Tuesday

The Gift of Love - A Dose of Encouragement


We do not really celebrate ST. Valentine's Day.


My husband and I never got into that as girlfriend and boyfriend except to exchange cards.


Perhaps it was because we were still at school and then at university for the 4 years before we got married, and school kids and students in the 70's did not have money!







Anyway we have never (that I can remember) gone out for a meal or special event for Valentine's Day.
Unless you count last year when we went to the local hotel for a meal with our son and his girlfriend and our daughter.  Seems strange, you may think, to go out with others on that night but we were not going out because of Valentine's Day but because our daughter was due to leave for South Korea a few days later and that was the night we were all free to have a farewell meal together.  I think it may have seemed a bit odd to the hotel as we were the only table not for a couple.

So this year I suggested to my husband that we have a date night on Friday Night, which he knew straight away was Valentine's Day - question still remains how did he know that without thinking?


I then assured him that I was not choosing

                                because it is Valentine's Day

but simply because on



evening we have a meeting at church,

evening we are going to dinner at our son and daughter-in-law's home (the same pair that were only girlfriend and boyfriend this time last year, got engaged at the end of April and married at the end of October & our daughter managed to come back from South Korea for a few days for the wedding),


evening we have a friend round with us for dinner,


evening we have a prayer meeting in church


                                and


we will need to do all the catch-up from the busy week & be tired in the evening and just want to lie in front of the TV and watch something we have taped during the week.


                                   So

 evening was really our only choice.



Next was the question I could have uttered for him myself but I am kind and I let him say it.

"Well what do you want to do?"


I of course should have been prepared seeing as I knew he would say what he always says but I'm silly and I wasn't.

However being determined not to get annoyed at this usual question I sort of looked around me as I tried to think of something quickly and because I was in the kitchen making the dinner at the time I came out with

"You have to cook me a meal all by yourself"


You would have thought I had told him to do something he knew nothing about and had never seen before.


"How am I going to do that?"


This is the guy who taught me to make an omelette when we were students before we got married but now claims he doesn't know how to make one.  This is also the guy who after we got married made the meals on the days that his lectures were over earlier than mine while we were still students and who made all the meals for the few weeks of my final university exams.


Well that really was not how the conversation should have gone!


But even though I was rather annoyed at the usual type of response, and told him so!


That kind of thing was not going to spoil our week or even our day.



We have to remember that when we got married we promised to

                                         
                                                               so something like this cannot get in the way.



A few months ago the ladies who lead our graphics course were developing a magazine for the iPad called  DIY Marketing Graphics and they asked each of the people on the course if they would like to contribute a graphic on the theme of Love for the February Issue.



This was my offering and I was very pleased that they did feature it in the magazine.


I was just playing around with a nice black background and some red hearts and then the wording came to me.


Basically this is what we are doing when we commit to each other in marriage, we are giving our love as a gift to our spouse and we are committed to this forever.  We do not take it back in the hard times or the times (repeatedly) when we annoy each other.  We have given them our love so that overrules all else in any situation.  


This is what God has done with His love.  
He has given the gift of Love which is Jesus, because He loved us and 
He will not take His love back from us either.


I am very thankful that God has shown us true love by His own example.






We all should know the true qualities of Love (if not, we need to read 1 Corinthians 13) and so we know what our actions should be like.  The thing is we are all human and it is hard to get over being hurt and it is hard to accept apologies and it is hard to be gracious and forgiving.  


I am also very thankful that even though Fred & I may take a bit of time to do the forgiving etc. we know we still love each other and such a trust is in our marriage because we know that.





Have you ever thought about your love being a gift that you can give?

Have you thought about God's Gift of Love to you?




Sunday

Why We Worship 6




I am taking time each week to ask myself "Why we worship"




God has set us all a great example.

He has shown us the way we should be in all the relationships that we have.

He teaches us that we should be faithful in word and in deed.








So our focus today is on    1 Corinthians 1:9

always remembering to take verses we consider in the context they were written


I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus, 
that you were enriched in everything by Him in all [b]utterance and all knowledge, 
even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed [c]in you, 
so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.






Not only has He shown us that a relationship must be built on faithfulness but He has also provided the relationship we all need.  


The relationship with our Saviour.



So let us worship today because







We will be singing "What a Faithful God have I " in church today.

Are you worshipping Him today?





  



Wednesday

Who is in Control? - A Dose of Encouragement


Today I'm starting off with a question.


“What are the encouraging words you want to

 hear when you’re having a hard day?"


Sometimes things going on around us get us down and really that is only natural.







One week I had heard about something that really disappointed me.  I was hurt and annoyed that when setting standards for choosing a group of people (in which I was not involved) it was obvious that good ethics had not been taken into consideration.
       

Although I told myself that everything works out for good because God says so in His Word it seems that I didn’t really believe this on that occasion.

          
The next day this was still on my mind and then everything else I was doing was just not going as planned so basically I was having a "bad day".  While driving along in the car I decided to listen to a new CD to take my mind off everything. 



One of the tracks started and I thought that it was just horrible but maybe it would improve.  

As a song it didn’t get much better but then the words really struck me.  




    
Over and over it repeated


“God is in control, God is in control.” 


I played that track many, many times and still I could not say that I liked that song, but God certainly told me then, that He was in control.

There they were, the encouraging words I needed to hear that day.  They may not have been what I would have thought I wanted to hear because in all likelihood I would probably just have wanted someone to agree with me about my bad day - you know coffee and sympathy.









But God knows what we really need to hear even if we should already know it.


Let's remember this passage in Luke chapter 12


22 Then He said to His disciples, “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; nor about the body, what you will put on. 
23 Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. 
24 Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, which have neither storehouse nor barn; and God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds? 
25 And which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? 
26 If you then are not able to do the least, why are you anxious for the rest? 
27 Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 
28 If then God so clothes the grass, which today is in the field and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will He clothe you, O you of little faith?


I am so thankful that God knows us better than we do and I am thankful that God was ready to use this song to to tell me what He wanted me to hear.

  
Do we sometimes need a nudge to remind us of what we already know? 

  Yes I believe we do; to help us really believe it at all times.








Well I still don’t like the song too much but then God doesn’t have to only use the things we like to speak to us, does He?




Sunday

Why We Worship 5



I am taking time each week to ask myself "Why we worship"


Psalm 99 
The Lord reigns;
Let the peoples tremble!
He dwells between the cherubim;
Let the earth be moved!
The Lord is great in Zion,
And He is high above all the peoples.
Let them praise Your great and awesome name—
He is holy.
The King’s strength also loves justice;
You have established equity;
You have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob.
Exalt the Lord our God,
And worship at His footstool—
He is holy.
Moses and Aaron were among His priests,
And Samuel was among those who called upon His name;
They called upon the Lord, and He answered them.
He spoke to them in the cloudy pillar;
They kept His testimonies and the ordinance He gave them.
You answered them, O Lord our God;
You were to them God-Who-Forgives,
Though You took vengeance on their deeds.
Exalt the Lord our God,
And worship at His holy hill;
For the Lord our God is holy.


Psalm 99 

has only 9 verses and three of those verses proclaim the reason for worshipping God that we are considering today.

          Verse 3
                 Let them praise Thy great and terrible Name for it is Holy





          Verse 5
                 Exalt ye the Lord our God, and worship at His footstool; for He is Holy.





          Verse 9
                 Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at His Holy hill; for the Lord our God is Holy






Why would the Psalmist need to tell us what appears to be the same thing?


Simply because it is not the same.


I believe this Psalm was very deliberately written with these three verses, it is not idle repetition.

Repetition with God's Word shows us how important something is and it is to be carefully noted.





Firstly   we are told that God's Name is Holy

and then 

Twice   we are told that God is Holy.

An indication that everything about God is Holy.








Yes in two of the verses we are told to worship God because He is Holy but in each case a different place is mentioned.

We are meant to worship God wherever we are 
because He is Holy no matter where we are.

There is never a time or place when God is not Holy.

We may feel as if some place is holier than another but God is always Holy 
and the place will not determine what He is like 
nor how we should treat Him.







Do you worship God differently depending on where you are?







Do you believe God is Holy?


           



Friday

I Love Lists! - I Need Lists to Organise Everything.


Gosh what a job it is "spring cleaning" or overhauling your bedroom and then what a time consuming job it is to make an inventory of everything in your bedroom.

So the only way I could tackle this properly was to break it down into smaller jobs.


This of course meant LISTS and I love LISTS.






Right so using my Todo list app on the iPad the one I prefer is


POCKET LISTS  by 1312


POCKET  LISTS  APP
UPDATE
Unfortunately a short time ago I discovered there is an update to the app which has brought in a new icon.

This is a simple todo list app which is great for listing all the things you would want to do in your overhaul of a room and then checking them off one by one when you have done them.  It keeps a running total at the top of how many tasks are still to be completed and as you check them off they do not disappear but just go faint.  Then when you have checked off the last task you do not lose your list but get a message asking if you want to start over again.



This is ideal for regular task lists too and I use it for several things like prep list for the Kids Club I help to run, travel lists and I have used it for the list of toiletries I should always have in the Master Bedroom Ensuite (already mentioned in last week's post in this Series).  I also used this app for the "Wedding" Todo List last October for our son's wedding.






There are features like icons that can be applied to each list, streaming of todos by time they are due, reminders, colour co-ordinating, emailing lists etc.  many of which I don't bother to use.



I will now be using it for the "Overhaul" List for each room in the house.


As you can see from the list I had 15 items listed (there is one just off the screen at the bottom - washing all the woodwork) so I was able then to think roughly how long each would take and know how long I'd be working at the bedroom at any one time.  I did most of the tasks in order as I had them listed here (note: changing the order of the tasks is very easy in this app).
Sometimes I did one thing in the day some times I did as many as three of the tasks just depending on what else I needed to do that day or to be honest what else I preferred to do that day.  This meant that although it was a big job it was not so bad broken down into these more manageable tasks.



Of course a Notebook or File (Binder) would do the same job as my app.





Divide the notebook or file (binder) into 4 sections.



1.  Overhauling Rooms
Take a page for each room and list out all the tasks that would be needed to be done in that room


2.  Inventory of Rooms
Count the number of items of furniture in your room and allow a page for each one then add another page. On the page for each piece of furniture you can list your items it contains.
On the extra page you will list all the items on the walls or surfaces and the items which do not contain other things.


3.  Top Up Lists 
Use a page for each type of list of things you would want to top up or list of things that should be always available in the house and then it makes it easier for shopping too.
For example my Ensuite Toiletries list, and I also have lists for travelling such as contents of a toilet bag for short trips and a toilet bag for long trips.


4.  To do Lists
Take a page for each room to make a list of all the things you think about while working in that room.
For example when I was overhauling the Master Bedroom I had 3 boxes of photographs (yes we have many photos from before the digital age) and they are not very well organised so I have decided that I will make time later to properly sort them into smaller boxes to be better organised (throwing out the ones we really do not want) and then make another time for scanning them all unto a hard disc drive.  
This is where you can note down what decorating you want to plan
for the future too.


My top up lists and my To do lists will also be on my POCKET LIST App 




HERE ARE MY LISTS SO FAR FROM THE WORK DONE for the OVERHAULS and INVENTORIES



TOP UP LIST - Master Bedroom Ensuite
1.  Toiletries


TOP UP LIST - Master Bedroom
1.  Make-up etc.


TO DO LIST - Master Bedroom Ensuite
1.  Make DIY Toilet Fizzlers     (see how at WhileHeWasNapping ) 
  

TO DO LIST - Master Bedroom
1.  Redecorate 
2.  New Carpet
3.  Curtain or drape for Velux Window
3.  Sort photos to new smaller boxes
4.  Scan all photos



Now ready to do the end check list for January







Okay (I have to be honest) most of the things are done 
but
did you notice one thing not done yet?

I did not do the Games Room Window.  
It is a velux window on a room that is not used often at the moment and it is awkward for me to get at.  So my excuse is that my husband Fred was away with work over the last two weeks and I'm waiting for him to come home because he can reach it more easily than I can and I think he won't mind helping out with this.








Is there something we are forgetting?

In an overhaul like this and inventory surely some things need to be moved around or maybe even moved out of the room?

That is exactly what happened.   So.....

I got two baskets one for Fred's things and one for mine.

Anything I thought should not be in this room I put in the basket and then the basket could be taken downstairs and the items put it in their proper place. 




Is everything now out of the baskets?

No way, loads of things still in Fred's basket and some still in mine.

I just have to make sure that he does not slip the things out of his basket and back to the silly places he had them in to start with.









Do you allow me to get away without the window being cleaned?

I cannot say I loved all the work of the bedroom this last week because there was so much but the sense of accomplishment is fantastic, plus knowing that things are in sensible places and the fact that I have a note of everything is worth smiling about and when I'm smiling - I'm HAPPY.






DISCLAIMER: I am not affiliated to any of the apps I have mentioned in this post - wish I was!