Climbing Life's Mountains

Have you ever gotten a new notebook or journal and it's so pretty that you don't want to write in it and mess it up? My daughter-in-law picked up a pretty spiral notebook and gave it to me about a year ago. I loved it 1) because it was from Brittney and 2) because it was given to me for no reason. She knows I always take a notebook to church to take sermon notes so she thought of me when she bought one for herself. The pretty notebook has sat in my kitchen untouched. Sometimes I would pick it up, look at it, and put it back down. It wasn't that I didn't want to use it    — it was that I wanted to write something special in it and I didn't know what to write. I wanted the words on the pages to be as special as the notebook.  Our pastor preached a sermon on the Sunday before Thanksgiving called "Every Day should Be Thanksgiving."  As he preached, I thought several times about my mother who had an amazing heart of gratitude. After she died, my sister and I fo...

We took our small RV on a trip — not just any trip but a 4700-mile road trip. Our adventure took us from Knoxville, Tennessee to Rapid City, South Dakota with stops along the way in Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Iowa. Here are a few thoughts and helpful comments about our trip that might be useful if you ever want to follow in our footsteps. The Camper - As you may remember, we bought a camper two years ago. Our camper sleeps two on a short queen bed; has a small table, refrigerator/freezer, microwave, bathroom with a very small shower, and a good amount of storage. With a dry weight of 3500-lbs, we pull it with our Toyota Highlander. The camper is not anything fancy, but it's paid for and it works for us. Now the real test was taking a long road trip and spending 16 days together in such a small space.   All our campsite reservations were made ahead of time, and I had each day's agenda planned out. Yes, I even had a binder with tabs. One more...

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:1).  He created male and  female (Gen. 1:27).  They (one man and one woman) were joined together (in marriage) as one flesh (Gen. 2:22-24).  They had an amazing place to live and everything was perfect. And then, here comes trouble -- or we’ll call it temptation. Adam and Eve had a choice to make and they made a bad one. They chose to go against what God said and chose to do what they wanted instead (Gen 3:4-5).  Now we have a problem — a sin problem. Man’s relationship with God has been messed-up because of sin (Gen 3:1-19). We now have a separation between man (the created) and God (the creator). The penalty for any and all sin is death (Rom 6:23).  Romans 5:12, "Just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned." Romans 3:23, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."   So, did God create us ...