MIRACLE MAKEOVER FOR CHARLIE

The big day we've been waiting for has arrived!!! We can now share the wonderful makeover video featuring Charlie Grady. Please take a few moments to view it here if you haven't seen it elsewhere. It will make your day.

Please click HERE to go to Design Gives Back  to learn more about the makeover and find out how you can earn money for the next makeover just by commenting.

 Design Gives Back will donate $1.00 for each comment on the following blogs between August 12 - 18. 

Pink Saturday @ at How Sweet the Sound/ Beverly 

         Spiritual Sunday  @ Spiritual Sunday /Charlotte & Ginger

      Country Wings in Phoenix @ Country Wings in Phoenix/Sherry

   Metamorphosis Monday  comments on Monday Only   

If you are a blogger, find out how you can make extra money for the next project by posting about this on your own blog. Design Gives Back will give you the information .

As Christians we are told to love your neighbor as yourself. I believe Design Gives Back is doing a very good job of doing just that. 

Miracle Makeover

I posted about the Miracle Makeover for Charlie Grady on my other blog and wrote about it on the Spiritual Sundays blog. The makeover is featured in this month's issue of Guidepost Magazine. Click HERE to see that article.

We're trying to get the word out to all of blogland to participate in the Miracle Makeover party the week of August 12-18. And --- that is coming up in just a few days. Be sure to visit the Spiritual Sundays blog and make a comment that weekend. Each comment will be worth $1.00 toward the next makeover. Kelee is making such a difference in many lives with the makeovers she does. Her website is called Design Gives Back. Her latest post tells how you can contribute up to $5.00 for the next makeover and it won't cost you a penny. Plus, you will be entered in a fantastic giveaway and who knows, you may be a winner.  Read all about it at Design Gives Back. Ginger and I are featured on the latest post along with others who are participating in this wonderful event. Be sure to check it out.

HEAVEN

I've seen lots of pictures of what some have thought heaven looks like. I know that none of them can adequately depict how wonderful it is.  So, this picture may be a little silly frivolous but it did put a smile on my face.

Here is how the Bible describes heaven:

1Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:1-4)

This verse indicates that there will be a new heaven and a new earth because the first the first ones have passed away. I have to admit that my finite mind cannot really comprehend all of this. In fact, I think it is beyond our comprehension. I do know one thing. I want to be there.

Children try to understand it and I think it's interesting to note some of the things they come up with. It also puts a smile on my face. Here are some samples taken from Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins' book Are We Living in the End Times.

The best part of heaven is the party Jesus is going to give us. Lots of babies will be in heaven. If we need our dolls in heaven, Jesus will have them there. Micah Leake, age 3

There are roads of gold, gates of pearl, and after you have walked through the gates of pearl, I think you might see a humongous throne. I think the throne is made out of bricks of gold and outlined with pearls, decorated with emeralds―maybe even rubies! I don't know if I'm right, but I do know you will have to have bare feet. Emily Edwards, age 7.

I think heaven would have fences in it with strawberries. David who fighted Goliath would be there too. I think heaven would have blueberries and gold in it. Old people will be there and God's angels. There also will be a big, big feast that keeps everybody full. Andrew Edwards, age 3.

Heaven will be like living in the clouds with Christ and you can roller-blade on streets of gold. Peter will give you fishing lessons. We'll all be able to fly. We'll play tag in the sky. The trees will be made of gold and the leaves of silver. My point is, heaven is going to be wonderful!  Isaac Allen Jones, age 11.

Don't forget the Miracle Makeover Blog party coming up next month. You can read about it on Spiritual Sundays and there are links there to find out more about it. I will be posting more details soon. I have had the privilege of previewing a video telling about the latest makeover. It will be available for everyone to view soon. Be looking forward to that also.

ROSES

I don't know about you, but I'm glad God created roses. And for me, it is especially pink roses.

I like this poem by Helen Steiner Rice.

Roses Always Make a

Garden a Bit More Lovely

Like roses in a garden,

kindness fills the air

With a certain bit of sweetness

as it touches everywhere.

For kindness is a circle 

that never, never ends

But just keeps ever-widening

in the circle of our friends.

For happiness is only found

in bringing it to others

And thinking of the folks next door

as sisters and as brothers.

For the more you give, the more you get

is proven every day.

And so to get the most from life

you must give yourself away.

And if this greedy world today

would only start to give

Life everywhere for everyone

would be more sweet to live.

Luke 10:27
He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ”
Luke 10:26-28 (in Context) Luke 10 (Whole Chapter)


John 13:35
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
John 13:34-36 (in Context) John 13 (Whole Chapter)

Each week as I read what others have shared on Spiritual Sundays I am reminded of the love that is shown. Thank you to all who share there each week. Be sure to go to that blog to find out how we can show our love for others by being a part of the Miracle Makeover that is coming up next month.

Help Us To See and Understand

In trying to decide what to share this week for Spiritual Sundays, I ran across a little book that was given to me many years ago by a secret sister. Through the years, off and on, at the different churches we've been with, there has been a "secret sister" program. The little book is called Blossoms of Friendship, a collection of poems by Helen Steiner Rice. Inside the book was a cute little card revealing who that secret sister was. Her name is Jane Jones. I haven't seen Jane in several years and it was nice to recall our relationship of the past. The poem I chose was one called

Help Us To See and Understand.

God, give us wider vision

to see and understand

That both the sun and showers

are gifts from Thy great hand.

And when our lives are overcast

with trouble and with care,

Give us the faith to see beyond

the dark clouds of despair.

Teach us that it takes the showers

to make the flowers grow

And only in the storms of life

when the winds of trouble blow

Can man, too, reach maturity

and grow in faith and grace

And gain the strength and courage

to enable him to face

Sunny days as well as rain,

high peaks as well as low,

Knowing that the April showers

will make the May flowers grow.

And then at last may we accept

the sunshine and the showers,

Confident it takes them both

to make salvation ours!

As I stated at the beginning of this post, I'm sharing this on Spiritual Sundays. I hope you will go there and be blessed by reading what so many others have shared.

Doris Day

As you know, I like to share stuff I discover on the computer. One of my latest discoveries is a font called Doris Day. I'm kind of a font-a-holic so I had to download it. Doris Day is one of my all time favorite actresses. I think the font is pretty cool. Here's the link if you would like to download it. (It's free). http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,169842/description.html

VINTAGE 4TH OF JULY

Since I am almost a vintage person, I thought it would be fun to post some vintage 4th of July pictures. So here they are. Independence Day has always been special to me and I love it that America's independence has been celebrated through the years.

The flag below has 48 stars. This is the kind of flag we saluted when I was in school.

Credit goes to Vintage Holiday Crafts. You might want to check it out. They have free clip art for Holidays. Here's the link: http://vintageholidaycrafts.com/category/patriotic/page/5/

Have a wonderful holiday.

My Spiritual Sundays post is on my other blog this week. http://char72.wordpress.com/

GOD'S PROTECTION

So many times we believe that if we are under God's protection, and we are, that we should be protected from all sorrows, sicknesses and - well - everything harmful to us. Reading Nancy Guthrie's book Hearing Jesus Speak into Your Sorrow, I ran across the following. It was meaningful to me and I believe it will speak to you as well. Nancy says there is something more important to Jesus than our bodily comfort and safety. Here is what she says about this.

Jesus knows we have a hard time grasping this more significant spiritual reality. Limited by these bodies and our earthly perspective, it is hard for us to imagine our eternal future and how the way we live now and what we believe now will impact that eternal reality. And so in our every day requests for safe travel and physical health, and in our more desperate prayers for healing or deliverance amid great difficulties, we try to apply to our bodies God's promises of protection that were intended for our souls. And when we do, we're often left disappointed.

When God doesn't seem to show up and protect us, we can quickly point the finger of blame, accusing him of falling down on the job. Until our value systems line up with his, until we value the eternal life of our souls more than the temporary life of our earthly bodies, we will continue to feel disappointment with God. 

God has not promised wholesale physical deliverance in this life for those who place their faith in him.  But he has promised to protect our souls for eternity. And really that is so much bigger, so much better.

I totally agree with the author about this. Everyone dies eventually. This morning we went to a memorial service for another member of our former church. Mac was 88 years old. His family was sad to see him go, but glad to know that he has joined his beloved wife who preceded him in death by several years. Yes, it is our souls that God protects for eternity, and I'm very glad of that.


We have so many people sharing with us on Spiritual Sundays now that it takes quite a while to visit all the links. I hope you will go there and visit as many as you can. You will be blessed. Here is the link: http://bloggerspirit.blogspot.com/

GOD IS A BIG GOD

Sunday is Father's Day. I was just thinking how children look up to their fathers, at least in most cases. They think their dad can do just about anything. To them he is a "big" man. When they grow up they see him in a more realistic light. Our earthly fathers may not be as "big" as we once thought, but our Heavenly Father never gets smaller. In fact, as we grow older we understand more and more how big and how powerful He is.


Charles Allen in his little book entitled All Things Are Possible Through Prayer, says the trouble with a lot of people is their God is too small. Many times they don't really believe that God can take care of them like He says He will. He tells the story of a man in New York who died at the age of seventy. As a young man he married and opened a little shop on a side street. He and his wife lived in a tiny apartment on the East side. Six mornings a week he would get up, eat his breakfast, walk to the subway station and ride to his work. All day long he spent in his shop. Because he never had another clerk, he carried his lunch from home and ate on the job.


At closing time he would catch the subway back, eat his supper and soon go to bed. He was never a strong man so he rested in bed every Sunday. For fifty years that was his routine and then he died. When that man said "My city," he meant a tiny apartment, a subway train, and a shop on a side street. He never saw the Metropolitan Museum, or rode to the top of the Empire State Building, or mingled with the crowds on Fifth Avenue. "My city" was for him a very limited experience.


Personally I don't want my God to be limited to a small area of my life like New York was limited in the life of that man.


Charles Allen goes on to ask the question: When you say "My God," what do you mean? For St. Paul, "My God" meant one great enough to cover his entire life -- great enough to supply his every need. (Philippians 4:19) 


Now the question is: How big is your God?


Please click HERE to go to our Spiritual Sundays blog for links to many inspirational posts.

Out of Sight

As I'm getting older, more and more of my relatives and friends are dying. I find it a little hard to use that word dying. Passing away comes to my mind before dying. However it is expressed, the fact is, they are leaving this life and we are not seeing them here any more during this lifetime. We miss them. We will be attending a memorial service for a member of our former church on Sunday afternoon. Brad was a friend. He was a computer expert and helped us get our very first computer years ago. We have sought his expertise in this field many times through the years. Now he is gone. We didn't see him very often. At least not lately. But we knew he was there and we knew how to get in touch with him.

Charles Spurgeon was a famous preacher in London who lived and died in the 1800's. I like his description of the Biblical view of death.

I'm standing on the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She's an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and the sky come down to mingle with each other. And then  I hear someone on my side saying, "There, she's gone."

Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side. And just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination. Her diminished size is me, not in her.
And just at the moment when someone at my side says, "There, she's gone," there are other eyes watching her coming, and there are other voices ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!"

And that is dying.

 I love Spurgeon's description of death. I'm so thankful that Christ came and taught us how to live and how to die. I'm so grateful that He was willing to die and then be resurrected to conquer death. Because of His sacrifice, we have the assurance that we will also be resurrected never to die again. Why would anyone reject this wonderful gift and the one who gave it?

I hope you will visit our Spiritual Sundays blog and share with us there or read what others have shared there and be blessed.

NEW PROGRAM

Thought I was going to pay $5.00 for a new program I just downloaded. Guess what? It was on sale for 99¢. So what is this new program you ask? It's called iSplash. It's a Mac program so don't know if it is available for PC. So what does it do? It turns a color photo into black and white and then you can color in the part you want colored. The picture of me in the header picture is an example. I just colored my hat pink. The rest is black and white. (I did add a little sepia tone to the whole header.) Here's another example. This time I colored my blouse and left the rest black and white. (Faded frame added with another program called Flare.)

And the next one I just colored my necklace and top.

It just occurred to me this would be good to share for Pink Saturday. Maybe I will.

OK. So I decided I will share this for Pink Saturday and add another photo. This one is pink bougainvillea in our back yard growing by a palm tree. I just colored the pink part. 

The bracts (not blossoms) start out orange and then turn pink.

HAPPY PINK SATURDAY!

Thanks again to Beverly of How Sweet the Sound for hosting Pink Saturday each week.

MY SPIRITUAL SUNDAYS POST IS ON MY OTHER BLOG THIS WEEK: http://char72.wordpress.com/

AND YET ~ A TOUCH OF WONDER

We are blessed to have hundreds of books in our home. I always have at least two or three I'm reading at any given time. A Touch of Wonder by Arthur Gordon is one I'm into right now. I was so inspired by the following story in this book that I wanted to share it for Spiritual Sundays.

Last summer in California I met a man who had been a skydiver until, on his nineteenth jump, his parachute failed to open fully and his emergency chute wrapped itself around the partially collapsed main chute. He slammed into a dry lake bed at sixty miles an hour. Doctors thought this broken remnant of a man would never leave his hospital bed. They told him so, and he sank into black despair.

But in the hospital he had frequent visits from another patient, a man whose spinal cord had been severed in an automobile accident. This man would never walk, would never, in fact, move a finger again. But he was always cheerful. "I certainly don't recommend my situation to anyone," he would say. "And yet I can read, I can listen to music, I can talk to people . . . "

And yet: those two words shift the focus from what has been lost to what remains－and to what may still be gained.  They gave such hope and determination to the skydiver that he came through his ordeal and today walks without a limp.

Some people confuse acceptance with apathy, but there's all the difference in the world. Apathy fails to distinguish between what can and what cannot be helped; acceptance makes that distinction. Apathy paralyzes the will-to-action; acceptance frees it by relieving it of impossible burdens. Dwight Eisenhower's mother was a deeply religious woman. When the future president was a boy, she would say to him, "Life deals the cards; the way you play them is up to you. There's acceptance in that philosophy － but no hint of apathy.

To me the "and yet" part is what inspires me. No matter how bad things may be, we can all say "and yet". And it may be that our "and yet" in spite of our circumstances may help someone who is struggling with similar problems.

Click HERE to go to our Spiritual Sunday blog and be inspired by the many links shared there.