Happy Valentine's Day!  Today is the a day to show those you care about how much you care.   There were hearts, flowers, cards, and candy at church yesterday.  Yesterday was deemed Love Sunday.  We gave cards, notes and candy to most everyone.   It's a nice way to show our Christian family how much we love them. 
How do you show your family love?  Do you show them everyday?  Valentine's Day is close to my birthday, so I never expect anything.  My husband asked me what we were doing for the holdiay.  I told him I didn't want to do anything.  The kids are going to see the new movie Gnomeo and Juliet, but that's okay.  I'd rather stay home.  I am making a yummy roast, rice and veggies and bread.  I make a pretty good cheesecake, so I am making that  for a nice treat. 

I love my children and husband and would do almost anything for them.  I take them to church, I correct them, talk with them, help them deal with their problems and support them. I love them with everything in my being.  But I love God more.

Deuteronomy 6:5  "Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength."

I think that loving the Lord with all your heart is easy.  We are emotional people.  Sometimes it is much easier to follow our emotions than our minds.  Love is much more than an emotion.  It is an action.  How do you love?  You do things, you say things, and the emotions that you send others.  You do everything you can to show your emotion for others. 

Loving God with all your soul is tricky.  Your soul is not something you feel, or even think about.  Our soul is what you put into things.  What you do in your job, your life, your family, your relationships, can be your soul.  So loving God with all that you have in you may be what this means.

Loving God with all your mind is your concious effort to make decisions, logical ideas and knowing what is right from wrong. Being wise is something that most of deem to be important.  But to love God, you have to make that decision to follow God, to put away your old life and follow him in obedience. 

This month I have been looking at non-traditional/contemporary Christmas songs.  Earlier in the year, I listened to a cd and found this song that is sung by the southern gospel group, Greater Vision.  It starts out telling about how the wiseman went to find this child and how they described him.  I knew immediately that this song was one I was going to sing someday.  It is gentle, yet powerful, insightful, yet truthful. 

Have you ever really thought about what Jesus, in human form really means?  These words are a way to describe the aspects of Christ in the image of God and man.  The author has been given such inspiration from God, that it really spoke to me.



Grace Has a Face
by Phil Cross
Sung by Greater Vision

In search of a child,

They traveled so far
Led by a star
To a place joy
Now the wiseman tell a beautiful story
Describing the glory of a baby boy.

Hope has hands
Freedom has feet
The truth will stand
The word will speak
The holy and lowly will finally embrace
For love has a heartbeat
And grace has a face.

Compassion has a tear
Joy has a laughter
And here ever after peace has a smile
Redemption's blood has veins to flow in
A temple to glow in
Light is a child

Hope has hands
Freedom has feet
Truth will stand
The word will speak
The holy and lowly will finally embrace
For love has a heartbeat grace has a face

Jesus, Jesus Jesus,
Let all heaven and earth proclaim
That love has heartbeat
And grace has a face.

First, let me apologize for this post being so late. I have been so excited about being able to post more than once an month and BOOM! The first chance I get, I blow it. Thank goodness, as I was driving to work this morning, I was going over my mental to-do list and it hit me. Was my Seeds post today or tomorrow? Oops! I think it was today. Man! I blew that all to pieces.

Well I have been trying to talk about missions the world over, and my next blog on here will be about that. But as I was trying to figure out what I could talk about in the interim, I want to tell you what is happening at our church. The devil is trying to devour us Christians, and we aren't standing for it!

I have a friend, whom I have known about 35 years. Her family started coming to church and we have grown up together. We really weren't friends as kids, because she is older and as children and teens go, four to six years of age difference is a lot of maturity time. But as young women, we have done what Christian sisters do, support each other. She got married, had kids, went to another church, came back. I got married, had kids, stayed at the same church. We both enjoyed church camp and being able to help kids. We both are very musically involved, she plays the piano wonderfully and I sing, so we have lots in common.

But since June, her world has been turned upside down. Her husband has been diagnosed with Stage 3 cancer and terrible things wrong with his spine. Her youngest child is six and she is now the sole bread winner in her household. I can relate to the cancer element of her stress but not exactly, because it was my dad last year who had Stage 3 cancer. Anyway, in the past month, her husband is so close to remission that they are now going to start testing to see if they can use his bone marrow to replace some of the bad.

So tomorrow my friend and her husband are driving from Ohio down to Florida to do the testing because the stupid insurance company won't do it here anywhere. She says if she has to be somewhere else during the holdiays, it might has well be somewhere warm. It's going to be a long couple days in a car, but I think the stress of leaving her family here is harder.

The past few Sundays at church have been very emotional for a lot of us. Our minister's family is going through a lot of medical problems, and it seems that every song that is sung is picked out and every word spoken, has a personal message for someone. The Lord is alive and well at our church. He is using all kinds of people, songs and messages to touch our lives.

Lately, my friend has not been able to sit through a service without her emotions getting the best of her. She says that at home, work, anywhere else she is fine. But she gets to church and the waterworks start. I think that is because she is busy and able to push a lot of her emotions out of the way. Then when she comes to church, she is quiet, listening and God starts relieving the stress and pent-up feelings. She is reminded that he loves her, that no matter what, she needs to focus on Him and remember that God loves her and he does know what is going on and he will be with them through this ordeal. He won't be through it until it gets good or bad, but he will see the family all the way through.


When we are busy dealing with the plans and details of our lives, it is easy to not worry about the emotions. We worry about everyone else. She is worried about their children, her husband, work, schedules, and can easily not deal openly with how her life has taken a frightening turn. The anger, denial, frustration, and hopelessness can all be pushed down until that moment you stop and take a moment for yourself. That's when your defenses come down, you allow your heart to break and you think about all that is happening. It could be good or bad and you have no control nor do you know the outcome. That is when faith and trust comes in. Trust God knows it all, what you are feeling, how you are dealing, and what will happen. Your faith may waiver under the weight of it all, but stand firm on your knees. God wants to hear it from you. He wants you to express your self to him. Besides, talking to someone always makes us feel better, doesn't it?

This always makes me think of Proverbs 3:5
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;

Having two children living with us, for my husband and I, mean that we are actively involved in their lives.  We also have a daughter living in Virgina that we do not get to see very often.  We want the kids to see that we have a great life here in America.  We want them to appreciate all they are privileged to have and know about many things, even if we aren't wealthy by teenagers opinions.  We also want them to know that with this appreciation come responsibility in giving back.

We show our children that giving back doesn't always mean monetary tithing.  We have a wonderful lady at church who in very involved with several organizations.  One of them is Kids Against Hunger from A Child's Hope International.  Here is the website...Kids Against Hunger.  Kids Against Hunger packages dried foods for those less fortunate and hands them out in third world countries.  People from our church have gone a couple of times to package food.  It takes very little time to make a lot of packages for a lot of kids. My children have even had the opportunity to do this at church camp and at other retreats. 

To see that God has had a hand in this is amazing.  I have a Daughter in the Navy.  She wants to go see other parts of the world and last March she got to go to Haiti (before the earthquake).  During this time, Kids Against Hunger was trying to figure out how to get this food into the country.  Through God's hand, our daughter's Naval Hospital boat was able to take the food that we had packed, and distribute it in a humanitarian effort.  It is pretty amazing how God did that!  Each of our family members, Mike, me, Jaci, Allie and Timm, as well as many others had a hand in packing, boxing and distributing the food to those millions of children.

John 21:15-17
¹⁵So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs.
 ¹⁶He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep.
 ¹⁷He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep. 

Three times Jesus commanded Simon Peter to feed his sheep.  He doesn't necessarily mean give them food, but that is the verse that came to mind when I was writing this.  We will never know who's life was saved because of the food we packed, and it doesn't matter.  We gave of ourselves just a bit to help those in need.  And having the extra aspect of Jaci being able to deliver the food, gave Allie and Timm a little extra push in being able to feel they helped out in a bigger way.