Rules to Live By

A simple set of rules not only for our kids and grandkids to live by but rules for all of us to apply to our lives.

Rule #1 Pray Always

Rule #2 Be thankful

Rule #3 Take responsibility

Rule #4 Choose to be happy

Rule #5 Go to bed with a forgiving spirit

Remember: There are no giants, only mountains yet to climb, so take action!


Pray always. Praying always to God keeps us in touch with our Lord and Savior. Our purpose in life is to establish a good relationship with the Lord and we do that thru communication. If we tried talking to our parents or the teach at school only once a week for an hour or two they wouldn't like it. No relationship can be built on the lack of communication and our relationship with God is no different.

Be thankful. As human's we have the tendency to not be thankful. Tendency?! Wrong word we are flat out very ungrateful people. We can find an excuse to grumble about anything. Instead of looking at what we do have we would rather reflect on what we don't have. Instead of being thankful for the things other people are doing for us we would rather find fault in the things we think we could do better.

Take Responsibility. Too often we fail to take responsibility for our actions. We would rather blame our parents, our teacher, our siblings, the full moon, or the change in the atmosphere for our behavior instead of taking responsibility for it. When we do something whether its good or bad we need to take responsibility for our actions. Own up to what we have done. It's not that good of a thing we have to "own up to" then we need to use this moment to correct whatever it is inside of us that made us do what we did. Spouting off at the mouth and saying, "Well I own up to it, that is just the way I am" is not a good attitude to take. We need to step down off our high horses and our thinking that we are the ones that rule our lives and that everyone gets to do whatever they want in life, good or bad.

Choose to be happy. Daily we need to make the choice to "choose to be happy." Circumstances, people, money, or anything else is responsibility for making us happy. It's a choice we make for ourselves. Many relationships have broken up over the fact that one of the people in the union wasn't being made happy by the other person. That is our job to choose to be happy. It comes from our attitude, our choice to look at things in a positive manner. It's not something we can rely on others to supply us with. Indeed others can make us very happy but its not their responsibility. If our attitudes weren't correct in the first place whatever they did would never have worked. It comes from us.

Go to bed with a forgiving spirit. The best thing we can do for ourselves is to go to bed with a forgiving heart. Doing this forces to deal with things immediately like they should be done instead of sulking over them only to get madder and madder. It's best to take care of it and deal with your differences now instead of later. Hanging on to our anger and hatred for someone is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. It just doesn't happen, we are the ones who wind up injured from our anger.

Remember, there are no giants, only mountains yet to climb, so take action. Too often we look at things and think they are too big for us to deal with. We get scared at the tasks ahead of us instead of stopping long enough to just move forward in faith, faith in our Lord and Savior that tells us he will never leave us nor forsake us. The only way we can access that promise is through faith. We need to be looking at the size of God not the size of the task in front of us. Instead of holding ourselves back from accomplishing great things we need to take action knowing we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.

Fired Friend

See the above video titled "A Prayer to my granddaughter and friends"

Recently I was fired from being my granddaughters friend on Facebook. After posting something on the network that really didn't need to be on there I responded out of concern. I was told to "butt out." That it was just some fun among friends and that there was nothing to be worried about. If there was nothing to be concerned about then why did she fire me as her friend before posting more immature stuff on her Facebook account.

In an attempt to reach out to my granddaughter I thought I would make a video like other frustrated parents or grandparents have with their kids and post it on Facebook. After several attempts to make the video I had what I thought was a good finished product. As I went to put the video on my blogspot, it didn't work. I tried posting it on Facebook and it didn't work. The only place it worked was on my computer and camera. My theory isn't the fact that I posted it wrong but the fact that Satan doesn't want to get the message out to her and others like her. The message that they need to start caring and live a more careful life as there are things God cares about and so should they.

One of the things God cares about is her and her friends. I told her on Facebook and on the video I made that I would not butt out. Someday what she was doing was going to come back to bite her in the butt and if I can prevent that from happening I will. If that is "butting in" then so be because it beats waiting until she is killed, kidnapped, or raped before I say something to prevent the destruction she is doing to herself. 

Eventually the consequences of her choices will come. It is where we as hard headed people seem to learn the most. It's just the thought of her doing herself great physical and spiritual harm. Oh but it's her choice. If that is true then the choice of a rapist or murderer or child molester is "their" choice. That's ridiculous one would argue the choice of a teenager is different. The right to choose is the right to choose isn't it?

Life is one choice right after another. Sometimes we need people to tell us what choice to make, sometimes we do well making them on our own. Either way we need to not make our choices so carelessly. Quick, on the spot, off the wings of our emotions choices aren't always good ones. Choices made to be a part of a crowd or try to see how far we can go before getting caught are not good choices.

Not a good choice is the fact that we treat Jesus the same way my granddaughter treated me. The minute He steps in to comment on our behavior we fire Him as our friend. We like Him as a friend when He is going along with everything we choose to do but when we want to go off on our own in a rebellion manner and He responds we tell Him to "butt out." We fire Him as our friend when it becomes convenient for us to do as we please and not as He instructs.

It would do us all well if we would fire our emotions and wrong choices and keep what is best for us. Indeed the ability to make right choices and keep Jesus as our friend for not only life but for all eternity.

Kid DEES ~~~~~~~ Don't Blame Me, Blame My Mouth

As I sat in McDonald’s with two of my granddaughters, the youngest who was the last to finish looked up at me and said, “Grandma, don’t blame me blame my mouth.”

Coming from church where the sermon topic was about telling lies verses telling the truth her innocent little
statement about her food said a lot. Too often in our lives we like to blame anything but ourselves for our actions. Blame my mouth, don’t blame me is our way of thinking. God tells us it isn’t easy to tame the tongue but it’s possible.

I heard a lady in her 50’s once shout out that it was her “God-given right to say what she pleased.” Wrong, it is not our God-given right to say whatever we feel like saying. If you look in the Bible you will not find any place where God gives us that right. What we are told to do is control our tongue, to say only that which is beneficial to others, and to let our words and meditation of our heart be pleasing to God.

Just because we have ability to speak doesn’t give us the right to speak whatever we want. Turning 50, 60, 15, 10, or 5 doesn’t give us that right either. What comes with age should be maturity not the attitude that now that I’m older I can do whatever I want.

We need to take responsibility for our mouths. Like it or not its connected to our heart, it’s a part of us. Just like you would never get away with slapping another kid in school and say, “Don’t blame me blame my hand,” it doesn’t work with the mouth either.

They call me grandma

© 2011 Karen J Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing

Picture Dees #30 Asleep at the Wheel

May 12, 2009


The last thing you want to do or have someone else do is fall asleep at the wheel. Many accidents have been caused by people who fell asleep while they were driving. People often accuse God of falling asleep at the wheel Himself. Dosing off and not answering our prayers or paying attention to our aches and pains, neglecting His children while He takes a nap.

That is not the case no matter how much Satan would love to get us to believe this tremendous lie. The Bible promises us in Psalm 121:3 that the One who watches over us will NOT slumber. He doesn’t go off duty. He is there for us day and night.

Unanswered prayers don’t mean God is asleep at the wheel. His answers come when He is ready to give them. That may be within a week, a year, or when we reach Heaven. Some answers we recognize and others go by unnoticed because they’re answered in a different way than what we were expecting.

We are the ones capable of falling asleep at the wheel by not paying attention. At one point or another we all find ourselves dosing off at the wheel and neglecting what we need to be doing to be the kind of children God wants us to be. We are the ones responsible for staying alert. Demonstrating in our lives faith in action by watching over the needs of others, obeying God’s commands, heeding to His discipline, or making sure we’re dressed and ready for Heaven at all times.

Don’t miss the journey to Heaven just because you fell asleep halfway there. Being a backseat driver and telling God how to drive won’t do either. We need to wake up and turn the wheel of our lives over to Him to do the steering.

© 2009 Karen J. Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing

Picture Dees #26 Where are the Adults?

Years ago….uh oh…attention shut down. I can feel it! Whenever adults try to make a point they talk about how it was when they were kids. Bear with me kids and you’ll get the point.

Once upon a time…does that sound better…my sister and I took our three daughters down to the irrigation ditch below where my sister was living. Bringing back memories of “years ago” when we were kids we told our daughters about all the fun we had playing in the ditches. We played a game called alligator we told them. The object of the game was for everyone to get in the ditch and crawl along on their bellies acting like alligators. Not to far into the memory my sister and I looked at each other and suddenly jumped into the ditch fully clothed pretending to be alligators.

After several moments of rolling laughter my niece interrupted our trip down memory lane by saying, “Are there any adults here?!” Opps I guess we were acting kind of childish remembering back to the good old days.

As I watch the news today and hear the things that are going on in our society today I find myself in the position my niece was asking “Are there any adults out there?”

Everywhere you turn it seems like the adults now-a-days are acting just as childish as the kids are. Parents shooting other parents at school sport functions. Adults beating up each other in protest over costumes selected for a school program at Thanksgiving. Disrespect at its highest being role-modeled to the younger generations via television, home living, schools, and road rage.

Kids use to be taught to respect the flag, God, the law, and each other. Now the adults are burning the flag, taking the pledge of allegiance out of school, making up their own interpretation of the law and expecting people to honor it. Knocking down others and running over them at local convenient stores only to stampede to the nearest bargain table. Greed seems to be on the rise and self-worth is on the decline.

Where are the adults? How is the next generation coming up suppose to know how adults are to behave when there doesn’t appear to be any adults out there? In the cycle of life eventually the children we raise are responsible for taking care of us when we get old. Let us not start the process early by having them be the adults because of our own childish behavior.

When God created the cycle of life as it is He put the adults in charge and made them responsible for teaching the younger generation. It’s up to us to see that it’s done and done right!

Sorry kids, you’re probably wondering why I was talking more to adults than you. I hope you didn’t run get mommy and daddy and say, “See you need to do this or that.” The thing of it is you are responsible for your actions just like they are responsible for their own.

When we all stand before Jesus some day the excuse of “Well my mommy did it, or this is what my daddy did,” will not excuse us from unacceptable behavior in God’s eyes. Learn from God Himself through His Holy word the Bible what is right and wrong and then make your choices using the wisdom we all have within us if we would only use it.

Some day you will be an adult before you know it, may they never ask “where’s the adults” as you make wise choices and Godly decisions using Christ as your standard instead of those around you.

Copyright 2008 Karen J. Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing

WTLB~~~Go First Anyway

When you’re a kid wanting to go first is no problem. It’s a constant race to see who gets to the car first, who finishes their candy bar first, who gets to mom first to tattle, and on and on and on. Having someone tell you to go first anyway seems like a great invitation to get what you want. Sure I’ll be the first in line, the first to open my presents, the first at everything I do.

Unfortunately that is not the kind of first we are talking about here. It’s the first to say I’m sorry, it’s the first to lend a hand to someone in need, the first to do what you know is right in spite of others not following. The first to go forward even though you think it is the other person that needs to make the first move.

Not doing what we need to do just because someone else didn’t go first is not an excuse that God would accept and neither should we. We are each responsible for our own actions and they should never be based on what others have or haven’t done. Our pride shouldn’t get in the way. Our own thoughts and feelings should never dictate what we do. Go first anyway and you’d be surprised at the end results whether immediately seen or not.

Copyright 2008 Karen J. Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing

Picture Dees #2 A "Typer" in Heaven

More often than not Heaven is quite the mystery to us. It’s hard to picture something we have never seen. Will it have trees like we have? Will there be water? Will the sky be blue and the grass green? In an attempt to figure out her own picture of heaven Marissa one day thought it would be great if there were “typer’s” in heaven she called them. Angels assigned the daily duty of sitting down at a computer typing up a day-by-day schedule for everyone on what they were going to do for the day.

Although God is well aware of what we are doing and what is going on down here on earth there are no angels typing up what our moves are going to be ahead of time. God created us to have a freewill with the built in ability to choose our own steps. Unfortunately that is what gets us in to trouble most of the time. However, it’s from those mistakes or bad choices that we learn to gather our skills on how to walk with Jesus and become better people.

Too frequently we get upset with others, like our parents, asking them when we find ourselves in the midst of trouble, “Why in the world didn’t you stop me from making this choice. If God really loved me He would have stopped me from doing what I did. Why isn’t there a “typer” in heaven planning my every move so I will stay out of difficult and dangerous times?”

From the day you are born the job of making right choices is your responsibility and as you grow older you get the task of mapping out what you are going to do with your life. You can use the advice of others to help you decide but the choice still remains with you. Like the epilepsy I was struck with for 12 years out of my young adult life there are some circumstances that come along un-invited, not planned, and not welcomed. They can mess up big time the plans we have made for ourselves. Thus the desire for the magical angelic “typer in heaven” becomes appealing to us hoping that someone can tell us how to get out of what we’ve gotten ourselves in to.

Well that is not the way to make use of Jesus or heaven. With the Bible as your map and Jesus as your guide what you do with your life is in your hands. You are the ones “typing up” the “what next” by the choices you make in life. Take responsibility for your own actions and don’t wait or dream for those “Typers” in heaven to see you through. Jesus is the one who will see you through if you allow Him to be a part of your life. Decide today on a decision that will last for all eternity.

Copyright 2008 Marissa and Karen J. Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing