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Dear Friends,
  I'm happy that Facebook and emails are helping to send you to my blog.  But really what I need is for you to leave comments here with the blog that you read.  The fact that you read my blog counts and the comments help to impress that count.

                                                                     Thank you for your help,
                                                                      Theodora

Lists 1

lists

Many people go around making lists of their “to do”s or “honey-do”s or hopes for the future. Once my daughters gave a a list book. It had many pages, each with a list idea at the top. Some of those ideas were:

1. List your favorite books

2. List people you would like to meet

3. List the times you've had an audience

4. List the people you love most in your life.

1. Favorite book lists were easier when I was younger. But the list has changed over time and I wouldn’t so much be able to list favorite books as much as favorite authors. Of books number one would be, and has always been, the Bible. Of authors the list would include:

John Grisham, Mitch Albom, Louisa Mae Alcott, C. S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Warren Wiersbe, Max Lucado, Lilian Jackson Braun. This seems to be such a small list. I may expand on it later. You can see that it is a variety of writing styles and genres.

2. The people I would like to meet are some of the people in the Bible: Ruth & Naomi, Peter & John. I would also like to meet the authors I named above. I would love to meet Lady Bird Johnson and Barbara Bush, Eleanor Roosevelt. I have some favorite actors that I would love to meet.

One time I did meet Walter Koenig and received his autograph. I tried to tell him that I really enjoyed watching him in Star Trek and in Babylon 5. But he was in an angry mood that night. It was a movie premiere and he didn’t like the way the movie had turned out. I don’t blame him about the movie, it was pretty bad. But I didn’t think he should carry that feeling and put them onto his fans.

Another time, David & I were strolling through Sea-Tac airport looking for lunch. We gathered our lunch and sat down. Soon we were joined by James Doohan. This time I didn’t ask for an autograph. We were having a very nice conversation and I didn’t want to ruin it. But I guess I didn’t have to worry about that. I just found this statement at Wikipedia, “Unlike some other members of the cast, Doohan relished meeting fans and was always ready to entertain with a story or a song.”

Unfortunately, enough time has passed that I don’t remember the date for either encounter. It would be during or before 2004 because Doohan passed away in 2005.

3. List the times I’ve had an audience. There would be too many to make an actual list. When I was growing up my father had his children sing a special number before the church audience. I was in choir in 9^th & 10^th grade and we sang in front of the rest of the school and at contests. I high school and, 40 years later, in college I had to give speeches or reports before the assembled classmates. I even entered a speech contest in high school. In technical school I entered a spelling bee. I joined Toastmasters International and for over 30 years had a weekly audience and the occasional speech contest audience. While I was living in Moses Lake I was also a member of International Training in Communications (ITC). I am unable to tell you how many speeches I have given.

Now, I attend the Glendale Corps of The Salvation Army where I am the Home League leader. We share the responsibility of the program. I am in the choir. I occasionally am allowed to present the message to the Congregation and to the Glencroft residents (for CCM).

I have had many audiences.

4. This last list is the easiest; list the people I love most in my life:

my husband, David

my daughters, Eve & Sara

their husbands, Mike & Billy

my grandchildren: Madison, Amelia, Vincent, Fiona, Orrin, Liam, Augustus

my parents, Giles & Marian

my siblings: Dean, Lynette, Doug, Mari, Darrin (now passed on), Reneé, Christina

all my aunts, uncles, and cousins

my grandparents

then, all my friends who have been near and dear to me, whether they remember my birthday or not. (he he)

I’ll end with this - I was thinking about "WHO is my friend?" I have lots of acquaintances, people I say hello to and even people I'll give a hug to, but I don't necessarily consider them friends. To me, a friend is someone who takes the time to get to know me. A friend is someone who says to me, "how can I help you?" and if not today then when you need me let me know. And when I do ask they come through for mr. I'm not talking about money (never about money), though it may cost them some when they give me what I need - their time. It's not a one-way street, either. I will also give them my time and help. Even so,I will help an acquaintance, that doesn't mean they are my friend. A friend is someone who loves me and will demonstrate their love for me. Sometimes it is physically, sometimes in other ways. I have friends who have given their time and energy to my benefit in the past but are now physically(or mentally) unable to help out. They continue to find ways to let me know they are still my friend. Sometimes I get too busy to pay proper attention to my friends but they continue to love me anyway, and I know who they are. 😅😅 All this really goes much deeper than words can express,yet all my friends have this in common - they're there if I need them (or would be if they could) and I can depend on them. 

💘💘 To all my true friends - Thank You for your love! 💘💘

Be Still – Slow down and wait on God

Be Still – Slow down and wait on God

Psalm 37:7 Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, Because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass.

The last two weeks have been very busy for me. We had spent a week in Moses Lake, WA with our children and grandchildren and now we were home again. Before that we had shared a month and a half with two of our granddaughters (not at the same time). The first week home was spent getting caught up on my client work and personal bookkeeping. (Oops, I missed a bill.) And this week was spent packing up our Women’s Ministries supplies and church library and moving it all into a storage unit in preparation of our church administration building being gutted to remove the asbestos. In between all of that I was preparing for our Home League (our Women’s Ministry) program for yesterday morning. The program I had chosen several months ago was called “In the Stillness” Preparing this message was refreshing for me. Some of what I found I share below. It was a great reminder of how important taking time to Be Still and Refresh myself in God’s power and love can be. The Bible, God’s Word, has a lot to say about being still, and about laughter.

In the stillness God wanted to show His power to Elijah. Elijah had just had a mountain experience with God on Mt. Carmel. Now he was on Mt. Horeb and God calls to him, “Go out and stand on the mountain ...” read 1 Kings 19:9-13a (NIV)

9 There he [Elijah] went into a cave and spent the night. And the word of the Lord came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

10 He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”

11 The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shatteredthe rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. 13 When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.

outline provided by - snipped from https://anointedtube.com/video/23074/stillness-and-waiting-on-god/

Tak Bhana, senior pastor at Church Unlimited. The church is in Auckland, New Zealand

He used the NKJV www.churchunlimited.co.nz

the benefits

1. God’s presence will increase in our lives, Psalm 131:2 (NKJV)

2 Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul,
Like a weaned child with his mother;
Like a weaned child is my soul within me.

Spiritual attention dispels chaos, dispels spiritual ADHD. It’s easy to spend a whole day working for God and yet not think about Him. Psalm 33:20 - Our soul waits for the Lord; He is our help and our shield. in this verse “wait” means a longing for God’s presence.

2. Know God is in your situation

Be Still and Know that I AM God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” Psalm 46:10

Set aside your anxiety and worries. Here’s a formula: a change of place + a change of pace = leads to a change of perspective.

3. Hear God’s voice – get still enough to hear. God wants to communicate His wisdom and His counsel to us.

4. God will work on your behalf

Isaiah 64:4 - For since the beginning of the world
Men have not heard nor perceived by the ear,
Nor has the eye seen any God besides You,
Who acts for the one who waits for Him.

5. Develop a confident trust in God

Psalm 62:1 - Truly my soul silently waits for God; From Him comes my salvation.

here “waits”means calm, strong, confident, silent trust in God

2 Chronicles 20:17 - You will not need to fight in this battle. Position yourselves, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, who is with you, O Judah and Jerusalem!’ Do not fear or be dismayed; tomorrow go out against them, for the Lord is with you.”

6. Possess your inheritance

Psalm 37:34 - Wait on the Lord, And keep His way,
And He shall exalt you to inherit the land;
When the wicked are cut off, you shall see it. (a military position to sieze)

How to get still

1. Shut up (talk less)

James 1:19 - So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath;

2. Surrender (stillness = let go; surrender)

3. Slow down your lifestyle

4. Spend time daily with the Lord – give God an hour and He’ll be with you the other 23.

5. Solitude

While I was preparing my program I came across a jewel of a book compiled by Jill Briscoe, “Refreshing Your Soul.” You can find it at her website – https://justbetweenus.org or at Amazon “Refresh Your Soul: Caring for Your Inner Life.”  I shared a chapter from it with my ladies.

Each chapter is written by a different woman and are only 3-5 pages long. To get your interest, here are the chapter titles:

  1. Escaping to God’s Arms

  2. Exchanging Calm for Chaotic

  3. RX: Soul Medicine

  4. Is Solitude Possible in a Noisy World?

  5. Running Out of Prayers

  6. How to Hear God’s Voice Above the Clamor

  7. 20 Ways to Wake Up Your Quiet Time

  8. Rest for the Weary

  9. Soul Care

10. Food for the Soul

And here is a paragraph from chapter 6: “Surprisingly, I often find myself just as reluctant to hear His words of love – particularly when I feel less than lovable. Hearing His words of grace and love can be painfully difficult. Many of us don’t wait in His presence long enough to let Him love us. We are quick to voice our concerns, seek His guidance, and request His blessing. Yet, how it must grieve our Father’s heart that we come to Him only in want of something, rather than coming simply because we enjoy being in the Father’s presence.”

A word about Amazon. They will make a contribution to your favorite charity or church if you sign up at https://smile.amazon.com. You do have to make sure that you log into this side of Amazon each time you make a purchase or they won’t make the contribution.

Ramblings

Ramblings

Lately I've been thinking about the world differently – about our common sayings and thoughts. Such as, we talk about common sense and wish other people had it, but common sense to me is not common sense to you. We all have a different sense about common sense.

Another, we have actually completed a year of life one millisecond (or nanosecond) before the time of our birth, or if you want to express it in whole days, it would be the day before we celebrate our birthdays.

There have been others but I don't remember them right now.

My grandchildren now number seven: Madi who is 14, Amelia 9 years, Vincent at 7 ¾ years, Fiona & Orrin who just had their 6^th birthday in July, Liam at 3 years and finally, Gus at 13 days.

I'm watching my grandkids play outside. Amelia has to have a half hour daily in the sun. She and Fiona are busy crafting with felt. Amelia is using thread and tape, Fiona is using colored pens. The boys are running around and climbing on playhouses. They just headed for the trampoline.

We are in Moses Lake, Washington, right now and the sky is thick with forest fire smoke. It is stinging my eyes, and I'm sure it's not helping my asthma.

We have to be up at 5:00 AM to catch our airplane out of Spokane and back to Phoenix on Friday. I thought about taking a later flight but the only other flight I would consider didn't arrive in Phoenix until approximately 10:00 PM (if I remember right). That would be after David's bedtime and too close to mine. It turned out to be a good thing that we didn't take the later flight because Sara is going to drive us to the airport. Then she is going to return home and pick up Billy and head for a concert in Seattle for that night. Whew! Too much for me. It's too bad we didn't know about the concert. We could have made our flight out of Seattle and saved her from the Spokane trip. I offered to take the bus, argued it even, but she said no. Turns out, there is no shuttle from Moses Lake to the Spokane airport.

I have an Amazon Kindle Fire 10 tablet and while I love it I have found some interesting quirks regarding it. I need to remember to take the service phone number with me when I go to Starbucks because I have not been able to get onto their Wi-Fi when there, even after getting instructions from Amazon while I was at home. My previous Amazon Kindle Fire 10 tablet didn't have that problem. I wanted to be able to use my tablet as a GPS when we go on our Vermont trip, but the Kindle Fires are not set up to have phone numbers installed. I am going to borrow my granddaughter's Samsung tablet for the trip and indefinitely. Sara and I went to her cellphone store to get it set up. Now I just need to figure out how to use it. I have noticed that it is different then the Amazon tablet.

Enough ramblings!

May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. May the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace. Numbers 6:24-26