Got to be Thankful!

Verse of the Day: Psalm 27:1 "The Lord is my light and my salvation - whom shall I fear? The Lord is my stronghold - of whom shall I be afraid?"


    It's the middle of March and it's snowing. Light flurries, and it's not sticking, but it's still snow! If you know me, you know that I like the weather to stay consistent with the season. Today it's not. It's cold. As I went through my day, wishing that the weather was warmer, and it was raining instead of snowing, I began to think about my bad attitude. After all, "This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!" Who makes the snow fall? God does! I realized I'm not just complaining about the weather, I'm complaining about the day God has made. He's in charge of the weather so I will rejoice and be glad it!


Here's a hymn that I've had stuck in my head lately, it doesn't exactly go with the theme of this post, but it's inspiring, I think.

Higher Ground

By: Johnson Oatman, Jr.

I'm pressing on the upward way,

New heights I'm gaining every day;

Still praying as I'm onward bound,

"Lord, plant my feet on higher ground"

Chorus:

Lord, lift me up and let me stand

By faith on heaven's tableland;

A higher plane that I have found-

Lord, plant my feet on higher ground

My heart has no desire to stay

Where doubts arise and fears dismay;

Tho' some may dwell where these abound,

My prayer, my aim, is higher ground.

I want to live above the world,

Tho' Satan's darts at me are hurled;

For faith has caught the joyful sound,

The song of saints on higher ground

I want to scale the utmost height

and catch a gleam of glory bright;

But still I'll pray till heav'n I've found,

"Lord, lift me up on to higher ground."

Something to think about

Verse of the day: 1Timothy 4:8
    "For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come."


Inspiring song: Take My Life and Let it be Consecrated
By: Frances Ridley Havergal (1st, 5th, and last stanzas only)

Take my life and let it be

Consecrated, Lord, to Thee;

Take my moments and my days-

Let them flow in ceaseless praise,

Let them flow in ceaseless praise.

Take my love- my Lord, I pour

At Thy feet its treasure store;

Take myself- and I will be

Ever, only, all for Thee,

Ever, only, all for Thee.

Take my will and make it Thine-

It shall be no longer mine;

Take my heart- it is Thine own,

It shall be Thy royal throne,

It shall be Thy royal throne.



    This morning before I read my Bible, I thought about my day yesterday. Yesterday, my family went to the Putnam museum in Davenport with my friend Christina and her mom, my grandma, the Bertlings, and the Hans. That morning when I got up I put on a green (of course, it was St. Patty's Day!) striped shirt, green nail polish, and a sparkly pin that said I (heart) Jesus. the pin was new, and I was excited about wearing it. We drove the one-and-a-half hours to Davenport, and got just a little lost in the process of finding the museum. We did get there eventually, got our tickets, and ran up to the second story of the museum to become CSIs and investigate a couple crime scenes (and learned we were not made to be CSIs, even though it was a lot of fun). That took about an hour, then we ate lunch and watched an Imax movie about Jerusalem. After that, we explored the rest of the museum, the American history section, precious stones section, Japanese section, and ancient Egyptian section, which I thought was pretty cool. The whole thing took the whole day. This morning, I thought to myself,
    "You know Lydia, you wore that Jesus pin all day. I wonder if you hadn't been wearing it, would people know I was a Christian by the way I acted, talked, walked, and dressed? I hope so."
   Just some food for thought. Hope it sets you thinking.

A Day in the Week: Wednesday

   Today is Wednesday, which is not my favorite day of the week. It seems Wednesday (and the two days leading up to it), is the most difficult day of the week for me. Why? That's actually what I'm wondering too. Maybe it's because it's the middle of the week. You know, like when you're climbing a mountain, the steepest part is always near the tip, but once you're up there you just have the easy part, going down, left. It might also be because the weekend seems so far away. I guess I'm just writing to kill time before I go to tap and gymnastics. I have about a half an hour before I have to get ready. Right after I'm done with tap and gymnastics, I'll pull my pants and sweatshirt over my leotard, grab my old purple backpack and squeeze out of the crowded waiting room into the car and drive strait to church for the prayer meeting. You bet I'm hungry when I finally get home! Here's one thing I've found today that I can be thankful for: I've finished a long writing project that I've been working on in school! Yay! Now I can start working on something else! So, another day in my life! Farewell!

A Day in My Life

I've decided, since I've been writing about all this deep stuff the last couple weeks, I'll write about my everyday life today. Except it won't exactly be my everyday life, because today wasn't exactly the usual. So, I woke up at 7:00 this morning, as usual. Instead of doing my devotionals right away as usual, my dear brother burst into my room, imploring me to get out of bed. It hit me that we were going swimming that morning. After trying to wake up for a while, I heard Dad calling for us to hurry from downstairs! Yikes! Where did my morning go? I jumped out of bead, dug in my closet for something to wear, quickly combed my hair, ran downstairs, pulled my tennis shoes and my jacket, and headed to the indoor swimming pool at Camp Courageous. I was a little drowsy until I got into the water. We swam for a half an hour until eight, then took our showers and headed home. We ate our breakfast (oatmeal, toast, and pears), and hurried to try to finish our school before Brandt, a three year old boy that we babysit sometimes, arrived at 11:00. It's funny how quickly you get things done under pressure! I actually got my schoolwork done before Mom picked him up from preschool! Of course, starting school right when we got home helped a lot. For the next four hours, Christopher, Esther, and I switched off playing with Brandt. Then, after his mom picked him up, we three packed our instruments (Chris' cello, Esther's viola, and my violin), and hurried off to orchestra, or rather quartet (there are only four people in it). Christina, the other quartet member was sick and couldn't be there. :(
On our way home, I made a last minute decision to go with Mom to a jewelry party thing that some friends of ours were having. It's a party that helps sell jewelry that's made by poor people around the world. The organization shares the gospel with these people, and helps provide for needs like medications, schooling, etc.. That was my day in short, and since I have to go to bed now, I'll have to finish up. Good night!

Tips for Bible Study

Recently I have come to realize that Bible study is not just skimming over a section of my Bible for two minutes every morning. Since I'm reading the Old Testament, that's an easy thing to do, especially since I don't understand half what I'm reading, let alone how it will apply to me! I've realized though that even the parts of the Old Testament that I don't get are important and have something to say, why else would they be in the Bible? There are a lot of places in the Bible you have to dig deep to find the hidden treasures. Although I have come to this realization, I'm in 2 Chronicles and honestly sometimes it seems hopeless that I'll ever find anything in the chapters I read, but I know there's something hidden there! So, I would like to share some tips for Bible study that I use.

• Always begin with prayer. Ask God to open your eyes to see the treasures He's hidden.
• Look for something specific as you read, such as promises from God, character traits, wisdom, etc.
• Look for Jesus in every passage. Example: 2 Kings 17:1-23 topic: The Northern Kingdom destroyed. Christ connection: Israel had sinned against God therefore He turned away from them. Jesus took our punishment upon Himself so that those who trust in Him can be reconciled with God.
• Have a notebook open beside you and a pencil in your hand as you read to record thoughts and comments.
• Underline verses in your Bible that stand out to you.
• If there is something you don't understand about something you read, ask your parents about it.

    Just some thoughts! Hope they'll be of some help to you.

Sunday Service Summed up.

Howdy! It's a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon and I just got home from church about 15 minutes ago. Mom and Dad are making lunch, which is spaghetti. We have a tradition of eating it on Sundays for lunch. I'm starving! I'll start off writing about what I learned in Sunday school. Sue Martin was the teacher. She and Daniel Kromminga alternate every other month. Our lesson, or session, as they call it, was called "Forever Trusting." There are three points to each session. Point one was that because of our adoption, we trust God will never abandon us, and the verse that went with it was Psalm 94:14 "The Lord will not forsake His people of abandon His heritage." In that point, we talked about how God, our Father, is omnipresent (everywhere), omniscient (all knowing), and omnipotent (all powerful). Nothing can separate us from His love, not trouble, not hardship,  not nakedness, not danger, not the sword, not death, life, angels, demons, present, future, powers, height, death, nor anything else in creation (see Romans 8:35-39). Point two was that God will help us endure. The verse that went with this was Hebrews 3:14 "For we have become companions of the Messiah if we hold firmly until the end thee reality that we had at the start." The Lord gives us many warnings to keep us, His children, from the danger of falling away. He gives us promises to strengthen our faith and lead us to His reward. As children of God, we may fall into times of sin, but if we are truly believers, God will not forsake us. But if someone says they are a Christian but keeps on sinning, they need to be warned in case they got caught up in the false hope when they have none after all. Point three was that God will fulfill His promises. The verse for this was, Philippians 3:12 "Not that I have already reached the goal or am already fully mature, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus." The knowledge that he was secure in salvation caused Paul the Apostle to forget what was behind and strain toward what was ahead. Faith is not stale and passive, but persevering and active. As we trust in God's promises to hold us and we find it our mission to share the Gospel.  The mark of our salvation is our perseverance and perseverance is a sign of God's faithfulness and love. So, that was my Sunday school all summed up. I missed the service because Christina, Molly, and I had nursery together. Let's just say it got just a little out of control once in a while. We all agreed it would have been better to have an adult with us. That was my Sunday. By the way, while I've  been writing this, lunch has been finished, and I'm listening to Dad read Lord of the Rings. Adios amigos!

Welcome!

     Usually when I think of blogging, I think of someone who had something exciting or tragic or something happen to her, and now she writes her experiences and feelings and such afterwards. Well, I have just learned that is not always the case! My name is Lydia (just in case you didn't know that), and nothing tragic has happened, and here I am writing a blog, something I had never imagined myself doing! So why did you start this blog then? you ask. Well, it sort of happened by accident. First, one of my best friends started one. That got me a little interested. Then my mom told me she would rather I have a blog than have Facebook. That got me a little more interested. Then, one night, I asked her what I would do with a blog, so we looked it up on line, and before I knew it, I had one of my own. Now, how did I come up with the name Aidylvise? Well, that was my mom's idea too. So now I had a blog, and I needed to come up with a name for it. Like everything I do, it took a lot of thought. I, being the uncreative person that I am, could not come up with anything. So Mom, in desperation, decided just to write my name backwards: Aidyl. This reminded her of a certain flower she'd seen in Switzerland the last time we went, the edelweiss. Thus the name Aidylvise. Yes, it is misspelled, but we didn't figure that out till later. We just looked up vise in our huge Webster's dictionary, and it means:  "to hold or squeeze with or as with a vise." So, trying to incorporate that into the name, we decided it means I'm holding on to Jesus. Really corny, but it'll work! The background actually took a little thought too. I wanted it to go with both my personality and the name of the blog. I have decided that this blog will be used for me to write my thoughts, comments, and experience in my walk with Christ to help encourage the readers of this blog. Don't be surprised if one of my stories pops up on here either! :)
    So, that's the history of this young blog. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it! Ta-ta for now!