Were It Not For Grace

In 1992, when I was 19, I got the incredible experience to travel to Barcelona, Spain with a mission team. I thought that I would be used by God in a mighty way while I was there...afterall, isn't that why He called me to this mission trip? Boy, was I young and arrogant! To my disappointment, after spending five weeks in the streets filled with Olympic athletes and tourists, I only got to share my salvation with a few people that would listen. One woman prayed to receive the Lord as her Savior. I was really disappointed with this outcome. I didn't understand why the Lord would send me across the world to share His Word and only have one person be saved.

Our mission team had some guest evangelists that came and spoke to our team a few times during those five weeks. One man, I don't even remember his name, spoke on the subject of grace. I had been a Christian for several years already at this time, but really lacked knowledge in this area. Honestly, there were some things that he spoke about that confused me. I knew that I couldn't just pick up the phone and call my dad, my pastor or my friends and ask questions. Of course, this was at a time when cell phones weren't carried by just everyone! For the first time in my life I had to depend on just God. It was one of most incredible journey's that the Lord has ever taken me on! I realized many years later that this was the very reason that I went to Barcelona. God had to take me out of my comfort zone in order for me to truly learn how to lean on Him and Him alone.

That 5 weeks in Barcelona has been a time that I have reflected on many times during my life. I can't believe that it was 18 years ago! My understanding of grace as I know it today started during the summer of 1992 and continues to overwhelm me today! I don't understand why my God chose to grace me with His love, His salvation, His mercy...but He did...and I'm so grateful for it.

If you'd like to understand more on this topic I would encourage you to open your Bible to the book of Romans and start reading. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you learn.

I would also suggest that you take a few key words in the Bible and compare them and their meaning with other passages that use the same words. For example, you could look up the words: Grace, Love, God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Word, Truth, Life... find every verse that those words are in. Find out how that particular word is defined each time it's used. Make sure to know the context that the word is used in too. This is a very eye-opening exercise to do and I'm sure that anyone that does this won't regret it!

The Bible (God's Holy Word) tell us in Ephesians 2:8 "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;..." Wow! This means that there is nothing we can do to earn God's grace, we can can't work for it, we can never be "good enough"...we only get it because He gifts us with it. For this reason we have grateful hearts...for this reason we want to do good works.

This is and has been one of my very favorite songs for several years. It's a wonderful reminder to me that I would be nothing without Him...Were it Not for Grace...

Dillon's 4/28/10

Had a good trip to Dillon's today. I spent $46.87 and saved $95.61. That was a 67% savings plus I got a coupon good for $4.00 off my next visit. There's a total of 71 items that I bought making an average spent of .66 cents per item!

I'm not going to post everything I bought. You can click on the photo to zoom in and see it all better. My little helper had to be in the photo too!

Captivate Us

Communion

I had one of those "out of the box" moments a couple Sundays ago that I want to share. For those of you that aren't aware, my Pastor is battling a terminal lung disease. He needs a lung transplant sometime this spring or early summer in order to live. It's been a very bitter-sweet time for our church family, but I believe that we're growing because of it.

We had communion a couple weeks ago. My youngest son, Jacob, decided to take part in this service. Since he's fairly new to taking part in communion he had tons of questions as the deacons and elders were passing out the little crackers and the grape juice. When it came time to eat the crackers Jacob didn't see the deacons eating. Jacob is still short enough that he couldn't see over the congregation very well. He was concerned that they didn't get to have some crackers. (My husband is a deacon so I'm sure he just wanted to make sure that his daddy would get some!) I was explaining to him that the Pastor had passed out the crackers to the deacons & elders and to watch in a few minutes and he would see that our Pastor would do the same thing with the juice.

Just then, at that moment, when our Pastor passed out the juice to his deacons and elders the Lord did something miraculous... Let me pause here to say this...I love it when He, the King of all Kings, reaches into the innermost being of my heart and speaks to me!... I sat and watched our Pastor serve his sheep. A moment of bitter-sweetness welled up in my heart as I wondered if this would be my Pastor's last time to serve his deacons and elders. I wondered what he was thinking, what he was feeling. I wondered if the rest of the congregation was thinking this same thing. Then my thoughts turned to my Savior, Jesus. I began to think of the Last Supper. For the first time since I've taken part of communion I wondered what Jesus was feeling, what He was thinking, as He served His disciples. He knew that one would betray him, He knew that one would deny Him 3 times, He knew that this would be one of the last intimate moments that they would have together, yet he embraced the moment, loved them and served them anyway. He not only served them by giving them bread and wine on that day, but he gave His body and His blood so that they.. so that WE could have an eternal relationship with Him.
Two weeks later I'm still thinking about what I witnessed on that day. I'm so thankful that the Lord gave me eyes to see something knew. I'm so thankful that He chose to serve me too!
Matthew 20:28...."the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
Thank you, Jesus!

HUGE savings @ Dillons and KMart!

I saved bundles at Dillon's and KMart today. It was such a HUGE savings that I decided to take some photos of my shopping trips today. (I know, it is kind of weird to take photos of my loot, but to each his own...besides, this gives my hubby a good look at exactly what I accomplished.)
For those of you that are coupon sceptics that think I run all over the place and waste tons of time and gas couponing let me tell you this...It only took me about 1 1/2 hour to plan and another 1 1/2 hours to shop. I left the house at 8:45 a.m.(took my daughter to preschool before shopping) and returned home at 10:30 a.m. You can do this too...it's not hard, but it does take a little bit to get the hang of it. It is WELL worth the time and effort!
There are 3 photos below with the details on my purchases listed below each photo.

First Dillon's trip photo...***6 yogurt and 3 pkgs of lunchmeat are missing from this photo. I dropped them off to my dad before coming home and taking this picture.

Dillons: (prices shown are sale prices, not regular prices)
6 cans Grands biscuits .98 each
4 bags Steamfresh frozen veggies $1 each
2 bags Lays Kettle chips $2 each
6 rolls Farmland sausage 1.64 each
8 pkgs. Farmland lunchmeat $1 each
3 Buddy Bars (soap) .99 each
1 jar grape jelly $1.25 each
4 pkg. McCormick seasonings $1 each
1 box tampons $2.99
10 Yoplait yogurt .99 each
1 box Fiber One yogurt $2.89
6 tubs I Can't Believe It's Not Butter .98 each
Total before coupons (already subtracted Dillon's rewards) = $63.51
I used lots of coupons!
Total after coupons (what I paid) = $18.76 plus tax
Total savings of 81% or $83.00

**I also got a coupon at the end of my transaction for $4.00 off my next Dillon's purchase. I got this for buying 6 Grands biscuits.

Second Dillon's trip photo

Dillons: (went to another Dillons to get more lunchmeat)
7 pkgs Farmland lunchmeat $1 each
1 pkg. Sara Lee Turkey lunchmeat $2.29
Total before coupons (already subtracted Dillon's rewards) = $9.29
minus
7 $1 Farmland coupons -$7.00
1 $1 Sara Lee coupon -$1.00
Total after coupons(what I paid) = $1.29 plus tax
Total savings of 91% or $14.23

Both KMart transactions are included in this photo.

KMart: (KMart is doubling coupons this week up to $2.00...this means that a $2 coupon is worth $4.00)

1 box Tampax $4.49

2 Ziploc round containers 2/$5

2 Ziploc square containers 2/$5

2 boxes Special k cereal 2/$5

1 20 oz. Mountain Dew $1.49 (not pictured)

Total before coupons $20.98 (plus tax)

Minus:

2 $1.50 Ziploc coupons doubled -$6.00

2 $2.00 Special K coupons doubled -8.00

Total spent = $6.98 plus tax

KMart: (had to do 2 transactions because their computer was having issues)

2 boxes Special K cereal 2/$5

Total before coupons $5.00 plus tax

Minus:

1 $2 Special K coupons doubled -$4.00

Total spent = $1.00 plus tax

Hydrea/Silver Dollar City

Shazam! Things have moved a bit faster than I was previously told. My doctor called yesterday and decided to have me go ahead and start my chemo. So, I just took the first pill of Hydrea (Hydroxyurea). I'll take one every day. According to what I've been told I will be on this the rest of my life since HES doesn't go into remission and isn't curable. I'm still being weaned off the prednisone. I'm hoping that this doesn't make me sick. I'm sure that only time will tell.

On a brighter note...
I took the kids to Silver Dollar City today. They had a lot of fun. We got season passes so we plan to go back several times this year. The boys really liked the rides Wildfire and Powder Keg. Emalee and I rode some kiddy rides and she had fun. We got rained out at about 2:30, but didn't leave the park w/o first eating a funnel cake! I forgot to take my camera, although I'm glad about that since I didn't have much storage space for it. Next time I'll take my fanny pack so my money, phone and camera are all secure and in one spot!

I-HES (Idiopathic Hypereosinophilic Syndrome)

Finally...my blood test results are back and now we know what kind of HES I have. It's I-HES, aka, Idiopathic Hypereosinophilic Syndrome. There's too much involved in explaining it, but I found a link that does a pretty good job. http://www.orpha.net/data/patho/GB/uk-IdiopHypereosinophSyndr.pdf
The results of this test were to determine what course of treatment (medicines) I should be taking. I will be taking a chemo called Hydrea and will start in a couple of months....or whenever I'm completely wheened off the prednisone. I'll update my blog when I start.
I've heard pretty good things about Hydrea as far as tolerance of it goes, so I hope that I'm one of those that tolerate it well.