Meditation Alphabet

Bonnie and I are going through a book titled "Becoming a Woman Who Pleases God." I don't really agree with what the title implies, but that's a whole other topic for another time.

In the book, there's a section titled the "Meditation Alphabet" which takes each letter of the alphabet and lists a characteristic women should develop to make their home a welcoming environment. Each characteristic is followed by a brief description and a verse for meditation. As part of our homework assignment for this week, we are each selecting a letter to focus on during the day - the letter is to be chosen in the morning and the verse reviewed and we are focus on developing that characteristic during the day. We are then to BLog about the results of that focus at the end of each day.

Since we received this assignment on Wednesday, I'm a bit behind in my BLogging - so, here's a bit of "catch up" :-)

Wednesday:
The lettter for today was "A" for "Attitude". "Attitude sets the tone of your home environment. Keep yours positive - focus on Phil 4:8-9". Since I live alone, I applied this to my work environment for the day. I found I got a lot more accomplished and the attitudes of those around me were more positive. This was not a difficult one for me as work is generally a positive environment anyway, but meditating on the verse - taking every thought captive to the things that are true, honorable, right, lovely, pure, of good repute, things that are excellent and worthy of praise - this did require some effort. It was a good excercise :-)

Thursday:
The letter for today was "Q" - Bonnie picked it for me when I emailed her to ask that she pick a letter for me since I'd rushed out of the house without looking at the book and forgot to bring the book with me. . . . So it was suitable that she selected "Q" - "Quiet Time . . . a daily time of fellowship with your Lord. Psalm 119 teaches what God's Word will do for you." On this one I failed pretty badly. I let the busy-ness of life get in the way of spending time with my Lord and in His Word. I did better the next day.

Friday:
The letter for today was "D" for "Diligent." "Apply enthusiasm to your role as a Home Manager. Allow Proverbs 4:23 to guide you." Again, I applied this primarily to my work environment. It was easy to apply as we had a sales meeting followed by a potluck and it was my job to ensure the potluck got set up and ready to go. The previous day I had set up the decorations and, by applying diligence, the potluck went smoothly. A special blessing was in being able to cover the phones so the receptionist could actually participate - something she never gets to do during potlucks. I'm hoping this will help open the door to sharing Christ with her in more detail in the future.

Saturday:
The letter for today was "P" for "Plan Ahead." "It saves time, money, and energy. Focus on Proverbs 29:18." This was a good day for this letter - I really *needed* to implement it. Since I leave next weekend for vacation, I had much to plan ahead for and accomplish. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being total failure and 10 being exemplary success, I'd say I rated about a 6. Some of the challenges I faced were unexpected and far too time-consuming. Some of the wasted time was my own poor decision making, however, so I can't blame it all on "circumstances" :-P

Sunday:
Today's letter was "F" for "Festive Occasions." "Build an album of precious memories in your home by establishing traditions! Implement the practice of 'memorial stones' (Joshua 4:4-7)."
It's not gonna happen today. When I selected this verse this morning, my intention was to get out my scrapbooks and start placing all the things I have just thrown in there. It's not a total failure though. Just BLogging is a great way to set up a memorial stone. Someday I can look back at these words and be encouraged how God was working in my life. So, I'm not totally discouraged about it :-)

More tomorrow :-)

How long has it been?

Once again, I turn around and it's been more than a month since my last post. Where does the time go?? Life has been busy but, as I told a friend recently, that's no excuse - we all have the same number of hours - the challenge is in what we choose to do with those hours.

I wish I could say I'd simply been putting those hours I could have spent blogging to a more productive use and there are times in the last several weeks when that would be very true - but there are also times (too many of them) when the almighty "boob tube" has been given the preference - and that is not a good thing.

So - what's God been doing in my life recently? A great deal - mostly just one blessing after another. He continually provides for my needs - even when I don't make the wisest choices with the resources He has already provided - His patience does not cease to amaze me.

The most major things that have happened in the last few weeks include the Christmas "Fiesta" party for my Fellowship Group from church, my brother's new ministry position, and the continuing drama in my sister's family. First, the Fiesta :-)

The party was tons of fun. I had the honor of helping out in little bits of the set up and clean up - it's such a joy to work with so many servant-hearted people! I also had the responsibility to create and run the game for the evening. Last year I had this responsibility for the first time and we did a carol contest that went over very well - so the pressure was on to equal, if not surpass, the "fun" level. I'm telling you - involving 200+ people in one organized game is not an easy task! We ended up with Jeopardy. I owe that idea entirely to the Holy Spirit and I'm grateful for it.

I used a PowerPoint presentation to duplicate the jeopardy board and I pulled Christmas-related trivia off the internet to formulate the questions. We divided the room into three sections and each section had 2 minutes to select a representative to play for them. Since we didn't have buzzers, we simply had each player take a turn and if they got the question right, they got the points, if they didn't, they didn't get the points (no deductions as I wanted the game to stay positive). During each players turn, once the question was asked, they got 15 seconds to listen to their section shouting out answers before they had to provide an answer - this kept everyone in the room involved, not just spectating :-)

It went over very well. It wasn't perfect - I had to make some judgement calls about the validity of responses and not everybody agreed with my decision - but in the end, all had fun and I ended up with the nickname "Alex" for the next couple of Sundays :-)

My brother is now the senior pastor of Worship Ministries. We are all very excited that he gets to follow his heart in music ministry and that the Lord has provided this position for him and his family. The church offers much more than their previous ministry (which was focused primarily on youth - something Dan *could* do, but was not his primary calling) - including a strong nursery program that will allow his wife to attend church services more regularly.

The church has three morning worship services and Dan will lead music for the first two (traditional and blended). The contemporary service will be led by one of the associate pastors of worship. I'm looking forward to visiting them during the Christmas/New Years holiday.

Originally, I planned to spend part of the holiday with my brother and part with my sister - but things came up that made it a better decision just to stay with my brother this time. My sister and I will take some time alone together sometime next year - she and I need some "just us" time to delve into some spiritual matters. I won't go into the detail of the drama their family is dealing with here - far too public - it would be indiscreet - but I will ask for prayer from any of my friends reading this as the situation *may* significantly impact my life. If so, I will need all the support I can get to manage the situation in wisdom.

So, that's about it for life. I have another post to do on a different topic so I'll close this one off for now. I should be more regular from this point forward :-)