So far today has been a very nice day. I have a few new goals for myself so I hope to start blogging more about them to help hold myself accountable.
My first goal is: I want to start keeping tabs on how I spend our money. I saved most of our receipts for January and today I put everything into the computer so I know how much I spent on groceries, gas, gifts, clothes etc. I think this should be interesting to see how much I spend on everything and maybe be able to save a little money. I've also started a price book so I will know how much different foods cost at different grocery stores.
Another goal of mine is to start making more bread and try new recipes for bread. I really enjoy making yeast rolls and this is the recipe I used today:
2 1/2 cups water
2 Tbls. yeast
3 Tbls. sugar
1 Tbl. salt
1/3 cup oil
6 cups flour
Mix yeast and warm water and allow to sit for a few minutes. Add remaining ingredients and let your mixer knead the dough until it is a soft dough. Let it rise in mixer. Punch down every 10 minutes by turning on the mixer. Do this 4-5 times. Shape into rolls and bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Healing the Friend
Miracles of Jesus
Healing the Friend
Mark 2: 1-12
In our last lesson we learned how Jesus healed the centurion's servant.
Ask:
Did Jesus have to go to the servant's home? (No)
How did Jesus heal the servant? (Jesus just said that the servant would be healed, and he was healed right away)
Tonight we are going to learn about how some men brought their friend to Jesus for healing:
Have someone read Mark2: 1-12 out loud.
First of all we see that Jesus is in Capernaum which basically became Jesus' headquarters for the rest of his earthly ministry.
Word had gotten around that Jesus was in town and that he was at Simon Peter's house and a large crowd had gathered to see Jesus.
Our attention is then drawn to five people and how they looked. One man is sick with palsy and four of his friends have brought him on a stretcher to see Jesus.
What is palsy? (it is when someone is paralyed)
What does the word "paralyze" mean? (not able to move or walk)
The group of five (four men carrying the stretcher and one on the stretcher) can not get into the house because it is so crowded. People are standing in the doorway and looking in the windows. The four decided eventually that they could go down through the roof. As you can see they were really determined for their friend to see Jesus. They had faith that Jesus could heal their friend so they were determined to do what it took so that he could see Jesus.
We all need Jesus. Even those who don't need healing, need to know His love and His forgiveness. How can we bring our friends to Jesus? (we can pray for them, invite them to church, tell them some Bible stories about Jesus, love them the way Jesus loves them and if they do something to hurt us, we need to forgive them like Jesus does)
The friend on the stretcher was really lucky to have such good friends. Do you have friends that would stick by you no matter what?
Let's read Proverbs 18:24b
What does this verse say about a really close friend? (they stick closer than a brother)
If you were really sick or sad, how would you feel to have a friend that stayed with you no matter what? (happy, safe, encouraged)
Jesus can be that type of friend for us. He sticks by us, no matter what. He is closer than a sister or a brother because He is with us wherever we are, all the time!
Healing the Friend
Mark 2: 1-12
In our last lesson we learned how Jesus healed the centurion's servant.
Ask:
Did Jesus have to go to the servant's home? (No)
How did Jesus heal the servant? (Jesus just said that the servant would be healed, and he was healed right away)
Tonight we are going to learn about how some men brought their friend to Jesus for healing:
Have someone read Mark2: 1-12 out loud.
First of all we see that Jesus is in Capernaum which basically became Jesus' headquarters for the rest of his earthly ministry.
Word had gotten around that Jesus was in town and that he was at Simon Peter's house and a large crowd had gathered to see Jesus.
Our attention is then drawn to five people and how they looked. One man is sick with palsy and four of his friends have brought him on a stretcher to see Jesus.
What is palsy? (it is when someone is paralyed)
What does the word "paralyze" mean? (not able to move or walk)
The group of five (four men carrying the stretcher and one on the stretcher) can not get into the house because it is so crowded. People are standing in the doorway and looking in the windows. The four decided eventually that they could go down through the roof. As you can see they were really determined for their friend to see Jesus. They had faith that Jesus could heal their friend so they were determined to do what it took so that he could see Jesus.
We all need Jesus. Even those who don't need healing, need to know His love and His forgiveness. How can we bring our friends to Jesus? (we can pray for them, invite them to church, tell them some Bible stories about Jesus, love them the way Jesus loves them and if they do something to hurt us, we need to forgive them like Jesus does)
The friend on the stretcher was really lucky to have such good friends. Do you have friends that would stick by you no matter what?
Let's read Proverbs 18:24b
What does this verse say about a really close friend? (they stick closer than a brother)
If you were really sick or sad, how would you feel to have a friend that stayed with you no matter what? (happy, safe, encouraged)
Jesus can be that type of friend for us. He sticks by us, no matter what. He is closer than a sister or a brother because He is with us wherever we are, all the time!
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
January 10, 2010
Here's just a few pictures from our church Sunday. We had some missionaries that our church helps to support at our church telling us about their work in Honduras. In the picture also is our daughter, Mindy, and her husband Jon and their children Tommy, Charlotte and soon to arrive baby Matthew. Our daughter Abbie is also in this picture.Monday, January 11, 2010
Church Bulletin Board
Here's a picture of the bulletin board that Abbie and I made for one of the Sunday School rooms at church.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Miriam and Leprosy
We are going to start learning about some of the stories in the Bible that you may never have heard before. The Bible is such an interesting book but so often we seem to teach the same stories Sunday after Sunday. Those lessons are important, but I think we all need to dig a little deeper in our relationship with Jesus. The Bible is the only book that is authored by God. We have many many books that are about God but when we really want to learn more about God we should turn to the book that He authored, the Bible
For our lesson today we are going to read Numbers 12.
Now from some of our other lessons we have learned that Miriam is Moses' older sister. She was the one in charge of watching baby Moses when the Pharaoh's daughter found him in the basket. Moses was hidden because Pharaoh wanted to kill all of the male Israelite babies. Miriam was very brave to run up to the Pharaoh's daughter and suggest that she get a Hebrew woman to take care of the baby. Miriam ran and got her mother, who was then paid to nurse Moses until he was old enough to be weaned.
This story in the Bible tells us a litle bit about the family life of Moses. This incident occurred as they were traveling from Sinai to Kadesh-barnea.
This appears to be a second wife of Moses, and Miriam is using this marriage to protest Moses' authority. I think she may be jealous of her little brother's authority. In verse 3 of Numbers 12 it says that Moses was meek. Do you think that meekness is a sign of weakness?
No, because meekness is being obedient to God and doing His will.
In verses 5-9 God has called Moses, Miriam and Aaron out to talk to them. This shows that this was a family fight and God wanted to deal with them. God tells them that He chooses the prophets and that Moses is greater than the other prophets. God dealt differently with Moses than with Abraham or Joseph. With Abraham and Joseph He appeared in dreams but with Moses it was face to face. A prophet did not necessairly predict the future. Their main purpose was to speak for God.
In verse 10 we see where God pronouced severe judgement on Miriam for how foolishly she acted in her jealousy of Moses. She became a lepor. Moses appealed to God and God healed her but she still had to be shut out of the camp for a week to make sure she did not still have leprousy. This held their voyage up for one week also while they waited to let Miriam continue on with them.
Aaron was not struck with leprosy because he was God's high priest. If Aaron had become a leper Israel would have had no intercessor to stand between them and God. Aaron was not really a leader, he was a follower. He was very weak and willing to let other people lead him wrongly. Aaron was also the one that made the golden calf for people to worship when they were waiting on Moses to come down with the Ten Commandments.
We can learn from this lesson that jealousy is wrong and that God will deal with us on our jealousy issues. Jealousy can cause so many problems in our life. It can cause us to turn against our friends and family and can make us become very bitter. Jealousy will control us if we don't turn it over to God. So many times we think we have "turned" things over to God but in reality we are holding onto every little thing. We want to get our revenge from when we think we were wronged but God wants us to turn it over to Him and trust in Him.
We need to learn to recognize when we are jealous of someone and then turn to God. First we need to admit it to God (Proverbs 28:13) If we think we are jealous and we try to hide it from God that will only make us go deeper in our sin. God already knows we are jealous, so why try to hide it from Him? We need to learn to be content with what God gives to us. Contentment comes when we learn to trust God completely.
Follow up questions:
Who was Miriam?
(Moses' older sister)
What led up to God making Miriam have leprousy?
(Her jealousy)
How did God communicate with Moses?
(Face to face)
How did God communicate with Abraham and Joseph?
(In dreams)
For our lesson today we are going to read Numbers 12.
Now from some of our other lessons we have learned that Miriam is Moses' older sister. She was the one in charge of watching baby Moses when the Pharaoh's daughter found him in the basket. Moses was hidden because Pharaoh wanted to kill all of the male Israelite babies. Miriam was very brave to run up to the Pharaoh's daughter and suggest that she get a Hebrew woman to take care of the baby. Miriam ran and got her mother, who was then paid to nurse Moses until he was old enough to be weaned.
This story in the Bible tells us a litle bit about the family life of Moses. This incident occurred as they were traveling from Sinai to Kadesh-barnea.
This appears to be a second wife of Moses, and Miriam is using this marriage to protest Moses' authority. I think she may be jealous of her little brother's authority. In verse 3 of Numbers 12 it says that Moses was meek. Do you think that meekness is a sign of weakness?
No, because meekness is being obedient to God and doing His will.
In verses 5-9 God has called Moses, Miriam and Aaron out to talk to them. This shows that this was a family fight and God wanted to deal with them. God tells them that He chooses the prophets and that Moses is greater than the other prophets. God dealt differently with Moses than with Abraham or Joseph. With Abraham and Joseph He appeared in dreams but with Moses it was face to face. A prophet did not necessairly predict the future. Their main purpose was to speak for God.
In verse 10 we see where God pronouced severe judgement on Miriam for how foolishly she acted in her jealousy of Moses. She became a lepor. Moses appealed to God and God healed her but she still had to be shut out of the camp for a week to make sure she did not still have leprousy. This held their voyage up for one week also while they waited to let Miriam continue on with them.
Aaron was not struck with leprosy because he was God's high priest. If Aaron had become a leper Israel would have had no intercessor to stand between them and God. Aaron was not really a leader, he was a follower. He was very weak and willing to let other people lead him wrongly. Aaron was also the one that made the golden calf for people to worship when they were waiting on Moses to come down with the Ten Commandments.
We can learn from this lesson that jealousy is wrong and that God will deal with us on our jealousy issues. Jealousy can cause so many problems in our life. It can cause us to turn against our friends and family and can make us become very bitter. Jealousy will control us if we don't turn it over to God. So many times we think we have "turned" things over to God but in reality we are holding onto every little thing. We want to get our revenge from when we think we were wronged but God wants us to turn it over to Him and trust in Him.
We need to learn to recognize when we are jealous of someone and then turn to God. First we need to admit it to God (Proverbs 28:13) If we think we are jealous and we try to hide it from God that will only make us go deeper in our sin. God already knows we are jealous, so why try to hide it from Him? We need to learn to be content with what God gives to us. Contentment comes when we learn to trust God completely.
Follow up questions:
Who was Miriam?
(Moses' older sister)
What led up to God making Miriam have leprousy?
(Her jealousy)
How did God communicate with Moses?
(Face to face)
How did God communicate with Abraham and Joseph?
(In dreams)
Sunday, January 3, 2010
January 3, 2010
We had a really nice time at church this morning. Roger preached from Ephesians 6: 10-20 on putting on the armour of God. I feel that God is really speaking to me on increasing my prayer time. I need to make sure I pray and I also need to make sure that I stop and listen to what God is telling me. I often think I'm too "busy" to really listen to what God is saying. I'll quickly say my prayers and then I'm off doing something else. Roger also mentioned on how we should think about how the people in the Bible felt as they were doing things. He specifically mentioned how the apostles felt during the Lord's Supper. I think this will be a great new way to continue studying the Bible and to possibly hear more of what God is telling me. Next Sunday Brooke and Rene (the missionaries our church helps to support) will be here to tell us all about their mission work. I am really excited to hear everything they have been doing.
Tonight our message was from Colossians 4. We need to learn to walk a walk that reflects Jesus in our life. I have to ask myself, do I always do this?
Paul talks a lot about prayer. We need to continually talk to God. Do we only pray for big things? Do we only want to talk to our true friends about big things? No, we want to talk to our friends about everything just like we should want to talk to Jesus about everything.
I also managed to take the time to exercise on the Wii Fitness Plus today. I have found that I really enjoy the step dance and the different jogging trails. Of course, on the down side my Wii Fit age today was 50! Okay, I'll be there in six months but I'm not quite 50!
Tonight our message was from Colossians 4. We need to learn to walk a walk that reflects Jesus in our life. I have to ask myself, do I always do this?
Paul talks a lot about prayer. We need to continually talk to God. Do we only pray for big things? Do we only want to talk to our true friends about big things? No, we want to talk to our friends about everything just like we should want to talk to Jesus about everything.
I also managed to take the time to exercise on the Wii Fitness Plus today. I have found that I really enjoy the step dance and the different jogging trails. Of course, on the down side my Wii Fit age today was 50! Okay, I'll be there in six months but I'm not quite 50!
Saturday, January 2, 2010
January 2, 2010
I think God is trying to teach me a lesson on patience and not complaining. Today I went to Wal-Mart and let's just say the experience was not enjoyable. When I came home I happened to read chapter 11 in Numbers. This chapter deals with the people complaining and then Moses complaining to God. The people were complaining of the manna that God provided for them to eat. In my reading today it seems that the manna could be prepared in so many different ways but yet the people were tired of it. How many of us are like that in that we get tired of studying the Word of God. So many people are trying to find happiness in other things when all we need is God. We can read the same stories in the Bible over and over and God can show us so many new things. I've heard the Bible described as an onion with so many layers and that is so true. We need to continue to study God's word (isn't it amazing that we have God's word) and try to live as He would have us to live. So, today when I was losing my patience in Wal-Mart and then in Wendy's (but that is another story) I need to remember that I should always be a witness for Jesus.
On the organizing side today, I was able to declutter my computer desk. Before I go to bed tonight my kitchen sink will be shiny and I will know what I will be wearing to church tomorrow. Flylady is slowing making an impression on me! Slow and steady should help me with my organizing and by the end of the year I will reach my goal!
On the organizing side today, I was able to declutter my computer desk. Before I go to bed tonight my kitchen sink will be shiny and I will know what I will be wearing to church tomorrow. Flylady is slowing making an impression on me! Slow and steady should help me with my organizing and by the end of the year I will reach my goal!
Friday, January 1, 2010
January 1, 2010
I am starting this blog to hopefully be accountable to the different things I want to accomplish in 2010. My first thought this year is I want to grow closer to Jesus. Last year I was able to read the Bible through during the year and this year I want to do the same but I want to go deeper in my study. Today my reading came from Genesis 1 and 2 and Psalms 1. Psalms is always an uplifting book to me. I've also started a study on different stories from the Bible. Today I read from Numbers 12, the story about Miriam: Leprous as snow.
One of my other goals is to become more organized. I have started following Flylady and will incorporate some of her ideas into my daily life. Today we are in Zone 1: entrance, front porch and dining room. This will be a short stay in this zone this month since we are only going to be here for one day this month. I am making sure that I have a shiny sink at the end of the day and that my next days clothes are laid out. Hopefully, by following Flylady, by the end of the year I will have an organized and clean house.
My next goal is to learn how to decorate cakes. I will not be working on this goal every day but I do plan to work on it monthly. I will be looking for the ultimate from scratch cake recipe and also learn how to decorate the cakes. I plan on doing this one with Abbie and we will incorporate this into her homeschool. I think it will be fun to look at the pictures of cakes that I have attempted to make at the end of the year and see if there is any improvement.
I also plan to use this blog to update our homeschooling experience. I think it will be fun to be able to look back at different things we have learned and some pictures of some of our fun days. I love being able to homeschool Abbie and spend quality time with her.
And, of course, I want to continue my exercise plan that I started last year. I started jogging last year and when the weather is better I hope to continue that. But until then I plan on using the Wii Fit Plus and staying in shape. I am able to jog with the Wii Fit plus and I have also started doing step aerobics and really enjoyed that too. Last year I was able to lose around 35 pounds and keep it off. I don't need to lose anymore weight but I hope to get in better shape this year.
I'm sure this blog will also consist of some of my days at work since I work out of the home part-time.
One of my other goals is to become more organized. I have started following Flylady and will incorporate some of her ideas into my daily life. Today we are in Zone 1: entrance, front porch and dining room. This will be a short stay in this zone this month since we are only going to be here for one day this month. I am making sure that I have a shiny sink at the end of the day and that my next days clothes are laid out. Hopefully, by following Flylady, by the end of the year I will have an organized and clean house.
My next goal is to learn how to decorate cakes. I will not be working on this goal every day but I do plan to work on it monthly. I will be looking for the ultimate from scratch cake recipe and also learn how to decorate the cakes. I plan on doing this one with Abbie and we will incorporate this into her homeschool. I think it will be fun to look at the pictures of cakes that I have attempted to make at the end of the year and see if there is any improvement.
I also plan to use this blog to update our homeschooling experience. I think it will be fun to be able to look back at different things we have learned and some pictures of some of our fun days. I love being able to homeschool Abbie and spend quality time with her.
And, of course, I want to continue my exercise plan that I started last year. I started jogging last year and when the weather is better I hope to continue that. But until then I plan on using the Wii Fit Plus and staying in shape. I am able to jog with the Wii Fit plus and I have also started doing step aerobics and really enjoyed that too. Last year I was able to lose around 35 pounds and keep it off. I don't need to lose anymore weight but I hope to get in better shape this year.
I'm sure this blog will also consist of some of my days at work since I work out of the home part-time.
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