Spiritual
Graham Cracker Christmas Crunch and Christmas Reflections
The stockings are hung by the chimney with care………the tree is up and the lights are twinkling on the tree and Christmas cookies and sweet breads are baked and wrapped for taking to the neighbors and our Christmas cards have been mailed. Only a few days until all the fun begins. This is technically an “off year” Christmas for our family. All the girls decided together that they would prefer coming home for Christmas all at the same time so every other year we ALL gather here in Alamo and on the “off years” the girls spend Christmas day with their in-laws. We are very fortunate this year that Bethany and Mike are able join us, so we are counting down the days until they arrive!!!!
Bekah was here two weeks ago to help me with the holiday preparations and my sweet hubby has been right by my side helping with cards and food prep for the big day. Spending time with family and friends and gift making and gift giving make Christmas so special. It is one of my favorite times of year.
The greatest gift of all is that Jesus came into this world to show man the way to connect intimately with God. Jesus is the promised Messiah spoken of by the prophets in the Old Testament. Jesus is our hope, He is our savior. the book of Hebrews talks about Jesus….”So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for He faced the same testing we do, yet He did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive His mercy, and …
Read MoreContinue in Thankfulness!
Continue in thankfulness after Thanksgiving!
It is very easy to go about our lives not even thinking of how blessed we are. It’s one thing to the next to the next. Our minds are filled, our lives are filled, our stomachs are filled, and our schedules are filled. We don’t understand what it really means to be in need. Which I think really affects our ability to be grateful and give thanks. We live in a culture filled with entitlement and survival mode and excess. But… it is the month of thankfulness, so maybe we are paying a little bit more attention to being thankful, but I am almost sure there is some room to grow. So it’s time to take a look…
What were you thankful for today, this past week, this past week? And not just what, but who are you thankful for? How does that thankfulness impact you, and what does it compel you to do? Do you say thanks? Do you return the favor? Do you pay it forward? Do you live blessed?
I received a letter in the mail (REAL MAIL, not email) a few days ago from a friend telling me how thankful she is for me. She said she is taking the month of November and writing a letter to a different person every day to tell them she is thankful for them. HOW COOL IS THAT!
Focus on thankfulness past November! Let’s change our perspective with hope to change our lives so we are filled with gratitude. Practice the discipline of being thankful this holiday season, and hopefully it will overflow as habit into the rest of the year. And I call it a discipline, because it may take discipline to change your mindset or perspective. But disciplines cause lasting change. So …
Read MoreBlessing in Disguise
Sometimes we receive blessings in disguises, other times we give them. But it is so cool when we realize how God orchestrates and plans out things. I wrote this story down in my journal from a few years ago, and I wanted to share it with you. ” [Unnamed friend] was going through a hard week last week. A week ago she decided to skip something she is a part of and go to a mid week church service to take a breath from the chaos of life and refresh her soul. I had the night free so I chose to go with her. The service was great, but it was what happened this past week that really showed us how AMAZING God is. After the service we connected with a friend that she hadn’t seen in awhile. It was real quick… didn’t think much of it. But that friend texted her the beginning of the week and asked if we were doing a women’s Bible study. He had a friend that was looking for something to get involved in. Perfect opportunity. We just started our group a couple weeks ago. She texted with the friend’s friend. And that new friend came Tuesday night and shared in our fellowship and community with one another. And not only was she blessed, but she blessed all of us by her spirit and eagerness and willingness to open up a little.” A blessing in disguise…
We all know what it is like to be new in situations. We all know how it feels to go into a situation with a little uneasiness and fear. But what we don’t always recognize, is God is just waiting to blow our minds and provide for us in ways we can’t even imagine. Too often we let …
Read MoreHesed-Showing Lovingkindness this Thanksgiving
“HESED”-Showing Lovingkindness this Thanksgiving
“Hesed” is the Hebrew word for loving-kindness and steadfast love. Hesed is a word used in the Old Testament to describe God’s covenant love for His people. In the book of Exodus 34 God is described as merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love (hesed) and faithfulness. Hesed is more than LOVE, it infers a loyalty that is not fleeting or transitory. Hesed is best described as we look at the character of the God of the bible. He is a covenant keeping God; faithful, merciful, full of grace, kindness and loyalty. His love is freely given, not out of obligation or duty, but because of His desire to express His character to His beloved children.
During this month of November, I like to keep my mind focused on all the people and circumstances in my life that I can be grateful and thankful for. My husband, daughters, SILs and grandchildren are at the top of my list of gratefulness. It is a joy to serve them and show them steadfast love. This Thanksgiving season, I want to show kindness to others outside of my family as well, not out of duty or obligation, not to gain anything in return. I want to be an ambassador of God’s hesed, a messenger of hope and joy.
I have posted a few times this past month about Gogo Grandmothers. (to see previous posts about Gogo Grandmothers and how to participate in Hesed love projects, click here). Working with this organization gives me an opportunity to be the hands and feet of Jesus and to show God’s hesed love to orphans and widows.
My heart is connected with these beautiful people even though I have not met them. I have a sense of …
Fall in Love as you Serve-Gogo Grandmothers
Falling in love through service is an incredible experience. When your heart is moved by an unmet need and you know that you are being called to participate in fulfilling that need, an instantaneous thing happens in your heart-you fall in love with the people you are serving. TRUE greatness in this world comes through serving others. True love also comes when you give 100% to another person and that happens through serving one another.
Look at these faces and read the “Did you know” facts that accompany each photo….. These are the faces of the new people I love…I have never met them but my heart is drawn towards them all because I have taken the risk of joining in, making myself vulnerable and jumping into serving these beautiful women and children that live in Malawi, Africa.
Ten days ago, I attended a Gogo Grandmothers retreat held at Mariner’s Church in Orange County. This 10th annual Gogo Grandmothers retreat was a glorious day spent renewing our hearts and reaffirming our commitment for the continued work being accomplished in Malawi. I am privileged to be a board member for the SAFE /Gogo Grandmothers ministry and have loved every minute of my time serving with the other members of the board. (SAFE stands for Sub-Saharan Family Enrichment) We serve a mighty God who moves in mighty ways!
Gogo Grandmothers provides for the orphans of AIDS in Malawi, Africa by assisting the grandmothers who care for them. In America, and across the world, individuals and Gogo Grandmothers groups (often uniting women who are grandmothers themselves) gather monthly to pray and carry out fund-raising projects that provide what poor “gogos” in Malawi need to raise the orphans whose parents have died due to the ravages of AIDS in their country. In …
Read MoreFocus
Thought patterns can become habitual. They can also be changed with intentional effort Responding in joy, reacting in negativity, answering in content, or retorting with frustration… they can all come to mind so easily with the snap of a finger. It often seems like you can’t control what thoughts come into your mind. You can, with lots of focus and effort. But you can always control what you do with those thoughts. The mind is a powerful thing. We need to train our minds, our thoughts, our ideas to be more focused on who we want to be, on our goals, and on something bigger than ourselves.
Focus is “The ability to keep your attention where you consciously want it to be. It’s the art of disciplining your imagination to achieve your desired outcomes.”
By changing our thought patterns it is ultimately changing our mindset and perspective. We all have some sort of self talk whether it is positive, negative, helpful, harmful, encouraging… etc. What story are you telling yourself? Are you your own worst enemy? Do you believe in yourself? Do you give others the benefit of the doubt? Are you focused on yourself, others, God? Take some time this week to think about your own self talk. What are your initial reactions? What do you think when you go throughout your day? Who do you want to be? All your thoughts should be channelling towards the person you want to be. If you want to be a grateful person, you will be grateful about the every day things in your life. If you want to be filled with joy, your initial reaction needs to be filled with joy. If you want to be a happy person and your first reactions are angry, there is going to be some …
Read MoreWhy Begin with My WHY?
Have you ever thought about WHY you do what you do? Most of us spend our time focused on our WHAT-tackling our “to-do” lists, taking care of the urgent needs in our daily lives and ultimately accomplishing some of our goals. The girls and I are currently participating in an online course called Healthy Mind and Body. (to find out more about this program click here). One of the guiding principles of the course focuses on developing our WHY. The difference between our WHAT and our WHY is very important to understand when developing a healthy mind and body? Our WHAT focuses on the tasks to be done, the end result of what we want to accomplish. Our WHAT involves logic, drive and behaviors that we use to obtain our goals. Our WHY, on the other hand, focuses on our vision, passions, beliefs and purpose. An example of the difference might look like this……My WHAT…..My daughters and I write a blog to provide “deep rooted wisdom for growing families”….My WHY….everyday is filled with amazing things that I am learning and I am passionate about sharing my experiences in our blog so I can help others. The difference is not in the results, but in the process. My WHAT is the task of writing the blog. When I approach my life from my WHAT, those things I want to accomplish and the tasks I need to do can become mundane and driven by obligation, responsibility, commitment. Those driving forces are not bad or wrong, they just lack the inspiration that comes from working out of my WHY. When I approach my life from my WHY, I am inspired to do the very thing I really want to do, deep down inside of me. I am driven by my greater purpose, …
Read MoreReorganize Memories
How often do you think about what events, circumstances, people in your life have brought you to today? Have you thought about what has formed you into who you are today? We are all on unique journeys. We all take different paths. They intersect, cross, go their own way. But we take people, we take memories, we take scars, we take joys. Do we take enough time to reflect on who we have become??
Think about your story. Jennie Allen uses a good exercise in her book “Restless” that walks you through thinking about your life, where you have been, where you are, and where you want to be. She suggests this exercise:
Journal through
- Identify a highlight from each life stage when you felt pleasure in what you were doing. When were moments you remember being proud and satisfied?
- Ages 0-6
- 7-12
- 13-18
- 19-24
- 25+
- Identify a memory from each life stage when you remember suffering
- 0-6
- 7-12
- 13-18
- 19-24
- 25+
- Now lay these moments out on an arrow of the timeline of your life. Look to see God’s fingerprints. How he has been with you. How he has paved the way, opened doors, been with you through hard times? What has been a part of your journey? Reflect, be thankful, and be blessed right where you are.
…
Reorganize My Clutter
I confess I am a stuffer. I stuff things in closets, I stuff shoes in places they don’t go, I stuff things in places to put away later, I stuff my days with running from one thing to the next, I stuff my time with endless tasks, and I stuff my emotions when I don’t really want to deal with them at the moment. And I have realized, I start stuffing more material things around me when I am emotionally struggling. There’s something going on I don’t like so I don’t talk about it. There’s things in the house I don’t like so I don’t deal with them. There’s chores to do, so I just push them aside. It’s this endless cycle of appearing to look clean when underneath the surface lies the same big old mess. And I want to be done with it. I want to stop stuffing things in that one room in my house that drives me crazy. I want to stop stuffing my emotions and letting them bottle up until I feel like I am going to explode. I want to stop stuffing my life with busyness so I can barely hang on.
So what do I do? Reorganize, take a little time each day, clean one thing at a time, and stop stuffing. Deal with things when they come up. Put thing away in the moment rather than put them in another spot to put away later. Confront issues and emotions when you have them. And follow a new set of rules. Create systems of stuff that work, not systems that need to be fixed later. But that is all just a plan. I think part of this is a little deeper. It is my state of being. My physical surroundings start to emulate …
Read MoreReorganize your WHY!
The Growing Weisser women are taking this week off to spend some important time reorganizing our priorities. We are attending a leadership development conference and have an abundance of new concepts and information to digest so we can share much of it with you.
The keynote speaker was passionate about her faith in Jesus and she encouraged us in business development techniques that we will pass on to you in the near future. She ended her talk by handing out tiny bags of mustard seeds with a bible verse from Matthew 17:20 ” If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” She encouraged us to believe in ourselves and to set goals, dream big and to never give up on our why!
Do you know WHY you do the things you do in your life? Maybe you need to take some time to reorganize your WHY!
All the Weisser Women…
Read More