Seen on a sign on my way home

Live your life as if it is worth the price Jesus paid for it.

How Great Thou Art!

I was running a little late for work last week, but oh, what a bonus when I was presented with this wonderful sunrise!

Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee
How great Thou art....how great Thou art

The Nature of Things

We can forget our prayers as we move through life, but God never forgets. Nor does He lose interest or imply a statute of limitations on His obligations if a prayer is not answered promptly and we forget. Sometimes it's only as we see prayers being answered we suddenly recall. I believe that God does answer the prayers of a heart that is turned toward Him. The trick is trusting Him, having faith, and finding the patience to watch God work. He created all things in an orderly fashion. He created the laws of the universe. And I believe that He works things out within the laws of that universe He created. God doesn't *zap* a great tree into existence. He grows it over time, in accordance with it's nature.

Right now my human nature wants to doubt, yet I am even now experiencing a great plan of God's being grown into existence. I feel like today a scab was lifted to expose new skin underneath, tender and hurting, but healthy. Again, God does not *zap* healing and growth. It must follow the nature of things and it will grow fresh and even healthier than before. But the scab cannot be yanked off before it's time lest the tender new growth underneath be severely damaged and healing be compromised. After new growth is complete, there may even be a scar, but won't that scar forever remind us of a battle won?

I think of my Mom in Florida right now. What a miracle of God's love! I think of my Dad. What a lifetime of prayers answered! I think of my marriage. Wow, God is awesome! I think of our children. God is so very gracious. I think of a couple who sacrificed so much for their love of God. As three of their family neared the end of their days on earth, I saw God give them a special gift of precious months together as a whole family to bring each other comfort and encouragement and see them through the grief of loss.

Yes, so much of the time I don't see it until it's complete and the tree stands before me strong and tall. NOTE TO SELF-have faith.

Today...

Yesterday was a lousy day. My cold was hitting me with full force, I was way too tired, and the pessimist in me came out in full force. But that was yesterday, and today is the first day of the rest of my life. So here is a list of some good things that happened to me today, in no particular order...

1) Tim and I had a full morning to ourselves to wake up without an alarm clock, shop at our leisure and even take time for a Starbucks and a croissant.

2) I found the perfect Carter's pink fuzzy snowsuit for Paige marked down from $55.00 to $16.50. It was the last snowsuit in the store and it was perfect. I also found the cutest little sleeper marked down from $18.00 to $3.60.

3) I picked up some Hershey dark chocolate bars to look forward to for the coming week.

4) We ran into a friend at the store I'd been intending to Email and we had a nice long chat. You know, like when you're trying to get through a grocery store and here are these people standing around with their shopping carts chatting and you want to tell them "go find a place to sit and talk and quit clogging the aisles!" Yeah, one of those nice chats.

5) I found a new cold medicine that tastes so good it can (almost) make me look forward to getting a cold. You want the name of it, huh? I'll share. It's Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold Formula Cherry Burst. (Sorry, don't know how that trademark thing works, so pretend it's there.)

6) I bought some new socks, and they aren't white knee-highs and they don't look like Tim's so we won't get our socks confused in the wash. (I'm always raiding his sock drawer anyway, so this is something he'll probably consider a good thing, too.)

7) I blew my nose and it was one of those really good blows that cleared my sinuses way down to the tips of my big toes. I love when that happens.

8)Sick as I was, Tim was an angel and sat with Paige all last evening, and I finished the bookwork for the week. So I don't have to do that tonight.

9)We got a chance to get to the grocery store, so there's FOOD in the house.

10) A Cardinal flew across our path on the drive home. That's always a good sign that you've reached the end of a long winter and Spring is about to be sprung. (The red kind with feathers....but I guess you already knew that.)

Long Day

It's going to be a long day today. I'm going in 1/2 hr late, so I'll be working 7:30am to 7:30pm. *yawn* It's my turn to man an evening training lab. It worked out since I needed to take off early yesterday to babysit. Tim will be babysitting tonight until about 8 when I get home. The days are very, very busy. Tim has taken over feeding the horses in the morning because I'm up later at night with the baby while Toni is working. Now they eat at 4am. They think they're going to starve on weekends when they don't get fed before sunrise. :)

I can't tell you how much I appreciate such a wonderful husband through this very manic time of our life. Somehow amidst all the drama in our home, jobs and church he just goes along taking one day at a time letting God have control. Wow! I wouldn't trade this life for anyone I know.

Lucky Puppy

Taylor's a lucky puppy! Now that Grandma gave her a nice new jacket she can play soccer outside, even when the temperature dips WELL below zero like today.

The Nine Commandments - and One Suggestion

You know which one I mean.

Well, haven't you ever treated it like that? We can come up with varied interpretations for remembering the Sabbath, but evidence throughout the Bible indicates to me that it goes right along with taking a weekly day of rest.

The other Commandments make sense, they are obviously extremely important, but God must have thrown that one about the Sabbath in to round out the ten.

It was a suggestion, right? God knows it's the only day of the week I have to catch up on my work, and besides, it's the only day I have to get ready for the week ahead. If I wasn't so busy, it would be different.

Fact is, God was so serious about it that He made provisions for a day of rest when he kept the manna fresh for an extra day once a week. In fact, He insisted on it.

Could it be that taking a day to lay aside the guilt for what you aren't getting accomplished and spending some time in refreshment of mind and body is so important that God put it right up there with Thou Shalt Not Kill?

I'm always tired, stressed and guilt-ridden about what I'm not getting done. I need more time in the week, not less. But just maybe God knows something about His creation that I don't know.

GOD - "Do ya think?"

Coming Home

Tim and I have come home.

The journey over the past few years has brought many changes to our lives. I sometimes think I've lived and grown more in the past 10 years than in the previous 40 combined. (Go ahead, do the math +1 :)

We both left so much behind even as we embraced so much that was new to each of us. We grew as individuals, and we learned to trust and grow as a couple. Our separate families completed that transition to becoming one with the births of our two grand-babies. There's a country song that goes something like:

You start walking your way, and I'll start walking mine...and we'll meet in the middle.

Tim and I have seen a lot of "middle ground", our pasts coming together until we have come to a more defined picture of who "we" are as one shared life, one family, and a single shared vision. We are now ready to plant our shared roots and grow through sun, rain or storm. We are ready to go back to that small church where I come from and become a part of it's history. I don't know what place we will have, but I do know there is a place for us there.

Enough already?? OK. All this was to say we have set up "permanent" URLs, so feel free to update your links and continue along in the adventure that is our life.