Lauren Sparks

The Sparks Notes

I Love…and Grace & Truth Link Up

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  1. I love the man who chose me to be his forever.
  2. I love the girls who call me mom and the bonus son I get to claim.
  3. I love my adorably cute Yorkie Meg who is curled up on my legs right now.
  4. I love a warm cup of peppermint or cinnamon tea on a cold day.
  5. I love a fresh blanket of snow on the ground because we get to see it so infrequently in North Texas.
  6. I love sleeping in on a day we don’t have to be anywhere fast.
  7. I love the crackling sound WoodWick candles make when they burn.
  8. I love my family.  It doesn’t get any better than spending time with my parents and sisters.
  9. I love hearing my daughter Allie sing – and other members of my family for that matter.
  10. I love going to the movies and sitting in those comfy new recliners and eating good popcorn.
  11. I love exercise.  No, really.  Light cardio and yoga keep me in a good head space.
  12. I love getting my hair cut and colored.  I feel like a million bucks afterward.
  13. I love reading a biography or a well-written novel.
  14. I love having a place I always sit in church and friends who sit beside us.
  15. I love getting a package in the mail – even if I ordered it myself.
  16. I love compliments.  Tell me I’m pretty or talented and I’ll be your friend forever.
  17. I love to laugh.
  18. I love my weekly gathering of girlfriends, and lunch dates and double dates and all things social.
  19. I love crawling into my comfortable bed at night and spooning with my husband.
  20. I love writing down my thoughts and inspirations and lessons from God.
  21. I love podcasts like the Popcast with Knox and Jamie and That Sounds Fun with Annie F Downs.
  22. I love my Macbook and my smartphone and how they keep me organized and communicating with others.
  23. I love studying my Bible and gaining new insights into the God of my salvation.
  24. I love that there is no condemnation for me because I am a follower of Jesus (Romans 8:1).
  25. I love being a help or encouragement to those in my life.
  26. I love taking off my bra and shoes and getting comfortable at the end of the day.
  27. I love the fuzzy pink blanket given to me during my cancer battle.
  28. I love every single time I get to talk to or see my best friend in Alabama.
  29. I love that her (see #28) daughter’s middle name is Lauren.
  30. I love that Jesus died on the cross to take the punishment for my sins so that I can spend eternity in fellowship with God.
  31. I love that He (see #30) sent His Holy Spirit to be my constant help, my comforter and my companion on this side of heaven.
  32. I love the moment my husband walks in from work every day.
  33. I love TV shows like This is Us, Friday Night Lights and Parenthood, and how they make you care so much about the characters.
  34. I love Shelby’s infectious giggles.
  35. I love 80’s music and movies and all the nostalgia.
  36. I love finding a great bargain or coming into an unexpected windfall – no matter how small.
  37. I love handbags and wallets.  It’s fashion that always fits.
  38. I love my weekly People magazine.  I would never pay for it, but it keeps coming for free!
  39. I love the pick-me-up that making this list turned out to be.  I highly recommend the exercise.  And…
  40. I love you, my reader friends, who give me purpose in doing what I love to do.

Now for this week’s featured post

8 Powerful Head-to-toe Prayers in the Bible:  Part 1 by Karen Friday

As the personal challenges get harder, praying biblically sound prayers has become a source of comfort and strength to me and those I love.  Karen provides us great passages and tools for those prayers here.  She blogs regularly at karengirlfriday.com.

 

Now for this week’s link-up! Let’s bless and encourage one another in our walk with the Lord.

Grace & Truth : A Weekly Christian Link UpGrace & Truth exists to point people to Jesus! We hope this link-up will be a source of encouragement every week. If you’re a blogger, we hope you’ll use this space as a way to meet new friends within the Christian blogging community. If you’re a reader, we hope that you’ll encounter new bloggers that love Jesus as much as you do! Most of all, we hope you’ll meet Jesus here.

Join us each Friday for the Grace and Truth Link-Up!

To receive a weekly reminder of when the link-up goes live subscribe to laurensparks.net in the right hand column of this page.

Maree Dee

Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest
 

Lauren Sparks

Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest
 

Heather Hart & Valerie Riese

Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest
 

Lisa Burgess

Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest
Grace&Truth-Rules2

1.)  Following your hosts via their blog and social media channels is not mandatory, but appreciated!

To receive a weekly reminder of when the link-up goes live subscribe to laurensparks.net in the right hand column of this page.

2.) Leave 1-2 of your most recent CHRISTIAN LIVING posts. Please do not link DIY, Crafts, Recipes, etc. We will delete these links. We also reserve the right to remove articles that don’t align with the theme or are deemed by the hostesses to be inappropriate.

3.) Visit 1-2 other links and leave a meaningful comment! We want to encourage community among us, so please don’t link and run!

4.) We sort all links randomly – feel free to link as early or as late as you’d like. The playing field is even!

Featured Post Requirements

5.) Grab a button or link back to encourage new linkers. It is not mandatory, but it is required to be featured.

6.) Each host will choose one link to emphasize and promote via their social media channels next week.

Grab a Badge and Link Back to this Post.

 

And now, let’s link up!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Sharing is caring! If you liked this post, do me the huge honor of using the buttons below to share it to your favorite social media accounts. And if you want to get these essays emailed to you once a week, subscribe!  Lastly, my posts may contain affiliate links and I earn from qualifying purchases. If you buy anything from one of these links, I will receive a few pennies to help offset the cost of this website at no additional charge to you. Thank you in advance for your help.

 

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The Good Thing vs. The God Thing and Grace and Truth Link Up

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Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

40 A man with leprosy[a] came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”

41 Jesus was indignant.[b] He reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” 42 Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed.

43 Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: 44 “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” 45 Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.

Mark 1:40-45 NIV

 

I can see this story, and many other miracles of Jesus, depicted in fuzzy flannel graph in my mind.  I’m not sure if the flannel itself was fuzzy or if my childhood memories, in general, have lost their sharpness in my middle-aged brain.  What I do remember is that Jesus’ instructions to this man confused me.  Be quiet.  Don’t tell anyone, He said.  What?  How could this man not tell EVERYONE about the most exciting thing that’s happened to him?  And furthermore, didn’t Jesus want others to know about Him?  The healed man obviously didn’t understand either and chose what HE thought was best – blabbing about the miracle to anyone who would listen.  And it hindered the ministry of Jesus.  Our Savior didn’t (and still doesn’t) just want people to know ABOUT Him.  He wants people to know HIM.  The crowds became too interested in the works He could do to listen to His message of love and forgiveness.

 

In Acts 22, we find the apostle Paul in a similar struggle of good vs. God.  After his dramatic and miraculous blinding and conversion, God speaks to him (Did you hear that?  He didn’t just have a feeling.  GOD SPOKE TO HIM!) and told him to leave Jerusalem to preach to the Gentiles.  And yet Paul argued that his own people knew his conversion story and would listen to him.  Bringing the Good News of Jesus to the Jews was a noble endeavor, but not what God had for Paul.  So like the patient Father He is, he calmly reiterated that Paul was to go.

 

Not even by taking off my socks and my shoes can I count the number of times I decided to forge ahead into something “good” without waiting for confirmation that it was from God.  I get overcommitted by jumping to fill a need that I don’t have time for.  And I get over my head when I tackle projects that aren’t in my wheelhouse.  More importantly, when I lack the discernment to decipher good deeds from God ordained ministry, I miss what God is inviting me to be a part of and potentially rob someone else of the blessing that was theirs.

 

What makes sense in my feeble brain is most often not God’s best.  Isaiah 55:8-9 NIV says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,”declares the Lord.9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”  

 

Unless the Lord builds a house,
the work of the builders is wasted.
Unless the Lord protects a city,
guarding it with sentries will do no good.

Psalm 127:1 NLT

Now for this week’s featured post

Does Your Fresh Start Need a Fresh Start? by Lois Flowers

Oh how we beat ourselves up over those blasted New Year’s resolutions or the belief that things will be better just because the calendar page turned.  I know I’m in this category right now, but Lois offers sweet encouragement for us here.

Visit Waxing Gibbous here to read the post.

Now for this week’s link-up! Let’s bless and encourage one another in our walk with the Lord.

Grace & Truth : A Weekly Christian Link UpGrace & Truth exists to point people to Jesus! We hope this link-up will be a source of encouragement every week. If you’re a blogger, we hope you’ll use this space as a way to meet new friends within the Christian blogging community. If you’re a reader, we hope that you’ll encounter new bloggers that love Jesus as much as you do! Most of all, we hope you’ll meet Jesus here.

Join us each Friday for the Grace and Truth Link-Up!

To receive a weekly reminder of when the link-up goes live subscribe to laurensparks.net in the right hand column of this page.

 

 

Maree Dee

Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

Lauren Sparks

Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

Heather Hart & Valerie Riese

Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

Grace&Truth-Rules2

1.)  Following your hosts via their blog and social media channels is not mandatory, but appreciated!

To receive a weekly reminder of when the link-up goes live subscribe to laurensparks.net in the right hand column of this page.

2.) Leave 1-2 of your most recent CHRISTIAN LIVING posts. Please do not link DIY, Crafts, Recipes, etc. We will delete these links. We also reserve the right to remove articles that don’t align with the theme or are deemed by the hostesses to be inappropriate.

3.) Visit 1-2 other links and leave a meaningful comment! We want to encourage community among us, so please don’t link and run!

4.) We sort all links randomly – feel free to link as early or as late as you’d like. The playing field is even!

Featured Post Requirements

5.) Grab a button or link back to encourage new linkers. It is not mandatory, but it is required to be featured.

6.) Each host will choose one link to emphasize and promote via their social media channels next week.

Grab a Badge and Link Back to this Post.

 

And now, let’s link up!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

 

 

Sharing is caring! If you liked this post, do me the huge honor of using the buttons below to share it to your favorite social media accounts. And if you want to get these essays emailed to you once a week, subscribe!  Lastly, my posts may contain affiliate links and I earn from qualifying purchases. If you buy anything from one of these links, I will receive a few pennies to help offset the cost of this website at no additional charge to you. Thank you in advance for your help.

 

To find some great places where I might be sharing this post, click here.

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