…ending 2019 at one of my favorite winter places

and

Met up with Glenda, Haley & the girls 

for the 10,000 Beach Ball Drop. 

We were able to get balls for the girls. 

 I believe they had a good time!

The New Year's Eve Fireworks Show

from the Pier Park pier
over the Gulf. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Welcome 2020 ~ A New Decade

traveling to honor the memory of a gentle man of great strength... Bobbie Ritchie, Uncle Bobbie, Glenn's uncle.

Glenn & I were discussing on our trip to Birmingham for Uncle Bobbie' s funeral that it was probably at our wedding weekend that I first met this caring & loving man. 

I have so many wonderful memories of Uncle Bobbie. He always made sure that anyone around him was having a good time. I remember traveling to the old English home in the Clio area for family events or just for a visit. Images of him & Garrett outside the home come to mind. Christmas gatherings were so special. My MIL was an English as was her sister Johnnie...Bobbie's wife. 

*************

Alabama National Cemetery

Montevallo, Alabama

~silence with respect~

We make our way to PCB for our After-Christmas trip

remembering as we travel that in all thanks, 

we ultimately are expressing our gratitude for Christ

and a remembering of Him.

https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/pelham-al/bobbie-ritchie-8975447

We arrived Sunday for Christmas in Bville with my mom, FATS & Ben. Samuel and Ben were with their girlfriends whom Glenn & I had never met. We enjoyed getting to spend some time with them.

Breakfast was the lunch meal of the day, and it is ALWAYS a good choice for me (and others). Grits, eggs, Breeden’s sausage, bacon, bkft potato casserole, French toast, fruit & toast. Whew!!! So good…..

Leaving early this morning for Dothan, you never know what kind of sky you will see…imagine.

Merry Christmas

Goodwin Family

GALA APPLES

Dad loved a Gala apple. 

The bottom left crisper of the refrigerator 

was always stocked with the apples. 

He loved to share his apples.

Fruit tree seedlings 

have been purchased through Samaritan's Purse. 

In Niger these trees can stop the Sahara Desert 

from creeping into fertile farming land, 

stop erosion & provide food for hungry people.

"let the earth bring forth...

the fruit tree that yields fruit 

according to its kind"
Genesis 1:11 ~ Samaritan's Purse

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Each year we celebrate our family Christmas with Garrett & Hannah at our home. This year we were invited to come to their home to have a first Christmas with them in their home. They celebrated their first year together in their home last year.

Hannah has the home smelling so wonderful with warm scents. (I just ordered my first scents.) Their Christmas tree was beautiful.

We enjoyed Catalina pork chops, creamed potatoes, white peas, red pickles & cornbread. Yum, yum!

Later in the evening we shared gifts. A special gift this year was an ornament that was made by their furs with their G-ma. 

Garrett & Hannah

Grand-furs Romeo & Angel

One Thousand Gifts

A gift of “thanks-giving” understanding

so complex yet so simple. A challenge

to “be the exchange”.

God gifts for our gifting…a re-gift

if you think about it.

His love for us to be

the love for our fellow person.

Challenge yourself…

Name your gifts.

Be the gift!

#1000Gifts

#ADaretoLiveFully

#Eucharisteo

Session 5
Video Notes
Empty to Fill

Gifts of God.....meant to never end.

THINK ON THESE.....

A mask ~

1. our feelings
2. hidden thoughts
3. troubles

We are the same as others behind masks.

I can be the gift ~

1. not for gain but to be given
2. never stops being a gift
3. Be the joy!

"Become the exchange!"

Regifting ~

1. as believers, think of "regifting" and
2. give away your best as God gave away His best.

"I am blessed. I can bless. So this is happiness."?

Study Guide~One Thousand Gifts~Ann Voskamp

Serve with a focus on Jesus for peace, happiness & a desire for more.

Quotes from the book~

"When the eyes of the heart focus on God,

all work becomes worship, 

a liturgy of thankfulness."

"It is an astonishing truth that while I

serve Christ, it is He who serves me."

"The One thousand presents wake me

to the presence of God."

"God calls us to do thanks. TO give thanks away.

That thanks-giving might literally become thanks-living."

Study Guide~One Thousand Gifts~Ann Voskamp

#1000Gifts

#ADaretoLiveFully

#eucharisteo

Garrett David Franklin

December 15, 1981

7:08AM

8 lbs 2 oz ~~~ 21” long

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

MY JOY💗

~Between Sessions 4 & 5~

Recognizing hard circumstances in our life & trusting at these times help us to find the bridges provided for us by God in our journey to His joy. Can you name some "planks of trust" for God in His bridge building for us?

THINK ON THESE...

• trust-stretching moments
• trust-building moments

Thanks is what builds trust.

Study Guide~One Thousand Gifts~Ann Voskamp

#1000Gifts

#ADaretoLiveFully

#Eucharisteo

The week after Thanksgiving is always the week where our home is cleaned, and we decorate for Christmas. 

This year was to be no different but...

...we both get sick on the December lst, Glenn is worse that I am.

...Glenn will possibly need shoulder surgery. We will find out the 6th.

...cancel doctor appt. for the 6th (he is still sick).

It's the 12th, and we are still coughing but yay!...no fever.

...our year to spend Christmas with our SC family...

only 11 days before we leave.

Should I decorate?.

My few pretties.....

Rejoicing as we celebrate the birth of our Savior!

Luke 2:1-20

Session 4
Video Notes
Trust: The Bridge to Joy

bridge...a structure providing passage

In life we sometimes need a bridge to take us through loss/pain, fear or just the everyday crazy of life. God provides.

"Trust is the bridge from yesterday to tomorrow, 

built with planks of thanks."

Study Guide~One Thousand Gifts~Ann Voskamp

THINK ON THESE - 

What's holding me back from the land of trust?

A difficult journey of trust -

1. trust is hard work
2. a fear
3. no starting or ending

True Belief -

1. True Belief
• faith in the messenger
• trust in the overflow
• raising arms with open hands
• "can't see His hand, trust his heart"

Isn't joy worth the effort of trust?

Practical atheism -

1. stress is disbelief of trust
2. advertises the unreliability of God that I don't believe

"When we refuse to trust God and 

forget to live in eucharisteo thankfulness, 

we are living as practical atheists. We are not positional atheists

 (in truth, we are always  positioned in Christ through faith in Him),

 but we are living like God doesn't exist."

~RESPOND in your heart~

Study Guide~One Thousand Gifts~Ann Voskamp

Remembering & recounting -

1. Psalm 36...the Israelites' gratitude journal
2. act of thanksgiving is remembering
3. memory of God's heart that shapes our trust  in God's heart
4. unwavering trust

The bridge & the Bridge Builder

1. counting blessings
• finding bridges that have held
• finding what & who can be counted on
2. each bridge leads us closer to Him...always safe
   

Trust the bridge from yesterday to tomorrow 
built with planks of thanks 
remembering frames of God. 
God lays out the planks of thanksgiving. 
I can walk the planks 
from known to unknown 
and know this...
He holds. 
This is the crux of Christianity...
to remember & give thanks.

Study Guide~One Thousand Gifts~Ann Voskamp

#1000Gifts
#ADaretoLiveFully
#AnnVoskamp

~BETWEEN SESSION 3 & 4~

.

Go on a treasure hunt...

seek the beauty/God's fingerprints

in the "ugly beautiful".

Dig deep.

Pray.

"Faith is always a way of seeing, a seeking for God in everything."

Study Guide-One Thousand Gifts-Ann Voskamp

#1000Gifts

#ADaretoLiveFully

#AnnVoskamp

~one day last week~

not as long as it was when I met him but...

I like

Session 3
Video Notes
All is Grace

Before I get started with the notes from today's session, let me just tell you what my God did last night and this morning on my way home from exercise. Two, yes two "WOW" moments. EEKKKK!!!

I finished the book "range of motion" last night. The last page (217) reads "...I am listening with gratitude, and I am listening for as long as I can, and I am listening with all of my might." WOW 1

Then,as I was driving home this morning, this song on Sirius 68 began playing "The Ways We Miss Our Lives Is Life." WOW 2

Blown Away...God loves me. I am so loved.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"ugly beautiful"

"...sometimes what looks ugly at first glance

is the birthplace of God's most exquisite gifts."

Study Guide~One Thousand Gifts~Ann Voskamp

THINK ON THESE -

1. Can you find grace in what aches?
2. Ugly/beautiful-
•  Lean into your secrets/your ugly and see traces of God's beauty
• Under the grime of this broken world, there is exquisiteness of God's fingerprints
3. God's face in our life messes.
•  His whisper of..."What do you want?"
•  God loves
•  See the beauty with His lenses
4. First step toward eucharisteo.
•  choice
• look with focused eyes
• bitterness crushes joy
• gratitude redeems
5.  One grace after another
• "...all received grace upon grace from His fullness."...John 1:14-16
•  retune the impaired senses to see the Spirit
6.  wrestling/tears/grace
• God will tuck us in clefts during the dark/ugly
• transfigure
• open hand from son

"Pain is everywhere, and wherever the pain,

there can be everywhere grace, and yes, Jesus."

God is always good and I am always loved."

Study Guide~One Thousand Gifts~Ann Voskamp

#1000Gifts

#ADaretoLiveFully

#Eucharisteo