Is this really Advent?

And this Gospel? It doesn’t come wrapped in twinkling lights and satin bows; it comes straight into our pitchest black. The Gospel of Christ, it’s a messy, bloody thing and this is how God was born, bloody and bruised, and that’s how God chose to die, bloody and beaten. And our God, He knows the comings and goings of our bloody battles, and this is exactly where He meets us. The Gospel is good news in the eye of the worst news.

Advent is the believing this, and this is how Christ comes:

“A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him…” Isaiah 11: 1-2

Advent is an active waiting. And Christmas comes to those who wait for the whisper, who look for the little, who seek the small, scandalous signs of the every-where presence of God.

The only way to see the Savior this Advent is to see the small, and wise men find ways to slow the season down.

All Advent, this pouring out in small acts of kindness: a hot cup of coffee, a sticky note on a mirror, a treat left on a seat. And for every small act, this planting of one small seed (ONE PACKET OF SEEDS) or ONE BOX CHRISTMAS OPERATION CHILD or ONE CHICKEN maybe COMPASSION CHILD.

This year I reduced my Christmas spending on each grandchild by $10.00. Just $10.00 so that is a total of $50.00 for the little ones. Meaning two chickens and one seed packet for my little Esther in Togo. All year collections made of washclothes, bowls, hard candy, little toys, flip flops, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and sewing kits all for the name of OPERATION CHRISTMAS CHILD. is this letting the left hand know what my right hand is doing, no this is letting you know that it is possible!!.

POSSIBLE to support, share, and distribute to others the cause of Christ, the beginning of Advent. The beginning of the preparation of Christ/Christmas. So why can't it be all year?

I love you Lord!! You are so good to me and mine and all the time. I will bless the Lord at all times. Bless the Lord and all that is within me. Knowing where He brought me from to where He is leading me is life changing. I have never looked back but has it been easy, NO WAY!!! Can't explain but I know that I know that He has a plan for me and it is for my good and not to harm me but one that keeps me pressing toward the Mark of the high calling of Christ Jesus.

Definitely the line was drawn in the sand with my family when this choice was made. Fired from my job after 2 weeks of making a decision to serve Christ because I was a "holy roller" what is that?. Many more trials. But God has restored more in my life as Joel reads then I could ever explain or repay. So why wouldn't I want to share Advent.

I love nice things. I love a nice house, a nice car, jewelry, just plain ole stuff!!! But (I am saying that alot?) I have been downsizing in all these areas for the last couple of years. Some on purpose, some in His divine plan but I have no regrets. I love you Lord and may I never be an embarrassment to You!!. But more than anything He changed my HEART!!!!

Will you allow Advent in your heart? I pray so and may you be blessed with the Knowledge and Wisdom of The Holy Spirit from our Heavenly Father.

That time of the Year

That time of the year but really does this opportunity of a lifetime have a "set" designated time that you contribute. A designed time that you personally devote yourself to? Prayerfully all year I will be on the lookout. The lookout for items that will make that "one" child or "one" family life a little easier but all with the Hope of Jesus Christ all things are possible. He is the BEGINNING AND THE END. He was and is God. Always has been. Never a time that Jesus was not God. A man made in flesh to dwell with us, sinners, but was God before creation. Tears immediately well up when the pictures are displayed. Either from Compassion Child or Operation Christmas Child. Will I be able to justify my stinginess, at that appointed time with our Lord Jesus Christ. Balance is greatly needed with our country. With our men and women that roll in luxury. My Droid's, shiny automobile, warm toasty home, hottt hott coffee with buttery topped muffin. You get the picture.Balance is needed with me. Lets begin with me and I'll let you'll worry about your (sic) ownself? Yes I can do more!! I will do more!!. No limit on time, no limit on prayer, thno limit on availability!

November 26th Atlanta. Reboxing in headquarters. Gold will be found. Gold such as soap, toothbrushes, washclothes. Last year I discovered that the households of these boxes that even the paper that sometimes are wrapped around the boxes are used. Instructed to place wrapping paper back into box. Packed I found little tool boxes? WOW! little sewing pkgs. Things I never thought of? Remember a shoe box? Many happy faces this year. Can you imagine the thought of just a bar of soap. U might not have the water to use that bar of soap but it still will be used. These countries are not lost just misplaced and we have a choice to make with our talents?

The harvest is plenty but the workers are few. He will wash your sins and you become white as snow (His righteousness).


I love you Lord.

old passed away and new beginnings

i want you to raise my daughters? 3 years ago i offered to do that and with thanksgiving i look forward to it! death, she was sure and is sure to happen unless an absolute miracle comes her way within the next few days. cancer has robbed her bones, stolen her breasts, and now eats away her brain. Lord is this the right choice? my conclusion are as follows: they would be placed with foster persons, have no family contact, BE LOST FOREVER. so why would i not do this? keep our family together. at 62 i never imagined this but I think my heavenly Father has been prepping me all my life for this day. i would absolutely have to turn my back and say no way for there are no other people in family that will take them or can take them. she is i think 8 and the other i think 5. sexually abused, mentally stalled, and with speech impediments this will be a challenge. but to think 2 little ones being prepared for the kindom of Christ is so much more. i pray for mom, my niece, every day. but now she has peace knowing her daughters are with one that love them. will raise them with love for our God.

i love you Lord and you are good all the time!!

white as snow

the other day riding on my golfcart, back roads all i heard was "quiet". with songs bubbling out of my heart as praises to my heavenly father, i saw this:

\:


He said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.
Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field Matthew 9: 37.

So my question to self, kay what is your part in this? kay what are you doing to do about this? you know God opens the door for each of us but in a different way. sometimes it is one person at a time. like Compassion. my little girl esther of togo is my "one" person at a time. how about you? volunteer with children's church "innergize". maybe in our nursery, one baby at a time?. or maybe one person a time "celebrate recovery" addiction recovery program. so what is your "choice" of one person at a time.

i love you Lord and may i hear your voice and respond quickly. may i keep my heart clean and see you in all your perfect ways and not put you in a box. help me so i am not legalistic but forever grateful for your grace and mercy. i have bound these as a necklace around my neck and pray they are not chokeholds that i have created. i love you .

your daughter

old things new things

psst , step over here please so i can smack you. the ones that write all those instructions do this now follow this step down now step up, ugh!!! all in trying to add music to my blog..... do you know how to add music? how about how to add widget? what is a "widget".

continuation of my thank you's


fans that work
a pastor that speaks the truth of Gods Word
friends that just listen
friends that share their bounty
pajama's
quilts
fur
grandchildren
satellite
microwave
10 fingers
keyboard
ministry of the Holy Spirit as I sleep
clear mind when bedtime was a mess in my head
love
reminder of great grace


Make every breath your yes to God
Surrendered lives see all of life’s why as simply writing the first letter of “yes” to God
Only when have eyes to see God’s grace in everything, can we say yes to God in anything
Say yes to love. Count all of the gifts---say yes to all the ways He loves you!!

I love you Lord. May I never be an embarrassment to you!!

Best "friends and tomatoes"

BEFORE

AND THEN

a year gone by with my dear friend in tennessee. we keep in touch by phone but not the same, is it, as face to face? how about august 11th thru the 14th? yeah!! it is like we pick up right where we left off. our other friend charlene was able to come.

it had been 15 yrs since their toes lapped water filled with salt. went to jekyl island and had a great time. old house, all the antiques, shops and great po boys sammich, yum. then on to st. simons. pier filled with fisher people. crabs all over the place. sting ray waiting on the chopping block. food for the sharks, eek!

then the farmers market jax. unbelievable produce. the mass amount is beautiful. that explains the pictures. avocado's, hugh sweet peppers, big lemons, eggplants, tomatoes and hugh baskets of peaches. this explains the pictures.

before and after.

Speaking about before and after, Gods word is very specific and clear how important we are and His plans before and after for each one of us. in Jeremiah 1:5 and Psalm 139: 13. sometimes i get lost in my "own" world and forget that my heavenly Father wants to talk to me and remind me of His plans for me. do you? remind me not to look behind me as to what i've plowed.

i think maybe a refresher course on Jeremiah 1:5 and Psalm 139.13 for me.

compassion child

by Kay Elrod Dallas on Friday, September 10, 2010 at 11:28am

THE ONE QUESTION YOU'VE GOT TO LOOK IN THE MIRROR AND REALLY AS

How could I have known how I’d be ripped open, made to howl too

It has no running water — or insulation, drywall, flooring, paint, chair, window or kitchen. There is tin.

Their home of tin sheeting, that tilts so precarious off the edge, that it makes my hog barn look like a palace, my chicken house look like a mansion. There's a bed and one chair and light seeping in from gaps around the tin roof. There are no windows. Three children live here. The mother, her voice is soft, her eyes large.She prepares food for this family in shadows. There's an egg carton on the floor, a bowl of rice on a shelf.

How does my theology press through the grid of this geography?

How does my faith in a land of iphones and ipods and ipads respond to a whole city of people in ramshackled tin and relentless rain washing them away?

Because whether consciously or not, intentionally or not --- faith is always responding. Either with indifference or with intercession, either with apathy or aid.

Faith cannot have a non-response.

Once we have seen, we are responsible --- we will make a response.

One way or the other

"Is it still about Jesus?"

pleading ,can't we talk about something happy and i'm torn, my eyes spill? thoughts whirl of my seed, my DNA, shallow.

Maybe we don't need to know the names of the men, women, children, fastened to the edge of the world. Maybe we only have to look in our own mirrors and ask the of the faces there, ask of the way we invest our money, ask of how we live and spend and steer our lives:

"Is this about Jesus' name?"

Or the comfort and ease and furtherance of mine?
Then he said to them, "Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me...Lk. 9:48

Won't you sponsor a child with Compassion!

Pray that the body of Christ would really get RADICAL

REMEMBER HER NAME IS ESTHER FROM TOGO-I love you Esther, my compassion child

My name is now Mema Kay. Nice ring don't you think. Monthly pictures adorn my desk.

　

6 days of creation by ME!

.by Kay Elrod Dallas on Thursday, November 4, 2010 at 9:59am.How important is the word "THE"? How important is the meaning of "evening" and "morning". How important is the "age" of Adam and Noah. Are we to add "in the day" YOWM: when they were 930 and 950 respectively? Maybe it wasn't literal. Maybe they were really 930 thousand or 950 million years old? What does "IN THE" beginning mean? Are we to believe that beginning has another meaning? Maybe the author meant another "word"? "ereb" . To further complicate my "reasoning", is it literal "Sabbath", one day to rest. So on THE seventh day God ended His Work and rested on THE seventh day. And God blessed THE seventh day and sanctified it .The, there is that word again, THE fourth commandment. Keep the Sabbath, (THE seventh day that our heavenly Father rested and "sanctified "it) or maybe it means every thousand years or million years to keep "that"SABBATH holy? The Word is the same in verse 31 of Genesis as in Genesis 1:1? I choose to believe the Bible in the literal sense at The beginning. That way I haven't made a choice of when to start believing the Bible and its literal sense? Does that make sense? I believe in THE BEGINNING. I COME TO THE LORD AS A LITTLE CHILD. I trust what the Word of God says in the literal sense!



I know it is not a heaven and hell deciding vote but I believe that without believing the "literal" words of The bible and to "BEGIN" in "The beginning", it will create doubt with believers and non believers. You have to set your faith in stone so you have a ready answer. What else, if any, do you say "could be"? (sic) shrug of shoulders? Coming from a very dark place and science has shown there are different levels of darkness and now I speak of the literal "spiritual" deep deep deep dark, it was one of those deciding votes to believe absolutely everything in the literal sense of all that was written in the "Bible" as a little child.

Throw out what you don't like and I'll keep all of this!!!

old things new

can u imagine living in this tiny house. but many memories here, i'm sure.

love these old buildings

sometimes there are hazards!




i love riding down these dirt roads on my golf cart. it allows me to be quiet and listen to the voice of my beloved. time to worship my beloved. praise my beloved. hope you like these pics. part of why i love this life.

blood food

This morning I decided to check on the blueberries (organic and wild) close to my house. Sadly I only collected about 1/2 dishpan. But on the bright side, it looks like I'll be having some delicious deer burgers this winter. Catch the pyramid effect here, ha! More than one way to skin a "cat". Probably about next Wednesday I'll go out and check on the rest that were not ripe at that time. The rain or lack of should I say has seriously hurt our blackberries and blueberries. Sadly it will probably effect the rest of our crops that our starting to come in.

On a side note, it seems I've been working on regret, envy or whatever you want to call it but sin will do in my heart. Everytime I turn around, it seems that its ugly head (regret, envy or?) pops up. Well my pastor (Chris Watson) had no idea what was going on in my heart. This Sunday he preached on "The Assassin" and what he uses to get your eyes off of God. To start with that morning before Church, The Spirit of the Lord impressed in my heart to "impress Him". I'm like what? Impress you? Well it wouldn't leave me. Then lo and behold the message and it was all about envy, bitterness, regret, the whole nine yards. Let me first say truly I have never been a victim to those issues BUT; I lost a ton of stuff ie: business, money, friends, stuff back in 2008. At that time I thought everything was fine. I did my best and the Lord saw fit to have my offices close and me to move on. I left with a good reputation and clean heart. Then silently "stuff" started creeping up in my heart. Someone with a very large NICE house invited me over. (I had to sell my 7,000' foot home with a nice pool), the list goes on. With all the Lord allowed me to keep and all debt free and I still had envy? It was crazy! Even the bank accounts and I still was envious, crazy!. That was Sunday, the message. Monday, Tues, and Wed, different times of the day and different pastors, this is the scripture that was quoted and repeated. You are never going to believe this. YEP! 1st Timothy 6. Godliness with contentment is great gain. You could have knocked me over with a feather.

All I can say is that the Lord is good and He is good all the time. He doesn't want us to settle for anything but accept 100% what He wants to do in our life.

This is exciting. My second no maybe third post. As I go along I'll probably add music, yeah!!! Scriptures, yeah!!!! incidentals things. oooh so excited.

Fluffy dipping sauce

letting the faucet flow

these are pictures of beginnings of a faucet starting to drip and gradually flowing. my joy was in the reclining and sipping and watching the Lord work. May they always know the Grace of God.

crumbsnatchers grandchildren 6/2011

so we met at the Burger King. hair all askew except for Barbie Doll oops Gina. only ones shorter than me was my little dennis the menace, Chance and Barbie, oops, Gina. they all have shot up like a bean stalk. chance so rail thin and tall. hair all over his doe eyes that woo you all the time his hand in the cookie jar. little rascal. sean so tall. hair all over the place. didn't dare ask him do you have any little hairs in the arm pits yet. ignorance is bliss. jalen might be a little skinner. crazy legs. jumping off tree limbs over the river granted him his new name. skin the color of cocoa and so shiny. Baby oil could never make your skin as smooth as his. my little reserved standoffish one, trevor. hair that was brown, then sandy and now blonde. some silver on the sides. gorgeous color. alot of stuff going on in that little head. very aware of others and their feelings. always asking, are you ok. do you want one too. very sweet. THEN barbie, oops, there i go again. gina. an age that has the world revolving around youish. symptons include continuous fretting about hair. the chip in the nail. all the normal stuff. she is gorgeous and smart and articulate and fastidious about most things.

it was really the boys and i the majority of time. laughter is what they gave me. so much so that my jaws actually ached many times. from the tree limbs they jumped off of into the river. the long rope with big knot at end for those little toes. my quiver is full. Thank you Lord. Laughter is good for the soul. then their little nail shop stories. chance sobbing and telling me they called him a "cry baby", huh? trevor consoling him. jalen pulling back and going into his corner. trevor going off by himself. sean looking off into the sky. never saying a word they always came back together. they always reached out to soothe the hurt. they always worked it out.

"mema i loved the river but i don't think this tent is for me."we fit 2 queen mattresses in that tent and had room for a full one still. once the one with the beginning of hair in the arm pits said it they were all relieved, whew! me too, me too, me too, me too. but i gotta say i had some real troopers in my stand!!!!! mema forgot to close the window flap and we got a rainstorm that you wouldn't believe that night. next evening we (in our area) broke the heat record ever. do you know what that meant? yeah it will be spring and/or fall before i put up that tent again. and will have a nice dvd to play. but let me say all of them got out camping site done, completed, swept clean (metaphor) in lickety split time and off we went to the river.

my pictures didn't make the mustard. surprise, like everyone didn't know i wasn't ann getty, haha. example of like the giant trees that the storms laid down on the beach coast line. great place to take pics but didn't turn out. they were fascinated with those little fiddler crabs. great bait. thats a great idea. next time we are going out on a charter boat and stay in a condo and get maid service and a limo driver and oh my, am i dreaming again?

sadly the day will come and probably soon my little barbie is not going to be coming up here much anymore. 17 going on 25. she'll have her own car, own job, school you know the drill. i'm glad she did come and wanted to come.

my sean probably won't want to come too many more times. may be the last time. he is a young man and what can a mema possbily know about entertaining a teenager. i'm grateful he came this time.

so that leaves my trevor, jalen and my little chance. but i'll have and will always have lots of memories. they will too! and that is what these summers are for, memories. "remember the time that fiddler crab got my finger?" or "how about when the horsefly bit me and i'm swimming from the florida side to the georgia side." "do you remember how mema bought that rope and we tried to make a swinging rope for us. sean was up in that tree and the rope wouldn't let us swing off it so we just started jumping off that huge limb?"

in Jeremiah Gods word says, I know the plans that I have for you and they are for good and not to harm you so remember with Christ all things are possible. Trust in the Lord with all your strength, all your might and all your soul and it will be good!!!