A reminder of the Son's love

     Have you ever wondered why God loves you? The answer is a simple one.  If you love His Son, Jesus and believe that Jesus came from His Father, then God loves you. (John 16:27)  By believing and receiving His love, we are given the right to be children of God. (John 1:12)  Being in a family means you belong to someone.

     God's love toward us reminds Him of the love between Himself and His Son.  He loves us because we belong to Him and we belong to His Son.  We are given an intimate look at a prayer Jesus prayed to His Father in John 17.  He refers to all those the Father gave to Him seven different times. We are a gift they gave to each other.

     Take a look a a new mom and dad with their little baby.  That child is a gift they gave to each other and a gift God gave to them.  Those little babies are loved not for what they can do for mom and dad. They are loved because they belong to them.  For those who adopt children or who have been adopted, its the same. They are chosen and loved because they belong to those who chose them.

     Its easy to relax and be at home with your family when you believe they love you simply because you belong to them. We can relax in God knowing He loves us because we love His Son, not because we always do the right things.  The more we experience their love, the more we will want to do what pleases them.

     We are a constant reminder to God of His love for Jesus and Jesus' love for us. May you be a peace knowing you are greatly loved.

The desire needed to accomplish something

     I recently had a conversation with two of my friends about the need for a greater desire for things we want to accomplish. As we talked we agreed that our desire usually follows what we give our attention to. Sometimes we convince ourselves that life is more complicated than it needs to be. If there's anything we would like a greater desire for we can create that desire by giving more attention to it.
     For example, I now love to knit. That wasn't the case when I first began. I did have the motivation to learn but quite honestly, the desire to actually do it wasn't there. I find it is usually hard to for me to get excited about something that is difficult at first.  My motivation was to learn to knit for grandchildren. At least I was wise enough (or know myself well enough) to give myself a head start. I began to learn when there was no evidence of babies on the horizon, but I did have faith for a grandchild. I'm happy to say God has blessed our family with a gorgeous baby boy. I'm knitting for him and I love doing it now. By the way to show you how desire can work,  that is the little vest I made for Will. His Daddy wears vests all the time so Will needed one early on.  It took lots of practice. I started the vest 3 different times but I was happy with how my attention paid off. That little vest took lots of desire to accomplish.
     In the beginning I was very frustrated because I simply wasn't giving enough attention to doing the knitting. I read books and magazines about knitting, thought a lot about it, but I wasn't doing it. I'm not convinced that old saying, "practice makes perfect" is true but I do know that without practice you won't learn and you won't have enough desire to keep yourself motivated.  It is easy to become motivated but to stay motivated is quite another thing. I'm well on my way into the knitting adventure.  Now I must start attending to the regular exercise program adventure.  I have the shoes, the workout clothes, the videos.  Surely desire is right around the corner.

Four Generations

Our home has been full of joy and delight this past week.  The wait for this four generation picture has been a long one. My father who is 86 years old, my son David and grandson William David (Will) and Mimi Pam. Children are truly a blessing from the Lord.