As many of you now know.....our daughter is being courted by a really wonderful guy!     I did not want to take away from their story by blabbing here but I will direct you to the web site they created so their friends could share their joy and follow their journey.  It has been a very interesting several months and my husband and I have been totally amazed seeing the hand of the Lord work mightily in the lives of both of them.  There is a lot more I could say but I will just let that up to them to share throughout the coming months.  When you get to their site, click on "Our Story" and you can read all about it.

Don't you just love the song they have chosen??? 


May I encourage you ladies to grab a copy of the book listed above?  So very good.....

And while I am at it......I really encourage all of you to get a copy of  the DVD "Return of the Daughters."
This is not just for young ladies....but for their papas and brothers and mammas too...especially their papas.

    The word pleasure is often used as a verb, with the full sanction of the dictionary.  It means "to give pleasure to someone."  Why shouldn't we use the word "courage" the same way?  To give courage to someone?
    The word encourage is a wonderful word , but too often it implies despair.  To courage connotes something lively, active, vital.  When we courage a person we inspire him, we stiffen his backbone, we give him a shot of gumption.
    In her book, The Courage to Be Happy, Dorothy Thompson said of courage:  "Courage is...the power to overcome danger, misfortune, fear, injustice, while continuing to affirm inwardly that life with all its sorrows is good, that everything is meanful even if in a sense beyond our understanding; and that there is always tomorrow."
    To courage someone is to give him something he doesn't have, to lift his sights, to make him aware of his spiritual inheritance.  It is to awaken him to the realization that the well from which other achieving persons drink is available to him too, if he will let down his bucket.  Look around you.  You will discover many handy persons you could courage-and it will pleasure you mightily if you do!

Really good book Ladies!

Take a LOOK over at Elisabeth's blog.  She is having a Christmas give away
drawing!!!

Now I have a story to tell you.  This morning I stumbled upon a blog through
someone else's blog which I had planned to share with you today.  I just know there must be tons of you or
your family members who have a sensitivity to gluten products.  I discovered that I feel much better using
gluten free and wheat free breads.  I do not think I have an allergy but am not
sure.  I even discovered that I lose
weight better avoiding gluten products. 
I know...sad, sad, sad!  I LOVE
pasta and home made breads...I LOVE Panera's baked breads too.  I eat them...I don't suffer ...I just know my
body is not quite happy. 

So...after printing out
several gluten free Christmas cookie recipes from Gluten-Free Girl's site I was
heading over here to share with y'all. 
I got side tracked and the morning has gone by.  Meanwhile the doctor's office phoned to give
me the results of our son's blood work. 
He has these bouts of not feeling well...fatigue and periodic stomach aches.  We always thought it was his left over lyme disease
or rocky mountain spotted fever results. Well...while I was not
surprised at all because I have suspected this for a while now...I was...amused???
at the timing of it all.  The nurse told
me everything looked pretty good except the test for celiac disease.   Yowee!!!!  He has celiac disease. 
I had JUST been printing out gluten free recipes and I was beginning to
make up a post to share with you.  Talk
about timing.

This might
have been totally overwhelming (and it will be to him)...but to Elisabeth and I it is not
as bad as it sounds to revamp the baking and cooking. 
We are really getting use to curve balls.  But then I read some more on it...and come to find out just how many things have wheat protein in it.  Okay...we can do this...with the Lord's help we sure can.  We have managed to learn to make just about anything without dairy so we can do this...keep telling me that, okay? 

It helps that we were
introduced to gluten free eating several years ago when we were experimenting
with dairy free cooking and through some gluten intolerant friends...yes, you
know who you are. 

Do you really know how
many things gluten is in???  Pop
Tarts...he is going to be so upset! (WHAT!!!! No Pop Tarts!!!) 
Almost everything...even some candies. 
He is going to feel soooo much better though and maybe get some meat on
his bones now. 

Well, we can do this
and it so happens that I already subscribe to a neat magazine called "Living
Without."  

Talk about a mother's
intuition and the Lord's timing!

Ladies...

I have recently found a beautiful website ministry called An Help Meet For Him that I wanted to share with you.   I know through the years I have struggled with particular issues and while we have God's holy word to minster to and comfort us, it is always good to encourage one another as well.  Kerry, at An Help Meet For Him, covers a vast array of issues but they all address our God given roles as a help meet for our husband..or preparing us to be a help meet for a husband to come.   I agree with so much of what she has shared and thought you might enjoy reading her entries as well.   One of my favorites is this entry entitled  What Is Your Ministry....and her introduction, I'm A Stay At Home Wife.

This particular entry on DILIGENCE really summed up my thoughts for the past month or so....well maybe even longer than that.  Which leads me to my next thought.....this has been in NEON flashing through my brain these days.  Years ago, one of my Bible study mates' husband found a job elsewhere....they sold or got rid of everything in their home...and even their home and bought an RV to travel in until they could find housing.  They had three children and  homeschooled.  She said she was "living liquid."  I don't know...that term really struck me and it has stuck in my head all these years....trying to make liquid from a solid I guess.  
Well, I finally get it.  For the last months I have been trying to purge my home.   I don't know what happened but when we began homeschooling I suddenly discovered used books stores and went crazy.  Our home  became the resource center of the county.  I am not kidding....if you need to know about it, we probably have a resource that has it in.   I should have handed out library cards.     Less now though because I am blessing my library with boxes and boxes of books.  I am blessing the re-use-it store with boxes of everything else.  I got to thinking....liquid needs a place to flow smoothly if it is going to flow and nothing was going to flow (including us) in this house if things remained solid...in the flowing sense of the word....not the secure sense.   
So that is my profound thought for the day. 

We have to stick together since we are so far apart.   (Read the Diligence entry...then that will make sense.)

Be encouraged!

*note.....but there are some books I will not part with....like one of my most recent treasures...."The Christian Statesman, MEMOIRS of WILLIAM WILBERFORCE"....1864.