Wednesdays in the Word

The will of God:

"Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the willl of the Lord is." Eph. 5:17 

This verse caused me to look up all the verses that refer to the will of God and since I'm a person who love lists, here is a very simplified version of His will for our lives:

Never stop praying and to be thankful in all circumstances   1 Thess. 5:17

Be sanctified (set apart) and avoid immorality   1 Thess. 4:3

Do good  1 Pet.2:15

Know that He will equip us with everything necessary   Heb. 13:21

Persevere and receive what He has promised  Heb. 10:36  

It really is all Him! 

~Becky

Nathan's stay

I don't think my boys look that much a like but people mix up Nathan and Zac all the time when Nate is here. And they think that because he lives in CA he must be the oldest. LOL

He was able to stay here for a couple weeks after our trip and it was so fun! (expect for the part where he had oral surgery, I mean)
He needed his wisdom teeth out. Bless his heart. He'd been in pain for weeks!
For the first time ever in my life I have dental insurance! Whoo-hoo! Big fan! So, it was pretty thrilling to save over $2000 on this procedure!
He couldn't feel anything but he could HEAR it all. And he heard when the drill stopped working and he heard when the oral surgeon got mad and left the room!
(Yikes!) And then he felt them give him lots more laughing gas. It was all a bit disconcerting!
He came out telling me he was 'high as a kite.' LOL

Then I got to take care of him!!! Yay!!!
I made mashed potatoes and mashed sweet potatoes and lots of smoothies and bought blueberries and every soft flavored blueberry thing I could think of.
It was so much fun to care of my grown up kid, who has lived on his own for the last 4 years. And he was THE most grateful patient. : )
He was sure he wouldn't have survived on his own. Aww!

When he felt better he threw a little beach BBQ to watch the sunset. Then he and I had a date night to eat crab from a crab shack. (that was an adventure!) Next time I want a crab-opener-thingy! LOL

 We went to the movies and caught up on our superhero  with our dear friends a couple times.

So, including this fun and the 19 hours we were driving together on the trip chatting and listening to each of our favorite books on CD, I feel like I had a lot of quality time with my sweet boy that I hadn't seen in 8 months! Yay!
And now the countdown to Christmas begins!

A dear friend bought me this mug after he left, which I LOVE!

I'm so proud of who he is and what he does.
He leads a youth ministry, goes to school and he wants to use his future marketing degree to support himself as a missionary to Iceland someday.
(but I'm totally OK if that Iceland thing doesn't actually work out -LOL!)

~Becky

Photos of the fun

So, today was the first day of college for Andrew! Whoo-hoo!

Now, my homeschooling season really feels done! 

And here are the pictures from our celebration!
 (AKA my home school retirement party)

Road Trippin' with my girl!

Our cabin in the woods! 

This is where I get to joke that my kids are brighter than your kids! Just kidding!
The sun was setting and they look photo shopped in! LOL but they were all there! Being the shortest I ended up in someone's shadow.

They took me our to dinner to celebrate! 

We visited a National Park and these two did some Pokemon hunting

 Nathan and Andrew did the full 3 mile hike up to the waterfall because elevation is apparently not a thing when you are young and in shape! : )
 -Unlike when you are not so young and not so in shape! And you think you might pass out after walking up these steps. LOL

This is us looking down from the very top of the waterfall

And this is our top-of-the-waterfall-selfie

And here it is in all its majesty from down below

Then there was a day that we rented a pontoon boat because we got a partial refund on the cabin due to the broken hot tub. Yay!

Joy and Nate spent a whopping 10 minutes getting certified to drive boats in Georgia and did a GREAT job! This girl loved it!

I forgot to ask the question all Floridians know to ask! So, as we were driving around this gorgeous lake, I was calling the marina to find out about ALLIGATORS! LOL

And since they had never seen even one, we spent the day diving off the boat and swimming! Something we will never do in our state! : ) 

Happy New School Year, Everyone! 

~Becky

Mountain vacay

Nathan flew in on Tuesday and on Wednesday we hit the road for the nearest mountains to celebrate the end of my homeschooling journey!

I rented a car for the trip online (because my Prius has over 200,000 miles) and when I went to pick it up they said they didn't have anymore compact cars. They offered me a 2017 PRIUS (YES, PLEASE!) and started telling me all about the great gas mileage it would get! I didn't need any convincing! LOL
(the 8 1/2 hr. trip home only cost $15.50 which was one tank of gas!Glory, glory!)
How fun is that?!
And let's just say the 2017 is way more fun to drive than the 2005! : )

It took us 11 hours to arrive at our destination and since I had never driven more than 3 hours at a time, I was toast somewhere around hour 9. Nathan would have loved to have driven! -And all his LA traffic skills would have come in handy in Atlanta but I had to do it all since my kids aren't old enough to drive a rental!

The mountains weren't like any we've seen in CA or CO. They were so green and lush! Just beautiful. And our cabin was at the top of one.
I was a little worried that a cabin I found on the Internet wouldn't be like the photos! LOL
But it was better! We loved it!

On the first night, the kids took me out to dinner for my 'retirement' dinner! : )
And then having a blog for all these years, really came in handy! I found out that I had almost 100 posts about our homeschooling adventures on here, so I printed out some of my favorites and read them aloud and we reminisced and laughed like crazy! So fun!
Then I was surprised by Joy and my sweet daughter-in-law, who strung lights and hung lots and lots of photos of those precious 19 years of homeschooling all across my cabin bedroom! So sweet!

As we celebrated together, it hit me that THIS was what my hubby and I had worked so hard for all of these years. To have this family full of young adults who love the Lord, and who deeply love and respect me and each other, who don't fight or bicker anymore  LOL
and who did actually grow up to be one another's best friends!!!
Yay!
 It worked! LOL!
Whoo-hoo!
 God is good!
Can I encourage you to trust the plan and direction that God gives you for YOUR family. Don't worry if it doesn't look like other people's families. Follow His plan. He is faithful!

~Becky

Never in the zone

My new motto is "Why have a comfort zone when God never lets me stay in it." : )
I feel like I'm in one big, long season of being stretched.

Now, I just say 'yes' to whatever God brings my way because I know if I don't now, it will keep coming up and I will have to eventually.

The other day I heard this verse in our Pastor's sermon and it struck me.
"If you are willing and obedient you will eat the fruit of the land." Is. 1:19
That's a combo that I'm working on. (especially the willing part)

Here's a funny thing that happened the other day when I said one of those umcomfortable "yes's."
I was asked to be in some photos to show the t-shirts that were for sale at a woman's conference we had.  I was given a tank top and asked the photographer if he could edit the photo to make me look tan and he said that wasn't his job! LOL

The shirts were really cute. One girl had on one that said the name of our women's ministry and another lady had on one that said 'girl power.'
I hadn't read mine.
After the photos were taken, we had the choice to buy the shirt we wore or give it back.
When I took it off, I saw that it said "Love Again."
Oh my stars!
An awesome slogan, but not so awesome for a widow to go around wearing! LOL
So, yeah.
I didn't buy that one. Hahaha!

~Becky

Wednesdays in the Word

I was recently struck with how much humility means to God.
I was reading about King Ahab and his wife Jezebel. The Bible says "there was no one like Ahab, who sold himself to do wickedness because his wife incited him." And "He behaved very abominably."
When God's plans of judgment for his actions were told to Ahab, he actually tore his clothes, put on sack cloth, and mourned.
And God changed His plans! He actually does that a lot in the Bible.
Doesn't His mercy just blow your mind?
God said:
"Because he has humbled himself before Me, I will not bring the calamity in his days."

Here are some verses about humility:

"Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time." 1 Pet. 5:6-8

"God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble."  James 4:6

"Whoever humbles himself will be exalted." Matt. 23:12

"Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will exalt you." James 4:10

"What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"  Micah 6:8

"Clothe yourselves all of you, with humility toward one another, for 'God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." 1 Pet. 5:5

"Humility comes before honor."  Prov. 18:12

"The Lord lifts up the humble,"  Ps. 147:6

There's a list of things that God hates in Proverbs 6. And I think it is interesting that the first thing on the list is "A proud look." Ouch!

In Daniel 4, we read about Nebuchadnezzar and how God chose to humble him until he learned "that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men and gives it to whomever He chooses." 
(there's a great verse for every election year!)
(Forgive me for not typing at Neb's whole name from here on out)
I wonder if prideful people look like brute beasts before God.
Maybe that is why He made Neb become a literal beast! (check it out!) He was one until he came "to know that Heaven rules." (Good thing God does not choose to do this today or life on earth would be like living on Planet of the Apes) ; )

Neb learned that God "does according to His will in the army of heaven AND among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain His hand." 

And then he said "Now I, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, all of whose works are truth, and his ways justice. And those who walk in pride, He is able to put down."  

"The reward for humility and fear of the Lord is riches and honor and life."  Prov. 22:4 -Awesome!

~Becky

Celebrating and retiring

Our family is taking a little vacation in August. It is my home school retirement party. : )
The completion of 19 years and four kids' educations.
Such fun years!
Now they are all in college. Yay!

It took me forever to decide how and where I wanted to have this little celebration.
Life took such a crazy turn that I can't do what we'd planned, which was a cruise with my wonderful hubby, who made homeschooling possible in the first place!

Nathan is flying in and then we are road tripping to a cabin in the mountains near a lake for a few days!
And there will be a corny slide show with lots of pictures (not made by our resident professional -LOL) and lots of memories will be laughed over. We got started early and laughed together about these the other night while face-timing him.


Excited to celebrate this milestone and rejoice in what was God's plan for this family.

~Becky