So, I started writing this really fabulous post yesterday. It was a big bloggy topic and the more I wrote the MORE I WROTE. It was just so long it could have been a 10-part series. And I felt bad throwing it on you. It was too heavy. And had too much information. I am definitley in the the-more-words-the-better when it comes to reading novels, but I think I may need to work on reducing my words when it comes to blog posts.

*whew*

Anywhoo. In an effort to be LESS long-winded and focusing LESS on MY words, here are the…

TOP TEN SCRIPTURES I’VE BEEN READING, THINKING ABOUT OR JUST LIKING LATELY

1. Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Speaking of which: Look at the FREE DOWNLOAD of this print that Naptime Diaries made for Impress Your Kids? Go get one!

2. Deuteronomy 8:3

“…man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.”

3. 1 Samuel 2:1-10

I’m not going to put the whole scripture here because it’s kinda long, but it’s the prayer Hannah prays after Samuel is born and she is going to send him to the temple to live. Such a beautiful song of praise during a heart-wrenching time. Worth a read!

(I’ve been reading the Savoring Living Water ebook and this scripture was in Chapter 3 about prayer. GOOD STUFF.)

4. Isaiah 58:8

Your light shall break forth like the morning, your healing shall spring forth speedily, and your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

The speed and movement in this verse astounds me!

5. Psalm 139:14

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;  your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

This is the memory verse for the preschoolers at church this month. It’s also from my favorite chapter in the Bible. We even have special shirts at church this month that say, “God made me FANTASTIC!”

6. John 3:30

He must become greater; I must become less.

After my Jimmy Needham post yesterday and Lisa-Jo’s post yesterday, I can’t get this verse out of my mind.

7. Psalm 103:2-3

Praise the LORD, my soul, and forget not all his benefits— who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,

That just about covers it, doesn’t it? Body and soul—whole, complete.

8. Genesis 2

This is the account of God creating Adam and Eve. He FORMED them with His own hands. He didn’t call them forth the way He did the sun, the animals and the plants. He crafted them. Psalm 139 (above) also tells us that he KNIT us together in our mother’s womb. Wow. God piecing us together. He knows us intimately!

9. 1 Timothy 4:12

Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.

This is the verse the kids and I are learning right now. We’re working on learning HOW to be an example of each thing mentioned. It’s a big job!

10. What verse has God been speaking to you about lately?

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Link up your Top Ten list and join in the Top Ten {Tuesday} fun! All you have to do is WRITE a top ten list, PASTE it  below, LINK back to me in your post & then start LOVIN’ on the rest of the participants with facebook likes, stumbles, comments and tweets! For better and more succinct guidelines see my Top Ten {Tuesday} page!

Not My Words: Top Ten {Tuesday} is a post from: ohamanda.com
Happy New Year! Here are some of my favorite resources to help you make the most of 2012! One Bite At A Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler, an ebook by Simple Mom!
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Have you ever heard of Matthew? Like Matthew, Mark & Luke? Saint Matthew? He wrote an account of Jesus’ life. And the way he started this account was with a genealogy. Yeah, those lists of families that bore people away from the Bible. Well, this genealogy is worth reading. Usually genealogies are a list of men. This list includes 4 women. Four women that were…well, questionable. One was a prostitute, one slept with her father-in-law, one was an enemy of the Jews and the other was an adulterous woman. And these women brought Jesus’ line into the world. See for yourself…

A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham:
Abraham was the father of Isaac,
Isaac the father of Jacob,
Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,
Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar,
Perez the father of Hezron,
Hezron the father of Ram,
Ram the father of Amminadab,
Amminadab the father of Nahshon,
Nahshon the father of Salmon,
Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,
Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth,
Obed the father of Jesse,
and Jesse the father of King David.
David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife,
Solomon the father of Rehoboam,
Rehoboam the father of Abijah,
Abijah the father of Asa,
Asa the father of Jehoshaphat,
Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram,
Jehoram the father of Uzziah…
Eliud the father of Eleazar,
Eleazar the father of Matthan,
Matthan the father of Jacob,
and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.

Isn’t that weird? At church, we’ve already started a big Christmas series. Our pastor is going to talk about these unexpected women over the next few weeks. (Hello Racy for Christmas!) This week he talked about WHY Matthew would have included these women in the first place. What’s the point? Wouldn’t it kind of put a damper on Jesus’ holiness to be associated with these women?

Well, that was kind of the point. Matthew was a bad dude himself. He was a traitor to the Jews by being a tax collector. And when he decided to follow Jesus they were having a party at Matthew’s house. And who came to the party? “Sinners” and other tax collectors. The Jewish leaders were so out of sorts they said, “Why is Jesus hanging out with this scum?”

And Jesus rocks it by saying, “It’s not the healthy that need a doctor.”. Yeah, those people were sick with sin. But what was Jesus doing? Making them be like the religious leaders? Demanding perfection? Nope. He was having a party. He was hanging with them. Loving them. Honoring them.

This holiday season I’m thankful for the fact that Jesus gives mercy and doesn’t demand my sacrifice. He was my sacrifice when He died on the cross for me. It’s not about what I CAN DO for Him. It’s about what HE DID FOR ME.

Matthew, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba and I are sinners included in Jesus family because of His mercy and love. Not because of something we did or gave up. Thank you, Jesus for loving me! For counting me worthy of your sacrifice!

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

Jesus’ Genealogy: A Christmas Story is a post from: ohamanda.com
Happy New Year! Here are some of my favorite resources to help you make the most of 2012! One Bite At A Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler, an ebook by Simple Mom!
Create Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule, finally get your house under control!
E-Mealz, online meal-planning with shopping lists! {20% off with code SKINNY when you choose one of their healthy menus}
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How lovely is your dwelling place,
O Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
I long, yes, I faint with longing
to enter the courts of the Lord.
With my whole being, body and soul,
I will shout joyfully to the living God.
Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow builds her nest and raises her young
at a place near your altar,
O Lord of Heaven’s Armies, my King and my God!
What joy for those who can live in your house,
always singing your praises.

What joy for those whose strength comes from the Lord,
who have set their minds on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
When they walk through the Valley of Weeping,
it will become a place of refreshing springs.
The autumn rains will clothe it with blessings.
They will continue to grow stronger,
and each of them will appear before God in Jerusalem.
O Lord God of Heaven’s Armies, hear my prayer.
Listen, O God of Jacob.

O God, look with favor upon the king, our shield!
Show favor to the one you have anointed.
A single day in your courts
is better than a thousand anywhere else!
I would rather be a gatekeeper in the house of my God
than live the good life in the homes of the wicked.
For the Lord God is our sun and our shield.
He gives us grace and glory.
The Lord will withhold no good thing
from those who do what is right.
O Lord of Heaven’s Armies,
what joy for those who trust in you.

Psalm 84 New Living Translation

Our Sun & Our Shield! is a post from: ohamanda.com
Happy New Year! Here are some of my favorite resources to help you make the most of 2012! One Bite At A Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler, an ebook by Simple Mom!
Create Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule, finally get your house under control!
E-Mealz, online meal-planning with shopping lists! {20% off with code SKINNY when you choose one of their healthy menus}
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I think I’ve picked out the pirate’s first name.

Here’s the thing. I don’t want just a cool name. I want a name that has some meaning. I love names that have a story to them.

Amanda means “worthy of love”. Even though Amanda is a basic name, the meaning has always made it feel special and beautiful to me. It’s also been a directive for me. I want to treat people and conduct my life so that I am worthy of others’ love. My parents have always talked about the meaning of my name and I’m sure that’s why I think it’s special, too. Even since I’ve been an adult, my parents have introduced me to people and told them about the meaning of my name. They reiterate that I am indeed worthy of their love! It warms my heart every time.

I want my children to feel this same way about their name. I want them to love their name and be proud of it. I want their life to show the qualities of the name we’ve been speaking over them their whole lives.

So.

I’ve pored through the Baby Name Wizard book Jodi gave me. And I love it. (Seriously, if you’re contemplating names, it’s the coolest book. And here’s the blog.) The author has categorized the names into some great…uhm, categories. For every name she gives “brothers” and “sisters” that have the same feel as the original name. So, Lydia’s brothers are Simon, Harrison, Lincoln, Victor and Henry. That goes, right?

(Just to give you a good comparison and so you can see how perfectly the author has nailed the “feel” of names, here are the brothers for Amanda: Jeremy, Derek, Brandon, Joshua and Kyle. Only Jason would have made the list perfect!)

Anyway, after looking through the names and scouring every brother and sister and category and chart in the book, the one name we kinda got stuck on was Asa. Asa means “healer”. He was a good king in the Bible. And according to the Baby Name Wizard Voyager, it was the most popular in the 1880′s. And that’s about as far as we got.

We throw it around every once in awhile. But Lydia always jumps into the conversation and proclaims that the baby’s name should be Wall-e (pronounced, “waaaallllleeeeeee.”) So, yesterday I cracked open my Bible got onto biblegateway.com and looked up the name Asa. And now I think I really like it!

Not only was he a good king who followed the Lord, he was a warrior! 2 Chronicles records one battle with the Cushites. Just before they march out, Asa talks to the Lord…

“Then Asa called to the LORD his God and said, “LORD, there is no one like you to help the powerless against the mighty. Help us, O LORD our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this vast army. O LORD, you are our God; do not let man prevail against you.”

Isn’t that great? What an awesome life verse! There’s nothing I’d rather do than have my son always look to God when he feels helpless. And to always rely on God’s power rather than his own.

Of course, the best part is the conclusion to Asa’s prayer—God wipes out the Cushites. Or as the Bible puts it, the Lord “struck down the Cushites before Asa” and they were “crushed before the Lord”! Exciting, right?

Now, here’s the funny part. After God crushes the Cushites, Asa and his men “carried off a large amount of plunder” because there was “much booty there”. Sounds like a good pirate to me!

So, what do you think?

99% Sure is a post from: ohamanda.com
Happy New Year! Here are some of my favorite resources to help you make the most of 2012! One Bite At A Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler, an ebook by Simple Mom!
Create Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule, finally get your house under control!
E-Mealz, online meal-planning with shopping lists! {20% off with code SKINNY when you choose one of their healthy menus}
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My very favorite chapter in the Bible.

1 O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.

2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.

3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.

4 Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.

5 You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,

10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”

12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!

18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.

19 If only you would slay the wicked, O God!
Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!

20 They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.

21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD,
and abhor those who rise up against you?

22 I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.

24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

What’s your favorite scripture?

A Few Of My Favorite Things The Fourth is a post from: ohamanda.com
Happy New Year! Here are some of my favorite resources to help you make the most of 2012! One Bite At A Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler, an ebook by Simple Mom!
Create Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule, finally get your house under control!
E-Mealz, online meal-planning with shopping lists! {20% off with code SKINNY when you choose one of their healthy menus}
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Still thinking about todays sermon, based on the story of Hosea and his prostitute wife, Gomer…

“But then I will win her back once again.
I will lead her into the desert
and speak tenderly to her there.
I will return her vineyards to her
and transform the Valley of Trouble into a gateway of hope.
She will give herself to me there,
as she did long ago when she was young,
when I freed her from her captivity in Egypt.
When that day comes,” says the Lord,
“you will call me ‘my husband’
instead of ‘my master.’
O Israel, I will wipe the many names of Baal from your lips,
and you will never mention them again.
On that day I will make a covenant
with all the wild animals and the birds of the sky
and the animals that scurry along the ground
so they will not harm you.
I will remove all weapons of war from the land,
all swords and bows,
so you can live unafraid
in peace and safety.
I will make you my wife forever,
showing you righteousness and justice,
unfailing love and compassion.
I will be faithful to you and make you mine,
and you will finally know me as the Lord.

“In that day, I will answer,”
says the Lord.
“I will answer the sky as it pleads for clouds.
And the sky will answer the earth with rain.
Then the earth will answer the thirsty cries
of the grain, the grapevines, and the olive trees.
And they in turn will answer,
‘Jezreel’—‘God plants!’
At that time I will plant a crop of Israelites
and raise them for myself.
I will show love
to those I called ‘Not loved.’
And to those I called ‘Not my people,’
I will say, ‘Now you are my people.’
And they will reply, ‘You are our God!’”

Hosea 2:14-23 tniv

Mad About You is a post from: ohamanda.com
Happy New Year! Here are some of my favorite resources to help you make the most of 2012! One Bite At A Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler, an ebook by Simple Mom!
Create Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule, finally get your house under control!
E-Mealz, online meal-planning with shopping lists! {20% off with code SKINNY when you choose one of their healthy menus}
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