#shelteredingrace

Tag

a mom looking back

  • March 13, 2021
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For Christmas our younger son and family gave their grandparents the gift of “StoryWorth”. Each week a question comes by email and they reply to the question. At the end of the year a book will be published with all these memories. My (Lee Ann) mom has had such great fun wandering down memory lane and retelling her stories. She was telling me about this weeks question and I felt it was worth sharing with each of you. Simple advice...

Restore the Garden

  • February 20, 2021
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One of the things I hear from so many people is what is my purpose? Why did God put me here? I think we can find the answer when we look back at the story of creation. God created us in His image, to connect to each other and to him, and to care for his creation. We are all creators. And rightfully so because we are made in the image of our Creator. We are made in the image...

Love Like Jesus

Over the course of the pandemic, we watched and worshiped with several congregations over the United States.  On one particular Lord’s day, we worshiped with Kingwood here in town and Green Lawn in Lubbock, TX. Both Brother Jeff Brown and Brother Dale Mannon had the same message: LOVE LIKE JESUS.   That afternoon, Jody decided it was time to install a basketball goal in the barn.  The directions said it took four capable adults to lift it and secure it into...

For all the Sons

A couple of months ago, I wrote a blog to the daughters. It was widely shared and I have wanted to write one to all the sons in my life. The grandboys weren’t too keen on getting together for a ‘boy” picture, but when we dressed in Star Wars pajamas, WIN! To Ezra, Parker, Tucker and Jameson; to my one-and-only son Jarod, to my beloved sons-in-love Curtis and Clay, and all the amazing sons in my life that I have...

When you just aren’t the person for the job

  • January 9, 2021
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It’s a brand-new fresh year. A new beginning! And when have we all felt weneeded hope, dreams, and plans more than now? We’ve all learned to cope with plans falling through, events being canceled, loneliness, and unspeakable loss this year. At the turn of a fresh slate, we crave to hope against hope and step into this new year undaunted at what should come our way. Because the struggle has brought with it resilience. So we’ve sat down, poured our...

The Vine Project

I called it “The Vine Project.” It sounds like a cool, new program at church or a new group on Christian radio, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, it was just me, traipsing through our woods in rubber rain boots with a pair of borrowed gardening shears, trying to free my trees from thorny vines that had grown around them. After six years of unintentional neglect, these vines weren’t going down without a fight. It started when my neighbor knocked on my door...

Be the light! What would your review say about you?

  • October 20, 2020
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Your life is not an ordinary life.  You may think it is, but it is not.  You have been called to be different.  You have been called to be transformed.  You have been called to be the light. Matthew 5:14-16 says:  You are the light of the world.  A city is set on the hill cannot be hidden.  Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all...

The Speaker of the House and our President

  • October 13, 2020
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Some time ago our President gave a speech. A man and a woman were sitting behind him. It was painful to watch. The man sat there stoically and never flinched. The woman was a bit more uncomfortable. It was obvious, she DID…NOT…WANT to be there. She fidgeted, looked away, looked up and looked down. Sitting there watching it unfold I had a thought. “How awful it must be to be her.” If she acts respectful – 1/2 the country will...

Zeal–Lessons from a Campfire

We bought a camper.   I had never “been camping,” so the thought of supplies we would need and the ins and outs were a little cumbersome.   Turns out, you can still have fun if you forget the ketchup.   You can “bake” biscuits on the stovetop if you can’t figure out how to get the oven to work.   You can buy mattress pads to help alleviate the hardness so your bones don’t crack when the sun rises.   But, if you can’t...

Closing Chapters…

  • August 4, 2020
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Have you ever needed to close chapters in your life?  Sometimes it’s simple.  It was a great chapter but it’s time to move on.  Another may have been painful but you learned a lot and the time was right to turn the page.  Then you have those chapters you go back and re-read because there was/is so much there.  You analyze every sentence to learn as much as you can before closing. Some chapters closed because you had no control...