Update

My goodness, I can't believe almost 2 weeks have passed since I last posted. I intend to post a minimum of once per week but am aiming for 2-3 times per week.
I have been trying to find balance in my life. It is always a bit difficult the first month of a new school year as we all jostle with new schedules. I am now homeschooling a 1st grader, 3rd grader and an 11th grader. I now have 9 piano students who come through our home blessing us with their personalities.
I am continuing to teach an online class of Fascinating Womanhood. My husband and I are volunteering at our local AWANA club. My husband is the secretary and I am the "Red Team Leader". We work in the 5th and 6th grade girls class. This is our 6th year with AWANA. Matthew and Emily attend AWANA in their appropriate classes and love it!
We are also starting a new Keepers at Home girls club. Our first meeting is on Monday. We will be working towards our Butterfly and Flower Arranging badges. Matthew just bridged up to Bear Scouts in his Cub Scout pack. I am continuing to work full time (at home) as a telephone triage nurse for hospice.
I am continuing to work on the vocals for my CD that we hope to release in the next year. We are saving money now to pay for the copyright fees. The title is "Be Still" and is a Contemporary Christian CD that I hope will bless many.
I have been attending a weekly Bible Study at my home church, Hope Chapel Hermosa Beach (www.hopechapel.org) We just started the Beth Moore study named "The Patriarchs". I am super blessed already by just the first week's study. It is amazing to realize how intricately God has organized generations, meanings of names and all types of blessings for obedience from day 1. I am so thrilled to love and serve this Mighty God!!

Discipline of Submission

The Discipline of Submission: The Posture of Godliness
an excerpt from Disciplines of a Godly Woman by Hughes

"At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord." -Phillipians 2:10-11

Submission is yielding to the authority of another. Puritan preacher Jeremiah Burroughs wrote:"To keep under, that is to submit. The Soul can submit to God at the time when it can send itself under the power and authority and dominion that God has over it."
Of course the authority to which we must yield is God's authority. The Gospel reveals the truth that Jesus is Lord. Christians know this. These words express the very essence of the Gospel.
The message of the Bible is clear: Jesus Christ is Lord! It is a fact. Bringing our lives into submission to His will in everything is the key to being a godly woman. It is also the path to joy.
Jesus, our Lord, is a different kind of king, and we submit to Him, in part, by patterning our lives after His example. As Lord, Jesus behaved in a way that was different from any king the world has ever known. Rather than assume a prideful position of dominance, Jesus humbled Himself. In the Upper Room shortly before His crucifiction, Jesus silenced an argument among His disciples about which of them was the greatest by doing an amazing thing. He washed his disciples feet. We see from that passage that Jesus Christ had no identity crisis. He knew exactly who He was. He knew that all power belonged to Him. His humility on that day and throughout His life was born of this confidence.
Part of our rebellion against God is the desire to ignore God's plan for order in creation. But living in submission to God's order is essential to living under His rule.
Our instinct is to please ourselves. We naturally wish to define our own boundaries, rebelling against outside authority. So submission is something we need to learn.
When we teach our children to obey us, we are actually giving them their first lesson in submission to God's order for the family. They are learning to align their stubborn wills with their parents' will and, ultimately, with God's will. We do children no favor if we don't teach them to be respectful of boundaries and God-given authority.
Submission applies to every area of our lives, and we begin by restoring the Gospel to its rightful place at the center of our thoughts and deeds in everyday life. This submitting is an ongoing, daily choosing of God's ways over our own ways. We'll go on having to choose all our lives.
Look at all the roles we have to fulfill that require us to submit in a godly way to authority: child, employee, citizen, wives, church members, and children of God. And the Bible addresses each of these areas with teaching to help us submit.
Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane is a beautiful model for how we should submit to God's will. We learn two things from Christ's example. First, that even the sinless Son of God had to pray in order to obey! How much more must sinful people need to depend on prayer to come into obedience.
Second, the Father heard His prayer because of His reverent submission. Isn't this stunning? Even within the Godhead, submission was essential.
Is the will of God more important than our lives? It's so natural to get caught up in the ways of the world. We want so desperately to hang on to control of our lives that we forget Jesus' warning in Luke 9 "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it."
In reality most of us will not physically lose our lives for our faith in the Gospel. But we will be faced again and again with the choice between God's will and our own will. What we "lose" is getting our own way! So we must understand that practicing the discipline of submission will not happen without fervent prayer.
Does the word submission feel uncomfortable to you? Put it back into your vocabulary. All the disciplines of a godly woman are about submitting your will to God's loving rule in daily life. Resist the popular voices that entice you to put your needs first, to protect your self-interest and rights, to push at God-given boundaries. Search the Scriptures to understand how Jesus did it-and then follow His example- because Jesus Christ is Lord!

Master Bedroom Update

OK I completed the large bookshelf. It looks so nice. I also went to the next area which was the fax machine on top of a file cabinet.

Next assignment continuing clockwise is my desk. Oh my!! I will have to wait until the weekend for that big project. I will be out of town for the next 3 days for a nurses conference. Pray for my family. They will be doled out around town with precious family. God bless my family.

Master Bedroom Update

Master Bedroom Update.....

OK I haven't forgotten about it. It just took a while and diligence on my part. I finished it tonight. I completed the TV area and have a bookshelf where I placed all our videos and DVDs. I labeled all the videos. There is a white curtain I close over the bookcase. I placed two candles and 2 ceramic pieces on the TV. There is a red Capidamonte rose I inherited from my Grandmother and a sweet Precious Moments figurine. On top of the bookcase is a bunch of cherry blossom flowers and a toy Papillon (stuffed) from my husband. One bonus is I was clearing out under the TV unit and found a rented video that is 3 weeks over due. We have been looking everywhere for it. Apparently it got kicked deep under the unit. We would never had found it. Whew Hew!!!

My dresser drawers are still very tidy. I get a thrill everytime I open the drawer and see all my neat little piles..The top of the dresser is still fairly cleared off. I have put a little laundry to disperse to the rest of the house.

Next assignment is my bookshelf. I have a 6 shelf bookcase with a CD player, audio tapes, books, CDs and a plastic drawer organizer with 3 drawers. I need to tidy this all up. Ok where are you in your rooms? Just go around in a clock wise motion it will all get done eventually. Remember we are creating a restful haven for ourselves and our loved ones. A place to retreat to , relate in, be inspired in.

Bible Memorization

“Thy Word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.”
-Ps 119:11

It is important to hide God’s Word in our hearts. We need to read God’s Word, meditate on God’s Word, and apply God’s Word to our lives. We need to memorize God’s Word so that we never forget it.

If we truly desire to know God and do His will daily, we must spend much time with Him, and find what He considers to be obedience. It does not matter what we think or what other tell us, is obedience. We much know from Him what He considers obedience. We must apply His Word to every area of our lives. We must read the Bible for what it says, and never try to make it fit our own actions or interests. God’s Word is the absolute truth by which we must live. We must change our lives according to it, and not, as is so commonly done, interpret it to fit us.
-an excerpt from The Joy of Womanhood by Keepers of the Faith

Discipline of the Gospel

DISCIPLINE OF THE GOSPEL:The Source of Godliness

excerpt taken from Disciplines of a Godly Woman by Barbara Hughes

By this gospel you are saved...Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. I Corinthians 15:2-3

"Why do I get so excited about the Gospel? Because it reveals God's loving plan for this world and for humanity - men, women, and children. It's good news-the best news anyone can ever receive. When a person understands God's love in Christ Jesus, life finally makes sense.

Jesus Christ is the central figure of God's Gospel. Paul said if we believe any other Gospel, we have believed in vain. In a day when everything (including theology) is decided by popular opinion, how easy it is to believe another gospel. How easy it is to shape our god according to what we think he should be like and not allow the whole of Scripture to explain Him.

Our part is to believe. But we must believe in THIS Jesus- the Christ God has revealed in the holy Scriptures and not one of our own imagination. Here I must ask: In what gospel do you believe? Is your Jesus a messiah defined by your own imaginings or the promised Messiah defined by the Scriptures? The Jesus of the Bible is utterly wonderful! And His Gospel is the only path to godliness.

When we are born again, life starts to make sense. Within the pages of Scripture, we find the blessed answer to the age-old question, "Who am I?" Beginning in the opening pages of the Bible, we learn that we are MADE IN THE IMAGE OF GOD. We learn also that as women, we are made distinctly female as opposed to male. Most importantly, we discover that we are of great value to God, as demonstrated by Christ's death on the cross. The Gospel, therefore, not only brings dignity and value to our humanity, but it brings purpose and meaning to gender distinctions.

The gospel is motivating; it gives us purpose in life: "Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him" (Colossians 3:17) The scriptures show us where we fit into God's plan for the world and detail what we are to do with our lives.

The gospel satisfies us. As a pastor's wife, I have often had Christian women express to me their longing for something they do not possess. In their search to find what is lacking, they casually diminsh and even dismiss what they have taken for granted- the knowledge of God and His gracious provisions for us discovered in the pages of Scripture.

Here's the gospel truth: " His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. ( 2 Peter 1:3) God's provision for His children is astonishing! We have everything we need! "