Random Loveliness

My friend Jeanie was sharing random thoughts on her blog and at the end she asked what random loveliness had her readers been enjoying.  This prompted the following response from me. (I did add a few more for here)  These are some of the loveliness I've enjoyed lately.  

Our middle daughter Carla moved back in and I’m so enjoying her cause I know it won’t last long.  I’m enjoying her sweetness and her presence.  She is such a beautiful person inside as well as outside. She is creative, funny, did I mention beautiful?  I love this season while it's here.  

Bekki, who is 5, and I made a diaper cake for a cousin’s little one. Bekki decided what it needed was the orange feather she had drawn. That sounded okay but it also had brown monkey stickers with red hearts on them and a touch of purple on it. So the color scheme was a challenge. We used multi-colored cupcake ribbons and dotted ribbons with orange netting to cover all. Colors were out of my comfort zone but my sweet Bekki loved it. Hope the cousin's mom does too.

We had a snow day! Who doesn’t love a snow day? Pay without having to go to work and time to play.. Carla and Bekki being here  were the icing on the cake or snow on the roof? lol  Of course a snow day in Tennessee requires a lot less snow than I imagine Colorado does. What a fun day!

And Jack's cooing when Mandi calls.  Wish I could capture these days.  I'm storing up the memories of him at this age.

I’m reading through the Bible too but after umpteen times of only getting through the first books. I started last summer with Deuteronomy and in the NT, Acts.  I read Acts than read chronologically the rest of the NT circling back to Matthew. I’m now in I Chronicles. Goodness the Kings and Chronicles were like drudging through mud. Blood, wars, killings etc. Sorry Lord but Yuck! But what I've loved is that right in the midst of the gore there will be a bright spot of the Lord’s faithfulness or a person will be a follower of God after maybe 3 generations of his family were truly terrible unfaithful people. I’m enjoying it overall.

There is a free magazine box at the allergist office. This week there was some lovely magazines and some very neat catalogs. I love that there are catalogs of clothes or home products that I would never have seen if some sweet soul hadn't left them there. I do need to bring some of them back though. So easy to accumulate too many.

And last Saturday Paul and I had to go down to the charming little town where we pay our property taxes and had a sweet relaxing day. The best part it was unplanned it just kind of unfolded.  A gift from God after 2 hard weeks.  We went to a down home, small town cafe/diner. We had never been there since the current owners had started running it.  All the people were looking at us like “who is that?” We live on the edge of our county and go to the main city in the next county for most of our living so we were strangers. Than we went thrifting at a perfectly delightful little shop. i bought 3 journals for $2.  And afterward ice cream at the pharmacy.They have a whole little old fashioned place with little stools to sit on.  It was the girls second day.  She had never made a sundae.  They used what they called wet walnuts.  I had never heard of them.  Very delicious.   It is such a pretty 
little town. Gainesboro

Oh one more. Carla and Paul’s impromptu tiny concert. Okay, one or two songs. Carla on guitar and Paul on harmonica. So pretty. Thrilled my soul. See Carla is very shy about her guitar playing. She doesn't know I sometimes listen in the hallway to her singing and playing. I’m praying God removes this shyness and her gifts will make room for her. So the concert was so lovely.

Those were some of the random loveliness's  I have had this week.  What about you?  What random loveliness has come to you lately?  

Confetti, Streamers, Yarn and Glitter

A word Picture....

Imagine with me, you have a ball of yarn and you hold the end and throw it across the room to someone else and they throw it to someone else holding the piece that came to them.  As it goes from person to person you soon have a spiderweb of yarn all over the place.  Now imagine doing the same  exercise with a streamer, you know the kind from a birthday party.  Now imagine a whole room full of the streamers and all kinds of pretty yarn suspended in mid air.  It is so thick with your favorite colors of yarn and streamers and someone has thrown in some glitter and some confetti.  At first the dazzle and shine, the attractiveness of your fav colors being there is so cool but than you realize, you can't move.  The room is so FULL of the pretty strings, the shiny glitter, the suspender confetti  that you are like a fly in the spider's trap.  You can't move!  No matter which way you turn.  You are immobilized!

This is the word picture that came to me while contemplating vain imaginations.  In the Bible it says this:

  Romans 1:21

King James Version (KJV)

²¹ Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

Some other versions say:  futile in their minds, foolish in their thinking, thoughts that were pointless and misguided..

As I said this was what I was thinking about.  I don't know about you but I'm a dreamer.  I think of lots and lots of ideas.  Things to do.  Projects to make.  Parties or dinners to have.  Fun times to have.  Family get togethers to do. Projects for the home.  

But this word picture came to me.  I am like the person caught in that room.  Though pretty and full of promise.  I mean, streamers scream: A Party!!! Fun!  And yarn...the things you can make with yarn and now a days there are so many types.  Traditional yarn in a variety of beautiful colors and styles.  Fuzzy ones ones with other yarns or strings mixed in.  We could make sweaters and baby things and blankets and all kinds of things.  But alas, I don't knit or crochet.  Oh and don't forget the glitter.  So shiny, so pretty.  Or the confetti Every party needs confetti!   So we have this room that we have added the ability for it all to be suspended mid air.  The elements seem to offer great promise.  BUT they are futile items, foolish, pointless and misguided.  It would be awful trying to untangle our mess.  The strings would get tangled.  The streamers would tear.  It wouldn't be worth our efforts.  We would want to pull it all down and start over, right?

That is how my thoughts are.  I dream of writing a book but not just any book.  One that is a best seller one that is desired by the masses.  Nothing wrong with that except if I daydream and don't even show up at my blog or come to the computer and start typing...it is a vain, futile useless thought.  Pointless.  

If I only collect scrapbook supplies and never start making pages.  It is rather pointless. The papers and the stickers and the borders just gathering dust....

If I dream of selling a quilt I've made but I never even sit down at the sewing machine.  My thoughts are futile, useless...

So, yesterday as I pondered these thoughts I got out my imaginary broom and I swept down all those vain imaginations,  I swept down the pointless thoughts.  I put them in a big black bag.  I got out my dusters and got every piece.  I took all those futile ideas and took them captive.into the bag.  I than said a prayer that God would let only the God breathed ideas, thoughts, dreams, imaginations be left.   That only they would remain. I than took the bag and since these were light vain things, with very little weight, I blew that bag up to the Lord.  

And, you know, I felt lighter.  I felt like now I will be able to focus and do.  Not just vainly imagine or dream but actually put feet to my ideas and make them a reality.  Because if they are inspired by God won't He help me to accomplish them?  They will have a point.  They will be useful.  They will become things of substance. I 'm excited to see what God and I can do!  I'm excited to be free and not trapped in that room any more

 Do you have a room like this?

.  

Tennessee, Sweet Home

Sometimes it is surreal living here in Tennessee.  When I was a child Tennessee was the destination of most of our vacations. Okay, all of them but one. And it was the place "we"  my Mom, my Dad, my brother, No he got married.  Just Mom, Dad and me. It was the place we would move some day.  The family dream.  Someday Tennessee.   Someday moving back to the "farm".

Well, 18 1/2 years ago.  Paul, the girls, my Mom and I moved here.  Dad was already gone.  Charles got married and moved to Indiana. But we made it here.  Made it to the "farm".  It's really just land.  The barns and outbuildings long gone.
As I travel roads that I traveled as a child I sometimes have a flashback to riding down this road or flying around that curve.  And I am happy to be living out Dad's dream.
Tennessee is where my family came from.  Tennessee has our history here.  It's nice.  It could have more shopping.  It could have more diversity.  But it has quiet.  It has a sense of independence  and self reliance that you don't find everywhere.  And nature and beauty unending.  Trees.  Hills.  Rivers.  Blue skys.  Flowers.  All kind of animals.  And that's not even mentioning the people.  I love people.  And Tennessee has awesome people.  Paul and Mandi call my friends, my peeps.  I love the variety of peeps here.  I have my lifelong friends aka cousins.  I have a slew of them.  And than the friends at church, the co-workers who are now friends and the ones that have come into our family because of my girls.  School and than along with marriage has come more peeps to love.  They all add depth to my life.

Down the road on land that used to be part of the farm, is a tree that held my childhood swing.  I can still see in my minds eye:  the house and outbuildings that were once there.   Christmas stockings with oranges.  The time Charles brought home Teddy, my teddy bear home.  My 5th birthday with a cake with homemade chocolate frosting Mom had made.  The wild squirrel Charles had on the back porch.  Running and playing with Dennis.  And that stubborn Mule Joe that kept running back to his old owner.  And the day Dad and Charles brought home a toy riding tractor.  It was red and so much fun.
I live on the road I went down when I wanted to go to Uncle Carlis' and Aunt Thelma's house about 3 miles away.  Also the road that Mom spanked me on for scaring her and "running away".  She caught up with me right by where I saw my first snake.  Scared me to death until mom said it was just a little garter snake.  No big deal!

Yes Tennessee is my home.It holds memories new and old.  And after all the moving we've done.  It is nice to be in one place.  Tennessee, I love it!

Because He Lives

I must preface this article was written before the tragedies in Connecticut.   My heart goes out to them. May our heavenly  Father bring them comfort .  



We were riding along on the bus when one of the teens suddenly asked if those were wild dogs.  Over in the field there were two dog like animals.  But as I looked they weren't dogs but coyotes or small gray wolves.  We were too far to tell.  But the way they moved you knew they were wild.  Suzie (name changed for privacy) was a little upset.  Her eyes looked fearful.  There were a few other things going on so we didn't get back to her story for a while.  But when we did she told of how some wild dogs had attacked one of her horses and wounded it.  I didn't realize they would do that.  She was very fearful.  It had been traumatic to her when she found the horse after the attack.
That got me thinking.  A lot of our fears come from our past experiences.  Logical or not, we hold onto fears.  We hold onto a past version of something.  Some times a past lie.  The enemy of our soul wants us to be locked up emotionally.  He wants us to be so afraid that our world will become smaller and smaller.  The extreme of this would be people who don't leave their home.  Now most of us would say, Oh, I'm not like that.  But what does fear do in your life?
My friend Tammy was attacked by two German Shepherds while out walking.  She got between them and they didn't like that.  She was bit a couple of times.  For a long time she was terrified from it.  But with God's help she has overcome the controlling fear that would gripe her whenever she was near a dog.  She now even has a small one.
Some fears are less severe.  When we went to New York some years ago with our than teen daughters we saw Lorelai, Lauren Graham, the mom from the Gilmore Girls series.  Carla and Chanel were so excited but terrified to go ask for a picture with her.  We had to coax them into going and asking her.  They were so glad they did.  It made their day.  What if they had given into that fear?   The joy they felt at meeting a star they loved wouldn't have been theirs.  They would have regretted it.
My Mom has told me about when she was young she was so shy.  Being shy is just being afraid to talk with people, afraid of what people will think of you. A form of fear. She said it was physically painful.
I have really worked on not being fearful but back in the day I was paralyzed by it many times .  I would be unable to sleep worrying about my girls.  When they were babies I would check: Are they breathing?   When they went to school I would worry:  Are they learning some evil ideas that will make them grow away from God?  When Mandi started dating cell phone had just came out.  I would call and call.  It seems so silly than but I was sure they would be in an accident and be killed.  It was really awful and a lie from the enemy.  Praise God for delivering me from this dead end way of thinking.  I'm almost embarrassed to tell you I used to think that way but if it would help just one person.  It's okay to be a little embarrassed.
Fear can be overcome.  How?  Learn who God is and than you can trust him to take care of your family. And that when and if something bad happens he will see you through. He will never leave us or forsake us.  You can learn to be brave and try things and to be confident.  Also read the scriptures and see what God says  about you.  He loves you so much and when you KNOW that you can face anyone and any circumstance.  Like the old hymn says:

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow,
Because He lives, all fear is gone;
Because I know He holds the future,
And life is worth the living,
Just because He lives!

 It's a process though I still sometimes have to push it back down but I'm not controlled by it. And I know God doesn't want any of us to be.

JADED!

Buffaloes!  There is a field near me that has buffaloes in it.  There is even a white one.  I have been driving by them for 15 plus years.  I remember when I first saw them.  I was so excited.  I couldn't wait to show my girls.  It made me smile every time I passed them.  I wanted to stop and take a picture but I haven't.  I wondered why the owner had them and if they were happy in that field. It seemed a little small.  Did they have enough room?    You know buffaloes roaming and all.  Yes, I thought a lot about them, than.

But I've grown accustomed to them now.  They are old hat.  Been there, done that, have the T-shirt.
OH NO!  I've become JADED!  No longer excited.  No longer want to share the joy of them.  Yawn!

As I was thinking about them I thought, Have I become that same way about Christmas?  Don't get me wrong I'm the type that listens to Christmas songs in July but....  This year has been so busy and I'm so behind.  I feel a little over it.  Counting the days till its over.  Lord forgive me.  Than I have to ask myself, Why?  I think I know before I get the word out of my mouth.  I'm not focusing on Him.  Jesus!  Yes, I'm still showing up and praying each day having a lovely time of fellowship.  But I've been looking at all the trappings of Christmas;  the hustle and bustle, the shopping, the stress of getting the "right" gift etc.  Not stopping and looking at the wonder, the joy, the pureness of the love that came to the world that first Christmas.   I've become JADED!  Looking at Christmas but missing the true spirit, the true meaning.

I'm going to stop and breathe and enjoy!  Going to enjoy the joy!  I may even take another look at the buffaloes and the wonder of them and the wonder of their creator who sent His son for me!