You Will NEVER Guess What Happened!!!

I am so EXCITED, I can barely think of anything else!

The MOST AMAZING thing has happened.

Actually, I shouldn't think of it as amazing at all.  It is God who is amazing at answering my prayers.

Sometimes, it takes a loooooooooooong time to see an answer, but when you look BACK at the event -- such as selling Jerry's Mom's house -- you can see that the Lord knew EXACTLY what, where, when and how it was all going to turn out.

When Jerry's brother died penniless shortly after his Mother's death, the responsibility to handle everything fell on Jerry and me -- as usual.  Bob didn't go to church, so there wasn't a pastor or a place to have a service.  So I decided to use his Mother's house -- that had been for sale for over two years and hadn't sold -- to have a memorial service for Bob. It was just days after that when we got a call that there was a contract on the house.  So HOW PERFECT was God's timing after all?

Since it is Sunday morning, I must first tell you about the sermon.  IT WAS AWESOME!  If you need healing, and you aren't sure what the Bible says about it, this is the sermon for you.  Pastor Hagee broke it down into FIVE steps:

1 - Confess your sin.

 

2 - Expect a miracle.

3 - Believe healing is activated by the Word of God.

4 - Denounce the kingdom of darkness. 

Let me interject some "Queen Joy" here.  This is where I always get into trouble with my friends and my family.  Quija Boards, Tarrot cards, shows about vampires and witches and on and on I could go; and it is my belief that tattoos are in this category.  The Bible says "do not put marks on your body".

In case you don't believe that, here is the scripture: 

"'Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD.  (Leviticus 19:28)

Does that mean I don't like you if you have a tattoo.  Of course not!!!  It means that I won't be getting any, and now, you know the reason why.

You can listen to Pastor Hagee talk about the kingdom of darkness and the occult and hopefully, not get mad at me.  I am just the messenger telling you about today's sermon.   

5 - Recognize ALL healing comes from the Holy Spirit. (Romans 8:11)

So, now that a whole bunch of people are really mad at me, let me completely change the subject and tell you the most exciting thing that happened to me yesterday!

You KNOW how I have this sewing friend, Phylly, but she lives in Oklahoma City; and I live 150 miles south of there so I hardly ever get to see her at all, never mind sew with her.

And down here in the woods where I live, most people are here because they like to hunt and fish.

I guess you could say I like to HUNT if that involves hunting for fabric on line or in a fabric store. 

I have a very short fishing attention span.  I will throw the bait in the water IF someone will put the nasty thing on my hook for me, but if I don't get some action in the next 15 minutes, my mind is telling me to TURN AND RUN as fast as you can, as soon as you get the chance, right back up to your sewing haven!

My husband will complain that I didn't try very hard, or I didn't stay long enough, or I should LEARN HOW to bait my own hook and take off my own fish.

My reply to that is always the same:  I will learn how to bait my own hook and take off my own fish AS SOON AS YOU LEARN HOW to sew a blouse and make a quilt.  

And I STILL haven't told you what happened....  I'm getting there!

I live on this little 40-acre patch of ground that a friend developed many years ago.  My husband actually helped him do it.  Our friend's name is Dennis.  He cleared the land and chopped it up into plus or minus 5-acre tracts.  Since my husband was the first to know about it, he got to choose WHICH 5-acre tract he wanted to buy, and he actually ended up buying two of them totalling about 11 acres.  Jerry chose the land because it had two very good areas to build ponds on, which he did.  Dennis and Jerry chose the name "Stonebrook" for this development.

So, as you can imagine, there aren't very many people who live in here.  I think there are a total of six homes.  People have moved in and out and in and out and ALL THE WHILE, I have been BEGGING God to send me a SEWING/QUILTING FRIEND to live in one of those houses.  

And you have probably figured out what is SO EXCITING by now.

Jerry and I were walking down the "plank" (I call it that because it is a long, narrow wooden walkway that is at a severe angle right now due to the lake being so low) to our favorite marina restaurant.  Just as we were getting near it, another bunch of folks got there too.  I was on the phone with my daughter, so we let the other people get ahead of us.  When they did, my husband recognized the man in the group to be the new neighbor that moved in just a short time ago into one of the vacant houses here in Stonebrook.

We had HEARD about these people, and I promise you I never heard anything even resembling the subject of sewing or quilting.  We were told they were into collecting cars and boats.  I figured the Mrs. would be built like Raquel Welch and wear racing tights and leather boots up to her knees -- or would that be someone who rides horses -- whatever.  Sure didn't seem like a sewing machine would be in the house.

I very much wanted to meet them, so I got off the phone.  I walked up to the people that Jerry was already talking to, and I introduced myself.  I said, "Hi!, I am Joy".  She said, "Hi!, I am Terri".

GUESS WHAT MY NEXT COMMENT WAS??????????????????????

Yep.

"Do you sew or quilt?"

YOU WILL NEVER -- IN A MILLION YEARS -- GUESS WHAT HER REPLY WAS!  I almost fell off the plank into the lake!

She said, "Oh, yes, I sew AND I quilt, AND I just finished WRITING A BOOK about rag quilts."

I don't know what a rag quilt is, and I don't care.  It has the word "quilt" in it, so how far off could it be from what I do?

I blurted out, "You HAVE to come to my house tomorrow so I can show you my longarm and we can talk."

She said she had more company coming, and they were leaving town for a few days after that.  She said she could come over Thursday.  

THEREFORE, I have to go!  I have to clean up my sewing room -- make a new dress -- make a new quilt -- and TRY TO CALM DOWN!

Have a BLESSED Sunday and come back soon.  I really will show you my new machine and the quilt I am working on.

Hugs, Joy