."

I want to be brave.

I begun this book and only in the third chapter I am being challenged. What are my thoughts through out the day? Are those thoughts bringing joy into my life or are they robbing me of joy? In honesty.... its been the latter.

I want to be brave. I want to see good in ALL things. I want to be obedient to the creator and sustainer of this world and my life, but....I fear what He has for me, not a reverent fear, but a scared fear. Why is it so hard to focus on what he has preserved me from? Why am I having a hard time finding good in things that He has allowed in the past?

I need Him. I need my God. I need to know Him. I want to feel more of those moments of joy. Not just when a newborn baby is born, or when a couple gets married, or when someone graduates. I want to feel joy in the little things too. I want to, with my mouth, thank God for the feel of warm clothes when they come out of the dryer and for the opportunities given when driving my child to and from school and for smells of fresh bread or a pot of spaghetti sauce.

May I feel the joy that only God can give....that he wants me to receive.....daily!

5 Adjectives About My Love

I recently had to come up with 5 adjectives that I feel pertain to my husband at an assessment. I contemplated on what drew me to him fifteen plus years ago and what I love and respect about him in the present. This is what I came up with:

DETERMINED/DRIVEN - my man does not believe in giving up. He has been driven since childhood. He breaks down walls, literally and figuratively!

HUMOROUS/WITTY - my man has the ability to take a serious moment and turn intense faces into smiles and laughter. He makes a family trip to the zoo way more fun for the boys then I could ever do. He makes people watching very entertaining!

GENTLE - my man treats people all around him in a very gentle way. He recognizes the bigger picture and his incapability to "control" people or events. I am especially grateful that he is gentle with me, whether it be romantically or in a fight!

GOOD - ethically, morally.... my man desires good. He works hard at doing good with our finances (even things behind 'closed doors'), he desires to have and model good work ethic, he desires to serve God well, and he seeks ways to pour good into others lives.

STRONG - externally and internally.... my man renovated our house in the heat of August, he has fought the odds of life, he cares about what people think but does not let that drive him, and his strength comes out in the way he leads his family.

He is a gift from God! I love you honey -