I’m hoping, if the Lord wills it, to add some pages to our other website on the Lord’s remedy for worry and anxiety. I’ve spent most of the morning studying the theme of how KNOWING GOD brings peace. (2 Peter 1:2)Peace is the opposite of worry, anxiety and fear. We all have so many opportunities to worry or be anxious each and every day, don’t we? Our flesh and the enemy of our souls tempt us to worry about our health, our husband’s health, our children, our grandchildren, our marriages, our finances, our unsaved loved ones!

Yet, God’s Word says DO NOT  BE ANXIOUS for ANYTHING! God says we may NOT WORRY about our children (their health, their future, their salvation)… we may not worry about OUR health or our loved ones health…. we may not worry about our finances… we may not worry about the cost of living increase… we may not worry about our husbands losing their jobs or bills not being able to be paid… and we may NOT WORRY about our marriages!  There is absolutely NOTHING in Scripture that we are allowed to worry about!

Instead we are commanded to pray with thanksgiving and to cast our cares on to the Lord.  

1 Pet 5:7 – casting all your anxiety upon Him, because He cares for you.

Phil 4:6 – Be anxious for nothing,but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

The name the Lord chooses to describe Himself in Psalms 55:22 is Jehovah… the Self-Existing or Eternal One! He is the God who needs nothing to sustain Him, who never had a beginning nor an end, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever and who all of life is sustained in Him. He gives us our next breath.. and our next and our next.  This is a God we can surely trust to wisely order our affairs and those of our families.

Ps 55:22-  Cast your burden upon the LORD (Jehovah), and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.

The name JEHOVAH (The Self-Existing One) can become our refuge in times of temptation to fear and worry about the future. Everything can be cast (quickly hurled) in fatherly confidence to a God who cares so deeply for us!

 Prov 18:10 –  The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.

I’ve been working hard to cut back on a few areas of my household budget and I’m finally seeing some progress. I have at least three areas I’m focusing on …… food, electricity and gift giving.

I’ve cut my food budget in half over the past few months. I recognized that I was spending too much money stocking up on pantry items. Does a person really need to have 6 tubes of toothpaste on hand? I’m using up what I have on hand, making do or doing without. It’s amazing what you can find if you just look through your shelves and closets!  I love what is taught on CindysPorch… SHOP AT HOME FIRST. I’ve made that one of my motto’s and it’s paying off. Another motto of hers is DO INSTEAD OF BUY. I’m applying that principle, too.  

I’m still hanging my clothes on the line to dry and on racks in my master bath when it’s raining. My electric/gas bill has been pretty low this year. We rarely turn on the heater. At night we turn on our electric blankets if it’s too cold. I pulled out my small fan for the kitchen yesterday. It was so sultry. I read recently that a dishwasher doesn’t cost anymore than washing dishes by hand if you don’t rinse your dishes first. I’m thinking it must be the hot water that makes the difference when you rinse so I’m rinsing my dishes in cold water. Does anyone know if this is true? It sure gets me out of the kitchen faster on my cooking and baking days but I’ll go back to washing the dishes by hand if it won’t save me money.

I’ve had quite a few gifts that I needed to purchase this month for birthdays and showers. I love to give nice gifts but have realized that this is one area I need to cut back.  I asked the Lord to show me how to bless these loved ones while staying within my budget. The first gift was for a birthday. I rummaged through my ‘gift closet’ and found a candle warmer and a pretty bath scrubby. My sister had a new candle she gave me for the warmer. I then pulled out my scraps of fabric and found some pretty material to make a casserole potholder. I have one a friend made me years ago and I use it every time I cook. The real fun came when an unexpected package arrived from Omaha steaks for some work my husband had done. Inside the package was a beautiful set of knives. I already have a good knife set so I used the knives to include in my gift. Just as God provided for Abraham He has promised to provide for us today. He is still Jeho’vah-ji’reh! Our Provider! What a blessing!

The next challenge was an upcoming baby shower. I pulled out my fabric and found enough fabric to make a baby quilt. The pattern is called 9 Patch Hopscotch. I had enough material, including the batting, except for the binding. I prayed my way through the fabric department in Walmart and found a bolt of material for $2.00 a yard which is a great deal! The total for both borders and binding came to less than $6.00. I’m also going to make her the flip booklet I made on child training. It costs about $6.00 to have it bound. I have one I made for my daughter in love. I may give her that one and make my DIL another one later.

What an amazing God we serve! He holds the ocean waves back by the command of His voice yet He is mindful of the smallest details of my life. I know that giving gifts to my loved ones is a small thing compared to sustaining the universe yet He hears my prayers and moves on my behalf.

The longer I know Him… the longer I serve Him… the more amazed I am that He cares for such a one as me!

I hope everyone had a lovely day with your families for Easter! We celebrated yesterday so that my daughter-in-love could be with her family today. We had a wonderful day! My husband and I had bought the grandchildren kites along with other fun stuff and goodies! They had a blast flying the kites in the front part of the pasture. I was amazed how high they could fly. It was a relaxing (once the dinner and dishes were done) day. The grandchildren had fun digging for worms, eating candy, riding their bikes, hunting for eggs, eating candy,  feeding the ducks and chickens, climbing dirt piles in the back of the acreage,  and did I mention eating candy???? … oh, it makes me tired when I think of how much energy they have! LOL!! It was a blessed day! And of course, Grammy told the Easter story on her flannel graph board!

I’ve been working on an article in my head for nearly 5 years that I finally put on paper this last week. It’s posted on my website. It’s not your normal ‘blog’ so I thought I would just give you the website address and let you decide if you want to read it or not.  

On the top of this page you will find a heading to the right that says Visit our website: A WOMAN THAT FEARS THE LORD. Just click on that title and it should take you right to the website. Scroll down to Keepers at Home and then click on HOME BUSINESS: What I learned.

Blessings to all as you serve the Risen Savior! He has risen INDEED (as my Pastor says!).

Georgene

Some of my grandchildren that live nearby will be coming tomorrow to color eggs for our Easter celebration.  I’m still trying to figure out how our nation evolved from celebration the resurrection of Christ to coloring eggs and hunting for them? How does the Easter bunny, eggs and baby chicks fit into the crucifixion? I just don’t get it! Yet, I’m as guilty as the next one. I just fell in line with what I had done as a child. I look back now and wish that I had found another way to celebrate Easter that reflected the true meaning of our Savior’s death and resurrection.

I tried hard to find something of value to give my grands for Easter that would reflect the true meaning of Easter.  I visited the dollar stores and Walmart and the grocery store. Aisle after aisle were filled with nothing but eggs and baby chicks. Christ is being squeezed out of Christmas and now Easter. How sad!

So, I’ll be dragging out my flannel graph board to share with the grandchildren the real reason we are celebrating Easter. We’ll also use our resurrection eggs where each egg will tell part of the Easter story.

Here is a fun link with lots of fun teaching ideas.

http://misslink.org/children/biblestories/eresource.html

 I’m thankful for the holidays! I’m thankful to have another opportunity to talk to my grandchildren about Jesus!

I’m finding that because I am away from home one day during the week that I am getting behind in my housework. It probably doesn’t seem like much but when you add cleaning, shopping, cooking, grandparenting  and church duties it adds up. I try to only leave my home once a week under normal conditions to do my grocery shopping/errands so this means I’m gone 2 days a week.  I haven’t really been sure what to do about it because everything I am doing seems to have a biblical basis. So…

I spent hours this afternoon sifting through God’s Word to remind myself AGAIN what God’s commands are for the Christian woman/wife/mother/grandmother/believer.  I was specifically looking to see if I had become unbalanced in any particular area.  I’ve been feeling a lot of pressure lately but the most disturbing part is that the pressure has been crowding out my time in God’s Word. I don’t mind being busy but God’s Word must come first in my life. It’s a big sign that something needs to change if I’m cutting my study time short.

So, I went over the Scriptures I listed on my webpage, “How a Godly Woman Should Spend Her Days”. I found more Scriptures to add to the list. Hopefully I’ll find time to update it soon.

The longer I studied  and prayed the easier it became to see what was out of order in my days.  Even though each duty I’m performing is Scriptural, now that my daughter is needing more help my church duties will need to become secondary. I’m responsible for taking care of MY family. If I neglect that duty then it forces someone else (who has their own family) to step in. The longer I studied a woman’s role the easier I could see the importance being put on a woman’s responsibility to her family and home.  I won’t have to give up any duties at church (so far) but just change the amount of time I am devoting to them.  Isn’t God’s Word awesome? What other book can you read that is alive and powerful and able to correct your ways and train you in righteousness?

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness… 2 Tim. 3:16 

 How can we keep our way pure? By keeping it according to God’s Word!

How can a young man (old woman?) keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Your word. Psalms 119:9

The Lord has not left us as orphans but given us His Holy Spirit to teach us and lead us into all truth. I’m so thankful that everything I need to live a godly life can be found in God’s Word. All it takes is a little diggin’!

I heard on the news that it rained 21 days out of 31 last month in our neck of the woods (California). Our county is on flood watch along with surrounding counties. Last night a canal broke about 25 miles from our home. We’ve been blessed so far to not have any flooding nearby. The news showed many in surrounding counties with water standing up around their homes. We are not in a flood zone so we didn’t purchase flood insurance. We’re hoping the canals and levee’s will hold in our area.

We did have sunshine on Saturday and BOY did we take advantage of it. I think my husband mowed every blade of grass he could find on our 10 acres. We did some work in the flower beds. The grandchildren enjoyed riding their bikes and motorcycles. It was a beautiful day! Here is hubbins’ resting on the front porch after his lawn mowing excursion with our pup “Baby”. The front part of our 10 acres is nice and green but I don’t think it shows up in the picture.

Everything is so beautiful and green right now. The trees think it’s spring so they are sprouting buds. I’m enjoying all the flowers that are blooming.

I was thinking about how much we (I)  talk about the weather. I remember Elisabeth Elliot sharing about the Indians she and Valarie lived with many years ago and how they didn’t even have a word to describe the weather. It just was.  I’m trying to put that principle of not complaining into practice during our ‘wet’ season. I figure if I practice in the small things it hopefully will come easy in the big things. Our trucks normally do not work when it rains which means we haven’t had much work. Yet, I’m continually reminded that it’s the Lord’s business to take care of these things such as the weather and providing our finances. I have been assigned the duty of being a good steward with what He provides. I’m praying for grace to not meddle in His affairs.

My husband and I received the most wonderful gift from the Lord this week. A few precious brother’s in the Lord treated us to an overnight stay in Monterey which is on the ocean.

The Lord’s fingerprints were gently placed on the entire gift.

Just a few weeks before we were offered this gift I had just lifted my eyes to heaven one afternoon and whispered briefly… “Oh, Lord, how I would love to just get away for a day.” I dismissed it as quickly as it left my mouth knowing the season we are in with our finances. When my husband shared with me that we had been given this gift I immediately remembered my simple prayer.

Just think about that…

While we were waiting for the reservations to be made, again I lifted my heart to heaven and whispered, “Oh, Lord, could it be that they would choose our favorite place to stay in Monterey?” Again, I dismissed the thought as soon as it came to mind. But, guess what? That exact hotel was chosen.

As my husband and I arrived at the hotel we were asked which room we would like. We chose one on the back side of the hotel knowing that the ocean front rooms were too expensive. A few moments passed and the attendant whispered.. “I’m going to give you an ocean front room for the same cost.”

Imagine…

 How utterly amazing that God would take notice of me… a sinner. I fail Him daily… hourly… if not by each minute. I have nothing to offer Him. My best efforts are filth before Him. Yet, He chose to love me and continues to bless me because of His Son Jesus Christ.  It’s more than I can comprehend at times.  How exceedingly thankful I am for His grace. How undeserving I am of His favor.

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, {it is} the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast.  Eph 2:8-9

The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you all,

Georgene