Why I Believe We Need to Get Rid of the Anger in Our Lives

     Anger is a common problem in this world. People get angry at their boss, their spouse, their children, the person driving on the road by them and many others that happen to cross their path. I remember one particular time in my life that I really struggled with anger - I am so thankful to God for helping me to get through that hard time but anger is something that I do still have to be on guard against as I am still not immune to it.

   Is anger something that you struggle with? I hope these verses that I share will encourage you to seek the Holy Spirit's help in getting rid of the anger in your life.

 James 1:19-20 says: "This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God."

When we are angry (on human terms) than we are not going to be able to live the righteous life that God desires us to live. I don't think being angry is a very good idea!

Ephesians 4:26 says: "Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger and do not give the devil an opportunity." 

Anger has the potential to leading us to sin and to giving the devil an opportunity to work in us. That is something that we do not want.

1 Corinthians 13:4-6 says: " Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth."

Ephesians 4:31-32 says:  "Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you."

Colossians 3:8 says: "But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips."

1 Timothy 2:8 says: "Therefore I want the men everywhere to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or disputing."

If anger is something that you struggle with I hope you will meditate on these verses and seek God's help in this area.  A book that I was reading mentions that it is pride that leads to anger and I think that make sense - we get angry because for some reason or another our pride is getting hurt. Pride is another thing that we want to remove from our life. When we do it will help to get rid of the anger as well.

May God bless you as you seek Him!

Three Weeks in Pictures

All of our Saturdays have been busy, lately, so it's been a while since I wrote my post. 

Three weeks ago, we went down to our Family Reunion with Grandpa and Grandma.

While waiting for them to load the van, I discovered Grandma's wild roses were still blooming.

Half an hour from Bemidji, there was roadwork- a twenty minute wait.  So, we serenaded the flag man. 

At the resort, we met old friends and family around a campfire.

Saturday night my more immediate family gathered for pictures.

Finally assembled. 

After the pictures, we played for the people.

Back at Grandpa and Grandma's again.

The tomatoes were growing nicely.

Megan and Aaron and I went wild strawberry picking.

A couple of days later, a friend of mine invited us for a Victorian Tea Party.

I made her a headwreath.

Megan and I, looking serious.

Dad decided to saw up the stumps in the water.

We went honeyberry picking on Thursday.  They're interesting fruit.

On the way back we discovered an abandoned root cellar by the highway, along with a house foundation.

 
Intrigued by this history, we also decided to go to a museum with old buildings.  I was the "teacher".

      See you next week!

Steps for our House

Our entrance all decked out for the 4th of July

Last week the big new improvement on our house was steps! It really made things look much more finished and we are really loving them.

 There are quite a few different options when it comes to steps. Our first plan was to have cement ones. We liked the idea of the colored cement that is made to look like cobble stones or something of that nature. So we started pursuing that. We found out in that process that most cement workers do not like to make steps. They will avoid it if possible (at least the ones around here). The guy that did our basement did come out to talk to us about it and we decided he was probably the biggest wet blanket that we had ever dealt with. :-) He told us that doing steps was something nobody wanted to do, that he only came because he had done our other cement work, that we didn't have proper footings for cement steps and they would pretty much certainly tip or crack over time and that colored cement wouldn't last well. After our visit with him we decided we would really prefer to find somebody that would like the job rather than be doing it out of obligation but found that he did seem to be correct that people didn't want to make cement steps when calls Ken made weren't returned.

  We did also think about the idea of wood steps but that wasn't our preference. We are constantly on the look out for low maintenance, long lasting solutions.

 Then Ken heard that a local landscaping company made steps from pavers. That was the look was were wanting anyway. That guy (the same one that I bought the agates for our shower from) came out right away to visit with us about it. He was overly fond of steps either I don't think (He encouraged us to think about doing a ramp instead which I thought sounded practical but Ken didn't go for) but was totally willing to do whatever we wanted. I was concerned that the steps made out of pavers wouldn't last well but he said they should be better than cement steps. They were more expensive but should last better and they look way cooler we think so we are happy.

 For now we had them put steps at the front door and the mudroom door. We would like a patio eventually out the dining room french doors but that was going to cost to much for us right now so I made temporary steps from cement blocks.

 That is the mudroom door above. The first step was to dig some of the dirt away so that they could pack the dirt super good and then fill the area with crushed concrete and sand and then start laying the pavers.

This picture above shows the completed steps. I do still need to finish putting the cement stone on beside them now that I know where the steps are.

 The guys busily working on the front steps. They had to make sure everything was level and pack things very thoroughly.

 They started on the lower step and worked in.

 The completed steps. We really like them. We do still plan on putting stone part way up around the pillars.

 The steps are not held together with mortar but they seem very sturdy anyways.

It is so fun to have this "step" on the house done. :-)

Happy Independence Day!

  Megan and I had a fun time working on a project that I started while the kids were away at camp last month. It is sprucing up our basement stairs. The basement and the stairs that go down there are unfinished and they may stay that way a while but I thought it would be fun to make them more interesting. I was looking for a place to display our political stuff and thought this might be a fun place to do it. So I decided to paint the stairs to make a nice backdrop. :-)

   The whole project is not done yet but I had to share a peek of it as we prepare to celebrate our Independence day.  We added the stars today.

 I made a stamp to create the stars with but it didn't work perfectly so Megan did the touch-up work with a brush.

I have been having fun writing on the walls too!

 Now I just need to find the rest of my pictures and flags.

I do hope you have a wonderful Independence Day! Our country is struggling right now - so many things going on that are not pleasing to God. Please be praying for our country and it's leaders regularly! Don't be afraid to stand up for what is right.  On this subject... I do have a book giveaway going on for another 24 hours that you might like to sign up for. The book is "Mother Should I Trust the Government" and it will educate you and encourage you.

Hello Again! {Pictures from our Family Reunion}

 I haven't had a chance to write on here for nearly a week. First off we went to a 3 family reunion last Thursday through Sunday and then since we have gotten back we have been quite tired (and fighting a cold.) We've had lots of things scheduled so I haven't had a chance to get on and say "Hello". But I have a moment now so I thought I would check in and say "Hi" and I hope you are all doing well!

 The reunion that we went to was down in Rochester, MN - home of the great Mayo clinic. Ken was not able to go this year because of work.  (His only employee right now is my little sister.  That works great except for when we want to go on trips at the same time - she of course asked for the time off - so Ken stayed home to keep the office open.)  My parents traveled down with the kids and I. It was great to have my Dad to do most of the driving.

   The reunion was for my Mom's family, (she came from a family of 9 children- those that made it are pictured above), the Blanshan family (8 children) and the Williamson family (5 children). The 3 families are not related by blood (though it is kind of funny that never a marriage has happened yet to tie the families together) but we have a strong bond through Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the one who brought the first 3 couples together as friends, as they all were passionate about serving Him. The generations that follow are still trying to live out that legacy of loving and serving our Savior.

  Music is always a part of our gatherings. What fun it is to worship God together through song and through the joy of playing instruments as well. The first night we sang around the campfire. Later on through the weekend we had impromptu jam sessions and singing and then also we had a scheduled time to share together with music. Sunday morning church service also brought another time of singing together. I am always so thankful that God created music!

 On Friday morning my Dad and I were asked to lead a nature walk. (He's the guy on the left.)  I went out and found various edible/useful leaves ahead of time and then asked the group to see if they could find them as they went. Dad gathered various leaves from trees and then told us about them. We also were able to walk over to a petting zoo which the kids fully enjoyed. One interesting thing about our walk was when we crossed a bridge to find a hammock suspended from it with somebody still sleeping in it.  The other man in the picture above is Dale Blanshan who has long been a great friend of both my parents. We have been blessed very much to have had his family in our lives. They have been some of our closest friends. Dale was acting as my Dad's assistant.

 The older 3 kids and I signed up to participate in a challenge course. They did divide us up into adults and kids to go separately - so I wasn't with my kids but that was okay.  My nephew Harrison got pulled out of the kids group to go with us - I think because of his size. He is the one next to me in the picture above so you can see he is fully adult size. :-) The challenge above was to get our whole group balanced on the little platform with nobody touching the ground and everybody having a foot on the platform. We struggled with this one a bit and only managed to do it for like 4 seconds.

 The kids had to get their whole group across an "alligator" swamp with just 4 boards.  They went from block to block and worked together.

 Our group had to also see how far we could walk down these cables while helping a partner. The cables gradually got farther apart. I guess we went farther than most groups do. Maybe our long arms help. :-)

 I did also try out doing the cable by myself. I didn't make it all the way but my brother Peter did. Other activities that we did were getting our whole group over a ten-foot wall. We did that in less than 3 minutes. We had some nice tall guys (my nephew and brother-in-law) to lift us up.  My brother Peter had jumped up to the top and he helped pull us up and over.  Our friend Roger did that for a while too.  We also had to go on the big teeter-totter type thing and get it balanced and hold it while we sang a song. The most challenging but probably the most fun was a series of cables that went from tree to tree through the woods (only about a foot off the ground ) that we had to get our whole group across without touching the ground. If you fell you would have to go back to the start. I did fall the first time but made it the second time. That was a really fun one to figure out how we could work together to get across. Anyway - I really enjoyed the challenge course. The kids did too but wished they could have done the things we did as they were given a much easier course to do.

 A picture of the 2nd generation (that made it to the reunion - we were missing several).

 My sister Anna was in charge of Family Olympics on Saturday, where we did all sorts of relay races.  One of them involved blowing flour - hence the lovely faces of Luke and Margaret above.

 Another activity involved turning one of our people into a "mummy". Megan (far left) and Jonathan (in the middle) both got to be mummies for this.

 I thought this scene by the pool was rather sweet. My Aunt Merna, Uncle Joe and Mom all holding their baby grandchildren. Megan does make a rather big baby though. :-)

Our more immediate family also took a picture while we were there. We are just missing Ken and my oldest nephew Nic. It seems like we can never get all the in-laws in one picture. Usually one of the guys are missing. I do feel very blessed to have a loving family who love the Lord most of all.

  Do you have any family reunions to go to this year? What do you enjoy about family reunions?