Louder Than the Voices

 Happy Saturday! We have christened the new year in and we are now on our way, hopefully we are even used to writing 2026 in the date by now. I am so excited, this has been a roller coaster of emotions week and I get to spend the day with the two people who know me best, Dani and Tammy. I. CANNOT. WAIT! It is funny, these two have been there through every up and down in my life, and I hope they would say the same for me. My friend Rob always talks about that line in Stand By Me, that says, "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12". These two are it. They know absolutely everything about me and like me anyway. It is funny, we plan these days months in advance but it seems like I never need them more than when we are getting ready for a day.  So, I want to get on with our Bible Study and get on with the day. We are pulling one verse out of James today, not because I am trying to skimp, but it is truly a stand alone verse. James puts a single verse in ...

 Happy first Saturday of the new year!! I hope everyone is doing well. I think we have had a very good start to 2026 and I am sure hoping that 2026 just keeps rolling along. It has already started hard for some of my friends and I am praying daily that things ease up soon for them. I am finally back to finishing James! And today we are talking about James 5: 7-11. And something most of us need more of but all of us are afraid to ask. Patience.  Do you ever think about how much time you spend waiting? How many times does that bring us stress? Little things like waiting in line at Walmart ( or Kohls can be worse!), waiting in traffic, waiting for a check to come in the mail, waiting to hear about a job, waiting to hear a diagnosis. We all spend a lot of time waiting and unfortunately, that is part of life. How we handle that wait though is a part of who we are in Christ. So, let's dive in. I am back to using my HEAR method as I feel it just really gets the verse really looked at...

 Happy last Saturday of 2025. I am actually quite happy to see this year come to an end. I am a firm believer that every day is a new beginning but sometimes we need the gift of a new calendar starting and to be able to close the door on the past. This has been an incredibly rough year in so many areas. There are years that things may be rough at work, but not so much at home or with friends, and vice versa, this year, the hard times seem to be coming from every direction. Last night, I was visiting with Robert about having joy. He made the statement that I always seem to have joy and I hadn't really thought about it but I realized he was right. I am definitely not always happy, but joy is not happiness. I feel joy is that ultimate peace and contentment that can only be found through that strong, stable relationship in Jesus.  Psalms 16:11 says, "You make know to me the path of life; in Your presence there is fullness of joy". I decided as this year ends and the new one b...

Happy Saturday before Christmas!     It always amazes me how fast this season goes. And as a child, it seemed to take forever for Christmas break, and Christmas day to get here. A friend of mine, Kim Buettemeyer explained one time that when we are a child, say, 5 years old, Christmas has happened 5 times in our lives, and there is a big likeliness that we didn't remember the first 2 so, it is something that seems almost once in a lifetimeish. By the time we have had 58 of them in our lives, it feels like it gets here before we know it.  I am so, so, excited about Christmas this year, my sis is coming home and she hasn't gotten to do that for a couple of years. My sister and I are opposites in so many ways, but I love her and miss her so much and we just don't communicate as well as we should. I am going to work on that again next year.  Robert is also leaving his job at Belle Tire this week. He moves his tools a week from today and then starts a new job at Charleston...

 Good morning! Happy Saturday. This week has been LOOOONNNGGG! I can't believe it has only been a week since I wrote my last blog post.  I wrote a blog post in 2016 that is truly one of two of my most read posts. I know this Christmas hits different for a lot of people this year. I have friends living without loved ones and other friends who feel this may be their last Christmas as the family they are now. Since none of us know tomorrow, this could be the last Christmas any of our families look like they do right now.  I have not hurt this bad at Christmas time for several years. Thanksgiving day, it hit me that one of my little traditions was usually a little text session between Cathy, Carol and myself, just wishing each other a Happy Thanksgiving. Last year, Cathy had been having some issues that you had to laugh or cry about and so we were joking around about it. This year, Carol and I talked on Thanksgiving, but we didn't send the normal "Happy Thanksgiving" roun...

 What a long week! It has been a good one though. We had our Christmas Revival at church and though I hate that I believe the cold whether kept many away, and I even had some work stuff that kept me away one night, I believe it better prepared our hearts for the celebration of Christ's birth. Today Andrew and I are celebrating our 34th Wedding anniversary, I joked around that yesterday we celebrated the 34th anniversary of being engaged. Yes, I was officially engaged for about 15 hours before we were married. We have big plans, we are heading to St. Louis today and then tomorrow morning, at 7:15, Andrew is going to cheer me on running the Hot Chocolate 5K. Then, we are planning on going to a church that I met the Pastor and his wife on a flight to Seattle. Life is definitely an adventure. Today, I wanted to continue my Christmas journey and I want to spend one more week in the Old Testament. We sing songs about Christ's birth being "foretold", I thought we would look ...