The much awaited...

That is right...I am back. Well at least for tonight. I have been scolded by a few for the lack of posts of late. I have been BUSY. Since blogging last, I made a quick trip to Dallas (Left on Friday morning, came back Monday). AND I DROVE with TWO KIDS by MYSELF. It actually went really well...the kids were angels most of the time. I had to see my brother and his family before baby Lauren graduated from high school. It might have been a little impulsive and a bit crazy but it was fun. I will attach pictures of our trip...the kids played together with each other like they see each other every day or maybe that is why they got along so well...they don't see each other everyday, who knows. Kaitlyn and Sam as the older kids worked together to tell Tyler and Josh what to do and Tyler and Josh, both determined 3 year olds...decided not to listen.

Other than that little trip...I have been busy with my liquidation business. I have finally decided to put all of my efforts into making this a part-time job. I opened a store on Ebay called "Returns Back to You". Take a peek. Right now my inventory is all that I am going in have for awhile because I want all of the auctions over by the time we leave for Africa...which by the way is the other thing I have busy with. We leave for Africa in 22 days and counting. Which brings me to my final thing...I am still going to church...I think some have thought that I quit going because of my lack of sermon note blogs. But you are in for a double treat...Here is this week's sermon notes and this one happens to go along with several other blogs this week.

Sermon: "Can you handle the stress test?"

Proverbs 4:23 Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

Guard our hearts not shelter our hearts. That is the message that comes from that verse for me. A healthy heart does not come from sitting and doing nothing. A healthy strong heart comes from being stressed and then letting it rest, then being stressed and then letting it rest. If we want a healthy heart we need to be prepared to be stressed and know that it is in God's plan that we are stressed and before long he will give us rest. It is how we handle the stress tests in life that determine if we have a healthy heart. Just as with our physical heart...the problem with a heart doesn't appear until all other tests have been run and the doctor has you jump on that treadmill and then your heart shows its weakness in that stressful time. This is much like our spiritual hearts. When we get stressed, it is then that our weaknesses show through. It is then that people see the desires of our heart. If in a stressful situation we turn from God then we weren't as in love with God as we thought. If in a stressful situation we do things that are displeasing to God then we don't rely on God as much as we might have appeared to have in our unstressed out times. Matthew 5:8 says Blessed are the PURE in heart for they will will see God. We would all love to avoid any thing that my stress our heart or challenge our shaky hearts. We don't want anyone to see our hearts under stress. God knows our heart and the intentions of our heart.
Jeremiah 29:13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. If we really give our whole heart to God then we will handle the stress tests of life with a breeze even if we don't understand why this or that stress happens to be in our lives to handle.