Happy Thanksgiving!

Thank you, Lord, for everything,
For coming down to die for me,
For giving me my family and friends,
And for giving me eyes so I can see.

Thank you for the soaring mountains,
And for the rivers and the fountains.
Thank you, thank you, for your love,
That showers me from above!

Thank you for this beautiful home!
For the big buildings with their domes!
Thank you for flowers and pictures!
And for cookies made from strange mixtures!

Thank you for for the shimmering snow!
And for chocolate chip cookie dough!
And for rings and necklaces and even shoes!
And for my siblings, who all those things lose!

And Thank you most of all,
For sending us your son,
So that we might be saved,
And may for eternity run!

Mandy

Conquering Enemies (Sort Of)

"Die, evil enemies!" I say as I attack the clothe once more with the iron. "The thing about enemies is, they always seem to have more hiding someplace," I continued, talking to myself (well, for the first few minutes, then I decided this was a great scene that I should promptly add to one of my books. I mean, who doesn't want to read about a girl who attacks wrinkled and plays their evil enemies? Obviously, you do because here you are, doing so!)

Sadly, as I was saying at the time (and now, too, evidently) enemies always have more hiding someplace. I was too right. More and more and MORE just kept coming! Who knew we had so many curtains?

(Mom is saying as she listens to me write this, "But they look so pretty now that they're ironed!" I'm not so sure.)

Another thing I've noticed about curtains. They fade in rather cool patterns. Like, we have a Geni in a bottle (with smoke coming out the top and everything!) and a mushroom and all kinds of stuff! How did it come about that I noticed these things? When sitting on a coach, ill, one notices things like that.

Well, that's pretty much all for now! Mandy, signing off!

Justice and Mercy

Justice: The maintenance or administration of what is just especially by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishments.

I was reading a book tonight and the character asked, "How can God have mercy and justice in equal parts?" And as I thought about it, I couldn't put the answer into words. I thought I had to do a bunch of research and find verses and everything but I decided to step back and pray on it.

And I learned something from it. I'd known the answer all along.

I've never thought much on it, I just trusted God. He said He was just and merciful and I believed Him. I didn't need proff. I got it, I understood it...but it didn't connect once I tried to touch it.

And I let myself go too big. I was trying to make it too complicated. And then Mom said something wonderful, "Sometimes the best answer is the simplest one."

It clicked. The simplest, truest answer. God deals justly to those who don't believe in His Son, Jesus Christ. He is merciful to those who believe He lived, died and rose again to save us and have accepted Him. It is that simple.

But sometimes we forget that God isn't trying to confuse us but is always whispering the simple, sweet answers in our ears.

Mercy: Compassionate treatment, especially of those under one’s power.

Will you find justice or mercy? I've found mercy.

Mandy

My Eight Year Old Trip

My Aunt Miriam has always taken the double cousins, me included, on an Eight Year Old Trip. We are paired with the double cousin our age and taken on a several day trip to where ever she feels like! And at eight, this is awesome!

So Andrew and I packed us and all our stuff into the backseat of her car and we were off! Immediately we came up with what to play. Spies! The cars behind us were the enemy giving pursuit! The seat bucks were radios! The windows were high-tech computer screens! The armrests were levers that should never be pulled but under the worst circumstances (which, of course, happened every few minutes!) We had the time of our lives shooting at enemies, pretending to fly, and whatever else we could think of that was loud and awesome!

Sadly, Aunt Miriam got what you called enough. She suggested we listen to a book on tape called Soup. We wilted. Who wanted to listen to Soup instead of using rocket launchers to blow up the enemy? National security was on the line, you know! But we did listen to Soup. It was a good book on tape and we colored in our coloring books.

Eventually, we made it to Denver where we meet our other aunt that always goes with us on Eight Year Old Trips. We were to stay at Aunt Vonda's (which was also totally cool and had all kinds of things for international spies!)

I can't remember everything we did and in what order but I remember a lot. We went to the zoo, a place where we ate with chop sticks, a butterfly garden where we held a tarantula!!! Cool! And we went to a place where we got dressed up in old-fashioned clothes and got our picture taken (after we played we were pioneers while our Aunt's got dressed). We went to Build-A-Bear and got bears (mine was called Princess) and a gift shop type thing.

But I think we had the most fun in the car where we automatically changed into spies with awesome gadgets. Who needed more?

It's one of my fondest memories. I hope you enjoyed it!

Mandy

God's Greatness

Have you ever just stopped to think about God's greatness? I have, many, many, many times. And every time I do, it is more and more amazing to me.

Just think about the stars. Little tiny specks of light in the sky, giving a picture of his love. And every time we get closer to one, when a closer picture is sent from some space craft, they just keep getting prettier, more amazing, more beautiful.

Have you ever notice how fast the stars move? About a foot per hour, or so. When you are laying awake and cannot sleep, you can watch them. And every time you just think you've studied each one in your view point, they move on and there are more. It isn't like those stick to the roof, glow in the dark kind. They are much, much, much more amazng! And I don't even the scientific stuff that makes them even more so!

God knew that on the one night I was laying awake, feeling alone, that I would be able to see the stars and feel His love through it. And He made them because of it. When I look at the stars, I see His love, unmeasurable, unimaginable, undescribeable. And if you've never felt what I feel, I can't tell you how it feels. It's too much to explain. His sweet love, his amazing grace, his patience with me, with us, and his perfect reasons, for everything.

They also reminded me that no matter what the pain we are going through, He has a perfect, amazing reason for it. And I can't describe how it feels to know that we aren't suffering for no reason! He has a reason, he will use our pain! Just to know that, no matter what, no matter what He takes, no matter what the situation, no matter how bad it hurts, all I have to do is remember that He loves me, that He doesn't want me to hurt and that this pain is there for His perfect, wonderful, amazing, brilliant, grand, sweet, lovely reason.

And I love Him. I can't even describe how much. I can't make anyone feel like this but I want to. Oh how I want to. How can I just sit here, watching while they go around blindly? How can I when they could feel like this? How? I want them to feel this way.

So many hurting people. So many, Lord. I want to show them love. They don't even know love and it hurts. I want to help them. I want to show them. I want to be their friend. Please. Please, let me help them.

His love is there for all to see. Just look at the stars...

Mandy

The Science Experiment

We learned that I am not the only one to make mistakes in the kitchen, only this time it wasn't due to cooking.

Missy and Rose (the twins) were doing something in the kitchen and it looked more interesting than what I was doing. So, naturally, I went to see what they were doing. They looked a lot like scientist with their flower aprons, bright yellow rubber gloves and sunglasses. Yep, definitely more interesting (plus, there were cookies in the kitchen!)

They continued to pour together chemicals and spout scientific stuff and look real impressive and important and knowledge able and I continued to watch and eat cookies (they were chocolate ones!) Then, they took the container holding the chemicals to the sink and started to run water into it. This is when they stopped looking so impressive. The whole thing started steaming and bubbling and looking altogether bad. Rose stood over it; touching it (the book said it should ‘eventually’ be ‘slightly’ warm, ha, ha, ha!)

Evidently, chemical steam is bad for you. Rose started coughing and sputtering (and…well, sounding all together bad.) I left the kitchen for a few moments and came back to find they hiding out side on the back porch well their science experiment calmed itself.

I was terrified! This was bad, very, very bad! My cookies might be contaminated! My perfectly wonderful cookies! My chocolate cookies! But, luckily, they weren’t! How do I know…hmm, well, they tasted fine! And I’m not dead! Yet…

So now you all know, science experiments can go badly! (And if you already knew that, then you learned that you like my posts…maybe…)

Signing off,

Mandy

Snow!

It's snowing!!!! Yay! I love snow and it snowing! So far it is just little flakes, but it is pretty all the same!

Jesus, thank you for the snow I've been asking for!

Who doesn't like snow? (Well, besides my Uncle Bruce...) I love snow. I'll probably be tired of it by the end of the winter but right now, it's beautiful! The Lord has made amazing things and one of the most beautiful ones I know of is snow!

Snow, A poem by Me!

I have never seen the sea,
So how am I to know?
The sea is far, far away,
But I can see the snow!

I see the snow as it stretches away,
Across a once green plain,
I have seen it when enchanted!
And all it had to do was quietly remain!

The sea enchants by rolling,
In high and mighty waves!
But my snow does not those things,
It just lays amoung the mountian caves.

The sea is big and mighty!
It crashes, roars and cries!
It steals away the sailor,
In its beautifully ugly lies.

But not my cold but lovely snow,
It shimmers in the sunlight.
It is hundreds of glistening stars,
Not unlike the stars at night.

Mandy