Sharing Our Gifts

Many times when one would read a title such as that, one would think of getting a gift of money or a present.  I am talking about sharing ourselves, our talents and our time.  Some of those things require a bit of our money, but usually not giving directly to any one person a monetary amount.

Throughout the time I have spent as a parent, I've tried instilling in my kids that we need to give of ourselves, even in the smallest of ways, to help in any way we can. Many times in the beginning, I've just taken my kids with me in whichever service project we were doing and expected them to help, or I gave them things to do like wiping tables, serving drinks or something like that.  As they grew in their own walk and personal likes and dislikes, they've shown that they love helping, but in their own ways.

It has been a humbling experience for me to lend my voice to the Sherwood Baptist Choir.  I am truly stretched and challenged with my own musical abilities, along with my deafness that brings additional challenges all it's own to just about everything I do.  I have always been a soprano, but due to a 3 month long bout of a variety of colds and flu a few years ago, I went from a soprano to an alto.  This is a challenge when I've learned a vast majority of songs in soprano, so much of my work has been to relearn all these songs.  It helps to stand next to some strong alto voices in choir so I don't start singing the soprano part.  The video below has been written by our Music Minister and Choir/Orchestra director Mark Willard.  He is the main vocalist with some very talented folks accompanying and singing with him.  This song is called "Hope is Rising."  From my understanding, we will be having a *Live* worship on October 9th featuring this song as well as many other favorite classic hymns.  This has been hard work for me in this time also since I've had bronchitis since 2 weeks after my knee surgery in July.  I'm excited to be a part of this, to just simply lend my voice to the choir in praise to God.  What a blessing!

This is another video to show the choir, orchestra, and a very talented and beautiful lady who is singing "I Am."




I count it a privilege to lend my voice in a very small way to the choir wherever I am planted.  Praise God!


This is what I've learned:

*When you model serving and encourage them to help and find some place to share their gifts and abilities, be prepared for when they do something unexpected.

Each of my kids have a wonderful singing voice.  As a part of their music training, they've been in the choir with me until our move to Georgia.  I've given them a choice of whether or not to join the choir and express themselves that way, but they've gone other directions.  My daughter loves working with the kids and that's the direction she's going.  My youngest son is working in security and he's enjoying that.  My oldest son is looking in to the golf cart ministry and I'm sure he'll find a niche there.

*Be prepared for them to tell you, "Mom, I'm not interested in that any more.  That's your interest."

Yup!  I heard it and it crushed my heart because they've all got beautiful voices.

*Be prepared to watch them shine in their chosen place of serving.

The happiness is unlike any other.  They're beginning to learn what it means to serve in an area where God may be leading them.


Other areas of service are available if we just keep our eyes out and ask God to show them to us.  What do I mean?  I've been told I have gifts in the kitchen.  For me, though, I just love to bake and bless people with yummy things from my kitchen.  Couple that with including children to help chop things, cleaning up, and serving those things and you have a family that serves.  This is a love of my own and I'm encouraging my kids to help me, even as they get older.  They each may have had their own special part of what is presented, but they know it is something they've helped to produce.

What are we producing this week?

All kinds of pumpkin bread done in Pampered Chef bread tubes to serve when company comes.  I have a lot of pumpkin to use.  :)

I'm gradually gathering zucchini to shred and freeze for future things like cakes, breads, and things like that.

What are we going to do in the future?  We're going to keep our eyes out for ways we can serve others with our gifts.

Remember, no gift is too menial or minor when it is done in the service of your God!

God Bless,

Fixing Major Problems

As many of you know, we've had some big dirt mounds in our front yard.  This is to hopefully document the journey that still is not over yet. 
To begin our journey I'd have to back up, so this will only be about the outside of the house in this post.  The rest of the journey is yet to be written. 

As you will notice, above is what resembles where we use to have our square foot gardens.  Earlier this Spring, we took them out to relocate them and plant something else here.  Little did we realize at that time that we would be using this space for transplanting my flowers in to from the front of the house.

This is only a few of the perennials that have been transplanted. 

This is why we needed to transplant all of the perennials.  This wonderful gentleman from our church came to help us dig out our foundation so we could install french drains.  This was just the beginning.    
 He was able to dig all the way down to 9 feet below the ground level, thankfully. 

Here he is precariously balanced on our hill. 
For all this, we've had quite an experience.  After the gentleman left, my daughter was sitting on the porch tying bundles of chives for drying when her yarn rolled off in to the 9' hole pictured above.  The boys got the ladder out, got the yarn out and left the ladder in the hole at my direction.  I figured that since my husband was going to be working in the hole the next day that leaving it there wouldn't be a problem.  Just after dusk, my youngest son said, "Mom, what was that sound?"  I said, "No, let's go check it out."  We went out to the front porch to this...
 ...a half burried ladder with 4 feet of clay filling up the originally dug 9 foot hole.  (This is standing on the porch looking down in to the hole.)

The next day, my dearest husband and youngest son were perched on the porch in this fashion checking things out and figuring things in their minds.
 In this picture you can see exactly how much of the wall of dirt came down.  The hole is a little more than 4 feet deep in this picture.  The black stuff is tar.  This is the first coat. 
Hubby painting the tar on the foundation...


 After all of the tar is painted on, the plastic goes up, then the pipe and gravel.

 Of course the bucket brigade helped to save my hubby's back.  Each of them were incredibly helpful in the whole process.
  Here is the french drains completed and ready to be filled in.
 ...by our ever helpful friend who came to till with this same tractor this past Spring.  He was such a wonderful help and I am ever so greatful to him for his friendship and help to make sure my hubby's back doesn't get hurt further.  What a blessing!

 Yippee!  It's getting fuller and fuller!

 Almost done!
 Of course the screen decided to rip out of the screen door and look at who wants to see everything that is going on!  LOL  Silly Biscuit!
 And who can miss...the filled in hole!  From the side...
We are ready to begin work on the inside of the house now.  Tomorrow my hubby will begin the computations for getting everything from mold resistent drywall to the framing wood.  I'll get more pictures as we progress with the project.  For now though, the soil needs to settle in the front yard before we do anything more.
Blessings,