I Can Not

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I woke to my brain rattling in my head...yes that is what is does when it has been in overdrive for weeks.  My husband tells me to turn it off, but when we are in a challenging situation, it runs on overtime.

I was trying to slow it down...to release all the dollar figures floating through my brain.  Trying to trust and not fear about what tomorrow would hold.  Trying to see how far I can stretch the remaining dollars before I was going to need a Moses experience of water from a rock and quail from heaven, when I got still enough to read my devotional.

My nature is to be calm in things I know I can't control...accidents, health, the choices my children make, the choices others make, but when I feel it is something that I should have control over....like finances,  then my trust seems to slip into my logical world.  The truth is I have no more control over this journey than I do any of the others.  God gentle reminded me of my position in Him....I felt the held in breath release with these word.

I cannot save and sanctify myself;

I cannot make atonement for sin;

I cannot redeem the world;

I cannot right what is impure;

or make holy what is unholy.

This is all the sovereign work of God. He made the perfect atonement for sin.

Oswald Chambers - Utmost for His Highest

Devotional two reminded me also.

Why do so many people think God is punishing them?  Who gets blamed when things go wrong?

God always wants what is best for us.  God says let go of sin and evil because of what sin does to us- not because of what He will do to us.

The Ultimate Self-Help Book Proverbs - 

We all live in a fallen world and struggles fall on the righteous and unrighteous. As our pastor has shared so many times through his cancer...He can, He will and Even if He doesn't I will still praise Him.  Our pastor had walked a life that should have prevented cancer...organic food, exercise, the specimen of health, and yet he had brain cancer.  

The economy is the same way for so many people today.  No matter how you prepared you couldn't have planned for all this fallen world would throw at you.  Another lesson in releasing control to Him and His economy were brought through time spent with him.

Phil 4:19 May God supply all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus.

Breathing easier, as I allow the word to soak away my logic....my anxiousness...and replace it with the truth, we enter another week of looking forward to the promise land and not looking back to Egypt.  

Change of Season Came in a Roar

Well if there was any doubt in North Texas that fall/winter has arrived, well this weekend announced her entrance with recorded breaking low temperatures.  This Native Texan family was caught off guard.  Camping boy was hanging in his hammock out in the woods Sunday night when the frost of change of season caught him at 34 degrees.  He entered the door trying to get warm and fussing about how his comforter didn't keep him warm enough.

Each year I love the first cold front.  I become all hyper with ideas of  what I am going to do with this change of season. Let's see....snuggle up with a blanket to read a good book

             ....head to the sewing room to sew

            ....grab some hand work that I have stored during the hot months

           ...curl up with a good movie

Too many choices.

I just enjoyed the cold weekend wearing double-layers of socks.  I spent time starting an upholstery job...a much loved chair needs a face lift.  I grabbed out my winter bedding and put away the light comforter.  I put on my to-do list that it is time to attack the ugly walls in my bedroom.   We all gathered around the television to watch our favorite University team NOT pull off a win, while enjoying a winter meal.

We had to have our favorite warm meal.

Cheese Soup
French Bread
Smoke Cheese  Chucks with Apple Slices

Now I need to go grab my basil and harvest before another cold front nips at her leaves.

What do you enjoy doing when the first cold front comes to visit?

The Dress

In less than five months my "only" daughter will become a bride.  I will wear the title of "mother-of-the-bride" only once.  She has made me so proud to be the "mother-of-the-bride".  As we venture forth in this once- in-a-life-time journey we continue to be humbled by God's faithfulness and provision.  The testimonies can already fill a book.

She played the role years ago in my own wedding dress.  She isn't your lace and ribbons girl...she was comfortable in softball and basketball uniforms.                                                                                       Our Ellie May Clampitt will marry her John Wayne/Rambo. 

Yet when it came time to shop for her wedding gown, my tomboy daughter, because a lace wearing bride-to-be.  Benjamin watched as his "sissy" tried on dress and veils.  May I say he wasn't silent on what he liked.  He even adjusted her veil and commented on how it needs to be and which one he liked.  He and I both gasp as she stepped out in the dress that would be the winner.

In just a few months she enters into the most important covenant of her life.  She will also move away from her family to begin a life in a small city.  Life will take the biggest change in her lifetime....and for that matter, in mine.

This is my wedding gown and hat! 

The Dress will be embellished with lace from her grandmother's wedding dress and mine.  She will be given away by her dad, me and her brothers...which is her request.

I smiled at the future for my daughter....all the hopes and dreams...all fulfilled in Christ.  Benjamin and I took pictures as she tried on dresses, which can't be seen yet, but I know our pictures will not hold a candle to the day she becomes a wife.

Revelation 19-7-9

⁷ Let us rejoice and be glad
    and give him glory!
For the wedding of the Lamb has come,
    and his bride has made herself ready.
⁸ Fine linen, bright and clean,
    was given her to wear.”

(Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God’s holy people.)

⁹ Then the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” And he added, “These are the true words of God.”

The ultimate wedding is still to come, may we each make ourselves ready.

(www.simplyyourdecor.blogspot.com is up and running....come drop by for a visit)