blessed – Apples of Gold Encouragement

BLESSED TO BE A BLESSING! By Lori A Alicea

Kids don’t like to share.

I experienced this…

Being born into a family of six siblings…

Growing up to become a mother of four children…

Becoming a grandmother of eleven grandchildren,

And yet, it’s been rare to meet a child who dares to share.

Babies are born selfish.
They want what they want,
Day or night,
And scream until they get their way.

Not much changes through the years.

For Christmas, my adult daughter buys her two young girls the same gifts to eliminate the tug-of-war fighting over toys they cry to share. The grandparents and aunts and uncles are asked to do the same.

Why do we hold on tight to what is ours,
Instead of sharing or giving our blessings away?

But still, these truths of Jesus are written,

…It is more blessed to give than to receive.
Acts 20:35 KJV

As a young girl during the song services of the old hymns when we as a family sat together and took our seat on a wooden pew near the front each week.

The words on those reverent pages sounded a different tune over the years and stirred a desire for Jesus to shine His bright light from my life much like the morning rays glaring through the stained glass windows on each side of our Southern Baptist church, and make me a blessing to someone today.

MAKE ME A BLESSING
By Ira B. Wilson (1909)

Make me a blessing,
Make me a blessing.
Out of my life, may Jesus shine.
Make me a blessing, O Savior, I pray.
Make me a blessing to someone today.

Oh, how God has blessed us.

Our good Father blesses the desires of His children.

But we are also blessed to be a blessing to others.

In big ways; in small ways.

From our abundance; from our sacrifice.

It was a few days before Christmas of 2022, and I was in the salon getting my hair colored and cut when I met an older woman widowed for about a year.

Speaking out loud her Christmas list she said,

“All I want for Christmas is a bowl of homemade chicken noodle soup with homemade noodles, homemade bread AND (very specific), homemade strawberry / rhubarb jam.”

Being about 80 years young, she said it made her sad that women don’t make food from scratch in the kitchen these days.

So, I looked at this beautiful grandmotherly type and took her number and said that I would be delivering her “dream-come true” meal after the New Year.

So interesting that God loves to meet our needs and desires with great detail.

Not only do I made noodles and bread from scratch, I always freeze strawberries and rhubarb in the summer so I can make jams fresh and as gifts in the winter.

After the holidays, I delivered Miss Emily’s Christmas wish in a bag.

She asked, “How much did she owe me?”

I told her the Bible says, “…remember no more the reproach of your widowhood, for your Maker is your husband.
Isaiah 54:4-5 NIV

I also reminded Miss Emily how God is her husband thru the hands and feet of others.

I looked at Miss Emily with a smile,
“Dinner is on God.”

I made enough soup, bread and jam for three other widows in my neighborhood.

I thanked the Lord for being such a great husband to so many, and how He overflowed my basket and opened my eyes to how He created us
blessed to be a blessing.

You just can’t out give the Lord.

Give, and it will be given to you…
A good measure, pressed down, shaken together
And running over will be poured into your lap.
For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
Luke 6:38 NIV

Our seeds of generosity over a lifetime become a forest.

pink flower field — Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

May the old hymns never go out of style in our hearts…

We are blessed to be a blessing…

Lord, make me a blessing,
To someone today.

27 REASONS FOR 27 YEARS! By Lori A Alicea

How do I love thee?
Let me count thy ways.
Elizabeth Barret Browning

For twenty-seven years, we’ve been counting, appreciating, and naming our blessings each and every one that David and I have shared together as husband and wife.

Not taking for granted what God has joined together in holy matrimony twenty-seven years ago this October.

But when the “unexpected” attacks from the back door of your heart, you run and retreat to the arms of Jesus in Thanksgiving for another day, appreciating and counting our blessings,

How do I love thee?
Let me count thy ways.
Elizabeth Barret Browning

David and I are simple people.

We don’t require much but don’t mind telling the world how much we need each other; especially if the reasons we love each other in the simple ways that we do are the reasons we’re still together twenty-seven years later from our wedding day.

David and I can be seen wherever we go, still holding hands after all these years.

We take the long way home whenever we can to enjoy the beauty of God’s country and the company we keep together.

So easy to please yet full of adventure, we’ve discovered God’s hidden treasures in each other over a cup of coffee,

And a bicycle ride around the block.

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Gifts are rarely purchased as the only present we unwrap each year is a secluded anniversary getaway to our honeymoon cottage by the lake; a weekend of remembering, celebrating, and dreaming most responsible for our genuine love for one another.

All because two people fell in love and blended their lives as one family, our love is celebrated in the marriages of our children, with one still waiting her turn to walk the wedding isle, rejoicing over the son and two daughters we’ve added to the family Bible in these Godly unions.

Ten beautiful grandchildren call us Papa and Gaga and our joy explodes on the pages of our legacy we pass down to them.

Our most memorable summer highlights are best made at the little field, with sluggers and cheerleaders emptying Papa’s pockets at the concession stand for bags of buttered popcorn, hot dogs and sticky ring pops.

David puts no limit on tulle, glitter or glam in our house; shrugging off being teased for the sparkle that follows him to work.

On weekends David makes up our bed of a million pillows without any sign of an eye roll.

David is no stranger to dishes or laundry either.

He seriously serves me without being asked;
David is celebrated man of the year, every day of the year in our house.

For twenty-seven years David has been my personal mechanic. He has taken engines down to the bare nothing and put them back together again like a magician. We have never driven fancy cars or new cars either. David has traded in his Chevelle SS dreams for older wheels and freedom without payments and complaints.

TRUCK 2013 ethan brodie brystol on truck

Our best dates are spent driving the back roads in search of our dream house, a log cabin wrapped with a big red bow and a gift tag reminding us, “With God, all things are possible.”

David has served my mother and husband Roger in the best of times, and when death darkened their door for years; earned every Boy Scout badge imaginable.

I am reminded on a daily basis how beautiful I am in David’s eyes, regardless of all the extras I see in my mirrors reflection.

David encourages my dreams and we could never imagine one without the other.

Our only wish would have been to meet each other years ago, but remain eternally thankful for the twenty-seven years we’ve enjoyed together and counting.

While our international passport is empty of any travel stamps,
David and I have taken incredible adventures with God around the world, each requiring great leaps of faith.

While our bank account balance might say otherwise, David and I are rich in ways and love money could never afford.

Home is wherever we are together.

We live each day believing in the power of prayer.

Our love for Christ is the rich legacy we pass to the next generation; the same legacy river which flowed down to us.

David and I are simple people.

A day we’d do over and over again.

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SHOWERS OF BLESSING By Lori A Alicea

Ahhh…

Crisp fresh air wafts through the kitchen window slightly opened this early morning while I drink my first cup of coffee.

Serenading my soul is a choir of birds rehearsing a new selection of songs in a neighboring tree.

Waiting to debut their spring collection of May flowers, are blossoms that hold out their cups thirsty for a drink of April showers.

Here I am before the Lord, rejoicing under the umbrella of His showers of blessings, humbled and thankful for a generous God whose blessings are a continual rain poured from the windows of heaven.

We are taught as little children to…

Count your many blessings
Name them one by one.
And it will surprise you
What the Lord has done.
By Johnson Oatman Jr.

How revealing these simple words of encouragement;
Just begin to count your blessings.

You’ll be surprised and soaked in His showers of blessings,
Before blessing number two is even uttered.

Outside the window from where I sit, I eavesdrop on a music session practicing thru a personal playlist I imagine God selected just for me.

From their innate being, this choir was created to sing for their Creator.

Surely, we were created to sing a joyful song for our Creator also…

“Every blessing you pour out I’ll turn back to praise.”
By Matt Redman

Yes, just start counting and it begins to rain.

We are a blessed people to call each other family.
We are rich in treasures not weighed from the scales of the world.

We are an imperfect people yet rich in love
Because of a perfect God who loved us first.

Look no further than the front door of home to find daddies who love their daughters.

USE dads daughters always need each other 1

And mothers who love their sons; and vice versa.

Cousins are writing their legacy chapters watching movies together past their bedtime, riding bicycles in their pajamas, swimming in their underwear, and making breakfast memories at their weekend sleepovers with their grandparents.

Cousins are learning to serve and serve one another in the smallest acts of kindness. A Godly trait that will find them one day serving a lost people desperate to find their way to Jesus.

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Cousins and even sisters are forming friendships that will follow them down the by-ways and interstates of their life.

In the sisterhood of cousins there are celebrations of your sassy self, your princess self and fancy self; a safe place where dreams are encouraged and let you find your voice.

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Families that play together, stay together.

There is never a shortage of kisses in family.

The family portrait is framed in their parents love for each other that lives on in the generations beyond them.

Families are not without challenges.
Some challenges only God can fix.

Our families biggest hurdle to cross over are the miles that separate our addresses. As the years keep climbing, so does the painful miles and mountain of our hurdle.

Cousins on one side of the hurdle don’t get to grow up together, share clothes or make milestone memories on weekend sleepovers; they only hear about these Friday nights together over the internet; braving the best smile they can in their watching.

The miles are never your friend, but somehow you make peace with the pain of distance, embracing the light left on in the window of home for each other.

That the miles and smiles of those homes who keep the candle burning for you in the midnight hour are always worth the journey, however you have to get there.

The birthdays are getting away from us and there’s no time to waste a single minute of the family clock that God has given.

God is about the unexpected, and families are to be on the continual lookout for the next rainfall from heaven, His showers of blessing for us.

Life is brief.
Life is but a mere breath of opportunities
We are either embracing them or bidding them a sad good-by.

April Showers are bringing forth May flowers all year round in our lives.

Sometimes we must be still to hear the choir playing “your song” outside the kitchen window. We only need to count to one before God surprises you for all that He has already done.

The inner child must never forget getting wet at those grandparent sleepovers.

To remember being a child of God during those April Showers which spring forth our May flowers of blessings;

Rejoice under the umbrella of His showers of blessings,
Humbled and thankful for a generous God
Whose blessings are a continual rain poured from the windows of heaven.

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