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Just Give Me Jesus

Hi friends~ You have been so wonderful in your comments and your prayers for BellaMella and family! I will send them on to her, and know that she will be blessed.

I just realized that Christmas Day is a week from Friday! This is the first year in my adult life that I’ve not been running 90 miles an hour – like most of you probably are right now – in preparation for “Christmas”. The “waiting with the Lord for a job” situation has placed us at a slower pace of living. And the financial cut-backs we are making has helped us prioritize the things/needs/wants/gifts that are usually the focus of this time of year.

This stripping away has been a wonderful awakening to the real reason we are celebrating Christmas. It has given us a chance to appreciate the Gift God gave us in Jesus, Who is ENOUGH! Jesus, Who is EVERYTHING! Jesus our SAVIOR, our PROVIDER, our LIFE!

I pray that our family will forever be changed in how we look at this time of year. Even if James has a million-dollar salary this time next year (ha ha!), I don’t want to ever again place our priority on “things” and “busy-ness” and miss the quiet moments spent soaking in the tremendous love of God through the Gift of His Only Son, Jesus.

“Thank You, Father, for unwrapping Jesus for us this year through our required dependence upon You. He truly is all we need. Because we have Jesus, we have Everything. I love you. And I deeply thank you for the peace of walking into the days ahead with You, Jesus, and Your Spirit. May You be magnified in our lives.”

Give Me Jesus

In the morning, when I rise
In the morning, when I rise
In the morning, when I rise
Give me Jesus.

Give me Jesus,
Give me Jesus.
You can have all this world,
Just give me Jesus.

When I am alone,
When I am alone,
When I am alone,
Give me Jesus.

Give me Jesus,
Give me Jesus.
You can have all this world,
Just give me Jesus.

When I come to die,
When I come to die,
When I come to die,
Give me Jesus.

Give me Jesus,
Give me Jesus.
You can have all this world,
Just give me Jesus.

Give me Jesus.
Give me Jesus,
Give me Jesus.
You can have all this world,
You can have all this world,
You can have all this world,
Just give me Jesus.

by Jeremy Camp

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Andrew is

Home… Healed… in Heaven…

And my heart is breaking for his dear family. This is from Bella Mella’s FaceBook status update:

Our beautiful and precious son, Andrew, went home to be with the Lord today. We loved on him, kissed him, sang and prayed. He was unaware, except by his spirit. The nurse and I bathed his body. I gave him his first bath and wanted to give him his last. Thank you to all who prayed for Andrew and continue to pray for our family. Life is hard. But God is good.

And this is from her friend’s blog earlier tonight:

It is with a heavy heart that I give you this update. I received a text from Melanie a little while ago saying, “Andrew went to heaven today.”


There are no words. Only tears. God has given me an idea about how to honor Andrew’s courage and legacy. I will let you know as it progresses.
For now. No words. Only tears.

Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was. Job 2:13

Thank you for praying for Andrew. Now we need to surround Melanie, her husband Dan, daughter Audra (20) and brother Avery (15) with our prayers. I don’t know what to say, except “But God…”

Love to you all…
Jen

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Urgent: Message from Bella Mella – PLEASE PRAY!

This is from Melanie’s friend, Lisa Smith, of Glad Chatter.

Bloggy Friends!! Please pray for Andrew right now. I just received a text from Melanie and the doctors don’t give Andrew much time. Maybe hours.

We know who holds time in His hands. We know who numbers Andrew’s days and has his life planned out from beginning to end. We long to see Andrew experience the goodness of the Lord and complete healing in the land of the living! We are asking for Andrew’s healing. A healing that will be used for God’s glory, spreading His fame everywhere, all over the earth!

I am praying that God will rise with healing in his wings and Andrew will go out and skate like Tony Hawk on steroids!! Let’s stand together in victory. Andrew’s victory. Melanie’s victory. The Lord’s victory. Amen!

But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall. Malachi 4:2

I’ll keep you posted. I’m closing comments in hopes that you’ll hop over to Glad Chatter and leave a comment/prayer for Andrew there.

When you are praying, please remember Mark 10:27: “Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.””

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A Simple Solution for a wayward stocking

… and an inexpensive Christmas mantle… and a few other things around my house. 🙂

Does it ever bother you when your “stockings are hung by the chimney with care…” but they keep turning sideways? Well, it bothers me. I just think that if you have a pretty stocking, it ought to hang with the good side facing out! (I must feel passionately about this subject – my fingers are pounding this out on the keyboard!)
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But I’m happy to report that peace has come to my mantle. My stockings are hanging correctly – and it took about 1 minute to fix this multi-year problem. One minute and a small piece of string.

I was looking at how the stockings continued to twist sideways and asked the Lord how I could fix this problem. (Do you know that you can ask Him things like that? He cares so much about you that if you care about it, He does too. Yes, He is very concerned and involved with the weight of the world – but He is big enough to carry that weight – and to help you with your twisting Christmas stocking~or whatever it is that is on your mind! Try Him on that and see if what I say isn’t true! We expect God to do the big things. But it’s when we see Him in the little things that we really understand how much He loves us personally and intimately, and is concerned for our every detail of life.)
Anyway, He brought to my mind one of my necklaces, whose charm always turned sideways. Years ago, He gave me the idea to fix that problem by adding an extra little ring to the top of the charm, and it caused the charm to lay flat against my neck.
So that’s what I did to my stocking.
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By adding an extra ring, it changes the direction the stocking hangs. I’m sure there is some scientific reason for this. Doesn’t matter. What matters to me is that it works, and now all of my stockings are hanging facing forward, and I’m not constantly fussing over them. Why didn’t I ask the Lord about that years ago???

Speaking of the mantle, I think this may be my favorite one I’ve done. It was cheap and easy. (I like cheap and easy in things – not people, mind you). I used Magnolia leaves from the tree in our back yard and interspersed red Christmas ornaments through them. I’m not sure how long the leaves will stay pretty, but when they start to turn brown, I’ll just go pick more. I’m so thankful for our Magnolia tree.

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Because our house is on the market, I didn’t want to over-do the Christmas decorating. It actually took me longer to decorate minimally this year than every other year when I try to make each room special. I guess I don’t do minimal very well.

We borrowed a skinny tree from a friend and had to be very choosy about which ornaments and decorations to use. I enjoy my Santa collections and other memorable things we usually put out at Christmas, but this year, we only used things that would reflect the true meaning of Christmas. I love it. Every time I look at my tree, I’m reminded of the Joy and Hope and Peace we have because “The Word was made flesh and dwelled among us”. (See John 1:1-14) And, as we are in this season of waiting with the Lord, I’m reminded to praise God and to keep my eyes fixed on Him, who IS my HOPE, my PEACE, and my JOY!
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One more thing: I wanted to display our Christmas Cards with family/friend pictures, but couldn’t find a clutter-free solution. I even googled “clutter free way to display Christmas cards while your house is on the market”. Believe it or not – there were lots of answers out there. Attaching them to hanging ribbons seemed to be the most common solution, and was even recommended by a Real Estate blog, so that’s what I did. I used what I had (large jute twine) and attached it to the top of our TV armoire with a few pushpins, then used paper clips to attach the cards to the twine. Because the twine is pretty thick, the cards don’t move.

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I like being able to see the pictures, instead of piling them in a basket under the tree or on a table.

I’m sure that most of you know that Monday is the “Christmas Tour of Homes”. I stumbled upon this last year when BooMama hosted it, and decided to participate. I couldn’t go to sleep on the night before the “Tour” day, so I went to her post to find out how to participate (blogging was still kind of new to me). I just “happened” to be on her post when her link opened up, so I linked my post and ended up being 3rd or 4th out of what turned out to be HUNDREDS! I had around 1500 hits on my blog from that one link last year. Amazing. This year, The Nester is hosting. Click over to find links to what will probably be hundreds and hundreds of ideas shared about Christmas decorating.

Have a wonderful week, my friends. For me, school is almost out, shopping is almost done, and my heart is full of gratitude to the Lord for all He is to us. It will be a wonderful week. Peace, Joy, and Hope to you in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Jennifer

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