Friday Favorites!

It's Friday!  I love Friday.  I always look forward to our weekends together and this weekend, I have so much to look forward to this weekend.  :)  But more about that on Monday.

I'm linking up with Momfessionals for the writing of this post.

And try not to be surprised, but I'm going to let you in on a few favorite things I use in my house.

A favorite thing I love to do is write, as most of you know.  I love to write on this blog, but I really just love the art of handwriting.  Because of that love, I love a good pen!  (So does Todd~do you know that one night when we were on a date, we stood and stared at the pens at Office Depot for almost a solid hour as he searched for the perfect one?)  I love a fine tip pen, because it is harder to smudge (hello, left handed girl problems?) and it makes my handwriting neater.  And I love colored pens.  These are my all time favorite pens ever, ever, ever and I have caused several of my friends to buy them for themselves!  Seriously, at least four of my friends have bought this same kind.  I have a problem, and apparently, I am not the only one!

Here they are.

Forgive the horrible picture.  There are twenty beautiful brightly colored pens in this container and I bought mine for about $13 on Amazon.  And I will use them until they're dried up, I love them that much.

Another favorite activity of mine is reading.  I love to reread the books I already have, because I only buy books by my favorite authors.  One of my favorites is Francine Rivers.  Her books are so deep, though, that I can't read them very often.  I love that her books are almost always based on a particular passage of Scripture, or a book in the Bible.  One of the best books I have ever read is Redeeming Love, based on the book of Hosea.  They are not easy reads and often times, her books keep me up at night, thinking about all I have read.  This week, I picked up a book of hers I've read before, but really can't remember.  I know that I loved it, though, so I am enjoying getting drawn back in to this particular story.

I remember reading the title and having to look up the term shofar, and the significance of it in the bible.  I won't give any of it away, should you ever want to read this, but know that if you do, it will be time well spent.

I love my bible that I got for Christmas!  I loved my old bible, too, so I have not parted with it yet, because of all the notes inside.  I once heard from a music pastor at my old church, that we should replace our bibles every so often, depending on how much we write or highlight inside of them.  The reason being that when you read something that is already highlighted, you have a tendency to skim over the verses.  I've noticed myself doing that lately, so I am considering putting up my beloved purple women of faith study bible and starting to use this one I got for Christmas.  Even though just writing that sentence makes me very sad.  I also heard Beth Moore say once that our old, highlighted, much-loved bibles can be a sign of pride.  Gasp!  I don't ever want to be considered prideful, and I have to wonder why it is that I so love that purple bible that is so beautifully highlighted?  Hmmm.  Food for thought.  Here's the new bible that I love.

It's my Crossway journal bible that is the ESV translation.  And even though it's a journaling Bible, I am trying not to underline so much.  Instead, I have been lightly coloring over passages that I've read that have jumped out at me with a colored pencil.  And I write in the margins a lot.  I've even drawn in the margins, with my favorite pens or colored pencils.  I wasn't too sure about this translation, but I love it so far!  The wording is so beautiful that it's almost poetic.  Even my sixteen year old loves this bible~I need to ask if he'd like for us to buy him one.  He loves the feel of the pages.

Lastly, a favorite moment from this week is something that happened this morning.  Graham came to me this morning and started talking to me about a book he is reading.  (Insert another GASP! here.)  Our church gave us some books a while back, called Life On Mission, and apparently my oldest son picked it up and began reading.  In the book David Platt challenges the readers to view the Scriptures as they were meant to be taken, in context, and that struck a chord with Graham.  He asked me if I knew that such and such scripture was a command to Jesus' disciples.  And though I did know that, I let Graham explain to me what he had read.

I have been convicted of not discipling my kids.  So between that conviction and the conversation I had with my oldest son this morning, I am going to start scheduling a few minutes each day to talk with them individually about the bible.  It will be a time they can ask me questions or what something means that they've read in the bible, or anything else.  My plan is for them to just see how I live my life, and though they already know a lot of that, I am going to invite them further in~I want to share with them how I journal, how I take notes when someone is teaching or preaching, and I want them to know that I don't know all the answers!  They need to know that as we pray and read His word and spend time with Him, He starts to reveal things to us through Scripture.  He imparts wisdom to us.  They will see that I will NEVER arrive at a certain point when I don't need to learn anything else, but that I am always straining and achieving to knowing and loving Him more and more.  My friend and I were talking about that yesterday, before we prayed together~that each year, we love to look back on our journals and see how the Lord has grown us.

And about my friend that I pray with~that is another favorite from my week.  Recently at my Thursday bible study, our leader encouraged us each to find a prayer partner.  And not just any old someone, but somebody who can handle our good, our bad, our ugly and our messy sides.  Someone who can slap the other around, so to speak, when the need arises.  I have been praying about this for a long time, and for a year almost (YES, A WHOLE YEAR!), I have been wanting to pray with this particular friend!  Yes, I am slow.  And how we even started two weeks ago was an accident that we decided should just keep happening on Thursdays.  He gave us both that same desire.  Isn't God good?    Yes, He is...but not just because of what I just wrote about.  He cares about every single little detail of our lives and He hears every prayer we utter.  If you've been praying about something, don't give up!  Be faithful to Him in prayer, and He will always be faithful to us.  Even when we are faithLESS, He remains faithful.  That verse is from Second Timothy.

Yikes!  I just looked at the time.  I have got to get off this computer.  Love to all!