Your voice, your story
Outside our front door . . . . . .
Please stop by for a visit at mamas*little*treasures for inspirational posts, craft and sewing tutorials, and frugal family living ideas.
Please join us this week for Wordless Wednesday! Simply stop by Ramona’s blog, “Create with Joy,” and leave a link to your Wordless Wednesday post. That’s it! Then you can visit some of the other participants in this week’s Wordless Wednesday. Hope to see you there!
You’ve now written two books with the first being, Life Through the Rearview Mirror, which is a reflection of your life. What made you decide to put your life in print for all to read? 
You also have a 2nd book called Turning Leaves which is a book of poetry. I’m always in awe of those who write poetry as I wonder about how you handle meter and all the rest that goes with writing in a poetic style.
In the neighborhood where I live, I have one neighbor who likes to cause trouble. He picks the fruit from my trees, chops down my shade trees, and mows down my flowers.
He dumps trash in my yard, reads my mail, steals my packages from the delivery man, tries to tell me all the neighborhood gossip about my friends, and does his darnedest to make me mad.
Forever prowling around the premises, he tries to sneak in the windows and get his foot in the door, attempting to steal my belongings. So I put an alarm system on all the doors and windows.
He likes my house and wants to live here, but I’m under a lease contract for a single dweller. He can’t have it and he certainly isn’t going to move in with me! But he still continues to try to take it away from me.
It’s a comfortable old house, though it’s not the most beautiful on the block nor is it the biggest. The landlord was very generous in his lease, so I appreciate what I have, even if a few structural changes are needed.
A few of its rooms have become dusty and overcrowded and need remodeling. Some of the junk needs to be put out with the trash. Some rooms are in a constant state of upheaval; others just need rearranging.
The windows have become a little foggy, so they’re not as easy to see through as before. Some of the shingles are falling off the roof, while some of the fence pickets are missing.
A few of the hinges have become a little rusty and don’t work as well as they used to, but the landlord I lease from said he would make all the necessary repairs. I know he will, for he is a man of his word. However, he does have a busy schedule, so I’m just patiently waiting my turn.
I thought it might be time to move, but he says I can stay a while longer, if I do some of the maintenance work. I do look forward to moving, though, because I’ve had my eye on this perfect, little cottage that’s being built. I’d really like to move there some day…there’s no traffic, no noise, the air is clean, great neighbors, the scenery is beautiful, and best of all, no more Mr. Meany!
I’ve called ahead to see if it was ready but they tell me they’re still working on it. Well, I guess I can wait a little longer. I’m not really finished renovating this one!
~~I hope you know this was all tongue-in-cheek and about my physical body-home. Paul wrote, “For we know that when this tent we live in now is taken down-when we die and leave these bodies-we will have wonderful new bodies in heaven, homes that will be ours forevermore, made for us by God Himself and not by human hands.” (2 Cor. 5:1 TLB)
Please visit Lynn on her blog, Heading Home, or you can also connect with her in the Ruby for Women community on her personal page.
Read more: http://wordsculptures-keith.blogspot.com/2012/03/broken-hallelujahs.html#ixzz1ouxAhQfe
It seems I have yet to fully grasp ( or maybe fully embrace) the commandment to love my enemies. References to this directive abounded everywhere I looked this last week. They were in my devotionals, on the Internet, even in the historical novel I am reading, constant reminders to be patient, kind, and loving in return for insults, aggravations, and general rudeness. Well, I tried. I truly did. So what part am I still missing?
I have the legal right to go the speed limit.
Yellow does not mean speed up.
That red light is not a suggestion.
Am I instead to smile and say a prayer for the guy who just cut in front of me and then slowed down, forcing me to stand on my brakes? And the big truck riding my bumper so close I can’t see his headlights? I am to smile and think sweet thoughts, pray even? And the clerk at the check out who acted like she was doing me a favor by taking my money? I am to be gracious in thought as well as deed? And what about that woman who appears to spend her nights thinking of insults and innuendos to slap me with everyday? As my daughter would say, my feathers were a bit ruffled at the thought.
Well, Jeremiah 18:20, my next listed reading, answered that question. ….Remember that I have stood in thy sight to speak for them and turn away thy indignation from them. The foot note said this was spoken in the person of Christ. He loved (and died) for those who tortured and killed him. He not only was gracious and loving, He defended those men who treated Him far worse than I have been treated. No one is whipping me with a cat of nine tails and no one is hammering nails into my flesh.
Then the light came on, and I finally got His point, the full message. Outwardly I may manage to remain polite, and I might be managing my temper better, but I am making judgments. I have failed to remember the old adage, hate the sin, love the sinner. My head hangs in shame.
However, as Jesus told me in The Divine Embrace, it is not how many times I fail, it is how hard I try. It is the effort that counts. And with that in mind, I will work on an attitude adjustment, try not to judge the driver of the big four wheel drive riding my bumper. I will try to be patient with the older driver putting along twenty miles under the speed limit. I will be gracious and pray for the caustic woman I must deal with every day, and all the other challenges to my vow to love my enemies in whatever form they take.
I don’t need to be doormat, but my response should not be anger and judgment. I need to rely on my prior lessons and stand silent to unfair insults, remembering their judgment of me isn’t as important as God’s. After all when I finally cross over into eternity, it will be His opinion that matters, not theirs. I do need to speak up for injustices when necessary – and forgive often.
However, as in The Woman’s Prayer, I am about to get in the car now, about to go to work, about to run errands at the local market, and a whole host of activities that will set me up as a target for rudeness, and try my patience. I need your help Lord, for I cannot do this on my own. I know. I’ve tried it my way, and it isn’t working.
TRASH
by Kristin Bridgman
I smiled today as I threw the trash out. Why you might ask? Let me explain.
We have a large, black, plastic trash can with a lid in the garage, just off the kitchen. The inside is always lined with a plastic trash bag that gets pulled over the lip of the can. The trash goes INTO the bag. Well…not always. When my son and husband throw trash in, they just open the lid and toss without looking. I always look to make sure the trash gets into the bag. This might have something to do with my perfectionism, which I’m trying to let go of just a little.
Or it could just be that I’m normal in wanting trash inside the trash bag. Anyway, sometimes something heavy will be thrown in and the bag will come off of the lip of the can and become crumpled. When my guys just toss without looking, if that bag has come off, trash just piles up on top of the bag and when I come along, I have to take all that trash off by hand and insert it into bag. This can be unpleasant at times depending on what the trash is. It’s always been frustrating to me wondering why grown men cannot get trash into the trash bag. Gggrrrrr…
But just a few weeks ago, we had a small scare. My husband found a lump that was quite disturbing. After all the googling on this kind of lump, the diagnosis did not sound good. And when the doctor said we need to look further into this, I got a little worried and went into my prayer closet. Praise the Lord, it only ended up being a fatty cyst and we were told it was nothing to worry about. Nothing had to be done. Again, Praise the Lord!
I have to tell you though, while waiting the week to find out what the news on this lump would be, I began to see things a little differently, one thing being the trash. Would I rather have the trash pristinely in the trash bag and not have my husband around or would I rather have him around and have the trash, well, trashy. Seems like an absurd question until the security of your mate being around becomes endangered.
I like my home clean and tidy and trash in the trash bag, but not at the expense of being alone. This sounds silly, but before, it used to be such an irritation to see the trash on top of the bag, clothes on the floor, candy wrappers left on the coffee table, socks in the floor inches away from the laundry basket, dirty glasses and dishes sitting on top of the dishwasher instead of inside the dishwasher. Can grown men not do these simple tasks?
Maybe, but I’m not going to care anymore. One of the ways I can show love is to pick up after my men with a smile and feel so very blessed that they are with me to share this life with. Life can get messy and my husband has always been there with me through it all.
So I will be with him through his messiness of the house…the trash. After all, he works hard to provide for us and it’s my job to make our house a home. I never wanted to do anything else but that. So I pick up with joy whatever is not supposed to be on the floor, on the tables, and put trash that is sitting on top of the trash bag inside the trash bag.
Remember the Proverb, “Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife” ? Well, I don’t want my husband up there on the roof, I want him inside with me. So toss away honey, if it lands in the bag, woo-hoo! And if it doesn’t, I love ya anyway.
Read more of Kristin’s posts on her blog, Ponderings by Kris, or you can also connect with her in the Ruby for Women community on her personal page.
“I hold in my hands an unending serving of free-will — a special gift from my 
Creator, my unique Key to the Kingdom of Heaven. I ponder my talents, my passion and my purpose, wondering how I can best live out my slice of history. I’m captivated by the imagination, the seed of creation. God created all life with His imagination, and He designed us in His image. We have been given a powerful tool, but we seldom know how to use it. My blog is my effort to understand this gift and to use it to glorify God.” – Alisa
Check out Alisa’s blog at faithimagined.com
Life happens and over the past several months a lot has been happening in my life. I have spent many days crying out and asking why and how and when the relief will come.
I have felt despair and loss of hope. Like the Psalmist wrote, “In my distress I called to the LORD; I cried to my God for help” (Psalm 18:6a, NIV).
I confess that after crying out to God, I wasn’t really sure how or if He would even respond. I was so wrapped up in the everyday lows that I assumed I would just be left there. But that is not what God wants for any of us.
This past month I participated in Rick Warren’s “40 Days in the Word”. Each day’s study featured a specific verse. To my surprise, each day’s verse was a direct word to my ears from God.
“From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears” (Psalm 18:6b, NIV).
Through this study, I learned and even re-learned that getting into the Bible and truly studying God’s Word requires consistent, no distraction, focus and time.
By committing my undivided attention to the Word of God, I found myself being lifted up and held in the reassuring arms of the Lord.
“He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters” (Psalm 18:16).
This morning I even found myself smiling as I turned the pages to read the verse of the day; it was a beautiful whisper from God straight into my heart.
God has a message of hope and love for each of us, but if we choose not to set aside time for Him, we will miss what He has to say.
I’m rejoicing over the words of love that God sent me this through this study and I cannot wait to read more!
Scripture God used in my life during the first week of the “40 Days in the Word” study: Philippians 1:6, Philippians 1:27a, Philippians 2:13, Philippians 3:12b, Philippians 4:6, Philippians 4:13, and Philippians 4:19
Blessings, Amanda
Read more inspirational articles in the March issue of the Ruby for Women magazine!
Discover the Heirloom Collection at Send Out Cards with Danie K. Bell
Discover the beauty of SCENTSY candles and warmers for your home . . . Visit Maritza Bonilla, Independent Scentsy Distributor
March Book Give-Away
Nothing But the Truth
by
John MacArthur
Scripture is clear about the fact that we must be prepared to communicate the truth of the Gospel when given the opportunity – and do it with the right attitude. But even when your tone is gentle and respectful, what, specifically, should you say when asked or confronted about your faith? And what is your overall responsibility to unbelievers as a disciple of Christ?
Pastor John MacArthur responds to these very questions and more – with solid, biblical answers focused in four particular areas:
* Your attitude
* Your preparedness
* The content of your answers
* Your priority in witnessing
Combining a biblical study of evangelism, a rational defense of Christian beliefs, and a practical approach to evangelism, this book offers a well-rounded perspective that can help you gently and confidently give an answer for the hope you have in Christ.
If you would like to enter the March Book Give-Away at Ruby for Women, please leave a comment on this post, including your email address. You will be contacted for your mailing address if you are the winner. The drawing will take place on April 1, 2012.
Congratulations Ruby Blogger of the Week Mark Glamack!
Mark Glamack is the author of “Littluns: And the Book of Darkness” – “A very different reading experience for ‘Young Adults’ and grown-up readers looking to discover truth, peace, love, hope, joy, and their hearts desire.”
Learn more about the amazing world of Littluns on Mark’s Blog http://www.littlunsblog.com Be sure to check out his work in the monthly edition of Ruby for Women’s e-zine as well!
Check out Angela’s blog at King’s Daughters. Here is her featured blog post for this week:
Be sure to check out Cynthia’s page at www.dove-ministries.org
Congratulations Laura on becoming this week’s Ruby for Women Blogger of the Week! Check out Laura’s blog “Laura’s Thoughts on Scripture” and dive into the Word of God on a routine basis! Be sure to check out Laura’s other web site Wentworth County Quiltworks
February Book Give-Away
The Bridge of Peace
by
Cindy Woodsmall
Headstrong schoolteacher Lena Kauffman finds herself at the center of controversy in her Amish community when a young man in her classroom refuses to submit to her authority. As her friends and family rally around her, especially longtime friend, Grey Graber, things go from bad to worse when Grey’s wife, Elsie, becomes an accidental target in trouble meant for Lena. As the present unravels around them, each must find their own way through their private pain in order to find peace and a brighter future.
This second novel in the Ada’s House series returns to Dry Lake, Pennsylvania, and the beloved characters from The Hope of Refuge.
If you would like to enter the February Book Give-Away at Ruby for Women, please visit the Ruby blog and leave a comment, including your email address. You will be contacted for your mailing address if you are the winner. The drawing will take place on March 1, 2012.
We are so glad you stopped by for a visit. Please join us in the
where you can connect with other Christian women, share your favorite recipes and craft projects, link up your blog posts, and pray together with us. We’ll be looking for you soon!
Stop by Nicole’s website, Discovery Toys, to see all the amazing new products that are available for your little ones!
Raised by parents of the “Greatest Generation,” I grew up in the late 40s and 50s – the youngest of four girls. I’ve been married for over 40 years to my high school sweetheart, claiming three children, their spouses and seven grandchildren as my most valued treasures.
For much of my life I worked in business management, eventually finding my way into ministry. I now work alongside the Sr. Pastor in a sizeable, thriving church. Today I view life from the perspective that the best is always yet to come, which keeps me perched & ready for that next great thing. You might have guessed (and rightly so) that I see life in superlatives.
This week’s featured blog post by Kathleen Flanagan is “The Year to Live Beautifully“
January Book Give-Away
The Hope of Refuge
by Cindy Woodsmall
Raised in foster care and now a widowed single parent, New Yorker Cara Moore struggles against poverty, fear, and a relentless stalker. When a trail of memories leads Cara and her daughter, Lori, away from the city toward an Amish community, she follows every lead, eager for answers to mysteries from her past and a fresh start. She quickly discovers that Dry Lake, Pennsylvania, is no place for an outsider.
But one Amish man, Ephraim Mast, dares to fulfill the command he believes that he received from God – “Be me to her” – despite how it threatens his way of life. Ephraim’s sister Deborah is fearful of the strange Englischer woman causing turmoil for her family, but keeps focused on the marriage and home she longs to begin with Mahlon Stolzfus. Her dreams are threatened when Mahlon begins behaving oddly, withdrawing, and causing concern for Deborah and Mahlon’s mother, Ada.
Will the run-down house that Ada envisions transforming unite them toward a common purpose – or push Mahlon away forever? As Ephraim is torn between trying to do what he believes is right and the requirements of his community, he risks losing everything, including a developing friendship with the guarded single mother. And he knows that long-held secrets about her family history ripple beneath the surface of Dry Lake – secrets with the power to tear apart the home Cara is desperately trying to find.
If you would like to enter the January Book Give-Away at Ruby for Women, please leave a comment at the bottom of this post, including your email address. You will be contacted for your mailing address if you are the winner. The drawing will take place on February 1, 2011.
