Quote for October

A Prayer for the Ephesians Eph. 3:14-21

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom His whole family in heaven derives its name. I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.


Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen!


Saturday, June 20, 2009

Catching up

Hi,

A.) R, K and I went to the Mission Inn last night (6-19-09) to collect on the dinner for two that I had won. (From Singh Chevrolet in Riverside. If you ever need a Chevy, buy one from them. They are the Perfect Attendance program in our school district. Without their generosity, there are no prizes for the students.) We had a great time. The limo came to our house at 5:30, so we were early for our 6:20 reservation. The table was all ready for us, so we went right in. We like to eat a little early to avoid the big crowds. It was delicious food with excellent service.

R and I shared the Chateaubriand and K had fillet minion. The adults got to enjoy some wine with dinner and relax. It's good that K gets some experience like this so she is prepared for dining in a fine establishment when she is older. We have taken her to the Sycamore Inn in Rancho Cucamonga, and just about every else we have ever dined. She started going into fine restaurants when she was about six years old. I still have the dress she wore.

B. I was in Houston, Texas last weekend for the Love Family Genealogy Conference. I was still working on Thursday, but arrived on Friday and met some lovely, friendly people. We had a great dinner at Pappadeaux. I had a crab cake with shrimp (rather than the crawfish).

What did I learn about our branch of the Love family. (a) we are either descended from some branch of the Love family which descended from 5 Love brothers who lived in Chester County, PA in the early 1700s. Then they spread in 3 directions. They are all over the place.
or (b) We descend from an independent line of Loves who came from Ireland soon before the Revolution and were clearing their land when the Rev. War broke out. There is a Henry Love who received a pension for being crippled in the war. His story sounds much like the family story we have. However, Henry's son remembers his father's brother as being named John. We are supposedly looking for a Robert, but we are not sure about that.

So the Chester County Loves have proximity on their side, but the Henry Love family has a similar story. I have to keep looking under rocks to find the missing link.

C. I have discovered that much of my muscle weakness when I'm working out at Curves is not from cancer! It may be from taking Zocor for the last several months. Statin drugs cause muscle weakness. Paula (at Curves) and I would grieve at my loss of strength, thinking it was cancer taking its toll. Instead it could be medication.
Pray for me as I need to start eating right and exercising again. My cholesterol was up to 200 even on Zocor because I couldn't exercise and I'm eating badly again. Thanks!

D. Tuesday I go to Montreal with Katie. It's her reward for getting A's in French for 3 years. We leave Tuesday at 7:50 am. Return next Tuesday morning at the same time from Montreal. I'm learning to use my digital camera. I will see if I can upload some pictures to this blog. I am on Facebook now and I have gotten a few pictures on there.

Have a Great Week!
Love,
Sharon

Sunday, June 7, 2009

God Gives me Presents

It started last February. God began giving me presents to encourage me and let me know that He has not forgotten me.

On February 14th I took Kay and R to the fundraiser for Garden of Angels/Safe Surrender. (There is a link to their website on my first page.) Garden of Angels is a cemetery in Southern California for babies that have been abandoned by their mothers and are found dead. The Safe Surrender law in California is supposed to keep this from happening, but evidently, the people in need of safe surrender do not all know about the law. So I took my family to the fundraiser on Valentine's Day. It's about love and totally fitting that it is near Valentine's Day every year. This is the first year I have gone to the fundraiser.

At the dinner there was a silent auction and a raffle for various items that have been donated. I bought 5 raffle tickets and put 4 of them in a drawing for a beautiful pearl necklace. I prayed, "Lord, I'm 56 years old and I've never had a pearl necklace. I've only got about 5 years left on this earth, and I think it would be totally appropriate if I won this necklace." I left it at that. I enjoyed my dinner and bid in the silent auction. There were many nice things to bid on. In fact, I had such a nice time, I want to reserve a table next year, and take friends who would be interested in supporting Garden of Angels/Safe Surrender.


When the winner of the pearl necklace was announced, I had my 4 tickets spread out in front of me. Kay was watching and when the winning number was announced, she said,"Mom, you won!"
I wasn't really surprised. When the MC asked me what I thought of winning, I said, "Amazing!" I really meant, "God is amazing!"

One day this spring I had a difficult time when I realized I'm not going to be around to see my grandchildren do things. I don't know if I will even get to see them. Kim, a secretary at work who also has cancer, was comforting me. She reminded me of simple things like birds singing are God's gift to us. So I've been extra aware of birds singing lately.

Sometimes, when I feed Spunky in the morning, I sit out on the patio for a few minutes with a cup of tea. The birds in my neighborhood sing and sing. The other day I realized I was hearing three different bird songs at once. Then another bird began chattering to the west, and the turtledoves returned on the house to my south, so I could hear their cooing. It's as if I live in an aviary. God is good.

Another gift from God is the healing of my marriage. I'm sure not doing it. R and I have not lived together for almost three years. He has been coming over on weekends and doing yardwork. We have found a place where we can go to church together where people don't know our history. We can worship and socialize like a couple that has been married nearly 24 years. One evening while we were eating hamburgers, Richard asked a couple men about the rings their wives were wearing. Both men had bought their wives new rings after they had been married some years. One man referred to his wife's "starter set" and said he had replaced it long ago.

Soooo, I now have a new ring! It has a large center stone with two smaller diamonds on the side. I just got it Friday night, and only a few people have seen it. So you are among the first to know!

But that's not all! God gave me presents on Thursday, Friday and Saturday! Thursday there was an assembly sponsored by Singh Chevrolet for our students with perfect attendance. Singh also gave a prize to a teacher of dinner at the Mission Inn and a ride there in a limousine. And I won! I was really surprised by that one. I was thinking about some teachers with good attendance, when Dave announced that I had won.

Saturday Kay and R and I went to a fundraiser for Foothill Family Shelter. This is a wonderful group in Upland that helps families have a place to live, gives them job skills, and teaches them how to save money while they are in the two year program. The Shelter has a 120 day program and a longer program. It was so inspiring listening to the families talk about all the help they had been given! The Shelter also helps them with therapy, job skills, parenting skills, and dental care. One of the dads said he had a new smile, and thanked the Shelter for giving an ex-convict the tools to go out and get a job. One son wanted to especially thank his therapist. The younger son said he was learning how to express his emotions in group therapy. A mother learned how to take care of her children and plan for a future together. Another dad had saved $10,000--the most money anyone who passed through the Shelter had ever saved!

I was so excited by the work at the shelter that I wanted to make a donation. One of the volunteers suggested that I buy raffle tickets for the jewelry that was being raffled off. I donated enough money for 8 raffle tickets. When the MC began reading the numbers of the winning tickets, I handed some to a lady at our table so she could play along. I didn't think I needed to win anything else this week. Kay asked if she could have some and just took one.

When the MC read the number for an amethyst cluster ring, Kay won! She was very excited. I told her God wanted her to have a present.

Isn't God amazing?