Set Your Sights On Things Above
We so quickly get our eyes off God. Let's get back into
perspective.
perspective.
1/8/2019
Keepin' it Simple...We worry too much about things these days... things that have simple solutions, and things that in fact aren't even problems. How do we help our kids not expect to get everything they want all the time? Is there some sort of social trick maybe? Some sort of long drawn out explanation of life and how things work in adulthood? Not really - just don't give them everything they want. It's called "saying No." Have you heard of those "fiver parties" starting up now? Where all the guests bring $5 to contribute to one large gift? This is an attempt to have the child not worry about gifts, and they still get the anticipation of the big gift that's coming. While I don't really object to this type of party if it's what you want to have, why not just tell all the guests that no one's obligated to bring gifts at all? There's nothing wrong with not expecting gifts. Problem solved. We've got all sorts of things we're diagnosing our kids with and all sorts of things we think might help, and might work with them to help them understand.... Sometimes it's a far simpler solution. Being consistent. Saying no when they need to hear no. Being kind when they need kindness. Expecting them to be kind. Expecting them to have manners. Requiring responsibility. Giving them something productive to do each day. Sometimes things are nowhere near as complicated as we want to make them. Sometimes a walk in the woods is all it takes to connect. Sometimes a quick game of basketball in the driveway is all it takes. Sometimes just stopping what you're doing and looking them in the eye when you talk to them is all they need. Sometimes a simple yes or no is all they really need to hear.
We don't have to always be looking for the next big extraordinary method ... just keep it simple. **disclaimer** none of this is in reference to kids who truly have some sort of mental or physical problem that changes their entire world and way of interacting with their world.
12/19/2018
Christmas With a Good book...Start the Christmas season off right with five poignant, clean, Christmas stories by some of your favorite suspense authors. Kick-off your shoes, warm up the hot cocoa, and stoke up the fire. Enjoy. ROCK & ROLL CHISTMAS by Lillian Duncan Someone wants mega rock & roll star, Johnny Rocker, dead. It’s Maddie Cotton’s job to make sure that doesn’t happen. Johnny Rocker believes he doesn’t need anyone or anything—especially God because after all he is a rock & roll god. When the floor beneath his feet crumbles—literally—he hurtles toward a different truth. Since the death of Maddie Cotton’s family, she’s run from life and love by protecting other people as a bodyguard. With God’s help, she’s ready to step out of her comfort zone to search for a different life. But when her boss asks—no begs—her to take on one last job, she finds it hard to refuse. As she and Johnny are thrown together, she discovers another man behind the Johnny Rocker façade—Zeb Walker is a man searching for answers of his own. Being under Maddie’s protection doesn’t stop the threats. As Christmas approaches the danger escalates—someone doesn’t want Johnny Rocker to celebrate A Rock & Roll Christmas. LAST CHANCE by V. B. Tenery Chance Crawford is back in Afghanistan. A place he swore never return to. No longer the team leader of a Marine Recon unit. He’s now a CIA agent, searching the mountains of the Hindu Kush for a Taliban chief who wants to defect. While tracking his objective he encounters two children in need of a protector. And he’s the only one available. It’s mission impossible but he has never run from trouble. No matter the odds. SYLVIA’S SECRET by Mary Vee Detective Branson Carhill invites rich clients to put their trust in him, a man who can solve their case speedily and without informing the newspapers. A master at French, formal dance, dining, conversation, and all manners expected of one in the elite class, he knows how to blend in seamlessly while investigating, as long as they don’t look at his bank account. Sylvia Duvet is missing. She didn’t attend her breakfast appointment. The staff did not see her leave the house, yet she isn’t there. Her daughter arrives at Carhill’s office in a panic, concerned gossipers will create their own stories if her mother isn’t found. When the first hours of investigation do not produce Sylvia’s whereabouts, and Carhill understands every minute of every waking hour has an obligation for the elite, he concludes Sylvia Duvet has either been kidnapped or has run away from home for Christmas. Where are you, Sylvia? SHADOWS OF DOUBT by Susette Williams. An Inspirational Romantic Novella Raffealle Gellermine has a very protective uncle and two protective brothers. They never like the men she brings home. Mathew Flannigan has a past, but for the life of her, she can’t figure out why her Uncle Rob and her brothers are trying to encourage a relationship between them. Could her brothers be right? Does she unconsciously choose the wrong type of men? Can she trust Mathew? Especially with her heart? Will shadows of doubt keep Raffealle from finding true love? Or will Mathew steal more than her heart this Christmas? ANGELS AMONG US by V. B. Tenery In the season of Love, Peace and Joy, a chance meeting with a young woman in a supermarket sets Detective Cole Allen on an urgent quest to save the lives of three young women. It will take the combined skill and dedication of the Twin Falls Homicide Bureau, and a helping hand from God, to locate and end the nightmare of the helpless victims.
12/13/2018
12 Days of Christmas are here!Through next Friday, December 21, 2018, there's a huge event happening over on Facebook. It's the 12 Days of Christmas author event. Each day there will be 3 to 4 authors featuring their books, doing giveaways, and basically getting to know readers from anywhere and everywhere.
My time will be today, December 13, at 3PM Pacific Standard Time. We'd all love to have you come join in the fun. We're running a big giveaway too, where you can enter to win one of two kindles, or a $250 gift card. These are massive prizes! Head on over to Facebook, join the group, and learn all about how to enter for great prizes.
11/28/2018
Book Release!The Christmas Hearts: Holiday Collection is here! This is a unique anthology - heartwarming, Christmas-themed short stories separated by God-honoring, Christmas devotionals. All are written by different authors, so you'll have the opportunity to get to know some new writers all for the same low price. This might just be the perfect Christmas gift for the readers in your family. Find the Christmas Hearts: Holiday Collection here:
11/7/2018
Get your equipment right!As a caregiver for Granny for the last ten years, I’ve learned a few things.
Get your equipment right. Sure you can probably lift that person using a rope tie around their waist, but it’ll be far more effective if you use a proper gait belt that was made for that purpose. Sure you can probably remember all her pills and all the different times through the day that she needs to take them - for awhile. Until you do it for so long that it’s routine, and now are you remembering today or yesterday? It’s far better to rely on a pill minder and a calendar to keep appointments straight, too. Sure you can crab walk him to the bed and plop him down, but far safer to learn how to do a proper transfer. So many other pieces of equipment we use that I’m not sure how we’d do without now. Because the right equipment is priceless. That made me think: I need the right equipment as a Christian too. The Bible, good fellowship at a vibrant, loving church, the warmth of family and friends. These are equipping us. Sometimes we try to do without, take shortcuts, use shoddy replacements for proper equipment. This is when people get hurt, though. Same spiritually. When we use shoddy replacements for the equipment God tells us to use, we could get hurt. Use the right equipment.
11/7/2018
Comfortable Where?Way back when Joseph and his brothers had moved to Egypt from Canaan, there’s a little story stuck in there about the sons of Ephraim. Remember, Ephraim is Joseph’s Egyptian-born son. Yet this story in Exodus has some of Ephraim’s sons (or grandsons) stealing some cattle from a tribe in Gath. Gath is in Philistine country - in Canaan. (I Chronicles 7) The two regions were only about an 11-day journey apart, and back then, journeys routinely took longer. It may not have been all that big of a deal for the Hebrews to travel back and forth on a regular basis between their new home in Egypt and their old land-holdings in Canaan. After all, they’d left the place voluntarily due to the famine, they’d still have owned those lands they’d left behind. So this got me to thinking - the Hebrews didn’t go to Egypt and immediately give up their own sovereignty. For several generations at least it looks like they maintained a presence of some sort back in Canaan. After all, why would Ephraim’s sons be back in Gath unless that area somewhere was still considered land holdings of the sons of Jacob? Also in this passage is the interesting little nugget about Ephraim’s granddaughter, Sheerah. She built both Upper- and Lower Beth-Horon, as well as Uzzen-sheerah, all of which are in the mountains above Jerusalem - back in Canaan - further evidence that at least some of the close descendants of Ephraim had either settled back in Canaan again, or traveled back and forth between Canaan and Egypt during their lifetimes. While this is speculation, it helps illustrate something - the Hebrew dependence on Egypt started with one step. It didn’t immediately go to slavery. It was a process. The more time they spent in Egypt, the weaker grew their hold on the lands in Canaan. By the time we meet Moses, they were in complete subjection to the Egyptians, but that was 420 years after Joseph’s time. In the beginning they were free to come and go as they pleased. The thing is, they got comfortable in Egypt. Canaan was a symbol of the promised land in the Old Testament - the Hebrews were losing their hold on the promised land. The promised land is NOT salvation - it’s the symbol of a place of close fellowship with God. The more time they spent in “Egypt”, the less time they spent in the Promised Land. The more time we spend in the “world,” the less time we’ll want to spend in close fellowship with God. Where are we getting comfortable? Am I comfortable in Egypt? Or am I comfortable in the Promised Land? The more time we spend away from God, the more enslaved to the world we become. We may not recognize it. We may not be living what we consider deep in sin, or in terrible distress. But we're in the world completely, away from God.
It's time to come out. Time to come back to fellowship with God.
10/20/2018
Stepping Stool GodSo the other day my daughter was sitting at the computer when she noticed her cat walking across the piano in her direction. Being the cat person that she is, this daughter stopped everything to talk to the cat. She even said, “Awww, are you coming over to sit with me?” The cat walked to the edge of the piano, jumped on my daughter’s knee, and then straight off onto the floor and walked away, tail held high. That cat had only been using my daughter as a stepping stool. My daughter and I laughed a bit and went on with our day, because it’s a cat and that’s what cats are like. But then it got me thinking. Do I act like God is my stepping stool? He’s my stepping stool to heaven? To food on my table? To a roof over my head? To a job that can pay my bills? Do I act like He’s only there for my own convenience? It’s true that He wants me to see Him as the Provider, but I believe God wants me to see Him as more than just a stepping stool to get to where I want to be. He saved me so I could go to Heaven to BE WITH HIM. He wants my needs taken care of BECAUSE I have a relationship with Him. I think sometimes we go around demanding this or that of God as if we’re the cat in the house and the ultimate ruler of everything. Instead of going to Him and just fellowshipping, do we go to Him and stay only when it’s cold outside? Do we use God the way the cat uses us? As a big heating blanket to be discarded once the need is done? Oh, I pray I see God in a different way than that. While yes, He’s my Master and Provider, He’s also my Friend and Guide and Counsellor. God is so much more than just my stepping stool. Have I used God as my stepping stool recently? Is there a time when I could sit and adore Him more? Psalm 46:10 Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. The above is an excerpt from my new devotional, On Things Above, the second in the "A Month In Prayer" devotional series. It's available in both print and digital format. Click the link below to get the entire book.
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AuthorI'm Sherry Chamblee, aspiring author of Christian fiction, mom of six, wife to a cool dude, and caregiver to his granny. Besides that, I am just little old me - it's just a phrase, I'm not really old, honest. Check out my new release!
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December 2019
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