Changed By Love

Changed By Love

Following the Lamb wherever he goes… Revelation 14:4

Getting Ready for Easter


I ordered this set just last week, and they made sure I got it in time. This is from the same company that I got “The Advent Book” from for Christmas, and the children just loved it.

Included in this kit is a set of Resurrection Eggs, the book called Benjamin’s Box, illustrated by Jack Stockman and autographed by him, a little box, and a nice gift bag to put it all in. I am planning to put it on the table on Easter morning with the Easter baskets, and designate it as a gift for the whole family. You can find this at the Celebrations and Traditions website.

I also ordered some really nice things for their Easter baskets this year from Christianbook.com, and they came the other day. I want to surprise the kids, but I’m going to share some of the things here. Let’s see if any of the kids are reading my blog!

I got some DVD’s of Tim Hawkins. We love his clean, Christian comedy. I got a Veggie Tale video for one of them. I got a devotional book for Young Women for one of my young women. I got a devotional for girls for Fiona and one for boys for Garrett. All of the devotional books are by Elizabeth George. There’s a book for Morgan called “The Boy Who Changed the World” by Andy Andrews. I found a book for kids about the five love languages. I’ll put it in Garrett’s basket but read it to all of them. I asked Kelsey to pick out a cross necklace from the Christianbook catalog. She picked the one that changes colors like a mood ring. And I got Jelly Bean Prayer coloring and activity books for Emma and Abby.

We have a centerpiece on our table that portrays the crosses and the empty tomb. Fiona has some ideas about putting a figure of Jesus in the tomb and then taking it out and hiding it somewhere and having the little ones hunt for it. That will be better than an Easter egg hunt! But I’m planning on doing an egg hunt, too. The kids love hunting for eggs.

And of course, I’ll put candy in their baskets.

And I’m planning to get pretty dresses for Emma and Abby. I already got one for Fiona. I don’t think I’ll try so hard to get a cute picture of Emma and Abby like I did last Easter. That was a catastrophe.

This is Good Friday, so we had prayer time and Communion all together. Gary led us over the phone from South Carolina.

Now I’m going to let them make Easter shape cookies yet tonight.

And the plan to make Easter even better than Christmas? I think it’s succeeding. The kids are VERY excited about Easter coming.

So what are your plans for Easter or Passover?

Like a Tree Replanted in Eden

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
And whose hope is the Lord.

For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters,
Which spreads out its roots by the river,
And will not fear when heat comes;
But its leaf will be green,
And will not be anxious in the year of drought,
Nor will cease from yielding fruit.” Jer. 17:7,8 NKJV

Or put another way:

“But blessed is the man who trusts me, God,
the woman who sticks with God.
They’re like trees replanted in Eden,
putting down roots near the rivers—
Never a worry through the hottest of summers,
never dropping a leaf,
Serene and calm through droughts,
bearing fresh fruit every season. Jer. 17:7,8 The Message

And he shall be like a tree firmly planted [and tended] by the streams of water, ready to bring forth its fruit in its season; its leaf also shall not fade or wither; and everything he does shall prosper [and come to maturity]. Psalm 1:3 AMP

And for a fresh look at a familiar passage:

1 How well God must like you— you don’t hang out at Sin Saloon, you don’t slink along Dead-End Road,
you don’t go to Smart-Mouth College.

2-3 Instead you thrill to God’s Word,
you chew on Scripture day and night.
You’re a tree replanted in Eden,
bearing fresh fruit every month,
Never dropping a leaf,
always in blossom. Psalm 1:1-3 The Message

What does “replanted in Eden” mean?

It means living in the Kingdom of God instead of the kingdom of this world.

Have you been replanted, or are you still living in the kingdom of this world? There is a real difference.

How do we get replanted? We trust in God. We ask the Lord to draw us and teach us how to live in His kingdom.

What did Jesus bring with Him? He brought the Kingdom of God.

We live in The Blessing, not the curse. We have to change our address.

We need to go from “this world” (the curse) to “the Kingdom of God” (The Blessing or Eden).

(As for me and my house, we are praying for our final change of address in the natural!)

Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added to you. Matt. 6:33

For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Rom. 14:17

For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. 1 Cor. 4:20

Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God. Acts 14:22

Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer… 2 Thess. 1:5

Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son… Col. 1:13

About 12 years ago, my husband and I made a conscious decision to start living in the Kingdom of God instead of the kingdom of this world. We can definitely vouch for the “tribulation” and “suffering” part. The Lord told me that we were vessels that would be broken and spilled out so that His fragrance would be spread to the world around us.

Through our experiences since that time, our foundation that was built on shaky ground was replaced with a rock solid foundation based on knowing that God is real, He loves us, He takes care of us and He is good. His word is true and He is faithful to it. It was God plus nobody else who sustained us through our years of being re-formed and replanted.

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by your name;
You are Mine.
2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you.
When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned
Nor shall the flame scorch you.”

Isaiah 43:1,2

God was with us through every trial, every waiting period, every pressure. We have faced foreclosure, homelessness, wandering across the US somewhat aimlessly, poverty, unemployment, landlords (especially property management groups – ugh!) that made unreasonable demands, and an unmet need for “our own home”.

We also had plenty of people talking us down. Everywhere we went.

Not much support. Only God.

A few people have stuck with us and let us know that they care and believe in what we’re doing. We really appreciate those few.

But God put us in such a place that we could only rely on Him.

He separated us from everyone else.

“How well God must like you— you don’t hang out at Sin Saloon, you don’t slink along Dead-End Road,
you don’t go to Smart-Mouth College.”

Yeah, we’re separated all right. How well God must like us.

But we wouldn’t mind some company here in the Kingdom of God.

And “there’s no place like home” never meant so much as it does now.

Lord, thank you that you will grant us our desire for our own “home sweet home”.

Plant us, please.

The drought is over!

Light of Your Face

Light of Your Face by Misty Edwards

22 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:

23 “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, ‘This is the way you shall bless the children of Israel. Say to them:

24 “The Lord bless you and keep you;
25 The Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
26 The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.”’

27 “So they shall put My name on the children of Israel, and I will bless them.”

Numbers 6:22-27

Consider yourself blessed!

Kelsey’s Heart and Soul

I got this valentine book activity from Cross-Eyed Curriculum (as in the cross of Christ) at Currclick.com.

It’s called I Love You Minibooks. I got it a couple of years ago, but I didn’t look at it closely until last year before Valentine’s Day. I saw what it was like and realized that it was something I should make for just one child, not the whole “pack”. So I prayed about which child I should make it for. I thought about who would appreciate it the most and who I needed to draw closer to my heart. I then knew that I needed to make it for Kelsey. But I looked through it and saw that I needed pictures of her and me together. And honestly, I haven’t taken many pictures of me and Kelsey over the last few years. Of course, it’s hard for me to take a picture of myself and another person! But I was stumped on that minibook, so I didn’t end up making the book for her last year.

If you remember, we had just moved into this house about a month prior to that, and things were still kind of hectic anyway.

But this year, I was determined to get it done. I pulled it up on my computer again and looked it over. I still didn’t know where I would get pictures of me and Kelsey together. Suddenly, I remembered that I had old pictures in my scrapbooking case from when the kids were younger. I looked through them and found several pictures of us together (that somebody else had actually taken). I’m usually the one taking pictures, so there aren’t very many pictures of me throughout the years.

But I found some good ones and scanned them and worked hard to make them the right size and printed them and glued them to the little pages of the booklet. I was so proud of myself for figuring all of that out. That took me quite a while.

Making the other booklets and putting the book together took quite a bit of time. I would say it took me several hours. I worked on it for a couple of evenings. It was a labor of love.

I hope that Kelsey realizes that I love her enough to invest that much time and effort in making something for her. I think she was kind of surprised when I gave it to her, but I feel like we have had a warmer relationship since then.

That’s one thing that has been difficult with a large number of children and with the crazy, chaotic things that have happened to us over the last several years. It has been hard to spend special time with each child and keep their hearts close to me. And make each one feel special. But I ask each one how they’re doing from time to time, and they all say that they understand the priorities I’ve had with taking care of the younger children, and that they are fine. The other kids have helped fill the gaps.

But we know that nobody can really take Mommy or Daddy’s place. So my husband and I are making a commitment to spend more time with each individual child in the coming days. And pray with them and talk to them about how they’re doing and what they may need to learn more about, especially spiritually.

Of course, Gary needs to be home with us in order to do that, so we’re praying really hard that the Lord will provide a full-time job or long-term contract soon so that we can all be together as a family again.

The following video shows one of the things that Kelsey has worked on a lot during the last couple of years. She learned to play the recorder and the ocarina. She taught herself.

She likes the songs from Zelda, so she plays a lot of them.

Here she is playing some of her favorites on the ocarina.

Here she is playing that last song again. She can play it flawlessly, but I think the camera made her a little nervous.

Invisible Children, A Criminal Named Kony, and The Machine Gun Preacher

There’s been a lot of talk about this on the internet, especially on Facebook, but in case you missed it, here’s the movie that went viral about Kony2012. It’s pretty self-explanatory, if you want to watch it.

KONY 2012 from INVISIBLE CHILDREN on Vimeo.

A lot of questions have been raised about the legitimacy of the claims in this video and the financial dealings. The Invisible Children have answered the questions here:

Invisible Children Answer Critics

Here’s a page that shows crimes being committed in the areas where the LRA is active in real time:

http://lracrisistracker.com

And here is the video response of the Machine Gun Preacher, who has been working in Uganda for 13 years rescuing kidnapped children from the LRA, to the viral video about Kony2012. He tells what the real problem is and says that South Sudan is where we really need to be focusing. The eyes of the world need to be on the president of northern Sudan. He funds Kony and others and is trying to wipe out the people of South Sudan. The way I understand it is the Muslim government of the north is trying to wipe out the Christian population of the south.