Where does the time go?

As I get older time seems to have sped up! It is almost September...yay...birthday month! I will be 62 and I want to know where the time went?!? At times I think about my life and wonder if I have done even a smidgen of the things God put me here for. It is too bad we don't have a guide when we are born telling us what we need to do in life to be pleasing to Him. I wonder if we would heed it if we did have one....probably not.
I really dislike listening to the news...it consists of murders, car accidents, death in so many ways! I feel so much for the parents of small children in these times. They have so much to be afraid of and have to teach their children to be afraid and watchful all the time! I wish things could have stayed the way they were when I was growing up. We could play outside from morning to dark and not be afraid of anyone doing bad things to us... we made toys out of what nature provided for us, we had few real toys, we had to use our imagination to play. Only grownups had cars and could drive...we walked everywhere we wanted to go. There were no fast food drive-ins until A&W opened theirs. It was a real treat to go there and get a frosted mug of root beer! With a nickle we could get 5 pieces of candy at the neighborhood shop. We never realized how good life was then. Moms were home when we got out of school...with freshly baked cookies and milk. We had chores to do before we could play and everyone pitched in to get things done....without an allowance. We were a family...where we always sat down for dinner together and said a prayer of thanks for our food and our being together. I'm not saying that everything was perfect....but is there perfection here on earth? At least we always felt safe. I wonder what we are doing to our children today when we teach them to be afraid? When we give them everything they want? When, by the time they are 13, they pretty much know everything good and bad and have done pretty much everything too? What do they have to look forward to?
It is so hard to instill in them the love for God and to follow Jesus' teachings. They are badly influenced by the music, movies, television, the computer and each other. They have ready access to liquor, drugs and sex. And the parents are both working and have little time with their children to teach them what they need to know. Schools are given no control over the kids, daycare is not the place to learn God's principles, God is being taken out of everything possible so no one is offended. Well, I am offended that God is being put "out to pasture" until something awful happens like 9/11 and then everyone wants to know where He was? This nation has been so blessed by God over time and now we want Him out of the way so we can continue doing all the things we want to do that would make us ashamed in His presence. If they only knew!!!! In the past when people abandoned God He allowed pain and suffering for His people to bring them back to Him.....is that what we want? We better wake up soon or all will be lost....this nation of unbelievers that worship money, power and possessions, that practices every vice known to man, will be brought down . I hope I am with Him before this happens. But I am very worried about our children. They have inherited what their parents have conceived and are not given good role models to learn from.
OK...I will get off my soapbox.
Hope everyone has a wonderful day and god-filled purpose!

HOT!!!!!

The temperature here for the last 10 days has reached over 100 each day with the heat index around 110-114......yuck! So I have been staying in my air-conditioned house (praise God for cool air!) and reading and crocheting. Francine Rivers wrote a series of books on the women of the Bible that were in the line of Jesus lineage. First there was Tamar, then Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba and Mary. They are fictional accounts based on the information given in the Bible about them and at the end of each is a digging deeper section that makes you think about their decisions and our own that we make all the time. It was fun and informational reading these accounts of their lives. I love her books! I also read a book by Nora Roberts that had me giggling during the book....First Impressions. It was a cute light reading and I loved the female character.
Mom continues to get better or, I should say, maintaining status quo. Still hurting but off the narcotics and trying to establish a non-narcotic route to alleviating the pain to bearable stage.
One of my best friends' husband had a heart attack last week and was not looking good for a couple of days. He is in his 70s and has Alzheimer's disease too. There was a lot of damage to his heart but he has rallied to the point of coming home. My prayers have been and continue to be with this family.
I have been praying for financial relief and for a part time job to help get by each month.....I know that the Lord will provide this soon. First I have to get past the knee surgery and then I can do something positive. Meanwhile, I just keep on crocheting. Now if I could sell my crochet items then I could make money and stay home! But usually I have more invested in the yarn than someone wants to pay for the finished product. Bummer! So I continue to give them away to the people that I love!
Jill hasn't been doing well the last week or so....she sleeps most of the time and feels really blah the rest of the time.
Of course, Christian continues to make my life enjoyable...he gives me lots of kisses that go straight to my heart and fills it up until the next time I see him. And then we spend time with all the transformers...he knows all the names of the decepticons, autobots, minicoms etc. And how to transform each of them...I am lost! We spend time browsing the web for all the new ones they have for sale so he can keep up with them. Now if only he applies that brain of his when he starts school in a couple of weeks! His first year in school (kindergarten) may be hard for him...he couldn't care less about learning letters and numbers. Can they make the numbers into transformers? LOL
Jordan, 14, my older grandson and Christian's brother, fell off his bicycle and broke his wrist and cracked several ribs. He is in a blue cast and gets to start 9th grade soon. Sydney, their 12yo sister, is starting 7th grade. She does pretty well in school so I don't worry about her grades. Her dark tan sets off her hazel eyes...she swims all the time.
Tore, my 19yo granddaughter, is still in Illinois and becoming proficient in her chosen field of dental assistant in the Air Force. I am so proud of her! She makes very mature decisions for her age and will go a long way as long as she doesn't let other people influence her too much. She wants the good opinion of her family but we can't decide what is right for her...sometimes she gets pulled in too many directions by what we all say and gets stymied about what to do. I just want her to be happy no matter what she wants to do. She, like all the rest of us, will make good and bad decisions during her lifetime and hopefully learn from them. I'm still learning! Her fiance, Dan, is a really nice guy that loves her but he is immature and needs to grow up a lot before they settle down. OK Tore, if you are reading this, please have confidence in yourself and your decisions...second guessing all the time just leads to confusion and doubt. Your instincts are good...go with them..God will lead you the right way! I love you!!!
Hope you all have a blessed day and may God grant you your blessings in abundance!

August is here!

In a Bible study that some dear friends and I have been doing, I learned several things about myself. One, I have to forgive myself for the things that I can't change and to let my children live their own lives even if I see hurt in their future. Two, new Christians tend to get bogged down in the old testament and get confused about the laws. My advice, (learned by experience), is to study the new testament, learn about this God and Jesus that we are professing to follow.....we have to get to know who Jesus is before we can become more like Him. Once we come to know Him personally, then we can study the old testament and pull everything together. The old testament teaches us about all the things man cannot do for himself and why we needed Jesus to come and sacrifice Himself for our salvation. Man couldn't keep all God's laws by himself. Man cannot do enough "good things" to enter into heaven for we have sinful natures since Adam and Eve. We serve a great and loving God who cannot abide sin. The blood of Jesus cleansed us and continues to cleanse us every second that we are alive once we accept Him as the Son of God and ask Him to forgive us of our sins. If you haven't done so, please study the new testament starting in the book of John and learn about this awesome God who created us to have fellowship with us. Then when you know Him, accept Him as your Savior, ask Him to forgive your sins, and then start living your new life patterned after Jesus. We will never be like Him but we can do the best we can. He is always there in the form of the Holy Spirit that dwells in each of us when we follow Christ. Since He only wants what is best for us, when we give up control of our lives to Him, our lives become a testament to Him. We can talk all we want about being Christians but if we don't live the talk our lives are ineffective and not pleasing to God. When we live the life that God meant for us to live and follow Him, peace that you have never known becomes yours even through the tough times we all have.
On another note, I am crocheting like crazy lately....Christmas will be here before I know it and as usual I will be behind. But at least I am getting started earlier than I usually do...LOL There is a really cute crocheted hoodie that I found that I want to share with you. It is on the bernat yarn site where I found lots of new cute patterns. Enjoy!