Quick Post of some FUN stuff!!!!

Yay!!!!     Yes, I said it, "FUN STUFF"!!!!    Woop, woop, yay hay hay, hall-e-lu-YER!!!!   Purple glitter and all that jazz!!!!    Yes, I am happy!!!!     Tomorrow is our Cultural Arts Day for our county Family Community Education Clubs, or FCE.    It is a day when all the clubs come together and display items we each have made during the last year.    What is so funny, we all wait until the week of.... and then scramble to get stuff made.    hahaha    It's not that bad, but for me, it seems like that's what I do anyway.    But then when I started pulling items, I realize I have done more than I thought. It is a fun day.   There is usually two or three beautiful hand made quilts and all kinds of stuff that people have made.     The good thing is this, I will already have a good start on my items to enter into the county fair, and that will be here before you know it.     So, I do have a few pictures to share and I hope y'all see something you like!!!!

 Ok, so the wire crosses are not a part of the Cultural Arts Day, but I wanted to share these too. These are about 5 inches tall and there is a stone chip in the center of each one and then threads and ribbons attached.    I will put these in our Country Festival fund raiser at church on the 25th of June.   I really love these and may make a couple more.  

These are my photos for color and black and white.   The black and white pic is of some tulips in the yard at church.   They were beautiful!!!    The iris is one of my Mom's just outside her front door.   They were so beautiful and still had some rain drops on them when I took the pic.    When I took the pics just now, there is a terrible glare on them, sorry, I tried to get it out, but it was a no go.

The ornament is a sizzix die cut from purple glitter card stock.    Hey, did I say purple?    Oh Yesssss I did and also glitter, (happy, happy, happy) and then some hearts on each side of it.    I also made a toy that is an embroidered tic tac toe game.    So fun!!!

The bookmark is my machine embroidered item.    It is a little scene of Noahs Ark.   It's a really fun little piece.    Then I have the sizzix five point star in a rusty metal look.   Twenty to twenty five layers of thinned down paints and rubs along with different layers of crackle medium and to hold it in your hand and look at it, you would think it was made of metal with a hundred years of rusty paint on it.

The necklace and earrings is my sculpture entry.   They are from sculpy clay cut out, and then an embossing folder pressed into it and then colored with different colors of metallic paints from Wal Mart.    My beadwork entry is my tree of life necklace and I even put it on a necklace I made from organza ribbon and hook to close it with.    I made the hook too.    Thanks to +Sylvia Tabor and her love of wire jewelry making.    So, the fine art painting entry is a watercolor paint by number kit that is painted with water color pencils then activated with a water brush.    It was fun, but I don't know if it will be considered as fine art.    I enjoyed doing it, that makes it fine art to me.    We'll see.

This is my fine art drawing entry.    It looks much better in person than it does in the picture.    When it was about half way done, I asked hubby if it looked like a feather.     He said, "uh....uh....well....uh....I guess", I could tell he didn't want to hurt my feelings.    When I got it finished, he said, "now that's a feather!"    hahaha     He is my hero and #1 fan although everything I do leaves a lot to be desired, he still encourages me.    Gotta love that!!!!

This is a neck scarf that was hand crocheted over my hand.   It's hard to explain, but on a crochet needle, you form your loop on the hook of your crochet needle, but with this, you form the same loop over your hand, instead of the hook of your crochet needle.    This yarn was already loopy, so when I crocheted it over my hand, it made it really fluffy.    The scarf is about 45" long and just laying there, it is about as big as my forearm, its fluffy and big.    And of course, the main thing, "IT'S PURPLE!!!!"     Hahaha     I know I didn't have to point that out though.   hehehe

If you seen something here you liked, share it with someone.   Ok, so this is it for now.     It has been thundering around and raining this afternoon.    Just hope it doesn't turn bad weather on us here.     Hope and pray y'all have a great rest of the day.    Be safe and have fun.

Remember God loves you and so do I.    hugs and love, Patty

Armour and prayers

Good afternoon y'all.    I hope and pray that where ever y'all are today that you know the love, comfort and peace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!!!!    It seems with each passing day we must lean in closer to the One who loves perfectly.    When we look around us with our physical eyes, we see so much troubling, hurtful and hate filled things taking place.    We must fill our hearts and minds with the Word and know who our battle is against.   There is a battle that has been taking place in this universe ever since Lucifer made war in heavenly places.    The war rages on.    The war rages on in the hearts of people who willingly take up the battle for the enemy.    It is a physical battle that we can see with our eyes, but even more than that, it is a spiritual battle that takes place within each one of us.    If the battle was purely physical, what we can see, touch, hear, feel, smell, then we could strategize militarily and conquer the enemy.    There's no doubt that we could do that.    Our main battle is in the spiritual arena, though.

Ephesians 6:  
10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.
11 Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth,(established in God's Word, prepared, belt of truth) and having on the breastplate of righteousness;(protection of the heart where righteousness takes place, we are not right because of what we done, but what Christ has done for us)
15 And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;(what is your foundation? No Jesus, no peace, KNOW Jesus, KNOW peace)
16 Above all, taking the shield of faith(faith is taking God at His word and knowing He does, has and will fight for us, He is our shield), wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
17 And take the helmet of salvation,(helmet guards heads so helmet or hope of salvation protects the mind) and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:(The Word of God has the power to cut down the strongholds of the enemy and will do just that when we know what the Word says and learn to use it)
18 Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;  (KJV)

The enemy does all he can to dismantle the Christians armour, but he only has as much power as we give to him.   In the same vein, God only has as much power in our lives as we let Him have.    Make no mistake, God is ultimately in charge.    We are either on His side or not.    If we have chosen the narrow path that the Word speaks of, we can be rest assured that God is watching and will help us in our everyday walk with Him.

As a Christian, if you flip over to the back of the Book, you can see that the battle IS ALREADY WON!!!!     Not by us, but by Christ!!!!!    Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior!!!!!    If you will go back to the Gospels and read about what happened on the cross, you will see that VICTORY over sin, death and hell was accomplished by God thru Christ Jesus!!!    In Ephesians, Paul tells us plainly what we must do now.    Thru the power of Holy Spirit, we must put on the full armour of God.   From head to toe, we are to be prepared as we face each day knowing the battle rages on, but God will fight for us when we are clothed properly as  warriors must be.     Verse 18 say to pray always with prayer and supplication.

The secular definition of supplication is "the action of asking or begging for something earnestly or humbly".    I know we pray, but do we supplicate?     Do we really supplicate???     How many times have we actually begged God for something in humility, for the good of another person or persons?   We might beg God for something for ourselves or a loved one, but how earnest and humble are we when doing so???     Most people equate humility and begging as a sign of weakness.     That's the culture we live in.    "I ain't begging nobody for nothing"!!!!     Isn't that right.    The Word of God tells me that I should be praying and supplicating for everyone, begging in humility to God for everyone.     This morning, I am doing just that.     I am praying  and supplicating that we can all open our hearts and minds to the fullness of God and who He is and that we can live in the fullness of His Word and all the promises and blessing that come from doing so.    It has to start somewhere.     One person doing the right thing, one person at a time.    So, for the ones who take the time to read this, I pray that we will start praying and supplicating earnestly and humbly for this world that we live in.  
God IS still in charge!!!!!!     Regardless of what it looks like with our physical eyes, God IS still in charge!!!!     I know there are a lot of people that make fun of Christians, that's ok.    NOTHING goes un-noticed by God.    I've had people make fun of me to my face, but those same people have come to me and asked me specifically for prayer.    I've even had Christians make fun of me for the stance I take on being serious about my walk with the Lord.     I just tell them I want more for them and myself than they even realize is available to them.  

Look at it like this:   You have a well of water, fresh, cool, and plenty of it.   So much so that never in this life time would the well run out of water, regardless of how much you used it or how much you shared with everyone that needed it; yet you are starving of thirst all the time and everyone around you is too, how much sense does that make?     Our Bibles tell us that Jesus, The Word made flesh, The Living Word of God IS THAT water!!!!   It's fresh, cool and there's plenty of it!!!!     It will never run dry, no matter how much we drink from it.  

The sad thing is, we are starving of thirst!!!!!!     When an animal gets rabies, one of the symptoms is that the animal gets really thirsty and it wants water, but as thirsty as it is, it can't drink the water.    Its called "hydrophobia" or fear of water.    Jesus called Himself the "Living Water".     There is a lot of people that has "hydrophobia" of the "Living Water".    I can personally tell you that it is the best, sweetest, coolest, most refreshing drink of Water you will ever have!!!!    It DOES quinch the thirst that this world leaves you with!!!!  

There is a reality that we must face in this life, just as it is, right here today.    That reality is this: there are people who's main goal is to hurt other people.    We never know when it will happen or where it will happen.   Just know that it will happen.    We, in our own strength, are not able to prevent it from happening, but if we are faithful to the One who conquered death, hell and the grave we have a promise of eternity with HIM!!!!   Yay, Woop Woop, Woohoo, Praises, Happy Dance, Purple glitter everywhere!!!!!    Who's your Daddy???   FATHER GOD, Abba Daddy!!!!    Who loves ya???    JESUS CHRIST!!!!        Who's your Comforter?    HOLY SPIRIT!!!!     We have a HOPE that the enemy can't hurt in  any way!!!!!    We have a HOPE that is ETERNAL!!!!     Even as the war rages around us, the wars we can see and the wars we can't see, we can still have peace in knowing that nothing happens without God seeing it and He will exact revenge!    You and I don't don't have to be fearful of what is happening and what will happen, as long as we know Christ Jesus as our Lord and Savior!!!!  

I am heavy hearted over what happened in Orlando yesterday in the early morning hours.    I pray and supplicate for the injured and the for families that are grieving the loss of their loved ones today and the painful days to come.   We can not make sense of evil.    All we can do is ask God to intervene.   The prayers of the righteous will be heard!!!!     Now more than ever,  "If My people, which are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."  2 Chronicles7:14   KJV   We know what to do, are we ready?    Armour on, chin up, shoulders squared, marching forward toward victory in Christ Jesus!!

Who is this for?    Me, and anyone else who is struggling thru the day to day battles of the war that rages on.    Fight the good fight of faith!!!    Many have fought it before us and many will be fighting the same battle long after we are gone, but it is a battle well worth fighting, because the ultimate, eternal victory will be worth it!!!!    May God's will be done!!!!

Till next time, God loves y'all and so do I.      hugs and love, Patty

You can't unsee...........

What do you do when you see something that you didn't necessarily think you would ever see?   How do you process some of the things you have experienced or witnessed in your life time?     What about when someone else says that what you just seen or experienced was over dramatized by what you just told in your word picture?     Do you compartmentalize, do you shut down or do you allow yourself to feel what you feel and ask for God's help to just help you sort it out?     There's a lot of things that happen in our lives that are out of our control.    Sometimes, even if the situation is happening to us, it may still be out of our control to stop.    For me or anyone else to minimize what has happened to anyone or what anyone has witnessed with their own eyes is terrible.   Unless or until we have been in a situation where someone has stolen our right to make decisions over what does or doesn't happen to us, we need to keep our judgement and spite at a minimum.

My brother and I was blessed to spend the day together on Saturday, June 4th, when he came and picked me up at Mom's place and we headed out up north to pick my Mom up and bring her back home.    She had spent a few days with her niece and we met them half way to pick her up and bring her back home.     We met at my aunt and uncles house about 3 hours away.     My brother and I left out pretty early, just a few minutes before 6am on Saturday morning.  We drove about an hour and a half or 2 hours and stopped at a little town for breakfast.    The place we ate at had a motel just across the parking lot from it.    We went in and got our breakfast and got a window seat to enjoy it.    Just outside the window was a four way stop light.   The traffic was pretty heavy with lots of cars stopped three ways while one way had the right of way.     All of the sudden, there came four guys running across the front lawn of the restaurant from the motel and running on up to the stoplight.    It caught my eye and attention and out of nowhere, a thought jumped into my mind, "take note of what you are seeing".    I had no idea what was about to happen.    Then it happened.

There was a vehicle sitting at the light with a sunroof and it was open and the windows was rolled down.    Those four guys jumped on that vehicle in such a brutal, violent attack that I was just dumbfounded!!!!!    I thought I was watching a horrid evil scene from a movie, which I choose not to watch, by the way.    Two of the guys jumped on the roof of the car and lowered their legs into the car and started kicking and thrashing at the driver and passenger violently!!!!!   One of the guys still on the ground, was on the drivers side trying to pull the driver out all the while slinging his fists and on the passenger side the same thing was happening!!!!    Four guys at the four way light intersection letting loose such a violent brutal attack on the people in that car!!!    I was suddenly sick to the pit of my stomach!!!   I fully expected shots to be fired!!!!    Praise God that did not happen!!!!  

The light changed for this lane of traffic to go and they were still brutally attacking the people in that vehicle, but the car finally did get away from them.    When the guys turned and started running back to the motel, they were actually harassing people in other vehicles with threatening gestures and lurching like they wanted to pick a fight with others.    I was afraid and not one little bit ashamed to say that!!!!   I had to go to the restroom and when I came back out, someone inside the restaurant had gotten word that it was two girls in the vehicle and one of them was pregnant!!!   That was just too much to hear!!!!!

Granted, I have no idea what all this was about.   But I will say this, it was more than likely sin based. I don't know what the sin was, I don't care what the sin was, but I do say it was sin based.   Two police vehicles showed up at the motel and a few minutes later, the vehicle with the two girls came back to the motel.   I'll tell you what hurts my heart.    That unborn baby was put in danger!!!!!!  I don't know what it was all about, but I'll just bet that it wasn't as important as a human life!!!!   My brother and I finally left and headed on our way, but we both was heavy hearted over what we just seen and witnessed.    Granted, we don't have the full story.   When a human life, a baby's life is at stake, I don't need the full story to say that should never have taken place.

I have asked God to help me make heads or tails out of this and realize that my life has been changed from having witnessed this brutal and violent attack.   I have asked God for my life to be changed for the better from having witnessed this.    God is going to have to help me work this out.    It's one thing to see something like this on the big screen in a movie theater, but it's totally different seeing something like this in real life with your own eyes.    It changes that soft place in your heart just a little bit.   It can change it for the better or it can change it for the worse.   I just pray for every person that seen that attack with their owns eyes, that God would draw them closer to Him and fill them with Himself.    I pray for that precious little unborn baby!!!!    I pray for that little baby to know the protection of the Lord!!!!

I don't know how to pray for the others yet.    Well, yes I do, I just haven't reached the point of wanting to pray for them as God would have me pray for them.   I do pray for God's will to be done in their lives.    I pray that they could see that what they done was a terrible thing.   I am thankful for the police arriving on the scene.    I am thankful that no shots were fired!!!!   I am thankful for the safety that He provided for my brother and myself!!!

You can't unsee things and you can't unhear things and you can't undo some things.    And we don't have to hurt someone by minimizing what they have witnessed.     If God is teaching me more compassion, that's a great thing!!!!     When I have to be in a place of negativity, I just ask God to give me strength.    I am responsible for how I think.   God gave me the authority to call on Him to overcome bad and troubling thoughts and to give Him ultimate control over the situations that I happen to be witness to.     I have the right to choose thinking positively.   I choose to focus on God, His will and positivity over negativity.    I choose to believe that God can overcome physical sickness just as well as spiritual sickness.    God is able!!!!!!

God is well able to use what we witnessed this passed weekend.    I don't know how He is going to use it, but I will NOT limit His power and authority over how He wants to use it.   I pray that God will intervene in the lives of the ones involved and boldly change them to the point of repentance.  I pray for God to intervene in my life and use me more boldly, to stand up for Him no matter the situation.   I pray for God's will be done.

James 2:13   For judgement is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy.  Mercy triumphs over judgement.

Father God, help me to ALWAYS show mercy!!!!   Because Your Word says that mercy triumphs over judgement!!!   Help me to show mercy!!!   Remove the judgemental spirit from me!!!!    Show me Your way more clearly!!!!    Help me to triumph with an abundance of mercy!!!!!

I have had a full week to think on what my brother and I witnessed last weekend and I have to say that I do believe that all of us will be seeing more and more of this stuff happening.    We see and hear of it every time we turn the tv on.    We are seeing more and more criminal acts taking place.   Why is that?    Hate filled hearts!    A person can't have love in their heart and do some of the things that we see people doing.    We can't praise God and curse God in the same breath.    We have total control, with God's help, over what we think and how we act.   One person behaving hatefully can cause a chain reaction, which in turn can form a mob.    Have you ever thought about the mob that shouted "crucify Him, crucify Him"?    I have, and more so here lately than ever.    What side of the mob would I have been on?    I love to think, sitting here in the safety of my home, some 2000 years after the fact, that I would have been with the small group that loved Jesus.    But you know what?     I really don't know which side I would have been on.    As much as I love Jesus and what He has done for me, I truthfully can not say which side I would have been on!!!     I am so thankful that I didn't have to make the choice back then.     But, I have still had to make the choice as to whether I follow Him or not.    "I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back"!!     I know a lot of y'all will recognize this phrase from a church song.    When I started typing it, I didn't mean for it to be a lyric from a song, but then it was and I googled the song and the following is some of what wiki-pedia has to say about the song:

"I Have Decided to Follow Jesus" is a Christian hymn originating from India.

The lyrics are based on the last words of a man in Assam, north-east India, who along with his family decided to follow Jesus Christ in the middle of the 19th century through the efforts of a Welsh missionary.    Called to renounce his faith by the village chief, the convert declared, "I have decided to follow Jesus." In response to threats to his family, he continued, "Though no one joins me, still I will follow."    His wife was killed, and he was executed while singing, "The cross before me, the world behind me."    This display of faith is reported to have led to the conversion of the chief and others in the village.

The formation of these words into a hymn is attributed to the Indian missionary Sadhu Sundar Singh. The melody is also Indian, and entitled "Assam" after the region where the text originated.   The fierce opposition is possible as various tribes in that area were formerly renowned for head-hunting.

For more indepth information, click on the provided link.   I do not know what else this website offers so, I am not promoting the website as I don't know what else you will find, but the info provided on this song is powerful.

https://emailmeditations.wordpress.com/2014/08/23/499-the-story-behind-the-song-i-have-decided-to-follow-jesus/

What we chose in this life will show by how we live our lives.    If we are out to hurt people with word or deed, that will show.    If we are to help people with word or deed, that too, will show.   People are and will forever be changed and affected by how we live.    We will live peaceably with our fellow humans or we will look for ways to hurt those around us.

Joshua 24:15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. (KJV)

The decision is ours!!!!

I hope there is something in this that can help another person in some small way.     I just had to get this out of my system and I did so by journaling and it ended up being a blog post.    My friend and I was talking about this and we came to the conclusion that this is a time of tilling and tearing up the soil for a future harvest that God has in store.     Now, the growth process starts in hopes of an abundant harvest!!!!    God is good all the time and all the time God is good!!!    Nothing ever goes un-noticed by God!!!    Praises be to God Almighty!!!!

I hope and pray everyone has a blessed day in the name of Jesus Christ!!!!     Remember at all times that God loves you!     I love y'all too.    Till we meet here again, hugs and love, Patty