My kids have the day off today. We have a very short fall break, so I’m taking this day to enjoy my family and soak up the beauty that only comes this time of year. We certainly have a creative Creator.
I hope you have an awesome day!
Wendy 🙂
Category: Uncategorized
Labor Day Break
Due to my daughter’s weekend appendicitis, I don’t have a post for today. Her surgery went well and she is on the mend, but my entire family is exhausted. I hope you have a wonderful Labor Day and I will have a new post in the next couple of days. God had His hands all over the entire ordeal and I can’t wait to share it with you.
Have an awesome day!
Wendy 🙂
Family Time
My sister and her family are coming to Georgia all the way from New Jersey for a few weeks. I am going to take the opportunity to enjoy her and her three little ones as much as possible. When they visit, there is very little downtime, which I have to have, to write on Graceful Gaines, so I won’t be posting for a few weeks. I pray that you all have a fabulous 4th of July and that you actively seek to see God in the world around you. Hope to see you back here soon.
Have an awesome day!
Wendy 🙂
Taking a Break
My kids have just gotten out of school for the summer and our family is taking a vacation this week to relax and enjoy a little break. We have VBS coming up soon and then a mission trip. I can’t wait to see how God shows Himself to us this summer and I’m looking forward to sharing it with you in this space. I hope you all have a week full of God’s blessings. See you back here in a week.
Have an awesome day!
Wendy 🙂
Taking a Break
I will be on a youth mission trip this week with three awesome teenage girls. I will be completely out of my element and I have no idea how I will serve, but I do believe that God will let me know, since He called me. I’m all set to listen. Because of my trip, I won’t be posting this week. When I return, I’m going to be helping my parents wrangle my sisters’ babies for a few days so she and her sweet hubby can take a little break. It takes a village. Families are a village of sorts, aren’t they?
I’m taking a short hiatus to follow God and enjoy my family and totally soak up all of those blessings. I can’t wait to see how God will show His face and I can’t wait to share it here on Gracefulgaines.
I would really appreciate your prayers for me and my girls on our trip. I’ll be back soon.
Have an awesome day!
Wendy 🙂
Taking a Break
I’m going to take a break this week and spend some vacation time with my family. I hope you have a fabulous God-inspired week this week and I hope to return with lots of things to write about. Blessings.
Have an awesome day!
Wendy 🙂
Enjoying Family Time
I often write about treasuring the people in our lives. I try very hard to be present for the ones I hold dear, realizing that each day is a gift. With that in mind, I’m going to take this week off to enjoy a vacation with my family. I’m sure I’ll be inspired as we relax and I recharge. I hope to have new and uplifting posts when I return next week.
Have an awesome week!
Wendy 🙂
Honoring God with Sick Days
I was sick a couple of weeks ago and finally gave in and went to see my doctor. It was a sinus infection. I knew it was. I knew I needed an antibiotic. I had known for a couple of days, but I kept putting it off. I just didn’t have time to be sick. I felt so bad by the time I went, I had to come home and crash on the couch where I lamented about my physical human weakness.
Why did I have to be sick? I was just so busy. If I were a stronger person, I could just power through it. As I was beating myself up, I felt like God whispered to me. “You are rarely sick. You have been blessed with very good health. For you to expect to never be sick, would be for you to expect to be greater than human. You are not.”
He was right of course. I’m ashamed to admit that I can throw a “not fair” tantrum that rivals a toddler’s when my to-do list gets piled up and I’m out of commission. I act as if there’s ever a really good time to get sick, maybe the Tuesday after my kids leave home? Let’s face it; there is no good time.
When our bodies get sick, and they will from time-to-time, on this side of heaven, we really are honoring God, when we slow down to heal. Our physical bodies are a gift, a temple, so to speak, and when we take care of ourselves when we are sick, we are thanking God for the gift of our physical bodies and doing our part to restore them to full capacity.
When we just keep going on a fraction of our best physically, we can’t possibly do our very best to serve. I think we owe it to ourselves and to our Maker to make the best effort to heal. This may involve a doctor visit and a nap. While a nap may seem the complete opposite of true worship, perhaps in certain seasons, it’s one and the same.
My son was sick last week. This kid normally gets perfect attendance at school every year. After I gave him several over the counter medications and some coffee and he still couldn’t get off the couch, I knew he was sick. When I told him he would have to see the doctor, he told me that was fine and went back to sleep.
This is one of those times when kids instinctively, get it right. When they are sick, they rest. They don’t feel a deep desire to go to school and get it done. They realize that life will go on, even if they check out for a day. They lose this wisdom by high school, but they do seem to be born with it.
The Bible tells us that when we get to heaven that, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Revelation 21:4
Until then, we will have some sick days. I’m going to try to be more patient with my humanity the next time I get sick and honor God by taking time to rest and heal. What about you? How do you do with sick days? I’d love to hear from you.
Have an awesome day!
Wendy 🙂
Divinely Given Human Wisdom aka Common Sense
I was recently reading the introduction in my Bible to the book of Proverbs. I came across a sentence in the summary that really caused me to pause and ponder. ” The book of Proverbs teaches that God gives people a divine wisdom, but there is also a divinely given human wisdom, or common sense, and both must play a part in daily life.”
If common sense is a divinely given human wisdom, what is going on with our society? I mean, let’s face it, common sense seems to be in short supply these days. How has that happened? The answer is anyone’s guess, but perhaps the further away we have drifted from God, the further away we get from God inspired wisdom.
We know God is just, right? I can’t imagine Him sanctioning a jury verdict where a homeowner gets sued when a would be burglar falls through a sky light while trying to rob him or a corporation getting sued because their coffee was hot. Isn’t coffee supposed to be hot? The list of our innate desire to obtain things we didn’t rightfully earn, is close to limitless.
If we dig a little deeper into the common sense issue, perhaps it comes from the human belief that we are entitled. The word entitlement is the complete opposite of the teachings of Christianity. The definition of entitlement is: the fact of having a right to something.
As Christians, we openly accept and proclaim that we don’t deserve anything. We don’t deserve forgiveness or material things for that matter. Our sinful nature earns us death. However, and this is a BIG one, Jesus’ willingness to die for us gives us a reprieve. We are covered in grace and therefore forgiven.
Through grace and only through grace, are we able to approach God and ask for what we need and even what we want.
Because of Jesus, we have access to the amazing Holy Spirit and all of his gifts and fruits. He gives gifts like, the message of wisdom, special knowledge, great faith, the gift of healing, the power to perform miracles, the ability to prophesy, the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit, the ability to speak in unknown languages and the ability to interpret what is being said. 1 Corinthians 12:7-11
Then there are the fruits of the Holy Spirit which are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Galatians 5:22-23
These gifts and virtues seem to go hand-in-hand with Godly wisdom and divinely given human wisdom. So maybe, if we would like to see a return of “common sense,” to our culture, we should return to God. Like the story of the Prodigal Son, he’s always thrilled when the lost come home. Perhaps it’s time to stop “leaning on our own understanding,” and leaning into God.
I mean, the attempt to live without God at our center doesn’t seem to be working out so well, but hey, that’s just my opinion. I’d love to hear yours.
Have an awesome day!
Wendy 🙂
The Psychology of the Promposal
What in the world is a promposal, you may ask? It’s the craze that has swept high schools across the country where a boy comes up with some elaborate, very public gesture to ask a girl to prom. In my daughter’s high school, it has filtered down to the homecoming dance as well.
Think about the guy who has an airplane fly a banner around a crowded football stadium with a marriage proposal. While we might have an initial, “Oh how sweet!” thought. My next thought is always, “I hope she really wants to marry this guy, because with this proposal, he really left her no choice.”
Back in the late 80’s when I was a teen and the dinosaurs roamed the earth, asking a girl to prom was a more intimate affair. Dating couples always went together. Who else would you go with besides your boyfriend/girlfriend? There were kids who had “liked” each other for awhile and they would get the courage to quietly inquire about each other’s feelings. (Note quietly, usually through a trusted friend, not on Instagram for the entire student body to see.) They would often end up at prom together. Then there were teens that would go as friends, no romance involved at all. The system seemed to work out beautifully.
Now, there’s a competition among all boys to see who can come up with the grandest gesture. I Googled the word promposal and go thirteen million hits. You Tube has forty-six thousand videos of promposals. Now I may be a little old-fashioned here, but it seems to me the shift has gone from the girl to the boy. It’s become about his gesture, not about her answer and it’s certainly not about going together to the dance. They all desperately want to make it on You Tube.
What has happened? We can definitely blame it on social media along with reality television. The entire world wants their fifteen minutes and like the bratty girl in Willy Wonka, “They want it now!” But, I think there’s something deeper going on here. These kids are no longer engaged in true face-to-face relationship.
They are hyper-focused on how things look and competition. There was even one school who had a contest for the best promposal. Do these kids really need more pressure to be self-focused?
I’m all for romance. But, if you think about some of the most romantic moments in your life, were they in front of hundreds of people? I think true romance is between two people. Today’s teens are boasting two hundred Instagram friends and Twitter followers, but they are lonely. Even the kids who are going as friends are pressured to do the huge gesture.
Why? I think maybe we need to talk to our boys about what teen girls really seek. Don’t the girls really just want to feel special and appreciated? Don’t they still appreciate hand-holding, having doors opened for them, dinner and a movie or flowers? Isn’t there some highly technical way to make a mixed tape for that special girl?
Maybe we really need to encourage our teens to get out of the wide wide world of cyberspace and into the three-dimensional world of actual people and real world dating. If they can’t learn to talk face-to-face and problem solve in their relationships, what will their future marriages look like?
I think the answer is relationship. We need to treasure relationship with each other, with our spouses and with our kids. We need to teach them the importance of relationship and encourage them to pursue it. We were not meant to sit alone in a room while we shine in cyberspace. School dances weren’t designed around who has the greatest promposal. It’s all about relationship. It always has been.
What do you think about promposals and relationship? I’d love to hear from you.
Have an awesome day!
Wendy 🙂