Counting my Blessings

Looking back on all of my past blog entries I discovered a common denominator.

The lack of Joy.

I have so many reasons to praise the Lord. So much to appreciate. So many reasons to fall on my face before the Lord weeping with a thankful heart.

So this is my Christmas blog contribution (following the theme of the 12 days of Christmas).

The 12 things I am thankful for today, and in no particular order......



1.) My Salvation

(No visual needed )


2.) Being a part of the Yorimitsu family



3.) Being her Mommy

4.) Being His Wife

5.) Having a roof over my head

6.) Being Auntie Megan to these two



7.) Being her sister



8.) Having a job when so many don't

9.) Having enough food to eat, and family to eat it with

10.) Having friends who love me



11.) Being loved by My Husband

 

12.) Jesus

As cliche as it sounds... Jesus really is the reason for the season. Without Him I would have none of these things in my life to thank Him for.

Merry Christmas & God Bless!



Promises

"What if your blessings come through raindrops ? What if your healing comes through tears ? And what if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know you're near ? What if trials of this life are your mercies in disguise ?" - Laura Story

In Desperate Need of some Spiritual O2!

Sometimes I just need to remember to breathe. Life is suffocating these days. I'm so glad I know Jesus. Without His reminder this afternoon I know I would have jumped on the ya ya bus and headed out of town for good! This is what He told me:


"Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 

 "Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?  

"Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? 

"So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; "and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

"Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

"Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' "For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

"But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. (Matt. 6: 25-34)


WORD!

Talkin' Trash

Lately I feel like I have been on the very brink of madness. There is just a whole lot going on in my life. Disagreements, ill children, grandma's with cancer, dad's with strokes, personal health concerns, etc.

You get the picture.

It's made me irritable, testy, and down right unpleasant to anyone sorry enought to cross my path.

I really hope this is just a season.

Strike that!

My husband really hopes this is just a season. (I think I caught him online shoppin' for shot guns and  caskets!)

Do you ever go through those times where other peoples voices or actions are likened to nails on a chalkboard? Those same voices that at one time tinkled like the sweetest of windchimes riding upon a sultry ocean breeze.

Oscar ain't got nothing on me! I'd so kick that green dust mop out of his pile of tin and convert it to my very own PINK-Pouty-palace- Pail of PMS!

Yep.... I'm that bad right now.

Insetad I want to love.

I do!

I want to love those people that make life difficult. Those people that are hard to love. Those people that scratch on my chalkbaord 24/7.

I am one of those people to someone else . Probably a lot of someone else's he he.

I want the Lord to give me that impossible gift. You know... the one that can only come from God. (Like being a missionary in a Leper colony.) Now if that doesn't have G-O-D written all over it I don't know what does.

I need a major tune-up in the heart department.  I want to esteem others better than myself. The Lord has searched my heart and brought all of the impurities to the surface once again. (He likes to do that you know).

Today is a new day. I'm taking out the trash........ and it's going in Oscar's can!

Memoirs Of The Medically Fat

 

I have been living a never ending nightmare of a life for the past year now.

Last September I had my gall bladder removed because it had ruptured and was poisoning the inside of my body.

Done.

Now one year and 70 extra pounds later I have coined the term "medically fat" to explain my condition and extra added girth.

The gastroentenoligist has told me that I now have extra bile gathering in my stomach because I have no gall bladder to store it in.  Awesome!

Extra bile + no gall bladder = 1 "medically fat" mama!

I have tried everything from dieting, joining the old ladies gym (Curves), to starving myself! Nothing works. I can literally smell a cookie and instantly gain 5 pounds. Ladies this is no good!

Alas, there is light at the end of the tunnel!

Next week they want to stick a camera down my throat to explore the inside of my "medically fat" body and decide what to do with me. Medicine to control "bile reflux" means my medical fatness will soon go away.

Stand by.

Imperfectly Perfect Take 2

So previously I stated that I was set free of this Body of Flesh that I reside in.

FAIL.

I've fallen prey to myself once again. I spent the better portion of my night wide awake, eyes swollen, snotty-nosed, crying into my "poor me" pillow.

A comment that was meant in jest rocked my world last night. It caught me off guard and made me realize...

 I'm not so strong am I?

It made me realize that I cannot declare myself free, and think that it is a one-time declaration. I need to submit myself daily, hourly,.... by the second to the Lord. I'm just not that strong.

Satan's attacks are so very subtle. That sly devil snuck right up on me and pulled the rug out from under my "oh so free" feet!

As a woman we need to know at some point in the day that we are admired. That we are attractive. That we are cherished. That we are desired etc..... the list goes on ladies right?

But..... and it's a very big butt (no pun intended)

If we are to ever truly have that peace that surpasses understanding, we need to continually look to God for that re-assurance. He will never tell you how fat you are. He will never tell you how frizzy your hair is in the morning..... if not immediately blow dryed. Best of all He will never tell you that you are not good enough.

He see's you perfect in His Son. He looks through a Jesus framed mirror. I have one of those mirrors hangin' around I just sometimes forget to look in it. I'm like the wicked Step-Mother in Snow White. "Mirror. mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all".

I just don't like it when the jerk says "Megan, megan not so pretty....... is your face oh what a pity! :(

I resolve......once again to lean upon the One who is strong enough to hold me up. Who tells me how lovely I am. Who see's me in His beautiful Son as Imperfectly Perfect. Jesus made the way for me to be called His Chosen One.

He loves me for who I am.

Imperfectly Perfect

"Love the skin you're in", "Get your best body ever", "Lose those last last ten pounds", "Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels", "Size 0 is the new size 6", blah,blah,blah,blah!

That's the world's message to young and old women alike. We struggle within a world that refuses to take the spotlight off of what size you are!

And it's no wonder! Every Magazine that graces the news stands these days start with some title referring to ones self and how you can beautify & better it.

In Style, Cosmopolitan, Self, Glamour, Vogue, Shape, Allure, etc. with all of the articles enclosed guiding and directing us desperate women on the fine art of looking like the model that graced the cover.

Women who are insecure about their bodies are more likely to buy beauty products, new clothes, and diet aids. What a fortune these companies are making off of us!  I think what is the most disturbing fact of all  is that the media images of female beauty are unattainable for all but a very small number of women.

Not me. I'm done.

As a Christian women I know better. But..... I still live in this body of flesh, I still give into the sly whispers of Satan, I still believe that last article telling me it's as simple as A,B,& C.

I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works,
         And that my soul knows very well. Pslm 139:14

What does it mean to be fearfully and wonderfully made?

I can't give you a accademically correct answer but I can tell you what it means to me.

It means I believe you Lord. It means you said it, and I am going to believe it. It means that I am no longer going to worry and fret if I can never obtain a perfect by the world's standards size zero frame, because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Beleive this. There is power in His word, and it truly has set me free.

Such a Sad Truth

I stumbled upon this today and thought how sad that this is how the world views Christians.

But you know what?

I would just about have to agree.

The church has failed. That's right; we've messed up, big time. The church was SUPPOSED to be a reflection of the God it claimed to serve. The church was SUPPOSED to be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ. But, for the most part, the church has failed.

Our failure has left a bad taste in people's mouths. Our mistakes have led to a lack of credibility. Our messes have caused people to seek answers for this life elsewhere. And really, who could blame people for giving up on the church? Gandhi had a very good point when he said "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

I don't know about you, but I don't want to be a jerk, nor considered as such.

Instead I want these verses to ring true in my life!

Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. ⁴ Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Phil 2:3-4

SOUND OFF!

I've just about had it!

Why do we live in such a backwards and fallen world?!?!?

Standing in the line at the grocery store my eyes happen  to glance over to  this weeks newest and latest Trash-a-zines and my next thought is "Are you Serious"?!?

When did  teen moms become the new celebrity?  Where was I when this happened? .......And apparently there is a show dedicated to it on MTV????

I mean do you realize just what kind of message this is conveying to our children? How about... "It's cool to have a baby at age 16", or "WOW! how glamorous to have a drooling toddler strapped to my hip".... Maybe if I have two I will be on the next issue of OK Weekly!

When my parents were growing up, if you got pregnant as a teenager you were sent off (in secret mind you)  to some unknown relatives house until after delivery with the story that you were traveling abroad for the year.

It was shameful.

Now it's applauded and apparently a mass money maker to boot!
What has happened to us?

Parents I think we need to make a committment to teaching our children about the importance of Purity.

Fathers show your sons by example how important it is to wait for their beautiful bride.

Mothers explain to your daughters about the gift they possess that only their husband should ever open.

Love your children. Be involved in their lives, because if you don't someone will gladly take your place as their teacher.

For this is God’s will, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality, so that each of you knows how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not with lustful desires, like the Gentiles who don’t know God. This means one must not transgress against and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger of all these offenses, as we also previously told and warned you. For God has not called us to impurity, but to sanctification. Therefore, the person who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who also gives you His Holy Spirit.

1 Thessalonians 4:3-8

Pop Quiz Hotshot!

Okay so.....


 I have always had this thing about being smart.

Growing up I was encouraged (okay bullied) into making sure my report card reflected all A's.

As you can imagine this was a hard thing to do because let's face it I wasn't born with a frock of whity unruly hair with the destiny to create light bulbs, or find out about atoms, or invent post-its (thanks Romy)!

But I have always wondered how does one become smart? Are they just born with it? Is it something that is perfected? Do you have to work to achieve your "smartness"?

Recently I have been searching around looking for who the world considers the smartest people in History.

This is my findings based on IQ scores:

210 - Physicist / Engineer Kim Ung-yong has a verified IQ of 210

 195 - Bouncer Christopher Michael Langan has a verified IQ of 195

 190 - Engineer Philip Emeagwali is alleged to have an IQ of 190

 190 - World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov is alleged to have an IQ of 190

 190 - Sir Isaac Newton

 190 - Francois-Marie Arouet (Voltaire)

 190 - Ludwig Wittgenstein

 186 - Author Marilyn Vos Savant has a verified IQ of 186

 180 - Leonardo da Vinci

 180 - Actor James Woods is alleged to have an IQ of 180

 180 - Buonarroti Michelangelo

 180 - David Hume

 180 - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is alleged to have an IQ of 180

 180 - Politician John H. Sununu is alleged to have an IQ of 180

 179 - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 176 - Emanuel Swedenborg

 176 - Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz

 175 - Edmund Spenser

 175 - Baruch Spinoza

 175 - Johannes Kepler

 174 - John Stuart Mill

 171 - Blaise Pascal

 170 - Antoine Lavoisier

 170 - Martin Luther

 170 - World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer is alleged to have an IQ of 167

 170 - Chess Grandmaster Robert Byrne is alleged to have an IQ of 170

 170 - World Chess Champion Judith Polgar is alleged to have an IQ of 170

 170 - Mathematician Andrew Wiles is alleged to have an IQ of 170

 170 - Michael Faraday

 170 - George Friedrich Handel

 167 - Mathematician / Physicist Stephen W. Hawking is alleged to have an IQ of over 160

 165 - Samuel Johnson

 165 - Ludwig van Beethoven

 165 - Joseph Priestley

 165 - John Locke

 165 - Thomas Hobbes

 165 - Charlotte Bronte

 165 - Galileo Galilei

 165 - Johann Sebastian Bach

 165 - Carl von Linne

 162 - Madame De Stael

 162 - Rene Descartes

 160 - Robert Boyle

 160 - Microsoft Founder Paul Allen is alleged to have an IQ of over 160

 160 - Benjamin Franklin

 160 - Albert Einstein

 159 - Immanuel Kant

 156 - Olof Palme

 156 - Thomas Chatterton

 156 - Linus Carl Pauling

 156 - Sofia Kovalevskaya

 155 - Jonathan Swift

 155 - Miguel de Cervantes

 155 - Rembrandt van Rijn

 154 - Actress Sharon Stone is alleged to have an IQ of 154

 153 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

 153 - Charles Darwin

 150 - George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)

 150 - Nicolaus Copernicus

 150 - Abraham Lincoln

 145 - Anna Lindh

 145 - Napoleon Bonaparte

 143 - George Sand (Aurore Dupin)

 140 - George Washington

 130 - Ulysses S. Grant

 130 - Sir Francis Drake

Do you know any of these people? Seriously how many do you really know? Especially genious boy there right at the top of the list? If he is so smart why is this the first time I am reading his name?

Well that leads me to the thought of the hour? Maybe everyone else has heard of him and it's just me?

So you see my problem? Obviously my parents have created a complex in me about my "not so smartness".

So this post started out as one thing and now has transitioned into quite the other.

So......

Thanks MOM & DAD! For all of the jibs and jabs when I brought home that B+!  This posts for you :)

Mirror, Mirror In My Heart

Sometimes, I look out my window and shudder . I cringe at  what this world has become, and what it continues to transform itself into daily.

Hate.

You can't get away from it.

It's on the TV. It's in the Newspapers. It's on the Radio.

Hate.

It's in my heart.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? Jeremiah 7:9

I'm utterly ashamed at the thoughts and feelings I harbor against others.

If Someone Cut Me I'd Like To Think Little Music Notes Would Burst Forth!

                            

                                              "sing with your head up, with 

              your eyes closed, not cause you love the song,

                    cause you Love to sing." 

                                                                                          

And Suddenly She Wasn't....

A little girl anymore.


Sometimes I look at her and I think, no...... I wonder, how did this happen?

What was once just the smallest of flutters beneath the beat of my heart has grown into someone who will one day feel that familiar flutter of life growing within her as well.


My baby will one day have her own baby, and I wonder again...... will she have a moment such as this?


A moment in which she reflects on the last 12 years of her child's life.... all the time wondering if she did  everything right? Are all of the pieces in place? You know..... the ones that are essential for that same child to make all of the "right" decisions in life.


My imperfections are suddenly a very scary thing to possess, knowing that they will more than likely be a hand-me-down to a living breathing legacy that all started within my womb.


Gabrielle is a Hebrew name that  means God gives strength; or God is my strength.


Lord, I pray that you lead me so that I may lead her, and may she always be aware of your ever present help in her time of need, of her weakness made perfect in Your strength.

Grandpa's and Typewriter's

It's funny.....

When I think back to when I first fell in love with writing and stories I remember my grandpa.

You see, Grandpa  bought me my first typewriter from a garage sale when I was about 8 years old. Oh what a glorious thing to behold that typewriter was in all of it's faded, rusty, antiquified glory! I remember sitting at the dining room table for hours click clacking away lost in my latest adventure.... and there were many.

But by far my grandest adventures of all came from the evening strolls around the neighborhood with grandpa. They were always lively events full of tales of fishing trips, treasures found at the latest garage sale outing, and stories of war.

Grandpa fought in World War 2.

On June 6, 1944 he floated up to the shores of Omaha Beach ready to fight off the brutal attacks given by the Nazi's.

The landings at Omaha is most remembered for the casualties the Americans took there.  German machine gun fire tore into the American troops. The seawall on the beach offered some salvation - but the sprint needed across the beach to the wall proved fatal for many. The Americans suffered 2,400 casualties at Omaha - and this is principally why the attack is remembered.

Of the handful of men left standing that day, Quinton O. Ross (my grandpa) was one of them.

He was a hero. Among the recognitions for his service during World War II is the Purple Heart, Combat Infantry Medal, Presidential Unit Citation and the Bronze Star.

I often times wonder if ..... maybe Grandpa wanted his story told? Maybe that typewriter was a gift with a hidden purpose.

Grandpa went home to his glory a few years back now, and oh how I wish I still had that same rusty, old typewriter to tell of the tales of his life. You see, the two go hand in hand with one another. 

Both from another era, old and weathered around the edges, and gone.... but oh the stories they once produced!

They are forever from another time altogether and utterly unforgettable!

Introductions Are In Order

She quietly walks out onto the stage amidst the bright lights and hushed crowd.

Her heart racing, palms sweating, stomach aching, thoughts racing.

           (Will they like me, am I funny, am I worthy)?

(Spotlight).....um.... hello..... My name is Megan.

           (Okay there... I've done it).

This day and age everyone has a blog. I have refrained up until this point explaining it away as nothing more than "I don't want to be like everyone else" Or how about this one, "I don't have anything to write about anyways".

            Truth be known It's always been insecurity.

So, it's time to finally take that dive off the diving board into "the deep end", run that 5K marathon. You know, do those things that are at one time seemingly impossible. I feel the winds of change a' blowin'.

Welcome to My Blog. Come in pull up a comfy chair and let's get better aquainted.