I Was Nominated For The Sunshine Award By Pastor Unlikely

This is such a neat idea and kudos to whoever began The Sunshine Award.  Pastor Unlikely is a blogger who loves Jesus, his name is Tom and you can check out his blog page if I can figure out how to link! https://pastorunlikely.com/    Tom has followed my blog for a while now and I appreciate his willingness to do so.  I like the title of his blog because it shows that all of us who love Jesus are walking billboards in the way we live out daily life.  Most of us don’t think of ourselves as a pastor and yet we are because our life points others to Jesus.  Be sure to check out his story as it is pretty awesome!  Tom, your blog is great and I love it!  Keep up the good work!

I am not a fancy blogger as you most likely have guessed.  In fact my adult children who are a lot more into reading and evaluating blogs tell me that mine is in need of a professional make-over but I disagree.  I am not a professional; I am a mom and a single mom at that and just happen to have a received a master’s degree in my elder years!  I use photos taken by me and while they are not always good photos at least they are a part of my story because I took them!  I write from the heart and the life lessons I have learned.  I love to write and I am always blown away by all of you who read my blog postings.  Thank you a bunch and feel free to share them anytime!  So here is how the Sunshine Award works, I post the rules and then I answer the questions given and then I nominate others who blog.  How simple is that?

The Rules – Sunshine Blogger Award

• Thank blogger(s) who nominated you in a blog post and link back to their blog.
• Answer the 11 questions the blogger asked you.
• Nominate 11 new blogs to receive the award and write them 11 new questions.
• List the rules and display the Sunshine Blogger Award logo in your post and/or on your blog.

Again Thank you Tom from Unlikely Pastor for your nomination of this blog and now I am pleased to answer your questions.

1. What is the meaning behind your Blog name?

When I began to think of writing a blog I was not sure which direction it would take.  Would I share recipes or give tips or would I get more serious and share my faith in Jesus Christ?  I wasn’t sure.  I wanted to have a name that would reflect me and since my first name is Katherine I thought about titles that began with Katherine…Katherine Here…Katherine Says…and ended with Katherine Speaks.  The problem was that there was already a blog by that name but the thirteen year old girl who was using this title hadn’t used it in a while and so I decided to continue making it my own.  That is why I am actually Katherine Speaks 2 in the link.

2. How is your walk with Jesus today?

I am very strong in my relationship with Jesus Christ.  I think that having only Jesus to rely upon in so many different situations has driven me to prayer and to the Bible for years now.  I love being a Christian and I love writing about what I am learning as I study more and more of the Bible.  I also love to share what I have learned and continue to learn daily.  I hope you enjoy it too!

3. How did you become a Christian?

I was fortunate to have been raised by Christian parents who were not perfect but were stable and loved the Lord.  I remember as a child looking forward to every night when the family gathered around each other having one of my parents read a Bible story to us before bedtime.  I also loved to go to church and Sunday School.  I was eight years old when I accepted Jesus as my Lord and then was baptized in a sand pit and nearly drowned!  That made things a little exciting for the pastor who was doing the ceremony.  I was fighting him as he tried to lift me up out of the water I guess!  I have been a Christian since then and while there were times I might not have been as involved in studying the Bible as I should have been there has never been a time I was not involved in a relationship with Jesus!  I feel blessed to have had such a foundation laid by my parents for me to build upon.

4. If you could invite one living person, other than Jesus, to your house for lunch who would it be? Why?

Hmmm!  I would invite Joanna Gaines from HGTV and ask her for some tips on how to make my home look better!  Actually I would like to know her story; I think her testimony would be fascinating to hear.  And maybe we could exchange some recipes!

5. Same question with a person no longer living? Why?

I would like to invite Job to lunch and pick his brain on how he survived all the attacks from Satan.  In my own life I have certainly been under attack at times and I often felt like I was not going to make it through.  But then Jesus would pick me up and give me the strength to go on and I would read the book of Job and feel the despair he felt and the questioning he did and it gave me hope that while I had little understanding of what was happening to me I could cry out to God and be assured that God was there and heard my cries of desperation!  I wonder if Job would like chicken salad and scones with hot tea for lunch.

6. What is the biggest challenge facing the Church today?

Oh boy!  I think that the greatest challenge in the American Church is complacency.  Far too many of us, me included, feel comfortable in our faith and don’t reach out to others as we should.  I also think that we must be on guard for false teachings that are rather prevalent in our culture.  I hate to admit it but I think some persecution would refine our souls a bit.  Worldwide I think that the greatest challenge to the Church is persecution by false religious zealots.  Many Christians are living under horrible circumstances and are persecuted and discriminated against fiercely.   Overall I also think we have to battle keeping our love for others growing, it is too easy to let our love grow cold.

7. What is your favorite period of history?

I’m a Jane Austin fan and would love to have lived during her time, 1700-1800.  I loved the manners and the civility that was prevalent during this era. I would have loved to sit and have tea as the middle and upper classes did.  On the other hand I don’t think that I would have liked to have been from the servant class or the working poor as they really did have it tough!  I remember so many of the stories my great-grandmother who was born in 1884 told me of her life as a young person.  She was a homesteader as a married woman and that was such a different life as well.   Her life in the late 1800’s was not all that different from Jane Austin’s life a hundred years earlier.  That is what I find so fascinating about time, that it went along rather slowly until the last hundred years when so much has happened to change our daily lives.  The truth is that had I been born during this era I would not have lived because I had so many infections as a child.  I guess God knew when it was the best time for me to be born!

8. Who is your Christian mentor or role model? Famous or not and why?

My great-grandmother Emma Bessie Fiscus was my Christian mentor.  She was such a lovely woman and lived through many changes in life and died at the age of 96.  She was born in Iowa and came to Nebraska in a covered wagon.  She and her husband homesteaded in western Nebraska and raised seven children.  Her first home in Nebraska was a dug-out home that later became her cellar where she stored garden produce and home canned jars of food.  She loved Jesus and I only saw her cry once when she was in the hospital and she was weary of living and struggling with her medical condition.  Otherwise Grandma always had a smile and an encouraging word to give.  She taught me to embroider and to cord on the piano as well as to appreciate flowers and vegetable gardens and kittens.  She taught me to love the unlovable and to never stop praying for them.   She taught me to whistle and to sing on key.  She taught me to love stationary and write letters and to love books and to read often and to be generous rather than stingy.  She taught me to walk out my faith in deeds and not just words.  She taught me to appreciate the things we have and not to worry about the things we don’t have.  I remember once complaining about how hot it was sitting in the car with the windows rolled down.  She told me it was a blessing to have a car to ride in rather than to be walking ten miles on such a hot day.  Her perspective was always spot-on!

9. What was your favorite day of your life?

I have four favorite days, three days I gave birth to my daughters and the fourth day was the day I met my son who we adopted from China.  These four days were very special and I will never forget them for as long as I live.  Each child taught me so much about how to love a helpless bundle of joy.  Each child has brought joy and purpose to my life in a way that I could not begin to describe.

10. If you are not blogging, you will most often be found?

When I am not blogging I am writing novels that I wonder if I will ever have the courage to publish!  I love to write and finally in my life have the time to do so.  I have written four novels in the past five years and I am revising each one right now.  I have three lined up in my head that I want to write.  When not writing or blogging I am driving my son to and from school and dreading the day when he turns 16 and drives himself!  Thankfully he is only thirteen soon to be fourteen!  Some may think my life is boring but for me it is just the way I like it!

11. What is your favorite book, other than the Bible?

Proverbs, hands down, this is my favorite book in all of the Bible.  I love the wisdom that is in it and how you can read this book over and over and learn something new every time!  The epistles that the Apostle Paul wrote are my second favorite books and then Revelation because it keeps me guessing!

12. Bonus Question – What makes you laugh?

I laugh at lots of things and love people who have a good sense of humor.  If there ever was a show on television that I can guarantee laughing while watching it is the old British comedy that still plays on my PBS channel Keeping Up Appearances, the story of Hyacinth Bucket (she pronounces “Bouquet”).  My adult children tell me that I am just like her!  Well maybe I am in some ways but I do so enjoy laughing at this old comedy.  Laughter makes life so much more fun I think, don’t you?

So this is the end of the questions that Tom from the blog Pastor Unlikely wanted answered and here are mine for those I nominate for the Sunshine Award.

1. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
2. What would you say are the three best reasons you are a blogger?
3. What is your blog about?
4. Tell us about your relationship with Jesus if you have one and if not why not.
5. Do you have a bucket list to tell us about and if you do not what would you put on one?
6. What is your favorite author and why?
7. When you sit down to write a blog do you already have a subject in mind or do you just write the first thing that comes to your mind?
8. What’s your favorite thing to do?
9. What’s your least favorite thing to do?
10. What is the biggest challenge you face in your life and if you do not wish to disclose this then tell us what your best challenge in life has been?

These are the bloggers that I nominate for the Sunshine Award, please check them out!

1. https://thehighplainsheretic.com/ This guy is one of my go-to for understanding in tough Biblical concepts, he is my former pastor.
2. https://beautybeyondbones.com/ She has battled life and anorexia and has a faith that grows daily.  She has followed me almost since day one and I appreciate her encouragement.
3. https://pureglory.net/about-2/ From the beautiful state of Alaska comes a reminder that God loves us all!
4. https://becominghistapestry.com/ Brenda is walking out her faith daily and allowing God to mold her and make her in His image and I love that!
5. https://factbasedtruth.com/ A great blog for helping to understand the why’s in life from a Biblical perspective! Love it and keep up the good work!!!
6. https://jackflacco.com/ Who would have thought that zombies and Christian writings would come from the same author but that is Jack! Love it!!!
7. https://runwithit.blog/ A woman after my own heart, although I do not have as many grandchildren as Sue but that’s ok!
8. https://mjsjuice.wordpress.com/ A story of heartbreak and hope as this mama goes through the ups and downs of life for her child. She gives me perspective with her child’s gender issues as I learn to accept my own child with gender issues.
9. https://makeitultrapsychology.wordpress.com/ Dr. Perry writes a good blog from the perspective of psychology, one of my favorite subjects.  I think you can learn a lot from his blogs and I do appreciate how he explains things and helps others who are struggling.
10. Waiting yet to discover! Could this space be reserved for you?

Thanks again and I hope you all will check out these bloggers as they are some of my favorites.  We all work hard to get our perspective out there and I sure appreciate all who read my blog.  Thank you readers for taking this trip with me!

Until next time…Katherine