Works of God Monday

It’s been a while since I’ve done a Works of God post, but I’m glad to finally take the time to do so today! It is so awesome to see God at work in our lives and in the lives of others. Yesterday was the beginning of evangelistic/revival meetings with the Pettit team at our church. What a blessing! Steve Pettit’s messages were very challenging and encouraging, as always. Hearing him makes me feel like I’m back in college. :) And the team’s music was amazing, too. I really don’t know who all reads my blog (other than friends and family), but if any of you readers happen to live in the Concord NH area and have a free night on Weds. or Fri., you would be very welcome to come over to the services at Trinity Baptist Church! Weds. is Family Night and Friday is an Irish sacred concert. Both services start at 7 pm, and you can get info and directions to the church here. I don’t know if we will make it to both Weds. and Fri. nights or not, but we’re hoping to make it to at least one of them!

Another thing that is awesome is to see God at work in our children’s lives. A few months ago, I had blogged about Sam’s profession of faith. Ever since then, when we would talk to him about salvation, he didn’t really seem like he remembered or was sure he was going to Heaven, so we weren’t sure if he had really understood or not. We kept praying for him and bringing it up now and then, trusting God to work. One Sunday a few weeks back, I heard him “witnessing” to Julia. I asked him again if he was going to Heaven and he replied that he didn’t know. He seemed to be kind of hung up on “not knowing the right words to say,” so we sat down and went over the plan of salvation again, and I explained that he didn’t have to say some exact words, just pray what was on his heart and trust Jesus. This time he wanted me to come in his room with him as he prayed. I sat and listened as he prayed such a sweet little prayer, and I think he really “got it” this time. Of course time will tell . . . but we pray for fruit that remains!

Finally, I’d just like to praise God for all the work He’s allowed us to get done on the house over the past few months. Even though Jim has been working fairly steadily, he’s still had some free time to accomplish some big projects, and it’s been a real encouragement to see things moving along!

So those are just a few things I’m praising God for this week. How about you? Head over to Jenny’s blog to join in with Works of God Monday!!

A Full Heart

This post was supposed to be for Works of God Monday, but I guess Tuesday will have to do. :) My heart is full right now, with all the blessings that God has given us over the past days and weeks. I will readily admit that a few weeks back, I was going through a time of great discouragement. Mainly this discouragement had to do with Jim's lack of work. In our house, I'm the one who takes care of the bills and paperwork, and I was starting to panic a bit, as I saw our savings dwindling away. Every day, we prayed for work, and checked the job ads . . . asking God to show us if he wanted Jim in a different line of work, or to stop being self employed. This is a difficult time to be self employed in construction, and there are a lot of men at our church in the same situation as Jim. Anyway, we got a call one day out of the blue that someone wanted an estimate on a garage. Long story short, Jim estimated it last week and heard back on Friday that he got the job!!! What a blessing. He's also had some other small jobs come along right now, and even sold 2 more bread slicers! God is so good. I don't know why my faith is so small--in almost 10 years of marriage and self employment, we have seen Him provide again and again. We have never gone hungry. We have never been homeless. Yes, we've been late on bills occasionally, but He's always provided for us to pay them off quickly. He has blessed even though we are far from deserving, even though we are not nearly as good stewards of His money as we should be. So that is one reason my heart is full of thanksgiving to our great God today!

Here are a few other reasons:
* Our freezers are full of meat, enough to last us a few months! We were able to take advantage of a sale on ground beef, buying 20 lbs, which cost us about $40. That very day, our Rite Aid rebate check from last month arrived--which totalled just over $40. How cool is that! (As a side note--I spent about $30 after coupons at Rite Aid last month, and got a $40 check back. I don't think I've ever done quite that well with the rebates before, so that was super exciting for me!) We were also given a bunch of venison from some friends . . . and are well stocked with chicken breast, too.
* Julia is completely potty-trained now; she's even been dry at night for the past 2 weeks. It is SO nice to only have one child in diapers now. I am not patting myself on the back for her training--it just really clicked with her, and we're done after about 6 mos. of working on it. It took a bit longer than that with Sam!
* I am finally down to my pre-Josiah weight!!! I still have a bit that I want to lose, to get back to my pre-any-kids weight, but I am determined to get there. My sis-in-law and I have been checking in with each other on our weight loss journeys, which has been fun--always nice to have a buddy to help keep me accountable! :)
* I am so blessed to have many sweet Christian friends and family members who are young moms like me. I was able to spend time with some of these friends today, and it was such a treat to spend time encouraging and sharing with each other.

Well, I am sure there is much more I could jabber on about, but I'll leave it at that for now so I can get to bed at a reasonable hour. :) To hear more works of God testimonies, head over to Jenny's blog!

Works of God Monday

I have a couple things that I wanted to share for today's Works of God testimony! First (and this is one that I meant to share earlier, but time got away from me!), we are praising God that Sam trusted Jesus as his Savior two weeks ago!! He had been asking us questions about salvation for a couple of months, and on May 18th he started talking to Jim about it again, quite seriously. After talking for a while, Sam said he wanted to pray, but that he wanted to go in his room and do it "with nobody watching me." :) So he ran in his room, and we could hear him climbing up on his bed. After a minute or so he came back out, and Jim asked him what he prayed. He replied, "I said, 'Dear Jesus, I know I am a sinner. Please forgive me for my sins.' " We were so thrilled! We believe he understood what he was doing, with the simple faith of a child, and now we have the exciting work of discipleship ahead of us. :) We pray that we will see fruit in his life as he grows!

Another exciting thing (though not nearly so exciting as the first!) was that Jim sold his first bread slicer in his Etsy shop, nearly 3 weeks ago. That was really neat, but we were a little concerned that he hadn't received any feedback yet from the customer. (Although I know, as a customer, that it's easy to forget to leave feedback!) Anyway, I just checked again today and he had a very nice, positive comment from the customer, so that totally made my day. :) Hopefully some of the others will start selling before long! We are thankful that God knows just what we need, and that He sent us this bit of encouragement, out of the blue!

So, those are some things I'm praising God for today. To hear how God has been working in others' lives, head over to Jenny's blog!