Giveaway....and some thoughts....

      Two weeks ago, I wrote this post that was a mixture of things. It was a review of the wonderful frame that I received from DaySpring, but it was also a story about a child. A child on another continent who we feel deeply connected to by faith. By love. By God. I hope that her life continues to be blessed.....She certainly blesses us.

     And so....the winner of the giveaway is.... Misty! She will get a code to spend $20 in the DaySpring store. Yay! (And hey, if you have a moment, please be sure to check out her blog. You will be inspired!)

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     Today is just one of those days. One of THOSE days. I look around and see what needs to be done. Oh I see it alright. I just don't really have the complete motivation to DO it. (I was in the middle of vacuuming, and just wanted to write for goodness sakes!) This is what I have been meditating on (from Psalm 145):

The Lord is gracious and merciful,

slow to anger and of great kindness.

The Lord is good to all

and compassionate toward all his works.

In thinking about my post on gentleness...
This is where I want to be today to really feel that Psalm:

On the kitchen floor.
Playing with Max.
Creating a cacophony of sounds.
Laughing like silly.
(...and.....when there is a free moment....scrubbing under the counters. Wow. It's different down there.)

How fleeting these moments....
These precious times of innocence and exploration of the world....

I suppose that this is what my husband would call one of my job perks. Playtime.
Listening to the rosary being prayed as we play.
Reading (well, when Max isn't chewing) board books about Mary, the saints, and our God....

Yes indeed. My life is full. It is blessed. And my house, well, it can just wait a little to be cleaned....

Will you excuse me?
 I have to go play.  :)

Count Your Blessings ~ Review and Giveaway!

     
     The words came softly whispered through the phone. He was taking a quiet moment out of his busy day to call me and let me know what was in his heart.

“Honey. I am so proud of you for taking such wonderful care of our boys. I just don’t think that you know how very much I love that. How much I love you.”

     And there. There in those few short sentences, my heart was filled. How did he know that I needed to be encouraged?
    
     Sometimes, to be quite honest, I do ask him, that dear husband of mine. I ask if what I am doing is enough. For the boys. For him. For God. Oh how I hope! Because sometimes it all just feels so overwhelmingly tiring. The how-in-the-world-can-I-do-this kind of tired. Where cocooning under the sheets is blissfully tempting and you have to physically drag your body out of bed. So it is so perfectly life giving, life sustaining when someone we love can lift us up with just a few words.

     As Mother Teresa so wisely said, To keep a lamp burning we have to keep putting oil in it.
We are asked to give of ourselves…

            To share what we have…..

                        To do unto others…YES….

     But we need encouraging too. Listen to those beautiful words from Isaiah 43… “I have called you by your name, you are mine”. Oh how we are loved. We are cherished. We are counted. We are blessed
    

     Not long after I received such encouraging words from my husband, I received this frame from Dayspring. Count your blessings. Where do I even begin? One of the first pictures that I chose to put into it was the one of Tom and me at our wedding. For I thank God for him every day and I count him as one of my truest blessings. However, as I continued to think about counting my blessings, I naturally wanted to put in a picture of our two miracles. Our two boys. Our blessings.
But no….

     For also in the mail that day was another special package. A reminder of what this life is all about. Counting our blessings yes, bu also... Encouraging others. Here is the blessing who now adorns this frame:

     This darling child is Maria, our adopted child through CFCA (Christian Foundation for Children and Aging.) We are lucky enough to receive letters in which she tells us how our small donation each month has helped her and her family.

She can attend school now.

She and her family do not go hungry.

She thanks us and tells us how she is praying for us.

     So this lovely frame now sits proudly on our prayer table, nestled up to the basket of books about the saints, prayer cards, and of course...The Word. We thank God for our dear Maria, and we pray for her every day.

     Among our many blessings, we are lucky enough to count her as one. By her life, we are encouraged.

     Whom do you count among your blessings?

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This month DaySpring is celebrating encouragement. If you’d like to make use of the special deals they are running to celebrate the gift of encouragement, please take a look at the items featured on their {in}spired deals page.

And, to enable your desire to encourage, DaySpring would like to give one of you a $20 credit towards any item in the DaySpring store!!!

Giveaway details:

1. This giveaway is open to all. No need to have a blog to enter, just some way I can get in contact should random.org select your name.

2. Please leave your name and a little bit about who encourages you in the comments section of this blog post.

3. After perusing the DaySpring store, come back here to tell me what you would apply your $20 towards for a second chance to win. (**Please note that the $20 cannot be used towards shipping costs.)

3. Additional entries for facebooking, and posting. Please leave an additional comment indicating where you shared.

4. One winner will be selected using random.org and announced Thursday, June 30th.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received Count Your Blessings ~ 4x6 photo frame from DaySpring to review for {in}courage. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising