November? November? What happened to the first ten months??? How did I miss such a large block of time? LOL Don't look now but it is almost Christmas!

I actually do look forward to this time of year for one big reason... the weather. It is cool and crispy in the morning and comfortable and usually sunny in the afternoon. I like wearing long sleeved sweatshirts.

Thursday we are getting a fireplace insert for the fireplace in our family room. We have tons of firewood because we have lost lots of trees over the years from wind, fire, and old age. (The trees' old age, not mine!)

We were burning lots of wood in the winter and 3/4 of the heat or more was not coming into the house, but was going right up the chimney. The insert will force the heat into the house. That should cut down on our heating bills a lot.

The bad thing is I've moved the computer down the hall into a bedroom. Now I can't enjoy a fire while on the computer. Oh well, if it works as well as they say I probably would have been too warm. Right? There, that makes me feel better.

Good news, good news! Remember how last week I told you I was in a desert of not hearing God speaking to me? I'm out!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He called it a famine rather than a desert and told me it was over.

He was teaching me how to listen for His voice and how to be sure it was Him.

Have you ever seen the Verizon commercials of the guy on the cell phone going in lots of remote areas asking, "Can you hear me now?" God did that with me. Oh, He does have a wonderful sense of humor! He said, "Can you hear Me now?" Then, more quietly, "Can you hear Me now?" Even more quietly, "Can you hear Me now?"

Since His voice is quieter I must be quieter in Him to hear Him. I must focus on Him first before I look at the world around me. That is extremely important.

God has given me something to use whenever I think of someone. I am to say, "Bless them, Lord." I've got a neighbor who has been doing some really un-neighborly things in the past year. Bless her, Lord.

People I used to go to church with have chosen to hold on to unforgiveness for things I supposedly did. Bless them, Lord.

No matter who, no matter why, whenever I think of someone I am to bless them. It is wonderful! It is changing my heart and I'm not really doing all that much!

Hello? Can you read this? Am I where I belong?

The last couple of weeks my Bible study updates were being hidden from public view. It started when I reformatted my hard drive. After I transferred all my files back onto the computer then my web page publishing program refused to open my pages. I had to move them all to a new folder. Well, the crazy program decided to create a new folder online to store them in when I updated them rather than put them in the original folder.

 This week I am going to look to make sure it is where it belongs. After all, this wasn't meant to be a "Where's Waldo?" style Bible study!

Let's see, what is my excuse for not getting this updated until Wednesday? Hmmmm.... Monday was a holiday for the schools and my husband was home except for football practice in the morning. So, he and I ran some errands together.

Tuesday I had to get my truck in for it's maintenance. My mechanic, bless his heart, is swamped and when he squeezed me in I surely wasn't going to be fussy about what day I wanted! Since I was down in that end of town I ran some other errands. By the time I got home I was really tired for some reason. I hadn't felt well the night before and maybe that was what was getting to me. I sat in front of the computer to work on this and I just couldn't. I wasn't going to give you anything that isn't what God is prompting me to write so I just quit trying.

This morning I had to go get our camper's generator fixed. It turned out that it was just sticky from not being run in a while. Now I will make a point of firing it up on a regular basis.

When my husband called the man at the generator shop yesterday the man warned us that if we needed warranty work and to order parts for the generator that it could be a long time before it would be ready. That would have been bad.

Friday is the last football game and my husband and I were going to go take the camper to the beach and spend the night. Then, over Thanksgiving weekend, we were going to drive to Colorado for our nephew's wedding. We could have made do without the generator, but it is nice to have just in case! So, this morning I prayed for the generator and for the man who would be working on it. Ta da! It works fine now! Thank you, Lord!!!

I have two house cats. One is old and one is young. The older one has special dietary needs and the younger one is on a weight-loss diet. As a result I have to separate them and feed them multiple small meals throughout the day.

One day my older cat was bugging me to feed him. So, I did. As I did I began to ponder (I ponder an awful lot, don't I?) how I spend a lot of extra time taking care of feeding my cats. I also take time to talk to them, pet them, and play with them. They do nothing to deserve any of that. I just do it because I love them.

That's a description of God's grace. God does what He does for us just because He loves us! There is nothing we can do to deserve it. We can never be good enough. It is only because He loves us that He sent Jesus. There is no other reason.

Now don't be shocked. Yes, it is Monday and, yes, I'm updating the Bible study. So, put your calendar down and relax.

Football season is over for my husband finally. The last game was Friday. The team actually looked better than it had all season long, but still lost. It has been a lot of years since my husband had a 1-9 record.

 Saturday he was all bummed out. He looked really tired, too. I think all the stress he had been feeling during the season just let go all at once. I made him take me to get a gift certificate for our brother-in-law's birthday. We went downtown and walked around looking for a new place to eat breakfast. It was nice and took his mind off his troubles, poor guy.

I've been working on planning our trip to Colorado that is coming up next week. Our nephew is getting married in Denver the Saturday after Thanksgiving. We are going to leave Tuesday and take it easy going there. I'm finding a place where my husband can golf and relax. I'm also finding areas where we can ride our bikes or just walk together and enjoy the scenery.

We've never taken a vacation in November that I can remember. This should be fun. Usually we are only doing any traveling in the summer.

I've been concerned about getting snowed on and then it occurred to me that people live in the areas we will be driving and they handle the snow every year! LOL! We live in Southern California in the desert area and we just don't get snow at all. The worst kind of driving weather we get is heavy rain and maybe some hail.

We are going to have Thanksgiving in a state campground in New Mexico, just the two of us. I'm very much looking forward to this trip. We didn't see much of each other during football season. Here comes our opportunity to get reacquainted!

We will probably be changing out of AOL sometime in the next year or so. I have web pages over there and have been working on moving them to the Clarion Call. It takes a lot longer than I thought. I finally got the prayer page moved.

Once I got it moved and all the links updated I had to put a forwarding page at the original location. Then I had to do a search for other sites that have links to that page. Some of the places that have a link do not have valid email addresses that I can write to and let them know it has moved. Well, I know one thing for sure. God will be able to help people find it!

This may or may not get updated next week. Tomorrow my husband and I will be leaving for Colorado. Our nephew is getting married next Saturday.

I know that this is going to be a time of renewal for my husband and myself. Satan knows it, too. He's trying to give us some bad weather. Yesterday was beautiful and today the wind is blowing harder than it has in a long long time. If it blows really hard here then it is blowing even harder where we will be driving tomorrow afternoon.

The thing is, we are not at the mercy of the weather! God is in control! As a matter of fact, He also gave us charge over the earth, which includes the weather!! I am telling the wind that it serves no good purpose here and to be gone. Guess what? It will either die down to a breeze or it will disappear altogether. How do I know? Because I have the authority to make it so!! He gave me charge over the earth!!

"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." Gen 1:26
"The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD's: but the earth hath he given to the children of men." Ps 115:16

As we drive through the mountains on our way to Colorado I know one thing for sure, even if there is a blizzard blowing around us the hand of our loving Father will be right on top of us, protecting us! He wants us to have this time of renewal and so He will make sure we get it!
Oh, it is so wonderful to know that God is seated firmly on His throne and nothing nothing nothing can unseat Him!!! Glory halleluiah!!!

I have been noticing something about a lot of people who are in churches, Sunday schools, and Bible studies who are studying the Word. Most of them don't actually experience life and behavior changes because of it. They have to be expecting changes in themselves as they study. How many are just under the Word to "do their duty" to God solely by being there?

If anyone studies a topic in the Bible and remains unchanged then they are not serious about the things of God. They are not allowing themselves to be used by Him.

When we approach God and approach His Word we must come to Him in an attitude of expectation and anticipation. We must expect that our life will change. We must expect He will show us things we need to remove from our lives. We must expect He will teach us things. God's Word is a living, breathing entity. We must anticipate that it will work a work within us. We must ALLOW IT TO HAPPEN!

Without these expectations we are in danger of being what is described in the Bible as lukewarm. Being lukewarm isn't a good thing. In Revelation 3:16 God says to the church in Laodicea, "because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." I suggest strongly you examine your relationship with God to make sure you are not lukewarm!

I have a long list of things I need to do before I leave tomorrow so I had better get going.

"Wind be still! Wind be still! Wind be still! Wind be still!"