Christmas Pillowcases

A good friend of mine and I have started a bell choir with a group of kids who live in a mobile home park in our city. Most of the kids are from broken homes.  We just wanted to share the love of Jesus with them, and God gave us the idea to start a bell choir.  The kids love it. And we enjoy teaching them and getting...

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Anger: Putting Out the Fire

I come by it naturally. It is in my nature to get miffed, upset, and/or angry when things don't go the way I expect or desire. I can feel the tension growing inside me. I try to suppress it,            to keep the hot, burning "fire" contained, but every once in awhile the fire of anger becomes wild,...

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Pocket Purse

When I lived in Germany a few years ago, our landlord had given us the keys to the house attached to a small zippered pouch. The key could fit in the pouch, and also my credit card. Instead of lugging a big heavy purse around (and who wanted that when biking or walking to the store?) I just used the key pouch as my purse. It fit...

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How to Create a Wooden Sign from Scraps

What do you do when life gives you a pile of wooden sticks? Create something with it! My husband had a large pile of oak stick scraps leftover from his beautiful coffered ceiling project. He was about to throw this out to be burned when I quickly snatched these beauties. All sorts of ideas ran through my head on what I could do...

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Are You a Fan or a Follower: A Devotional

I had never thought about it before, but when I read the excerpt below, it made me really stop and evaluate my heart.  Am I a follower of Jesus or just a fan? What's the difference, you ask? Well, Kevin Idleman makes an interesting and compelling distinction. I shudder at the idea of being only a fan. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “It...

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A Devotional: Surrendering All to Receive All

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me." - Matthew 16:24. Here we have the words of Christ which tell us in order to live, we must die.  We must surrender our life, our way, our dreams, our will.  Lay them at...

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Angst, Anxiety & Attacks of Panic - My Way Out

Have you ever experienced a panic attack? I think it is the worse feeling in the world. For a brief period of my life, when I was almost 30 years old, I experienced them almost on a regular basis. The attacks would come upon me with no warning, suddenly, and voraciously. It would take over and leave me a victim of its unreasonable,...

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Training Them Up: A Family Devotions Guide

The Bible says:  "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Prov. 22:6. Who should train them up? The father and mother, primarily. Well, the father and mother... and the Lord. Training up children is ongoing. It's 24/7. And one of the best, most important ways to train them up and...

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Beets with Lemon Sauce

Some of the early spring garden plantings are ready to harvest.  My parents, who are always so generous with loading me up with goodies to take back home, gave me a sack full of fresh pickings from their garden.  Since they live 250 miles south of us, their gardens mature a few weeks earlier than ours do in Minnesota.  So...

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