Blogger Interview

Meet Me... Dayna!

First, tell us a little about yourself.

I have the most wonderful teddy-bear husband in the world--though he likes to pretend he's a grizzly! I am Nana and full-time caregiver to the cutest, curly-topped grand daughter you ever saw! I have two beautiful daughters and one handsome son. My passions are ministry, music, graphic design, and editing, but frequently those are back-burnered to teach little Curly Top her ABCs and numbers!

If I’m not blogging, I’m…

cleaning, cooking, coaching--not just Curly Top, but also the choir and music groups at church!

Little known fact about you:

In addition to singing and playing piano, I also tinker around with a small harp.

Favourite top-of-your-lungs-in-the-shower song?

Different songs at different times... usually an upbeat Southern Gospel song that has blessed my soul recently... such as "I Am Redeemed" as sung by the Greenes.

Favourite way to spend family time:

Together... usually in our recliners either watching a movie, Fox News, playing on our laptops, or all three at once!

If you could be a member of any musical group, what would it be?

Probably a group like Sisters, Collingsworths, Perrys, etc... a Southern Gospel group.

Do you have a favorite TV show?

French Food at Home, WWII romantic movies, movies set in Victorian England, historical fiction, or an older girlie movie like While You Were Sleeping.

Favorite simple pleasure:

-Dark chocolate with almonds, chocolate ice cream with nuts, kettlecorn

-I love to drink a hazelnut coffee (preferably Starbucks Caffe Verona blend) out back at the picnic table as the sun is coming up!

-Watching retro Southern Gospel youtube videos for hours!

Real-life heroes:

Missionaries like Darrel and Louise Champlin. I can't wait to meet Hannah Whitall Smith, Rosalinde Goforth, Andrew Murray, Oswald Chambers, Jim Elliot, and many others in heaven!

What song would you consider your personal anthem?

It's hard to pick just one!

-"I Am His and He Is Mine"

-"Come On Home"

-"Did I Mention (That I Love Him)?"

Top 3 things you’d like to do in this lifetime:

-Publish a book(s)

-Go back to Europe with my Peter

-Visit the Caribbean with my Peter

What book is currently on your nightstand?

Meet Mr. Moody by Warren Weirsbe

She Always Wore Red by Angela Hunt

Favourite quote/motto:

"The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds' feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places." ~ Habakkuk 3:19

"Live the difference."

How long have you been blogging?

About three years

What was your original intention when you started your blog?

To have an outlet for things about which I'm passionate. I love writing.

How long did it take before you felt like you had a decent audience on a consistent basis?

Not sure I still do!

Where did you go for help when you needed it?

I google for blogs on topics in which I feel I need help: Christian living, homemaking, rearing children, etc.

What do you like best and least about blogging?

I love having a place to write and publish something that might bless someone else. I dislike the pressure I can allow myself to feel at times to live up to other bloggers.

How have you seen God in your blogging journey?

He pervades every part of my life as well as blogging journey. He teaches me a lot through writing. It's always been that way for me. That's why I've kept a journal since I was in 2nd grade.

If you had to start over from scratch with the knowledge and experience you have now, what things would you do differently/the same, in regards to blogging?

If I did not have any other commitments in my life, I would do more to get my blog link out more. (Link up to other blogs of like content more often.) I would have set up my Facebook blog link much earlier.

What are the top 3 things or tips you would like to say to newer bloggers to help them in their journey?

Link up to other blogs of like content often.
Consider choosing one blogging topic on which to focus... a theme.
Don't allow yourself to feel blogging peer pressure; commit your blog, no matter the outcome, to God on a regular basis.



Now it's your turn... copy/paste into the comments or into your own blog!


Meet Me... ________!

First, tell us a little about yourself.


If I’m not blogging, I’m…


Little known fact about you:

Favourite top-of-your-lungs-in-the-shower song?


Favourite way to spend family time:


If you could be a member of any musical group, what would it be?

Do you have a favourite TV show?

Favourite simple pleasure:



Real-life heroes:

What song would you consider your personal anthem?

Top 3 things you’d like to do in this lifetime:


What book is currently on your nightstand?

Favourite quote/motto:



How long have you been blogging?

What was your original intention when you started your blog?



How long did it take before you felt like you had a decent audience on a consistent basis?



Where did you go for help when you needed it?

What do you like best and least about blogging?


How have you seen God in your blogging journey?



If you had to start over from scratch with the knowledge & experience you have now, what things would you do differently/the same, in regards to blogging?

What are the top 3 things or tips you would like to say to newer bloggers to help them in their journey?

Mother's Day

This weekend I am praying for all the women who desire to be a mom and for whatever reason are not.

I know how you feel.

Romans 8:28 seems trite, yet it is true. No matter the hurt, God will work it all out for good to those who love Him. Love involves trust, and you can trust the *good* heart of God. He knows why.

I am thankful for the three [step]children God has given me through marriage, and the granddaughter we have with us in our home, but for many years it was not so for me. I was alone, and I longed for children. There is still, at times, a little ache inside when conversations come up about pregnancy, carrying a child inside your body... and the statements--albeit true--that "you cannot understand until you experience it."

When I hurt like that, I must ask myself two questions:

1. Will I trust the good hand of God? That He knew best for me and that He allowed it to happen in my life the way it did for a reason? (Or will I choose to be bitter about it?)

2. Is there another area in which I do this to someone else? Another topic/area of life entirely where I may have been granted something that they have not. If God puts His finger on an area, am I willing to be more sensitive to that person (even if he/she is not sensitive to me), realizing the hurt he/she may be feeling? Am I willing to see him/her through Jesus' eyes?

He Is There

He is there... in the sunrise moments.

He is there... in the precious moments of learning.

He is there... when I don't want to answer "What's that?" for the thousandth time! :)

He's in every moment of my life.

Do I see Him?

Do you?

“At the heart of the Christian message is God Himself waiting for His redeemed children to push into conscious awareness of His presence. That type of Christianity which happens now to be in vogue knows this Presence only in theory. It fails to stress the Christian's privilege of present realization. According to its teachings we are in the presence of God positionally, and nothing is said about the need to experience the Presence actually.” 

~ A.W. Tozer

My Theme for 2011...

Yes, I'm late in the game. Better late than never, eh?

The Lord has been speaking to my heart about one main thing in the past few months and has brought my focus onto one word: gratefulness.

In past years I have kept a Gratitude Journal, but I needed something more visual to remind me. I have a wipe-off board on my fridge. I have used it for chore lists, notes, reminders, and everything in between. This past week, however, I began using it for a new thing. I wrote at the top: "Grateful..." And I am endeavouring to write something for which I am grateful every day. It's just another way I can act upon what God is prompting in my heart--and a method in which I can get my family involved as well!

"Oh that men would praise the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men!" ~ Psalm 107:9

What's your praise today?

The Perfect Plan

The Perfect Plan

(c) Dayna Spear Guenther, March 2011

Mine, yet not really mine—

I hold on, Lord, with open hands;

You alone are in control—

Help me trust in Your perfect plan.

Tiny hands and sweetest voice—

How can I simply let go?

Beautiful smile and tinkling laugh—

God, You see, and so well You know.

In my Bible I read, “For this child I prayed,”

Yet I do not know for how long;

You, Lord, alone hold my heart in Your hands,

I will trust, and through You, be strong.

I pour my very self into this child,

She may go, next month or next year;

I’m “the called”—I’m the one to stand in the gap,

I will rest in Your arms, not fear.

Mine, yet not really mine—

I hold on, Lord, with open hands;

You alone are in control—

Help me trust in Your perfect plan.

It's Not Fair!

Why me? 


I don't deserve this.


I deserve better.


What did I do to deserve this?

Continual questions flow through my mind. I feel I try so hard to "be good" and "do right." And things continue to go "wrong."

It's not fair! 

There's another expression of emotion that comes easily when I don't truly believe God for Who He is.

God is good. I have been taught that. I know that in my head. But do I truly believe it in my heart?

Recently, I had an epiphany of sorts over a familiar verse. I learned to quote this verse as a two-year-old child:

And we know that all things work together for good, to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. ~ Romans 8:28

Yeah. I've read and quoted that verse so many times. But now I notice that it says, "the called according to His purpose."

I am the called one. The position in which God has placed me in life is for His purpose and ultimately for my good.

God has not maliciously placed me in this position. He has good reasons that I may not know now, but I will know one day. Jesus said:

What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. ~ John 13:7

So it is up to me to believe God is Who He says He is!

The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and He knoweth them that trust in Him. ~ Nahum 1:7

Knowing God intimately is the privilege of those who trust in Him. If I know and trust that He is good, He becomes my stronghold in the day of trouble.

Countless Scriptures tell me that God is good. That God orchestrates everything in my life. That nothing happens by accident.

The question is: Will I trust in a good God today?

I will trust when I cannot see,

When I'm faced with adversity;

And believe Your will is always best for me,

I will trust when I cannot see.

~ John W. Peterson

God's a Good Housekeeper!

Today I would like to share a portion of The God of All Comfort by Hannah Whitall Smith:

If I have a friend whom I know to be a good housekeeper, I do not trouble over the fact that at housecleaning time things in her house may seem to be more or less upset, carpets up, and furniture shrouded in coverings, and even perhaps painting and decorating making some rooms uninhabitable. I say to myself, “My friend is a good housekeeper, and although things look so uncomfortable now, all this upset is only because she means in the end to make it far more comfortable than ever it was before.”

 

This world is God’s housekeeping; and although things at present look grievously upset, yet, since we know that He is good, and therefore must be a good Housekeeper, we may be perfectly sure that all this present upset is only to bring about in the end a far better state of things than could have been without it. I dare say we have all felt at times as though we could have done God’s housekeeping better than He does it Himself, but, when we realize that God is good, we can feel this no longer. And it comforts me enormously, when the world seems to me to be going all wrong, just to say to myself, “It is not my housekeeping, but it is the Lord’s; and the Lord is good, therefore His housekeeping must be good too; and it is foolish for me to trouble.”

 

A deeply taught Christian was asked by a despairing child of God, “Does not the world look to you like a wreck?

 

“Yes,” was the reply, in a tone of cheerful confidence; “yes, like the wreck of a bursting seed.” Any of us who have watched the first sproutings of an oak tree from the heart of a decaying acorn will understand what this means. Before the acorn can bring forth the oak, it must become itself a wreck. No plant ever came from any but a wrecked seed.

 

Our Lord uses this fact to teach us the meaning of His processes with us. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but, if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”

 

The whole explanation of the apparent wreckage of the world at large, or of our own personal lives in particular, is here set forth. And, looked at in this light, we can understand how it is that the Lord can be good, and yet can permit the existence of sorrow and wrong in the world He has created, and in the lives of the human beings He loves.

 

It is His very goodness that compels Him to permit it. For He knows that, only through such apparent wreckage, can the fruition of His glorious purposes for us be brought to pass. And we whose hearts also long for that fruition will, if we understand His ways, be able to praise Him for all His goodness, even when things seem hardest and most mysterious.

 

The apostle tells us that the will of God is “good and acceptable, and perfect.” The will of a good God cannot help being “good”—in fact, it must be perfect’; and, when we come to know this, we always find it “acceptable”; that is we come to love it. I am convinced that all trouble about submitting to the will of God would disappear, if once we could see clearly that His will is good. We struggle and struggle in vain to submit to a will that we do not believe to be good, but when we see that it is really good, we submit to it with delight. We want it to be accomplished. Our hearts spring out to meet it.

 

Space fails me to tell all that I might of the infinite goodness of the Lord. Each one must “taste and see” for himself. And if he will but do it honestly and faithfully, the words of the psalmist will become true of him: “They shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness, and shall sing of thy righteousness.”

 

God is our PERFECT FATHER, and He can be trusted!

Psalm 116:7 says, "Return unto thy rest, O my soul [that's my mind, will, and emotions!]; for the LORD hath dealt bountifully with thee."

Watch this video of the song "I Can Trust Jesus" by the Collingsworth Family:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcLBdlfkGJs