Author Archives: Nannette

About Nannette

Wife to The Sweetheart, Mom to the Fantastic Six, Nana to six of the cutest littles on the planet, Author, The Daniel Fast, A Devotional. UPCI ministers.

For this we give You thanks…

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“Thanksgiving is an emotional holiday. People travel thousands of miles to be with people they only see once a year, & then discover once a year is way too often.” ~Johnny Carson

When President Abraham Lincoln declared the first Thanksgiving holiday in the United States, his hope was that we would remember the Giver of all good things. We were in the middle of a Civil War but he still found something to be thankful for in his proclamation when he took note of the “blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies”, saying, “They are gracious gifts of the Most High God.”

We all have much to be thankful for as we close out 2013. Several weeks ago I hosted a survey at the end of my posts asking YOU to answer three questions.

Something God has done for you in 2013, what you are most thankful for.
What you want to see accomplished in your spiritual walk in 2014.
How you and your family will be celebrating the Thanksgiving Holiday, if at all.

As usual, you did not disappoint! Overwhelmed by the response, I quickly realized that even though many had experienced difficult seasons this year, unemployment, sickness or loss; they still found reason to give thanks and praise to almighty God, the Giver!

I thought I would share some of them with you today and tomorrow. Thursday you will be too busy to think of Hope in the Healing! I hope you enjoy. They have certainly blessed me! Then at the end, please add your own!

Beth writes at Messy Marriages, a wonderful resource for anyone that has a significant other! She is most grateful for the group of women who regularly meet to pray for their marriages. They have seen God’s faithfulness through this effort and His blessing in their marriages!

There were awesome friends and readers like Amy @walkhumblywithgod, that said 2013 brought them the ability to forgive themselves. I was especially blessed by that! The top Google search phrase on my blog is any combination of the following: “If God forgives me, why can’t I forgive myself?” And of course I wrote a post on that several months ago, which is why they keep showing up on my doorstep thankfully. I hope it helps in some small way. I only wish they would let me know they were here.

Elisabeth has much to be thankful for this year! She says God showed her a clear path to some health issues she was having and through that they are now expecting their 8^th child, which should make its presence known sometime in January. Praise God!

Patricia, of Pollywog Creek, says He has constantly proved His faithfulness to her this past year.

For Joan, at The Beauty in His Grip, she readily confesses there is so much to be thankful for it’s hard to pin it down to one thing but she chose her husband of 32 years, her best friend. I think she chose wisely, don’t you?

My new friend, Joseph, in Kenya, reports that the Lord helped him to overcome some challenges this year. He has exciting news to share of their work in his area: “Indeed He is a wonderful God! We had also asked Him to allow us to go out and minister His gospel of grace and peace to all at the beginning of the year. Now that the challenges are behind us, He has placed a busy outreach program upon two of our pastors. One will be going to Banita this coming Sunday, and Eldoret, end of the month. Our young pastor will be going to Kericho or Kisii on the 26th. He has also hinted to us about wanting us to open another church about 30 km’s away. We regret that God seems to have had much programs lined for us this year but had to patiently wait for the challenges we had to ease off. Hopefully at the end of the year we’ll file a very successful report back to Him.”

Joseph, I believe God is already pleased! You need have no regrets my friend!

I am so thrilled for my friend Barbie whose husband was blessed with a job recently after three years of unemployment! I can’t imagine how difficult this has been on them financially, emotionally and even spiritually…let me re-phrase that. I think I have the last part figured out. Barbie always gives God praise in ALL THINGS. So even when things were not going her way, even when she did not understand and probably said so, she still gave God praise. He supplied their NEEDS, maybe not their WANTS, but their NEEDS! She shares her story here at My Freshly Brewed Life. Go there!

This beautiful lady, Cindy, who attends Turning Point Church with me, was recently spared a major heart attack! September 23 of this year she had quite a scare but the Lord stepped in and she is doing just fine today. She is giving God the glory!

Sharon is most thankful for her soon-to-be daughter-in-law! She deems her “precious” and is eagerly awaiting the wedding of her oldest son. Congratulations Sharon! I only have one DIL and she is the “little girl I never had”. Be blessed!

Cindy has the most gorgeous blog, Dwellings, the Heart of Your Home; she shares so many beautiful pictures and ideas on her site. She writes that the Lord blessed her by allowing her daughter, son-in-law, AND their PUPS to stay with her while their house was being built! She loved having them and I can imagine they loved being with Cindy; and I am guessing those pups had a great time exploring this house. You are one cool Mom!

I love how Angel summed up her thanks for 2013: [Tweet ““I am thankful for God’s healing and provision for our needs and most of all for mercy.” “] She is always Finding the Inspiring.

I could not have said it better Angel.

One reader who just came back to the Lord said it this way, and I just love it, “Being thankful. What an understatement. Not only has God brought me through a very hard time in my life, He has led me straight back to the Church. He is showing me the truth and blessing me daily.”

Tomorrow we will share some of our hopes for 2014 and how we will be spending Thanksgiving. I have a few thoughts to share of my own.

Now, how about you? What are you most thankful for this past year?

What has the Lord kept you from or brought you through that you know without a shadow of a doubt He alone had a hand in it?

Has He healed your physical body?

Touched your mind?

Provided a financial need?

Brought home a prodigal?

Sent comfort when it was needed?

Sharing with us today might just be the encouragement someone else is looking for.

Have a blessed Tuesday!

Pray for Latvia!

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Friends, my heart has been broken this week as I have watched the news coverage of the tragedy in my favorite European city. As many of you know, Riga, Latvia was hit with a disaster of major proportions. Any time there are loved ones that perish it is devastating. But for Latvians, this is such a heavy blow.

Let me explain.

In this small, and sometimes isolated country, many do not even know it exists. I have experienced this firsthand the last three years since we first announced we were going to Latvia to help with the work there. “Where?” I heard that so often, and so did my extended family,enough that my mother finally told people I was going to Russia.

Close enough. She was weary of trying to explain and she didn’t have any idea where it was either! She just knew I had told her it was only a few hours from the Russian border.

[Tweet “In a country of only two million, you feel loss, you feel triumph, you feel EVERYTHING, together.”]

This tiny country has only been totally free, in their known existence, dating back to at least the 12th century, (and there were vikings in the country even before that), for a combined total….brace yourself…of 40 years.

Now think about this. They have been a country for a thousand years and have only been FREE for 40 of those years?! Twenty of those were right after WWI and the rest have been since the end of their occupation with Russia in 1991. The three Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania managed to fight for their independence with such non-violent means of resistance like joining hands and forming a live human chain from Tallinn via Riga to Vilnius and sang their way to freedom.

You can watch the trailer of the film about that wonderful story here. It is a masterpiece. There is another shorter version here. Please do, it is amazing.

The capitol city is Riga, which is where we lived, and it is also the capitol of the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania (it also happens to be smack dab in the middle!). Most all of the young people come in to the city to either further their education, or more likely, to find work. So for the country to have a combined population of two million?

The capitol city has 700,000 of that two million!

This week one of the name brand grocery stores, or markets, the Maxima, has faced horrible tragedy when the roof collapsed. We shopped in either a Maxima or Rimi; sometimes we would splurge and visit the Stockmann grocery, hoping to find some American items! There were dozens of them throughout the city, small and large, very convenient because so many rely on public transportation, the markets are plentiful.

This particular market was in Zolitude, which was not in our neighborhood, but was in our friend’s “back door”. They frequented it quite regularly especially to get fresh bread. And some of our friends that are there now live very close to it and go there often as well.

It seems they were putting in a playground and garden of some sort on the roof of this store and the builder had stored all of his equipment and a large load of sand in the middle of the roof. They are speculating the heavy load and maybe coupled with the rains, it was too much for the roof to handle and it collapsed, trapping many customers inside.

While the firefighters were inside helping to rescue the victims, even more of the roof fell and some of the rescue and three members of the firefighting team were also killed.

As of this post, 52 total have been known to have perished in the disaster. You can read about it here.

The next few pictures you will see are of the Soldiers Memorial in Riga Centre, taken by one of my favorite missionaries over there, Kyle Christian. This is where we did a lot of our evangelism and outreach singing. Several of our now established members of the church in Riga we actually met right there in this area around the monument. This is where people go and leave flowers in memory of loved ones who have passed away. Usually of soldiers, but definitely in a tragedy that affects the country like this.

This is so sad for the Latvian people.

Would you pray for them?

Would you help us pray that they would turn to Him in this tragedy?

That they would not be bitter but would seek comfort from our Savior?

That those that are over there with Truth would be able to reach out and minister and be the hands and feet of Jesus in this dark hour?

And if you can leave a short comment of support for them to let them know you are praying, that would be an added blessing. Many of them will see this blog post and be touched by this outpouring of love from their friends in the States!

Thank you so much. I dearly love this country and these wonderful people but Jesus loves them even more.

To our Latvian friends, brothers and sisters far away but near to our hearts: We are praying for you all in this time of sorrow that the Lord Jesus would give you strength, peace and comfort in the days to come.

Sharing with Sunday Stillness, Weekend Brew, Jumping Tandem, Super Sunday Sync, Inspire me Monday, Amaze Me Mondays, Playdates at the Wellspring, Monday Praises, Monday Musings, Hear it on Sunday, Use it on Monday, Modest Mondays, Sharing His Beauty, Motivation Monday, Living Proverbs 31, Women Helping Women, Friend Connect Blog Hop, Teach Me Tuesdays, Titus 2sdays, Counting Our Blessings, Unite, The Gathering Spot, Testimony Tuesday, Homemaking Party, Women Helping Women, Wise Woman Builds, Winsome Wednesday, Women Living Well, Walking Redeemed, Encourage One Another, Homemaking Linkup

One Day…Fly (insert emotion here)

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It’s #FiveMinuteFriday…I have missed it! Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking. Today’s word prompt is FLY. Okay, for your sake, some editing. I hope you enjoy today’s short post. It’s a little humorous and a little serious all rolled into one. Blessings, it’s Friday!

Go!

Ever since I was a little girl I have dreamed about the Lord Jesus returning to earth and taking us back to Heaven with Him.

Well…not all my dreams included ME in the returning back.

Let’s just say quite a few of those daydreams, and nightmares, involved countless hours of worry: Will I be (insert big booming voice here) LEFT BEHIND?

My parents still have the cutest, most adorable, black and white (with no sound of course, it’s the 60’s!) home movie of me and my sister singing, “We shall be changed! We shall be changed! We’ll be changed from this mortal, to im-mor-tal-i-TEE, in the twinkling of an eye.”

Pretty big words for a two and four year old, but we were show-stoppers for sure.

Even as I reached my early teen years and my parents started going to church, I continued to wonder if I would be a part of the “catching away” (insert preacher’s voice bellowing through the microphone during altar call) or the “falling away” (insert screams of those falling into Hades, Hell, the Abyss, Gehenna, or the Lake of Fire, take your pick).

If that wasn’t bad enough there was a song that a lovely friend of mine in our church sang, (you know who you are Cruella De Vil), and the chorus went like this:

Left Behind, forever and ever

With no hope for eternity

Missing out on the joys that the others will find

Dear Lord don’t let me be the one left behind

Yeah, that one made me want to run to the altar every time.

But the older I became, the more I fell in love with the One that they kept telling me was coming again.

“And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” John 14:3.

I had been baptized, I had received His Holy Spirit but not until I learned how to PRAY did I really learn to walk with Him, to know Him, to grow, understand and realize why I was put here in the first place.

[Tweet “I could see it wasn’t even about ME, it was all about HIM.”] To bring Him glory, to see Jesus exalted and lifted UP. Because when I do that, then others are able to see Him more clearly and they will want to know Him too.

“I will praise you, O Lord my God with all my heart; I will glorify your name forever.” Psalm 86:12.

Now I spend my days looking UP. I have that peace, security, and desire in my heart to see Him. I long for Him to come back, yet I know there is much to be done on this earth in preparation for that day. So I “occupy”. Until.

“For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” 1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17.

“In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” 1 Corinthians 15:52.

For one of these days, I may not understand how my feet are going to get off the ground, but it is going to happen. I’m going to be “caught up” (insert excited, hyper voice here)!

I am going to FLY!

Stop.

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Author Archives: Nannette

About Nannette