Brunch with Santa

What a fun day today. John Edward, Kristin and their kids Hayden and Ella plus Madelaine, Tom and I went across the street to the club for "Brunch with Santa." It was an amazing spread...breakfast foods, carving station, chicken, veal marsala, shrimp, salads...breads...and the most incredible desserts...a trifle and raspberry cheesecake that were out of this world! Hayden and Ella visited with Santa and Kristin got some good photos.
Then we came back home and exchanged gifts. It was a cold, dreary day outside...but a happy, warm day inside these walls.
Merry Christmas!

Gone too long...

I just rediscovered my blog and it's still here! It's been almost 3 years since I last blogged...so one of my my New Year's Resolutions is to blog in 2011.

A lot has happened in the past 3 years!

I started a business in Tampa, Such Nice Things...then, I was an assistant manager at Brighton...I met a wonderful man named Tom and we got married...I moved to Jacksonville...Jennifer had Penelope, now 20 months old...is expecting a baby boy in February...they just moved to Nashville...I resurrected Such Nice Things up here in Orange Park and it is now a space in an antique mini-mall...

That is just the Reader's Digest version...so I can blog on from this point.

Life is good.

I hope anyone reading this feels the same.

Have a Very Merry and Meaningful Christmas...and a Happy, Healthy New Year.

Train Up a Child

You haven't heard from latley because I have been really busy! I have been babysitting Kate for the past week; her mom and dad will be home tomorrow night from a week at a middle school camp in TN where Nathan has been leading the worship; Kate has spent the past 8 days at Camp GiGi's. We have had fun, but I know why we have kids when we are young! I am pooped. The arthritis in my hands has flared up from lifting her in and out of the tub, hi chair and crib. But she is such a joy and a blessing. I have been reminded so many times this week about the verse that says "train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it." Her nite-nite ritual that she shares with her mom and dad and with her GiGi is to rock and sing and pray. She knows all the words to "Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus," "Great is Thy Faithfulness," "Jesus Loves Me," and others. It is so precious to hear her singing along with me. We pray and when I say "In Jesus' Name," she then says "Amen." And she always says "God bless Emma, Molly, Baby Jack, Miss Autumn, Mr. Dan, Mommie & Daddy, Mickey (Mouse), and Alex." She folds her little, tiny hands and says the grace over our meals.

My times really are in His loving Hands

I awoke this morning to a new future. And, tho, it is uncertain...and tho, the enemy wants to get me tangled up in fear over HOW I going to make it financially...I KNOW that I know...GOD IS IN CONTROL. If there is one lesson He has been trying to get across to me my entire life it is simply and only that: GOD IS IN CONTROL. I have fought Him on this for most of my life. I have moments when I am victorious in my grasp of this truth...and then, in a moment I can forget it and allow a circumstance to send me plummeting into doubt, and defeat and despair. That's why is it SO important to continually be saturating our minds with the Truth of God's Word...so when those times of fear and doubt come, we can call on what we KNOW to be true and replace that stinking thinking with God's Truth.

"It was for freedom that Christ set us free."

I wrote this in July 2005 and it was read to women in Romania by members of IBC on a mission trip there:

"In Beth Moore’s book Breaking Free she talks about hearts broken by abuse, hearts broken by death and hearts broken by betrayal. Yes, my heart has been broken - I have experienced all three – abuse, death and betrayal. But, as God has said in His Word, He has “caused them all to work together for my good.”

God blessed me with a godly line of women in my family – especially my grandmother, great-aunts, granny, mother and other ladies in our church - I call them my “women of faith,” who knew and loved the Lord, who taught me about Jesus and PRAYED for me. Because of their influence and their prayers, I was saved at five years old and grew up in the church. And, I know their continued prayers kept me all the years that have followed.