Tues Oct 26

Tonight, I'm grateful for my kids' schools. Please don't misunderstand. I'm not meaning that in an anti-homeschool or 'get my kids out of my hair' sort of way. I love being around my kids & hanging out with them. But I really am proud of my kids' schools. I won't post any school names or info about our specific school district on here for safety sake, but rest assured, I am pleased with them!

When Savannah was 4, I bought Pre-K homeschool curriculum to teach her. My older sister homeschools her kids, so I thought maybe I should at least consider it for our kids. I look back on that now & laugh. You see, Savannah & I butted heads the whole time. We were definitely NOT cut out to be a homeschooling mom/child. (I laugh because I later went on to teach preschool for 5 years and LOVED it.....I don't know why it didn't work for me & my own child!) Anyway, as soon as I realized that homeschooling her was NOT going to work, I panicked. We were living, at that time, in a neighboring town where the schools are not so great. Larry was a police officer in the town for 3 years and heard all sorts of horror stories about the school system there. I was NOT going to put my baby girl in that school, but we couldn't afford to send her to a private school. We started looking for a rent house in one of 2 neighboring towns & ended up landing in the town we live in now. It's the same town where I grew up & went to the schools here K-12. It was pretty sweet to think of my own baby girl going to the same campuses where I went to school 30 years ago!

And so, since 2001, we've had at least one child in this school district. With the exception of 1 or 2 teachers, we've been incredibly happy with every person we've come into contact with at every campus.

We recognize that we're incredibly lucky and so very blessed to live in this particular town with these particular schools & these particular teachers. Not everyone is so lucky! If we lived just a few miles north of here or a few miles south, we wouldn't be in such a great school system!

So tonight I'm thankful for our awesome schools in our sweet little small Texas town. {and I'm equally blessed & grateful to work for this same school district!}

Monday Oct. 25th

Today marks 1 month until my favorite holiday--Thanksgiving. And so today begins my month of gratefulness. Every day from now until Thanksgiving, I will post 1 thing I am grateful for. I'm going to keep a running list throughout the month. Please join me in posting to your blog things you are grateful for.

Today I am grateful for my home.
I have a roof over my head when it's too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry. I have walls around me to protect me from wind, rain, snow, sleet, hail and invaders (of the human or bug or animal variety). I have furniture to sit on, a table to eat at, floors that protect my feet from injury.

According to this website, the statistics for homelessness in the United States are as follows.

• There are 671,859 people experiencing homelessness on any given night in the United States - roughly 22 of every 10,000 people are homeless.
• Of that number, 37 percent are people in families and 63 percent are individuals.

And according to this site, the numbers world wide show that there are roughly 100 million homeless people.

And so, tonight I am grateful for my home. What are you thankful for today?

Sunday, October 17

It's been almost 2 years since we stepped down from full time ministry. It's hard to believe it's been that long. But God is good. Larry needed a little bit of time to breathe, be fed and just relax for the first several months after we left the church. But it was less than 6 months before he was yearning to preach & teach again. He was given several opportunities at our church to lead a Sunday School class and loved that. Now and then he has been called on to preach a funeral or serve in some other pastoral capacity. But in the past 6 months, he's been given quite a few chances to fill the pulpit for an out of town preacher or at a church where they were searching for a pastor candidate. And he's LOVED it. I love seeing him in his element!

This morning, we drove to Grace Bible Church for Larry to preach. The church has an affiliation with our church so when their pastor is out of town, they call to have our staff help them find a fill-in. Today it was Larry's turn. He spoke from 2 Kings 4:8-36 about Elisha's involvement with the Shunnamite woman and her dying son. He talked about getting involved in ministry, not just throwing money at it or paying it lip service. In the story, Elisha met & became acquainted with a woman from Shunam. She & her husband created an apartment (more or less) on the roof of their home for him to stay when he came through town doing ministry. Elisha became a part of their family & was welcomed into their home. He prophesied that the woman would have a son after years of barrenness. She had a son & several years later, he was out working in the fields with his father when he got sick. He came into the house & died in his mother's arms. She carried his body up to Elisha's bed and layed him there and then sent someone to go find Elisha & bring him to their home. Elisha went to the boy & prayed for God's help and then layed his body over the boy's. He got up, prayed some more & then layed down on the boy again. While it may seem VERY odd to us, Elisha was following what God asked him to do. The boy came back to life & God got the glory for it! Larry talked about getting involved with and forming relationships with people who don't look like "pretty church folks" and going out & getting your hands dirty. I sat there hearing Larry speak & knowing that my sweet husband has spent many an hour getting dirty, holding hands, praying over people and living life with them in the trenches of life. He's sat on the Hospice bed, holding hands with dying men and women. He's put together & run the little details of an emergency shelter for hurricane victims. He's served dinner on fine china to homeless men & women at Thanksgiving. He's built houses for the poor. He's been to homes of people to share a meal. He's camped out in a hospital waiting room while a child lies lifeless in the ICU, begging God for a miracle with the family of the child. He's changed diapers and helped single mamas with their little ones when their earthly fathers deserted them. He wasn't speaking out of vanity or to raise himself up & look good. In fact, he never once mentioned anything he's personally done in his sermon this morning. He talked about JESUS. He talked about how HE touched the lifeless, how HE held the hopeless. He talked about how HE ate with sinners and met the needs of the needy. It was about about Him! I love that about my sweet husband. He never speaks out of vain motivation, but he really knows what he's talking about because he lives what he preaches!

Larry had to deal with some work stuff tonight, so he couldn't go with us this time, but the kids & I went to the local homeless shelter with some of the youth group from church to serve a meal. I'm so glad to do things like that with the kids. Watching them step out of their comfort zone, put on the armor of God & act like Jesus to people who need to see HIM....wow. I am a blessed woman. And ya know what? When Larry planned this morning's sermon, he didn't even know what the kids & I were going to be doing tonight. I love how God worked out the details, had the kids sitting there listening this morning, and then helped us put the message into action tonight!

God is so good!

It's coming!!!

My favorite holiday is coming up!

No....not Halloween. My favorite day of the year is Thanksgiving! To celebrate it, I'm starting a month early! On Monday (Oct 25th), I will start a month of posts about what I'm grateful for! I'd love for you to join me. Spread the word & ask others to do the same. Link them here & have them leave me a comment so I can follow their posts about what they're grateful for too!

PS Feel free to steal my picture above & include it with your posts. Or create your own at imagechef.com!

Glog!

We made these at work a few days ago. It's so fun....check it out: http://lizreeves2.edu.glogster.com/liz-reeves-glog/

I want to be a hound dog!

This morning after I took the kids to school, I came home to find our sweet dog, Daisy, sitting at the fence watching for my return. She does it every single day and it always makes me melt into a big puddle of sweetness. I realize she's a dog, but having someone running to greet you, dancing around, giddy to see you....well, there's just something special about that.

You have to understand that we're on a corner lot. The street is on one side of our house & the driveway is on the opposite end. So when Daisy sees me at the stop sign, turning onto our street, she has to run to the other end of the house to greet me at the gate when I pull into the driveway. And she does, every time.

As I saw her running around the house to greet me this morning, I couldn't help but well up with the vision of how God must feel when He sees us worshipping Him. I mean, if a DOG can make me feel pretty special just because she runs to greet me when I pull into the driveway, how much pride must God feel when one of His saints comes running to Him?! Scripture tells us that He shows up when we praise Him, that He holds our prayers in bowls & that they are a fragrance in Heaven, that He sings over us. How beautiful a sight it must be to see believers running to Him, lifting their hands in praise, becoming completely engrossed in worshipping Him, bowing down to honor Him. How beautiful it must be for Him to hear a little child's prayers, to hear an elementary student bring Him honor.

If my basset hound can make my heart flutter, I can only imagine the way I must make Him feel.

And I don't know why I'm including this particular song....but it was on my heart this morning, so enjoy! (scroll down & pause the music at the bottom)

It's October, it's October, it's October!

And you know what that means, right?

My duties as a Room Mom have begun. I'm burning pumpkin scented candles & have apple cinnamon potpourri in a dish on top of the TV. I'm already seeing friends posting about making pumpkin spice muffins on Facebook & it seems so fitting. The weather is beginning to cool off & I actually had to wear a jacket to take the kids to school this morning. I've been pondering when we'll need to get out the boxes of Fall & Winter clothes. I've begun writing our Christmas letter & have starting working on Christmas gifts. Halloween is right around the corner, which then leads to my favorite holiday of the entire year -- THANKSGIVING!!!!!! And then of course Christmas is right behind it. Oh yes, indeed. This is the most wonderful time of the year!!





{Note: All photos were taken Sat. 10/2/10 at Pappy's Pumpkin Patch.}