Does Everything in My Life Have to be Planned!

Yes, …I plan, I schedule, I organize…(Well, now that I'm a mom it's harder!!)

Abbye was planned!  I was teaching math at the local high school, and I owed that school district five years of teaching.  Since I was teaching summer schools also, I would only have to reimburse them for one year, if I stopped teaching after Summer School 2003.  So, we decided that we could start trying to have a child in December 2002.  By the beginning of January 2003, we knew were expecting!  I was able to finish out the year and teach summer school before Abbye was before in September.  It worked out perfectly!!  My mom laughed and said something like, "Sarah, normally you can't plan everything and it work out just right!"

However, Hannah wasn’t planned.  Matt and I were excited to be expecting again.  Perhaps, it’s because I had a miscarriage a couple months earlier.  I wasn’t sure how to deal with the miscarriage.  I was the only one who heard the baby’s heart beat and saw the baby on the first and only sonogram.  I kind of felt like no one else really knew the baby like I did.  Joanna, a friend of mine, reminded me that the baby was a life that didn’t need to just be gotten over.  Grieving the loss was understood and needed.  David, my brother, encouraged me to give the baby a name.  So, Matt and I chose “Christian” since it’s a name that could be for a boy or girl.  Now, on Christian’s due date, January 25, I plan to celebrate life.  I want to pray for the women and their husbands who are having difficulty having a baby.  I pray that they will find peace in whatever happens, whether they are able to conceive or they choose to adopt.  I also want to pray for the women and men who are expecting and don’t want to be.  I pray that they will chose to give their child life and not abort them, to chose to allow another couple to make that child theirs.  All children are wanted.  We have a lot of couples that desire to adopt.  If all the children were allowed to live, then in the definition of supply and demand the cost of adopting would go down because there would be more babies available.  Since cost is a major concern in adopting, that would allow more couples to adopt!!

Well, this wasn’t all planned!  This post definitely took a different direction than was originally planned!  So, that answers my question…No, everything in my life doesn’t have to be planned!!

I hope you have a blessed day no matter whether everything goes as you planned or not!!! 

Quote from Charles H. Spurgeon

Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength.

Charles H. Spurgeon (1834-1892)
English Baptist preacher

Pictures from Iraq that are too Shocking & Graphic for the Mainstream Media!?…

I received these in an email from one of my brothers, Ben.  I really wanted to share it will you!  (Thank you for sending it to me, Ben.)

Photos that will never make the news!?…

Sometimes in our everyday lives we tend to forget what's going on elsewhere in the world and that the brave men and women of the service are just like you and I.  They have family and friends back home who love them very much and are praying for their safe return.
 
Please stop for a moment and say a prayer for our troops (land, air, and sea) in Afghanistan, Kuwait, Iraq, and around the world. Of all the gifts you could give the US Military, prayer is the very best one!

Kyle Wyley

Kyle Wyley wrote a song, The Flame of Love, for us and sang it at our wedding.  This was in January of 2000.  (My family has known his for a while.  Also, Matt and Kyle went to the same college for a while and became friends.)

Since then he has been working on his career in music.  Now he has his first song that will be on the radio.  You can click here to listen to the song Nine to Five / Thank the Lord for the Night Time.  (I think this is his version of an older song.)

Honestly, I prefer some of his other songs!  His debut cd came out in June 29, 2005.  It has some really good songs, and most are orginal.  His label is Paul Lovelace Productions.  My favorite is With You.  He did an awesome job on an older song, All That Glitters.  If you enjoy pop or country music, check him out!  He's got a great voice!!

Here's his website http://www.kylewyley.com/.

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I've included the lyrics for the song "With You"

I thought that I had been in love before
But something deep in my heart
Whispered to me there was something more
And now I know you were the missing part

With you all my fears are gone
It's like I've loved you all along
You're the mirror to my soul
With you I finally understand
Exactly who I am
It's God's forever plan to be with you

I can be myself and not pretend and let my true colors show
Still you love me
Still you're by best friend
Without a word; without a doubt I know

With you all my fears are gone
It's like I've loved you all along
You're the mirror to my soul
With you I finally understand
Exactly who I am
It's God's forever plan to be with you

Bridge

Repeat Chorus

A Couple Interesting Quotes

The Gospel is open to all; the most respectable sinner has no more claim on it than the worst.

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981)
Welsh preacher and writer

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God sends no one away empty except those who are full of themselves.

Dwight L. Moody (1837-1899)
American evangelist

Why?

Why and how do some Christians hide what they see as their "small" sins and struggles, while they tear down other Christians whose sins and struggles are "big"?  A sin is a sin.  Correct!?  Yet, in our churches we have people struggling with pornography, homosexuality, abortions in their past…just to name a few of the sins that have been characterized as "big" sins.  While others are struggling with sins that they placed into the "small" sin category, such as lying on their taxes, stealing from the Lord by not giving their tithe, pride, complacency with their relationship with the Lord, etc.  

Healing needs to come to both of these groups.  Only then can our churches be truly healed.  Then, only after that will we be able to reach out to the hurting people of the world as God intended us to.  However, it can only come when the first group stops looking down their nose at others and understands that they are no better or no worse than anyone else.  Salvation is a gift.   God freely gives grace and forgiveness and wisdom and guidance  to His sons and daughters.  Also, the second group needs to give everything to Lord and seek His healing, while not worry about what other people will think.  They also need to be willing to reach out and minister to others.  There are more Christians dealing with these “big” issues than we think. 

Any thoughts?  Please share them.

Pride & Prejudice

(Nicole, I know you will be interested in this!)  I finally watched the newest version of Pride & Prejudice.  You know how children try to scoot closer to the TV?!  Well, that child was me tonight, literally!  I wanted to be a part of the story.  It was beautiful!  I thought they did an excellent job.  I love a great story!!  =)

Also, I previously mentioned I was reading several books at once, which is not a norm for me.  Well, I finished The Gifted by Terri Blackstock, which I highly recommend.  It’s a small book, so it won’t take you very long to read.  However, it is very powerful.  I would like to quote the author concerning why she wrote this book, “I wanted to show what could happen if we each used our gifts as God intended.  What might that look like in the church?  And how would it change us to see God working through those gifts, using every part of the Body of Christ, to minister to a hurting world?” 

Now to a totally different book topic…I finished Potty Training 1-2-3 by Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo.  Hopefully, it will give me some guidance during this interesting “season” with Abbye.  (It’s a season, right Jami?!)  I borrowed our Blessings Book Club book, Waking the Dead by John Eldredge, from Corinna this last Tuesday.   Then I had it finish by Friday morning.  It was rushed, but I had to finish it before book club, which was Friday morning at 10:00!  It wasn’t a book that was easy to rush through.  A good fiction book will draw you in, and you have to finish it.  However, a nonfiction book, especially one like Waking the Dead, is so full of nuggets that need to be pondered.  Instead I quickly jotted down page numbers so that I could go back later.  I now can return to the book I started first, The Most Important Place on Earth by Robert Wolgemuth.  However, our next book for book club, Enjoying God by S. J. Hill, should be arriving any day! 

(Perhaps this year Matt will give me a certificate for a full day or two of being locked in my room with several books!  I do love to read!  And there are so many books that interest me…from fiction to nonfiction…from the classics to the newest!)

I am blessed!

My husband, Matt, is wonderful!!  He has for the last couple of years given me little gift certificates in my stocking at Christmas.  They have included massages, dates, etc.  However, the best ones are for him to clean the house! 

So, today I used one of my certificates, and Matt cleaned the whole house today!  Yeah…What an exciting day it’s been!!  =)

Quote from C. S. Lewis

“Do you thing I am trying to weave a spell?  Perhaps I am; but remember your fairy tales.  Spells are used for breaking enchantments as well as for inducing them.  And you and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us for nearly a hundred years.”  (C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory)

My Johari Window…

Here’s my results!  You can still contribute, if you haven’t already.

Arena (known to self and others) confident, dependable, friendly, intelligent, organised, trustworthy	Blind Spot (known only to others) able, calm, caring, cheerful, energetic, giving, happy, helpful, independent, kind, logical, loving, mature, patient, reflective, religious, self-assertive, sympathetic, warm, wise
Façade (known only to self)	Unknown (known to nobody) accepting, adaptable, bold, brave, clever, complex, dignified, extroverted, idealistic, ingenious, introverted, knowledgeable, modest, nervous, observant, powerful, proud, quiet, relaxed, responsive, searching, self-conscious, sensible, sentimental, shy, silly, spontaneous, tense, witty

Dominant Traits

53% of people agree that Sarah Scales is intelligent

All Percentages

able (7%) accepting (0%) adaptable (0%) bold (0%) brave (0%) calm (7%) caring (30%) cheerful (46%) clever (0%) complex (0%) confident (23%) dependable (15%) dignified (0%) energetic (23%) extroverted (0%) friendly (38%) giving (15%) happy (30%) helpful (7%) idealistic (0%) independent (15%) ingenious (0%) intelligent (53%) introverted (0%) kind (15%) knowledgeable (0%) logical (23%) loving (30%) mature (7%) modest (0%) nervous (0%) observant (0%) organised (23%) patient (15%) powerful (0%) proud (0%) quiet (0%) reflective (7%) relaxed (0%) religious (46%) responsive (0%) searching (0%) self-assertive (7%) self-conscious (0%) sensible (0%) sentimental (0%) shy (0%) silly (0%) spontaneous (0%) sympathetic (7%) tense (0%) trustworthy (46%) warm (7%) wise (7%) witty (0%)

Created by the Interactive Johari Window on 21.3.2006, using data from 13 respondents.
You can make your own Johari Window, or view Sarah Scales’s full data.