😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace and presence be with you.  Here’s the scene.  Yesterday was the first day I worked from our new home.  It was 18 degrees with snow flurries, so Brian got a fire going in the wood stove.  What a great and comfortable way to work.   Saturday night we were blessed to be surrounded by family and friends, as Fr. Patrick Blenman blessed our home and lead the Enthronement to the Sacred Heart of Jesus ceremony.  Thursday we were able to have our Thanksgiving celebration with my parents and all of our children and grandchildren sitting around one table.  And my oldest daughter Crystal, her husband John and their two children spent four days with us.  What an incredible week and so much to be thankful for. 

Again, thank You Lord for all of Your gifts and blessings!

I pray that you too feel the love and warmth of God’s blessings upon your life,

Bless others and be blessed.

Shelly  :0)

If the Lord has touched you in some way with His message today, I ask that you pay it forward by sharing this message, so that you and He may also bless others.  Click subscribe to receive your message every Wednesday via email.

😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace and presence be with you.  It’s Thanksgiving Eve!!!  Can I get a “Gobble Gobble”?  Seriously though, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday to spend with family and this year will be special for a few reasons.  First, Brian and I have been married for 22 years and between us we have five children, with spouses, and four grandchildren.  We had planned to have all five of our children, their spouses, and our grandchild at our home on 11/26/2020, Thanksgiving Day.  Well, COVID wrecked our plans, so after Mass, instead of going home to be with family and cook, Brian and I took a drive to checkout three pieces of land.  That was the day we found the land our new home rests on.  Thank You Lord!

Fast forward three years, although our new home doesn’t have all the finishing touches completed, we did pass our final inspection and started moving some furniture in last weekend. Thank You Lord!

We don’t even have any food or our bed in the house, but our first over night guests, my daughter Crystal and her family from North Carolina will be arriving this day.  Thank You Lord!

This Thanksgiving, we won’t even have a couch in our home, but it will be filled with something more important…my parents, all of our children, their spouses, and our grandchildren.  This is the first time ever that they will all be together.  Thank You Lord! 

Finally, Saturday, we will have our home blessing and enthronement ceremony to the Sacred Heart of Jesus…Thank You Lord!

I can begin to count all the blessings that I have received over this past year, but I quickly lose count, because there are way too many to count. THANK YOU, LORD!

I pray that your blessings are too numerous to count and your heart be overflowing with a love that only the Father can offer you.

Bless others and be blessed.

Shelly  :0)

If the Lord has touched you in some way with His message today, I ask that you pay it forward by sharing this message, so that you and He may also bless others.  Click subscribe to receive your message every Wednesday via email.

#Mikeschare – All I Can Do (Thank You)

😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace and presence be with you.  I like to read, well, I don’t know if it actually has a name, but the blurb, thoughts to ponder in front of the Sunday Mass readings.  This past Sunday, that blurb kept me thinking during Mass.  Actually, it still has me thinking.  The Gospel reading was a parable from Matthew 25: 1-13 that started out, “The kingdom of heaven will be like…” and goes on to paint a picture of five of the ten ladies not properly estimating the amount of lamp oil needed to keep their lamps lit for the coming of the bridegroom.  Upon receiving notification that the bridegroom was on his way, the five short on oil run to try to locate more oil.  Yes, that parable is to teach us that we do not know the time or place of the Lord’s arrival, which is why we should always be prepared.  But, the lesson from this parable that has been running through my head is slightly different. 

First, there are times in our lives that we feel prepared.  Second, there are times in our lives that our preparedness is very lacking.  We have lived and know the joys, pains, and emotions of both sides of that situation.  During Mass, the logical side of me, driven by the emotional side of me said…”They’ve got someone scouting the situation, so they didn’t need all the lamps burning all night.  As a means to conserving their supplies as a whole, during their time of waiting, they could have alternated lamp usage, which would have cut their oil usage in half and allowed them to burn all lamps to the fullest for the actual arrival of the bridegroom. 

There have been many times in my life that someone has provided me a helping hand in one way or another.  There have also been times that I have been able to help others when then didn’t quite have all they needed.  I feel this parable that Matthew shares with us is not just about the physical preparedness, but also being prepared to see the opportunities that God places before us to stand in the gap and help others, as we await Christ’s return.  After all, at the end of the day, Christ wants all of us with Him.

May you never be blind to that which the Lord has placed before you to see.

Bless others and be blessed.

Shelly  :0)

If the Lord has touched you in some way with His message today, I ask that you pay it forward by sharing this message, so that you and He may also bless others.  Click subscribe to receive your message every Wednesday via email.

#RendCollective – Counting Every Blessing

😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace and presence be with you.  Lord, what are we going to do today?  Not, Lord, what are You going to do today?  It’s also a matter of how you ask it.  Are you asking with an excitement, energy, and a desire to share your day with the Lord?  Are you asking sheepishly with lackluster?  Or, maybe you aren’t asking at all. 

I 100% know in my heart that our Lord created this world that we call home.  I also 100% know that Satan and his evil works have taken up a permanent residency here.  Seriously, God must be crying over all that He is seeing.  The family unit is the core of what we bring forth into this world.  You don’t have to look too hard to find that families are being destroyed.  Children are lacking the love, security, and guidance of a core family and are being thrown into this world way too early in life, to figure out things on their own and find their way.  In this world we see so much selfishness, unrest, upheaval, and lack of peace, which stems from what we are seeing within families.  I’m not talking about all families, but Satan is certainly hitting us hard in that area. 

We need to ask this question boldly, with excitement, energy, confidence, and a desire to work with and along side God.  “Lord, what are WE going to do today?!”  Every day the answer can be…”Change the world to be a better place.”  True, God’s definition of a better place looks different than our definition, so we need to get back to the basics and follow the Lord’s guidance.

Pray that your strength is in the Lord.

Pray that you hear His word and guidance.

Pray that you have the courage to act upon His word and guidance.

Pray that when your family sees you, they see Christ.

Pray that your family sees Christ in you and choose to shine Christ to others.

Pray that your actions bring Christ’s peace, presence, love, forgiveness, and security to your family.

Pray that your family will NOT be destroyed by Satan.

To bring Christ and peace to this world, it must start within our families.  Be bold in Christ and willing to fight for your family. 

Bless others and be blessed.

Shelly  :0)

If the Lord has touched you in some way with His message today, I ask that you pay it forward by sharing this message, so that you and He may also bless others.  Click subscribe to receive your message every Wednesday via email.

😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace and presence be with you.  We are only one inspection away from being able to claim our new house as our home.  Can I get a WOOT WOOT!  Better yet, can I get an AMEN!  THANK YOU, LORD!  This home building journey certainly has had its moments and trials, but it has certainly had more holy moments than challenging ones.  In an effort to thank and honor God for his blessings upon us, we are having a Thank You God house party, instead of a house warming party.  For our Thank You God party, I asked one of our priests from our new parish, if he could do a home Mass.  I thought that would be a great way to honor God in our home.

Well, it turns out that we aren’t able to have Mass in our home, but we are able to do a home and family blessing ritual.  Father also suggested enthroning us and our home to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  Okay, what does that mean?  Thank goodness Father provided a link, so I could check it out.  I also put the link below, so that you too can check it out.   One of the needed items mentioned was a picture or statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  Yes, I could go buy something new, but I really wanted something that was already part of my family.  Something that felt like home, not new, polished, and sterile.  Granted, quite a bit of our nick nack items have been packed up for a couple years now, just waiting to move, so I wasn’t quite sure what I would find, but I wasn’t planning on digging in boxes.  As I walked into our dinning room, I have a framed picture of Jesus on top of our china hutch that belonged to my grandparents.  The picture has a matte around it, so I wasn’t able to see the entire picture, so I took it out of the frame.  Sure enough, it is the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  But here’s the thing that gave me God bumps.  Check out the back of the picture. 

Seriously, this gave me God bumps.  I’ve had this image of Jesus watching over our family, I don’t know how many years.  It’s one of those images that His eyes follow you.  God ahead, try it.  As you walk around, His eyes follow you.  Pretty cool!  I knew this picture came from one of my grandparents, but I couldn’t remember for sure, which one.  I think we’ve narrowed it down to my dad’s side of the family, possibly from my grandma’s cousin, who was a priest.

So, before finding this image, I new I wanted to set up our alter area for the Sacred Heart of Jesus in our dinning room area, so that we would see Him as soon as we entered our home.  So, it was just so perfect that I found Him in the dining room.  When I looked closer at the image and realized it is the Sacred Heart of Jesus and then seeing the back, I got a bit choked up and said to Him…”You were right there all along.” 

In sooooo many ways, He has always been right there with me.  That moment was just such a solid reminder for me.  I hope it is for your as well.

Bless others and be blessed.

Shelly  :0)

If the Lord has touched you in some way with His message today, I ask that you pay it forward by sharing this message, so that you and He may also bless others.  Click subscribe to receive your message every Wednesday via email.

#SacredHeartOf Jesus

https://www.catholiccompany.com/content/sacred-heart-jesus-enthronement-ceremony

😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace and presence be with you.  The Bible is filled with signs, wonders, and most importantly Jesus.  It is our foundation, the Rock upon which I hope and pray your life has been built upon.  But the Bible is just one way in which we can experience Christ.  Christ commissioned us and the Holy Spirit empowers us to be Christ’s advocate and share Him in this world, where He is needed and for whom He is reaching out to.    

Scott Lawson lives halfway across the U.S. from me.  I can count on my hands how many times we have actually spoken.  But every morning he posts a picture of the sunrise on Facebook, he is sending me an image of God.  Christ, through Scott, is sending me reminders of God’s beauty, colors, imagination, and magnitude. 

Although the sky is never the same from one minute to the next, our God never changes.  His love can never be less.  He loves you 100% all the time.  Yes, even when you are sinning, He still loves you and wants you to come back to Him.  Don’t get me wrong, He loves you, but not sinful actions and thoughts.   

Until this moment, I’m sure Scott had no idea the impact he is making in my life, for Christ.  When we allow Him, Christ will move in small, subtle, impactful ways, mostly unbeknownst to us.  That God Guy, He’s a pretty awesome guy.   

Bless others and be blessed.

Shelly  :0)

If the Lord has touched you in some way with His message today, I ask that you pay it forward by sharing this message, so that you and He may also bless others.  Click subscribe to receive your message every Wednesday via email.

#ChrisTomlin – Nobody Loves Me Like You

😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace and presence be with you.  Actions.  How do actions effect your life?  It can be the slightest of actions that can send out a ripple, that becomes a wave.  Brian typically goes to the office on Wednesdays, which means he has to get up at 3am in order to beat the traffic and get to work on time.  With that being said, we have made Tuesday evening our day off from our home construction project, so that we can do the weekly shopping and Brian can have an early night.  It also allows me the time to write to you. 

Brian’s office day was changed this week, which meant that we worked on the house Tuesday night, so no grocery shopping and I didn’t get to write to you. So, here I am 24 hours later, speaking with you.  You may think, that’s no big deal.  So, your days got changed around a bit.  Surprisingly to me, people all over the world read my weekly blog.  Is it making major waves?  I doubt that, but does it make a difference?  Yes, I believe it does.  Every week I tell myself, God has asked you to do this and He has given you the resources, so even if only one person reads this and it draws their attention to God, then I must be faithful in what He has called me to do.  One person, that receives my blogs via email, contacted me today, asking if I posted my blog today, because she didn’t see one.  Here you go Elaine.  It’s a little late, but still Wednesday.  Thank you for asking.

Actions, all actions have meaning, purpose, and create ripples.  Wow, I was just thinking how God has created waves in my life with these messages.  It’s amazing for me to think that I have been sending out a Wednesday message and songs for over nine years.  That just kind of blows my mind.  God has a way of taking small actions, ideas, even the smallest of mustard seeds, to grow, move, and create ripples in our lives that grow into great waves and that can be life changing, life propelling, life fulfilling actions. 

Listen to His words.  He has action that He is placing within you.   He may have been talking to you for awhile now about it.  Is it your time to move?

Bless others and be blessed.

Shelly  :0)

If the Lord has touched you in some way with His message today, I ask that you pay it forward by sharing this message, so that you and He may also bless others.  Click subscribe to receive your message every Wednesday via email.

#TobyMac – Move (Keep Walkin’)

😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace and presence be with you.  Friday was my regularly scheduled day off and Monday was a federal holiday, so I had four full days to work on our new home.  So, what have I been doing for the past eight weeks?  Good questions.  I’ve been spending most of my time in our garage, currently known as the poly shop.  I’ve been putting poly urethane  on corner trim, pocket doors, window trim, door trim, and baseboards.  I still have more baseboards, shoe molding, and more doors to do.  By the way, my new nickname is Pollyanna.  I need more poly and another board.  :0)

We were told yesterday by our electrician that he is planning on finishing our project this week.  The carpet is being install later this week or the beginning of next week. Hopefully by the end of next week our plumbing and boiler system will be ready to go.  We are getting very close, but some finishing touches and custom built closet doors are still in the works.  As the list of big projects get smaller, the list of smaller/punch list projects gets bigger.  The way I’ve been mentally getting through these lists, tasks, and all the boards that need to be coated with poly is by telling myself…”That’s one more board I won’t have to touch again.” and “Do it right the first time, so you don’t have to do it again.”  Yes, they may seem simple, but they keep me motivated.    

When I saw this quote a few months back, I thought…”This is very true.”

“When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person that walked in. That’s what the storm is all about.” – Haruki Murakami

Getting close to the other side of our home build project, I can definitely see that I’m not the same person I was at the beginning of the project.  Many lessons have been learned and skills acquired.  Persistence is a gift, when you are willing to see a project through to the end.  Thank You Lord for never leaving my side.

Bless others and be blessed.

Shelly  :0)

If the Lord has touched you in some way with His message today, I ask that you pay it forward by sharing this message, so that you and He may also bless others.  Click subscribe to receive your message every Wednesday via email.

#AustinFrench – Good Feeling

😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace and presence be with you.  Driving along the highway from the homestead to our home one night this past week, a vehicle passed me smelling as if they ran over a skunk.  This got me to thinking about how much trust we put in people every time we choose to drive.  These are people, we for the most part don’t know, never seen before, don’t talk to, and typically don’t even look at as we pass by, but yet we trust our lives to them.  Okay, you may think I’m exaggerating, but I’m really not.  Honestly, how much effort do you put into thinking about those that will be on the road with you, before you hit the road?  And I say again, yet you trust them with your life.  You trust that they will stay in their lane.  You trust that they will not stop suddenly in front of you.  You trust that you will make it to your intended destination safely. 

With all this trust being so freely and easily given, why then is it so hard for people to trust God with their life?  Think about that the next time you hit the road.

Proverbs 3: 5-8 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths.”

P.S. Don’t drive faster than your guardian angel can fly.

Bless others and be blessed.

Shelly  :0)

If the Lord has touched you in some way with His message today, I ask that you pay it forward by sharing this message, so that you and He may also bless others.  Click subscribe to receive your message every Wednesday via email.

#CodyCarnes – Take You at Your Word

😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace and presence be with you.  Yesterday was one of those rare occasions in which all of my siblings were in town at the same time, so we were able to have dinner all together with our parents.  It was truly a blessing spending time with everyone.  I didn’t have my phone with me, otherwise I would have taken a picture for you, but walking from my car to the restaurant I saw a piece for plywood displayed on a fence row with a painting of baby Jesus in the manger and this simple message,

Jesus came…

Here’s your sign.

Bless others and be blessed.

Shelly  :0)

If the Lord has touched you in some way with His message today, I ask that you pay it forward by sharing this message, so that you and He may also bless others.  Click subscribe to receive your message every Wednesday via email.

#ChrisTomlinThomasRhettFloridaGeorgiaLine – Thank You Lord