New and Renewing

Hi ya'll. It's been over a month since I've taken a moment to blog. Thanks so much for taking the time to check in at our "GRILL" today. So today's blog is titled new and renewing.

Let me first say how great it is that the newness of spring is finally showing it's sweet self ever so slowly. I'm ready for warm days and yellow buttercups.
Second I am the very proud aunt-cousin to a brand new beautiful baby girl. Why am I an aunt-cousin? Well I have a niece and nephew that are actually Jim's niece and nephew, but I say they're mine. And since my one and only younger brother has no children I will never have nieces and nephews of my own. So back to this aunt-cousin that I have become. I have a younger cousin who just had her very first baby this past Friday night. And fortunately for me she doesn't mind one bit that I have decided to claim this beautiful baby girl as my niece... i.e. making me her aunt-cousin.

So let me stop here to give a big huge SHOUT OUT to our brand new little precious Gracie Marie. She is our very first baby girl in the family. Remember Jim and I are blessed with 3 boys. So little Gracie is our one and only little girl... at least for now. I have 3 more cousins on that side of my family so I may have LOTS of nieces & nephew-cousins!!

So that's a little NEW information about us. Let's talk about RENEW... can you hang out with me for a few minutes longer? OK then here goes. For sometime now I've been asking God to grow me in my relationship with my husband and with my children. I know what your thinking, uh oh trouble at the Walker house! Nope, no trouble. I won't go as far as to say Jim and I have a perfect marriage, because for one he is married to me and not only am I NOT a perfect person but I am definitely not a perfect wife. But I do think we have a really wonderful and loving marriage. I think we both feel very blessed to have the relationship that we have. So if it's so great why am I praying over it? Because I think one great reason that Jim and I are happily married is because of our relationship with God through Christ. Over the weekend God opened an opportunity to spend some planned special time with Jim, a surprise to him if you will. Now I could have said, "Not now God we've had a busy weekend and I'm just too tired to worry with that." But I chose to say THANK YOU God, for showing me this opportunity to surprise my sweet husband. It was a moment to renew my relationship to him. A moment to say this time is all about you and me. It was a fabulous surprise but it was a surprise just for him. Time for us to share together not as mom and dad but just as husband and wife. What did I get from the time I surrendered for my husband? I got the joy of showing Jim that he is so very important to me. It was time all about him and spending special moments with him. He was surprised but best of all he was so appreciative of the effort I had given in planning our time together. Thank you Lord God for renewing relationships.

So this spring as we begin a new season may we all be encouraged to allow God to renew relationships in our lives..... even already good relationships.

Sweet blessings,

Angela

Blind Faith

For years Jim and I went 4-wheeler riding. Whenever we would come up on a hill or something that required most passengers to get off and wait while the driver of the 4-wheeler went acrossed, I would always hold on to him tighter and say, "WHOO-HOO you gotta have BLIND FAITH" He would gas on it and away we would go. No fear, no second thought... I just trusted my husband, closed my eyes and had... blind faith. That was my 4-wheelin' motto you might say. Years later I know I would still hang on behind him with blind faith and ride through whatever was ahead of us. So the question comes to me, "Why don't I have that same BLIND FAITH with my God?" Am I saying I don't trust God? No, but I do have a tendency to hold back and think I need to handle some things on my on. Just in case God's plan and my plan are not on the same terrain. 4-wheelin with my husband did I trust that everything would be alright? Yes! Was it always alright? No. As a matter of fact we have been known to wreck, and on one scary occassion we even flipped our 4-wheeler with me holding on the whole time. God has laid a reality on my heart this week. The reality is in alot of situations instead of having blind faith with my Lord I have bending faith. I sometimes walk beside God instead of hanging on and riding all the way through with him in the driver seat. This past weekend God very urgently laid a situation on my heart. It required having blind (unseen) faith. It required saying yes when I reall wanted to say no. It required trusting God to see me and my family through for the remainder of this week. While my first thought was to wait and handle it at a better more comfortable time. God kept tugging at me. You know when God is working with you it seems like he lines everything up around you as confirmation to give in and allow him to be great and glorious in your life. Sunday morning and Sunday night at church was directed to me. Giving me confirmation that God is in control that he wanted me to trust him, to surrender to his will. To rest in the safety of knowing all I need is to have BLIND FAITH and God will handle the rest. So with that BLIND FAITH I finally gave in to the request God had for me. Not knowing where that would lead me and my family this week I rode on through with God in the driver seat. That was Sunday night. On Monday morning God showed up in a huge way and gave back to me 50 times more than what he required of me. How great is our God ! If you have ever been like me and been known to get off at the first sight of a sticky situation instead of closing your eyes and having blind faith that God will handle it. I encourage you to allow God to grow you in your willingness to give him what is already his.... EVERYTHING.
Sweet blessings,

Angela

"Stinky bad or Sweetly blessed"

I am so excited today to have a moment to share my thoughts with you this Thursday. Our first blog post was up on April 17, 2009. Feel free to go back and read that post of how this site originated. When I began this site nearly a year ago I had no idea how God planned to use it. And I still don't know what will come of being obedient to keep this site open. But today I got a wonderful surprise. A person that I have known for many years through my work had called the office. While we were speaking he mentioned that he really enjoyed our blog. That it was very nice; different from alot of other sites you may get into. I had never mentioned our site to this person. He just happened up on our blog site and enjoyed what he read. I realized at that moment that I may never know who visits our site, but I don't have to. God knows who will see these words and how they may impact those people.
Let me share with you a moment from the Walker home. Our middle son woke up in a not so happy mood this morning. As he sleepily makes his way into the bathroom where me and the other 2 boys are all sharing the sink and mirror he falls back on the side of the bathtub. Instantly he says I always have a "stinky bad day." At that moment I looked at him and said if all your days are "stinky bad" you choose them. You are given the same day I'm given and each day comes from God. And since nothing from God is "stinky bad" it's a choice you make. He sat there quietly for about 10 seconds just long enough for his 9 year old sleepy self to rationalize what I had just said and then slowly he got up and started getting ready with a cute little smile on his face. He didn't mention anything more about "stinky bad" so I'm thinking he has decided that regardless of how the day may have started.... remember he tripped and landed on the tub, he has a choice about how it continues.
May your day be sweetly blessed and not stinky bad it's as easy as making up our sleepy little minds. Thanks for stopping by. Hope you come back soon.
I would love to hear from you. So let me encourage you to leave a comment on our site. If you have prayer needs it would be my humble pleasure to lift you up in prayer.
Sweet blessings,
Angela

New year no resolution but new realization.

Thank you very much for stopping by today. As this new year begins my mind has been racing with the typical new year resolutions. However, suddenly I found myself in prayer asking God as this year starts to show me and grow me closer to Him and His will over my life. I'm so excited about the commitment our family began this new year. If you have read my older post from December then you know that we decided to sponser a sweet precious little girl from Ghana Africa. Her picture is on our refridgerator along with other family pictures. When we chose her or should I say when God chose her for us we took her as our own. No we will never probably meet her and yes she has her very on mommy and daddy, but she is part of our family all the same. She is our little girl. Last night during our youth class at church the question was asked to everyone in the room to list all the 10 commandments. WOW what an eye opener we were able to give 9 out of the 10 commandments. Even me!!! You can sometimes understand young adult youths maybe not knowing but you just assume that all adults know the 10 commandments. Even worse than not remembering is that the command we had forgotten is probably the command that we are more likely to break without even realizing we are breaking it. We had left out, "Thou shall make no idols or graven images" I'm paraphrasing of course. When I read that command which by the way is the 2nd command God gave I was stunned that I had forgotten that. Then I realize that so many times I will put things and objects in that idol place in my life. God may lay on my heart to read His Holy Bible and I will set that thought aside to finish watching a TV program. Last night I came to a very important understanding God can and will grow me closer to Him, but He will also allow me to decide how close that relationship is by what I do with His commands, with my time and with my abilities.
May God show me daily where I need to change gears in my thought processing so that my efforts and commitments are based on Him and his commandments over my life.
I'm so glad you took the time to read my thoughts today. And I hope that it has been encouraging to you just as our class was encouraging to me last night.
Love to you,
Angela

Coming to the end

Yesterday as I walked on my lunch hour I begin to think about the year coming to a close. I started thinking about where Jim and I are in 2009 from where we were in 2002. In January of 2002 living 3 hours from any family, a huge mortgage, a 6 year old and a 1 year old we both became unemployed on the same day. A day I'll never forget it was Jan 4th. As our world begin to turn upside down it was also very apparent that God was at work. See we had been praying for months that something major would open up an opportunity for us to move back closer to family. And then like a numbing cold wind there we were with exactly what we had been praying for a MAJOR opportunity. And as we go into 2010 I think of how God has seen our family through so much change over the past 8 years. How God has grown Jim and I spiritually closer to Him. How God has blessed us with our little Zack. How God supplied all our needs from the sale of our house in 2002 to finding the perfect home for our family of 5 in 2005. God has seen us through every circumstance in our life. He has taken us from unsecure jobs to where we are today, with great jobs. God has blessed us with the means for Jim and I to not only provide for our family but also for the precious little girl we have claimed in Ghana Africa little Emma(nuella). As this year comes to an end and our 2010 begins my prayer to our God of all, is that our family will continue in God's blessings and that we will walk closer to Him than ever before through our Savior Jesus Christ. Stepping out on our faith knowing that God will never let us fall. He may allow moments of failure but He will never let us fall. Actually regardless of what happens in our life the lose of jobs, homes, come what may is it really failure as long as God is with us? His word says if God is for us who can be against us. God is always here to catch us and hold us come whatever may. Through the storms of life God will never leave us.
Where ever you are in life I wish you a wonderful New Year filled with the peace of Jesus Christ.
In Christ love,
Angela

Special Christmas Gift

This year my family and I have decided on a very special Christmas present. We have chosen to sponsor a precious little girl through Compassion International. Her name is Emmanuella. Her name is long so the boys and I have decided in our home to call her Emma. Emma is 3 years old and lives in Ghana Africa with her mommy and daddy and 4 other children in their family. Emma lives in an aids infected area of Africa. My heart is so full this morning. I look around at my life and see so many blessings that God has allowed me to have. I see God's grace (unearned undeserved favor) on my entire life. I'm so thankful that when God begin to work on my heart back last year about sponsoring a child in poverty that I continued to listen to God's voice deep in my heart through the year. I'm thankful that when I presented this idea to my family it was accepted with open arms. I explained to Jim and the boys that if this is something that we should do that I had prayed to God that we would all agree and if not than we were not to sponsor a child. Jim and each of the boys agreed and there were tears shed last night as I explained about little Emma and her life and where she lives. The boys said that she's the little girl we never had.... and maybe she is just that. Maybe God blessed my life with 3 amazing sons and a small beautiful little girl from Africa who is blessed with her very own mommy but whom will now have lots of love and prayers coming to her from me and my family.
Thank you Heavenly Father for blessing me and my family with so much in our life. Thank you for giving us the ability to share with this beautiful little precious baby girl named Emmanuella Kyia. May you surround her and her family with a shield of protection and the peace of your love.

A wish of peace and joy in your life this Christmas season.
Sincerely
Angela

Wishing you sweet Christmas blessings.

As Christmas comes near. I can't help but thank God for the Christmas gifts I already have. I have a wonderful husband, 3 healthy boys, lots of family and friends, and a loving Savior. What more could a red head from Tennessee possibly want? This Christmas season everywhere I look it seems that God is showing me the need to be more compassionate, more understanding, more generous to those in need. This year I am praying over a decision that has been laid on my heart and one that I'm hoping to have my entire family be part of with their whole-hearts. I feel extremely lead to be a Compassion International sponsor. I've never sponsored a needy child in my life. Don't get me wrong I've made donations and bought angel tree gifts, but I'm talking about making the effort and sacrifice to be a sponsor to a young child who is in need day after day and week after week. It's easy to feel sorry for children who are living without and in poverty. But it's just as easy to turn your head and think that there is really nothing we can do to make a difference. I believe that sometimes it's not about how big of a difference you make but more about the difference that being obedient can make on you. The rewards from giving with a compassionate heart I don't think can ever be measured. So this Christmas I would like to encourage you to take time to give the greatest gift we can personally give to anyone..... prayer! It has no monetary value but the value is unmeasurable. May your Christmas be full of sweet blessings and wonderful moments of memories, most of all may your Christmas be filled with the love of Christ.

With love,

Angela