God Is Able - the 2013 Victory Jar

What a wonderful Coffee & Cozy time with God today. Do you need some inspiration? Then check out these scriptures!

Heb 7:23-25, Daniel 3:16-18, 2 Cor. 9:8
I'm completely assured...my God is able! :)

Another thing I did in my Coffee & Cozy time today was to review my year's Victory Jar...oh Yay! This is one of my favorite times about the end of the year. For those that have not read my previous posts about it, it's a jar I fill through-out the year to remind me of personal victories, God's blessings, and of the encouraging things that have happened this year. The cats were very interested in this project - ha.

I've included links to post I wrote if they related to the victory. So here's a highlight list in random order:

• Created fun & inspiring "Heaven Themed Dates"
• Updated the look of Silver Trumpets and the blog hit 20,000+ page views 
• Remained professional toward some very mean & hateful coworkers
• Purchased some high-quality business suits (my frugal side really fought this - but I knew it was worth the investment...and it was!)
• Applied for jobs - like a mad woman - and that took a lot of work, time, discipline 
• Had a date with God to see the Dead Sea Scrolls (totally forgot about that!) 
• Stood up to salesman who tried to push his way into access of my backyard (long story) 
• Kept great communication with Purity, Chidodolo, and Rosebell - my Compassion Kid'os are such a joy. Celebrated 1 year of sponsorship!
• Rocked three successful job interviews
• My eco-friendly project (click here) won me a brand new Kindle Fire in a contest and has been repinned on Pinterest 286+ times
• Wrote the post Disciple the Nations which has been on my heart for a long time
• Took first steps toward adopting! Courage for a New Adventure
• Spent many hours researched possible jobs for friends 
• Dog-sitter for my folks dog Katie - for 3 weeks! *whew* :) 
• Created art with clay for the first time
• Had amazing 15 year spiritual birthday! And a great trip to my hometown to celebrate with Rachel, Nikki, and Collin. What wonderful, deep women! - A Weekend of Promise
• Encouraging & helping some coworkers who are having a rough time
• Completed all the certification paperwork & classes for the adoption. 
• Don't know what all happened in Sept but I put in a piece of paper that read: "In general, just rock'n it!!" LOL
• Great success in my hiking training! In March I was hiking up to 3 miles at a time a few times a week, then I broke my toe - ha. Oh well, starting over in 2014 - El Camino de Santiago 
• Disciplined about giving my broken toe time to heal and learning lessons it taught - "Moving Slow"
• Got offered the job I wanted and successfully negotiated the salary I needed 
• Protected a young woman who was studying the bible from insensitive pressure from others 
• A year of pups: After much research, I found a labradoodle pup for my wonderful friend, Ivonne and a pup had been dumped in the country by my folks house and I was able to help it find a new, loving home over Christmas with my friend Ashley. I love these girls hearts!
• Birthday adventure in my first Tiny Home - Survived the eye! - ha - I have an interesting story for sure: Rest Secure
• Found great deal on children's beds and dressers!
• Let myself have a deep cry 
• Invested in books to try to strengthen my career to prepare for adoptions
• Building friendships with great women I met at the adoption/foster certifications classes
• Celebrated World Day for Cultural Diversity
• Started my 10 x 10 x 10 discipline 
• Best Christmas ever with family! 
• Had lunch with complete strangers at the museum! That was fun.
• Finished some difficult projects at new job and had a great review! 
• Encouraged the 21 neighbors on my street with cards and small gifts for Christmas. 
• This whisk idea I made for my neighbors has been repinned over 691 times on Pinterest in only 25 days. ha...and I got the idea from another pinner. 
• Overcame my fear of knocking on my neighbors door alone and didn't chicken out by just putting the gifts in their mailboxes. :) 
• Helped a woman who crashed her bicycle in the park by my car during a thunderstorm - The Random
• Won our family's first ever 'Chunk'n Pumpkin' competition
• Was able to meet the President appointed Minister of Higher Education in Uganda, Dr. John Chrysostom Muyingo and his daughter Caroline Nakaye
• Unique adventure - my poetry picnic with God - I can't wait to do this again in the Spring
• Got a bonus and a raise at my new job after only 5 months...go God!   

Overall, a wonderful 2013. Thank you for sharing it with me. :) Praying you have a wonderful and safe New Year in 2014!

Deep Peace in Uncertain Change

Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go,  for to you I entrust my life.

~Psalm 143:8

The verse above speaks to me so deeply right in this moment. You see, God is moving. Well, He always is...but there are just some moments when you can tell He's moving in huge ways, right? :) And it's easy for me to feel intimidated by change, or nervous and uncertain. 

But there is a time when deep peace settles in my bones and that's when I live doing two things:
1. Following God's word
2. Putting my trust in Him and my hope in His unfailing love

God says over and over again that we have to take our trust and PUT it in Him. It's easier to put our trust in our abilities, our understanding, or to put our trust in the way a situation is working out but we know our abilities, understanding and situations can fail us. It is only God who doesn't fail. If you get a chance, it's worth doing a bible search and study of the two words "put" & "trust."

Besides the verse above, here are three other verses below. I'm totally adding them to my arsenal of scripture to speak out loud in my times with God! :)

Psalm 25:1 - In you, Lord my God, I put my trust.

Psalm 56:3 - When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.

Psalm 86:4 - Bring joy to your servant, Lord, for I put my trust in you.

Because He's putting life changes on my heart and maybe even a new path to my feet, I know that right now must be a time of waiting and seeking Him deeper. I'm okay with waiting but lately I am tempted not to cast my nets too deep into His word because He might make it so obvious that the things around me that I know should change are not changing. And I already know that a lack of change will eventually mean I will need to make a change into a different direction. I'm so thankful He loves me and is so patient! And so with all this, I decided to repent and seek deeper and Psalm 33 pops up in my Coffee & Cozy time with God to gently remind me...

"...the word of the Lord is right and true; He is faithful in all he does...the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love," and that "in him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name."  

So I return to digging deep into God's word, putting my trust in Him and resting all my hope in His unfailing love for me. Hello again, Deep Peace...I've missed you.

:D

This is Beautiful!

For mobile phone viewers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkGP5JZR5O4

Rosebell updated

Yay! I just noticed I have new photos of Rosebell. :) I'll get clearer ones in the mail soon but this made my day. This sweet, sweet young lady lives in Uganda. In her region, the typical monthly salary earned is $11. 

Someone else sponsors Rosebell but they have asked me to write and encourage her. I love it! It's such a joy to me. Isn't she cute in her outfit. 

 

Neighbors' Christmas Gifts

In my neighborhood, it seems that people are beginning to open up. I see more waving, more "hello's" and more holiday decorations than I have the three years I've lived there. So while praying yesterday, God put the 21 homes on my street on my heart. I prayed for a way to go meet them all and decided I would stop by and give holiday gifts & cards. Below are the items I created. [Go Pinterest & the Dollar Tree!] 

Originally, I wanted to give everyone whisks and holiday cards but I bought the D. Tree out when I bought the only 5 whisks they had in stock. :) So I'm giving my 5 closest neighbors these gifts since they are always looking out for me and loving up on me. 

so cute!

For the other 16 neighbors, I'm going to give a bag of Jolly rancher candy, a holiday card, and again use the play on words from a Christmas song.

I want to wrap it all in prayer so I'll be praying for each home down my street for a day in December. Here's my nerdy little map to help me be specific - the visual side of me loves this! 

Anyway, I'm super excited and hopeful that I can meet many of them. Prayerfully, they will be encouraged by their "neighbor with the blue door." :D

Celebrating the Ordinary

Today I'm celebrating!! Exactly one year ago today, I wrote a post about the progress in my health to overcome hypersomnia. Yay! 

I'm sleeping a little over 9 hrs a night now. (between 8/8:30p-5:30a...and I need all them hours!) Although my sleep is not back to the 7 hours I was sleeping before I got sick, I don't care, because at least it's not 14 hours anymore. My daytime energy is up, my life is functioning fairly normally and my spirits are higher. 

I'm so thankful to my Lord, the Everlasting. Ya know, He really had mercy on me and helped me through the suffering, all the doctors appointments, the heartache & headaches, and the questioning that comes with being chronically ill. He saw me through to this other side - like only Jesus can - and I am so grateful. 

Being able to sleep the right amount seems like such an ordinary thing and it is, yet in the same breath I can say, it's not ordinary. We so easily take for granted our "ordinary" and "normal" blessings. In fact, when I was reflecting about things to be thankful for, I came across a PBS article that shared about the heart. Take your two fists and put them together in front of you in a ball. Your heart is probably about that size and this diligent organ beats around 100,000 times a Day! That's about 35 million times in just one Year and in the average lifetime, your beautiful heart will beat more than 2.5 Billion times!! Ordinary in an average moment but honestly extraordinary.

So this Thanksgiving, among all the things to be thankful for...I will celebrate the ordinary because when I look deeper, what I find is that my "ordinary" blessings are really a bigger deal than I thought at first. My thankfulness list will start off with normal sleep and my beating heart. :) 

The Impact of Giving

UPDATES!!

Chidodolo is super special to me. In exactly one week, on Thanksgiving day, I'll have been blessed to be his sponsor and friend for a year! Compassion recently provided me an email update after an inquiry I sent. They shared that through some additional gifts, Chidodolo purchased: Three T-shirts, Pair of shoes, 5 kg of sugar, Soap, Tooth paste, Tea leaves, & some soft drinks (soda). I was so excited that they included these photos for me. Emily mentioned that Chidodolo had also sent me a thank you letter and it was on the way too.


Purity sent me a long two page update letter recently full of happiness and thankfulness that I'll share in another post. The letter mentioned that pictures would be coming of the goat they bought. :)

Rosebel's letter arrived yesterday updating me on her life. She addressed the letter as, "My best friend Ms. Amy Baker" and that warmed my heart. She greeted me from the family and from her, (especially her mum and sister). She told me they are beginning to get rain which they are extremely thankful for as the farmers are preparing gardens, planting and sowing. She shared that school was now closed for the holiday and that she had done great in her classes by ranking 10th out of 38 students! She thanked God for that, and me...which is super humbling. Specifically, she shared Psalm 7:1 with me which says, "I come to you for protection, O Lord my God. Save me from my persecutors—rescue me!"

Impact. I'm so grateful that Compassion and the children I sponsor take the time to show me the small ways I'm helping.  They show me the impact and probably don't even realize how much they impact me! I'm just grateful for these kid'os, for their letters, their faith, and that God has placed us in each others lives. 

All that we behold is full of blessings.  ~William Wordsworth