The Broughton Home

Have you ever had a friend, or a family member who had a spouse that you liked at first, but started to resent? For any real number of reasons, but tried not to say anything about it so as not to seem rude, prying, pushy, or divisive? This has happened to myself more than I'd like to admit. With friends AND family. Things start out fine, but then things don't go quite right.. and then your loved one is in some sort of abusive or neglectful relationship/marriage. My heart breaks. I hate feeling like I shouldn't butt in, but if I don't things won't get better.. even if they don't get worse. I don't want to be "that friend" to the spouse, I fear that would actually make the spouse try to alienate me... which would be harmful to my relationships. Really, my main goal, is to encourage my friend/family member to be happy. I want them to be as happy as I am. We're poor, and probably going to be more so next year, but we love eachother and have...

The Broughton home has a mystery gifter. That's right, and anonymous friend who leaves gifts on our door step and leaves. We don't know who, and we're not quite sure why... other than they love us. :) The first strike was bewildering. Saturday night/Sunday morning at around 12:30am I was almost asleep after a late night of a company dinner, a movie with the hubby and no kids in the house. All of a sudden I found myself jumping out of my bed in a semi panic cause the doorbell had rung several rings. Thinking it might be my dad with an unhappy child I ran to the door, only to find no person, and a gift bag. I picked it up and returned inside... still holding the bag. I opened it to find a lovely candle hurricane lamp and a pillar candle to match. The second strike was right after dinner the next night. I just walked to the door after one ring and there lay a wrapped gift with a tag. To the Broughan Girls, From Santa. Two books had arrived for my girls, and we read ...

My sister and I have had a couple disagreements on whether Christmas or Easter is a more important Holiday in the Christian faith. Well, I claim Christmas, and she's for Easter. I've been thinking about it a lot lately, being the Christmas Season and all. I've come to a couple conclusions in my own mind, and I hope they come out in some kind of intelligible order. There's a song, Welcome to Our World by Chris Rice. If you haven't heard it, you need to. When it comes to Christmas, I'm all for the "magic" of lights and carols and sparkly things... I am, after all, easily entertained. More than those though, I love the imagery of God becoming man. Jesus' sacrifice is definitely important, and the fact that He wanted to save us from eternal damnation is priceless and so profound.... but, the LOVE He showed, by not just saving us... but becoming us. That's the hugest thing for me. The fact that He cares so MUCH for us that He was willing to...

I am moved to tears after watching our President give a speech on the shooting at Ft Hood. I could not believe it. Unfortunately, I missed it on TV, I had to look it up on youtube. I'm glad though, cause then I could see the speech measured in minutes. At .30 seconds, President Obama has already thanked several people for participating in the conference. But AT .30seconds he gives a "shout out" to a Congressional MoH winner. Yes he actually said that. At 2 minutes he finally gets around to talking about the tragic events that had occurred only hours before. At 4 minutes... he gets to what's REALLY important. "Me." He actually says: "As Commander in Chief, there is no greater Honor, and no greater responsibility..." I could not believe my ears. Who cares?! Right before that, it was more "campaign promises" about all the work their gonna be doing to get to the bottom of this.. blah blah blah. The only thing he needed to do, was t...

Elephants need not fly now, they wouldn't mean anything next to the happenings of today! President Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Not kidding... the Nobel Peace Prize. Why? I don't know.. other than political reasons. According to Wikipedia, the Nobel prize is awarded "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses." Well, with that deffinition, he deserves it. He hasn't sent the troops we need in Afghanistan, we'll lose that war... but he got the Prize! He's made friends with dangerous enemies and alienated our allies! BUT HE GOT THE PRIZE! So, it seems like he's not really done anything.. but he's done everything! If Obama-care actually weasles it's way into the public... there will NOT be peace in this wonderful country.. there will be unrest and even MORE poverty. I woul...

Is it any wonder our country is headed for destruction? God's been kicked out of our schools, out of our politics, and now it seems He's just moving out entirely. I say that tongue in cheek, but I am terrified by the prospect of my girls living in the country I see in the future. Only in America would it be inhumane to claw a cat, but acceptable to kill an unborn child. I find a cat clawing up my living room a lot more inconvenient than all 3 of my children! Of course God is withdrawing His blessings from this country... we're killing off His most obvious creations! I'm not especially intelligent, or super educated... but I know when the government is looking shady. When did they forget who pays their salaries? We, the people, should be able to vote on a pay raise, or a pay dock. With all the crap they DON'T get done.. they should be paid minimum wage.. per hour... see if they take so many recesses then! We should be able to really have a say in the bills be...

While driving home tonight, I began to reflect on the moon. HAha, get it?! Alright, either way, I find it so amazing that our God would create such a vast universe for us to "play" in, all because He loves us. In creating our wonderful home.. He gave us such a wonderful example, right there in our sky every night! Not only did He give us stars, that He made to twinkle in such an inspiring, fancy way... but the moon. The moon is exactly what we should aspire to be. The moon is lifeless... it has nothing but dust. Nothing to offer, but it's presence. It is always there, even when you can't see it. Since it has no life of it's own, it is so usable by the sun! The moon reflects but a fraction of the light from the sun... and it gives us the light when we would really need it... in our darkness of night. Now, Jesus, being the Son... is so perfect in His love, that we can only show a fraction of it with our imperfect, human beings. We know that life comes from...