Lists of 2013 - #10 - Things I've Given Up To God

Listography 2013 - #10 - Things I've Given Up To God

1.  My marriage

2.  My children and grandchildren

3.  Safety while driving, for all of us

4.  My health

5.  Our finances, always remembering that He asks us to tithe

6.  My job and when I will work, as well as each day that I work

7.  Trying to understand grief, loss and suffering

8.  Preparing roads to understanding and reconciliation in relationships

9.  Christmas and Easter (seeking to leave more and more of the commercialism behind)

10.  Growing crops and the weather

11.  Daily opportunities for service

12.  Trusting that He will provide all that I need for today and not worrying about tomorrow

13.  Daily prayer and Bible reading

A Prayer for Epiphany

source via Pinterest

Almighty and ever-living God,

you revealed the incarnation of your Son

by the brilliance of a star.

Shine the light of your justice

in our hearts and over all lands.

Accept our lives as the treasure 

that we bring to offer to this new king.  

We offer now our prayer and praise

in gratitude of Jesus the Christ,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit

one God now and forever,

Amen.

(ELCIC prayer of the day)

Lists of 2012 - #42

Listography 2012 - #42 - Answered Prayers

1.  For safety while driving daily

2.  For guiding our decisions and actions while being stewards of the land and farming

3.  For continuing good health for me and those I love

4.  For dignity for our parents while they age

5.  For energy, strength, curiosity and the ability to learn for our grandchildren

6.  For bountiful food that we've produced

7.  For wisdom in finances

8.  For patience - moment by moment some days

9.  For days of subbing

10.  For simpler, quieter, intentional living

11.  For opportunities to serve in many places in many ways

12.  For grace day after day

Five on Friday

1.  Have you ever wondered what's ahead for you?  Around the Corner by Jan O'Daniel at Amplifying Joy is an excellent read.

2.  Making potato salad for a birthday celebration on Sunday!  2 dozen eggs + 25 lbs. of potatoes + 1 jar of mayonnaise + 4 bunches radishes + 2 huge metal bowls = a lot of work + a whole lot of yummy-ness!

3.  Olympics, Olympics, Olympics!  I love that I can turn the TV on at any time of the day or night and there's Olympic game coverage on to watch, even on our peasant vision plan :)

4.  One of the things I love best about watching the Olympic games is the opportunity it gives me to learn more about the host country, its cultures and its people.  Now I really want to go to England!

Olympic Stadium

5.  Peyton's coming to visit tomorrow - it's her first visit to our house and I am so excited to have her (and her Mommy and Daddy) here to see us!!

He is Risen!

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life.
Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,
and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.
Do you believe this?"           John 11: 25 - 26

Five on Friday

1.  National Geographic had a special online article this week titled Best Spring Trips to take in 2012.  Go and look at the pictures and read about the places to visit if you are yearning for a travel experience today.

#1 is the Cherry Blossom Festival 

in Washington, D.C.

2.  And did you know that National Geographic does not allow you to use Pinterest from their site?!

3.  I stopped at a local store earlier this week to check for a certain kind of tomato seed - and I was absolutely blown away by all the new choices this spring!  Seriously, you have to have a list when you walk in because you will be so tempted by all the pretty pictures on the packets.

4.  This excellent post by Lindsay at Passionate Homemaking on observing  Lent and Easter with a variety of projects looks awesome.  I like the nature scavenger hunt that has a family looking for objects to remind them of the life of Jesus. 

5.  Here's a great little article on starting seeds.  I especially like the chart, even though it's American.  

Five on Friday

1.  After reading the book,

we are trying to eat a wheat free diet.  It's challenging - especially when it comes to baking and favourites like pizza - but we are seeing a difference in our health already.   Heather and Jonathan tried a recipe for Cauliflower Pizza Crust and it was delicious.  So today I made a Chicken and Veggie Pizza on a Cauliflower Crust.  The recipe is on this post and she showed some good techniques to make it work better.  It's now on my list of great substitutes!

(photo from detoxinista.com)

2.  After the big snowstorm earlier this week, it's turned warm and certainly seems alot like spring with puddles everywhere.  Spring must be just around the corner :)

3.  Our little Maëlle is getting very close to walking.  The other night, I was holding her hands and she was taking steps when she just let go of my fingers and wanted to stand there all by herself.  She's getting brave, brave, brave!  What a little go-getter she will be when she's walking :)

4.  Jennifer at Getting Down with Jesus shared a great post about her husband, "What a Man Will Do When He Becomes a Miracle" this week.  This song was featured - the words are so profound!




5. Are you ready for daylight saving time to begin? Sleep fast on Saturday night so you can wake up early :) Our poor granddaughter has a 9 a.m. hockey game in a town nearly an hour away from their home - what a way to start a day!

Walk With Him Wednesday

cracked

empty 

stained and worn

not much to look at

but

made into something beautiful

when filled up

and growing -

just like me

when I am planted

and growing 

in Him!

Walk With Him Wednesday

Thinking About Hope In a Potato Patch

As I pull out the dried stems and leaves and dig through the dirt today to find the potatoes, I think back to the day the sprouts were buried deep in the garden soil.  Each one was just a little piece of red and white with two or three small growing ends beginning to break out of the eyes.   And we had hope and trusted that the Master Grower who created all things living had blueprinted reproduction in these potatoes and there would be plants and flowers and tubers soon growing.  That was only four months ago and now I scrape the hard dirt away from eight or ten tubers per hill.  The little bit of hope with some sunlight and rain grew and multiplied into these red orbs that will feed us and others on many days when the land is covered in snow.

Then I begin to think about the little bits of hope that are planted by my actions, sometimes not intentionally at all or even when I realize it.  The  times in a classroom when math problems are tackled or sentences are written.  The smile and chat I have with a lonely student as I supervise at recess.   The sharing of a few ripe tomatoes and crunchy apples with those who no longer have yards or gardens, only an apartment in town.  The letters and scripture verses of love and guidance that are sent to Ethiopia and Brazil to our Compassion children.  Small things to me really but perhaps to them a bit of hope planted in a lonely or hurting heart.  Who knows what a few months or many years will grow with that hope?  When watered and nourished by the One who promises living water and His light I am absolutely convinced that those seeds will mature in ways that I have no idea about now.

So I keep planting hope, daily and piece by piece, and leave the rest to Him.

Walk With Him Wednesday

This morning when I slipped out of the house early, just after sunrise to bring in the beets pulled at dark last night, the rising sun was lighting the straw bales, all golden and round.  The new day was dawning on a new season and all the goodness of summer was wrapped and rolled and laid down all over the field. Soft circular shapes glowed here and there, signalling to all who looked that the harvest was over and gathered in on this parcel of land.

And I was reminded of all the goodness He wraps and lays down for me, all over my days.  Bales of grace, wrapped in eucharisteo, laid in rows of gratitude.  The moment was golden as the light reached into my soul and the sounds of geese honking trumpeted my thanks heavenward.

9 / 11

I remember driving home from my friend's house that morning, just after 7 a.m.  We had gone for an early walk before each heading to our separate teaching jobs and as I drove  around the corner, there was a news bulletin with details of the first plane hitting the first tower.  By the time I got to school an hour later,  there were more grim details and the TV was set up in the library where high school students and staff gathered to watch the news all day long.    That continued for most of the week as we tried to come to grips with what had happened and why.  Our world was changed in a huge way.

It seems that the struggle to understand continues and the words hurled back and forth have done little to make things better.  Oh, the choices we humans make that take us so far away from God, each other and peace.  I pray that each of us works to understand others and work peacefully with those around us while serving God and sharing His love and hope.   I am thankful that I love and know a God who is bigger than all of this!

Gratitude Gifts

Another month ended and we are living in the days of Easter now.  These are the days of remembering that He took all our sins so that we might live forever.  These are the days that remind me that there is really no other way to heaven, except by believing and then thanking Him for taking it all from me.  All the good I try to do doesn't matter one single bit if I don't accept that He is my Saviour.  It's only through Him that I live and breath and have my being - and it's through Him that I have grace every day.




#2411 - #2456


- snowbanks reduced to nothing
- waking to sunshine
- hiking around the yard with grandchildren
- finding the first stalks of rhubarb pushing through the ground
- tiny purple crocuses blooming beside the snow
- planning for weiner roasts
- little hands clasped across carseats
- Sunday's message about our Saviour
- dads that cook Sunday lunches
- playing Cinderella and Three Billy Goats Gruff

- piles of folded laundry

- plants growing in containers

- a windowsill full of note cards
- blue sky and puffy clouds

- new shoes
- soup for lunch
- fresh bread
- a new barbecue (thanks D & K, N & J!)
- babysitting our beautiful grandchildren
- little boys playing

- summer plans
- greenhouse opening
- peanut butter chocolate cups
- Mother's Day
- colors
- the vacuum cleaner
- first bike rides

- last bags of summer fruit from the freezer
- the right and responsibility of voting
- bills paid
- turning the calendar to find new pictures
- finding birthday gifts

- learning more about Bible heroes
- healing for a broken body part
- tax returns filed
- buds on branches

- book orders
- dishes washed
- weddings
- sound of tractor starting after a complete overhaul
- my husband's pride in completing the job well
- delphinium growing

- encouragement
- thoughts of my grandma
- reading this:  
Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die." John 11: 25 - 26

Transforming

Watching the news today, it was awful to see the devastation that Japan has suffered after the earthquake and tsunami.  It made me think so much of chapter 5 in One Thousand Gifts when Ann talks about wondering how to trust God - even when bad things happen.  

"How to lay the hand open for this moment's bread - when it will hurt."  p. 80

And then her realization, shared with me and all her readers - 

"Take the pain that is given, give thanks for it. and transform it into a joy that fulfills all emptiness."  p 100

"All is grace only because all can transfigure." p. 101

And He transfigures me and uses me.  How shall I react to this tragedy? 

Would You Know Him?

From Brian Andreas at Storypeople today:


One time on Hollywood Boulevard I saw a young girl with a baby. It was a crisp winter morning & her hair shone dark purple in the sun. She was panhandling outside the Holiday Inn & the door clerk came out & told her to be on her way & I wondered if anyone would recognize the Christ child if they happened to meet. I remember thinking it's not like there are any published pictures & purple seemed like a good color for a Madonna so I gave her a dollar just in case.

My Role

 In the last 5 years it has come to me that God wants me to serve Him by serving my family. That is contrary to what the world wants me to believe - no big surprise that God's way is not the way of the world, is it?! But He gave me the role and joy of being a mother for a reason and I honour Him when I enjoy that role. And I have His model of parenting to follow - His always giving, always sacrificing, always waiting, always loving model. So my calling and my time are my gifts with which to serve Him. (written in response to a blog question from Jeanne @ At A Hen's Pace)

A Song for Everyday

For a Sunday

Check This Out!

Melinda is the featured writer with "It Isn't Fair" over at PCC Web Daily Devotionals today.  I encourage you to check it out.  I think her message about grace and mercy is a good one for all of us to ponder.  May your day be blessed!

Ten on Thursday

1.  Twice this week I've come across quotes that express the same sentiment:

"What we pay attention to is how we spend our lives."  Ann @ A Holy Experience

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."  Annie Dillard via Rebecca Sower @ Out of Hand

I think I get the message!

2.  Going to Nova Scotia in 5 more sleeps!!

3.  I love fresh cherries - and I bought the first ones of the season today.  They came from Washington State which is kind of far away - such a dilemma about buying produce that has to be transported long distances.

4.  Here's a totally inspiring assignment for you from Shimelle - A Week of Color.  Today's assignment was "blue" and I just happened to have these images from my visit with my sister.  Camrose, the city she works in, has some gorgeous places in it! 

I would love to live in either of these houses :))

5.  Living on top of a hill + living in the country = hard bike riding = stronger muscles eventually, right??

6.  Just finishing up the last couple of menu items for our camping trip this weekend.  It's going to be a fun time with temperatures in the high 20's and a whole crowd of good people coming.

7.  It got up to +24 degrees C today and none of the windows in our house were open so it was hot inside when I got home.  It's nice to be able to open up all the windows and let the breeze come inside.

8.  Nothing like tackling cleaning out the fridge when one is trying to pack up to go away! I guess if I wouldn't leave it go so long I wouldn't have this problem :(

9.  It certainly is nice to open the fridge door and see everything in its place, clean and tidy!!  See #8 above :)

10.  It's Farmer's Day tomorrow in our county, a long standing tradition.  A day off school for kids, some community picnics and pancakes breakfasts - and most farmers still spraying, caring for cattle and otherwise occupied farming!

A Message

Thanks for sharing this, Linds. 

 It's so good that I had to share it.  Blessings to each of you who have passed by today.