Louder Than the Voices

 Good morning! Happy Saturday! It is already beautiful outside and I am excited to get to do a Family day today. We are St. Louis bound after while. I had some real heart to hearts with myself this week and realized I had let some backsliding come into my health life, so I decided to do a devotional on just that. Today, we are going to look at Psalm 1:1. Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers. Highlight = walk, stand and sit. Explain = this is a progression, it isn't about people, it is about patterns. When you walk, you start doing something, when you stand, you linger in it and when you sit, it becomes part of who you are. This is not sudden failure, it is slow drift and it is harder to notice. Apply = This week I realized that snacking had become a serious problem in my life. I was letting a couple snacks fit in my workday and here lately, it seems like I was nibbling stuff every evenin...

Happy Saturday! Today is "projects at our house" day. At the beginning of the year, I set a schedule in place to work at Mom's one Saturday, Robert's one Saturday, our house one Saturday and then have a fun day one Saturday. I am so excited about the work that is getting done! Before I go to bed tonight, the mess that my garage turned into over the winter months is going to be cleaned! Andrew and I added a bit to my stairwell project last night, I have two more pieces for it coming this week, Andrew needs to put the new light switch in, and then it will be the way I want it. I am loving what I have so far. So, this week was one of those weeks that something was heavily debated on facebook and it brought me back to the book of James. I know I have given a devotional like this before but I think outside of the gospel message itself, that you will have eternal life if you accept that Christ died for you and rose again, conquered death and went to Heaven to prepare a plac...

 Good morning! Hope you had a good week. I can honestly say mine hasn't been bad, and I have gotten a lot of work done but I have spent the week feeling very behind. We were in the process of moving my office last weekend and I have a thing about messes and working when there are boxes and stuff just sitting around me. I get distracted. So, I was already behind on my work but when the guys moved my desk on Monday, I had to spend the rest of the day getting my office unpacked and back together. I knew that was important to my productivity. I am getting ready to head to the office today and try to get a better foothold on things there. I almost broke my promise I made to myself to stop working on anything ERBA related on Sundays. I didn't and there were times this week, I regretted it but we made it and that is all that really matters.  I thought it would be fitting to do our Bible Study on Matthew 11:28-30. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you res...

 This week has been one of those life-changing weeks for me. This was my third year of going to DC and advocating for the program, and more importantly our customers, that I love. Every day, I thank the Lord that He lets me do this job. I thank Him even more that He led me to it and showed me what I was made for. When I was looking for a job, I answered a blind ad in our local paper. Actually, Andrew was the one who found the ad first. I wish I could remember it word for word but they were looking for an energetic, kind person for office work. Andrew thought it fit me to a tee. 2 weeks later I was working in the Olney outreach office as the Assistant Outreach Worker. 3 days in, a person came in and needed help but the way our pots were set up at the time, we couldn't help her unless she had already received help earlier in the year. When I asked why, I was told, "those are the rules", well, I realized right then that someone needed to change that and I started wanting to ...

 Happy Saturday again, man, the older I get, the faster these weeks go. Here we are again. This last week has been a crazy one and this next week is going to be too, two totally different things though. I am in the middle of trying to move to a different office so my normally very organized, clean office is barely walkable, then I spent Tuesday in a training, Wednesday presenting a training and Thursday playing catch-up and be ready to be out of the office for a week both. Yesterday was officially a day off to get organized for my trip, but I wound up working a lot of it anyway. So, today, we are off on our monthly family day but making it an early enough day to get home to finish packing. I ordered a new suit for my Capitol Hill meetings, it was supposed to be here Wednesday, then yesterday and it still isn't here. Anyway, just add a little stress in there. I also started officially training for a new 5K this week Getting started back to training reminded me that we are all in tra...

 Good morning! and Happy Valentines Day! Hope you all have something good planned for this day to remind us to love. If you are flying solo in the romance department this year, I ask you to have an all by yourself date day. God loves you, He truly does, He wants what is best for you and one of those things is to take care of you, so set a little budget, go splurge on a pedi, a mani or a facial, and maybe even find a friend celebrating alone and go to a movie.  Of course, at my house, this is mine and Andrew's 34th Valentine's Day and every year looks different. This year, he (and Robert) are laying new flooring in the stairwell to the basement, and I am probably making him homemade caramels before the day is over. There have been years we have went out, there have been years we haven't done much, and then like this one, there are years that we are getting something done that I wanted done. This is love. When I was young, I worked at the Greenup DQ. I worked with a lady name...