Monday Manna For July 6, Giveaways, Ponds, and the Holy of Holies

Yeah - lots to cover in this post!

First, in case you don't know, I'm celebrating my Blogoversary this week--be sure to stop by Monday's post to enter the drawing for the wonderful book Women of Passions: Ordinary Women Serving an Extraordinary God.

Also, I'm posting over at Exemplify this week, in my series Ponderings on the Pentateuch. I'm writing about one (and probably the ONLY!) way my backyard pond is like the Holy of Holies. Stop by and check out Again, For The Very First Time. (and for a teaser, here are some pictures!)

And last, but CERTAINLY not least:



The purpose of Monday Manna is to get together and get to know Christ more through His Word.

For those of you unfamiliar, on the first and third Mondays of each month, anyone who wants to participate can post their thoughts on a specific verse. The verse is posted here at my blog on the Thursday before, to allow you to chew on it over the weekend. It doesn't have to be a long post -- just a few thoughts, a picture you feel helps express it, a poem, a short story, a devotional. Just post it on your blog on Mondayish (early OR late is fine, by the way!), then come back here and link up in the MckLinky gadget that will be at the bottom of MY post at o'dark thirty that morning.

Because we're celebrating Independence Day here in the United States (I know not all my readers are Americans), I though a verse about freedom would be appropriate. This one particularly challenged me.

Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God. 1 Peter 2:16 NIV

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts. Hope to see you back here on Monday!