Oswald Chambers

I have been using "My Utmost for His Highest" for years as a devotional book. Even though I've already gone through it several times, it continues to stay fresh for me. Here are just a few thoughts of his that have really been impressed on me.

John 16:33 ~ "In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."

"An average view of Christian life is that it means deliverance from trouble.  It is deliverance in trouble - which is very different."

"God does not give us overcoming life; He gives us life as we overcome.  The strain is the strength."

"If you spend yourself physically you become exhausted; But if you spend yourself spiritually, you get more strength."

"We are not taken up into conscious agreement with God's purpose, we are taken up into God's purpose without any consciousness at all. We have no conception what God is aiming at, as we go on it gets more and more vague."

"God's aim looks like missing the mark because we are too short-sighted to see what He is aiming at."

 These last two quotes are especially meaningful to me.  And God used a natural instance to open my eyes even more regarding being "short-sighted" when it comes to His working.

When coming home from somewhere I usually turn onto our block and drive past our house to the end of our street and make a U-turn at the corner so I can be facing in the right direction to park in front of the house.  Well, recently, while driving home with the kids in the car, I decided to just pass our street and go down one more block and come around, avoiding the U-turn at the corner.  Well, my youngest exclaimed, "Mom, I thought we were going home, you passed our street!"  I said, "We are going home."  And he replied, "No, we're not, you passed our street."  The other kids in the car made an attempt to explain to him what I was doing.  I thought it was interesting that it seemed that he couldn't understand but mainly because he simply would not accept the explanation.

Our Father showed me, by His Holy Spirit, that this is what I do.  And, apparently, I do it often.  Many times when I question the work of God in my life and my family's it's because I am short-sighted and I look upon His work as "missing the mark".  Sometimes, I'm not even recognizing God's hand.  The other interesting and startling thing to me about this quote of Mr. Chambers is his usage of the phrase "missing the mark".   The Greek word hamartia is translated sin in our New Testament, and it is deeply rooted in the idea of missing the mark.  So, in the same way, when I consider God to be somehow missing the mark in the way that Oswald Chambers mentiones it, I am considering that work of God to be sin.  Looking at it this way definitely hit home with me and has truly humbled me and brought me to a new place and way of thinking about Jehovah and Yeshua. 


Thank you Yeshua for being our Redeemer, You are truly the Beautiful One, the Christ, the Lamb for sinners slain.  Praise and glory and honor be to You and our Sovereign Almighty Father.  Glory to God!!  Praise and Adoration be lifted to You beautiful Savior.  Thank You, Praise You!  Yeshua Christ the One Messiah!  Hallelujah!  Amen!

Crochet Happines

It's funny how God arranges things. I took the food over to our Homeschool Friend who is recovering from surgery and got to visit with her a bit. She had broken her ankle and will be sitting in a wheel chair through most of her recovery, which must be so difficult because she is an active lady. Although, I know that it's often during these kinds of times that God blesses His children with life lessons and reminders of how it's good to be quiet and slow down. I'm sure God will bless her as she has blessed others.

Well, she was in the process of knitting a beee-yooh-tee-ful afghan. And as I was admiring it I mentioned how I've been trying to teach myself to crochet and she quickly and unexpectedly responded, "Well, come over later and I'll help you." Wow! How could I pass up that offer? So, I'm going over tomorrow afternoon and getting help with my crocheting. giggling and clapping hands I'm SOOO excited! Hee hee.

Poor Hubby and 1 of my daughters is sick with the stomach flu. Three of my other kids just got over it a little over a day ago. There is still 1 daughter and myself who have not had it...yet. :)

Cooking For Others

I just finished my Chicken Soup, which I'll be taking over to a family whose wife/mother just recently had ankle surgery. I have only met her once, they are in our homeschool group. Why did I capitalize chicken soup? I have no idea. Maybe because it's been such an issue with me all day, a Bid Deal, to the point of being anxious. I did give it up to God and am trusting Him to bless it.

I can't believe that I have been feeling nervous about cooking this meal. She does have some food allergies so I had to keep those in mind. But, I found myself feeling the urge to cook the chicken soup. Even though I stressed out about it a bit and actually made a decision to change the menu to Chicken Stir-fry with Rice, at the last minute I had to go back to the original plan. It seemed that I was just supposed to cook this food, ha! I did pray about it and certainly feel that this must be His leading, for whatever reason. I am hoping that I will be able to "see" why it must be the chicken soup. :) I'll be taking fresh bread along with it. I tossed the idea of salad around in my mind (no pun intended) but again, for some reason I am not compelled to do the salad. I'm going to bake some brownies in the morning to add as a sweet little treat.

Today has been a busy day. Actually, the past two weeks have been very busy, and I have still not recovered...I'm so tired, and to avoid falling asleep on my keyboard, I'm heading to bed.

Sporty Santa

Here are the Bucilla Sport Santa stockings I did for a customer over the holidays. I had never done these before and once I had started them I realized I had grossly underestimated the amount of time involved in sewing these. There's no way, just by looking at them, that you can even begin to imagine how much work is involved. I had consulted a seamstress who regularly assembles these for customers so that I could get an idea of how much to charge for my time. But, according to the time she gave me for how long it takes her, she must either be very fast at hand sewing or I am very, very slow. (maybe as slow as I am at getting my project photos uploaded.)





When I finally finished them I felt like I needed to celebrate, but everyone in my home was sleeping and so I had to be satisfied with a quiet little "Yay!" from myself and the satisfaction of a job completed. The customer was very satisfied and even complimented my stitching, so I was happy.

This Is A Test

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