by Sharon O | May 25, 2018 | Uncategorized
Yesterday was a birthday to celebrate for us.
Our oldest grand daughter Faith Elizabeth turned 19. Now she is a full fledged adult and almost ready to drive. Ready to graduate from high school after a few little glitches. We are so proud. She has a nice little job and a nice boyfriend, too. Hard for me to realize she is grown up.
When she was born she arrived almost 8 weeks early weighing in at 2 pounds 11 ounces.
She was beautiful and very alert and strong. She was 17 inches long with very skinny legs. I was amazed at how tiny she was and in reality she was a pretty big baby in the NICU side where she slept.
I remember how we prayed over her and asking for her health to stay strong and her ability to eat good.
She was able to go home after 3 weeks weighing just over 3 pounds 9 ounces. So tiny and so precious.
I like this picture it shows her tiny hands.
At 5 1/2 months she weighed not quite 8 pounds. The normal size of most newborns.
I love this pre-school picture of her, it was one of my favorites.
I watched her for almost four years then she went to pre-school and a new babysitter who we trusted. It will forever be a special memory for me, the days and hours we spent together.
It is a great thing to be grandma and caretaker too.
.
She is grown now and she is beautiful 
Our Faith Elizabeth.
by Sharon O | May 21, 2018 | Uncategorized
Today is saw a question on face book and it made me stop and think.
It said, “You have 168 hours each week to spend on something. What are you choosing?”
That is a great question and sort of goes back to what I just wrote about.
Frittering away our money, our time and other resources is just plain wasteful.
What would it look like if we purposefully laid out our ‘time’ in focused chunks?
I know when I am writing I set aside a few hours to do that, since it takes time to process.
How much time do I fritter watching TV? or on my phone? or on the internet?
It is a great question of quality vs quantity.
How do we spend our time and how do we decide what matters?
I try to find good honorable choices. Books written by my friends are good.
Reading blogs of those who I know and encourage is good.
How much time do I prepare for meals, or shopping? It seems like the store is my go to place at least a few times a week. Maybe I could better plan using a list (gasp) Yes my husband has suggested a list.
I don’t use one but would it make it easier if I did?
How much time do we waste in a doctor’s office waiting room or sitting in the car in traffic?
Time is a gift to us. If we wake up and we are breathing the rest of the day is a bonus.
It is truly a blessing to be alive so let’s make the best of it and be productive.
Let’s choose to be wise in our time use. Let’s choose to be positive and encouraging.
Let’s choose to be productive and mark off those ‘to do’ items that haven’t been done.
Ready for the challenge? ready to change the chapters of your life for the better?
Let’s press forward and do it.
picture from Toby Mac – speak life
by Sharon O | May 20, 2018 | Uncategorized
Our Pastor has continued on the new theme of the time is now.
I find it very encouraging and also challenging, for the time is now for many things.
Our personal lives sometimes have new changes coming as we prepare and wait for the ‘newness’ to settle around us in a new home or in a new job.
The school year is soon to be over and the children will be anticipating summer, or making plans for jobs or college if they are old enough.
There will be many choices as to how to spend our time and also where we choose the direction of our goals.
Our Pastor talked about how the enemy prowls around and waits for any thing that can distract us.
He said he hustles our heart for the treasures inside for where our treasure is kept, there is our heart.
That is hard to grasp sometimes.
God doesn’t want something from us he wants something for us.
It is a blessing of spirit, and a generous attitude.
That is way different than we have been told throughout our life time.
When we give our lives to the Lord many blessings rain down upon us as we serve him.
Choices about generosity determine where our heart is resting in.
For instance my husband and I sponsor three little girls in Haiti through compassion ministries.
I feel the small amount that we pay is nothing compared to the larger amount that we fritter away each week; not counting each time we go out to eat, or purchase a ‘must needed item.’
The time is now to make decisions as to where we spend our time and our money in the future.
It is more blessed to give than receive and I see that when we get a letter from these three girls.
Their prayers for us, are precious. Their thank you notes are genuine.
As Pastor said today, “we do not give from our wealth for we all are wealthy.”
We give from our heart. God was generous to us first by sending us his son.
He looked at humanity and said, “you can’t ever earn your way to heaven, I will do it for you.”
It was a generous gift. It is for believers only. Pastor said, “it’s like receiving a medal in the Olympics on a raised platform that is used for presentation of what is due.”
We receive it just as a new graduate receives their diploma.
Pastor said, when we are generous we receive our joy. It is all about a heart condition.
The time is now for us to decide, about giving, keeping and being genuine.
It is a blessing of spirit and generosity of choice. What shall we choose?
by Sharon O | May 17, 2018 | Uncategorized
The other day our Pastor started a six week series called, “The time is now.”
I love to write in a series, it keeps me focused and structured in topic so I am not bouncing around not making sense of anything.
It keeps the message clear and straight forward too.
He started out with the word OP-POR-TU-NI-TY which is a set of circumstances that make it possible to achieve something as in a goal.
Something – is a key word, and circumstance is the other key word.
He said to make the most of every opportunity, asking yourself, what am I doing that will leave the greatest impact on others?
I pray my blog writing does that in some way or other.
He said, opportunity also means time. In the root of the word Chronos refers to time, clock, minutes and hours.
Kairos refers to substance, richness, experiences that have great meaning and quality.
Time can be our biggest enemy if we allow it to be or it can also become our greatest friend.
He said the time is NOW… Never Omit Wonders.
N ever
O mit
W onders
I honestly think this can be also used as a life goal.
Do you want to lose weight and be more physically fit? then eat better and exercise.
If you want learn how to publish articles and be more mature in your writing? then take time to practice.
If you want to change a habit and move forward to a new one? then you must do what needs to be done.
They say it takes six weeks to change a habit.
Six weeks in a series, to reinforce the movement towards growth and maturity.
I read about a guy who was a severe diabetic who had neuropathy so bad he burned his feet and didn’t even know it.
He got a wake up call, to change and to do a 180 turn and learn better life skills and with new ways of eating.
He lost a lot of weight, got healthy and has no more diabetes.
The time is NOW … Never omit wonders… the amazing can happen. If you believe.
The new awareness can be a lifestyle you have wanted for a long time.
It takes effort and decision making to change the something and the circumstance.
Are you ready to start?
The crossing over from what was then and what is becoming is NOW, it’s time to begin to never omit wonders.
Do you believe in yourself enough?
by Sharon O | May 15, 2018 | Uncategorized
Yesterday my daughter lost her cat temporarily. She has two cats and they are indoors only.
It was scary and hard to think about as the temp outside was 90 and very hot.
It moved me back into a memory when we lived in a different city.
At the time our children were pretty little and we had an assortment of dogs and cats at the house.
One of ours was named Moses and he was a yellow striped cat and one day he went missing.
I worried and fretted and didn’t know how to find him.
I walked the neighborhood calling out, “Moses”… wondering if the neighbors were concerned about me.
My husband saw my distress and went for a drive. He came back with a very angry hissing cat.
When you think about the experience it had to have been pretty comical. Here he was fighting this cat.
He was scratched and showing signs of war, the reality was; he had removed someone’s beloved pet off their property and kidnapped it. Poor kitty.
I had the terrible task of telling him it was not my cat and he needed to take it back.
To this day I am not sure what ever happened to old Moses and I chuckle at the thought of the other cat.
The story he could tell if he could talk human language.
The second funny event was in the same house when our black cat went missing for a day.
His name was Spook. Again we were sad and worried and my husband found a black cat on the road.
He for sure said it was Spook and even though I wanted to see him, he didn’t want me to be disturbed.
So we told our children he was killed and they carried on and cried, as we all did.
We planned a time for burial and had a service in a prime spot in the back yard.
We sang songs and discussed with the children how life is sad sometimes and death happens.
A few hours later our friend was outside in the driveway when a ‘black cat’ rubbed against his leg.
Looking down we realized it was OUR cat, our beloved Spook and we obviously buried the wrong cat.
Then we had to explain to the children that ONLY Jesus resurrects from the dead, NOT cats too.
It was a pretty sad but funny time in our home.
Life sure has it’s moments, and my husband is pretty funny too, in his great love for us he would do just about anything.
