Thoughts on Life and a New Year

Lately I have been reading a book to Lydia, a biography on the life of Sundar Singh. He was a man from India who, after miraculously being saved by God, was a missionary not only to his own people, but also to those in Tibet and many other countries. He completely dedicated his life to Jesus, and became a Christian "Sadhu" (holy man). He did not have a home or family, but instead traveled through treacherous mountains and hostile villages, all to share the Good News! Here is a brief excerpt from the book, written by Janet and Geoff Benge . . .

"When Sundar arrived in San Francisco, a reporter asked him what he wanted to achieve while in the United States. Sundar replied, "I do not seek to Christianize America. I come only as a witness of what Christ has done for me. America is already a Christian nation. But although America has many sincere Christians, the majority of the people here have no religion. Here, where it is easy to have religion, where religion is offered on every side, and no one is persecuted for being a Christian, life should be happy and peaceful because of Christianity. But it is not. Instead there is a hustle and bustle after money and comfort and pleasure, and that all clouds out thoughts of religion. Because it is so easy to have faith in this country, Americans do not appreciate what a comfort there is in religion. At one time the ostrich could fly, but because it did not ever use its wings, it lost its ability to do so. Just so, the people here who do not appreciate the religious faith of their fathers shall lose it."

And that was in 1920. Wow. Our country has only worsened. Just a couple weeks ago President Obama signed a law letting gays openly serve in the military. Now this may or not be connected to that, but I think in the week after he signed that there were floods and mudslides in California, a terrible storm that dumped tons of snow in the east, an earthquake in Indiana, 20 tornadoes that killed 6 people in 4 Midwestern states, and in our part of the country, 2 back-to-back blizzards that caused a 100 car accident, lots of snowfall, and very icy roads.

I've also been thinking lately about how short life is. James 4:13-15 says, "Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that." The older I get, the faster life seems to go! I can't believe I'm going to be 21 this summer . . . WHERE HAS THE TIME GONE?! Each day seems to zoom right by, and I am sobered to think that my life will be over before I know it, and only what's done for Christ will last!!!! As we look ahead on a new year, it's easy to think "I hope to be closer to God by the end of this year" or "I hope I accomplish this or that" but what are you doing each and every day to work towards your goal? When I was younger, I thought for sure by the time I was this OLD age I would be much farther along in my Christian walk. But now that I AM this old . . . wow, I sure have a LONG, LONG ways to go!

But, to end on a more cheerful note - God has been so faithful this year! I have seen Him work in so many ways and He has blessed me far beyond what I deserve. I pray that He will work through me this year and that with His help I will be able to live out my full potential for His glory!

When Sundar Singh was only 40 years old, he made another missionary journey into Tibet, but was never seen again. His life was dedicated to God and now He will be rejoicing and praising the Lord through all eternity - he was a good and faithful servant of Jesus Christ! Let us strive to do the same.

"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart." Jeremiah 29:11-13

Trip Journal - Our Last Day

Wow, I really feel behind on blogging! There are so many things to write about (and probably several I promised to share a while ago and never did) but I will have to content myself with taking one thing at a time. :-) So, before sharing about our Christmas and New Years, I'd like to finish writing about our trip to San Antonio that we took in October! :-)

Our last full day (Sunday) in Texas was spent at our new, good friend's house - the P. family. We were so grateful for their hospitality, and had such a fun time getting to know them! They have nine children, and you can check out their fun blog at The Pennington Point.

 

Patience and Lydia drawing together . . .

Hope, Faith, and Grace (my pen-pal) working together in the LOVELY kitchen (all four P. girls are so sweet and fun to be with - why can't they all just live in MN?) . . .

Caleb and Jacob playing Wii?

Daniel and Elijah, Noah, and Adam (not necessarily in that order!) playing Monopoly (little Levi was elsewhere).

Now Grace and I have called each other "Anne" and "Diana" (from the Anne of Green Gables series) for quite a while, so we just HAD to take some snapshots of us dressed up like those old-fashioned, lovable characters!! Although, the funny thing is, Grace is much more like Anne than I am in personality . . .  but since I have the red hair, alas, she is doomed to be Diana forever. :-) Nevertheless, my kindred spirit and I had a BLAST doing the photo shoot and she shall be my bosom friend as long as the sun and moon shall endure!! 

 

 

 

It was SO hard to leave the next morning. :-( Texas is a wonderful state, and the people and weather are so warm! But don't worry, I don't plan on moving down there . . . I don't think I could enjoy a winter or Christmas without several feet of snow!! ha ha

We are so thankful for God's blessings on our trip, and Lord willing, we are already looking forward to the possibility of attending the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival next year!

Bryant Family Blog

Head on over to the Bryant Family Blog to check out their giveaway! Also, I would strongly encourage any young ladies reading this to check out the King's Blooming Rose Ministries website - Sarah Bryant is the editor of the KBR magazine, and I have enjoyed getting it for many years! It is a very encouraging, godly magazine for young women of all ages!

More coming soon about our family's Christmas . . . .

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!!!! May God bless you all richly as you seek Him in 2011!

Merry Christmas From Our Family to Yours!

 

Isaiah 9:6
"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."

And the Winner is . . .

Actually, before I announce the winner, I just want to encourage my readers to look at the comments for the giveaway post, and if you haven't seen the movies people suggested, click on the links and find out more! I've seen most of those movies and they're GREAT!

Okay, now for the winner of The Alzen Family - Live in Concert! :-)

The winner is . . . . . . . . . . . . .  .

Congratulations Hayley! Just leave me a comment with your address (and I won't publish it) and I'll get the DVD out to you as soon as I can! I hope you enjoy it! :-)

Trip Journal - Saturday

Sorry it's taken me so long to finish writing about our trip to San Antonio - life has been busy around here, and the rest of this week is going to be crazy with playing/singing at nursing homes and other things going on! What are some things keeping you busy this season?

On the last day of the festival (Saturday) we watched some more movies, visited with friends, and that evening, attended the awards ceremonies! A lot of people were dressed very fancy, and it was neat seeing the ladies in their modest, beautiful, formal dresses. Actually being there, live, at the awards ceremonies was an amazing experience - something I'll never forget! I sat on the edge of my seat as I waited to hear who the winners were in each category (and I'm just mentioning a few below - go to http://www.saicff.org/ to see all the categories). You can visit Doug Philip's blog (and scroll way down) to see some live footage from that night.

 

In the "young filmmaker" category, Small Talents won, and it looks good, but we never did get around to seeing it because there were SO many movies to choose from!

In between announcing categories, musicians played and George Sarris performed again (below is the man who played an important role in Ace Wonder).

The Penny was the winner of the Best Feature Film Award, and it sure deserved it!! We did see this film, and I HIGHLY recommend it!! The storyline was very complicated (but not hard to understand) and tight. The acting was really good, and the cinematography was great! For an independent film (directed by Nathan Webster, pictured below) . . . all I can say is . . . WOW!! Check out the website at http://www.thepennyfilm.com/. There were some other really good feature films there as well. We didn't see all of them right there at the festival, but I would recommend Standing Firm, No Greater Love (for older kids or adults), The Runner From Ravenshead, and Live to Forgive. We didn't see Sybil Ludington at all but that one looked good too.

The Runner from Ravenshead won the Audience Choice Award by 400%!!! They sure deserved it! :-) As far as I know, they were the only film there to get a standing ovation in the MIDDLE of the movie! (below is a picture of the family that made it)

It was very touching to hear the acceptance speech of the $101,000 grand prize winner (watch it HERE)! The Bowers family made Agenda: Grinding America Down and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT!! It was well done, and very informative! Check it out at http://agendadocumentary.com/.

 

 

After the awards ceremonies, we enjoyed visiting with lots of people until at least midnight - right there outside the building! Yes, it was that nice outside! :-)
One of the funnest things was meeting Gator Moore (the main actor in The Widow's Might and now in Ace Wonder). By the way, Ace Wonder was a GREAT film! It was so neat being able to see the world premiere (it was a rough cut, but still was very good). The acting was great, the storyline was very interesting, and Gator completely carries the show - I can't wait to see the final cut on DVD!

Next time I'll share some pictures from our last day in Texas with our new friends! Until then, don't forget to sign up for my giveaway!! :-)

GIVEAWAY!

It's time for another giveaway! I've had hardly any time to be blogging lately, but I hope to get a post up soon about the last few days of our trip to Texas! :-)

This time, the giveaway is for . . . .

Check out the family website at http://www.alzenfamily.com/. Go HERE to see the fun trailer! Taylor (Lacheln Designs), over at Surrendering My All, designed the very professional cover (thanks to Taylor for the nice picture of the cover)! :-) Thanks Taylor for all the work you put into this! And of course the Alzen Family was a HUGE help as well - you can check out their blog HERE. If you don't win the giveaway, I do have copies for sale on my website (http://www.gloryandgrace.com/).

Here are the rules:

IF YOU WANT TO BE ENTERED ONCE, leave a comment on my blog and share about your favorite Christan film(s) (and leave a link to the website/trailer if possible).

IF YOU WANT TO BE ENTERED TWICE, do the above AND write about this giveaway on your blog (with a link to this post) and leave a comment here with the link to your blog.

The giveaway will be closed on the night of Sunday the 19th of December, and the winner will be randomly chosen and announced the next day (maybe you'll get it in time for Christmas!).