Christian Homekeeping

We had a few hikes this week and I took some pictures of God's beautiful creation.  My son calls this a summer cave because when we walk this path in the winter, there is no covering over the trail of greenery.

We also saw something we've never seen before outside of a zoo - an owl!  It was huge and was flying around but I managed to capture a few pics of it:

Our family vacation last summer was to the Atlantic Ocean in the Outer Banks, NC.  We would go here almost every summer growing up but I hadn't been since then.  My kids had never seen the Atlantic Ocean and my son, had never seen any ocean ever.

Then on the way back we stopped by our favorite cabin in Amish country and did some kayaking and relaxing!

A great preacher said many years ago that we must seek those that are also lovers of the truth and make those our friends.  It has stuck with me and I realized that is exactly what I look for because even in the church, it is hard to find those that truly love the truth.  Most claim Christ but they don't love the truth.  They only want salvation from hell, they don't love God for if they did:

Joh_14:15 If ye love me, keep my commandments.

Joh_15:10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.

1Jn_5:2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.

1Jn_5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.

2Ti 4:2  Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. 

2Ti 4:3  For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; 

2Ti 4:4  And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. 

2Ti 4:5  But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.   

Notice verse 4!  They will - they will- they will - TURN AWAY their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables!  They will believe lies!  They will not listen to the truth.  Their lusts draw them to preachers and churches that tell them they don't need to do anything but believe in Jesus.  But the scripture above admonishes Timothy to keep right on preaching all the doctrine despite if he's all alone or not.  ENDURE AFFLICTIONS he says - we must endure the hurts, the rejection, the betrayal that Christ did.  You are blessed when they hate you, when they separate themselves from you, reproach you and say you are evil:

Luk_6:22  Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake.

Joh_7:7  The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.

Joh_15:18  If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.

1Jn_3:13  Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you.

Notice this verse of what you should be concerned about:

Luk 6:26  Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets.  

We shouldn't think it strange when we are hated, we should think it terrifying when everyone talks well of us!

“Woe unto you; that is, it would be a bad sign that you were not faithful to your trust, and to the souls of men, if you preached so as that nobody would be disgusted; for your business is to tell people of their faults, and, if you do that as you ought, you will get that ill will which never speaks well. The false prophets indeed, that flattered your father in their wicked ways, that prophesied smooth things to them, were caressed and spoken well of; and, if you be in like manner cried up, you will be justly suspected to deal deceitfully as they did.” . - Matthew Henry

They speak well of you because you stand for nothing in God, you shut up your mouth!  Of course everyone loves you because you only speak what they want to hear, you don't warn anyone away from hell.  You are a men-pleaser unlike Paul, who is guilty of no one's blood:

Act 20:26 Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men.

Act 20:27 For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.

Eze 33:6 But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand.

An arborist told me over 3 years ago that our Rose of Sharon tree was dead and wouldn't bloom anymore, but every year, it still blooms!  It reminds me of how doctors proclaimed I was sterile and couldn't bear children - but God!  It teaches me that "experts" don't know everything and God can make anything that has been dead, come alive again!

We replaced all our blinds, except the master bedroom because they were newer.  I decided to try out Blinds.com faux wood blinds and used Dave Ramsey's promo to get 25% off.  There was a lot of imperfections with the blinds and 2 of them were so bad that I had to get replacements.  I'm not entirely happy but I think I was spoiled because the previous owner had real wood blinds and I loved those until they broke.

I also found a yellow console table for $60 and I love it!!  Love all the color, makes me feel so energized.

More hiking...

I tried out a recipe to make cobbler in the instant pot and it was so good!

One of the popular topics that a lot enjoyed in the past was my hair updates.  This is our glory and covering as women, our uncut hair, that grows to the "long" length that we are genetically predisposed to grow.  Mine just happens to settle at mid-thigh to my knees and it has gone up and down over the years.  I haven't cut or trimmed my hair since 1999 in obedience to 1 Corinthians 11.

It is currently in great condition and shiny and silky, as I hardly every use heat anymore.  I let it air-dry and I rarely curl the ends.  In the photo below I had curled the last 5 inches or so of my hair earlier in the day, I don't curl the rest of the length of my hair anymore.  I don't spend much time on my hair and never have, I just comb and go or wear it in a bun or ponytail usually.  I don't think we need to spend enormous times on our appearance because that is the way of the world!  Simple is beautiful!

We finished our school year, took a vacation and then I've been doing deep cleaning throughout the house and organizing.  Here are some pics of our our visit to the Ark Encounter:

Maybe I'm the only one excited about a trash can but this was one of my best buys.  It is trash bin and a recycle bin in one unit but both bins are removable with a wire handle.

I've had my IKEA Karlstad sofa since 2013 and I still absolutely love it!  It has really held up and it is so comfortable still.  However, the dry-clean only covers have frustrated me because no matter how much Lysol and vacuuming you do, they really just need a good wash.  I finally decided to take the risk and I put them in the washing machine on warm!  First, I did a rinse cycle, then I did a full wash on warm/cold.  Then, I even put them in dryer and guess what!?  They came out looking new and smelling wonderful!  No shrinkage and no issues at all.  I was super happy.

Should Christians never judge?  Does the Bible contradict itself on this matter?  Let's talk about judging!

This is a short podcast urging you to pray and ask God to lead you to the truth and to a church that's speaking the truth.  Don't settle for the error or the omission of true Biblical doctrine!

You can read Part 1 here where I tell about how we finally stepped out on faith and went to the city that God told us to go to.  I will pick up the story from there.

The windows of heaven had opened the moment my husband said: "God, I will go!"  It was one miracle after another and I was getting everything I asked for or even wanted.  It was a surreal time in our lives.  From packing our Penske to our arrival in Ohio, there were continuous surprises of blessings.  

When we had to pack everything we had acquired since we were married in 2000, we didn't know HOW we were going to fit 16 years of material goods into a Penske truck.  However, God touched the heart of a preacher to show up at our house when we were loading the Penske.  The preacher said God sent him there and by the end of it, we knew beyond any doubts that had it not been for that man, we wouldn't have fit everything!  It was literally packed from top to bottom with no space to the very last mattress and sliding the door down with barely an inch left of room.  Not only did God send that man, but God even sent others that just kept showing up that my husband had worked with for 10 years.  Then, God sent women also to help me clean because I was recovering from the car accident a few months prior and couldn't do much.  I remember crying a lot just amazed at the people that showed up that loved us!  Also our last church service when our Pastor announced we were leaving, there were lines of people waiting to say goodbye to us.  The things that each of them said to us had us in total shock.  I didn't even know these people thought such good things about us.

The moment we crossed that Kentucky bridge and entered Ohio was one of the best feelings of my life!  However, we weren't prepared for what we felt when we arrived and stepped on the ground in the place God had called us.  As soon as my husband and I stepped out and had our feet on the ground, an extreme feeling of the Holy Spirit came over us.  We both looked at each other realizing the other had felt the same thing and realized we were going to see something happen here because we were literally standing on our destined ground.

Money started coming back to us that we didn't know we would get - from an oversight in the accounting for the house we bought to people just giving us cash, we recovered almost everything we spent to move as soon as we arrived!  The house was better than we thought and the neighborhood was jaw-dropping compared to living in a mobile home park for 10 years lol.  We had lakes, trails, 20 acres of woods that we were free to roam in, sidewalks, playground and field for the kids to the play.  We didn't realize all this was available to us as being residents in this neighborhood.  Then the location was absolutely the best we later found out for the commute to the city and safety.

We stayed with the church group we had been a part of for 18 years as they had a church there in this area.  The pastor was great and every message that man preached was like eating a full course dinner in God's Word!  It was so good, that I couldn't wait to go to church every single time because I was never disappointed.  The pastor had told us he had been praying for over 3 years and that God sent us in answer to his prayers.  God used that man to bring me into my gifts, which has always been there but I didn't have anyone to help me understand and walk in them until him.  He also talked about dreams and I finally was able to have someone interpret my many dreams I have and have had since I was a child.  And they were spot on!  However, I saw from the first day that something was amiss and the pastor faced enormous opposition and I had to watch it unfold to the place where the pastor resigned.

God led me to go to a revival of a local Pentecostal church.  My husband wouldn't go but I was going to obey the strong pull of the Lord and went alone.  I remember walking in and all of the sudden I was literally glowing!  During the revival that night, God spoke to me so strong I went to the altar and balled my eyes out begging God to help me.  Immediately all these hands were on me and women had surrounded me praying for me and comforting me.  I was like, what is this??  I had never had this before and the love enveloped me and I thought to myself, I've needed this all along.  After church, I was still glowing and I didn't know why but then the Pastor rushed over to me and caught me before I walked out.  He was very interested in knowing who I was and said please come back tomorrow night.  I finally convinced my husband to come with me the next night and when we walked through the doors into the sanctuary I saw the pastor look at us from the front like he'd seen a ghost.  He came up to us and started saying that we were the ones from his vision and God had sent us.  The pastor went on to say that when I came the night before I was literally glowing bright and God was all on me.  He said when I left, he turned around to all the people and said, "There's something to that woman!  I'm telling you there is something to that woman."  Then, he said when my husband and I both walked in together, God spoke to him and said, "That's them!  Those are the ones I showed you in your vision 3 years ago and those are the ones I have sent."  

So here we are having someone tell us we were sent by God to them again.  He went on to tell the entire church from the pulpit many times that God sent my husband and I and we were 3 years late but nevertheless, we came.  One Sunday morning we went back to this church and God moved in an amazing way.  There was a pastor and his family that stopped in to visit that the pastor of this church didn't know.  This visiting pastor followed God's leading to stop by.  The pastor let this man get up and preach and WOW, I have never forgotten this man.  At altar call, my husband went to pray up front and after returning to my seat after prayer, I looked up to see my husband praying with hands up on his knees and he was... GLOWING!  I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me but as I stared, he was literally glowing and it was all around him.  I saw the visiting pastor walk back to his seat, sit down and he looked forward and saw my husband and he jumped up, ran to my husband and helped hold his hands up.  I remember thinking, this man sees it too!!  I was excited, like what is going on here?!  After altar call and dismissal, the visiting pastor came running to my husband, grabbed his hand said, "What is your calling brother?"  My husband looking confused said, "I don't know."  The visiting pastor was really confused and looked at me like how could he not know LOL!  He drilled my husband saying things like: "You're a preacher though right?  Missionary? Pastor?"  My husband told him he is trying to figure that out.  The visiting pastor told him if you ever come to my church in *****, Ohio, you have my parsonage and everything is yours.  We were a little shocked at this but this man was absolutely ready to hand over his pulpit to my husband and his parsonage for lodging.  My husband was still glowing and he glowed all the way home that day.  That week is when God told him to leave the former group we'd been a part of for 18 years and start attending this new church and we obeyed quickly!  And what happened there is another post in Part 3!

This is an admonition to women to be careful defining "success" by the world's standard that is outside of the Biblical success God gives us for women.  

I recorded this recently and now posting it.  I would like to be able to edit these podcasts and add in an intro of some sort in the future but for now, you get the raw deal.   I'm sorry to my foreign readers that you can't translate the podcast, I hope to write more in the future that you can translate.

We follow Dave Ramsey's guidelines loosely, but we used to be totally 100% into his plan.  I had called Ramsey about 5 years ago asking if we should just go ahead and buy a home because we had been renting for 16 years.  We didn't have 20% down but we were completely debt-free and had our 3-month emergency fund saved.  He cut me off and didn't let me speak anymore and went on his usual rant about having 20% down or Murphy will move in the spare bedroom.

He didn't take into account that we had numerous medical bills over the years that took any money we could have saved at the time because we were following his get out of debt fast plan and went gung-ho every time we had a medical bill, so we never stopped and actually saved a down payment.  We decided to buy a home anyway and I'm glad we did!  Because today, our home is worth $120K over what we owe!  We actually have an asset and the mortgage payment is parked for 30 years, the only thing that goes up are the property taxes and homeowner's insurance.  It was the best decision we could have made because this area rents out a 3 bedroom for well above $1400 a month and that wouldn't have worked for us.

Dave Ramsey does say some things I agree with, one being make sure your housing costs are 25% or less of your monthly take-home pay.  This used to be easily done because housing prices were affordable.  However, right now we are having massive inflation and low inventory in homes for sell is causing the most ridiculous market I've ever seen!  Whatever you do, don't buy something you can't afford.  Just look at these figures that I entered on Ramsey's website calculator for families making anywhere from $40K-$70K:

Having an income of $6,500 take-home pay, puts you making over $85,000 at least, including taxes in there.  So, there is no affordable housing right now using Ramsey's guidelines for most Americans that make less than middle-upper middle class.  Some people are buying homes based on 40% of their take-home pay and this is beyond dangerous, it is ridiculous!

You must think about what you CAN afford - since you can't afford what's out there right now, can you afford to build a new home?  Can you afford a small piece of land and a tiny home?  That may be the saving grace of many families and if that is all that you can afford, then that is all you can afford!

Don't put yourself into a situation that not only compromises your finances, but also compromises your obedience to God's Word as being a keeper-at-home!  

I've discussed this very thing with my daughter recently and we talked about how we may not always have it so good - things can change and you must put God first and obedience to His Word.  If your treasure is in Heaven, then it won't matter how many square feet you have or don't have.

I recommend everyone write your Congressman and demand affordable housing!  I have more to say on this in the future and hope to do a podcast about it.  But most importantly, PRAY - because God can open doors that are closed for others and you would be amazed because nothing is impossible with God!!  Somewhere out there is a wealthy builder who will be part of the solution and build some affordable, smaller homes and I pray that God will bless this man 1000-fold!

Image credit: My screenshots of DaveRamsey.com