Monday Monday and Tuesday 4 Combined

 Hello, and welcome to my usual "Monday Monday" post...I noticed that the Tuesday 4 post for this week was going to be about "Rainy Days and Mondays", and so I thought perhaps I would combine the two. I hope that's okay with you!    But first things first...I wanted to share a little about our weekend before I get into the rest of this.

I guess they do kind of go together...

Yesterday was Sunday, and we had a rainy evening. We were going to go for a ride, and when we got outside we noticed the sky looked like this:

So we drove down the road a little ways and decided to turn around and go back home.  However it didn't really start to rain here until much later, and in the meantime our son called us from his house (he lives about a mile away) and told us to look outside, and this is what we saw:

God's beautiful rainbow of promise in the skies!! It was just gorgeous!

I thought it was really remarkable because it still had not rained here. But about an hour later we got quite a thunderstorm and lightning show.  I wasn't able to capture any of the lightning on camera, but it was pretty amazing.

We were thankful to be safely inside our home when the storm finally broke loose. Also very thankful that even though there was a lot of thunder and lightning and heavy rain and wind, we didn't sustain any damage nor did we lose power. That is always a plus!! And we got some much needed rain to refresh the earth and cool things down a little bit! What a blessing! It was a wonderful way to end a perfect Sunday.

Earlier in the day we had a wonderful Sunday service, followed by our 5th Sunday potluck dinner.

One of the special things that happened was "the Blessing of the Backpacks".  Our church is very generous in giving to help make sure that the children of our church and our community have enough school supplies to start the new school year...which will be happening in about a week.  I wish I had gotten a picture of all of the children in our church coming forward to select their new backpack, (following the Pastor's prayer of blessing upon the backpacks and for each child) which was filled with all kinds of school supplies...but these pictures will give you an idea of what I'm talking about:

These pictures were taken a few minutes after they had received their backpacks, when they are on their way to Children's Church and the Youth Group gathering.  Yes, they do this during the worship service because we have found that is the best way to get more children involved in the classes than if it was at an earlier separate Sunday School class. Times have changed, and sometimes churches have to adapt to what works best for families so that we can reach out to them in the best way. 

They are with us in the Sanctuary for the opening songs, etc., and then they come back in toward the end of the service in time for The Lord's Supper.  

Matthew 19:14 NKJV

"But Jesus said, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

And yes, that is our son Benton and his wife Rose serving Communion yesterday. I would not be honest if I didn't say that yes, I was a very proud Mama to see them up there participating and serving in this important Sacrament. I cannot begin to tell you how special that was for me.

I know not every church does things the same way, and that's okay. We do what we believe honors the Lord and is best for our local congregation. I can only say that we have a very sweet, humble, joyful, and blessed gathering of the Family of God here in our little church. We are very thankful to be a part of this family.

On another "note", a couple of weeks ago I mentioned HERE about how special the song of 

"The Lord's Prayer" was to me, and why.

Well, I couldn't get that song out of my head, and it seemed as though the Lord was encouraging me to sing it.  It's been a long time since I've done any solo singing, and especially a song of this difficulty. But the Lord kept urging me on, and because during the summer months our choir does not sing each week we have different ones sign up for special music instead, so after much prayer I decided to sign up to sing this song in church.  The following is the accompaniment that I used. There is no recording of me singing. Some things are just better left to the imagination. (LOL).  One special feature was that a young woman in our church does sign language to music, and so she did the signing for this song while I was singing. That was a very beautiful added blessing. The only thing was I couldn't watch her while I was singing and I would have loved to have seen her doing this.  But it was a joy to see the looks on the congregation's faces as they watched her.  It was a very special time, and I pray the message of the song was a blessing to all.

Now if you really want to hear our choir singing, in the first part of this video below you can watch/hear us singing "Power in the Blood". The song was pre-recorded last spring while the choir was still together before the summer break. Then the Pastor's sermon is after that, which he records each week.

1 Would you be free from the burden of sin?

There's pow'r in the blood, pow'r in the blood;

Would you o'er evil a victory win?

There's wonderful pow'r in the blood.

Refrain:

There is pow'r, pow'r, wonder-working pow'r

In the blood of the Lamb;

There is pow'r, pow'r, wonder-working pow'r

In the precious blood of the Lamb.

2 Would you be free from your passion and pride?

There's pow'r in the blood, pow'r in the blood;

Come for a cleansing to Calvary's tide–

There's wonderful pow'r in the blood. 

[Refrain]

3 Would you be whiter, yes brighter than snow?

There's pow'r in the blood, pow'r in the blood;

Sin-stains are lost in its life-giving flow–

There's wonderful pow'r in the blood. 

[Refrain]

4 Would you do service for Jesus, your King?

There's pow'r in the blood, pow'r in the blood;

Would you live daily His praises to sing?

There's wonderful pow'r in the blood. 

[Refrain]

Last week I mentioned that we had a baptism of two teens, and this week they gave the Pastor a special "gift", which he wore to the potluck dinner after church:

"Pastor, because hardcore devil stomping ninja isn't an official job title."

He got a big kick out of that, and it is just another example of the fun and joy and we have together in our little church.

We are blessed and very thankful.

One other item of thankfulness...I mentioned in my last post HERE that our son Scott had come home last week one day and worked diligently on his car all day long and finally had to leave it to get back to work.  Well he came back home Saturday and worked again most of the day, and he finally got it fixed and was able to drive it again!

So there he goes!

You can't see him, but he is waving at us as he takes off! Yes, this car has a bit of a "rumble" sound as he goes, but it's not too loud...actually sounds pretty good.  It's amazing to us how much he has learned over the years of self-teaching himself how to restore and repair these "classic cars".  Sometimes necessity is the best teacher!

And so with all of that from yesterday's news and events, I will move on to the Tuesday 4 post...

Rainy Days and Mondays

Welcome to Toni Taddeo's Tuesday 4 where we ask just 4 questions each week to get you blogging and thinking and meeting other bloggers!


Rainy Days and Mondays was a song about being down but, not everyone is down on a Monday or a rainy day.


1. Do Mondays get you down or did they ever? How about a rainy day? What makes it better?

Actually, now that I am retired, Mondays don't get me down at all! They are just another day. This morning we got up early and headed to Walmart before the rush and the heat of the day. Monday seems to be a good day to go there, if you have to go at all. LOL.  A Rainy day? Well that's another story altogether.  As I sit here typing this on Monday afternoon, I am hearing thunder in the distance and it is starting to cloud up and the wind is blowing, and I think we are about to have a rainy Monday afternoon. What makes it better?  Being safe here in my house with my hubby, enjoying not having to be anywhere...

2. How do you like to spend rainy days?
I often spend rainy days either reading, writing, or baking.  Today I am writing to you. Last night during a thunderstorm my hubby said he wished we had some kind of cake to eat, so I baked a devil's food cake and made a buttercream frosting for it. However, I only ate a small piece with whipped cream instead of the frosting, as the frosting is just too sweet and rich for me...plus I can't eat much chocolate. So this cake will be all his to enjoy. LOL. (unless we get unexpected guests, and then they can have some too! Now might be a good time to drop in! We could have cake and tea or coffee!)

3.Do you like to take a walk in the rain?

As long as there's no lightning and if it's only a light shower, I don't mind walking in the rain.  But with our summer afternoon thunderstorms, it's best to stay indoors and out of harm's way.

4.What is your weather like this summer so far? What would make it better or worse? What is your ideal summer weather?

Here in north central Florida where I live our summer weather has been quite hot to say the least.  Although this is actually the norm for us in summertime...hot days and a late afternoon thunderstorm to cool things down a bit, it still seems really extra hot to me.  Ideal summer weather would be to live somewhere where it is no hotter than maybe the low 80's in the day time, no humidity, and cooler evenings around the low 60's or high 50's. I could live with that just fine.

Here is how it looks outside my window right now:

We can hear the thunder in the distance, and by the looks of things we should be getting some rain any minute now.

Another not too unusual of a sight here in summertime...this Black Racer snake was slithering across our yard and ducked under the car when he saw us coming. I managed to get a picture of him before he slithered further away and actually went under the shed.

They are harmless and take care of rodents and other more dangerous snakes, so I don't mind having them around as long as they stay away from my birds!!

Okay, I think I've sufficiently covered the subject(s) at hand for today and tomorrow.  I hope you don't mind reading tomorrow's post today or today's post tomorrow.  LOL.

Thank you, Annie, for coming up with these questions each week.

You all can join in the fun HERE.

I pray that your rainy days and Mondays never get you down!