Book Review: Out of a Far Country

I recently read the book, Out of a Far Country. It was an inspirational tale of a homosexual son and his mother with a hardened heart. Along this journey, both learn to accept one another and experience what is like to be loved by an unconditional God. I really enjoyed the book. It was such a blessing to me and a reminder that God forgives all. He waits with open arms for us to come or return to him. The story made me take a look at myself and how I am walking on my own journey.

Not Much of an Update

I have had several people asking about an update on the status with our kiddos. I haven't posted anything, because there really isn't anything to update. The only thing that I can tell you is that on September 14 we will have our big trial. This is the epic turning point of the case. So prayers for that trial please!! I'm not too concerned, but as many of you know, I will not count my chickens so to speak! Thanks!

Court Hearing Update

The first of several court hearings for termination happened on Wednesday. We did not go, because it was just an appearance hearing for the parents. Both parents, shockingly, showed. The father was extremely rude to our case worker, but said nothing about the children...sad. The next court hearing is on July 11, so we wait until then. In the meantime, we are loving these 3 kiddos. I am enjoying being home with them this summer!!! I will post again when I know more :)

Life in the fast lane

Life is so crazy right now!! There are so many things going on that I feel like I am absolutely drowning. I get overwhelmed and feel I don't know how to go on, and then I remember that Jesus is in my life! All of this stress is taken off of me and put onto my lord. When I trust him completely, I know that all will work out.

Some craziness right now:

1. Took the LBS1 certification test on April 16th and am waiting for results from that!

2. Had the final for my class last Thursday, waiting to hear grade for that.

3. Starting my new section of classes this Tuesday...two nights per week.

4. Have been rif'd from my job and going through crazy interviews and screenings in hopes of having a job in the fall.

5. June 8 is the first of several court hearings coming up!

Needless to say, it is easy to stress!! I am putting all of this off of my shoulders and onto my God. Why does he care about these little things? Because he cares about ME!!

Book Review: When God Created My Toes

When God Created My Toes is a cute book that starts with the toes and works its way up the body. It rhymes and flows with a pattern. Each body part presents a question about whether God knew something was going to happen when he created that part. My kids liked it, but they have not chosen to read it a second time. It was cute for younger kids. It does not really teach a lesson or moral, but okay for a cute read.

Book Review: Secure Daughters, Confident Sons

Secure daughters confident sons was a nice book that gave a lot of insight to why we should raise our sons and daughters differently. I really enjoyed the book. In modern times, people are often offended by these types of statements. I don’t base my life on modern times, though. I base my life on God. God created boys and girls differently. He guides them differently. We are different. I think that is important. I also feel that a man’s role is different in the family than a woman’s role. This was important to me. I want my children to grow to be strong men and women. I am not looking at only today when I am raising my children. I love that this book addresses these things. I was slightly disappointed in the lack of biblical referencing. I would have liked to see more of that. I want to raise my children biblically, not just on a whim. I think this book would have been even more powerful if it would have gone deeper into God’s word. Overall, I liked the book and it had a lot of good insights. This book was provided for me free of charge by Blogging for Books and Waterbrook Multnomah Publishing Group for my personal review. Other than this book, I am receiving no compensation. The views expressed are my own.

Amazing Weekend

I had a wonderful weekend full of love, women, friendship, fellowship and the word of God. I was so happy that my amazing mom, 2 wonderful sisters-in-law, and one of their moms could go with me! It was great to learn more about God's word. It was even more amazing to be reminded of God's covenants. He reminded me that His covenants do not fail, we do. How often I fail Him, and yet He takes me back every time!

It is also amazing that He gives us signs of His covenants.

I have been doing some research on the rainbow, a sign of God's promise to never again flood the Earth, and am so amazed by these wonderful signs. Did you know that a rainbow is actually a full circle? We only see an arc, because the land gets in the way! Amazing! There are other kinds of rainbows too! Here is a fog-bow:

Here is a moon bow:

Finally, here is a sun-dog:

These are all God's amazing ways of reminding us of His promise!

As I was writing this, I got an update!! We have our next court date! June 8 we will be going in for the first of possibly 4 hearings. The termination should be final by the end of July. Then we will finally be onto adoption!!! Yay! God is so great!

Rapture of the Church

I am doing a Bible study on the book of Revelation, which has always been a fascinating read for me. I feel like I am fairly knowledgeable of the book, yet am learning so much that I had never seen before. I would like to touch on a few things that are fascinating me, or questions that I had never considered before:

1. When will the rapture occur?
I have always been a firm believer in the pre-trib theory. While there is a great deal of controversy over this particular standpoint, I stand firm in my belief. Why? There are 2 major reasons why I feel that the Church will be raptured before the tribulation begins:

• Revelation 3:10--Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I will also keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. If you look back on the original text of this verse, you will see that the Greek word for from is "ek". Literally translated, this means "out of." We must assume that "the hour of temptation" is the tribulation, but I feel that we will be definitely kept from or out of this!
• Matthew 24:36--But of that day, knoweth no man, no, not the angels of Heaven, only the Father. 1 Thessalonians 5:2--For yourselves know perfectly that the Day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. Now, I do want to say that I think we are to know when the day is near. However, the Bible is clear that we will not know the day. If we assume that the tribulation will begin with a 7 year peace treaty (which I do), and that it will be broken 42 months into the tribulation (which it will), then we would know the day of the mid-tribulation. We cannot know the day of the rapture, so I believe, it cannot be mid-trib.
• Here is an interesting website to check out if you want more "proof" www.jesus-is-savior.com

Will there be people saved during the tribulation?

1. I feel that we know there will be 144,000 Jews saved. This is a point that no one can argue. However, recently, I have heard the question of whether or not anyone else will be saved. It is a more complicated discussion than I can get into here, but here is my simple-minded explanation. I believe that there will be!

• Here is my proof. Look at Revelation 7:9-14. After this I beheld and low a great multitude, that no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues, stood before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands....(feel free to read the verses in here) And one of the elders answered saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes, and whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of the great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. This tells us in verse 9 that there will be a whole bunch of people (more than man can number) and in verse 14 we see that they are those out of the Great Tribulation. I could be wrong, but this seems pretty clear to me!
• Others think that this is the people who were raptured. They could be right. However, the rapture took place back in Revelation 4 and now we are up to Revelation 7! Revelation is not always chronological. It does jump around.
• I hope and pray that people will have another chance after the rapture, but don't hesitate. As someone once told me, if you are driving down the road when the rapture happens, and a semi-truck is following you driven by a born-again Christian, you will not have the opportunity to repent after the rapture!! Do not delay!
• Joshua 24:15 Choose you this day whom ye will serve!

I could go on all day with the controversies of Revelation, but this is enough for one day. This is what is pressing on my mind today. What are your thoughts? Do you believe in the Rapture? Are you saved? I love talking about Revelation, and would love to talk to you!

Dear Father, Thank you for your forgiveness. Thank you for keeping us out of your wrath. We are so undeserving! Your grace abounds in my life!

Book Review: Ragamuffin Gospel

I started this Blogging for Books adventure a couple of weeks ago. I was so excited to recieve my first title for review. I really couldn't wait to dive into the text. What better book to read than one about God's unconditional love? That was my impression when I first began reading this book.

Unfortunately, I just couldn't get into the book. It definitely did not grab my attention from the start. I just kept thinking that at some point he would show both sides of the Gospel. He never did, though. I was very disappointed.

While the message of God's unconditional love is crucial, there is more to it than that. I do not feel that Brennan gave the full view of what is expected. He almost justified sin so that God's grace could be bigger. I felt like he was sort of condoning sin.

We are to strive to be more Christ-like everyday. While it is not possible for us to be perfect, and we will always be undeserving, we are to attempt to sin no more! Jesus said, "Go and sin no more!" I felt that Brennan left that part out of his book.

He gave me the impression that it was perfectly ok to sin all you want and you would be just fine. While we all fall short of the glory of God, we are not called to sin as much as we want.

Overall, I would definitely not recommend this book to the unsaved. While they would get the very important message of God's love, they would not get the full picture of what a Christian is and how they should live.

This book was provided for me free of charge by Blogging for Books and Waterbrook Multnomah Publishing Group for my personal review. Other than this book, I am receiving no compensation. The views expressed are my own.

http://waterbrookmultnomah.com/bloggingforbooks/sign-up

To Lie or Not to Lie....That is the Question!

Life has been going really well. We were hoping that January 27 would have been the day that the state's attorney would have petitioned for termination of rights. That day has come and gone. In the meantime, we have just been loving every second of being a family. Everyone has been adjusting really well to the idea of being adopted.

One frustration that we have been dealing with is lying. I am posting this in hopes of getting some ideas for dealing with a 5 year old that lies constantly. Pretty much if the child is speaking, he is lying!! It is crazy. He will say ANYTHING, even if he knows you saw him do something else. He will tell you the grass is purple and be TOTALLY convinced of it!

Some things we have tried:

1. We started an "I TOLD THE TRUTH" jar. Everytime the kids tell the truth when it would be easier to lie, they get a pom-pom in the jar. Once the jar is full, we will do something fun (i.e. go out for ice cream, go to a movie, etc.)

2. We have talked a lot about God watching everything we do. He remembers all the good things we do and all the bad things we do. When we pray to God we need to ask him to forgive us for the "bad" things we did...called sins. We also talked about that we have to REALLY be sorry. We can't say it if we don't mean it.

3. TRUTH OR LIE: We started playing a game called Truth or Lie. I will say a sentence "The sky is green" and the kids have to say truth or lie. They are really good at the game. They get almost all of them right, which tells me that they do know when they are lying.

4. MODELING: We are modeling truth telling. When we tell the truth, we talk about it. I told the kids about hitting the garage door with the van. I explained that it would be easier to lie about it, but how much better I felt when I had told the truth.

We really want to focus on the positive...the telling the truth. With that being said, we can't let lies go undisciplined. Any ideas you have would be really helpful. You could send ideas to my facebook or my email: jlcorbly82@yahoo.com. Or you could leave comment here. Anything that has worked for you!

Dear Lord, thank you for giving me this opportunity to teach the children about the honesty that you have shown us. Thank you for always honoring what you have promised.

Sanctity of Life

We had the most amazing service at church on Sunday. I was so happy to get to be a part of it. It was the Sanctity of Life Sunday nation wide. Basically what this means is that churches throughout the nation were addressing the atrocity of abortion. At our particular church, one person from each year 1973 on was asked to walk into the sanctuary carrying a rose to represent all babies that had been aborted for that year. I was representing 1982. Over 45 million babies have legally been aborted since 1973!!

My preacher was amazing when addressing this to the congregation. Suprisingly he said that 1 in 6 abortions are by women who claim to be born again Christians. What?!? I was so relieved to hear that he agreed with my beliefs in that life begins at conception and anything after that is murder!

The most amazing part of the sermon was his focus on God's grace and forgiveness. While this is an atrocity in God's eyes, he is faithful to forgive if someone has done it in the past. The emotional distress that it can cause can be unbearable. Only Jesus can take away that emotional distress from your life.

How precious he is!! How could we bear our lives without him? We can't!

Lord, thank you for loving me so much and taking away my burden!

God's Plan

It never ceases to amaze me how all the events of our life fall perfectly into God's plan, not ours. We had a court hearing this morning, and the birthparents' goal was changed to termination of rights. We were in and out of the courtroom within 5 minutes, because there was simply nothing to argue. From here, the state's attorney will file the petition to terminate parental rights on January 27th!! Then we will have the termination hearing(s). After we wait 31 days from that point, we can file our paperwork for adoption!!! Everything is falling into place and so quickly. It must be God's plan. When we were fighting for our own plan, nothing fell into place. Now my heart is bursting with joy. I am so thankful that the judge decided to return the other 3 kids home they way he did. Even though I didn't like it at the time, it has turned out beautifully for them. He made the right decision. I am so thankful that God gave us the courage to accept this placement 11 days later! I am thankful that the children's aunt made the decision to let the 3 children live together, and Lacy came to live with us. WOW!! My God is amazing. None of this could have been possible if not for his grace. Now the children will have a life of love, stability, and learning about our Savior. A life that they could not imagine before, and are still having a hard time believing. They still think soon they will be moving to another home. Today, I finally get to tell them that they are staying with us forever and that they, too, will be CORBLYS!!!

Father, thank you for your grace. We are undeserving, yet you shower us with you love. Please help me to reflect your love to others in your name!