Deanna Doss Shrodes

All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.
~T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, 1926

Today is my day off and it's not so much fun as relaxing, which I really need and appreciate. At this point it's not over...but I thought I'd blog before midnight since I have been so late in posting this week, and right now I have a totally quiet house.
This morning I got Jordan up for school and then went back to sleep and when I got up my husband made me pancakes. Now THAT is the life. Being honest, I have quite a bit of work left to do this weekend but the Lord has been speaking to me about that whole Sabbath thing so I am determined not to work today. After eating pancakes I took a bath and then got my nails done. It felt so good. Both my hands and feet were so overdue. Larry met me and took me to lunch afterwards at a brand new place called The Hungry Greek. This was amazing, first of all for two reasons:
1) I was hungry.
2) I'm Greek.
In addition to that the food was INCREDIBLE. It was one of those places I had a really hard time selecting what to eat because the a…

Maddie in her raincoat that Jordan got her. She hates the hat and tries to push it back all the time. In about a week she'll outgrow this outfit.

I know. I didn't post again until late... 12:17 am to be exact this time so I guess I technically missed blogging yesterday which is highly unusual. It's just how the schedule went. This week I have missed twice...just so much going on.

It was a really busy day (Thursday) at work. We are getting ready to bring about 6 new leaders onto our core team at the church, and we are preparing for what I believe will be our most important leadership meeting ever. This has necessitated some planning meetings...lots of them. It's all good...in fact it's GREAT! But it's keeping us running that's for sure.
We had a full day at work and meetings with leaders and then we came home and I had to finish an article I am on deadline to write for this weekend and then start on another one that I have a deadline for earlynext week. I do…

This is a new word I've created, at least to my knowledge, I am the first to come up with it. If you were at our service at Northside this past Sunday morning, you know this was part of my message that I preached. Then, I shared about it in my weekly "cup of coffee" ezine devotional this morning that goes out to a mass of people, and immediately had my e-mail box absolutely flooded with people going crazy about it. One pastor is sharing it at his business meeting tonight. Another pastor thought it was brilliant and just sent the devotional to every single person in their address books, and the list goes on. Every time I check my e-mail box I'm getting more mail from people about it...and the ezine has only been out a few hours...so...... After seeing the flood of e-mail come my way I realized it hit a chord with A LOT of people. I was delighted but kinda scared at the reaction, because... I don't have it copyrighted! The first moment a few weeks ago that God drop…

Last night was our women's meeting at my house and quite a few people left before this pic above was taken, but we took it before everybody was gone so we'd have some kind of group pic from the night. What a FANTASTIC night we had. I am still on a little cloud after it...SERIOUSLY. I will share some things in posts to come about what God is doing.
Left to right...Heather, Savanna (my daughter), Trudy, Debra...awesome chicks!

Left to right ~ Patti, Anita, Juleen, Gayle...some of my favorite peeps in the world! I am blessed to have them in my life. By the way, Patti brought the most interesting dish of the night. It was a dessert called, "Sex in a Pan." Of course as people were looking over the food dishes and asked what it was and recieved the answer, it made for a tons of jokes. I won't go into sharing them all here but will just say, it was a good dessert. :-) I will ask her for the recipe and try to post it this week.
Left to right ~ Rosa, Candy, Ang…

I saw a meme last night on a blog and it simply asked a question ~ what are the two most important things people would need to know in order to do your job?

I didn't have to think more than a second about the answer:

1) God loves you with the deepest most everlasting love beyond your imagination.
2) God is in control and will never leave or forsake you no matter what.

I know, I know...everybody who reads my blog in the morning, especially my sister Kim, is disappointed that I didn't post til 10:41 tonight. Sorry guys. Things have been a lih-tle crazy. Between our busy ministry schedule and getting our refrigerator, microwave and dryer fixed (yes, when it rains it pours) I have had a few other extra things on my plate that I don't normally have either so............

I find myself posting late tonight and a day behind on my "through the Bible in one year" bible reading so I have eight chapters to read tonight. Okay, some quick bullet highlights from this weekend:

We did a major amount of cleaning Saturday. It's never done though...

After cleaning we went out with Pastor T and Misty to a nice dinner. Always a great time to be with them.Thanks to all of you who went over and gave a shout out and your prayers at Pastor T's blog. It means so much. He has people all over the world praying for Him. We are confident, he will not ju…

"Eat honey, dear child—it's good for you— and delicacies that melt in your mouth.Likewise knowledge, and wisdom for your soul—Get that and your future's secured, your hope is on solid rock."
Proverbs 24:13-14
The other day I blogged about the wonderful healing powers of honey. Seriously, I am experiencing it, although I'm not 100% better yet, it is truly helping me. So far I have gone through about a jar and a half in a week. I am following instructions I got on a site about it, to take a teaspoon whenever I am in pain and also right before going to sleep.
Church member and friend Becky Faux had talked to me months ago about the healing elements of honey and cinnamon and then she just found this scripture yesterday that actually talks about it being so good for us. So my friends, it's not just a health food store that talks about this -- it's in the B-I-B-L-E!
Try it sometime and see if it helps you as it has me. I'm a believer now and I'll probably …

Hello my friends ~ I've so appreciated all of the love, care and prayers you regular readers have given me through years of writing and commenting here on the blog. Now I'd like you to ask you to throw some of those prayers in another direction as well as someone very dear to me is in need of them.
Our children's pastor, Trinity Mackley, was diagnosed with cancer (Hodgkins) on Thursday. We are totally confident that God will heal him! But we need your prayers to press this prayer request right on through to the heart of God. He will now be undergoing treatment notwithstanding a total miracle, and we do believe all things are possible!!! He is a man of courage and strength, and faith. He is equipped for this battle. If you look up "loyal staff person" in the dictionary you'll see his picture there along with some other guy named Sam Diaz. :-)
I am also praying much for his precious wife, Misty. I am believing that God would give her the peace that passes allund…