The Fourth Man // Short Story

"God will protect you. You will see, Amalie."

"I wish I could believe that, Mother."

     A rough hand ripped the blindfold off my face. I blinked, taking in the beauty of sight once again. I noted four men at the campsite: The two who held up the stagecoach and captured me; a chunky, older-looking one; and one lone man crouched down by the campfire. The chunky man, apparently the outfit's leader, looked me over with a crooked grin.
     "Good work, gentleman. I'm sure your uncle will be more than happy to pay for your safe return, Miss De Bois. Tie her up."
     "My uncle?" The two stage robbers grabbed my arms. "B-but," I managed. "My name is Amalie Mundy, not De Bois. I've only traveled out here to teach school in Manitou..."
     "Teach School!" The leader guffawed, along with his two partners who were now tying my hands and waist around a nearby tree. Their leader turned toward the campfire. "Ya hear that, Big Mike? Everett Debois, richest man this side of the Rockies... his niece is a little ol' schoolteacher!"
     The fourth man crouched by the fire now stood up slowly, his height exceeding the chunky man's by at least a foot. His mouth stayed in a steady line.
     "Oh, well, Mike," the chunky man said, laughter still lingering in his voice. He turned back toward me. "I reckon you can't expect a man to obtain our sense of humor in just two days. You'll get used to our work soon enough."
     Big Mike rested both hands on the end of his rifle. "I don't plan to get used to it."
     The chunky man turned back around. "Oh, now, Big Mike, what are you talking abo..."
     My eyes widened. Big Mike now had the rifle pointed right at his leader.
     "Untie her."
     A few moments later, I found myself being hoisted up onto Big Mike's horse, and the three outlaws tied in my place. "I know'd we shouldn't a trusted 'im!" was the last thing I heard of the rogues as we rode toward town.
     Big Mike let me down beside the main road at the edge of the town of Manitou. He stayed seated on his horse.
     "You can inform the sheriff about the outlaws," he said. "I have other business to attend to."
     All this time, I hadn't found any words to say. But now, I finally found my voice. "Oh, yes, I will. Thank you... very much, Mr. Mike, I... I don't know how I can ever repay you."
     "You don't have to."
     "But... I owe you my life."
     He smiled slightly, shaking his head. "You only owe God that."
     I looked carefully into his face. "Why should I owe God that? You were the one who saved me from those outlaws. I don't see what you mean." Just then, a wagon rushed by, and I turned to look.
     "You will see, Amalie."
     I swirled back around at the familiar words. He was gone.

~~~~~~~~~~

Hello again, guys! I've missed you all and this blog so much! I wasn't exactly sure how to go about re-entering the blogging world after my unexpected year-long hiatus... so, I thought, why not just throw one of my short stories out there? So, here we are!

I wrote this piece last year for Brooklyne's flash fiction story contest that she hosted last fall on her blog. My story actually ended up winning, which was, of course, quite exciting! But then, just recently, I realized that I never did post that story here on my blog... So, here it is, finally! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it. :) 

The challenge of telling a story in so little words was actually a lot more fun and interesting than I thought it would be. It reminded me again of the power of words -- and how much one little word or sentence can tell. Reading through this story once again also reminded me of the Lord's protection He surrounds us with when we trust in Him, and even through the prayers of others in our life, and how much the Lord works for us behind the scenes. And sometimes we don't even realize or think about it until we're out of the trouble.

As I look back on this past year, 2020, there have been a lot of negative points to which I could focus on, as I'm sure all of us could do with this year -- or any year really. But then, I remember how much the Lord has brought me through and out of, how He has always been by my side, how He has protected me at every turn. The fact that you and I are still alive today in the midst of everything, is a miracle in and of itself. The Lord has likely even protected us from things we won't ever know about until we go to be with Him in Heaven. 

So, as we look back on 2020, let's remember the good things the Lord has done for us. Even through all the trials, the hardships, the heartaches... the Lord has delivered us -- and is continuing to deliver us -- out of them ALL.

Praying that all of you have a very blessed New Year! God bless, and I'll write to ya again -- hopefully sooner than later! :)

~Faith

Reams of Rereads Blog Event // How did I do?

Well, my friends, the Reams of Rereads blog event has come to a close. How did I do on my reading? Well, here was my original list:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

- Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter

- By the Great Horn Spoon! by Sid Fleishman

- Heidi by Johanna Spyri

- Toliver's Secret by Esther Wood Brady

- Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate Dicamillo

- Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

- The American Girl Kirsten book series by Janet Shaw

- Nim's Island by Wendy Orr

- 12 Empowerment Truths about Two Sons in Want by Terry Tripp

- More Than Conquerors by Terry Mize
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So.

Out of all of these wonderful books, how many of them did I actually end up reading?

Yep. Just two. Well... okay so, I guess if you want to be really technical about it, it was more like I read part of two books....

Sooo..... I actually didn't end up reading all the way through any of the books listed above. I reread part of Understood Betsy and Nim's Island, and that's all I got to. (Oh yeah, and I just remembered that I did read a little bit of More Than Conquerors one day as well, so I guess that's technically three that I read some of.) But yeah, I know. It's kinda sad.

HOWEVER, there actually was one reread that I did read all of again this month though (so I didn't entirely fail, you see!) I reread the classic, The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner which was fun. :) (But.... that wasn't even one of the ones I had on my list up there, so I guess that didn't really even count...)

So, in short... I didn't do so well.

I suppose I could make up a bunch of excuses as to why I didn't get very far into this list. Like life happening and stuff. But, I actually don't have a very valid excuse honestly. It's true, I've been pretty busy this past month, but I've also had quite a bit of free time as well. The problem was that I ended up using that free time doing other things besides rereading the books on this list. I didn't make reading them a priority.

And isn't it like that with so many other things in life? Take spending time reading the Bible and praying, for instance.

(So apparently I just decided now that I'm going to turn this over into a spiritual lesson, how about it?? ;D)

I'm sure all of us at one point or another have tried to make excuses for not spending enough time with God, listening to what He has to say to us and wants us to do. We look back over the past week or month or however long it's been and realize how much we haven't spent time in God's Word and with Him. We scrounge for excuses like, "Well, I was just so busy with work/school/everything..." "I was too tired..." "I just haven't been 'feeling' God lately..." and on and on we go, trying to justify ourselves for putting off doing the right thing.

But instead of making excuses, why don't we just fess up? We messed up. It wasn't anyone else's fault but ours that we didn't get to spend more time with God. The reason we didn't get to it wasn't because of all this other stuff going on in our life... it's because we didn't make spending time with God a priority. We didn't make time for it.

We need to look back, realize what we've done wrong, and ask God to forgive us. Then we need to move on and make a better effort. We shouldn't go back and wallow in our past mistakes, regretting not doing better at life before. Trust me, it isn't worth it. I've done this WAY too many times. Like I said a while back in my No Condemnation post, we need to let ourselves be convicted, but not condemned. We need to learn from our past mistakes, but not focus on them. Learn from them and then use that knowledge to make better choices in the future.

We make time for a lot of things. We make time for reading, watching movies and shows, sports, birthday parties, hanging out with friends, etc. etc... So this really goes to show that we indeed CAN make time for things. We DO have extra time. Or if we don't, we MAKE extra time to do these things, because they're important to us. We don't want to miss out on doing them.

Well then, as God's very own children, we don't want to miss out spending time with our loving Father, do we??

If you really want to do something, you've got to make it a priority. It needs to be first above other things in life. And that's how our relationship with our Heavenly Father should be. He needs to be number one in our lives. We need to make our relationship with Him our very, very top priority! Think about it... God has done SO MUCH for us. He's the very one who created us and the entire world, and is the very reason why we're living and breathing right here and now!!! We have SUCH a privilege -- we can come BOLDLY to the Creator of the universe's throne of grace to talk to our Father and receive help ANYTIME we want or need to! (Hebrews 4:16) How amazing is that?! How terrible would it be to ignore such a privilege? To put off spending time with such an amazingly loving Father as we have?

I challenge you, as well as myself today to take special time out to express to your Daddy how much you love and appreciate Him and His goodness toward you!

So, there you go. There was my little spiritual turn-around to that reading predicament I had up there. ;) I basically didn't get to reading very much of the books on my list because I didn't make reading them a priority.

But, on another note, *enter Faith's ramble about reading* even if I DID make reading them a priority, I'm not really sure that I actually could have gotten to reading every book on my list. Maybe if I was some sort of reading ninja I could have. But I've heard that many people have indeed read that many books and more in a month, so... I guess there are a lot of reading ninjas out there.

I'd like to think of myself as a bookish person, but to be honest, I've gone back and forth between reading lows and highs many times. One month I'll be all like, "AWW YEAH LET'S READ ALL THE BOOKS!" and then the next month like, "Yeah....... I have time to read that, buuut... I'd rather do this other thing right now." But even in my times of reading like the wind, I might read only about five books in a month or something. That's what really amazes me. You reading ninjas. How all you other bookish people out there can read so many books at one time. I applaud you. For instance, I just recently saw that my blogging friend, Faith read fifteen books this past October... and that's not counting the six short stories she also read......

HOW.

HOW DOES ONE DO THIS?

I need to up my game, I guess.

But really, depending on the story, I usually don't want to finish a book in just a couple days. I guess I like to drag it out more and be able to spend more time in the story and with the characters.

"When she finished [the book], she felt happy and sad at the same time, because the ending was warm and smiley but she didn't want to say good-bye to the people in the book." ~Nim's Island

^^ Yep. :)

But then, of course, there are those long drawn out stories that you just want to be able to get through and finish as quickly as possible before you get to the point where you're just like...

Anywho. Sorry, now I'm just rambling.

I think that's really all for now. Wow, this post was all over the place... :P Did it even make sense all together? Well, however it turned out, I hope it wasn't too rambly and that you enjoyed it and all the random gifs and such anyway! ;)

Did you participate in the Reams of Rereads event? If so, how did you do? Did anyone out there not get to reading any of the books on their list either? Did you read ALL the ones on your list? What do you plan on reading this month? I'd love to hear how your reading has gone and is going lately! :D

I hope all of you are having a lovely day! Write to ya later, and God bless! :)
~Faith

15 Autumny Things To Do in the Fall

Ahh, fall. It's snuck up on us again, hasn't it?

You know, I was thinking... there are always a lot of Autumny type things that I think about doing during this lovely season, but don't always get around to actually doing them. And I think part of the reason that I don't always get around to doing them is because I forget that I thought about doing them in the first place. So, I decided I should make a list of some things that I'm sure we all dream of doing during the fall that we don't want to forget to do. Of course, we'll probably not get around to all of these things, but we should at least try, right? ;) So... here we go!

1. Rake and jump in a pile of leaves. Preferably a giant pile of leaves if possible. :D It's a wonderfully fun fall thing to do that I believe everyone should experience the joy of when this lovely season rolls around.

2. Go on a hike. A fun way to get out and see God's beautiful creation while getting in some good exercise!

3. Do a fall family photo shoot. This of course requires cooperation with the rest of your family, but it probably shouldn't be too hard to convince them...

4. Take a picture each day or pretty regularly of a tree(s) during the fall so that afterward, you can put all the photos together and show how the leaves changed over the season. This would be really neat to do!

5. Knit/crochet a scarf and/or hat to wear yourself or to give someone else (maybe for Christmas). It's always so much fun to wear or give someone something you made yourself! :)

6. Wear Autumny outfits. Because... why not?? It's Autumn after all! Fall outfits are always fun. :D

7. Go shopping for Autumny outfits if you don't have any. I do have quite a few fall outfit things right now, so I probably won't need to do this much, but... you can never have too many clothes... okay, okay, yes you can... you definitely can. :P

8. Drink a cup of hot chocolate or tea whilst reading a book by a window or outside on a bench. Or just reading a book without a beverage (or vice versa) would be just as lovely I'm sure.

9. Read a fall-themed book. Cranberry Thanksgiving! That's actually the only fall-themed book I can think of at the moment. D: Don't worry, more will come to me, I'm sure.

10. Watch a fall-themed movie and/or show. I actually didn't think too much of this until one time (I think it was actually last fall) when I read someone else's blog post about movies/shows to watch in the fall time. I actually don't recall a lot of movies or shows that I've watched that have been exclusively set in autumn, but one that comes to mind is The Spy Next Door. This movie is set around/during Halloween. It's a sweet, funny, and overall clean movie. While our family doesn't celebrate Halloween as the holiday encourages fear, the movie's not totally centered around it; it's mostly just that the holiday is going on in the midst of the story. Anywho, to get to the point, it seems like just the right movie for this time of year, especially if you're in the mood for action, comedy, and Jackie Chan. ;)

But if you're in the mood for more of a classic, The Beverly Hillbillies: Turkey Day episode would also be a perfect one to watch in the fall, especially around Thanksgiving! You can't hardly go wrong with The Beverly Hillbillies, or almost any old classic show really. ;)

11. Make a pumpkin and/or apple pie. I really want to make one or the other this year for Thanksgiving... hopefully that will actually happen. :P

12. Make a new autumny dish/dessert. It's always fun to try out something new! (These apple snickerdoodle muffins look amazing... =O )

13. Visit a pumpkin patch. Because pumpkins + patch = fall in a nutshell.

14. Go on a hayride. I know, you could go on a hayride any other time of year as well, but there's just something so fall-like about hayrides it seems.

15. Do a corn maze. Mazes are always fun! If you can find one to do in your area, I'd totally recommend it. :D

Well, that's it for now! Are there any other autumny things that you like to do that I missed? What's your favorite(s) out of the ones I listed?

I hope all of you are having a fabulous fall so far! Write to ya later, and God bless! :)
~Faith

Reams of Rereads Blog Event // My list of books to read again!

GUYS, I found out about this neat blog event that will be going on this October -- it's called the Reams of Rereads blog event, and will be hosted over at Coffee, Classics, and Craziness!

But what IS the Reams of Rereads blog event, you may ask? Good question. I had that same question before I discovered the answer. So since I know the answer now, allow me to enlighten you. ;)

The basic idea of this event is to help encourage us bookish people to make some time to get to those wonderful books we enjoy so much that we've wanted to reread for so long, but just never have because of work/school/and just busyness in general. So, that's what the Reams of Rereads event is for -- to help motivate us to catch up on all these lovely books we want so much to visit again! :)

To read the official rules and find out more about this event, head on over to this post on Eva's blog! Eva is the lovely lady who will be hosting Reams of Rereads. :D Thank you so much, Eva for coming up with this fabulous idea!

So -- as you probably have guessed -- I'm planning to participate in this! :) I'm sure I definitely won't get to everything on my list, but it will be fun anyway seeing how many I can read through in one month!

Here's my own list of books that I'd like to reread!

- Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

- Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter

- By the Great Horn Spoon! by Sid Fleishman

- Heidi by Johanna Spyri

- Toliver's Secret by Esther Wood Brady

- Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate Dicamillo

- Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

- The American Girl Kirsten book series by Janet Shaw

- Nim's Island by Wendy Orr

- 12 Empowerment Truths about Two Sons in Want by Terry Tripp

- More Than Conquerors by Terry Mize  (So technically I hadn't fully finished this book, but I read through almost all of it at one point (I'm not sure why I never got to finishing it D: ...probably because of "Lack of Reading Time" as Eva puts it...) ... So anywho, I guess since I'll need to reread through the first part again since it's been so long, it can count as a reread? Yes, let's say it does. ;) )

I hope you'll consider participating in this blog event as well! It shall be lots of fun, I do believe. :)

God bless you all! Write to ya later!
~Faith

Hello September Tag

You know what I need to do better at? Keeping up with tags for one thing. There are several different ones that I've been tagged for that I've copied and pasted the questions/rules for in drafts in my blogger post editing thingy that have just been sitting there, collecting proverbial dust for months... or even as much as a year. So, I think it's about time I get down to business and catch up on all these lovely tags that you guys have so graciously awarded me with. But I've come to the conclusion that I probably shouldn't go about doing them all in one post... If I did, that post I'm sure would be so dreadfully long that the person who would actually read the entire thing in one sitting without obligation should be given a standing ovation.

But anywho.

I probably won't be posting a bunch of tags in a row, but I hope to get to doing most of the ones I've been tagged for this fall/winter.

So to start off with, I'm doing this fun fall tag that the lovely Brooklyne tagged me for over at her blog, Showers of Blessings! :) And since it's called "Hello September" I figured that I'd better get to doing this before September flies by! So -- here we go!

The tag rules:

1. Please copy these questions (below), answer them, and then write out new questions (or just copy these) for the people you nominate below your answered questions.
2. Please nominate at least 3 bloggers, but try to avoid ones that you know have already been nominated. 
3. Lastly, include these guidelines in your post, and use the tag picture (above)! 

Alright, let's answer some questions!

Windy or rainy autumn?

While I like a rainy day here and there, I think I'd much rather have a more windy autumn. I really enjoy sunny, windy days. :)

Do you like chai tea?

I don't believe I've ever tried it. So, I'm not sure!

Tea, coffee, hot chocolate, or apple cider?

Well, I actually don't think I've ever had apple cider before, and I'm not really a coffee person. ("Yes, I can still be a writer even if I don’t drink coffee. I’ve tried it, I just don’t see what’s so good about it. *runs from all the coffee loving authors*" ~Brooklyne :P) So, I'd have to go with either hot chocolate or tea, depending on the mood. :) If I had to pick just one, probably hot chocolate. Chocolate's my fav! :D I actually am not a super-fan of hot tea honestly. I like a couple flavors, but I guess I just don't drink it that often. Now, ice tea... yes! I like the flavor of the ice tea we get (which I guess is technically just black tea) and sometimes I'll heat that kind up, and I like it a lot that way, too. I don't think that it's really the tea being hot that I don't like, maybe it's just most of the flavors of hot tea that I've had I don't like as much? Anyway, sorry, I'll stop rambling about my deal with tea and move on now... :P

If you could go to one state in the U.S.A just for the autumn scenery, where would you go?
Ooh, well, since traveling out to Colorado this summer, I think that it would be a lovely place to go for autumn scenery, with all the trees and mountains. So I'd probably choose Colorado! (Well, either there, or some state in New England... like maybe Vermont. :) )

Do you like soup in the autumn? If so, what kind is your favorite?
I do like soup! (especially my mom's! :) ) I don't know if I particularly have a favorite kind though. I like a lot of different ones! But if I had to choose... maybe vegetable... or potato... or chili... one of those! ;)

What color of leaves do you like best? 
I like them all really! But I especially enjoy orange and red leaves. Bright orange leaves are so pretty to me!

Okay, so I suppose one could argue that these are more yellow than orange... but they're still pretty, so. ;D

If you could go to another country just for autumn scenery, where would you go?
OH MY. So many choices! Well, (as Brooklyne said in her post) I'd want to go somewhere with a lot of trees with changing leaves of course. Probably a country in Europe... Maybe Switzerland! I'd really like to visit Europe some day, and I think Autumn would probably be a nice season to go. :)

Sweater or hoodie?
Can I say both? :P It really depends! I like sweaters... but hoodies are really nice, too, and they have convenient pockets as well, so... Both. Yeah, both.

A hazelnut or apple cinnamon candle?
Hmm... I'd probably go for an apple cinnamon candle. :)

Cookies, brownies, or both?
BOTH! But if I had to choose between the two, I might pick brownies over cookies. (I'm a chocolatey girl, what can I say? *makes note to self to not go overboard on chocolate this fall* :P) But I absolutely positively enjoy cookies as well! So yeah... since I can, I'd definitely choose both!

So apparently this picture I found on Pinterest is of "pumpkin cheesecake swirled brownies"! :O I think I shall have to try this sometime!

What's your favorite fall activity? (Like a fall photo shoot, knitting, crocheting, baking, reading, etc...)
Oh, there's so many fun ones! I really enjoy doing things with family and friends, like going to pumpkin patches, doing corn mazes, hayrides, picnics, hiking, and things like that! :)

~~~~~~~~~

This was a lot of fun! Thank you so much, Brooklyne for tagging me! :) I'm so excited that fall is now officially here! Though I'm kind of sad summer is over, autumn is such a lovely season as well, and I'm glad for it to be here again!

Now, I'll tag...
Christina @ Light Unto My Path
Olivia @ Meanwhile in Rivendell or Towards Indecisive and Palpitating Stars
Abby @ Novels, Dragons, and Wardrobe Doors

And here are your questions!

Windy or rainy autumn?

Do you like chai tea? 

Tea, coffee, hot chocolate, or apple cider? 

If you could go to one state in the U.S.A just for the autumn scenery, where would you go? 

Do you like soup in the autumn? If so, what kind is your favorite?

What color of leaves do you like best? 

If your could go to another country just for autumn scenery, where would you go?

Sweater or hoodie? 

A hazelnut or apple cinnamon candle?

Cookies, brownies, or both?

What's your favorite fall activity? (Like a fall photo shoot, knitting, crocheting, baking, reading, etc...)

Bonus questions!
Pumpkin or apple pie?

Have you ever had a pumpkin spice latte? If not, do you think you would like it/want to try one?
Would you rather go on a hayride or do a corn maze?

Have fun, gals! But if you'd rather not do this tag, than please don't feel obligated! It's totally up to you. :) And also, I realize that it's already nearing the end of September, so even though I'm pretty sure this is maybe possibly probably breaking the rules, I just made up a new rule that states  you can still fill out this tag after September if you can't get to it before then.
And ALSO -- if you are either wearing a sweater or drinking a hot beverage whilst reading this right now... then consider yourself tagged, too! ;D

I hope all of you are having a wonderful September! God bless, and I'll write to y'all later!
~Faith

A TODAY Mentality

Happy 2018, everyone! It's hard to believe that a whole month of this year has already flown past us! How could this have happened??? But let's not be discouraged! We still have 11 months left of this thing. We're far from over with 2018. We're still just getting started!

Maybe you didn't get much done in January. To be honest, I myself didn't get a whole lot done of what I wanted to do. I didn't start out this year with that big bang I was hoping for. For one thing, I was planning to post a lot more and do more with this blog at the beginning of the year. Did that happen? Well as you can see... no, it didn't. This is actually the first thing I've posted this year, so...

It's easy to get discouraged when you don't start out the New Year the way you hoped. When time seems to just keep flying by, not stopping long enough for you to catch up, it's easy to just give up on the things you had first planned and set out to do. But let me encourage you guys (and I'm talking to myself here as well) that it's a new day every day -- it's never too late to get started on goals or projects you may have for this year. You still have time!

BUT REMEMBER, don't take that as an excuse -- an excuse to not get things done. And maybe it's not like this with everyone, but I know that with myself, I've done this way too many times. "Faith, what are you talking about?" Okay sorry, let me back up. When you're at this age, teenage/early twenties, you have many people tell you things like, "You're so young, you have plenty of time to do that!" "Don't worry about that, you have plenty of time to get that done!"

Now, I'm definitely not saying that that's wrong to say to someone. That can be a very encouraging thing to say. I know it's been encouraging to me when I've been feeling like I've wasted a lot of time already, and it helps remind me that my life is far from over yet and that I still have plenty of time ahead of me to get the things done that I want and need to do. But... I think sometimes we take this "plenty of time" thing the wrong way. I think we do this without even realizing it. When we get it into our minds that we have "plenty of time", for some of us (not all of us, but probably quite a few) it gives us an excuse to not do anything right now. Because we tell ourselves, "Well, I have plenty of time to get that done, so I'll just put that off for now... I'll do that later... I have plenty of time..."

And, YES, we have a lot of time. We have our whole lives ahead of us. And NO, we shouldn't just rush into things because we need to hurry up and get 'er done! We need to seek God's will and not bolt into something just because everyone else is doing it or others are telling you that you need to do a certain thing.

BUT we also need to not always be putting things off for tomorrow, for next week, for next month. We don't have an unlimited amount of time here on this earth. We're all going to move on from this life eventually. Even if we live to be 120, we still need to use our time wisely here and not just sit around, waiting for that sudden burst of motivation to rise up in our veins every now and then to get us going out and doing something. We can't always do everything right away, and sometimes we have to be patient and not rush into everything right now; sometimes we need to wait until tomorrow to do the thing. But there's always SOMETHING that can be done today. Maybe you can't do the whole job today, but you can do a step. That's how we ultimately get things done, right? One step at a time.

God has a plan for your life. A GOOD one. He has things for you to do. But it's up to you if you want to follow that plan, and do the things He has for you to do. He usually doesn't give you His whole plan and a bunch of things you need to do all at once. He guides us in steps. One step at a time. We can walk in His plan for us if we'll only listen and take the steps He tells us to take. What step is God guiding you to take TODAY? What He's telling you to do might make no sense to your head right now... But if you're faithful to do that one thing, He'll give you another thing -- another step -- to do, and little by little, it will suddenly all start to make sense. God would never lead us down a path that doesn't go anywhere, or down one that leads to destruction or confusion. He only has GOOD planned for us. So let's not be afraid to follow Him, to do what He's instructing us to do, and to take the steps He's wanting us to take with Him.

So, let me ask you... What's you're goal? What's that thing that's been pressing on your heart that you know God's been leading you to start? Maybe it's just a small personal thing that you've been desiring to accomplish, like eating healthier. What can you do TODAY towards reaching that goal?

I challenge you, as well as myself, to have a today mentality. What can be done today? A lot of times I find myself always thinking to tomorrow, to the next thing that needs to be done, and not the thing that needs to be done right now, that needs to be done TODAY. But, don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying that you should never make a plan for things ahead. Plans are very important! Getting a plan together is one step in getting things done. But if we're only focused on our plans for the future and never on the here and now, we'll miss out on a lot and never actually get much of anything really done.

Psalm 118:24 says,
"This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." 

This is the day. Today. Right now. We're not talking about tomorrow... THIS day -- TODAY -- is the day the LORD has made! So come on, guys, let's go out and do something with this day the LORD has given us!

~Faith

What are the goals you want to accomplish this year? Share them down in the comments if you'd like! :)

Just for a laugh... Christmas Edition!

Well, my friends, here we are, just like we always dreamed... IT'S LESS THAN TWO WEEKS TILL CHRISTMAS!!!

How did this happen??? It seems much too early for Christmas to be upon us once again! Well, no matter... Let's go ahead and get to celebrating this most wonderful time of the year with some laughter, shall we? :D

~~~~~

Oh dear! Thanks so much for taking care of it for us while we were gone...

Hmm... good advice, Doc. Thanks.

Those Finlanders, let me tell ya...

REALLY? WHO KNEW! Well... I guess Mary did.

A most essential item for a ninja to have on hand, especially during the winter months.



"Oh, honey, I'm sorry... I know it's not that frozen now, being out under the tree all night and all, but we can always put it back in the freezer for a while..."



Who needs to shake packages to find out what's in them when you can lie on them instead?



BUT BUT... I HAVE TO TRY ONE OF EVERYTHING, RIGHT???

"Mary had a little Lamb Who washed us white as snow!"

And, to wrap up, here's a fun Christmas video by Studio C for you all about how the Wise Men supposedly did their Christmas Shopping! ;) Enjoy!

I hope you all are having a wonderful, joyful Christmas Season so far, and have a fantastic rest of your day!
~Faith

**Pictures/videos not my own; all images/videos are from Pinterest, YouTube, and Google**