from the weekend

Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday, dear Momma! Happy Birthday to you!!! "He seldom reflects on the days of his life, for God keeps him occupied with gladness of heart." Ecclesiastes 5:20

So obviously, we celebrated my Mom's birthday over the weekend. Mom's favorite is chocolate, so I made a devil's food cake. She told me not to post a picture, but I couldn't resist. I thought it was a good one!


I love this picture of Yancy with Mason! He's gonna be such a good daddy one day!


We also got to visit with Yancy's Grandmother, DeDe. She fried up some cornbread and it was delicious! We enjoyed seeing everyone!


Here she is after the frying was over! Very funny, DeDe!

Amazing!

Yancy and I have been watching Planet Earth on the Discovery Channel. It's an awesome documentary about our world and its inhabitants- mountains, seas, plains, deserts. As we've been watching it, I've been awed by God and His creation. Of course, the series gives no credit to God for His creation, but we know that He spoke and all of this came into existence. It's amazing how He provides exactly what each animal and system needs to survive. It truly is amazing! You must see it!

"Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good!"
Genesis 1:31

"Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth... and he holds all creation together."
Colossians 1:15-17

Here's a preview. You might want to pause the music player.

Waiting For God's Answer

Here's another great devotion from James MacDonald. It's so good!

More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. - Romans 5:3-5

The Christian life would be easy if the space in time was small between when you first believe God's promises and when you receive what He promised. If you could read about it one day and get it the next, Wow - wouldn't that be great!?

But life's not like that.

The hard part is in the waiting between God's promise and His answer; and even harder, when the waiting comes with uncertainties.

Where's this going? Where am I going to end up? What's my future look like?

The reality is, we just don't know how circumstances will play out and it's this not-knowing that crushes us. We doubt because we don't know. We worry and despair because we don't know. We falter and sometimes fail - all because we don't know. If only we knew how this trial was going to end, we would be okay. But we don't.

We all have areas of uncertainty where we need to hold tightly onto what God has said while we wait for Him to work. I couldn't go forward another day if I didn't believe what He told me. So here's what we each must do: We must review His promises all the time. We must remind ourselves that our faith is in God and not in what He does for us. He knows what He has promised, He can't lie, and He can't forget. He will deliver on time, all the time. Who else can make promises like that?

God knows that it's hard for us to walk by faith. So He assures us, I'm not going to leave you wondering what I'm going to do. I don't want you to be overcome by fear. So I'm going to make some promises to you so that you can get through the difficult days. You don't have to take your view of life only from what you can see happening right in front of you. You're not imprisoned by the crazy talk someone is putting into your head that you know isn't true. Hang onto the things that I told you.

And while we wait, God builds our faith.