Taking Care of Yourself-Part 2

Over the next couple of days, I am going to give you some recipes for products I use to take care of my skin. 

 First, I want to take you to some scripture that points out that being concerned with our beauty is acceptable.  Sometimes I hear woman think  they are being vein or self absorbed.  Let me tell you, that definitely can happen, but I think for the majority of woman, we just want to feel good about our appearance. 

 In Esther 2, before she was presented to the King she had gone through 12 months of beauty treatments. Six months of with oil of Myrrh and six months with perfumes and cosmetics.

The other interesting part of this section is that she, the one who won the heart of the king, was able, as she was presented to the king, wear any of the jewels that she would like.  A Eunuch advised Esther to take very little.  She listened to the advise of the Eunuch and was not overly extravagant or greedy.
 In doing this she won the favor of everyone who saw her and most importantly the King, himself.  In winning the favor of the king she received the crown.

This to me is a great example to us in caring for ourselves.  We can be beautiful by taking care of ourselves, but we must be modest about it.  I don’t use the word modest to only mean keeping things covered that ought to be covered but I also think that modesty is a state of mind.  If you are a modest woman you dress in a way not to draw attention to yourself or different parts of your body, but you also have that same thought about all of your appearance.  I think there is a difference between wanting to draw attention to yourself and wanting to feel good about yourself.

So,  after all of that, the recipe for today is super simple and you probably have all of the ingredients already. 


I wash my face daily in the shower with:

Olive oil or Sweet Almond oil.
I massage it on my face just like you would any other cleanser.  Always go in a circular motion, being sure not to pull on your skin. Then rinse well.  Any that is left over after you are dried off can be massaged in for moisture.

I know that sounds backward to wash with oil, the thing you are trying to remove, but olive and sweet almond oils are good oils for your skin.  Kind of like good cholesterol and bad cholesterol.  These oils actually wash away the dirt and oil from your skin and leave it feeling very soft. 

Give it a try and feel how great your skin feels.

Jeannie

Taking care of yourself

Last month we did a series with 12 other bloggers titled 10 days of Proverbs 31.  We talked about many different topics with in the passage.  In verse 22 her appearance is talked about.  So, I want to take a few days to talk about our appearance and how to take care of ourselves.

When we get married we have a certain level of primping that we do to look good for our husbands.  Some of us wore make up and had the latest hair style and some didn’t wear make up but just kept up with ourselves. 





Now two kids later, we may not be that same gal.  We may think we don’t have time for one thing or another.
But I have to tell you, the ladies at your husbands workplace or even just out in the stores as he shops, have the time.  So, I just want to open your eyes to something that I finally saw in myself.  I have a faithful husband who would not stray and we have a great marriage but do I want him to be at work with women who take care of themselves and come home to me looking ratty.  If I am wearing his sweatshirt and old jeans, no make up and my hair just thrown up.  What is he going to think of me?  What a slacker, may cross his mind.  I don’t want him to think badly of me in anyway.

Here is what I have discovered.  Whatever we did as a beauty routine as young brides, that is what we should strive to do as young moms (or old ones as in my case).  We try hard to make our homes look great and take good care of his children.  We need to try even harder to take care of his lovely bride.  His most prize possession. 


Oh and believe me I know you may not feel like one some days.  Taking better care of yourself will help with that too.  If we look better we will feel  better.  So, if you wore makeup before find that makeup bag and make it a priority to put some on.  I have had days when I put it on at 4:00 in the afternoon, but it was on before he came home.

Doing this kind of thing and straightening up the house before he comes home, bless him but also show your children the love and respect that you have for their father.

In the next few days I will have some recipes for moisturizers and face creams that I use.  Along with some other great tips.

Jeannie

Please hang in there with me.

This past couple of weeks, life has been so crazy.  I want to apologize for the lack of inspiration in my posts.  I really have strived to bring a variety of posts to my blogging.


I have s’more on my plate than usual.
Sorry couldn’t help myself.


I like to include recipes and tips and real life but also inspiration in other areas of life like marriage and childrearing.  I have not had the time to really think out my posts and rather than drop off of the blogging scope, only to return months later with an apology, I want to at least stay in touch and give fluff until life slows down.

My husband has become Commander of our AWANA program at church, mid year, which puts a lot of work onto my plate.  That along with homeschooling 3 kids and keeping in touch with our out of town girl. Things are just crazy.  I am hoping that I am just speaking to the choir and all of you get it.  We have also helped a few families by taking their kids for them and then the Purity Ball in our area is this weekend and we are helping.  So much it seems. 

All of this busyness does make me appreciate life as it usually is.  I am thankful that my life is not always chaos.  I think my family is thankful also.  I don’t want to miss everything because we are trying to do everything.  Thank you Lord for our lives and the things that you put into them or don’t put into them. 
Jeannie

Don’t you love when your kids get ahold of your camera!

I was downloading all of my pictures the other day and found these.  I love seeing things from a kids perspective.

O.K. I took this one.  He was “fixing” the TV.  What you can’t see is the retro Atari controller in his hand.

SuperBoy, Bella must have gotten this shot.

Big brother playing with a balloon.  Shh!  Don’t tell anyone.  And please do not look to closely at the messy kitchen behind him.  Hey, I said don’t, please it is terrible.



This I thought was cute.  It is a picture of Mike and I and you can see Bella’s reflection in the shot.  Then there is the bouncy ball. Gotta get a picture of that.

And last and certainly least, the shot of my son in his usual at home form that we try to reserve for home alone.  I just wanted you to know that your kids aren’t the only ones that are gross.  Mine are too.
Jeannie

Three Generations Loving the Lord

Hi everyone, 

I wanted to share this post with you from my Mom's blog.  By the way the granddaughter is my daughter who was doing her favorite thing ever, bake cookies.  My little ones miss her cookies.  Check it out!  You can find this post here.

What do you think it means?

See the question at the end of the post.

My eighteen year old granddaughter was baking cookies yesterday and out of the blue said, “Grandma, I want to read you something I read this morning that really made me think”.

She went to get a book who quoted A.Z. Tozer. He wrote,

“Sometimes God gives us the desires of our hearts to teach us that it is possible to famish while we feed, that these desires gratify self but send leanness to the soul. In fact, if we ask God for anything, only desiring to get pleasure out of it, we are asking on a low level. For prayer is God answering His own desires: that is, desires begotten in the soul by God the Holy Spirit which are presented in the name of God the Son and answered by God the Father”.

First, I was so thankful that she understood it and that it made her pause and meditate on it. I had to have her read it again. It is pretty deep and I was a little slower than she was to get it. It helped me to break it up into separate sentences.

1)“Sometimes God gives us the desires of our hearts to teach us that it is possible to famish while we feed, that these desires gratify self but send leanness to the soul.

2)In fact, if we ask God for anything, only desiring to get pleasure out of it, we are asking on a low level.

3)For prayer is God answering His own desires: that is, desires begotten in the soul by God the Holy Spirit which are presented in the name of God the Son and answered by God the Father”.

How profound.

1)That the Lord gives us what we “our” desires are to see that they don’t satisfy like we thought they would.

2)That when we ask for things we want to get pleasure out of, we are asking on a “low level”.

3)That our desires need to line up with His desires and they will be answered.

How do we get out desires to line up with the Lords?

Matthew 6:32-33 says to, “ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
Seeking God and His righteousness.

Question: What do you think that means? How would you go about seeking Him?
Please send a comment! I will share it with our readers. Thanks so much!

Blessings, Pat
A.W, Tozer, “Missing Jewel,” Essays on Prayer (Downers Grove, Ill.A: Inter Varsity, 1968),9-1

Family Fun!!

We had a crazy busy weekend, full of fun.  One the the highlights was doing a joint b-day party (I know we had b-day month in December but the little ones didn’t get a party with friends.  We wanted to do it in February to break up winter a bit.) with Melissa and her family.  We went to a fun place that has bowling and laser tag and of course pizza.
Now you can see more of her family too.

All of the b-day kids and their cake. Melissa’s twins Ethan and Ella in front and Bella and Jacob in the back.  Happy Birthday!! Sorry we cut the cake a bit before we thought to take a picture.

Mike and Melissa.  Aren’t they cute.  I love the funny face she is making.

Both of our little Boys.

Anna the star bowler!

Zach and Morgan (girlfriend).  So sweet!

The ever graceful and sweet Bella.

Not the best shot of my handsome man but the only one I had on that day.  Love you Babe!


What does everyone want to eat?
For some reason I didn’t get any pictures of Melissa’s Allie and of course our Allie wasn’t there either.  Sorry girls.  I missed getting a shot of Allie getting cake faced by her Dad.  Where is your camera when you need it?  I’m sure she would not have let me put it in anyway.  But I had to mention it.
Jeannie

Really Good Creamy Peanut Butter Dip

 

Here is a dip that I made a few times recently.  We all loved it.   I found it on Kraftrecipes.com . This stuff is good enough to stick your finger in and eat all by itself, but they suggest crackers and fruit.
2oz. (1/4 of 8-oz. pkg.) PHILADELPHIA Neufchatel Cheese, softened
1Tbsp. PLANTERS Creamy Peanut Butter
1Tbsp. honey
1Tbsp. milk
21RITZ Sticks Crackers
1apple, cut into slices
1pear, cut into slices

 

MIX Neufchatel, peanut butter, honey and milk in small bowl until well blended.
SERVE with crackers, apple and pear for dipping.
Enjoy!!!
Jeannie

What is God preparing us for?

The last of the three topics that I am hearing so much about in the Christian world is: The End Times.

From the time that the Left Behind Series came out over 13 years ago all the way to the present I personally have been hearing speakers, pastors and teachers speaking on the topic of Christ’s return being soon.
 
This is a corny picture but I wanted to give you a visual.
All throughout history Christians have been looking for the signs of Christ’s return.  But until now not all of the signs have been there like now.  You can research this all yourself but I know I have done a ton of research and listen to many teachers on this subject and it will not be long. 

No one knows the hour or the day but we sure can know the season.  Jesus left us lots of clues throughout the Bible just as God did before Jesus’ first coming.  I do have to say that there is no need to be scared or worried about this.  If you are a believer in Jesus Christ this is a reason to celebrate. 
The three topics that I have been hearing so much about, I think are all linked together.  If the second coming is near then we need to be strong and ready. 

God’s design for the family was designed to make a holy life attainable.  When men and women are practicing their biblical roles, then our children are able also to follow theirs.  I know when my husband is leading our family it makes me want him even more and I hope vice versa.  When we love each other in this way it makes sinning against each other much harder to think about.

My prayer for all of us after reading this series is that we will really seek God in prayer for what we can do to claim our biblical role for ourselves and live it.  Also, to lead our children to know what their individual roles, as children now are, but also what their roles as a man or a woman in the future will be.

Jeannie

Turning the ordinary into something beautiful.

A couple of weeks ago we took our oldest, Allie to stay with my mom.  She took the semester off to go and work in my mom's husbands' church, where he is Pastor.  This has been a great experience for her.  She is still trying to figure out what she wants to do when she grows up (aren’t we all) and this was a great opportunity for her because she is thinking about going into ministry in some way. 

Our 4 along with Mom’s step daughter Michelle.
When we took her, met my Mom and her husband half way and stayed in a hotel so we could visit a little bit.  We had a good time.
Yesterday,  Allie sent me some pictures of new creations that she came up with in her spare time. 

I thought they were great ideas that you all might find fun to do also.  She just used permanent markers.  I am not the least bit crafty, so I am glad she got this artistic ability from her Dad.  So you can see, God and Allie are both using the ordinary and making them something beautiful.  We miss you Allie!!
Jeannie

Being a Woman of Virtue and So Much More.

My last post was about Husbands/Fathers standing up and taking the lead in their family.  The next topic in this three part series is asking the question, “What are you hearing in the Christian world today?” Is it what I am seeing all over the web?  We did a series about Proverbs 31 along with twelve other women, but I have also seen post after post and blog after blog dedicated to this idea of the Proverbs 31 woman and her virtues.

What is this idea focusing on?  Basically, the same thing we talked about with the men - roles.  Proverbs 31 focuses on the roles that a woman plays in her household. 

Wow!  What do you think God is trying to get across to us.  Maybe that we need to return to the roles His word has planned for us.  We have tried to redefine those roles and even Christians fell into these redefined roles.  Take a look around at our society.  These redefined roles are not working, in fact they are destroying our nation.  You can read all about those roles if you visit our series and look in on what the other bloggers had to say as well.

I know men are not reading this blog so I didn’t write the last post for them.   I wrote it for us.  To remind us that if we want our husbands to be the leaders in our homes then the change needs to start with us.  We need to give that lead back to them. 

Many years ago, the Lord pointed this out to me.  My husband was a good man but he was not a strong leader.  Every decision about the kids and the home and many other things, I made.  Once I realized this was stressing me out and God pointed out it was wrong, I began to take the problems to my husband and give them to him and ask him what we should do.  Of course I didn’t always like his choices and I questioned God at times, but I just bit my lip and pressed on.  Today, my husband is a strong and courageous man that I think could handle anything that God sent his way.  I am so proud of who he has become.  It all started the day I let go of the control and placed it in his hands. 

You may think there are things you are wiser about and that you should continue to make final decisions on but, trust God’s design.  His will is perfect and it is his will that your husband lead your home.  Can you give your opinion and suggestion? You bet, they need that?  But you have to trust God will honor your obedience and give your husband wisdom. Proverbs 3:5-6 says “Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all of your ways acknowledge Him and he will make your paths straight.

As for us, it seems the message is that we need to turn our attention back home.  We need our focus to turn to our husband’s needs first, our children’s needs and then to making a home that is welcoming and warm for your family to be in.  Can you work and do all of this?  Yes and no.  Go on over to this post and see what Proverbs 31 has to say about that and how to seek God’s will on this one. 
Jeannie

Courageous

Many of you have probably heard of or seen the movie Courageous.  The message of that movie is -- fathers need to stand up and lead their families. 
This message is very familiar to me.  Three years ago, a woman I had just met was in our church office as I was walking through and she was talking about putting together a Purity Ball.  I said “let me know if you need some help with that”.  Well, she did.  One week later I was sitting at a table with eight other ladies and we started planning.  I had pictured a small church event but she and another woman had a bigger vision. 

We all had daughters and this was a very important virtue we wanted to instill in our daughters, the fathers were kind of an accessory.  As we started to plan and pray, God revealed to us that this is not about the daughters,  but primarily about the fathers and their role in the family.

From that this same group put together a “Fireproof” marriage ball for couples and a “Calling of the Knight”  integrity event.  Every one of these events is calling the fathers to be in the role that God intended, as leader of the home.  Leader meaning, emotionally, spiritually and physically being their for your wife and children, leading them in the ways of the Lord, as instructed in the Bible.

Malachi is the last book of the Old Testament and speaks to fathers about this very thing.  God was going to be silent for 400 years at this point in the Bible and knew that if the fathers failed to lead their families according to the Word, then we would not have been ready for His Son to enter the world.

I have to wonder if God is preparing Christians for something in which we must all be as strong as possible.  Strong people can best come from strong families led by strong men and our men have been beat down by society for the past few decades.  They need to be reminded that they have all that it takes to lead, they just need to do it.
Jeannie

Listen People of God

I want to ask all of you question.  What are you hearing in the Christian world?  What do you hear being taught and what are other Christians talking about? 

Back in Old Testament times, God would speak through the Prophets to proclaim His message.  The warnings and blessings were conveyed through the prophets like Isaiah, Hosea, Daniel and others.  Today, the Holy Spirit lives among us and in us.  There are also a whole lot more of us than there were back then. 

So,  I know I try to listen to see what the buzz is in Christiandom.  When God is laying a message on the hearts of many leaders whom I have respect for and I know they are speaking from the Word of God,  I want to listen.  Have you ever heard the same message several times in a week from different sources and you just know that God is trying to tell you something?  Well this is sort of like that. 

I believe that God has to speak through many people and in many ways to get the message out to the kingdom of God.  Now, there are many false teachers so that is why I said before, that you have to know who you are listening to and where they are coming from.  A good test is to check with the scriptures and if you don’t know how to do that, find a pastor in a Bible believing church to guide you to the truth. 

Back to the question.  What are you hearing?  For the next three posts I am going to talk about three topics that I keep hearing repeated over and over by many, many leaders and lay people (average Joes like you and me).  I think that God is telling us a few things and we really need to listen. 

Do you all know that we are always one generation away from loosing our faith entirely?  If just one generation neglects to pass along the Gospel message, their children are doomed.  God has not stopped talking and we can not stop listening. 

Come on back and we can look at one of the topics.
Jeannie