What a week!! Last week was one of those that you look forward to, yet you are so glad when it is over because you are totally wiped out. God showed Himself huge in many ways and I can’t wait to share them with you.
On Sunday the 19th, we celebrated my Mother’s 70th birthday with a huge party in the afternoon. My sister and I had invited many of her friends to drop by my house for cake and coffee and to wish her “Happy Birthday”. I’m not sure we ever got an accurate count, but at least 30 people stopped by and Mother had a great time.
Here are some pictures from the party:
This is me, my mother, and my sister, Leslie
In this picture is my 11 year old nephew, Parker, me, my mom, my sister, and my 8 year old nephew, Coleson.
This definitely qualifies as MY favorite part of the party!! Cake by Sherry Moriarty at The Cake Lady.
On Monday, I spent some time with my friend, Joy, seeing her new home and just visiting. We enjoyed our time together so much.
Tuesday morning was Bible study with my group of “home girls”. We are doing Priscilla Shirer’s study, “Discerning the Voice of God” and I cannot EVEN tell you how awesome this study is!!! If you have never done a Priscilla study, you MUST get busy and do one. You will be blessed and your faith will be challenged to grow in amazing ways!!
Tuesday night I had the privilege of speaking at one of the local churches, Track Rock Baptist Church, to their quarterly ladies group meetings. My friends Joy and Kippie went with me and we had such a blast. Never, ever underestimate the power of the small church. They had expected about 25 ladies, but at least 40 showed up. This was a precious group of ladies who really, really long to grow in the Lord. We had a sweet time of music and worship led by the cutest girl who is expecting her first baby in February. The food was unbelievable!! These women had mined the depths of every church cookbook they owned and they served the biggest spread of finger food I think I have ever seen. I could have eaten until I was sick and not tasted everything!!! Jackie, ya’ll did a fantastic job!!
After praise and worship, I had the privilege of opening the Word before these ladies. The message the Lord gave me for them was entitled “God’s Bailout Plan” and the focal verse was Isaiah 30: 15. The Holy Spirit was definitely at work and many of them told me exactly which parts of the message spoke directly to the need of their heart in this season. Praise You, Jesus!!
On Wednesday I took my mom to Atlanta for a test at Emory. Nothing serious, but necessary nonetheless. Wednesday night we had our dress rehearsal for Judgement House at First Baptist Blairsville.
Thursday was the “Open House” at our spec house. I got up at 5:30am and went down to the house with 12 quarts of Brunswick stew that I put in two crock pots to cook. I also made homemade pimento cheese sandwiches and a Five Flavor pound cake. I was determined that if the beauty of the house didn’t get it sold, the food would!!!
One of the first people to stop by was a local realtor who told me that he had held an open house the day prior to ours and only had 5 people stop by, including realtors. I was a bit discouraged but knew that the Lord would bring the people by that He wanted to see the house. At the end of the day and the Brunswick stew, we had hosted 16 realtors and 5 potential buyers!!! Two of the potential buyers seem to be strong possibilities as they had looked at the house at least once before and were coming back for a second, third or more look!! Most of the realtors had never seen or shown the house so that was great to get realtors in and give them one more possibility to show their clients. On Friday I saw that one of the realtors had been back with clients and shown the house already!!! Praise You, Jesus!!
Friday morning I headed to north Atlanta to speak to the Ladies Connect group from Northbrook United Methodist Church. They were a neat group of ladies who get together twice a month for fellowship and some time of Bible study. It was a fun and casual gathering of about 13 ladies who seek to support and encourage one another as they do this thing called ‘life’.
Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights were consumed by Judgement House. For those of you who are not familiar with Judgement House, go here to learn more. Basically it is a walk thru drama depicting a scenario that involves the death of some of the characters and how some choose to follow Jesus Christ in their lives and ultimately end up in heaven, while some choose not to follow Jesus and end up in hell. It is an incredibly moving production. About 200 peole from our church and the community were involved in putting this event on and we had around 1200 people register and attend Judgement House. At the end of the night on Saturday ( well, actually it was in the wee hours of Sunday morning when we finished ) we counted a total of 83 new followers of Jesus Christ!!! I suspect there are more, but they just didn’t have the courage to raise their hand to indicate they had prayed to receive Jesus. Only eternity will show the true impact of Judgement House.
I was reminded in such a neat way of how the Holy Spirit orchestrates situations in the lives of those He is drawing. I can’t go into much detail but just know that on Saturday night/Sunday morning, all I could do was just kneel before God and say, “Wow!! You are so awesome!”
For those who know me well, you know I am NOT, NOT, NOT a late night person (in bed by 9pm). Each night it was close to or after midnight before I got home and in bed, but it was sooooo worth it to be able to watch baby Christians be birthed before my eyes.
My part in Judgement House was on the counseling team at the end. My pastor calls it the ‘labor and delivery’ team. Over the course of the drama the gospel had been presented 3 times to those going through. When they got to us, either my pastor, our chairman of deacons, or I presented the gospel a final time. We then prayed and asked those who wanted to receive Jesus as Lord to pray along with us silently while we prayed aloud. It was my privilege to see many raise their hand, indicating that they had just prayed to receive Christ as I prayed. What a rush!! What a blast!! What an awesome and great God we serve!!
Yesterday after church I crashed and rested and that is what I plan to do today. Oh, one other huge answer to prayer. Each year our Women’s Ministry puts on a morning ladies interdenominational event in the spring. The planning team had been praying diligently about who our featured speaker would be and the Lord provided the perfect person this weekend!!!! Yahoo!! More about that later.
That’s it for now. Although I was quiet on the blog this past week, the Lord was working in my in huge ways!! It just blows my mind that He loves me so much!!
