Friday Favorites

Happy Friday, friends!  I am linking up with Andrea from Momfessionals, and her friends, for this blog post. 

As I type this, it is raining where I live.  Again.  I really try not to complain about the weather, because the Lord always gives us whatever is needed, but it's hard to stay positive when it has rained an inordinately huge amount these past few weeks.  Also, if it weren't for our dogs, I would always love rain, but when you have dogs that don't like to go out in it to take care of their business, well...you get my drift.  As of right now, this is supposed to go on until tomorrow night.  (It started at 3 p.m. yesterday.)

Moving on now, and asking forgiveness for complaining.

This has been a strange week.  It went by fast, for which I'm thankful, because we've all been a little under the weather.  We've all had colds or sinus problems, nothing serious, just enough of a "sickness" to make us feel kinda bad.  I think my husband had it the worst, because his started about a week ago, and then he had to work really hard at our church for a youth event all weekend.  I think part of what made his so bad was sheer exhaustion.  I'm glad to say we're all feeling better for the most part, but because of that, things have been on the mundane side this week.  Nothing earth shattering happened, and we really didn't do a whole lot of anything.

I made a really good dinner Monday night, thanks to my friend Lori, who gave me her recipe. 

This was the makings for creamy chicken noodle soup.  It was DELICIOUS.  I posted a recipe on Facebook for it, under this picture, so if you want to check it out, you can find it that way.  This might be my favorite version of chicken noodle soup that I have ever had.  Nothing tastes so good when you are sick!

I posted about this book on Instagram this week.  My friend Denise gave me this years ago, and it's one of my favorite books that I own.  It's also falling apart, from years of use.  When my prayers start to sound a little redundant, I like to pull this out.  It's filled with scripture you can pray over situations in your family life, and for prayers you can pray over your family.  I love praying the word of God back to Him. 

This was me during my quiet time on Tuesday.  Mornings like this are my favorite.  I sat down to pray and to read the bible, and a whole two and a half hours later, I was cleaning up for lunch.  And yes, I use all those bibles you see pictured.  I love reading different translations and versions of the bible, and I love looking up what the words mean in their original language.  I realize this just validates that fact that I am a nerd, but I can't help myself.  God has made me fall in love with His word and I don't ever want to take that for granted. 

I also loved where I wrote scripture from that day, and it's one of my favorite stories in the bible, the healing of the lady with the issue of blood in Luke 8.  When I read, I always pray first.  I ask God to help me know and to understand what I'm reading, I ask Him to speak to me through His word, and I ask Him to pierce my heart with His word.  And He always does all that I ask.  Not every morning turns into two and a half hours, but anytime with Him is so good.  Prayer is the key to reading the bible, though, and many people don't know that.  If we don't pray, we're just reading words on a page, and they end up not meaning anything to us.

This is why I love reading slowly through God's word.

A couple of my favorite boys are in this picture.  Alabama sweatshirt and two over toward the right.  This is just the tenth grade boys at D-Now last weekend.  I think this was their favorite one yet.  They stayed at the church and had fun all being together.  Usually they're split up between three houses. 

Well, that's about all we've been up to.  The only other thing I did this week was bible study on Wednesday.  That has become my favorite week day, because of all the sweet ladies I get to see.  I have loved getting to know some new friends since we started this in January.  I hope your weekend is great!  I'm looking forward to seeing my sister Debi this weekend.  She's flying in tonight from Denver and we always get together a lot when family is in town.  Thanks for reading my blog!  Love to all.