Finding joy in the everyday

Asset : a useful or valuable thing or person. An item of property owned by a person or company, regarded as having value. I read a story in which someone referred to a woman as her husbands asset. When the woman looked up asset in the dictionary, she was deeply touched by the compliment.  Our husbands may have valuable assets such as land, but aside from monetary value, don't we all want to be our  husbands  most valuable asset/possession?  Knowing  my husband is completely satisfied with his choice of a wife and that he feels he could never replace me is a huge compliment. (source: Discovering My Place by Mary Burkholder) We can find 3 verses in Proverbs that talks about the importances of finding a valuable woman as a wife—ones that will become their husbands greatest and most cherished assets (isn't that what we all want to be?).  Proverbs 18:22 says " He who finds a wife finds a good thing, And obtains favour from the Lord. " — if a ...

Who can find a virtuous wife? The lady in Proverbs 31 is fictional. The mother of King Lemuel was helping her son by telling him the qualities to look out for in a future wife. How many mothers do this today, many I  am sure. We all want the very best for our sons, and the King’s mother was no different.  Verses 10 to 31 list virtues that any man would love to see in his wife and all of which we can strive for. But the one virtue that was more important than all the rest, greater than her housekeeping, her strength and honour, her hard working attitude—her crowning accomplishment was fearing the Lord — a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised . This is the most important attribute in any Christian woman and this is what a Christian man should be looking in a wife. If she is great at housekeeping and looking after the children but does not fear the Lord, then there is a problem because fearing the Lord has much greater value than anything else.  ...

Artist: Anita Jeram

"Many people look at the Christian life as a sort of detour away from real life. They think that if you are a Christian, you have to give up all the things about life that are truly enjoyable and exciting." Ray Stedman Someone asked me the other day if I drank alcohol. I said rarely. The response blew me a away — " You must be very boring ".  And that sums up the commen view of Christians, they must be really boring.  I was taken by surprise as I have never considered myself boring, I love laughing and having fun. I enjoy the company of others and going out for dinner. Love attending my bookclub monthly, have coffee with friends.  I am outgoing and enjoy life and I didn't think I was boring at all.  The truth is that Christian life is where we find true joy and lasting peace, hope and contentment. These things, like all good and perfect things, come from God (James 1:17). The difficulty is that, if you’re not a believer in Christ, you truly...

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge. Albert Einstein Being a teacher is a huge responsibility. Not only do you have important things that you must teach your students, you also want them to develop a love of learning and be excited about learning. Most students develop that love of learning when they have a teacher who is enthusiastic, keen and interested in each person in the class as an individual.  Teaching does not come naturally to all people. I have had some duds, teachers who taught with no passion and no real interest in me. I have had some mean teachers that were just nasty and I can not remember a thing they taught me, but I do remember their sour words and meanness. However, once in a while you come across a teacher that leaves an indeliblele mark on you and you remember them all your life.  In Titus 2, older w omen are encouraged to be active in looking after the next generation of women te...

Hohenzollern castle, Germany The random word this week was Castle and I thought I would use it for my Art Friday as well. Here are some fascinating facts about castles.  For a long time, the majority of castles were made from wood. Some were kept in functional state for 4 or 5 centuries! Castles did not have toilets! Waste products were removed in rooms called “garderobes”, with holes that led out of the castle into moats. Average time of castle construction was 10 years. You would not want to be in a hurry for a new home. England is currently home of 1500 castle sites, but many more are lost to time. The oldest is Windsor Castle, the home of Queen Elizabeth II.   Almost every stairs in the medieval castles were tight clockwise spiral stairs. They were created that way to make combat more difficult for right-handed invaders who had to ascent on those stairs and use their weapons. At first, castles were built for military and government means. As cen...

I am starting something new this year and I have to thank Mary for this brilliant idea!!  I will be using a word generator to pick a word to write about.  If you would like to try it yourself, here is the link to the word generator that Mary recommended.   Todays word is Castle. ***** Castle:   a large building, typically of the medieval period, fortified against attack with thick walls, battlements, towers, and often a moat. Usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble. My home is not as big as a castle and it isn't surrounded by a moat (which of course would be heaps of fun but rather impractical), but I do like to think it is a place that protects us from attacks and shields us from the worlds violence and sadness. However this is becoming much more difficult. There was a time when  our homes provided all the  defence  we needed against outside intrusions and influences. We could locked th...