I am expecting a Miracle

My daughter is in the second trimester of pregnancy and she started to have an episode with MS. Usually when she has an episode, she goes to her neurologist and he hooks her up to IV with very strong steriods. She has three treatments, one per day, which usually lasts several hours. Well, since she is pregnant and there is no guarentee that the baby will not be affected by the steriods, she is opting out of the treatments. Good choice!!!! She is so totally focused on the baby. I am not going to go through the whole story. But I did want to post this....I AM EXPECTING A MIRACLE. I do believe that this episode will subside with the help of God and that there will be no further episodes for the duration of the pregnancy.

And so, I am thanking the Good Lord in advance for the miracle He is about to grace us with.

Thank you, Lord.

A Big View of God

Was doing my readings today from a book that Max Lucado wrote called "Grace...for the moment". He has taken small parts of the many books that he wrote and compiled this book with a reading a day. I want to share it with you.

Exactly what is worship? I like King David's definition. "Oh magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together" (Ps. 34:3 NASB). Worship is the act of magnifying God. Enlarging our vision of him. Stepping into the cockpit to see where he sits and observe how he works. Of course, his size doesn't change, but our perception of him does. As we draw nearer, he seems larger. Isn't that what we need? A big view of God? Don't we have big problems, big worries, big questions? Of course we do. Hence we need a big view of God.

Worship offers that. How can we sing, "Holy, Holy, Holy" and not have our vision expanded?

from his book "Just like Jesus"

GOD IS GOOD

I got up this morning, jumped in the shower, poured myself a cup of coffee and sat out on the patio with Bob. The sun was shining and the birds were singing. We both agreed that it felt as though we were on vacation, sitting there relaxing with each other looking at the beautiful flowers in our garden.

GOD IS GOOD!

Put things in presepective

Hi everyone,
Just checking in with you. Tonight, I have had been given a gift...my sister, and her husband along with their 3 children came to visit us. (ages 8yrs. 4 yrs, and 3yrs.) You know, when things get mixed up....children can just staighten it out for you. They can put thing in prespective for you. Thank you, JC, Daneil and Bella. Because, I needed to be straightened out!

Happy Father's Day

I think of all of the men in my life that I can pay tribute to this Father's Day.

First of all, I am keeping my dad in my heart on this day. Although he has gone from this world, he is always close to me and I continue to love him and speak to him. "Happy Father's Day, Dad".

I keep all of the dads in my prayers today...my husband, who has been a good dad to our daughters and a wonderful "PA" to our granddaughters. My father-in-law, my brothers-in-law, my cousins, my niece's husband, my nephew (his wife just miscarried last week, so I keep them especially close in my prayers today), my friends. I would like to acknowledge one man, who I haven't seen in years. I worked for him for about 8 years and he taught me so much about being a dad, a mentor and a friend. "Happy Father's Day, Tom".

Happy Father's Day to all of the dads out there.

Love,

Jo-Ann

Look Beyond

Do you ever look around you, in this most familiar world of yours, and think that maybe there is something more to it than what meets the eye? Do you wonder where your loved ones have gone once they leave this earth? Is this the ultimate existance or is there another dimension to our wourld that we cannot see with the eyes of this world. Do you ever think about the connection we have to one another, you may be searchig for an answer to an internal question and in conversation or reading a book, the answer is right there? Have your answers been cofirmed? Or you feel a strong sense to pray for someone for a reason unknown to you, only to find out that they desperately needed prayers. I have sat many times and pondered these thoughts in my mind. Maybe we have to learn how to see past the physical and fix our eyes and our hearts on the spiritual aspects of this life. This is very hard to do because we are such physical beings and we need to touch and see things to believe in their existance. But it is not impossible. All we have to do is to have the desire to see things in a different way and I believe God will help us do the rest. Do I have the definite answer? No, but I do have many thoughts and strong beliefs on this subject that made me "look beyond" the obvious.

Does She Count

Iwrote this in 1995 in honor of my beautiful aunt, I called Toots.


A frail older woman, sitting in her wheelchair, the colors and shapes of this world stolen from her sight. The sounds of life robbed from her ears. All she has is her thoughts, but what are they? She keeps them bundled up in a neat small package inside of her mind. So thightly secured that she can't open it to let them out.


Pain...suffering... lonliness, she knows them all too well. But she never complains.


As I go about my life I can find no one to compare to this simple, humble woman.


Does she count?...She has touched my heart and a piece of it will always belong to her.







What made me think of this was when I went to church tonight.


I was walking up to go to communion. In front of me was a woman about my age. She looked very tired and disheveled. In front of her was an older man...about 90 or so, walking hunched over a cane. Each step was a struggle. The woman in front of me, I assumed to be his daughter was guiding him with her hands on each side of his waist. As I looked at him I saw an old man, on the outside, but I looked at him from within and saw a young soul inside of this old shell. The shell was breaking down, but the inside was just as it began but much much wiser. After he took communion, his daughter took it, then grabbed his hand and walked down the aisle hand and hand with her dad. This just gripped my heart.


Back at my seat, I knelt and wept, from the beauty and pain of this scene, the determination this man had, to take that long hike up to the alter to receive communion, the committment this woman had to her dad.