Marco........POLO:

aka: Where have I gone??

I am SO SORRY, I have NOT blogged since 2010!! I know I'm a busy mommy who has to prioritize.  I hope to try to blog at LEAST once a month!! LOL....we'll see how it works out.  It's all about time management....

So, we had a GREAT Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I'll blog specifically on Christmas as soon as I can and HOPEFULLY BEFORE March, but no promises...Our theme was 'family time' so we got lots of gifts that would bring us together as a family.

This is went out with our Christmas card.

Now, onto other things.  God is doing some work on our little family. Please be in prayer for Gabe as seeks God's heart about some things that are precious to him.

God's been working on my heart to.  It took me (I'm ashamed to say) 8 months to finish Beth Moore's study on Esther and I LOVED IT!!  I've now moved onto her study about the tabernacle called "A Woman's Heart: God's dwelling place."  So far, I LOVE it too.  My goal is to finish by June...It's another 10 week study, and I hope to be finished way sooner, but June 1st is a good goal for me.  (insert snicker).  I'm also reading the Bible Chronologically...it's making so much more sense to me doing it this way.  God is speaking to me and I'm reading it more like a 'book' than 'the Bible'.  I'm ahead of my daily readings because, I want to know what happens next.  

Here's what I thought about Job when I finished reading that book (this is straight from my journal):

• Job was rich and LOVED God. 
• Satan had to ASK permission to test Job, God said 'yes', BUT put limitations on him.
• Job - like all of us didn't understand why his life had changed from GREAT to HORRIBLE.
• Others did not understand either, instead of his 3 friends praying WITH him and FOR him - they CONDEMNED him.
• Job then in turn had to DEFEND himself from his friends, but did not do this graciously.
• A younger man literally put ALL 4 men (Job and his friends) in their places by speaking wisdom to them about who God is since they had obviously forgotten.
• God then spoke to Job and REMINDED him that HE is GOD, NOT JOB and HE(GOD) is IN CHARGE OF EVERYTHING.
• Job confessed to God his sins and his wrong thinking - which were his sins - he had been questioning God.
• God then blessed Job with MORE than what he had BEFORE Satan went after him.

You see, I often FORGET that GOD IS IN CHARGE OF EVERYTHING.  God knew this about me so, he truly spoke to me while I read this book.  We need to be careful about how we 'address' our friends who are suffering.  We need to be careful about being judgemental, even if that is not our intentions...that is a problem that I deal with.  We need to speak truth to those around us, but we need to do so in a loving and kind manner.  Even MORE important, we need to be praying for those who are currently struggling before we do anything else or even more than anything else.  God is continuing to remind me of this with people he is putting in our lives.  

I feel like I may be forgetting this or God is truly speaking to them because sometimes I feel like I'm being pushed away...even as I try to speak truth in a loving and gentle way. I'm not sure....I do know that when things get really tough, these precious ones tend to push me away, so I also find myself BEGGING God to save them and am I doing everything I can to show them God's love.  It's tough, but I know that God is preparing me and them for 'such a time as this' to quote Mordecai from Esther.

I am currently in Genesis reading about Jacob (who is now Isreal) and all that he is going through.  I am VERY confused as to why it was okay for him to have 4 wives and what on earth were Leah and Rachel thinking giving him their maids to bear him children as well?  If I've learned anything up until Gen 31, it is:

1. Men should NOT be married to sisters - it causes too much drama and competition.
2. I am SO GLAD that this is NOT the way we live today...yikes.

I look forward to learning more as I read through the Bible. And just so you know, my resolution this year is to go wide AND deep.  So, I'm reading the BIBLE chronologically to go wide, but doing the Beth Moore study to go deep, and I can't think of a better study than the one on the tabernacle to go DEEP with.   Along with both of these I'm working on memorizing at least 12 verses this year as well.

I'll try to blog on Christmas and my thoughts about the Esther study as soon as I can, but for now, know we are all doing well and I can't wait to see what God has in store for us in 2011.