This is Ariela Roar Brotherston. Ariela means Lioness of God. My daughter and son in law believes names are important, and it is their desire that this little person will grow up to be one who will not back down, but ROAR for Jesus! Isn't she adorable? I have already heard her "roaring" when we talked on SKYPE!

Here is Sianna, who is three, holding her new sister.

Thursday I will be leaving for three weeks to visit my daughter and her family who live in N. Ireland. I will get to meet Ariela in person! That makes four granddaughters and two grandsons for me! I am rich! I can't wait to get there and spend time with all my little people. We have such fun! I totally wear myself out and then they shovel my into the airplane and I come back to my husband to recuperate.

This visit will be bittersweet, as in the Fall, they will be moving to Siberia. I don't see myself making THAT trip to visit them, but then again, who knows? It was hard for me at first to adjust to the news of their moving. If I had my way, I would have both my daughters living just down the street where I could see my sweet grandchildren all the time. But, that was not God's plan, and I am OK with it. I am proud of both my daughters and sons-in-law because they make serving God a priority.

Sometimes we forget that we are only on this earth for a short time. What is this compared to eternity? And yet, how we live here has a tremendous affect on how that eternity will be spent. I try to keep my focus on God's Kingdom and not be selfish. I know I have to share my children with the world! I am so blessed and thankful for the times God does allow me to be with them. I miss them terribly, but we stay in touch, and I hold them close in my heart and my prayers.

Blessings to all you sweet people who still read my posts! See you when I get back!

We live in a society and generation where the truth seems to have become relative. Every day we are assaulted with things that are not true. Political statements, commercials, media and news. They are all slanted to present a certain perspective. It's almost like people will say and promise anything to get you to be on their side!

(Psalm 51:6 MSG) What You're after is truth from the inside out. Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life.

I have to laugh at all the types of shampoo, and all the amazing claims they make; bouncy, shining hair, more volume, repairing of split ends, and on and on it goes. All the companies are vying for your business, when the plain truth is, shampoo is soap for your hair. Clean hair is shiny. Clean hair smells nice. Clean hair is clean hair, and shampoo is pretty much..... shampoo. Oh, I know we all have our favorites, but face it, none of them can work miracles!

(Psalm 144:11 NLT) Save me! Rescue me from the power of my enemies. Their mouths are full of lies; they swear to tell the truth, but they lie instead.

But we fall for it, don't we? We are often taken in by the hype. We WANT to believe it, mostly because we want what is promised.

What concerns me is that we have been conditioned to "choose our own truth." It's as if there is no real absolute and can just shop for the "version" we like.

Over and over scripture warns us not to be deceived. If we are deceived, we may see something evil as good. We accept a lie as truth, and of course, this will influence our behavior.

(John 18:37 NLT) Pilate said, "So You are a king?" Jesus responded, "You say I am a king. Actually, I was born and came into the world to testify to the truth. All who love the truth recognize that what I say is true."

God wants us to know that truth is not OPTIONAL. Jesus, God's son told us He is the way, the truth and the life. We need to love the truth. It should be a priority in our lives. We need to be aware of the wiles of the world that say it is OK to create our own reality. We need to understand we can't play with the truth, and we must be wary of those who twist the real facts to create a "designer truth. We need to watch that we are not doing this ourselves. We also need to teach our children that truth is important. May we do as this verse below declares.

(Proverbs 8:7 NLT) for I speak the truth and detest every kind of deception.

Lately I have been thinking a lot about what it means to truly love God. Most of us know that's "part of the package" when you are a Christian, but from my observation, I wonder how many are actually, genuinely, passionately in love with God.

When I was falling in love with my husband, I wanted to be with him every minute. If I wasn't with him, I was thinking about being with him! I loved to make him smile. I loved hearing what he thought about things. I wanted to make him happy, and I would never, ever cheat on him or purposefully do anything that would hurt him. I felt it was important to express my love to him in thoughtful ways, and to tell him often that I loved him. Love is a CHOICE as well as an emotion. If you have chosen to love someone, your actions and emotions are usually engaged!

The word "love" is so overused these days. We love peanut butter, the beach, Star Wars, chocolate, hiking.... and God. We have tried to pull God down to our level and make Him ordinary. He could never be ordinary. I mean, how many others do you know who are omnipotent? Timeless? Omniscient? Fathomless in love and wisdom?

What does it mean to love God? How do we do that? Perhaps the most important thing we can do is get to know Him. How can we love what we do not know? We THINK we know Him, but often it is a "third person" kind of knowing. We tend to know a lot ABOUT God from hearing sermons, or singing songs about Him, but do we really KNOW HIM? Have we experienced Him for ourselves?

(Mark 12:30-31 AMPLIFIED) And you shall love the Lord your God out of and with your whole heart and out of and with all your soul (your life) and out of and with all your mind (with your faculty of thought and your moral understanding) and out of and with all your strength. This is the first and principal commandment. The second is like it and is this, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.

It is impossible to worship or trust God if we don't love Him. Since worship and trust are expressions of our love and devotion, without that commitment, we are just going through the motions.

I also believe you cannot choose to just love God "a little bit." It is all or nothing. It is either total, sold out surrender, or it is empty, lukewarm gunk. Those who love God with all that is within them are those who live in the light of eternity. They are the ones who have built their houses on the Rock. They will stand when others fall. There will be no turning back.

Most of us want to love God cautiously. Most of us only want to give Him a smidgen of our lives. We still expect God to be incredible for us, but we don't want to invest too much in the process. Hmmm... No wonder the world is still lost. No wonder many consider Christians to be a joke when many of us have no passion or power.

If we love God, how can we struggle with fear? If we live in the light of His presence, His joy and peace should fill us. I am trying to be honest here. I know I need to love God more. I am often weak and lazy in my pursuit of Him. But, I know in Him I will find all my heart longs for. I know in this crazy, sin-sick world, His arms are the only safe place to be. So, my prayer for the church (and myself!) is that God will draw us nearer -- that we will become sickened by our mediocrity and choose instead to fall passionately in love with the One who created us for that purpose.