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2012 Prayer

"My goal is to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead. Not that I have already reached the goal or am already fully mature, but I make ever effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus." Philippians 3: 10-12

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Is God on Vibrate? Part 1


Flashback to your teenage years.  Remember when you were in the car with several of your friends.  The driver pulled up to a red light and then someone out of nowhere yells out “Chinese fire drill!!”  Doors fly open.  Everyone leaps out of the car and begins to race around it, making a complete circle before diving back into the vehicle all before the light turns green.  What an adrenaline rush!!  Okay.  I admit, I remember actually getting out of the vehicle I was in MAYBE two or three times.  One, I was usually the driver and two, I was such a play by the rules, scaredy cat who was always thinking of what could go wrong and how much trouble I would have to pay once I was caught.  Yes, I was the one who when we snuck out to wrap houses stayed in the car until I felt sure no one was going to come out of the house and holler at us and more importantly double and triple checked to confirm there were no cops driving by to arrest us!

Friday, February 24, 2012

Z Bits of the Week


February 24, 2012

Vol. 4

Hostess Comments:  This week you will inevitably see the love the kids have for their new cousins.  In addition, an important lesson that Dawson learned.  Again, I was blessed as Nathan really wanted to write his blog in the car, Peter sat on my lap with his hands on mine as I typed as though he was typing it himself, Dawson opened up and shared from his heart, and Hannah once again wrote it on her own and turned it in to me.  I love these kids and the work God is doing in their lives!! 

Monday, February 20, 2012

Prayers for Our Children

Taking care of seven children, four dogs, 10 chickens, and a lizard that I have yet to see, leaves little room to collect ones thoughts and write.  So instead of trying to push all the thoughts flying through my head that the Holy Spirit impresses on me throughout the day, I feel led to share with you a piece of paper I found in my stash of books and journals in my garage a week or so ago.  I placed it in my bible and have been reading through it each day.  The title is simply Prayers For Your Children.  You can tell the original was typed with a typewriter and someone has handed down to me a photocopy.  Each prayer has a verse listed next to it.  Instead of making you look up the verse, I have included it with the prayer. May you be as encouraged and challenged to lift our children up in prayer faithfully each day as I.

Friday, February 17, 2012

Z Bits of the Week

February 17
Vol. 3

We have a special edition this week as the Zbylot household has been in a whirlwind of activity.  Since our last post, we were given an amazing free, flat screen television (a whole other God story), celebrated Scott’s dad’s 65th birthday, church and school and all the activities surrounding those, as well as fighting off illness.  Below you will find our children’s hearts as they reflect on what has happened this past week as well as what I, their mother, have learned as a result of this blog.  Enjoy!

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

True Love?


Valentine’s Day.  A day for lovers to express their love for one another.  A day when flower prices are three times higher than their normal price.   A day when chocolate, teddy bears, and jewelry are bought and given as tokens of love.  A day tons of women are disappointed in what their spouse or boyfriend give them or do not give to them.  A day that comes and goes with the stores pleased with their cash drawers and more individual lives hurt than not.  So why bother?  Why even celebrate Valentine’s Day?  How do we even know what true love is anymore? 

Friday, February 10, 2012

Z Bits of the Week

February 10, 2012
Volume 2

Peter’s Playground

 Mammaw, my grandmother, used to ride a motorcycle when she was a teenager.  This reminds me of what it is like to ride away from the devil and ride up to heaven.  You are the one on the motorcycle and God is your parent and the devil is the enemy (the girl or boy that is trying to hurt you.)  You tell God who is like your parent, and the He gets onto the kid (the devil).   

Last night, this is Peter speaking, Nathan and I picked out a song.  My song was Wonderful Cross.  It is where it sings music and shows all these crosses and there was a cross that was funny.  It was frozen.  And it was in cold weather and there were three crosses and they were all in water.  One in front and one in a diagonal behind and the other in a diagonal behind.  This is the song I want to post for you.  See if you can find the crosses I am talking about as you watch.


When we sing these songs it is part of our worship.  You should try it every night.  And it is where you pick a song and then your whole family, brothers and sisters and mom and dad listen to the song.  Just pick one or two songs a night.  Get this book at a store, it is called How God Used a Thunderstorm. You read the book after the songs are done and you pray after it is all done and then you go to bed.

Pete’s Playground Rule of the Week: You should always have a good attitude in school because it helps you to get your school work done faster. If you are in public school, or private school, or homeschool, don’t get distracted when the teacher is not in the room and don’t get wound up.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Debunking the Family Worship Myth


After reading several of the posts over the last month here at Temple Dwellers Ministry, some readers may be jumping to the conclusion that the Zbylot household has a wonderful time each and every night singing songs, reading the bible, and melodiously interacting with one another in the Spirit of the Lord.  I must say that there is always a lot of spirit in the house, but I don’t know that it is always the Spirit of the Lord!!  On multiple occasions it looks more like the following…children fighting over which songs we will sing together, bible reading interrupted by children poking one another as mom sternly encourages everyone to stay focused so that we can get to bed, while dad tries to not get impatient with everyone who is not listening to what is being read.  While we don’t have a perfect family worship time, nor do we have one on a nightly basis, I would like to share with you why we do family worship, what it typically looks like (if there ever is a typical worship), and some resources to begin your own. 

Friday, February 3, 2012

Z Bits of the Week

February 3, 2012

I have a special treat today as I have four very special guest bloggers for you. Straight from Tomball, TX please welcome Peter, Nathan, Dawson, and Hannah. After hearing some of their mother’s blogs over the last several weeks, they begged and asked her for their own blog. As she thought about how this might work, last week she announced to them that they would be allowed the opportunity every Friday to be her guest blogger for the day. Please enjoy their words of wisdom as they share with you what has been on their hearts this past week.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this blog by my guests have been recorded in their own words with little or no editing.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

A Lid Popping Experience

Have you ever had a craving for a particular food item and not because you were pregnant or your hormones were out of whack. Well, yesterday afternoon between that lunch and dinner lull I began to crave popcorn. So, I pulled out our air popper, placed one scoop of popcorn into the machine, set a bowl under it to catch the much craved little nuggets of little nutritional value of white air, turned it on, and began heating up some butter. Once the butter was through I went to wash off the knife from the butter when it happened…

The lid of the air popper when flying off onto the floor and the other part onto the counter top. I quickly turned the water off and began to frantically try to get the popcorn to stay in the machine and place the lid back on. It was a fiasco. Unsuccessfully I got the lid to stay halfway on as I picked up the top portion off the floor. Blowing it off (10 second rule), I placed it on the very top only to discover my attempts of trying to keep popcorn from exploding anywhere else were useless. I pulled the plug and began scooping up the popcorn off the counter top and into the bowl that was supposed to be catching it. I threw what went on the floor away. (The ten second rule didn’t apply to what I was about to put in my mouth.) As I began to wipe down the counter top and pour the butter and salt onto the snack, the Lord placed a great analogy in my mind.

Some of you may have heard the clichés plug into Jesus, plug into the source, or something along those lines. Well, those clichés began to resonate as I began to relate my air popper experience to being plugged into Jesus and it looked something like this:

When you plug the air popper into the electrical outlet it immediately begins to blow hot air throughout the machine. Likewise, when you accept Christ as Lord of your life, you immediately receive His power through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is like the air that immediately begins to blow throughout the air popper machine the second you turn it on. Knowing analogies can only be taken so far we could stop there. However, it occurred to me that if I had not placed the kernels into the machine, I would not be eating that delicious, much craved snack right before dinner. I would only have a lot of hot air blowing around with no results or food to eat. Seemingly, if I do not take the time to read and place God’s word into my body, the Holy Spirit is unable to heat those words up in my life, cause a spiritual chemical reaction resulting in an overflowing, lid popping off experience that is seen and felt by those around me.

There was no way I could ignore the popcorn exploding everywhere. It had to be dealt with and could not be ignored. When I take the time to study and read God’s word, He is faithful to take that desire and effort and open up my eyes to His truth and the way He wants me to live my life so that He is glorified. When I have spent time with Him and He spills out of every pore in my body my life begins to reflect more of Him and less of me and my husband, children, and those around me are given the opportunity to taste His goodness too. When the lid pops off in my life, those around me are given the choice to scoop some of God’s glory up into a bowl to eat and meditate on or they can throw it in the trash. Prayerfully, I pray my children will taste His goodness and have a desire to put God’s word into their own air popper so that they too can experience what it feels like to have the lid pop off in their own lives.

My Heart’s Prayer: “Lord, fill my husband, children, and myself with the knowledge of Your will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, so that we may walk worthy of You, fully pleasing to You, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God. May we be strengthened with all power, according to Your glorious might, for all endurance and patience, with joy giving thanks to You, our Father, who has enabled us to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light. You have rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son You love. We have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, in Christ” (Colossians 1:3-14) Lord, continue to fill me with a desire to place kernels of Your word in my life so that the lid might pop off and my family can taste and have a desire to personally experience Your words and Your work in their lives as well. In Jesus Name, Amen.