“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Matthew 16:24″

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

It is a chilly morning in Ohio...21degrees! I bet my sisters are glad that they are back in their WARM states!

I have been working on Christmas these last 2 days...and the creative side of me LOVES this madness as all kinds of things come in and out of Nana's Workshop. I read an interesting article last night of the healing properties of crafts and I can attest to the fact that it has saved my sanity more than once!

Here's to the talents and gifts that God has given each of us....May we use them with abundance and with love :)

There is no one righteous, no not one.....

Romans 3:23 says, we fall short of the glory of God.  Way short!  We’re not good enough—but He is!  It’s Christ in us that makes the difference! ~Max Lucado

How great is our God!

Psalms 147:4-5

He counts the stars 
and names each one. 
Our Lord is great and very powerful. 
There is no limit to what he knows.

His agape love :)

“This is what real love is: It is not our love for God; it is God’s love for us. He sent his Son to die in our place to take away our sins.  Dear friends, if God loved us that much we also should love each other. No one has ever seen God, but if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is made perfect in us.  I John 4:9-12″

Jesus said, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Matthew 7:7″

What a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!  Now I will recuperate :)

Jesus says, “remain in me. . .” Remain in my love. . . If any remain in me and I remain in them, they produce fruit. Our task? It’s clear. Stay close to the vine. Jesus said, “apart from Me, you can do nothing.” John 15:5 ~Max

The Wellston babies spent the night on Saturday....they are adorable! Sunday we took them to STS Peter and Paul to meet up with Mom and Dad after Mass. I am so thankful that all of my children are actively seeking instruction for their little ones...all 7 kids attend a Catholic Church! It is interesting to note that my siblings and I were raised Catholic and attended Catholic schools...3 remain Catholic and 3 are non denominational....all of us are active in our Churches. Generational blessings!

“Christ accepted you, so you should accept each other, which will bring glory to God.” (Rom. 15:7)

Love each others as much as Christ loves you and don't forget to share that Good News with others :)

Hebrews 12:14 says, “Anyone whose life is not holy will never see the Lord.”

You’ve done some nice things in your life.  But you have not done enough good works to go to heaven regardless of your sacrifice.  Nor do you have enough character to go to heaven.

  Please don’t be offended.  Then, again, be offended, if necessary.  You’re probably a very decent person.  But decency isn’t enough.  You may pay taxes and kiss your kids and sleep with a clean conscience.

Hebrews 12:14 says, “Anyone whose life is not holy will never see the Lord.” 

Apart from Christ you are not holy.  So how can you go to heaven?  Only believe.  

Accept the work already done, the work of Jesus on the cross.  Accept the goodness of Jesus Christ.  Abandon your own works and accept his. It would have bankrupted you or me, the price was so extravagant.

Call it a gift.  But don’t call it easy.  Call it what it is.  Call it grace.

~Max Lucado

“ For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. Corinthians 12:12”

“The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent. John 6:29”

Just believe that He loves you no matter what anyone says or does to make you feel otherwise.....you are His!

Accept His gift of salvation and the rest is up to Him :-)

He is faithful to complete that good work which He started in you!

“Because He delights in me, He saved me. Psalm 18:19 ”

Wow it was a busy weekend! Saturday we went to the Amish country to purchase curtains for the kitchen and to pick up lanterns for Kristyl as a gift for her husband for Christmas. We got home from Holmes County @4:30 and picked up Mom and Dad @5:30 for Ocie's 1st Birthday Party....she is soooo stinkin" in cute!!

Sunday we took Mom and Dad to Marla's for Ciarnan's 5th Birthday.....how the heck did that happen? It is always a feast @her house and Caitlyn did a Recital in honor of the day"Recital for Ciarnan's Birthday" complete with a printed program...she played 2 songs on the piano "Shepherds Song" and "Lost Jewel"(which she wrote herself @7) and then she sang "Castle On A Cloud" my personal favorite!

I had her sign the Playbill...so I can say I knew her when!!

Philippians 1:6, “God began doing a good work in you, and I am sure he will continue it until it is finished when Jesus Christ comes again.”

Daily we are transformed into the new man, precept upon precept, and when He comes or when we go home to be with Him we will be totally whole and complete!

I Facetimed with the Columbus babies again this morning...the Wellston group wants an iPad from Nana and Pooh for Christmas and I can't wait.....we can all see Nana in her glory @7am....it is not a pretty sight :)

I just finished FaceTime with my grandson who is 5 years old today.....impossible! It seems like yesterday that I arrived in Manhattan to see his precious newborn face @Mt Sinai :) and that was 2 brothers ago.....it so reminds me of my house when my 4 were little....poetic bedlam...

Children and grandchildren are my biggest blessings from God.....

Happy Birthday Ciarnan we love you bunches!

Congratulations President Obama

..you and your family are in my thoughts and my prayers!

To quote the President "We  rise or fall together as one people"

Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. John 10:14-15”

Everything is in Godly order..... preordained before the earth began. Nothing happens without His knowledge and without His planning. Praise be to God!

Psalm 100:3 says, “Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.”

Behold a hero of the west.  A thousand head of cattle pass behind him. He needs no one.  He’s a cowboy.  The American hero.

Behold a hero in the Bible:  the shepherd.  He too is rugged.  Like the cowboy he makes his roof the stars and the pasture his home.

But that’s where the similarities end. The shepherd loves his sheep.  The cowboy leads the cow to slaughter.  The cowboy drives the cattle.  The shepherd leads the sheep. The shepherd calls each sheep by name.  Aren’t we glad Christ didn’t call Himself the Good Cowboy?

Psalm 100:3 says,  “Know that the Lord is God.  It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.”

We don’t need a cowboy to herd us.  We need a shepherd.  A shepherd to care for us and to guide us.  And we have One.  One who knows us by name.

~Max Lucado

Say hello to Grandma and Grandpa Huber for us!

The Holy Spirit is the heart of God revealed to man

John 14:17 says, “The world cannot accept him, because it does not see him or know him.  But you know him, because he lives with you and he will be in you.”

We can  accomplish much in this life by using our intellect and physical work, others may or may not appreciate it, so be it....but the words or actions that we do in the  name of the Father that makes others feel  unimportant  or without hope breaks His heart.......for He is God's love manifested to man through you!

Isaiah said: The good men perish; the godly die before their time and no one seems to care or wonder why.  No one seems to realize that God is taking them away from the evil days ahead.  For the godly who die will rest in peace. Isaiah 57:1”