Initially, ‘Glasses of Grace’ started because my niece, Grace, had to get glasses for reading. Since grace is such a spiritual topic and the fact that my niece is such a doll, I started thinking about the ways God shows us His grace on a daily basis. From His servings, His 'glasses of grace' to us - to seeing the world through the eyes of grace (or Grace, since she had new glasses and better sight), it made sense in more ways than one, so a title was born. Blessings and all, this is my life…

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Imagine my happiness...

...that I would get home yesterday afternoon and find that my power and water had been cut off for non payment! :-) I had only come home to get my card reader and kind of 'regroup' before I went to meet my friend, Terri, for dinner before heading to Terri's to show her how to download pictures from her camera to her computer. Needless to say, that little 'no power, no water' notice forced me into a major change in plans. I KNEW I had paid it, but came in and looked and there it sat on my counter, under some other bills that I need to pay.....needless to say, an oversight! About the time I was standing here wondering what I was going to do, Terri called to tell me that our friend Connie's husband was out of town and that she and her sons would be joining us for dinner. I told her that I'd had a little change myself and that I was still planning to meet her, but that I was going to have to find somewhere to spend the night since there would be no 'necessities' here to come home to when we got through with all our computer stuff. I had already called Gina and left her a message telling her to call me ASAP because I had an emergency, but as it turned out, Terri's husband was out of town and I wound up spending the night at her house. It actually all turned out fine because after we had dinner, Terri and I went to her house, fed their horses, she did a couple of other things, then we hooked up with Connie again (she lives in Terri's cul-de-sac too) and went for a walk....about a mile from what Terri said. When we got back, we got to work on computer stuff and did that until almost midnight, so that worked out pretty well all the way around.

I told Terri this morning before I left that I was bound and determined to find some sort of 'silver lining' in that little episode with my bill and had determined that it was much better that it had happened yesterday than today or tomorrow because I would have been so late getting home from choir practices that it would have been really inconvenient to find somewhere else to go at that later time. Plus, with Terri's husband being gone, it gave us some great one-on-one time to spend just doing whatever. One-on-one time is really my favorite kind with friends just because the conversation tends to be so good, so I really think it all worked out like it was supposed to.

Except for the $50 reconnect fee I had to pay when I went to get all this settled this morning! :-)

Here's the other thing...I was on my treadmill Monday night and was deciding that I needed to start doing that everyday and use it as my 'prayer walk' time. Romans 12:1-2 kept coming to mind:

"I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing unto God - this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will."

I thought it was cool that after I'd made that determination of walking on Monday night, even without the power of a treadmill, God knew I was serious and gave me the opportunity to do it again last night with Terri and Connie. Even if the 'prayer' part wasn't there so much, the exercise part of it was and it was really cool to me when I realized that.

After I got through on Monday night though, although I knew what it said, I went to Romans 12:1-2 in my Bible and read the rest of the book. It wasn't that much more, just a few chapters, but there were a few verses in Romans 14 that got my attention too. I've been dealing with some things internally that these verses spoke directly to and when I read them, I was just like, "Wow." I could not have known when I started recalling Romans 12 that Romans 14 would have such words that I needed to heed as well. I am always amazed when God works like that.

We have practice tonight and tomorrow night for our 'God and Country' program on Sunday night. It is going to be on the lawn of the old courthouse in town and hopefully there will be a great community turnout. They're telling everyone to bring blankets and lawn chairs and flyers are out around town. We're all hoping for a great ministry opportunity for the community and a great chance to reflect on what we believe about our God and our country....'the land of the free....and the home of the brave.'

Lastly, below is the picture from Carabba's that I promised a few weeks ago. Our children's choir group had gone to dinner with gift cards we had all gotten for Christmas. Terri's camera was the one that had the picture in it, so when I was over there last night, I e-mailed it to myself so I could get a copy printed and post it here as well. Just to give you faces to go with names, since I've mentioned them here, Terri is the third one from the left on the back row...Connie is the first one on the first row on the right, next to me.


Hope you're having a great week!

8 comments:

Tracey said...

Dianne, we've done the same thing and had the cable/phone/internet turned off after thinking we had paid it! It stinks to pay the re-connect fee, but it all works out in the end!

I'm glad things turned out well and you were able to spend some time with Terri---a fun sleepover! That is a great picture of all of ya'll too.

Keep up the good work on the treadmill---I got one a few weeks ago and got on it once---my tennis shoes were so old and (little) they were killing me...so yesterday I went and got some new tennis shoes...no more excuses! I'm getting too old to let all this flab hang around!!!

Let's try to be accountable to each other in our treadmill use...think we can do it long distance?! ;-)

Tracey said...

well, now, that little "winky" smiley face wasn't supposed to end up on two lines!!!

;-)

Jill said...

You've got the right idea, looking for that silver lining. And you can always seem to find it when you look, huh? We've all forgotten to pay bills...it's so frustrating. They seem to move really fast to shut you off...it couldn't have been more than a month late. That's one thing that really gets to me...with all this technology, they could send a little "you must have forgotten" reminder.

Jean said...

I never had that happen, but one time I was called to come pick up one of our boys because he had gotten stopped in a speed trap and his driver's license had expired. I just KNEW we had never gotten a notice that it was time to renew. But guess what - I found it under a big stack of other papers at home!

Oh yes, the treadmill. I'm trying to go to the gym at least four times a week to walk on that thing. Does yours show the calories burned? Earlier this year I was able to burn a little over 300 calories off in half an hour, but then I quit going during my busy spring, and now I'm still working my way up again.

Justabeachkat said...

Bummer about the misplaced utility bills! It's amazing how things like that happen and you just can't imagine how it does. It's wonderful though that you looked for the silver lining. Great way to look at it.

Love my treadmill. Do you wear your gown and tennis shoes while walking on it like I do? :-) I certainly look a sight, but oh is it comfortable that way!

Love the photo!

Hugs!
Kat

Deedra said...

Don't feel bad Dianne. I worked at Verizon Wireless for years, up until I had Carter. One day we were super busy when a guy from the power company came in and said that he was there to cut off our power since our bill hadn't been paid...Needless to say, whoever forgot to write that check was in trouble! (wasn't me!)...I have to admit though, I laughed..A company that big forgot to pay their bill?..too funny!

Hooray for you on the walking! I've been walking most days for a couple of weeks and I feel soooo much better, and have much more energy! You and Tracey should do the Fit4Life Friday..and be accountable to each other, and all the rest of your blog buddies!!

Tonja said...

Sorry about the slip-up with the bill. Has happened to me, too.

I MUST join you on the treadmill. I have one in the bedroom and I just need to get the inspiration to use it. O.K. I'm gonna start today. Really, I am.

Great pic. Isn't it great to have sweet friends? You all look so happy.

Lyndy said...

How frustrating but so easy to do, especially the way times seems to fly by.

Glad you found the silver lining.

Great picture...thanks for sharing.