Tag: Thoughts (Page 13 of 16)

Timing

September 18, 2009 / Jennifer Coleman / 2 Comments

It may be hard to believe but there is more to the story. 🙂 And you wonder why I don’t blog more..

We put our house on the market just in time for the July 4 holiday weekend thinking that we wouldn’t have offers for weeks and not actually having moving orders wouldn’t be a problem. Getting an offer the first day on the market made us anxious that we might loose our buyers to another house before we got the paper work and made us wonder if or not we should just sell it and forget about the home-sell buy-out program Mike had fought for and won. I know… there we go again not trusting God.

We were expecting our papers on Friday and had told the buyers so on Wednesday. Then after many phone calls, we discovered that it would be weeks after we got the orders before we could sell the house with the buy-out program. Uhrugg!

After much deliberation, we decided to trust God with the buyers and not give up our buy-out program. It would have cost us thousands of dollars more to sell the house with out it. The buyers would have to decide if or not our house was worth waiting for and we would have to trust God to bring us another buyer if they walked. We basically had to put them off indefinitely… they might very well not be able to move in until after school started. That was hard..

To add to our fears, on Friday, our air conditioner stopped working. We tried a couple of things to fix it and hoped it would work better the next day after a nights rest. It didn’t and we suffered through Saturday unwilling to call out a repair man on holiday pay. Finally, on Sunday it still was not working and we had to call someone. Thankfully we had had them come out before the summer season for a check up (sound judgment and wisdom) and got a reasonable price on the repair. Funny how we spent that weekend hoping no one would come see the house while the air wasn’t working after working so hard to get it on the market in time for that weekend.

Friday, Monday and Tuesday dragged on endlessly and there were still no orders in sight. It turned out that the lady that was in charge of putting our orders together was on vacation (how dare she take a summer vacation) and her replacement was not returning our calls and e-mails.

On Tuesday, I watched an episode where Joseph Prince was teaching on the story of Ruth. It was really good. Do you remember how Ruth’s closer relative chose not to redeem her because it would ruin his inheritance? Ruth was a Mobite and by law couldn’t receive an inheritance from God (Israel) so their children would not have received an inheritance.

Boaz was the son of Rahab the harlot from Jericho so he had already experienced God’s grace and favor and become very rich. He experienced what the law could not and through grace and God’s favor Boaz redeemed Ruth.

The part of the story really spoke to me was where the closer relative had to give his shoe to Boaz. It’s a picture of him giving up his rights to take possession. Everywhere our foot steps we are to take possession of the land. The closer relative was a picture of the law. He couldn’t bend to redeem her and still be the law. Jesus redeemed us just like Boaz redeemed Ruth and now the law has no rights over us.

Joseph Prince talked through the Bible about shoes and feet to confirm the idea. Moses is also a picture of the law. The first thing God spoke to him was to take off his shoes…

One of the shoe examples was in the story of the prodigal son. He was given shoes to possess the land when he returned to his father. The shoe thread through the Bible was very beautiful.

God told me to put on my shoes and take possession of the land He was giving me. So, I put on my shoes and took possession of the paper work. We’d already had over a weeks delay and were being promised even a longer delay.

The next morning, the orders came through and after Mike made one phone call letting the person in charge of the buy-out program know that we had a buyer the papers were all expedited and completed in one day instead of the promised weeks. God is so good!

The delay in paper work only worked for our good in that it gave the opportunity for two more people to make bids on the house!

God worked everything to our good! He made it so that the first bank appraiser couldn’t come but so that the second appraiser came right before I started taking apart my house to pack it and helped our realtor help him by finding good comps so that it would actually appraise for the great offer we received instead of the Zillow appraisal price.

Next I’ll tell you about buying a house..

God and Moving

September 18, 2009 / Jennifer Coleman / 0 Comments

Early in January of this year, I heard the Lord say to me something like, “You are going to move. I am telling you now so you won’t be surprised when it happens.” I wasn’t sure what to think. Was it my mind playing tricks on me?

Then one of our pastors said that God was going bless His people with good sound judgement. Mike caught it in his Spirit and held on to it. Soon after, he felt an urgency to start looking for jobs. I think at one point there were 9 different jobs that he had applied for that he could hear back from at any moment.

It’s kinda fun to dream about where you might get to live next.. but at the same time it’s hard to live the life you have at that moment. Should you spend money on this or save it for the move? Should you plan a vacation when you might be moving that same week? Should you invest in a new friendship when you might have to move just as you’re getting to know that person?

We’ve lived many months.. years in reality.. with things on hold because we might move. I didn’t want to live that way this time. I asked Mike, “Are you sure you really want to do this: you have a nice job, you get to come home for lunch everyday, and I like our life here???” I know. I know. That’s the devil’s line. “Did God really say..?” He kept applying while I worked really hard to ignore the possibility of moving so that I could enjoy where I was.

Mike normally only looks for Air Force jobs because he’s been with them for a long time and it makes the transition easier. One day, he heard God say to look in Huntsville for a job. When he looked, he found a job that he was really interested in and applied. If he had waited one day before obeying God, he would have missed his chance because it was the last day that they were taking applications. He interviewed for the job before our TX trip. We didn’t hear anything for a long time.

I started the summer looking forward to a relaxing time of catching up on school work, painting a couple of rooms in our house, and spending a lot of time in the pool. My plan was to ignore the whole moving thing and enjoy my summer. Mike gave up the Huntsville job and started bugging me with the idea that a job in D.C. was more likely to work out and was I OK with moving to DC?

Do you know what it feels like to have so many things on your heart that if you prayed for them all that you would explode? I was trying to ignore my heart and the possibility of moving, when God opened a little window into my soul and showed me that I really wanted to move to Huntsville and I was not OK with moving to D.C. any longer.

I said, “OK, God.. I wanted to be OK with moving to DC, I was OK at one point, but I am not any more. You made me want to move to Huntsville. Now I want to move to Huntsville. Give me the desire of my heart and quit playing around with me. Are we moving or not? Did you say we were going to move or was that my mind playing tricks on me? I am tired of playing around. You need to show me one way or the other!”

That day Mike was offered the job in Huntsville and all my plans for a nice relaxing summer slipped away. I was shocked. I jumped up and down for joy. I think we both walked around in disbelief for a couple of days. Mike was offered the highest dollar amount that they were legally able to offer him in the promotion, then when he asked they also enrolled him in the home-sale buy-out program which was not originally part of the deal. God is so good!

We gave ourselves 2 weeks to get the house ready to sell. We didn’t want to wait and miss the people who wanted to move in before school started in early August. Our last house took months to sell because we weren’t able to put it on the market until October. The difficulty of having to live in two separate states for three months the last move was still fresh on our mind as it was only a year and a half later.

I wasn’t sure if or not we could actually get the house ready in two weeks. I rented and filled a 10 x 10 storage room with all our books and extra furniture, Mike replaced two sinks and refinished our bath tub, we paid someone to power wash all our moldy concrete, and I painted inside and out: our kitchen cabinets needed a new coat of paint, the sun room was pretty bad, some touching up here and there, and the outside trim was long over due. I am sure I forgetting things. Oh, yeah.. I had to repair the kitchen ceiling. Funny what you discover is unacceptable about your house when you start thinking about selling.

Getting everything done was a stressful but I kept meditating on the verse in Psalm 127 that says, “Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain.” and kept praying that God would do the work through me and give me peace. I’ve failed at enough things on my own to know to ask for help and rely on God’s strength.

After Mike refinished the tub, I took on the job of caulking it. I hate caulking.. it always takes me forever and turns out so messy, but less messy than when Mike does it. The Lord reminded me of the story of the people he chose to build the temple and how he gave them the wisdom and ability to do all kinds of creative, crafty things. I thought, “Yeah, God, that’s a good story.” Then I prayed, “HELP ME like that.” And you know what? He did! I caulked the whole tub area in about 15 minutes and it looked great. No huge mess. Praise God!!!

All through this time Mike was watching our house value plummet on Zillow.com. I was feeling a little frustrated with him as he became more and more worried about being able to buy a new house after selling our house for almost nothing. I really felt bad for him. I am usually the one that worries.. even though we both believe it’s a sin. Trust God! Don’t be afraid! Don’t look at the world’s report. Listen to God’s!

The week before Mike got the job I was watching Joseph Prince (my new favorite TV preacher) and he was talking about using anointing oil for more than anointing people for ministry. He had spent some time with a church in Asia that anoints everything from their cars to their businesses with oil, asking and claiming God’s blessing, favor and protection over them, and then receives what they ask for… sometimes in miraculous ways.

Joseph said that he was praying about the teaching and decided to try it out by anointing his house to sell and it sold for top dollar in just three days. I thought.. “If we ever move again (ha ha), I am going to try that.” It was one of those God thoughts.

So we prayed and anointed our house with oil and in the midst of the biggest housing crisis ever we received three bids on our house the first week we had it up for sale. The first bid came on the first day it was for sale. We were unable to accept it because we were waiting on government paper work. While we were anxiously waiting, the competition got stiffer and we ended up with a thousand dollars above our asking price. Our realtor said that there was something about our house that the buyers couldn’t resist. We knew it was the anointing of God.

To be continued….

Today’s Family Sermon

September 2, 2009 / Jennifer Coleman / 3 Comments

When we first moved to AL, we started a new tradition of having a short Bible reading and prayer time before Mike left for work. The hardest part of moving from our house to this apartment was saying goodbye to our “Music Room” where we practiced these family devotions each morning.

We had tried family devotions several times before, but his was the first time we were able to stick with it. I am praying that with God’s help we’ll be able to keep it up even in the face of Mike’s new, more stressful job. So, far, so good.

I think the thing that makes it doable is that we keep it REALLY short and sweet. I have a selection of verses prepared for the week or month and we read just a few verses each morning, then we each take a turn praying a short prayer. Sometimes, when we have a little time left, it turns in to a family discussion or planing meeting.

I wish I could tell you that we read the whole Bible through each year, or that when we prayed fire came down from heaven.. but we don’t and it hasn’t.. yet, but I think we have grown closer together and have been blessed and encouraged and even matured from our time together. Thank You, Jesus.

This morning after Mike went to work, I had a mini sermon prepared for the kids. These occur from time to time as an occasion calls for it. I only have a few messages in my heart. This is a big one for me.

~~~~~~~

I started – When you first meet a person or sit and listen to a pastor or someone being interviewed on TV such as a scientist or politician, what is the first thing you notice?

Josh replied – their manner or attitude. (That was a really good answer.)

My answer – What is coming out of their mouths? Wisdom or Foolishness?

Luke 6:45 The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.

My next question – Where does wisdom come from?

Judi answered – Jesus/God. (Yes!)

My answer – So what they say reveals if or not they treasure God; if they seek after Him or spend time with Him.

Luke 12:34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

God is the greatest treasure that exists. Knowing and acting on that is wisdom.

You know a person by their _________?

James answered – fruit

My answer – Exactly – good or bad. Good fruit: wisdom – nourishes – leads to life – you feel a “yes” in your Spirit

Bad fruit: rotten – weeds – poison – leads to death – you feel a check in your Spirit.

Now you wouldn’t expect to turn on Sean Hannity one day (Josh and Joel turn him on every day) and hear him say

how wonderful the new health care plan is. – You’d think he was brain washed or something.

A tree can only produce one kind of fruit – good or bad

So either they are seeking God as their most valued treasure or they are not – can’t serve two masters.

Next question – Where does fruit get its start?

Judi answered – From a seed.

me – Yes, and a seed is a thought.

We sow our thoughts, and we reap our actions; we sow our

actions, and we reap our habits; we sow our habits, and

we reap our characters; we sow our characters, and we

reap our destiny. Desiderius Gerhard Erasmus

… life or death – good tree or bad tree

So if you have a bad thought what should you do with it?

a) meditate on it?

b) throw it out?

c) replace it with a God truth?

If you choose to meditate on it, it will eventually come out of your mouth as a seed/thought planted in someone else.

Proverbs 18:21
The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.

We are always either planting a tree of life/nourishment or death/poison when we speak.

Next question – If you turned on Sean Hannity one day and he was cussing and airing pornography clips, what would you do? What was a source of life has now become a source of death. I’d be angry/offended.

When people come to your well – your facebook or myspace page – do they find a source of life?

If you make a mistake and let a bad thought take root and grow and hurt someone else, what should you do?

What would you think of Sean Hannity if he made jokes, excuses or blamed someone else for his actions?

What would a mature person do?

Josh answered – delete it, apologize

My answer – Yes, they should take responsibility, apologize, repent, run to God, who is quick to forgive, ask for His help to reject bad seeds and to seek Him with all their hearts as their greatest treasure.

I love you. God loves you. Love each other the way He loves you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hope you enjoyed my sermon and are able to learn from our life lessons.

Love,

Jenny

The Secret

May 12, 2009 / Jennifer Coleman / 1 Comment

I wrote a new poem for Mother’s Day. I’d really like to write more than one a year. Recently I’ve had so much stirred up inside that I’ve had a hard time choosing what to write about. Maybe I should write one about that. 🙂 Hope you had a great Mother’s Day.

Love,

Jenny

The Secret

by Jennifer Coleman

The secret [of the sweet, satisfying companionship] of the Lord have

they who fear (revere and worship) Him, and He will show them

His covenant and reveal to them its [deep, inner] meaning. Psalm 25:14

Oh, how I love to hear God’s voice;

He whispers affectionately that I am His choice.

We are the joy for which He sacrificed;

The prize He counts worth more than life.

The world glares, yet cannot see

The beautiful bride He’s fashioning us to be.

To the glorious Gospel they are made blind;

To go their own way they are resigned.

To the Good Shepherd we will tightly cling

Until the day we hear those wedding bells ring.

Then we will see Him face to face,

And He will enfold us in His impassioned embrace.

Love, peace and joy will abide,

And forevermore we will be His glorious bride.

Things keeping me from blogging

May 11, 2009 / Jennifer Coleman / 2 Comments

1) I’ve started walking. Yeah! I’d like to walk 6 days a week and did for the first few weeks but slacked off this last week. The thing is the cool afternoons are turning hot and muggy and I need to be walking now instead of waiting till the afternoon.

2) I learned how to set my DVR to record Joseph Prince. I don’t normally watch TV preachers. I watched Joyce Meyer everyday for a year several years ago and grew leaps and bounds. I still turn her on every once in a while and she always says exactly what I need to hear. She has an awesome message on grace and maturity.

Joseph Prince focuses on trusting in God’s grace and in what Jesus has accomplished for us on the cross. The one question God asks me again and again in life is will I give Him the control and not try to force things in my own strength but trust and rest in Him and allow Him to do the work in through and around me.

Joseph Prince pulls this principle out of the New and Old Testaments and explains how Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament requirements so that we don’t have to. I’ve been watching every sermon at least twice. I am seeing God and the work that Jesus did on the cross in a new and more glorious way.

Religion is always devising things that we have to do to get to God. We like the idea of meeting a list of requirements. It gives us a since of pride and accomplishment but in the end those things keep us from God because we can never meet the requirements in our own strength. Jesus came to give us direct access to God and His blessings through his obedience to God and death on the cross.

3) I made a commitment to myself a couple of months ago to pray in the Spirit more. I spend a lot of time just being quiet while driving, waiting for the kids to complete something etc. I decided that I would redeem that time by praying in the Spirit. I’ve seen it produce the fruits of more wisdom, peace and joy in my life and expect much more to come.

4) I’ve been knitting and crocheting while praying in the Spirit, doing school, meditating on the Word and worshiping. Whenever I start a new project, it takes a little time for me to decide which pattern and yarn to use… but once I get it going it’s just something to keep me happily creating while doing everything else.

I’ll try to write more soon,

Love,

Jenny

Encouraging Word

March 6, 2009 / Jennifer Coleman / 1 Comment

I love to get up early in the morning and spend quite time alone. I’ve subscribed to several free devotion e-mails that I enjoy reading and recently found a internet worship station that I am enjoying throughout the day when I can. It plays a nice mixture of new and old songs. It’s called Elijah Streams. My programer helped me find it in i-Tunes under “Religious” radio stations.
This word from Elisabeth Elliot was just what I needed to read this morning. Even though I try to make it a priority to take life at a slow enough pace that I can hear God each step, it’s good to be reminded and to refocus.
Running the Course

Today there are just too many things to do. My natural response is to fret and fear. Both are forbidden: Fret not. Fear not. That tells me what not to do. What, then, should I do?
“I will run the course set out in thy commandments, for they gladden my heart” (Ps 119:32 NEB).
There will be both time and strength today to run that course, for it is always possible to do the will of God. The course He sets for us in his commandments is not an obstacle course, but one carefully planned to suit our qualifications–that is, not too rigorous for our limitations, not too lenient for our strengths.
The plan of God for me, for this one day, is meant not to trouble but to gladden my heart. Christ’s yoke, according to his own promise, is not hard but easy–if we bear it together with Him and if we bear it as Christ bore it, in meekness and lowliness of heart.
“We must run with resolution the race for which we are entered, our eyes fixed on Jesus, on whom faith depends from start to finish” (Heb 12:2 NEB).
Here are a couple of links for free devotionals.
Word Ministries, Inc. – The home of Germaine Copeland and the Prayers That Avail Much book series – offering prayer requests, intercessory prayer, christian books
Devotionals – Free Online Bible Devotions
Back to the Bible – Home
Love,
Jenny

Worship Flags

February 14, 2009 / Jennifer Coleman / 1 Comment

There are several things I miss about our church in Florida. I miss the families and our small group get-togethers most of all. I miss serving at the food bank. I miss the two tables that they had set up front for individuals to come down front and take communion during worship in their own time as they felt lead. It was a very worshipful experience that you could participate in any service and afterwards kneel at the alter if you wished.

The another thing I miss is the all the worship flags they had up front. Sometimes all the kids would come down front and worship with them.. sometimes it looked a little like playing but it really helped them get into the worship. I am sure it pleases the Lord to see little children dance and play in His presence… maybe even more than sitting very still and bored.

Since moving here, I’ve had a little bit of a hard time getting into the worship here. Many of the songs that they sing in my church aren’t to God but just about Him or the church. I know there are different strokes for different folks and I don’t have a problem with different styles of music.. it’s just that it’s easier for me to worship when I am actually singing to God. Lately at my church they’ve been singing a few songs that are to God and I’ve really enjoyed waving my hands, singing and dancing to God.

I’ve noticed while waving my hands that it’s not the same as waving a flag. Some how having a flag is so much more powerful. I’d never experienced worshiping with a flag until our church in FL. It’s awesome. So I decided to do a little research and make some flags for myself.

Most the sites I found for making your own flags suggested using a wooden dowel for your poll. I wanted my flags to swing around my pole easily, but most of the actual flag poles that I found cost around $20 each. I did find one for $15.

One of princess J’s friends suggested that I use a baton as my flag pole. I found some at a dollar store here… for around $4 each. They work great and at 22″ are the perfect size to use in my house.. no worries about hitting my 8′ ceiling. I had a hard time choosing a color from my stash of silk. There were so many colors. I may have to make several flags. Here is my first set.

To me the colors stand for righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

To determine the size I folded my fabric in half with the selvages together and cut 5″ strips (just over 1/8th of a yard). Then I cut the strips along the fold in two for the two flags. I used my surger to make a roll hem along three sides. I purposely created a wave at the ends. I cut a 2″x5″rectangle out of some interfacing and ironed it on to the selvaged end, then rapped the selvage end around the pole and sewed it on by hand.

The bag I made out of an old ripped pair of jeans. I have a stash of those, too. I had saved the strap off some thingy that broke. I made it so that all you have to do is pull on the strap through the button hole to close the bag. The prettiest bag I saw on line was made out of nylon and had a stripe of fabric to match the flag across it. That would have been cool… but not free.

I am having fun using them to worship at home. I asked the pastor of our church if it’d be OK to bring them to church and he said, “Yes.” So, Yeah!

Here are what I thought were the two best worship flag sites I found.

I thought these were the best deal:

http://www.wingsofpraise.com/worshipflags.html

These were beautiful:

http://www.propheticworshipbanners.com/gallery2.html

I thought this YouTube video was great! I’d love to have one of her light purple dove flags.

I am planning on making the kids at church some ribbon rings. I’ve seen a couple of kids get hit on the head by a flag pole and thought they would be safer.

Love to you all!

Valentine’s Day Talk

February 14, 2009 / Jennifer Coleman / 2 Comments

I was asked to share a short devotion at a Women’s Meeting at our church last Friday. I was so thankful for the opportunity to have God minister through me to the ladies at our church.. but extremely nervous.

I never could imagine a crowd in their underwear. Whoever thought of that anyway? You’re supposed to turn your head if you ever see anyone in their underwear. Instead, I tried imagining what they were like as kids. I’ve worked long enough in children’s church to be comfortable speaking to kids.. even on a mic. It helped me relax a little.

Just before going to speak, I tried out my speech on Mike. It didn’t go well. I’d read it a hundred times but still couldn’t say what I wanted to say with out reading it word for word. Mike encouraged me to ad lib it. When I actually gave my speech, I tried to and ended up just telling the stories.

Looking back, I wish I had read the part at the end to them and played the song I found to go with it.

Here’s my little talk…

I love holidays. I’ve always seen them as a gift from God; a time set a side from you’re daily routine to remember who God is and what He has done, and a time to enjoy being with your family.

I love all the holidays except Valentine’s day. I never could get into Valentines Day ever since I was in grade school and learned that it was the day you might be teased about who might or might not like you. That’s not the ideal kinda day for a shy girl like me.

My husband, who enjoys making fun of Mother’s Day by saying that it was invented by the greeting card companies, absolutely LOVES Valentines Day. He loves being in love ..with me and showering me with gifts, and cards, and surprises on Valentines Day.

You’d think when for one our first Valentines Day’s together I received this jumbo card in the mail that I would have figured this out and joined in the fun, but it took me a while.

(I pulled the card out of a large shopping bag.)

A few Valentines Days ago (just before our 20th anniversary), the Lord had a talk with me. He said something like.. “Look at what you’re missing out on. Your husband loves to delight in you on Valentines Day and you keep pushing him away. It’s time to get over it.”

Looking back now, I see that it was pretty retarded of me to allow 20 plus years of Valentines Days pass me by and not use them as an opportunity to build more love and joy into our relationship. There was only one thing standing in my way all those years: surrendering that part of my heart to the Lord and allowing Him to heal my past hurts and fears.

The Lord has only spoken to me that sternly only a few times. Many times just hearing the truth has set me free. I worked really hard that year to bless my husband and since to delight in his delight in me …but to tell the truth I am still not totally sold on Valentines day. I am still journeying though that surrendering and healing.

This Valentine’s Day, the Lord encouraged me to make these fabric fortune cookies for you.. At first I thought that it might have been my own idea and that it was a pretty corny one.. But then He sent me three confirmations that I was supposed to make them for you.

So I googled the words “fortune cookie” and “Bible” to try to figure out where God was going with the fortune cookie idea… and every blog and sermon that I could find said the same thing, “Fortune cookies are bad.” So I obeyed God, made the corny fortune cookies and God shocked me with a fourth confirmation. Those are rare for me.

The google preachers may think all fortune cookies are bad but these fortune cookies have a purpose.. You see, the same way that a fortune cookie has to be broken before you can see it’s message and enjoy it’s sweet flavor sometimes we have to be broken before we can be the message of His love to the world and that sweet tasting sacrifice to our Lord.

These cookies are to remind us of how blessed, fortunate and to be envied we are because… in Christ everyday can be a holy day. Everyday is a day to delight in His delight in us. Everyday is a day to surrender our whole heart to Him and allow him to turn our brokenness into joy. Every day His mercies are made new. Everyday we have an opportunity to turn our thoughts towards Him and to allow Him to build more love and joy into our relationship with Him. This fortune cookie is to remind you this Valentines Day that *The Desire of the Nations desires you and wants you delight in His love.

I wasn’t sure how to end my little talk but I had these scriptures ready..

Philippians 4:4 It says.. Rejoice in the Lord always [delight, gladden yourselves in Him]; again I say, Rejoice!

In Song of Songs 4:9-10 He says..

You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride;

you have stolen my heart

with one glance of your eyes,

with one jewel of your necklace.

How delightful is your love, my sister, my bride!

How much more pleasing is your love than wine,

and the fragrance of your perfume than any spice!

Ps 147:11 says He delights in those who fear him, in those who put their hope in His unfailing love.

Ps 139 says He thinks about us constantly

It’s impossible to count how many times a day His thoughts turn towards us.

Ps 103 says He crowns us with love and tender mercies.

He fills our life with good things.

His love is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth.

He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.

Zephaniah 3:17 says The Lord your God is in your midst.

He is a mighty savior, a victorious warrior.

He celebrates and sings because of you!

He will take great delight in you.

He will quiet and refresh you with His love.

He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy

and delight you with His songs.

The scripture I put in the fortune cookies was…

Song of Songs 7:10 I am my beloved’s and his desire is toward me.

Here’s where I learned to how to make the fortune cookies…

Here’s a YouTube video of the song the I thought went with my message…

Happy Birthday to Me

January 10, 2009 / Jennifer Coleman / 3 Comments

Moving this past year caused me to discover all kinds of stuff about myself.. for instance when I looked back at my FL house and saw all the different colors I used to paint it I realized that I am a very colorful person.

Once we settled in a little, I started worrying that I was going to have a very lonely birthday. I was turning 40 and had to choose between keeping it a secret so that I wouldn’t have to share it with well meaning strangers and arranging something so I could celebrate it big with people I know and love.. who lived very far away.

My birthday is in mid-September.. and although I think it’s the perfect time of year and love that I was born on my Dad’s birthday, it’s turned out to be a bad time of year for celebrating…

In Mike’s field of work, fiscal close out is Oct. 1 which often means from mid-September on he is working long hours trying to spend millions of dollars so that his budget doesn’t get cut the following year. He is usually not a lot of fun during that time of year .

The very first year he was able to work it out to take me for a date on my birthday was the year the twin towers were hit by terrorist.. ever since then the week of my birthday has been a national week of mourning the anniversary of 9/11.

So this year when Mike agreed to take me to see the cherry blossoms for his birthday I decided that I needed more time than just a night or a weekend to celebrate my birthday and that I would celebrate all year. So every trip we took, every time we went on a date, in my heart we were celebrating my birthday.

One night, in July, we drove the kids to a concert near Birmingham and went into Birmingham for dinner. I shared with Mike my silly idea of celebrating my birthday all year. And guess what was waiting for me in the bushes out side the restaurant? This birthday balloon. I took it as a sign that my Heavenly Father was celebrating with me.

I will have to keep it in a scrapbook to remind me of His tender love for me.

My generous mom and mil sent me money for my birthday and I bought myself these candle pillars to light when it’s too warm to light the fire place. We enjoy the atmosphere. I looked all over town and on line for candle pillars and couldn’t find any… until I heard the Lord tell me to wait one more week and found that the next week Hobby Lobby had hundreds of candle pillars on sale 50% off.

They turned out even more beautiful than I imagined.

I found this leather jacket at Kohl’s. It was a little more money than I wanted to spend so Mike took me all over town to see if we could find a better deal. None of them were as nice as this one. I waited to see if it would be cheeper on Black Friday.. it wasn’t and they had run out of my size. I looked for it on line on the following Monday and discovered they were having 15% off everything Cyber Monday. I forgot all about Cyber Monday.

I also got to buy several winter tops on sale. I didn’t have many after all those years in FL. I bought three for less than $10 with tax at one sale.

God planned a birthday surprise for me on my actual birthday weekend. A friend from Huntsville invited me to go on a field trip with her. We got to go on a tour of the Capital building with a man that was a member of Martin Luther King’s church and actually marched in the Bloody Sunday march from Selma to Montgomery. He is considered the AL Historian and has his masters in history. He was fascinating to listen to.

We got to look at some beautiful art. I love art.

Here is my friend Lee Ann and her son with our docent, Aroine Irby.

Here our our kids hanging outside the governors mansion.

Isn’t this charming?

And I love this arrangement with the angel.

This is a prayer garden in the back yard of the mansion. It’s cool to know that they have a place to pray.

This is a sculpture of Jesus that was donated to the Department of Archives and History. I love it. It looks very much like my visions of Jesus.

So the other thing that I learned about myself is that I am big on birthdays and think that they should be celebrated big. I was so blessed by all the trips I got to take this year to celebrate my birthday, for the great sales I found, and for the time I got to spend with my friend Lee Ann and her son.

Tears of Joy and Sadness

November 11, 2008 / Jennifer Coleman / 2 Comments

It’s such a historic moment that I didn’t feel like I could leave it out of my blog. I am hoping to turn my blog into our family scrapbook in a few weeks and would like to preserve the history for my grandchildren.

The pre-election campaign was closely watched for the first time this year by my kids. They are growing up and it’s a lot of fun to hear their thoughts on things. We read about and excitedly talked over the issues for months.

We took a crash course in Government at the beginning of this year and then in American History we have been studying the Enlightenment period, everything that led to the revolution, and up to the constitution. On the day of election we just happened to be assigned to read the part in the constitution about the executive branch of the government. Kinda cool right? All of this study has helped us to see how important self government is and how far our country has gone off track from the intentions of our founding fathers. I’d like to study more about the cycles of government in history and get a better idea of where we are headed. In World History we recently learned how greed and thirst for violent entertainment led to the fall of Rome.

We had two that we were privileged to take early Tuesday morning for their first time to vote in a presidential election. Our oldest felt very strongly about the views of the Constitution Party and voted for their candidate, Chuck Baldwin, which I think is great. Our second oldest voted pro-life and for cutting back on our national government, which I also think is great. I am very proud of both of them for prayerfully thinking over the issues and choosing a candidate and making their voice heard.

Throughout the election campaign and the recent growing economic crisis I spent a lot of time praying for our country. I wanted to see Roe vs. Wade over turned; I wanted to see John McCain stand up to the terrorist who hate us and take a hatchet to government spending; I wanted to see my Christian values upheld, marriage protected, and adopted children and a down syndrome child grow up in the White House. But some how seeing the African American children moving into the White House moved me to tears of joy.

I am moved to pray even harder for our government leaders. Praying that they will seek wisdom from God, that they will personally experience revival and that the fact that an “African American/American Indian/etc.” was elected as president will help bring healing to our nation. The American History course that we are taking and the fact that we have moved to Alabama has taken us to the heart of that wound. I hope we can be a part of the healing.

I am also moved to pray harder for our nation; I pray especially for the youth of our nation. So many lies have been legislated into law, into being taught at our schools and are effecting their thinking. Evolution is being taught to millions of children, reducing them to animals and taking away their reason to live. Young women are aborting their children thinking that if it’s legal it must be O.K. without comprehending the mental, emotional and spiritual consequences. And now our children are being taught that it’s natural for people to have feelings for the same sex and perfectly healthy to act on those feelings, leaving them open to try out those feeling for themselves. All these lies and many others our culture has adopted are destroying our nation and I am praying for a repentance and a revival to change the direction and redeem the youth of our nation.