Busy Week Here at MJ's House

This is a crazy, busy week as was last week. This is the last full week of school. I will try to post an update this week about Honor's and Field Days and field trips. But until then I've found a new website and blog I really like Margaret McSweeney. This week the Pearl Girls are offering a Mother's Day series. So each day this week look for a post from one of the Pearl Girls here on my block. I hope you enjoy them and have a great week!

Priceless Treasures | Cindy K. Stiverson

Welcome to Pearl Girls™ Mother of Pearl Mother's Day blog series - a week long celebration of moms and mothering. Each day will feature a new post by some of today's best writer's (Tricia Goyer, Sheila Walsh, Suzanne Woods Fisher, Bonnie St. John, and more). I hope you'll join us each day for another unique perspective on Mother's Day.

AND ... do enter the contest for a chance to win a beautiful hand crafted pearl necklace. To enter, just {CLICK THIS LINK} and fill out the short form. Contest runs 5/6-5/13 and the winner will on 5/14. Contest is only open to US and Canadian residents.

If you are unfamiliar with Pearl Girls™, please visit www.pearlgirls.info and see what we're all about. In short, we exist to support the work of charities that help women and children in the US and around the globe. Consider purchasing a copy of Pearl Girls: Encountering Grit, Experiencing Grace or one of the Pearl Girls™ products (all GREAT Mother's Day gifts!) to help support Pearl Girls.

And to all you MOMS out there, Happy Mother's Day!

Priceless Treasure by Cindy K. Stiverson

We've heard it said and often find it true:
You don't know the value of a treasure until you're without it. 

We take for granted the things in life that seem so readily available.
   A paperclip or rubber band, to hold things together.
   A tissue or napkin, to wipe our nose to clean our face, to absorb our tears.
   A Bible to speak words of wisdom and instruction and life and love.

And a Mother, who is all these things and more.
   She is readily available.
   She holds things together.
   She wipes our nose, cleans our face (and our fingers, and, well…everything else!)
   She absorbs our tears and calms our fears.
  "She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue." (Proverbs 31:26)
   She loves.

Within hours after my mother passed into the gates of our heavenly home, I was missing her. Her quick wit…humor…charm. Her warm smile and melodious laughter, which served her well to the very end, as did our Lord Jesus Christ, who so graciously allowed her to slip quietly and peacefully into His arms.

She simply stopped breathing.

As I stood at her bedside in those priceless moments after her passing, I wanted to touch her skin as much as possible while there was still warmth in her body; to nuzzle my nose against her head and breathe in the scent of her hair while she was still there. Priceless treasures I was guilty of taking for granted, clouded by unmet needs. I was so consumed with what she was not, that I never fully appreciated who she was. It’s like I was blind, but now I see!

I see her strength, her commitment. Her perseverance…sacrifice…her unspoken love. I see how much she meant to me, how much she did for me, how much she taught me, and how much of the good in me was modeled by her.

She was a virtuous woman, as described in Proverbs 31 of the Bible.
“Her children stand and bless her… a woman who fears the Lord will be greatly praised. Reward her for all she has done. Let her deeds publicly declare her praise (vs. 31).”

This last verse of the poem serves as an epitaph for the woman of virtue. It speaks of the legacy she leaves in her passing. It spurred me to write a personal epitaph for my mother, which I read at her funeral.

We publicly declare your praise today, 

and in the days to come,

for you deserve to be praised and blessed,

"We honor you, Mom, for all you have done!"

In my earliest of memories, 

You worked so hard, striving for the rest.

You persevered through great trials

and did your very best.

I know you are being rewarded

in ways far beyond our reach.

We honor you now by practicing what you've taught,

and even what you preached!

You've stood for us for all these years,

Today, we stand for you!

I pray that our applause on earth

will reach your heavenly ears.

With the reading of this poem, I asked everyone to stand. We clapped our hands in celebration and praise of the life of my mother, Margaret Alice Stiltner.

Imagine our surprise to discover that she had left a poetic epitaph for us! She had clipped it from an old magazine and framed it. I found it when I was cleaning her home, on a nightstand by her bed. My mother was never versed at expressing emotion. This was her sweet way of kissing us good-bye: a priceless treasure to remember her by.

###

Cynthia (Cindy) Stiverson is a speaker, writer, and artist.  In 1998, she founded Woven: Women of Virtue Network, a spiritual formation and friendship ministry. She pastors the women at Newark Church of the Nazarene in Ohio. She is currently working on her fourth Woven Workbook, and also a book for mothers and daughters on the subject of sexual abuse. Cindy considers raising her daughter, speaker/author Nicole Braddock Bromley, to be her greatest achievement. She loves the men in her life, hubby Mark, grandbabes Jude and Isaac, and son-in-law Matthew. You can find more of Cindy at www.WovenWomen.blogspot.com and www.CynthiaStiverson.com

Exciting News – the latest Pearl Girls book, Mother of Pearl: Luminous Legacies and Iridescent Faith will be released this month! Please visit the Pearl Girls Facebook Page (and LIKE us!) for more information! Thanks so much for your support!

What Do Your Feet Look Like

"How beautiful the feet of those who bring good news!" Romans 10:15 (NIV)

One of my favorite songs is How Beautiful by Twila Paris. I've sang it many times for Lord's Supper, weddings and Mikie's cousin Tiffany sang it our wedding while Mikie and I shared our first Lord's Supper as a married couple.

The focal line is Romans 10:15 "How beautiful the feet of those who bring good news!"

Our family has been talking a lot lately about where God wants us. We're pretty sure that school and job wise we are were we are supposed to be for the time being. But since going back to work I haven't been able to serve like I did as a SAHM.

Maggie got in the car today telling me of a little boy in her class that she is going to tell about God tomorrow on the playground. She is always telling us how she is going to be a missionary when she grows up and go serve somewhere over seas. She plans to be a large animal vet so she is sure God will send her to Africa, after all someone's got to take care of those elephants.

She was excited because this little boy has never heard of God. He doesn't know Him or anything about Him. As she talked I continued to remember the verses that came on the screen after the "Go Ye Therefore" Banquet the other night.

"How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!'" Romans 10:14-15 (NIV)

Those verses hit me like a ton of bricks the other night. "How can my kids call on Christ and preach it to others," (my paraphrase) unless they see me do it.

We haven't been called to go sell our home and move to be missionaries as some of our friends have, but we have been called to be missionaries right where we are. I firmly believe that God moved my kids three weeks into the school year to another school for His purpose. I see it everyday.

I may not be able to serve in the same capacities that I used to but I can serve right where I am, even in the check out line at Wal-Mart.

Mattie and I wear sandals all year long and our feet are always dirty. But they are beautiful to Christ when we share the Good News.

I want to always have beautiful feet and more than anything I could ever want for my kids is for their feet to be beautiful too.

Have you looked at your feet lately? Are they dirty or beautiful?

Have you heard the Good News? If not I'd love to share it with you!

Week in Review -- April 22-28

As part of our daily post, Sunday will bring the "Week in Review" for a lack of a better title. This has been TCAP week at school and to be honest we are so worn out that we haven't done anything really exciting this week.

I finally broke down and bought a DSLR camera. A refurbished Canon 2ti. I am now looking for a cute, one of a kind camera bag to carry it in.

There have been several funny quotes from the week but Michael gets credit for the most memorable.

Michael, "Oh man, my zipper is unzipped."
Me, "Well zip it before you get out of the car and your barn animals get out."
Michael, "They've all escaped already, cept the chickens. All I got left is two eggs."

He is so funny and quick witted. He comes up with a lot of good ones. On Thursday he got his nose busted by another little boy over the ball bag at Extended School Program (ESP, after-school care). I threatened to get him one of those signs that says "______ number of days accident free." He was currently on eight, now he is back down to three.

Saturday the plan was to meet my four children from other mothers at one of our favorite places and spend the day. You will read more about the place in a few weeks, I don't want to give away why we were there quite yet.

We had a great time minus the boys, one of whom was competing in the State Bible Drill Competition and Michael who had gotten into trouble and wasn't allowed to go. This is his sad, "I do it cause I ain't got no brother," face.


We had a great time without the boys and even got to meet a new boy, actually he is someone's special someone.

Last evening, the Young Women's Mission group hosted the second annual, "Go Ye Therefore" Banquet. The banquet serves to raise money to provide scholarships for members of our church who are going on mission trips. The girls did an awesome job as was expected.

Below are some pics from our fun Saturday, as well as, from my new camera. Hope you enjoy.

What did you do last week, anything exciting. Let me know and enjoy this coming week!

Caught holding hands. Young Love!

Mollie loves piggy back rides.

Let's climb the ramp and see what town looks like from up there.

Program at each place setting

Go Ye Therefore Banquet

A Little More Active

This week I've decided I am going to be a lot more active with this blog. I have written a business plan, bought my domain name, imported everything to WordPress and am trying to figure out how to link it all to my own website. The WordPress site is the same for the time being as the site you are reading. I'm going to ask you to please be patient with me as I do all of this. While I'm setting it all up though I will still be blogging here at blogspot.

I have established a calendar for blogging that will be fully implemented by June 1st. It involves all of the kids and will mean that one of the five of us will be posting everyday except Saturdays. There will still be giveaways and other miscellaneous post too.

We would like your input into what you would like to see posted, as well as a little info about our readers. Yes, we personally know most of you, but would like to expand our readership.



Would you be so kind as to leave a comment below with the following information:

Age Range (20-29 etc...); Marital Status; Number of children; Why you read my blog; and suggestions if you have any.

As a thank you for answering my questions and following my blog, I will be giving away a $15.00 gift card to Cracker Barrel to one lucky reader. Please leave your comments by midnight May 15th. You can earn more entries by sharing on Facebook and Twitter and subscribing by email. Click on the links to the right then leave me a comment that you do or did these things.

Ballerina Bible Give Away

I have an adorably cute Bible to give away this month from Tommy Nelson Kids. 

The Ballerina Bible is perfect for any little girl whether she is a dancer or not. Our kids often carry their Bibles to school and extra curricular activities. This Bible is a great size to carry anytime. It has a presentation page for personalizing and full color maps and a dictionary/concordance. 

Want to win this Bible? Answer the following question in the comment section below in order to win.

What extra curricular activities do your kids participate in?

That's it easy peasy. Course I would love for you to follow me on Facebook and Twitter and you can get extra chances to win.

Contest ends midnight Monday, April 30th. 

Disclaimer: Tommy Nelson gave me a copy of the Ballerina Bible to review so that they can send one to one lucky winner. Opinions are my own!

Titanic Tribute Experience

Last night was the 100 year anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. It was an honor to be part of this memorial celebration. Mikie had to work so the kids and I took Greta and went for our tour at 4 o'clock. Traffic was horrendous which is typical for Pigeon Forge especially on a Rod Run weekend.
Our family has toured the Titanic in Pigeon Forge before, but this was Greta's first time. She was so excited to be able to attend on this special occasion.

Waiting to board!

We received our boarding pass and listening devices and headed "onto" the ship. Each boarding pass tells the story of a passenger or crew member. We took our time and listened and read everything we saw. The kids were excited to find the people on their boarding passes throughout the museum. Maggie was really excited when she found out that Violet Jessop who was a member of the crew, survived and had written her memoirs, Titanic Survivor: The Memoirs of a Stewardess. 

Out of the six of us four survived only Mollie and I didn't make it that night. Once through the tour we shopped in the gift shop where I purchased our picture memorializing our trip on the Titanic on this fateful day.

Then we walked up the street to Salsarita's for dinner. We had never ate at one before and it was a new experience for us. The food was awesome. I was really glad there was no one behind us in line, because Michael had his usual "I don't know what I want," melt down at the counter. The walk through Pigeon Forge was a first for the kids. Yes, I know we used to park and walk all over Sevier County when we were young, but my kids have never experienced it. As I said earlier it was a Rod Run weekend, traffic was bumper to bumper, radio's blaring, people yelling out their windows, and of course the Rod Run must have burnouts right there in the middle of town. Michael was impressed with all the motorcycles. On our way back to the tribute we stopped for a picture.

 We had white tag VIP seats and it was first come seating, so we were six rows back which were really good seats for those of us who didn't have reserved seating. The kids were excited to see what was going to happen. They passed the time taking pictures and video as we waited. 

At 8 o'clock we literally jumped out of our seats as the Titanic blew it's horn and the announcer asked everyone to proceed to their seats. The cold chills were beginning. As dusk ensued, 8:30 approached and Captain EJ Smith began to tell us about that his final voyage as Captain. That trip was to be his last for he was to retire upon his return home. We met the families of many of those who were on the Titanic that night as they were introduced and seated on the front row. 

First Class Maid, Jaynee Peters was the host for the evening, members of the Grandfather Mountain Highlanders stood atop the ship and played their beautiful bagpipes and drums. The Circle Players presented scenes from Titanic the Musical and Sound Company Children's Choir was joined by a children's choir from Switzerland to sing. Allan Wolf author of  The Watch That Ends The Night:Voices from the TITANIC, read an excerpt from his book. Flares were set off as the stress signal was sounded that an iceberg had been struck. Clergy aboard the Titanic were also remembered by Father Joe Brando, Rev. Tom Sterbens who told of Baptist Pastor Robert Bateman and Rabbi Eric Carlson. 

 As the Eternal Flame was lit a young lady from North Carolina sang a beautiful rendition of My Heart Will Go On. A waterfall of fireworks fell from the deck of Titanic and the flame was lit below. The flame will burn 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

A moving tribute to celebrate the lives and death of those who were aboard the Titanic. We were moved, and honored to be able to attend. Maggie even said she hopes she will be able to attend the 200 year anniversary tribute. She would just be 108 then. Michael tried to put the number of years into perspective by reminding me of a special lady at my parent's church who was 2 years old when the Titanic sank. He said I know she wasn't there but do you think she remembers it? He hopes to see her soon so he can ask her.

We ended our evening with a 45 minute departure from the parking lot and a bathroom/snack break at McDonald's. The kids were in bed by midnight and I was not far behind. As I laid down I thought of what those passengers were going through at that particular time, as the panic was starting to set in. I thought of those who are descendants and the stories that have been passed down. I thought of how Easter had fallen on the Sunday before, just as it did this year. How Mikie and I celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary on April 11th the day the Titanic departed from Queensland, Ireland, and of the love of Isidor and Ida Strauss. Mrs. Strauss could have boarded a lifeboat but chose to stay at her husband's side, telling him, "We have lived together for many years, where you go I will go." What love, what true companionship and dedication to her marriage and husband. As I prayed for those who are still touched by this tragedy I began to drift off to sleep with a sadness in my heart that this event took place but happy to have been there.

Disclaimer: This post and opinions are my own. As a Mom Blogger, I was given tickets for the tour and VIP tickets for the tribute in exchange for sharing the Titanic with my readers. Thank you Titanic Museum Attraction!