Blessings

27. A hidden stash of wrapped birthday presents for my soon to be three year old.
28. A nice visit with my mom
29. God's comforting promises.
30. Seeing my grandma hold my children.
31. Her having the patience to explain the camera.
32. Close up pictures of little curious hands and a Grandma with the courage to let a toddler use her camera
33. My twins (I call them the Littles) habit of holding hands.
34. How many different versions of the Bible I have available
36. Air conditioning
37. Hazelnut flavored coffee
38. Knowing that God called me to a life of loving service and He gave me the tools to live that life, even when I dont feel like I can
39. El Roi, thank you for showing me how you are my God who sees me
40. My sons cute little singing voice

Blessings on sick days

18. My Husband staying home in the morning from work to to let me sleep in when I'm sick.
19. My mom and grandparents coming to visit! I havent seen my mom since last december and its been nearly a year since I've seen my grandparents.
20. Not having to cook dinner. Thank you Lord for take-out!
21. The beautiful way my little girls hair curls.
22. Putting down one sleeping baby to pick up the one just woken.
23. My eldest childs good nature.
24. Family cuddles
25. Waking up from a nap feeling better than when I layed down
26. How the Lord always provides

A daily blessing to the Persecuted Church

A daily blessing to my Christian walk and to many persecuted brothers and sisters is:

17. Voice of the Martyrs.

I'm constantly in awe of the good this innovative ministry performs for the persecuted. They have a wonderful, multi-faceted ministry that branches out of their Bartlesville, OK office and their website, http://www.persecution.com/ They have a free newsletter, an action pack program to give goods to Sudanese and Pakistani Christians, and they seek to help the persecuted in many ways. For example, they send thousands of balloons into North Korea with the Gospel imprinted on it. People from their ministry enter into very hostile territory to evangelize.
They do a service called Prisoner Alert, http://www.prisoneralert.com/, that features persecuted Christians suffering in other countries. Through this website you can compose letters to the prisoner's in their own language or write a letter to their government asking for their release. Through this a believer is enabled to aswer the call of Hebrews 13:3 for Christians across the sea in hostile lands.
Hebrews 13:3 "Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering" . NIV

As VOM says in one of their description snippets, those who are persecuted aren't just heroes or statistics, they're family. Whats more, there has been a visible impact of the support for jailed Christians. Just last month a man who was featured on Prisoner Alert was set free from prison and his charges dismissed!
Another ministry they do that I'm in love with is Bibles Unbound. Your donation of $30 dollars a month gains you the ability to help get bibles into countries hostile to the word. They send you five copies of the New Testament to mail to people within either China, Egypt, and Columbia, along with the addresses they are to be mailed to. You can find out more at http://www.biblesunbound.com/.
They have many other programs like a way to find a meeting with VOM workers , a kids ministry, and a Basic fellowship site. The link to all their various websites is http://www.persecution.com/ministryLink/index.cfm.

I think that being given the chance to help the persecuted church along with my brothers and sisters in Christ is a daily blessing with an eternal reward. Thank you Voice of the Martyrs for all the work you do for the body of Christ.

Late Nite Blessings

12. Holding a sleeping, well-fed baby.

13. When the sleeping baby snores.

14. Having all of my children asleep.

15. Being given a moment to reflect on my blessings in a quiet dark room.

16. Having a conversation with God.

Good Night Father.

Endless Gifts

Ann Voskamp at her Holy Experience blog has started something I think truly amazing and life-changing, a gratitude community of Christians who keep a list of the daily blessings God gives. She’s called it Endless Gifts, the idea is to make a list up to 1000 of the blessings in your life. I think this is such a fantastic idea and have decided to make my own list.

1. My life is daily blessed by the reconciliation work of the Lord Jesus Christ. I daily approach the mercy seat of God solely because Christ is my mediator.

2. The guiding ministry of the Holy Spirit. My counselor and ever-present help.

3. The eternal and daily-felt loving kindness of God the Father

4. Eph 1:4-5 Long ago, even before he made the world, God chose us to be his very own through what Christ would do for us; he decided then to make us holy in his eyes, without a single fault-we who stand before him covered with his love. 5 His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by sending Jesus Christ to die for us. And he did this because he wanted to!

TLB
Thank you, Father for the sending of your son.

5. The spirtual leadership and love of my amazing husband

6. My wonderful children graciously given me by God. I’m blessed by their sweetness every day.
7. The inspired word of God. Without the Bible, I’d be living in darkness. Ps 119:106 Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path. NIV

8. My extended families love and goodwill. I miss you.

9. The body of Christ. Eph 2:22-3:1 In Him [and in fellowship with one another] you yourselves also are being built up [into this structure] with the rest, to form a fixed abode (dwelling place) of God in (by, through) the Spirit. AMP

10. The Lord Jesus Christ setting the standard for my everyday living.

I had to write those as my first ten, they are my most precious, most pondered blessings, and I am grateful to God for them. I’m grateful for my being gifted with just the knowledge of some of them. (Hmmm… I think that should be an item listed. Maybe later.) There are other ‘big’ blessings but I think I’ll space it out throughout the rest of the list. I think a lot of my blessings list will be subpoints of these first ten.

Check out the Holy Experience blog, it’s truly amazing. Ann Voskamp has a tremendous gift that can only come from God. In fact…

11. Ann Voskamp’s daily musings and writings. Very Inspirational.

Her site is linked to in my sidebar.

My glorious Victor, Prince Divine,
Clasp these surrender'd hands in Thine;
At length my will is all Thine own,
Glad vassal of a Saviour's throne.
My Master, lead me to Thy door;
Pierce this now willing ear once more:
Thy bonds are freedom; let me stay
With Thee, to toil, endure, obey.
Yes, ear and hand, and thought and will,
Use all in Thy dear slav'ry still!
Self's weary liberties I cast
Beneath Thy feet; there keep them fast.
Tread them still down; and then, I know,
These hands shall with Thy gifts o'erflow;
And pierced ears shall hear the tone
Which tells me Thou and I are one.
-Bishop Handley Moule

How lovely.

God of Wonders

It's 3 o'clock in the morning and my little ones and me are awake. I'm trying to rock my son Gideon in his bouncer, feed my daughter Hannah, and read at the same time. God often reveals himself in new and exciting ways at times such as these. I think that's one of the many reasons I've been blessed with children, so that I have these long late night moments. Sleeps overrated, sometimes by me...

So, I'm strolling through the blog musings of others, constantly in awe of the Christ I'm being allowed to see in others. I was on Ann Voskamp's blog, Holy Experience (an experience that blesses me every time I visit... pun intended) and I followed a link to another wonderful blog called Windscraps, and there was God's plan written in the heavens, caught in a picture.


http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/1992/17/
So I'm looking at the heart of a galaxy 20,000 light years away and into my head floats a really good song:

Lord of all creation
of water earth and sky
The heavens are your Tabernacle
Glory to the Lord on high


God of wonders beyond our galaxy
You are Holy, Holy
The universe declares your Majesty
And you are holy holy
-God of Wonders by Third Day



Sadly, Scripture crept in second. And I had to look it up to fill in the blanks of my memory and make sure I got it right (sigh). Thank you Lord for the knowledge that I'm a work in progress that you will complete!

From the Best Book:

Ps 19:1-4
The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.
3 There is no speech or language
where their voice is not heard.
4 Their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
NIV

Even my favorite Psalm has a good verse (of course):

Ps 119:89
Your word, O LORD, is eternal;
it stands firm in the heavens.
NIV

Even sadder than my maddening inability to recall Scripture is that the scientists who retrieved this picture from the Hubble telescope see an X.