Re-Blog on Parenting, etc.

Here is another re-blog from Ambs' pastor.....great stuff.......READ ON:

Nothing is more rewarding or more challenging than being a parent. We need to help each other out. I know it's tough to boil it down to one thing. So feel free to share a few lessons learned. Here are seven lessons I've learned:
1) Your greatest failures as a parent can turn into your greatest successes IF you simply apologize. You are modeling one of the toughest skills to learn: how to handle mistakes.
2) A great marriage is one of the greatest gifts you can give your kids so focus on your marriage first and your kids second.
3) You create memories via engineering shared experiences. Be intentional about setting shared goals. Become a student of your kids. Learn to love what they love.
4) Parents are prophets. Don't just use your authority to speak correction into their lives. Use your authority to speak encouragement into their lives. Otherwise you will become a prophet of doom.
5) We have a Heavenly Father who compensates for our parental weaknesses. So take a deep breath and relax a little. Even if you're a single parent, you're not alone. God will make up the difference!
6) One of the greatest gifts you can give your kids is time. A little one-on-one time opens channels of communication like nothing else. If you hang with them when they are young they'll want to hang with you when you're old.
7) If all else fails, teach your kids to say please, thank you, and sorry. Especially to God.

P.S. ~ soooooooooo excited! Ambs flies home this weekend. Yeah!!!

Radical Christianity

Great Video Clip......I dare ya to watch it (& then do something with it and about it!!!)

RADICAL CHRISTIANITY

God's love & mine,
Nonnie
aka Lauren

Love This!

I was reading through Mark Batterson's blogs and found this statement from Rick Warren's Twitter account.....just had to share it with you:

So many talented people give 1st class allegiance to 2nd class causes that difuse their energy, weaken their impact & waste their lives.

Other Rick Warren one-liners:

Why do we put salt on ocean fish? The same God who keeps them salt-free while living in brine, can insulate us from worldliness. Jn 17:15

Weddings make us smile but funerals make us think..Death forces us to consider the meaning of life. Eccl. 7:2 .Never waste a funeral.

WOW! That is good stuff.....

Clay & I are headed to San Antonio later today......I have a Wound Care Conference there tomorrow (Sat, 7/18). We are also getting busy with stuff for next weekend's Men's Retreat: Walk to Emmaus in Slaton.....soooooooo exciting (Clay is the Worship Leader for it.) AND......even bigger than that, Ambs (our 24 year old dtr from DC) is coming home next weekend for about 10 days, when one of her best buddies from High-School days, gets married (congrats to Micah Hensley!). WOW! Lotsa good stuff!!!

Hope each of you have a super-blessed TGIF & weekend.......we're gonna!

God's love & mine,
Nonnie
aka Lauren

Mark is HOME!

Hi everybody!

Sooooooooooooo excited that my nephew, Mark Eaker, is finally out-of-Afghanistan. Clay & I got to have dinner with him last night. Went & ate an Italian restaurant, Orlando's, and then the guys had to do a little "man-shopping" at Academy & Gander Mountain, and then we finished with a trip to Bahama Bucks (great shaved ice place). Had a great visit. He is so excited to be home, and the big O'Donnell Rodeo starts up tonight, and he is really looking for to the next three nights of rodeo. My mom is headed to Texas today, and my brother, came into Lubbock last night......exciting times with lots of family.
Clay & I are headed out to Alto, NM today after I get off work for a little R&R in the mountains (trying to escape this 100+ temp weather). Fun times!!!
Hope each of you have a super-blessed day & weekend.........I'm gonna!

God's love & mine,
Nonnie
aka Lauren

Ambs (our dtr)

Our daughter had a section written about her in her college's magazine recently. Here is the section, and a LINK to the entire article on Leadership, if you care to read it. GO AMBER!
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Amber Childress ’07 lives in Washington, D.C., and recently joined the staff of the Terrestrial Carbon Group, a climate change mitigation program housed within the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment. She had significant exposure to the federal legislative process before and during her studies at Austin College, serving as a Congressional page while in high school and, while at Austin College, interning in the office of the Chief of Staff to the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
While a leadership student, Amber led a team of Austin College students who assisted the Greater Dallas Business Ethics Selection Committee in the selection of the annual national awardee in 2007. Amber credited these and other leadership roles she was afforded as a member of the leadership program as instrumental in her personal development and subsequent choice of professional endeavor.
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Thanks for obliging a proud mama!

God's love & mine,
Nonnie
aka Lauren

Christ in You

I am praising God today for many things.......but let me just list a few for you:

1. My nephew, Mark Eaker, is OUT of Afghanistan, and in WEST TEXAS (as of yesterday), and then on to Farmington, NM for a 30-day leave before he heads back to Germany where he is based. Welcome home, Mark! Thanks for all you do for our country!

2. It is HALLELUJAH TUESDAY!!!! (that means I am OFF call!). YEAH!

3. We have had WONDERFUL rains the past few days and the crops look fantastic! GO GOD!

Hope all of you are having a good week and had a wonderful 4th with family & friends.

A closing thought from me:

Colossians 1:27b says, "Christ in you, the hope of glory". CHRIST IN YOU! I encourage each and everyone of you, to share those gifts, revelations, and Christ's love that HE has poured into you......let it radiate out and lavish it on others. Be a blessing!

God's love & mine,
Nonnie
aka Lauren

Press Video

This is a great vid of the SECULAR press FINALLY getting the picture of the NON-tranparency of the White House! (Watch it before it gets yanked off of YouTube!!!)

PRESS VIDEO