A Visitor Here

Today I was supposed to work, but for reasons that have the potential to depress me if I talk about them, I did not work.  While driving home, I realized that I was going to be able to attend the remaining church service.  I found a place to park and as I entered the church building, the new pastor (whom I have yet to meet) was saying something about "the people parish....or as my father used to say they will find a new parish."  Everyone laughed and then he proceeded with his sermon.  It was an odd feeling I had as I approached the sanctuary and began the search for my hubby among the many who were all looking toward the pulpit.  I was unable to find him and thought that perhaps he had not attended the service today for some reason.  It was at this point that it occurred to me that this feeling is something that many have felt when entering a church.  It has only been about 2 months since I was last attended church due to my work schedule.....how must it feel for those who have not attended for many years or maybe never!  It must be absolutely, overwhelmingly uncomfortable.  This is my church home and when I didn't see Dale there today (he told me later that he was sitting on the back row which is up against the wall...the only place I didn't search for him) I simply left.  It was a very uncomfortable feeling to be there in the middle of it all and to not feel a part of it all.  This feeling stuck with me this whole afternoon and I can only imagine how those who have been gone from church for so long must feel extremely uncomfortable.  Hopefully, soon I will be able to attend again and my work schedule will change so that that is possible.  If not, I will continue to listen to K-Love, read my Bible each day and study His work and pray.  Just because I am not there physically at church, I am staying connected to the Vine through time spent talking with Him (prayer) and time spent listening to Him (reading His work and time spent following His example (doing things in my life that He has called me to do).  I do miss many in my church family and have heard that a few miss me as well. It was a strange feeling today to be back in church, but I feel the Lord showed me that he wants me to be a bit more compassionate toward other "visitors" when they get up the nerve to come back to church or actually show up for the first time. :)

June Is Here!

So my attempt to post a blog-a-day-for-the-month-of- May went better than I expected.  I think I only missed about 5 days.......4 of them being the last four days of the month....oooops!  Not bad, considering everything that is currently going on in my little world.  

Today,  I wanted to share the following revelation that took place in my heart.  Why is it that I often want the Lord to extend grace to me, but then on the other hand, grace is the last thing I want to extend to another?  Why is it that instead, I want the Lord to somehow hold that person accountable for their actions (or lack of action)?  Shouldn't I seek for them the same degree of forgiveness that I expect the Lord to extend to me at times when I am sinning, rebelling or otherwise choosing my own way over His?  hummm.....got me thinking about times that I have asked forgiveness for a sin in my life and then held another person accountable for the sin in their life?  The word hypocrite came to mind.  Harsh and hard for me to take.....but when I want someone else to have forgiveness withheld, I am in fact being just that....a hypocrite.  Ouch!  

Not wanting to do this, I have started to pray for those who offend me/sin against me/irritate me/annoy me etc. wow...now THERE is an idea...extend grace to others as He has to me.  Hmmmm....what a great idea!  It is amazing to me the difference that this heart-change has made in my life lately!  What freedom there is not only in being forgiven, but in forgiving!  Thanks you Lord for your example of how to forgive!

Summer time on the coast

Glad that there are so many people from out of town as that really adds to our local economy.  Not so glad that they drive a little crazy and tend to think that they are the only people needing servicee when they come into a business.  Just sayin'.....

My dad always had a saying: "I have two speeds: if you don't like this one, you sure won't like the other one."  Sometimes, I just have to remind myself that I am one person trying to make a living and can only do so much before it becomes too much.  Everyone has a breaking point...and I almost, yes almost, found mine recently.  Assisting 8 people and then person number 9 says, "Excuse me....is there anyone else that can take my order?" Mind you, the other person at work was already assisting 4 other people and we had stated several times that we were the only people in the store and that orders were backing up and may take a bit longer than normal.  Now if there WAS someone else there, wouldn't it benefit the customers as well as benefit me to go get them and have them help the next 4-5 people in line?  Not sure why people sometimes think as they do, but this is a lesson in reacting in a Godly fashion rather than coming back with a negative sure to be rebutted with yet another negative.  Everyone got their orders and left happy.....and it all had a lot to do with a small but very valuable word: attitude.  With the right attitude, much can be accomplished. :)

When in a business, I always try to be extremely patient with the clerk.  They too are trying to making a living. :)  Patience is a practiced art.  It is something that can be learned, but it usually painful to learn in the beginning and gets easier as you practice it.  Now that I have said that, the next "test" is sure to come.  Just hopefully, it will be after the Memorial Day extended weekend.  Phew!!!

Rhoddies, Roots and Replanting

Today I purchased some Rhododendrons for my year from a local grower.  As I was planting one in my yard, I was reminded of just how tough it is to break through the turf and soil to get a hole dug that is big enough to accommodate the plant.  I have several of these plants around my yard and try to get one or two more additions every other year or so.  The beautiful blooms are a wonderful addition to my yard and the pop of color is awesome!  


Sometimes in my life, my heart is much like the ground I was working with today.  The moss and grass was tough to break through and then the root of some of the adjacent trees were fighting to stay in place.  Isn't that a lot like a human heart?  Something beautiful is ready to be planted, but oh how the roots of my sinful nature cling to the soil and fight to stay in place!  With a little persistence, my shovel was able to take out what was needing to be taken out to form a whole that something beautiful was soon to fill. 


As I placed the Rhoddy into the hole I had dug, I then began to push the dirt back into the void.  Now, since it has been raining off and on recently, the ground was moist and the dirt was stuck to the root ball of the grass and moss.  As I shook the dirt loose, I was reminded of a time in my life in which the Lord wanted to plant something beautiful in my heart by having me prayerfully look at each aspect of what was in there, sort it out, get rid of what is not needed and replace what is necessary along with the new "thing" He wanted to grow in me.  I pushed the dirt back around the plant and filled in the remaining areas of the hole I had planted it in.  As I stood back and looked at the Rhododendron in its new home, I was picturing a what it will look like in a few years when it grows and begins to flower.  The purplish-blue flowers are going to look awesome when blooming next to the yellow flowers of the adjacent Rhoddy.  


After planting my first Rhoddy today, I began to dig a whole for the second of the three I pick out today.  As I jumped on my rusty shovel, I heard a loud "snap!" and must now purchase a new one in order to dig the two remaining holes.  Below is a picture of the type of plant I purchased today.  Mind you, mine is much smaller at this point in time and has no flowers. :)  BUT, some day, in about 10 years it will look a lot like this. 

Making Up Our Own, I Tell Ya!

So my brother and I carpool to our jobs almost each day.  (Hard sometimes for me to believe that I survived growing up sharing the same room with this boy!)  Anyway......normally, I listen to K-love on my commutes, but my brother likes '70's and '80's rock music.  Since I don't mind that sort of music, and he can only handle so much positive and encouraging music, we have recently changed the station to a local rock station.  All of our lives, it seems, we have made up our own words to the tune of whatever song is playing.  It is always on the fly, while the song is playing.  One of us will start to sing using different words and the other one soon is joining in....usually for the chorus (if predictable as to where the song is headed) or for verse two.  My brother always gets the guitar solos (I am the one driving) and I will sometime join in on the drumming end of things by tapping my steering wheel (safely of course).   I must say, today was an exceptionally creative day.   It began with, "We don't want to work today...NO!...we don't want to work today!  We don't want to work today, we want to play!" (From the song "We're not Gonna Take It".  We ended with, "Don't Stop Believin" that went a little something like this. Me: "I'm just a small town girl, drivin' on this lonely road, I'd take the midnight train but there aren't any here."  My brother (the fisherman): "I'm just a small town boy, never been to south Detroit, I take the midnight ship going way out there." Chorus: "Don't stop......sneezin'...Because it is the season....Allergies and pollen.....oh-oh-ohhhhhh".

Ok, I'll stop now....I'll stop.

A Little Four-letter Word....

....L-o-v-e!  Been thinking a lot about this one.  Seems that from time to time the Lord will give me a word to ponder and with each passing day for at-that-point-yet-to-be-determined length of time, He uses that word in many different ways to speak new Truth, new Life and new Hope into my heart.  Lately, that word has been "love".  Not in the sense of "I love chocolate", or "I love my husband" or not even, "I love when that happens!"  He has been teaching me through many different ways and situations lately that He wants me to love as He loves.  Now, for those of you who have gone to church for more than a few Sundays in your life, I am sure that you have heard a sermon or two on love.  I have been reading and re-reading the "Love Chapter" as it is affectionately called.  That is 1 Corinthians chapter 13.  I have posted it here below in The Message translation, as I read it in this version for the first time last night and was able to collect a little more knowledge about what it means to love as He loves.  Really puts it into a proper perspective as to how God feels we should strive to love others.  I especially love the was this translation shares His thoughts on love in verses 8-10.  Wow!

Then in verse 12.....I had read this and then traveled to work the next morning in an Oregon coast fog.  Coincident that I was driving in a fog just a few short hours after reading this chapter again yesterday morning?  I know Him well enough to know that things like this are never a "coincident".  Enjoy, and please share if you gather any new insights from this chapter. :)  BTW....I know that with any lesson comes a challenge.....a test if you will..... so I wonder who it is that He is preparing for me to show His kind of love to.  Ok, now I am a bit frightened to push the "post" button on this one!  LOL!  Nope, no fear for those who trust in Him!  Whoot!

1 Corinthians 13

The Way of Love

 ¹ If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. ²If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. ^3-7If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love. 

   Love never gives up. 
   Love cares more for others than for self. 
   Love doesn't want what it doesn't have. 
   Love doesn't strut, 
   Doesn't have a swelled head, 
   Doesn't force itself on others, 
   Isn't always "me first," 
   Doesn't fly off the handle, 
   Doesn't keep score of the sins of others, 
   Doesn't revel when others grovel, 
   Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, 
   Puts up with anything, 
   Trusts God always, 
   Always looks for the best, 
   Never looks back, 
   But keeps going to the end.

 ^8-10Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

 ¹¹When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

 ¹²We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

 ¹³But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

Best Made Plans....

.....are not always His plans.  This past weekend I was at a local Home and Garden show in the Sherwin-Williams booth.  By the time I arrived back home around 10 each evening, I did not have the energy to log on and post a daily blog.  Ugh!  While I had plans, He had other plans for me.  Hummm....like that has never happened before in my life......right!

Is't that usually the case?  The best "God-moments" happen when we have made plans to do something else and He shakes it up a bot for us.  So thankful that He has been helping me to become a person who embraces change rather than pushing through and doing what I want to do.  It is much easier, I have found, to go His route from the get-go rather than jumping on board half-way through.  Love that about Him!!