I\u00a0don’t know about you, but I am glad this past week is over. Just seems like\u00a0it\u00a0has been a very busy week, and\u00a0I have faced one problem after another. One of those weeks where\u00a0nothing seems to work out right or go\u00a0as planned.\u00a0Not that one major\u00a0thing happened,\u00a0\u00a0just lots of little, aggravating problems.\u00a0Those weeks make me feel tired and worn out, feeling\u00a0like I’ve been fighting a losing battle. By Friday afternoon I finally thought to myself, “OK, I give up; I’m ready to wave a white flag and surrender!”<\/p>\n
Well, all my whining did not fall on deaf ears. God heard\u00a0me and he responded this morning by bringing to my mind some things that DON’T aggravate me and some things that actually\u00a0DO work out as planned. I’m calling these things my “smooth stones.”<\/p>\n
One of my favorite stories in the Bible is David and Goliath. God reminded me that in this story while David was on his way to fight the giant Goliath; he stopped and\u00a0“chose five smooth stones from the stream and put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine”-1 Samuel 17:40. You may remember that\u00a0it only took one of those five smooth stones to\u00a0take care of Goliath,\u00a0but did you remember that Goliath had been tormenting the Israelites for forty days before David got involved? “For forty days the Philistine came forward every morning and every evening and took his stand”-1 Samuel 17:16. Goliath apparently had been causing people to have almost six bad weeks in a row! I bet a lot of the Israelites\u00a0felt like waving the white flag and surrendering. What a shame it would have been\u00a0if they had\u00a0given up right before the battle was won!<\/p>\n
Now you ask, “Is she really crazy enough to start collecting and throwing stones?” Sounds tempting… but I think “smooth stones” for me are the things I need to throw back at the Goliath’s in my life that tease, taunt,\u00a0or aggravate me. My “smooth stones” are things I need to think about when I feel like giving up; they are things that make me feel happy and thankful. Since I’m not nearly\u00a0as tough as David was, I think I may\u00a0need\u00a0more than five in my pouch so here goes a few “smooth stones”(in no specific order)\u00a0that I plan on using the next time\u00a0I\u00a0face a battle.\u00a0 I bet you can think of some to put in your pouch too.<\/p>\n
I’m thankful for…..<\/p>\n
Jesus<\/p>\n
a feeling that heaven is close by<\/p>\n
my mom and dad<\/p>\n
nieces who love me<\/p>\n
a\u00a0mother-in-law who\u00a0loves my\u00a0boys and me<\/p>\n
coworkers who make me laugh<\/p>\n
long hugs from Hunter Rowland<\/p>\n
a husband who is a great daddy<\/p>\n
cool Fall mornings<\/p>\n
Randy and Teresa Dixon<\/p>\n
my sister’s wit and secretarial skills<\/p>\n
the beach<\/p>\n
a\u00a0good night’s sleep<\/p>\n
dreams about Holt<\/p>\n
old and new friends<\/p>\n
Howard Harley<\/p>\n
decorating blogs<\/p>\n
having sons who make the world a better place<\/p>\n
memories<\/p>\n
hole sponsors and players for The Holt Rowland Foundation golf tournament<\/p>\n
a God who hears me when I whine. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
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I\u00a0don’t know about you, but I am glad this past week is over. Just seems like\u00a0it\u00a0has been a very busy week, and\u00a0I have faced one problem after another. One of those weeks where\u00a0nothing seems to work out right or go\u00a0as planned.\u00a0Not that one major\u00a0thing happened,\u00a0\u00a0just lots of little, aggravating problems.\u00a0Those weeks make me feel tired […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kims-blogs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theholtrowlandfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theholtrowlandfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theholtrowlandfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theholtrowlandfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theholtrowlandfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=328"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/theholtrowlandfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2099,"href":"https:\/\/theholtrowlandfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions\/2099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theholtrowlandfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theholtrowlandfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theholtrowlandfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}