Wow

I found the little map & tracker gadgets on the right side of the screen on a friend's blog & was intrigued by them, so I put them here, on my blog.

I'm pretty WOW'd by the fact that I have people overseas reading my blog. I mean, I know my mom reads, but who do I know in Brittain/England/somewhere over there? If that's you, please wave to me & say HI. I recognize the location of the other overseas reader. One of my favorite soldiers! Hi!!! Or at least I think that's who the other one is.........

Thank you for reading!

What a great day!

The day started out fabulous. I woke up about 8:00 & had to go potty but I was still half asleep so I layed back down & went right back to sleep. I heard Larry's alarm go off at 9:00. He snoozed it. At 9:15, I sat up & realized that I must've slept through the 2nd time it went off because Larry was already up & in the shower. Wow. NINE FIFTEEN! I haven't slept that late in well.... I can't remember the last time!

Larry went to an appointment at 10:00 and the kids and I hung out at the house. About 1:15, we left for a play put on by the Fellowship of Christian Swordsmen. Yeah, I didn't know there was such a group either. It was REALLY cool. Check out the group's website here. The play was about purity, but it was woven into a combination of 2 stories that were combined & re-written as the script of this play. Very well done, great costumes, good acting & AWESOME sword fights! The auditorium where it was performed is a little lacking in the sound department, but it was OK. We sat near the front & could hear well, but I suspect those in the back could likely barely hear what was being said on stage. We really enjoyed the show, but it was very long. The play started at 2:00 & it was 5:00 when we left! We were expecting it to be 1 or MAYBE 2 hours at most. Wow!

This is the program and one of the early scenes.



Larry had to leave a little early because he had to be at the church at 4:00 to help out with chaperoning & providing security for a youth event. The kids & I left the play and made 4 stops before we came home. The post office (I LOVE the machine you can use to mail packages after hours!!), Burger King, Walmart and another local grocery store that is having their twice-a-year buy one, get one for a penny sale! Between shopping there and Walmart I still spent less for the week's groceries than I usually do. The kids did so well through the whole thing that I 'treated' them to some giant cinnamon rolls after we got home. Of course, there was the one time on the toilet paper aisle when they were all getting bored.........


It was 7:30 before we got home! What a busy, full day! I love it, though!

faith

This past Sunday was our church's annual baptism service. We only do it once a year because the church doesn't meet in a traditional church building. We have a great facility, but our sanctuary is a multipurpose room so we don't have a permanent baptistry in place. In the past, the church has gone to a local church camp & used their pool to baptize people. Other years, we've rented a hot tub & baptized folks on the church lawn. This year however, we were been able to buy a 'portable' baptistry! I've never seen one like this before, but apparently they found it on a website devoted to baptism tubs. Anyway....since I know you're dying to see it, this is the actual baptistry the church bought & used this week!

On Sunday morning, our pastor did an awesome sermon about baptism, what it means and what it is not. He invited everyone there to do 1 of 2 things that day. Either (1) remember your own baptism OR (2) be baptized. There ended up being about 26 or 27 who were baptized. The sweetest ones I saw were daddies who baptized their children. We've been blessed in that Larry has baptized all three of our children. SUCH a sweet time! Of course, I was crying before the first family got out of the baptistry! (The husband baptized his wife & then 2 or 3 of his children!! Wow!)

Here are a few notes I took during the sermon that morning:
Baptism: an act of submissive obediance
Baptism is...
a pledge of discipleship that every believer is called to pursue.
NOT a means of salvation
NOT a work --it's a belief, an act of obedience
NOT a cleansing of sins (that happened at salvation)
NOT a prerequisite for the Holy Spirit to enter your life
Baptism is....
a poem that every Christian is called to finish; to write with your life!
Baptism is...
a "play". The Christian life is not something you DO. It's living out what the Holy Spirit is doing in you.

And these are thoughts from me, not sermon notes:
For those of you reading this blog who may wonder about my beliefs, let me lay it out for you.

I am a Christian.
I've been to many different denominations within the Christian faith. I'm a Christian "mutt". I can find myself easily fitting into many different types of churches. I grew up Southern Baptist, married a fairly-new Christian who had grown up in a non-churched home. Most of his spiritual influence came through his grandmother who is Church of Christ. When we met, he was attending an Independant Christian church (which is basically a Church of Christ with a piano). We attended there for the first several years of our marriage til we moved back to this area & found our current church, which is a Bible church. It's basically a melting pot of people from all different church backgrounds, sort of a nondenominational church of sorts. (however "Bible Church" is actually a denomination, so I guess we're not technically non-denom, huh?) We left our current church in late 2004 when Larry went into ministry at a Church of God (very similar to the Assembly of God denomination if you know anything about them). On Easter Sunday of this year, we came back to our 'old' church (the Bible church we attended prior to ministry) and we have been here ever since. In between all of those places, we've visited other churches and here's what it all boils down to.

The Christian faith believes in the following 4 things.
1. The virgin birth of Jesus
2. Jesus's atoning death for our sins on the cross
3. The Resurrection of Jesus after 3 days in the tomb
4. The second coming of Christ

Everything else is just fluff. Non-salvation-issue fluff. Important to the holders of the fluff? Sure! But fluff none the less. Some churches focus more heavily on one thing or another & whatever things they focus on are just fine. There's no harm in placing weight on what is important to your particular denomination. Once I finally realized this, I recognized that God is sovereign & can work in people's hearts no matter what denomination they belong to. He can move in them, change them, grow them, bring them to Himself. Whether you call yourself Baptist or Episcopal or Methodist or Presbyterian or Assembly of God... whatever....we are all part of the body of believers who call ourselves Christians.

I believe that God created the earth. Not a big explosion, not evolution, not any other sort of theory. God did it. Period.
I believe that the Bible is the holy word of God, written by men through divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
I believe that Jesus was born to Mary & Joseph in Bethlehem. I believe He is the son of God.
I believe that He lived on earth, fully God and fully man, until He was just about MY AGE and then He was crucified, willingly giving His life to pay the debt for MY sins.
I believe He died a very gory, brutal death and then was placed into a tomb where guards stood watch...and that He ROSE from the grave & ascended to Heaven.
I believe that He is coming again one day to take all of those who believe in Him, those who have placed their faith in Him, to live in Heaven for all eternity.

Do I realize how ridiculous it all sounds? Do I recognize that the Bible really looks like a book of fairytales if read through an intelligent eye? Sure I do! It takes faith to believe that it's all real!

But you know what the best part is? I've SEEN God's hand at work in my life. I've HEARD His voice. I've FELT His presence. I talk to Him EVERY SINGLE DAY and I SEE Him moving & changing things. I look around outside & recognize that there is NO WAY all of this "just happened". There are stories that I hear ALL THE TIME that I listen to & wonder "how could anyone NOT see God in that?".

And so, what do I believe about baptism? I believe that it's something God asks us to do when we place our faith in Him. I believe that it's not a REQUIREMENT for a ticket to Heaven's gates, but I think that God asks us to do it to show the world that we are HIS. It's a symbol that shows everyone around that we belong to Jesus. Just like wearing a wedding ring shows the world you are married, baptism shows everyone present that God has forgiven your sins (washed them away!) and you are rising up as a new person, ready to go forward in life with a big "Jesus Freak" stamp on your forehead. :)

So you see, Sunday was a big deal for me. Seeing someone place their faith in Christ and make the public commitment to let Him be the Lord of their life is emotional & beautiful. I'm so honored to have been there to see so many people begin that walk with God as their savior!

I know that most of this post is probably information you already knew about me if you've read my blog for any length of time, but sometimes I want to put it all out there one more time so that there's no doubt in anyone's mind where I stand.

(NOTE: This post is not up for debate. I will not respond to anyone that chooses to attempt to tear apart my beliefs with words. Comments worded in such a word will be deleted.)

Another give away!

Angie is hosting a $200 gift card giveaway! Go take a peek!

Give-away!

My friend Emily is hosting a ZhuZhu pets give away on her blog! Go check it out!

Savannah's stories

Because I can't recall how many parts to this story I already posted, I'm including links to all 5 parts. This is Savannah's story series she wrote for neopets.com. Enjoy! She is so talented!

Part 1: http://www.neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?section=469596&week=409

Part 2: http://www.neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?section=469597&week=410

Part 3: http://www.neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?section=469598&week=411

Part 4: http://www.neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?section=469599&week=412

Part 5: http://www.neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?section=469600&issue=413

And this one is a story she worked on with her 2 best friends. The site will only allow you to list 2 authors, so she let them take the full credit for this one. They sweetly commented on that in the first line of the story, giving Savannah (babygirl229911) credit for helping write the story. Enjoy!

Part 1 of Stranded: http://www.neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?section=472104&issue=413

GREAT day!

I had a fabulous day! It started bright & early this morning when we got up to get ready for the smelly flower parade. (It actually bears a different name, but for safety's sake I'm not including that.) Anyway, we went to the smelly flower parade to see Savannah march with the band. As always they did so very well! We had to sit & wait for quite a while before the parade began, so we filled the time playing around & taking pictures.

It was a little chilly & drizzling rain so Samuel & Sarah took refuge under their umbrellas. Yes...Samuel is under the one on the right.

Last year during this same parade, Sarah took a picture of Larry & I together, so we needed an updated version. Sorry folks, I tried. Larry is always a goofball when you pull out a camera.

Larry got a phone call while we were waiting for the parade. In an effort to play a practical joke on him, the kids began piling pebbles on top of his shoe so that they'd all fall off when he moved his foot. Oh yeah...they're such rebellious kids. ha ha!!!!!!!!

Sarah & I leaned our heads together for a quick self-portrait.

The parade began at 9:30 & it was nearly 10:45 before Savannah's group came by. Unfortunately she was on the far side of the group so I couldn't get a picture of her, but here's the whole group as they approached us.

My sweet niece is one of the drum majors, so I got a shot of her, too.


After the parade, we went to a local Italian place with some good friends. It was so nice to see them! Thanks for lunch guys!!!

We came home & attempted to take a nap, but mine didn't last long. It's ok though. I had stuff I needed to get done. About 3:45, I woke Larry up & left with the kids for a local pumpkin patch. I realized recently that in all the years I've been a parent, I've never taken my kids to a pumpkin patch. I mean geez...what kind of mom am I? So today was the day!




After a trip to the pumpkin patch, we came home for supper before I left again to hit the grocery store. Luckily, my sweet buddy went with me, so I had a chatting partner all through the store. We had a good laugh at the end when I tried to re-do the Walmart floor with powdered sugar donuts. You just can't take me to nice places with me making a mess. :)

The Shack: book review

A couple of weeks ago, I checked out this book from our church library. I checked it out not knowing the plotline, the characters involved, even whether it was fiction or not. (I did quickly learn that it was indeed fiction based on where I located it in our library--the fiction section!) I got it based on nothing more than the recommendation of umpteen-million people who all said it was a good book. It wasn't until that night when I posted on Facebook that I was about to start reading it that I learned this book has a bit of controversy surrounding it. Several people pointed me to articles that people had posted online explaining the 'bad' things about the book. It made me really nervous to even START the book because I wasn't sure I'd like it. I decided to plug ahead anyway & read it for myself to see what I thought. I promised those friends on Facebook that I would write a review of the book when I was done. This is that review.

Most of the people who recommended the book told me it was one of those "can't put it down" sort of books. I did not find that to be the case for me. Overall, the book was alright, but it wasn't a suck-me-in sort of story.

If you haven't read the book, you may want to skip the rest of this post because there will be some spoilers!

The basic storyline goes like this:
Mack, the main character, takes his children on a camping trip for a few days while his wife is out of town. On the final day of the trip, his older kids go for a quick canoe ride. He can see the lake & the area where they are canoeing from the campsite, so he feels comfortable with it. He's trying to pack up the site so he watches them while he is packing. Sitting at the campsite with him is his youngest daughter, 6 year old Missy. She is coloring & occupying herself while he packs up. At one point, Mack hears a scream & sees that his teens have flipped the canoe & one is struggling to surface. Without hesitation, he runs to them, dives into the water & untangles the straps of the life vest from the one who is struggling & saves his life. Upon returning to the site, just minutes later, he finds that Missy is gone. Long story short, she is kidnapped. A search party shows up & after several hours, they find a very run down old shack in the woods where a blood stained girl's dress is located. It is Missy's. She is presumed dead & they have a memorial service to grieve her loss. The family moves on & goes on with life, each dealing with the loss in their own way.

Two or three years later, Mack receives a letter in the mailbox (with no stamp or return address) from God, asking him to return to the shack where Missy was killed. He isn't sure if the note is from the murderer, trying to lure him back to hurt him, if it's a cruel joke from someone or if it is really from God. After sitting on the letter for a while, he decides to go ahead & visit the shack because his grief has eaten away at his relationship with God. He'd really like to go & yell at God for taking his child & not protecting her. Still unsure of whether this is a bad joke or a real note from God Himself, he takes a gun along just to be safe.

Upon arriving, the shack looks exactly like it did on the night Missy's bloodied dress was found. He sits in the floor next to the blood stain & cries & grieves all over again. No one is at the shack with him, so after a while, he gets up to leave, assuming that it was all some kind of weird joke. After walking away a short distance, he thinks he hears something, so he looks over his shoulder & finds a completely different shack than the one he just exited. He is not sure if his eyes/mind are playing tricks on him, if he is dreaming or WHAT. He decides to go a little closer & take a look and is met by the book's God character. Soon after he meets the Jesus & Holy Spirit characters, too.

Now, in many other fiction books, I've seen God represented or symbolized in some other character or even an inanimate object. CS Lewis uses a lion to represent Jesus. No one has a problem with this & understands who Aslan represents. Right? In this book, The Shack, God is represented by an African-American woman, Jesus by a flannel-wearing Jewish carpenter and The Holy Spirit is represented by an Asian woman named Sarayu. (Sarayu means "wind"...kinda fitting, huh?)

The truth is, while the three characters are definately not Scripturally accurate, I wasn't offended by the author's choice of characters. They each do a good job of representing their particular symbolic character and giving you a sense of what each one might be like personally if you were to meet them separately. However, I found that each one said some things that are not at all Biblical. There are other things in the book that do not line up with Scripture as well... things that made me stop & re-read to make sure I'd understood it correctly. Those things left me shaking my head & thinking "umm....that's not right", but in all honesty, I really read right over those things. If you're strong in your Christian faith & grounded in the Word, I don't think you're going to be shaken up too much by these things. Someone who doesn't have a stable foundation might be confused, but reading this as a FICTION novel, I assumed & expected that there would be some FICTION in the book. I just didn't find myself getting upset & angry over these things.

The summary of the story is that Mack's character spends time with each of the God/Jesus/Holy Spirit characters & learns much about them and himself through them. Each one plays a very different role in helping him work through the grief and come to terms with the loss of his daughter. The idea behind the book, according to what I read about the author's intentions, was to help the reader (originally only his children) better understand the three members of the Trinity. The author's take on each member was very unique and there was a ton of creative license taken, but it was a distant cry from the Bible. I'm OK with that. It's a book. It's stylish literature. It's not the Bible. Honestly, none of us will ever FULLY understand the Trinity this side of Heaven, but I think the book does a decent job of helping to point out the differences of the characters of God/Jesus/Holy Spirit while still explaining that He is One all at the same time.

There are some things about the book that I really liked, however overall, the story just kinda drug on & on to me. I gave up & quit reading with a few chapters left to go because I already pretty much knew the storyline & I was ready to be done.

Would I recommend the book?
It depends. I would not recommend it to a non-believer as a way to understand God because I think it would just confuse them. I probably would not recommend it to a young/new believer for the same reason. The book was OK, but it wasn't GREAT. If you're looking for a fiction novel, go for it. I've heard many people say you either love it or hate it. I think I fall somewhere in the middle. I just didn't capture my attention & keep me sucked in to the story enough for me to run out & buy a copy to keep for myself & share with others. But I didn't hate it either. It just wasn't "me".

Does it live up to the controversy?
Yes & no.
I think some of the controversy got a little blown out of proportion, but I do see the issues at hand. I guess it just depends on how much weight you're giving the book to begin with. Sure, it's just like Satan to throw a lot of garbage onto the bestseller list...but, really...it's just a book. And there will always be garbage on the bestseller list. Always! There is a lot of interesting stuff in the book, though, and it did help me to understand the three separate persons of the Trinity in a new way, so it's not entirely garbage. Maybe I'm not mad enough about it, but I just don't see that it's all that big of a deal. If you read it & are offended, toss the book & don't recommend it. Seems simple enough to me.

I want to leave you with one of my favorite passages from the book. This is a quote from the God character in the book. Mack was trying to grasp the character of God & the God character was explaining how he'd never really fully grasp Him. This quote is really good if ya ask me. Tell me what you think:

The problem is that many folks try to grasp some sense of who I am by taking the best version of themselves, projecting that to the nth degree, factoring in all the goodness that they can perceive, which often isn't much, and calling THAT God. And while it may seem like a noble effort, the truth is that it falls pitifully short of who I really am. I'm not merely the best version of you that you can think of. I am far more than that, above & beyond all you can ask or think.
Mack replies: I'm sorry but those are just words to me, they don't make much sense.
God says: Even though you can't grasp me, guess what? I still want to be known.

Samuel's sick, day 3

Samuel & I spent the day at home. I took a few pictures today to show you how we spent it.

Larry just loves it when the kids leave his chair in this condition. (snicker, snicker)


Farkle tournament time!


In between my turns, I folded laundry.


Samuel wanted to watch a movie together, so he pulled out an old VHS tape of Bugs Bunny cartoons. The tape is almost 2 hours long. While it was rewinding, we found an episode of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends on Cartoon Network. The kids used to watch it all the time, but it doesn't come on during hours that they're home from school anymore, so he was intrigued by the last 5 min of this episode.


See?


It finally went off & we got started on the movie. That's when he crawled into my lap to watch. (No, he's not sucking his thumb. He just happened to put his thumb up to his lip to scratch when I snapped the pic. For the record, he was a pacifier baby, not a thumb sucker.)


For over an hour, we layed on the couch & watched the 'good' cartoons together. I love Bugs Bunny & Wiley Coyote & Elmer Fudd & all of those guys! There were even some Marvin the Martian episodes on the tape!


After we ate lunch, we got the tub of Fall decorations from the shed & put a few out.





We finished up our day at home by making a lemon cake just before we went to pick up the girls from school. yum yum!


As of 8:00 when he was crawling into bed, his temperature was 99.1. Hooray! Unless he spikes a temp during the night, he's heading back to school tomorrow.

Samuel's sick, day 2

This morning I kept Samuel home from church because of the fever he ran yesterday. He didn't seem to feel bad (at all) but to be safe, we stayed home.

He & I played several rounds of Farkle on Facebook. We watched some TV. We ran to the store & got the ingredients for a cooking project he needed to do for school. He ate lunch & argued with his sisters after church. You know...the usual stuff. This afternoon, we made his muffins for school and then I cooked supper & we all sat in the living room & watched Facing the Giants again. (Larry didn't get to watch it w/ us last week...he wanted to see it.)

All in all, Samuel had a great day. We were all geared up for him to go back to school tomorrow & then whammo....bedtime arrived & he said his head hurt again. I felt his face & realized he was HOT. Sure enough, 101.5 fever! It was quite a surprise after seeing him look so great all day long! Even after 4 doses of antibiotic I guess he's not quite well yet. Looks like he & I will be having another Farkle tournament tomorrow. I guess there are worse things. :)

my grand day of excitement

This morning, I picked up Sarah at a friend's house where she spent the night last night. This little girl is the daughter of a lady I grew up with. We were pretty good friends all my growing up years & now our kids are best friends. It's really neat to see that friendship progress. They went to a local indoor water park, had pizza, made jewelry & watched movies til the wee hours. That's Sarah in the back & Madison in the front on one of the slides at the waterpark.


As we drove to their house, Samuel leaned his seat back, dozed a little and coughed a few times. On the way home, he leaned back again & actually fell asleep completely. By the time we got home, he was coughing more & had a little fever. He came in, crawled into my bed & zonked out again. Before he did, I asked him if anything hurt. He said he had a bad headache, so I gave him some Tylenol. Larry & I decided that it would be best to go ahead & take him to the doctor considering that the flu is running rampant around here lately, so after I ate some lunch (Samuel said he wasn't hungry & didn't want to wake up enough to eat some), I loaded him up & went to spend the next 3 1/2 hours sitting in the urgent care waiting room and the pharmacy. By the time we got home, we had 2 prescriptions (antibiotic & cough stuff) for our sickly kiddo. He does not have the flu after all (thank goodness) but it's a non-specific respiratory infection of some kind. His ears, nose, throat & lungs were all clear, but the flu test was negative. We know it's in there somewhere because he's coughing & it's a wet/productive sounding one, even if it hasn't progressed into his lungs.

While we were at the doctor's office, Samuel decided he was hungry. The Tylenol had kicked in, his fever was down & he was feeling better. They had vending machines but all the cash I had on me was 2 nickels. The cheapest thing in the machine was 60 cents. Whoops. One phone call & it was Daddy to the rescue. He drove up there & brought us a few dollars in cash plus a handful of packages of peanut butter crackers. What a guy! (poor thing...he was trying to take a nap when I called & asked for a rescue!) I was amazed at the number of people in this office...and the number of healthy-looking children who were climbing the walls, giggling & squealing, running back & forth across the length of the waiting room. Umm...if your child is that healthy, why would you bring them to this place where all the sick people are coughing & breathing on them? yuck! One family was even wearing masks. Probably not a bad idea, actually! One poor baby girl was having a hard time breathing & after hearing a few coughs I realized she had a pretty nasty case of croup. She ended up leaving the clinic in an ambulance. I don't know her name, but she was a little Hispanic baby girl, maybe about 15-18 months old. I'm sure her family would appreciate your prayers. I was happy to get out of that office when we did. No more sickie germs to stew in!

When Samuel's Tylenol wore off this evening, the fever crept back up & his headache returned, so it looks like the antibiotic isn't quite there yet, but we'll keep hanging in there & waiting. As long as he had medicine in him, he did ok & didn't seem quite so yucky. I'm hoping that tomorrow he'll be able to skip the Tylenol/Ibuprofen altogether, but we'll see. If he doesn't stay fever-free, he'll have to stay home from school on Monday.

We came home this evening & filled our tummies with some gourmet (ha!) Totino's pizzas. I taught all three kids to play Farkle on Facebook & they fell in love w/ the game, so I'm on the lookout for a boxed game version we can have here at home now.

:::yawn::: So there's my day. See? I told you it was exciting.

Can I be honest about something?

I'm gonna bare my soul on something.

I have never read the Bible straight through, cover to cover.

There, I said it.

Ok, now that I've got that off my chest, let me go back a little & explain what I mean. I've been in church my entire life. I've committed Scripture to memory throughout my entire life. I've done years & years worth of Bible studies. I've led people to the Lord with Scripture. I routinely remind my kids of a principle they need to keep in mind using Scripture. I've read most of the Bible in spurts. A lesson from this book, a study on that book, a break down, verse by verse, of another book. I *know* my Bible, but I've never read it from Genesis 1 to the final verse in Revelation.

In 2003, I was convicted that it was time to get started! I was listening to a sermon by our then-pastor, Terry Cadwell and while I don't remember the content of the entire message, the part that stuck out & stomped on my toes was when he was relaying a series of things that God might ask us on the Judgement Day. How many people did you lead to know me? Why did you spend so much time reading those romance novels instead of reading MY book? Did you think I couldn't see you when you looked at that website? His list of questions went on, but the one that struck me was "How many times did you read the Bible cover to cover?" Ouch.

And so, early that February, I began at Genesis 1:1, reading 1 chapter a day. Even if it took me 10 years to get through the Bible, I was determined to do it. I had a day here & there when I would forget, but for a long period of time, I read 1 chapter each day. I got involved in a study of the book of Colossians that took over a year. Then a Beth Moore study that was 16 weeks long. Then another study & another. Then I got turned onto Christian fiction books & read one after another. Then there were seasons of ministry in one form or fashion at the church where Larry worked for 4 1/2 years. And now we're back at our old church. We're ministering still, but in different ways.

And you know what? During the summer, there were no ladies' Bible studies that I could get involved with based on the times they were offered or the lack of childcare. And now that the school year has begun (ok, so it began weeks ago!), the Fall studies have started on Wednesday nights. Week after week we haven't been able to make it. First one thing & then another, then the flu, and now I'm keeping a little boy after school & by the time he leaves & everyone gets their homework done & supper is cooked and served.......well, you get the idea. It's just not happening. Which means I'm not in a Bible study.

I finally realized that Oops....I haven't been reading (at least) my 1 chapter a day in a while. It is so easy to get out of the habit, isn't it? So I'm doing it again. Several weeks ago, I realized that I have a good window of time in the mornings after I take the kids to school. I leave my Bible on the kitchen table so that I can walk in & immediately sit down & read. My aim is to read 1 chapter a day, but sometimes I read more. The ribbon bookmark on my Bible keeps my spot marked and each day I know exactly where to pick back up.

So yes, you have read this right. I started in 2003. And it's now 2009. Could I get any more A.D.D.? :) God is using this season of my not being able to make a Bible study class to remind me that hearing someone else's words & studying their thoughts on the Bible is always a great supplement but should never be a substitute for time in the Word!

Anybody else willing to fess up that they've never read the Bible cover to cover? Anybody else want to join me?