Author: Dale

Burdens
Today has been hard for me. Jon isn’t feeling well today, and it has been the busiest day for Ellie since her surgery last week. We had a lumbar puncture and two different chemos on the chart for today. (Some people consider her steroids chemo and others don’t. She will receive the steroids twice a day for the first 27 days [we are on day 8 of treatment]. The chemo I’m talking about is on top of those steroids). Ellie is starting to get the sick “red-eye” look of someone battling something serious. I have chosen to be thankful for every moment with her, but I do know that this is going to start getting hard soon as we see the chemo begin to take it’s toll on her little body. God formed Ellie in my womb and He formed her knowing exactly what she was going to face. My heart…

First of all, this is not Denise posting. This is her husband, writing to the men today.

I have a confession to make—-I hate putting up the Christmas tree!!  Just keepin’ it real, folks!! 🙂  Seriously, over the years,  the rigors of getting the tree ready for this festive season has been an adventure to say the least.

In the first place, I think an artificial tree is sacrilegious.  As a boy, we always had a real tree, and when our girls were home, we honored the purist tradition of having a live tree.  In spite of my purist leanings, going after a tree, cutting it to fit in the tree stand and then getting it to stay upright always presented its own set of bah humbugs.

There was the time I forgot to keep it wrapped after purchasing it from the tree farm.  Getting it through the door…

Trusting Christ as a little girl has created in me a love for talking to children about God’s gift of salvation.  I can relate to them because I remember how it was for me all those years ago when I knew I needed to receive God’s gift of salvation for my own!

Here’s what I remember about myself at that time

• I was a sinner.  Oh, I was a “good girl.” You see I wanted to please and obey my parents and others in authority.  But even at seven, I remembered lying, disobeying, being sassy or disrespectful.  All that was sin, and I knew I was guilty.
• I knew I wasn’t going to go to heaven because of my sinful heart.  It had separated me from God.
• I knew Jesus loved me so much that He took my punishment on the cross, and that what He did made…