I thought Amy's recommendation of a monthly check in was good but I modified it a bit...hope you don't mind Amy.    I thought...instead of having everyone just check in..why not have it a praise report time once a month.   We all have some really hard things we've either been thru, are going thru now or may have to walk thru in the future but God tells us to continually have praises to our Lord on our lips and in the honoring of our Lord we will keep our eyes upon the healer and providers of all things rather than become overwhelmed in the problems at hand.

I will begin.   It is January 15th and I am signing in and praising God for His mighty protection and unending blessings of friends and christian brothers and sisters and provision for our needs.   One week ago last night my town flooded...what they call a 100 year flood....and almost 150-200 are without a home to go home to or with homes where anywhere from 2-4 foot of muddy water came into their living area.   I live on a block with 8 houses and am within 3 houses of the creek which flooded.   I have a full basement with about 26 steps going down into it and my basement filled with water(even with 3 pumps going!) to within 2 steps of coming up into the living area and the house was surrounded to the point of only one step and the landing of the front porch of the water coming into the front door.  A basement window was broken out by debris just letting water pour in that way too.  However....God stopped the water before it got to the rafters in my basement and thus my living area is dry and did not even appear to draw moisture into the flooring or carpet.    The basement is concrete block and, while I lost all the momentos of my childhood and my grandparents, parents, etc.....I was saved.   Even my furnace which was under water and  which the repairman said he was sure there was no way it would start up...that I would have to put an all new one in....he replaced parts in it and my furnace fired up and as of last night has been working even better than it had been before the flood!   My water heater is working.   My electrical box was covered with water but God saw that my power never faltered at the house and my sump pump kept going the whole time.   I evacuated myself from the house about 2am last Tues am after just an intense sense that I needed to get out of there.   AT the time I only had 4 inches of water in my basement.  By all accounts of talking to my neighbors last Saturday when we were at the house working...my house was surrounded by water within about 30 minutes of when I left with a few things and my dog to some friends house where I am still staying.    Men from my church came down last Saturday and cleaned out 3/4th of the basement and are planning on coming back this Saturday to finish that and power wash it and sanitize it for me(they won't even let me do that part of it). After that I am going to have my pastor pray over the house before I move back in and will be looking at selling it this year which will mean a battle with my brother who owns half of it but does nothing to help with it's upkeep.  But God has provided safety, a place to stay and many blessings for me in all of this....God is a good God!

Betty