Happy Birthday Breanna!

This young lady was given to this family 23 years ago.  She has been a ray of sunshine and a HUGE blessing to our family!  How grateful we are such a special gift and blessing!  

Happy Birthday Sweetheart!  

We love you SO much!!

Joy In Suffering

"God...setteth in pain the jewel of His joy."

F.W.H.Meyers

"A friend who is gravely ill... is greatly loved by many and has had a unique ministry because of her gifts of friendship and hospitality.  Must she suffer?
The answer is yes.  For the Lord who loves her suffered and wants her to fellowship with Himself.  The joy of thus knowing Him comes not in spite of but because of suffering, just as resurrection comes out of death.  I have a Savior because I am a sinner; a beauty is given the child of God in exchange for ashes.
We want to avoid suffering, death, sin, ashes.  But we live in a world crushed and broken and torn, a world God Himself visited to redeem.  We receive His poured-out life, and being allowed the high privilege of suffering with Him, may then pour ourselves out for others.
How can one's illness help another?  By being offered to Him who can transform it into blessing.

A Lamp for My Feet

O Joy that seekest me through pain,

I cannot close my heart to Thee;

I trace the rainbow through the rain,

And feel the promise is not vain

That morn shall tearless be.

George Matheson

-taken from Gateway to Joy, by Elisabeth Elliot
~Brittany

Praising God More - We Would be Happier, and He More Glorified

“O that men would praise the Lord for his goodness,

and for his wonderful works to the children of men.”

- Psalm 107:8 -

"If we complained less, and praised more, we should be happier, and God would be more glorified. Let us daily praise God for common mercies - common as we frequently call them, and yet so priceless, that when deprived of them we are ready to perish. Let us bless God for the eyes with which we behold the sun, for the health and strength to walk abroad, for the bread we eat, for the raiment we wear. Let us praise him that we are not cast out among the hopeless, or confined amongst the guilty; let us thank him for liberty, for friends, for family associations and comforts; let us praise him, in fact, for everything which we receive from his bounteous hand, for we deserve little, and yet are most plenteously endowed. But, beloved, the sweetest and the loudest note in our songs of praise should be of redeeming love. God’s redeeming acts towards his chosen are for ever the favourite themes of their praise. If we know what redemption means, let us not withhold our sonnets of thanksgiving. We have been redeemed from the power of our corruptions, uplifted from the depth of sin in which we were naturally plunged. We have been led to the cross of Christ-our shackles of guilt have been broken off; we are no longer slaves, but children of the living God, and can antedate the period when we shall be presented before the throne without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. Even now by faith we wave the palm-branch and wrap ourselves about with the fair linen which is to be our everlasting array, and shall we not unceasingly give thanks to the Lord our Redeemer? Child of God, canst thou be silent? Awake, awake, ye inheritors of glory, and lead your captivity captive, as ye cry with David, “Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.” Let the new month begin with new songs."

- Charles Spurgeon's Evening Meditation for December 1st

~Brittany