365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 302

I have found recently that I am sorely missing the challenge from last year in praising God and being thankful. It was a mission for that year but it really needs to become a part of our everyday lives now and every day to come. Without the challenge, that praising and thanksgiving have become whenever I am feeling it. I am going to work this into my new intentional growth plan. Paul had it right when he said “I have not stopped giving thanks for you” in Ephesians 1:16. Praising and giving thanks should be an ongoing pursuit. Share your ideas on how you bring praising and thanksgiving into your everyday lives?

Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise him in the heights above. Praise him, all his angels, praise him, all his heavenly hosts. Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars. Praise him, you highest heavens and you waters above the skies. Let them praise the name of the Lord for he commanded and they were created. Psalm 148:1-6

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 187 & 188

My Saturday turned into a nursing day as my daughter came down with some stomach bug. Thankfully, she seems to be better this morning so we will prepare for her going off to camp later this afternoon and hope that this feeling better stuff sticks around. There is something about my kids being sick that spurs my compassion and my fears. I will do whatever they need to feel better and I will sleep fitfully because of fear of how they are doing in the middle of the night. I am sure I am not alone in this. Most mothers out there are nodding there heads with a been there-done that kind of attitude. I got up once at 4am and went to check on her. Something about seeing how they are takes the fears away. As all this was going on, I was concerned about some spots that appeared on my lower legs and my arm. The Shingles sign at the pharmacy has been on my mind and so my imagination worked with my fear but I stopped myself from continuing this line of thought and prayed for God to take away this fear. Having more knowledge about shingles has helped. They recommend getting the very safe vaccine for ages 50 and up so I have a couple years. I just don’t do well with pain and from what I have heard and seen about shingles it is not something I want to get. Prayer and thanksgiving are the best antidotes to these kinds of “what if” fears. So, I am thankful these spots I have are probably a bug that bite me a few times to many and I am thankful my daughter has a strong immune system and that I know the Lord is watching out for her. Peace has taken over the spots of fear in my heart.

Philippians 4:6-7 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 363

On this Thanksgiving Day, my thanks is for God, himself. For who He is, all He is and all he does for us. Without Him, none of us would be. He is the maker of all things, EVERYTHING! So my thanks is all for Him just for being our awesome God. Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Jeremiah 10:12 It is he who made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the heavens.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 362

Okay, this may seem a bit nutty but I am praising God today for the blessing of having my scale. I am a person that is motivated by accountability which is one of the reasons this challenge on my blog this year has been so successful. I am motivated because I know people are reading it. That scale and getting on everyday and recording it in my notebook on my bathroom counter is one of the best ways to keep me in-line with maintaining my weight. I know that when it goes up I have to plan what I am eating better and than it comes back down. So, I have been in the take off a pound or two mode for the last couple days in preparation for Thanksgiving. I have 2 new desert recipes and a cranberry salad recipe I am trying out this year and don’t want to shoot the weight up too much. The bible says our bodies are temples and we should be treating them well. This can be very challenging in our culture of drive-thru fast food, an abundance of dining establishments and grocery stores with choices abounding but with the Holy Spirit all things can be conquered and we can have self-control. If you haven’t already heard, Twinkies are no longer on the shelves as Hostess went bankrupt.  Such is life. Here today, gone tomorrow. But the Lord will always be with us.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 361

With the kids out of school for this whole week for Thanksgiving, I decided a couple weeks ago to go ahead and take my final vacation day on the 19^th and take my daughter up to visit the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. In looking over the website and prices, we came to a decision to go ahead and get a duo-membership for the two of us which would double the cost but get us into the museum free for a year and reduce the rate of the Imax and Planetarium shows. So, we arrive and there are cars and people heading into the museum everywhere. After a few minutes of trying to find a parking space, I began to wonder what was going on and thought oh no is this one of those free days. Yep, we walked in and found out it was a free day. Are you kidding me? Of 365 days in a year, I picked a free day and had already bought the membership! Okay, well I can say I immediately was okay with it as I realized no matter what we didn’t get to see or do with so many people being there that we would be able to come back anytime in the next year. By far the neatest was the show for the Planetarium on super volcanoes. My daughter and her friend who had never experienced a Planetarium show were oooh and aaahing and I proceeded to take a little nap. Another great moment was when my daughter looked over the railing down towards the bottom floors of the building and saw the T-Rex man on the escalator.  She said, "It's not everyday you see a dinosaur on an escalotor". We hurried down and got a photo with the T-Rex man. Thank you Lord for the blessing of being able to do something fun and interesting with my daughter on what would typically be a day of work, work, work.

Psalms 47:1 Clap your hands, all peoples! Shout to God with loud songs of joy!

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 2

Yesterday was my first Thanksgiving spent in my home with me making the traditional turkey dinner in all my 15 years of marriage. Every year we have gone up to Sterling over Thanksgiving holiday and I have never had to cook a thing but I have always wanted to. I was so excited to actually be home for Thanksgiving so I could do the cooking. I took photos along my cooking journey so I can later put together my scrapbook page about the day. So, my praise today is for being able to make some good food everyone enjoyed. I made the labor intensive but highly favored dish that I grew up with thanks to my Polish grandparents, called peirogies. It will be another year or so before I do that again but they are so worth the work. My pumpkin pies were a bust but I am ready to try it again next year.
Proverbs 31:15 She gets up while it is still dark; she provide food for her family and portions for her servant girls.

365 Days of Praise Challenge

As I was laying in bed this morning, contemplating my day of cooking ahead of me and fighting the desire to just lay in bed a few more minutes, I thought about what this day represents. Everyone thinks about what they are grateful for on Thanksgiving but our thankfulness and praises to God should be a consistent reality in our lives. After my month of wearing my 'A' pin which helped me keep my focus on the Abundance of blessings and opportunites that God gives and that Anything is possible with God, I find that I am so much more AWARE of those blessings, opportunites and that really anything is possible with God leading you. So, my challange to myself and to anyone that would like to participate is to give praises consistently everyday for the next 365 days. I think the attitude of gratitude will become one of the greatest blessings. So, my first day of praise starts this Thanksgiving 2011. I praise my Heavenly Father for my desire to inspire others. Being an idealist by nature, I have found battles greatly with the fact that I am not the one in control but God is. But I don't want to be down about my own personality type, because God made me this way and he will use it for his own purposes not mine. So, I praise him today for that desire and pray that he will use it for the good of His kingdom. I would love to hear your praises everyday, too. Become a follower and comment on my praise each day with your own praise. Let's work on keeping each other accountable to our 365 days of praise challenge.