MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!

HELLO EVERYONE!!!

How about the cool stuff outside? So nice! Holden walked out and said "it is so cold". Now....I wouldn't go that far but after having the heat like we have, I guess to him it was.

I want to share with you a story about my oldest son, middle child, Harrison. He is 13. Just turned 13 and in the 8th grade. Almost a year younger than some of his closest friends. Harrison is my quiet child. Doesn't have a whole lot to say, except when you tell him to get off Xbox, then that is a whole new story. Well...anyway....Harrison in all of his few words had a lot to say to me one day. I remember when he was younger and you know how us moms are, we want to know what has going on in the day and what about this kid in their class, etc. So I was asking him all of this because I had heard something about someone and didn't want to like let him know I was trying to get info, because you know I am a concerned mom, and I asked him about it. Harrison, in all of his seriousness looked at me with his big brown eyes and said "I dont' think we need to be talking about". Well..Alrighty! I was tickled by his response but also the Lord spoke to me. You know, some things are just not any of our business. I don't mean you can't be a concerned mom and believe me, knowledge is power when you are a mom. But....so many times, we get all up in someone elses business and we have no place there. I heard Joyce Meyer say one time that the Lord told her that if she has no responsibility in that situation then she needs to mind her own business. Now ladies.....it just comes natural for most of us but instead of being nosey, busy bodies then we should use that opportunity to pray for those concerned and leave it right where we took it, to the altar.

Ouch! I know and it is only Tuesday. Sorry, I just write them like He gives them to me. I said okay Lord, help me to do the most important and that is to just "be about my Father's business". Because when I am about my Father's business I don't have time for anyone elses.

Hope you have a wonderful, marvelous, fabulous day and I want you to know that you are God's business and He is always about you! So...invite Him to be all up in your business today!

BLESSINGS TO YOU TODAY!
Marty

MY BEAUTIFUL HANNAH & FRIEND KAYLA

ALL READY FOR

THE

DANCE!

Bare Earlobes

Good Thursday Morning To You!!!!

Hope you all had a fantastic Labor Day Weekend! Mine was wonderful! Started off Friday with a trip to Hattiesburg to take Hannah my 15 year old to her first Cross Country Meet. Now, for you who know Hannah, this will not surprise you at all. Hannah is all about the jewelry. Especially the earrings! Well...she wore this certain pair up there and I found out later from one of the other girls that she had brought a pair to change into to when she ran. :) Yes....she did. The devastation to Hannah, however, was when they told her she had to take it all off. No not the clothes too, the jewelry. Whew! But to Hannah, you might as well have said that. She came over to me with it all in hand and said, "I can't wear it". (: You see....it represented who she was, what she liked, her personality. And now she's having to take it off, run without it. Would she still be Hannah? Could she still run her race with bare earlobes? To her amazement maybe, yes she did. She ran with no jewelry at all. Just an "ugly uniform" as she said, a ponytail and tennis shoes. Not her usual "look" but she ran anyway and finished. The Lord spoke to me this morning about this. Sometimes, we get it all stripped away and it comes down to just plain old us and what we are made of on the inside. Who are we really without all of the "accessories"? Nothing wrong with "accessories", I believe God made them for girls especially but do we have what it takes when it is all gone to still run the race that is before us? I believe with all my heart we do! I believe that when all of the stuff is gone, even God things, ministry, etc. that we are who He created. You see those are just by-products of who we really are. You see in a hurricane, for all of us who know what that is like, when the wind settles and the tree is left there bare, it is still a tree, leaves or no leaves.

I don't know where you are right now. I dont' know if you have lost it all, had to step down from something, had to give something away, whatever situation you are in I want to encourage you to still run. Yes run that race with all your heart because it is all just "accessories" and those things are not what makes you run your race in such a way to receive the prize or not. It is who lives and dwells within you that gives you that ability. For "in Him we live and move and have our being" and that we can say as Paul one day "I have fought the good fight, I have kept the faith, I have finished the race!" WOO HOO!

BLESSINGS TO YOU TODAY!
Marty

Hope you are all doing fantastic! I mean just outrageous! You know what I am talking about. Life to the fullest because that is what He came to give us. If you are like me though, you often times do not walk in what He came to give you and allow circumstances, "stuff" to defeat you or cloud your vision. Dare to live outrageous today, no matter what your circumstances. Outrageous means radical, extremist, excessive, intense, severe, tremendous. Guess what? The opposite of that is insignificant, moderate, irrelevant, moderate and here's one, constrained. Sounds boring to me. However, day after day, I tend to live like this for whatever reason but when I see and read about the life of Jesus, I see none of that. I see such extremism, such intensity with such a radical tremendous love for the Father and for what His mission was about. You know, why He was sent here, for you and me. To restore you and me. Every moment, every hour that he breathed was done with such passion. You may not have always seen such fanfare but the intensity that everyday life was given was amazing. You know, he didn't come with all the hooplah but I know that He was sent with every bit of Outrageous love for you and me that could be imagined and He grew up with one aim and that was to do his Father's will and it was to restore you and I to fellowship with Him and why do we so wonder why Satan so fervently, intensely does everything he can to keep us from having that fellowship with our Saviour. He knows what it will bring about, just as Jesus did. It brings LIFE spirit-filled, God-filled life that brings, joy, peace, contentment in the midst of whatever we face. I mean WHATEVER! We may not see it all then, just as the disciples didn't when Jesus hung there on that cross, but when I can be in the midst of an awful time, I can remember "He came that I might have life and have it abundantly." Just think if they had remembered that when they were staring at Him dead on the cross, dead in the grave. I don't think they would have been all hiding up in some room. You know satan is there to use the circumstances, trials, just every day stuff of life to rob from me. For the word says he is a thief. The important thing is to stop the thief at the door and begin to praise The Life Giver and right there with all of those dry bones surrounding me, I can speak with the word of God and say "Life abundantly" . Jesus came just for that as it says in John 10:10. So....I say to you today that where it is dry, brittle, dead, discouraged whatever it may be that He was, is and will always be Life and no matter what Satan tries to put in your head begin to thank and praise Him that He loves you so much and if you can't see it in the midst of your darkness, He will bring life forth. WOO HOO!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

I don't know if I am so shocked it is Christmas ALREADY or that 2008 is ending. Can you believe it??? Well....it is, whether you believe it or not. I hope that this new year find's blessings overtaking each of you.

For Dow and I and so many of our friends and family this has been a tough year. As I was thinking about that the other day, I started thinking about the shepherds in the field that night when the angel appeared to them. It says "they were keeping watch over their flock by night". You know, just doing the usual. What they had done day in and day out. Some of them were probably standing out in that field wondering how in the the world they were going to make it through their tough times and it says "then suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared" and it says that the angel was there to bring them "good news" that TODAY, this day a Savior is born, He is Christ the Lord. In other words, right there in their situation, however bleak it may seem salvation had come to them. Now I know some of you may be saying "where is the angel?" I hear you! I don't know what I would do if the angel appeared to me like that though. No wonder he told them "do not be afraid". But you know, better than an angel, God has given us His word. The very life spoken word of our Savior, we have, this day in the city of Mobile, or wherever you are. We have that word saying to us "Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy".

I want you to think about this with me. I thought, what were the shepherds thinking, wondering, etc. from the time they heard the word of salvation to the actual moment they saw salvation. I know an angel appeard and it is pretty hard to doubt that but being human that we are, and who knows how far they had to travel or wait and wait and wait, they must have thought.... What are we doing following a star? And are you really serious that "salvation" is going to come to me out of a stinking stable? But they remembered the word from the angel and kept going until they reached the manger and
there.... He was......salvation......
in a baby, in a manager. Not what they expected but nonetheless the Savior of the world. The Savior for their situation, their trouble, their stress, their life and on and on. The Savior for it all!

I pray for you and your family that you be encouraged to press on and stay with the word from the moment you hear it to the moment you see it, your salvation, your Savior. And remember to do as the shepherds did....
"The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told."

HELLO ALL OF YOU!!!!

Summer is over - well, at least for all of the school age people it is. The temperature outside is not telling us that but all of the activity going on is. Can you believe it?

I want to share with you today a story, if you haven't already heard me share it, about safety pins. Now, me being the visual person that I am, God for some reason has chosen to show, teach me about Himself through safety pins. One morning years ago, I was getting ready for work and there was this safety pin on the floor. It was closed and I was rushing around, running late and I was about to just walk over it and leave it there but the Lord said, "Marty, pick up that safety pin." I knew it was Him and I said, "well, okay but I am running late". :) So I picked it up, put it on the nightstand and then just as I was about to walk out the door, my button popped off of my blouse. Right then I remembered that safety pin and went back and pinned my blouse and out the door I went. I did not have time to stop and iron another shirt, find the right one to match, etc. I needed to go. The Lord showed me right away, how concerned He was with everything about me and when He showed me that safety pin, He already knew what I was going to need on my way out the door. You see, I didn't have a bunch of safety pins lying around. I didn't even know I had one safety pin in my house. I want to even think He could have even dropped it from heaven that morning, just so I would have what I needed. Funny thing, I have never forgotten that moment. And to this day, I don't keep safety pins, I have one friend who we used to call her the Drug Store because we could go to her for anything and she would have it at work, but not me. I most of the time am digging around trying to find those things like that. Welll...God 20 years later is still showing me safety pins. For the last month it seems, every where I turn, I find a safety pin. You know what He tells me when I pick them up, "I see you today Marty", I am your Provider". He tells me "I am right here with you and don't want you to think that anything that goes on in your life is insignificant to me" So I am going to show up in safety pins all around you to show you that even in the small things I am there. Even in the small things.......

I sit hear just weeping, thinking, why do I ever doubt He is not with me.

I hope this encourages you today and to know that even before you have a need He has provided the "safety pin" and that whereever you are, whatever you are doing there are "safety pins" all around you showing you He loves you! You just have to look and pick them up!

Woo Hoo! Amen!

We Had 6 Puppies!!!

Well....after a Sunday afternoon, June 29th of restlessness, Holly, our dog, had 6 puppies. Boy was it an event. Harrison's best buddies, Colin & Tyler came down. Hannah called Alli and Mattie screaming and Alli came over, and Billy, Tammy & Camille drove out to West Mobile just to witness the big event. Now, there Holly is lying there, giving birth, looking up at everyone looking at her. Her response, grrrrrrr.... I said, "sweetheart", I know how you feel. What a special time it was for us though. Proud Papa Dow did not leave her sight. We thought she was finished after 5 but then came the last one and it was a buff/white color. The first 3 were black and brown, next two were black and then our little one came in her own color. I just can't imagine how Dow is going to be when we really have grandchildren. He has been so proud of them all. There are 3 girls and 3 boys and we are just tickled with them all. Of course, they are not running around, barking and you know all of there other "stuff" they do. Anyway....we couldn't believe Holly could have that many but she did and has been the best Mama. Holden has all of them already named, don't ask me what they are though. All I know is that they have "H" names. However, we are not keeping them ALL so if you want one, you can name it anything you like.