A Christmas Project

For over a year now, I've had this picture in my mind of the nativity that I wanted for my front yard. Had all the supplies and ample ideas. Just hadn't gotten a round tuit...... Until last weekend when mom and dad were here. Mom and I baked cookies and I asked my dad if he would copy a silhouette that was on last year's bulletin onto a piece of plywood. He gladly agreed at which time I actually lugged the piece upstairs and put it on the coffeetable to do during commercials in a movie we were watching. Yep - I'm crazy. But it was so worth it. He did this on Sunday night and I proceeded to cut it out, prime and paint it and get it up tonight. In between baking and packaging probably 15 dozen cookies and making candy..... I truly do love this season....:) But I promised I'd make the pictures available for my dad to see. Without his excellent artistic skills, it would have been completely out of proportion.....

It's a bit blurry but you get the idea:)!

Preparing to be AWFULLY COLD!

Bob and I are getting ready to go to a bonfire.

In November.

And it's about 28 degrees out.

And it doesn't start for another hour.

We're crazy. Our church is crazy and we're still going.

Perhaps the consumming fire of our passion for God will keep us warm. Perhaps we'll hug, smile and say - love you all, gotta go! Pictures of ICC-icles to follow - hopefully. Unless the camera freezes.

Did I mention that our pastor is from the South and has the immune system like a seive?

We'll update - when we thaw out.

KLOVE- 99.3!!!

Good news Pittsburgh fans of contemporary Christian music! We finally have a radio station that plays Christian music all day every day!! Check out 99.3 on your radio - I swear I speak the truth although I didn't believe it when our friend Michael told me. We've only been longing for it since we moved back from Charlotte - home of many, many channels to choose from!

What is a vet?

I heard this read on our local radio station and wanted to post - albeit a day late. Thank you all but especially to my father in law Robert J. Masterino, Senior who served in the Marine Corp in the early years of Vietnam.

What is a vet?
He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn't run out of fuel.

He is the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th parallel.

She or he is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Danang.

He is the POW who went away one person and came back another or didn't come back AT ALL.

He is the Quantico drill instructor who has never seen combat but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang members into Marines, and teaching them to watch each other's backs.

He is the parade riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand.

He is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by.

He is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor remains unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean's sunless deep.

He is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket, aggravatingly slow, who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him when the nightmares come.

He is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being a person who offered some of his life's most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.

He is a Soldier, Marine, Sailor or Airman, and also a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he is nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known.

So remember each time you see someone who has served our country. When you see one just lean over and say Thank You. That's all most people need, and in most cases it will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded or were awarded.Two little words that mean a lot, "THANK YOU". God Bless Our Veterans!

New Challenges

God has been hard at work this week in our lives. Challenging us to rise above our disappointment in reliance on Him for our future. "For when I am weak, then I am strong." 2Cor 12:10. It's been a theme. Emails exchanged with my awesome family have reinforced that we have been drawn closer to Him in our recognition that He is the God of this country's future.

On a lighter note, God has been chipping away at the rough stone of my health for awhile now and this weekend, it started to look like something. I went to visit Emily to Halloween with Burton, Ohio folk in that picture perfect Norman Rockwell-esque little village (I'll get pics up as soon as I can.) Em got up early to run on the treadmill and it occured to me that a 5K might motivate me to get back to the gym. Emily could run it easy with the duration and speed of her workout. And I could work on it for next year and spend my energy getting ready with a serious goal in mind. And what an awesome thing for the kids to see us do as a family!! Molly and Sarah could even participate and with Mom and Dad on their new walking plan, they might want to. And Carrie's always had running on the brain..... So I'm in!!! I even started a running/walking/jogging online log so I can chart my progress towards our goal races in March and October. Yay! I've come to understand that's how God talks to me. Puts these crazy thoughts in my head at the weirdest times. Like at 7am while sitting on the couch in Emily's basement watching her run:) Gave myself a baseline this morning at the gym. I'm tired and my heels are killing me but I think it's near hysterical that God is trying to make me into a runner :) No one ever said He didn't have a sense of humor!

Say a prayer for my feet when you pray about the country this week and our new leader. May his eyes be opened to wisdom, discernment and accountability.

An interesting day and an update

Yesterday was a interesting day on many fronts. It capped off a crazy busy week with a visit to Mom and Dad's to see the Slussers. Haven't seen them since the summer and won't see them until Thanksgiving so I drove up for a quick few hours of hugs and talks about God's work in our lives. I loaded some cute pictures of the girls in their fairy costumes and the interesting skies on the way home.

Then we were off to the EIP Company Party. I wish I could say it was okay and leave it with that. Bob and I had a challenging evening. And since I know this is not a place to air out dirty laundry, I'll say that we were both challenged in our areas of weaknesses and neither did very well. I was very angry and hurt and disappointed and was kind of at my wit's end about what to do when we arrived home. So I did the only thing that makes sense when you are out of human answers - face down in prayer. Thanks to our study on the Psalms, that was the end God led me to because I was at my own end. Thank you Lord for putting that answer in my stubborn head. And after a long time of prayer, God gave me two things. First, my carpet is a train wreck. Under every peice of furniture was a heap of animal fur. "God gave you that??" you might ask?? Yep. My back was spasming and I couldn't lay flat and I noticed that it had been a LONG time since I moved the furniture. And then I laughed out loud. I was angry with Bob over something that God was working on me with THAT VERY WEEK - doing things that you didn't want to do and not griping or complaining in any way about them because you were doing them out of love for each other and our God. And I'm still not there. Why did I expect that he would be....?? And the second thing was that if there was going to be a change, it wasn't going to be in me lecturing. It was going to be God that does any changing.

And today, Tommy preached words for both of us straight from the heart of the Father. Dirty Little Secrets series part 2 - Fairy Tales are for Children not our Love Life. Amen. Marriage is hard and we stink at it most of the time because we're selfish. So I am so relieved that we are working together on this with Christ in the middle. This way, we actually have a shot at a happily ever after .....:)

On another happy note, Bob's dad is doing better as far as the short term issues that they were dealing with last weekend. They will continue to need constant prayer but God brought a bushel of good out of some very tough things this week and Bob and I are absolutely not alone in seeing that He's hard at work. After some rought times with the Clacks and Masterinos over the years, I can honestly say that He has healed all of us and there is more love for them than I ever thought was possible again.

Answered Prayer

Without going into too much detail out of respect for other's privacy, Bob's family is going through a terrible time with his diagnosis of Alzheimer's. Some very traumatic events occured this weekend that were pretty shattering to everyone in the family. And again - as with so many events of late - prayers went up from our church family, from my family, from friends, probably from some strangers. And God heard our cry. We went up to see the family this evening and SOOOO many things transpired that showed that God was there. His dad is still struggling - they all are. But there was a peace there that was inexplicable given the circumstances. He is relatively okay and things seem okay for the time being. Bob related to me that he's spent a good deal of time thanking God for things lately. An email circulated twice to him about an angel that stands at heaven's gate who's job is simply thank you delivery. Funny - I haven't seen it once :) But it has spurred him to really make a point of thanking God. And he thanked Him a big one this morning.

Father - Thank you for the prayers you answered and for opening our eyes to see that this was your orchestration. Your love for us is so overwhelming and I bet we miss it far more often than we catch it. Please help us to see so we can glorify you the way you so heartily deserve. In the name of the Prince of all Peace. Amen

Iron City Church turns 1!

ICC turned one this weekend and it was an emotional day for me. My life is so different because God brought this church a block down the road from us.

Check out the pictures - double click for the captions.

But as always, He gave us the perfect illustration of the value that His church brings to the world. It isn't about the numbers - although we saw our summer average double this week and a dozen or so new folks. It isn't about how we sounded - although in a quieter chorus we heard the voices of the glorious praise ring above our own. He brought someone into that sanctuary that needed Him. Someone who needed Him desperately at that very moment and might not be in a place to be able to grab on as tight to His outstretched hand. So He sent ICC. He sent Michael with a hug and a listening ear. He sent Ami with a eye for the sadness and ear for the listening and hug for the hurting. Father, you sent your children. And I was a blessed witness to the love that you have for us and that runs over from each of us that you have blessed.

God is doing amazing things at Iron City Church. We aren't filling the seats like some of us wish but He's doing something that far surpasses that. And I don't want to miss that.

Celebrate with us. Christ is being proclaimed.

Put-in-Bay - Finally!!

I finally got the photos in from our day trip to the islands of Lake Erie. If you check out the slideshow to the left, you'll find them and can double click on them to see them full sized and captioned. I so wish I had gotten a picture of Bob careening around corners in the golf cart. It's so funny how licensed drivers get a kick out of driving an golf cart - but I shared his enthusiasm. I didn't get a picture of so many things. The face he made when we wine tasted, the wildlife museum with every stuffed creature in the world, bar row in town. It was a quick day but it was an awful lot of fun. We had a good time and it turned out to be just fine that we didn't spend the whole weekend there. We got to spend Friday night hanging out with Mom and Dad part way there and were pretty tired when we got home on Saturday - but that's not always a bad thing. We really enjoyed each other's company too. Hopefully, we'll get to do another anniversary trip someday that it worthy of ten years - but then again - maybe we already did that in going to Hawaii.

Which leads me to me PS. This is my 100th post. Nothing special about this one but I had long ago decided that the 100th post would be "Our Story" - that is, the journey that God has taken us on since that fateful day - March 17, 2005. And it just so happens that life's routine has slowed the blogging down a bit. Just in time for a bit of a storytelling. So stay tuned. This will have many chapters I believe.

Financial Meltdown

I read this post today and thought immediately of Atlas Shrugged. This is the biggest propping up that any of us have seen in years. If genius business minds start mysteriously dropping off the face of the planet, I'm praying even harder for Jesus to come back!

http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2008/10/our_everyone_gets_a_trophy_eco.html