Singing...

Eventually, I'll tell you all the sweetness of the Holy Spirit over this weekend.

Eventually, I'll tell you about the Word He sent just in the nick of time.

First, I need to get some more sleep and practice for Easter music at church and remember my Easter sister over at Twinkle and fix my kids' Easter baskets (which have things like iTunes and chocolate instead of blue bunnies and sidewalk chalk) and finish this sub job.

Whew.

But I am still singing!
Thanks so much for your prayers!

Rushed

So rushed this week to prepare for a ladies' event at our church this weekend! We just found out today that we have too many people to use our original venue for the whole retreat. A great problem to have, but a problem none the less. I had already told the school where I've been working for a few weeks that I wasn't available Friday, but now I'm thinking that I might have to be out part of Thursday as well.

I am speaking Friday and feel that God has graciously shared His word.

I am speaking Saturday and feel that God is being slow to share His word.

Pray for me, please!

Thanks, sweet sisters!

Blessings,
Ginger

Plans

Have you ever felt that a verse of Scripture had become too familiar, ordinary somehow, to the point that you no longer heard it?

I confess that, more than once, a verse has slipped into the ho-hum category for me, and I missed the power, the truth of it.

The 23rd Psalm used to be that way for me, until my mother got sick, and God shook my heart to the core with it. (More on that in a few days.)

Jeremiah 29:11 was another verse that lost its voice with me. I admit that it had become just words on a page, over-quoted on coffee mugs and over-used as the theme verse for youth retreats.

It was a lovely verse for teens, but alas, with little application to me.

Until now.

This week, I got a job offer for a full-time teaching position next year.

Sort of.

The job will materialize if student head counts, state monies, and the stars align some time this spring.

In short, I have a job if God wants me to have one.

It's been a weird week. I was a content stay-at-home mom believing God for His provision, figuring that my full-time school days were over unless the economy ever recovered. Then I got a call to interview, and my educator wheels started spinning.

I've revisited all my favorite teacher websites, mentally arranged the desks in the rooms, pondered what I've learned from being an observer in many classrooms this year as a sub.

My peace got a little un-peaceful in the process.

That's when that old familiar verse began playing in my head.

" I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, " plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Plans.

His plans, not mine.

As unsettling as this process has been, this is right where God would have us.

With Him, a job.

Or, with Him, no job.

Either way, open or closed, the answer is His answer.

Sometime next March, if I'm hating my life, I will know, beyond any shadow of any doubt, that I am where the Lord planned for me to be.

That's a really lovely place to be.

Blessings,
Ginger

The B-I-B-L-E

Over at By the Lamp Light, Lora shared a beautiful poem about her new Bible. Her post got me thinking about my own well-worn copy of the Word. When I opened it one day last week, I noticed this tell-tale crack in the binding.


Umm...I've already forked over the big bucks to recover this Bible once, and I'm sure Big Red might balk at me recovering it again any time soon. In fact, his response the first time was, "I would have bought you a new Bible."

I don't want a new Bible.

I want this one.

Big Red gave me this NIV Study Bible on our first Christmas as a married couple, which means it will turn 16 this year.

We have a long-term relationship, this particular Bible and I.

It's been been left on the top of our car (twice) and has been returned by kind strangers who found it in the ditch.

DD#2 used it for writing practice during those toddler years when no surface was safe.

The new puppy used it for chewing practice.

Our cat usually just likes to sit on it when I'm studying, but the other day she decided to use it for claw-sharpening.
(Can you tell I leave it lying around open in dangerous places, a habit I should have broken by now?)

Its pages have opened for countless Beth Moore studies.

I've marked it, poured over it, cried over it, pondered it.

The real issue, of course, isn't the relationship I have with this particular Bible.

More accurately, it's the relationship I have with Word itself.

I don't just want to underline it and weep.

I want to sow it deep.

Then, even if this copy and I have to part, our time together will remain fruitful.

Blessings!
Ginger

Birthday Giveaway Winner!

We have a winner!

Kristy K.
has won the birthday giveaway. These lovelies will be on the way to your house as soon as I have an address. (By the way, if you haven't visited Kristy's blog lately, go read her post on joy. Good stuff.)

One of the unlovely aspects of middle age is insomnia. That would explain why I've had only two posts in about as many weeks and why none of them have been especially profound. Day-light savings time is not (*yawn*)helping. I wish I could say I am using my wakeful hours to pray or journal or something else productive, but I am not. I lie there thinking the same fragmented thoughts that I think during the day since I haven't had enough sleep. A vicious cycle.
-
It's the trade-off for being in one's forties, otherwise known as the best, most self-confident decade of a woman's life. Just when we are getting too cocky, the hormones deliver much- needed humility.
That's my excuse today, anyway.

Wake me up if you think of some better reason.

Blessings (and rest),
Ginger

Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy Birthday !!!!!!

I LOVE You !!!!!

I don't know what I'd do without you!
You're awesome!
;-)
I hope you have the best birthday EVER!!!!

Love,
DD#1


MAMA

Lovely, Christian,
Singing, Teaching, Loving,
Happy Birthday Wonderful Mother,
Praying, Hugging, Scrap booking,
Pretty, Blogger,
MOM

With Much Love and XOs,

DD#2

It's My Party...

(image courtesy Martha Stewart)

...and I'll give something away if I want to!
This week I'm turning 40-somethingish, and that means a present for you! I've found some neat stuff in my sporadic thrifting jaunts lately, and I want to share one with you.

(Daffodil not included).

I found this sweet cream and sugar set in a box of Pfalztgraff china I snagged at a local consignment shop. Since I adore little white pitchers and have more than one already ;-), this one could be yours.

Just leave me a comment about your favorite birthday memory between now and Friday, and I'll draw a winner this weekend.

Here's mine: when I turned 16, I did NOT want a party; I don't remember why. Maybe I thought I was too mature for celebrations--who knows?

Anyway, my family wouldn't let me get away with that, so they planned a surprise party for me. My sister convinced me to wear something besides my oldest t-shirt for supper, and out I came to a room full of my friends.

All this is fairly typical fare, except a) it happened to me, of course, which makes it special, and b) my mother's consummate ability to plan a party.

Believing that teenagers should never be left to their own devices, she wisely led the group in a host of parlor games from the 1950's. I wanted to be embarrassed, but everyone had such a blast that I (and my oh-so-mature-self) had to get over it and enjoy the party.

Being a sophomore was about as much fun as a toothache, so this memory reminds me even now that my family loved me, and in their dearest way, ushered an awkward teen into a better season of life.

Some of my not-so-great birthday memories are that it nearly always rained, and I was nearly always sick. One of those two is already in the forecast, and I am praying against the other.

Be blessed this week even if it isn't your birthday!
Ginger

Beautiful Friends

Wow! My extremely gracious blog-friend Rene at Cottage and Vine has passed along a Beautiful Blogger award to me. Please stop by and visit her lovely blog.
With this award, I have to choose 15 other bloggers to receive the award, and I have to tell you seven things about me that you don't already know.
Both of these are hard at 7:30 in the morning.
There are so many inspiring, beautiful, God-honoring, family-serving bloggers that I've had the privilege to "meet" over the last year. Choosing 15 leaves me torn. I want to honor all of you who so faithfully join the conversation with me, and I want to introduce you to some other folks that inspire me from from afar as I stalk them! ;-) So, because I can't recognize 157 blogs, here goes:

1. The Point
2. Twinkle
3. Learning as They Grow
4. Walk with Lauri
5. Peacorn, Popnuts, Soda Gum, and Chewing Water
6. By the Lamp Light
7. Tea with Tiffany
8. Lemonade Makin Mama
9. Stones of Remembrance
10. Sweet Nothings
11. Rare and Beautiful Treasures
12. Red Writing
13. His Princess
14. The Pleasures of Homemaking
15. Old Post Road

That was hard; here's the somewhat easier part.
Seven Things That You Didn't Know
1. My parents were both old enough to be my grandparents when I was born.
2. I sing alto.
3. I detest big cities and refuse to drive in them.
4. I am a 1st generation American.
5. I struggle with disorganization and messiness.
6. I'm afraid of heights.
7. One of my secret desire is to learn to figure-skate.

Thanks again, Rene!

And thanks to you, gentle readers. :-)
May it be spring in your heart.
Ginger

To Be Part of Us

Psalm 139:17-18 (New International Version)

¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!

¹⁸ Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.