Joy in Christ

Wow what a beautiful day today! As the kids are napping, my house is clean and chores finished, laundry caught up, and no tv :), I have just enjoyed such a sweet time with the Lord. My heart grins at all that the Lord has done within me. I have truly experienced joy in Christ. Here is an excerpt from Experiencing God that I read a moment ago:

"Don't deny yourself that which is your birthright as a child of God. Don't be satisfied with a joyless life. There ought to be in every Christian a deep, settled fullness of the joy of Christ that no circumstance of life can dispel. This comes as you allow the Holy Spirit to express Himself in your life. One of the fruits of the spirit is joy (Gal. 5:22). This joy is unlike any happiness that is produced by the world. It fills you and permeates everything you do.

Jesus did not pray that you would merely be happy or even that you would escape grief. He prayed that you would have the same joy that the Father had given him: a divine joy, a joy that comes from a deep unwavering relationship with the Father. It is a joy that is grounded so firmly in a relationship with God that no change in circumstances could ever shake it. This is the kind of joy that Christ is praying will be in you."

Wednesday morning, Jay's grandad Pawpaw Lemonds had a biopsy taken of a spot they found on his lungs. We got a call yesterday from him that they had received the results from the biopsy. When Jay answered the phone, his pawpaw said something I will never forget. He replied (with a smile on his face I am sure) "Well the Lord has given me a free ticket to see Him!" In other words, the result is that it is cancer, the slow growing kind. We don't know much else; they go back to the doctor in Tupelo this week. However, I do know that his granddad has experienced TRUE JOY IN CHRIST. Like Pawpaw, I desire to be so rooted in Him that no "bad news" or circumstance could shake my joy in Him. How deep are your roots???

God is with us in the storm

Tonight as we were weathering the storms with everyone else, Jay and I were in the den working and Karis and Brayden were sitting in the kitchen eating dinner (rather informal at our house tonight) and we heard some sweet words coming from Karis. It was thundering pretty loudly for a few minutes and Brayden kept saying "train!" because he thought it was one I guess. Then we heard Karis say, "It's ok Brayden, it is just thunder and we don't have to be afraid of thunder. God is with us all the time right here in our hearts and He will keep us safe. It's ok, I will come and sit next to you so you won't be afraid. God and Jesus are with us to protect us." It was such precious words coming from a 3 year old. They DO listen to the things we teach them....beautiful!

Family blogs

Check out some of my families' blog sites at...

Jay (my husband)

Jonathan (my 18 yr. old brother)

Cindy (my mother-in-law)

Everything is Meaningless

I wanted to share something with you that the Lord shared with me this morning during my time with Him. As I was reading in Ecclesiastes, the theme of the whole book is that life is meaningless, useless, hollow, futile and vain if it is not rightly related to God. Only when based on God and his WORD is life worthwhile. I was reading specifically in chapter 2 which is titled, "Pleasures are Meaningless" and the Lord spoke to me about the "things" I fill my day with.

"I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor. Yet when I surveyed all my hands had done and what I toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun." Ecclesiastes 2:10-11

What is the motivation behind the things that you will do today? Is it just routine or have you 1)thanked the Lord for allowing you to wake up this morning and 2)given the day over to Him to do as HE pleases? Have you denied yourself today so that you live in the spirit and not the flesh? Is your routine today "meaningless" or will it glorify the Lord? I desire to glorify the Lord today in all the things on my "to do" list and in my daily routines, how about you?

Laid to Rest

Yes, it is a sad day in the Lemonds' household...no more Duke ball, Andy Griffith or Dog Whisperer! We said goodbye today and Jay really wanted to have a ceremony...such a tragedy. We said goodbye to....DIRECTV!!!!

In all seriousness, Jay and I have decided to cut off our directv (and will be effective as of 12 midnight tonight) for multiple reasons. We have felt convicted for a long time about how wisely we spend our time. We have come to the conclusion that TV plays a bigger role than it should and honestly there is not one good thing about it. Although we don't watch anything "bad," TV (for us) is not good for several reasons:
1. It takes so much time away from quality family time. How much closer do you get to someone while both staring at the tube???
2. Instead of watching tv, what else could we accomplish? Read a book, take the kids to the park, exercise (much needed for both of us), memorize some scripture, etc. All are more beneficial than watching tv.
3. TV has so much influence of the world, and none of which has eternal impact. So technically it is just a waste of time.
4 Although this isn't the reason, it will save us $80 a month so that we can apply that to debt.
5. We want to teach our children that tv is not the only form of entertainment. I want my children to grow up playing outside, using their imagination, reading books, etc. and not thinking that you always have to sit and watch tv for fun. Cartoons all day can't do much for the brain cells! There are many biblical principles I am responsible for teaching my children and I want to be diligent in them. To teach my children to love the Lord and revere the WORD is my ultimate goal as a parent. I will be held accountable for these things.

We decided this a while back and decided to wait (per Jay's request) until the end of March Madness..haha. So we knew that coming back from Israel would be a good transition time and today was the day. In fact we haven't turned on the tv (except to check weather once or twice) since we returned. I will say that there is freedom in it. We have spent alot more time together and our relationships are better. And this is the goal for our family...that we all would glorify Christ in our lives and for now, this means sacrificing something that could be an idol.

"Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is beneficial." I Corinthians 6:12

By the way, we do not feel as if everyone should do this. It is our own personal convictions. However what in your life is PERMISSIBLE but not BENEFICIAL? Is it most beneficial to the kingdom or has it become an idol to you? Consider these things and allow the Lord to speak to you through His word.

Day at the Lake

Today our family went to Arkabutla Lake to enjoy the beautiful weather. The beach was flooded so we enjoyed the playgrounds instead. Here are a few pictures from our day...

Brayden received these balls from their Pap and Roxie...he is a happy man!

This is dad after he went geocaching with his GPS...

Karis hugging her doll she received from Pap and Roxie...

Dad and the kids playing hop-skotch

To see all the pictures, click here.

Just some of our favorites...

There are so many stories and things that I want to share about our trip and will very soon, however my pictures have just finished uploading and jetlag is consuming me right now so I will wait until tomorrow for that. But for now, enjoy some pictures from the Holy Land. I have posted a few but please click on the link below if you want to view all 500. They are captioned so that you will know what they are in case you are interested.

Israel 2008 Album 1

Israel 2008 Album 2

We are alive!

Just wanted to let you all know that we are alive for those who are asking....we arrived home Monday and things have been crazy since then trying to get unpacked, fighting jetlag and trying to spend time with the kids. I have been trying to upload all of the 500 pics we took and hope to have them up by tonight. They are being stubborn! I will try to post as soon as I get them up so that you can see them! Thank you all for praying...we needed them. :)

The last few days of Israel

Well I wasn't able to post yesterday due to our evening adventures so I will attempt to quickly update the last two days....

Friday, we started off the day by snorkling....toughing out the waters of the Red Sea.  I will say that all the girls chickened out at the last minute except for me and Kerrie Curbow.  After having said that, I will be the first to say IT WAS ONE OF THE SCARIEST MOMENTS OF MY LIFE!!!!  We went at about 9:00 am and the water was FREEZING.  The waves were very strong and we crawled out to the end of a pier and just jumped in with nothing but a mask and a snorkel (no flippers and no life jacket).  We were told NOT to touch the buoys along the path because they had coral reefs growing on them so it was like we were stuck out in the ocean just treading water in lots of waves.  For a second, I totally panicked.  I jumped in first before anyone and once I did there was no turning back!  I tried to look at the fish underneath and water got in my mask and my snorkel so I was left feeling like I was in the middle of the ocean and I was about to breathe my last breath.  I was picturing in my mind the headlines, "Girl goes to Israel on a mission trip and dies...snorkeling in the Red Sea!"  I finally got control of myself and calmed down and then I was able to swim and look at some of the fish.  The ones I did see were absolutely beautiful!  I love going to aquariums and this was up close and personal. There were so close that I felt as if I could reach out and touch them. Of course when I tried, they swam away.  We finally made it to the next pier (that was about a football field away that we had to swim) and I was never so glad to see those steps than anything in my life!!! Overall I was glad I did it but I will probably not do another snorkeling adventure like that one again.   

We then toured Solomon's mines and then we saw a replica of THE ARK OF THE COVENANT.  It was neat to see what I have tried to picture from the scriptures from so many years.  WE left there and rode camels in the dessert.  The ride lasted about an hour and a half and we rode all through the mountains to a lookout mountain where we could see another country (Jordan). It was very peaceful.    We then went to our Bedouin tent where we would spent the night.  It was a very large tent (almost like an open air log cabin).  It slept about 9 rooms and all 15 of us slept in one of them.  That tells you how big it was.  Everyone just got mats and made their pallet on the ground.  They also served us dinner along with many others.  I think they ended up serving 90 including us.  They just had round tables on the floor with mats beneath the tables (similar to a Japanese restaurant where you sit indian style).  It was Shabbat (Jewish holiday) so alot of families were having their celebrations.  They turned off the electricity at 11:00 and everyone went to bed.  We all slept ok until a baby started crying at 6 a.m.  It was a great experience!

Today, we had a 2 hour bus ride to the dead sea.  We did float in the dead sea and laid out at the beach for a couple of hours.  We came back to the hotel and took showers and that brings us up to this point.  We are about to eat dinner and then our tour guide is doing a Passover meal with us so that we can experience it .  We are all looking forward to that.  Tomorrow we are going to Masada, En Gedi, and Qumran (where the dead sea scrolls were found).  We will then shower at a beach and then get on a plane for 12 hours.  We are hoping to sleep the whole way!  We are loving this and learning so much although we are missing home and the kids!  We can't wait to see them!  We will not have internet any more until we get home so until then, we love you guys and can't wait to share about 500 pictures with you!  :)

Greetings from Eilat, Israel

Tonight we are in a very nice hotel sitting in the lobby drinking cappuccino after a very long day.  We hiked ALL DAY and it was a blast, but we are exhausted. This morning, we were still in the wilderness for a hike that lasted all morning and we climbed some mountains and searched for all kinds of fossils that date back to early A.D.  We ate lunch at a Bedouin picnic area and then climbed some cliffs this afternoon that was much shorter, but more intense.  We have driven south and we stopped at a lookout place where you could see 4 countries from this one spot (Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia) and overlooking the red sea.  Tomorrow I will not be able to update because we are camping out in  a Bedouin tent.  Tomorrow a.m. we are going snorkeling in the Red Sea and then tomorrow afternoon we are visiting Solomon's mines.  By the way, just a random fact...do you know why the Red Sea is called the Red Sea?  It is blue upon looking at it but the mountains surrounding the Red Sea are a brown and red granite so when it reflects off of them, they tend to have a red glow sometimes.  Our tour guide told us that today.  He is an American Christian but has lived in Israel for 30 years.  He married an Israeli pastor's wife and they have raised their family here (4 kids under the age of 7).  I must say he keeps us on our toes!