2010!!

So it's January!! 2010! Wow! Jared is 10 years old this Friday and we will be having 8-10 kids over to eat Taco's and have a Wii/Board game extravaganza! My husband thinks I am crazy, but I love that sort of stuff!! Plus, one only turns 10 once, right?

Did everyone make it through Christmas? Did you make it through the snow and cold? Did you act like you were 10 again and slide down HUGE snow piles? Did you break your sled because the temps were so low? :) Well, we did!! All of that! We went to South Dakota a week AFTER the snow came because I-29 was closed all the way to the Canadian border around Christmas! The kids got to experience REALLY cold weather there (-26, thank you very much!) and wear layers and layers of clothes just to step outside! Do you know I had to purchase long underwear for my kids before we went? Do you know my kids had to ask what IS long underwear? Cracks me up!! So we drove for 6-7 hours and had a marvelous time with "Papa" and Grandma Cyndy! Our kids climbed the HUGE snow pile in Papa's front yard and played King of the Mountain with a neighbor boy... and came away pretty much unscathed.. except for 1 minor cheek glitch! Did I mention my Dad (Papa) climbed that HUGE snow hill as well?? It was great, I'll have to post pic.'s!!

However, Christmas has come, Christmas has gone, and now Christmas is packed away for another year in our boxes... .somewhat sad to see it go. But do you know Christmas is NEVER gone in our hearts? Christmas can live all year LONG! Christmas is the time we celebrate the birth of Jesus and without His birth, we would not have life. So we celebrated this special occasion, but just the decor that heightens it is put away. Nothing else is gone... because He lives in our hearts. Jesus says, "I will never leave you nor forsake you.." Amen to that!

Make it a Beautiful Day!

God Said it and IT is SO!

Pastor Paul Shepard-"Lessons From Abraham, Part 1": Faith takes God seriously; Faith takes God at His Word; Faith says God said it AND it is SO!" So what else do we need?? Where do we start for today's post? We start at Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 11 verse 1!! Right?! Do you remember what that says? I love this passage... "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Lets take Abraham; he was one of our Patriarchs; Patriarchs of Faith. In Genesis 12: 1 The LORD had said to Abraham, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. Really? Leave all that and go to the land I will show you?? Don't you think he was wondering..."And where might that be , Lord?" I know we did--because God told us this very same thing! His word to us was "Go to the land I will show you." Guess what we did... we walked; we put one foot in front of the other and we went.... until we came to the land He was showing us. Hebrews 11:8 tells us this about Abraham..."By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going." Let me tell you.. we did NOT know where we were going either! But since we went..and put one foot in front of the other we FOUND where God was leading us. Here in Romans 4:20-22 we see again the strength of Abraham; "He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, 21 and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform. 22 And therefore “it was accounted to him for righteousness.” So, here is our conclusion... Abraham believed God, obeyed God, and went where he was called to a land he did not know. It was here, then, that Abraham saw God Faithful; God provided the land that which became his inheritance. This land, ladies and gentlemen, was Canaan, which later became Israel. Bless His Name!! Our God always shows Himself Faithful! Remember, God said it and it is So--Faith.

...so go up and LOOK AROUND!!

Chef Gusteau from Ratatouille... "If you hold onto the past you will never see what lies ahead of you... so go up and LOOK AROUND!" Those, my friends, are awesome words!! I am so thankful God uses so many different ways to communicate with and to me! God purposes us to move forward. Take the 2 spies that went to "check out the promised land"--remember what they said when they came back? I'll help ya, here's what they said.... Numbers 13:27-28b, 31-33 "They gave Moses this account: "We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. 28 But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. But the men who had gone up with him said, "We can't attack those people; they are stronger than we are." 32 And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, "The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. 33 We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them." Grasshoppers? The eyes of fear 'blow up' your challenges (like taking things to Kinko's and having them enlarged), and make you seem small in their presence (Grashoppers). BUT the eyes of Faith blow up what God said... Number 13:30 'Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, "We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it." See? Go up-- for we can certainly do it!!! So let's be Caleb and Joshua.... "we should go up.....for we can certainly do it!!" YES YES and AMEN! Blessings in Abundance,
Your Friend, Tina

One Bite at a Time....

Lord, we are learning! How do you eat an Elephant? Seriously, that seems like an insurmountable task, does it not? I have had plenty of elephants in my life, and don't you know God has showed me, every time, how to take hold of that task. BUT first, God calls you to start---you have to start... And, how do you start? Begin by having "Faith as small as a mustard seed" (Matthew 17:20 (NIV)). 20He replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."[a] I don't know about you, but that is good news to me! God's word is always encouraging! So today, begin by having Faith... and start taking one bite at a time.... Love to you all, Tina
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DE0uLrszDiI

Our Journey....

Hi and Welcome...

My name is Tina Herz. My adoring husband, Mark, and I along with our 2 kiddos are on a Journey of a life time! Ever been told by God "I've got great plans for you" and each step that you took was a step into the unknown? That is what it has been for us for the past 3 1/2 years. God has had us on a journey of Network Marketing Companies for almost 10 years now just so he could train us for what lies ahead. But in the past 6 years He has kept our noses to the grind stone and encouraged us along the path of His always Faithful, always provisional Leadership of our lives. We have had times of hardship, we have had times of growth, we have had had times of money, we had had times of despair. However, in all those times we have stayed the course of which He has had for us because He has told us "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV). Praise His Name. Without those words, we would have quit, but don't quit... "because Greater things have yet to come and Greater things are still to be done in this City..." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d61LamkXfwk&fmt=18