Erosion Against Our Very Nature

Isaiah 42:16

I will lead the blind by ways they have not known,

along unfamiliar paths I will guide them;

I will turn the darkness into light before them

and make the rough places smooth.

These are the things I will do;

I will not forsake them.

You Spin Me Right Round

Numbers Man said this picture made him dizzy...

I'm partial to mystique, which even as I type this, seems like a fading relic of the pre-digital age and I am mindful of the q-u-e; a QUEst for the impossible, intangible, and hanging participle in every encounter. Arms that, brushed by dirt, looked no different and somehow one can't understand just what upon what makes us humans so much like a rubix cube of variables. While these and those can gaze down the nine by nine and feverishly crumble the puzzle into 1-2-3 list of motions. Others struggle and strive, frustration mounting, anticipation perhaps driving deft digits into orchestration of inevitable failure/success...solution.

I was tagged!

Happy Sunday everyone! I'm back from the camping trip, but before I post any of the photos I took while there, here is a fun little post.

I was tagged by Sarah to select my sixth folder and grab the sixth picture and....it's the house from Father of the Bride I & II. Ha! I love this house...everything about it!

I tag: Ashley, Ana, Torie, Jennifer, and Leah!

Beast Coming Up out of the Earth

No, not thaaat beast...just a little, strike that, BIG mushroom family popping up out of the earth. Two days ago there as nothing visible but dirt. Now...they're taking over!

Continuing in Prosperity

Daniel 4:27

"Therefore, O king, be pleased to accept my advice: Renounce your sins by doing what is right, and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed. It may be that then your prosperity will continue."

What Will You Become?

Philippians 3: 14 - 21

I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.

Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample. (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)

For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.

Happy Father's Day, Dad!

Happy Father's day to my dad...that man who showed me that it's okay to have a HUGE appetite for life, even if you have to unhinge your jaw just to take that first bite. Ha!

Dreams are funny things...

The color orange reminds me of an old coworker of mine from college who I called my black momma (seeing as I already have a white one :) She was my surrogate mom, keeping her eye on me while I was away from home. She was such a strong Christian influence for me and taught me a lot about looking at things through scripture, using verses as a measuring stick for decision making. I dreamed about her last night...

She was teaching a women's Bible study on Biblical femininity at a Lutheran church (she's a Baptist) and I ran into her...she gave me a grip of Nancy Leigh DeMoss's little pamphlets on the subject and I helped her put some chairs and tables in place for the fellowship. I remember so vividly, holding her hands in mine and swinging our arms back and forth.

Donna, I pray the Lord is keeping you safe in his loving arms today and always. You are in my heart, prayers and I guess...DREAMS too. Ha! May you and Steve be living out the life you wanted for the rest of your days; happy, healthy, and full joy!

x's and o's

We are Love

1 John 4:8
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

God is love.

We are made in His image.

We are love.

Therefore, it is his will for us to act in love.

As it is oft' said...Love is a verb.

Butterflowers

Churn, churn flowers of butter.

Smooth upon the lilting leaves

Mark-ed sky, oh plate of blueb'ry syrup

Swirly dipped that butter, "oooh"

A morsel to bite with the desirous eye

Cool Muslin Morning

She wore a cool muslin that morning - white, with a waving vertical line of brown running through it; also a white linen collar and big straw hat which she had taken from the peg outside the door. The hat rested any way on her yellow brown hair, that waved a little, was heavy, and hung close to her head.
Madame Ratignolle, more careful of her complexion, had twined a gauze veil about her head. She wore dogskin gloves, with gauntlets that protected her wrists. She was dressed in pure white, with a fluffiness of ruffles that became her. The draperies and fluttering things which she wore, suited her rich, luxuriant beauty as a greater severity of line could not have done.

~ from The Awakening by Kate Chopin

This Place Called Home

Psalm 61:2-4
From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For thou hast been a shelter for me, and a strong tower from the enemy. I will abide in thy tabernacle for ever: I will trust in the covert of thy wings. Selah.
~*~
A lot of folks in the blogosphere seem to be posting about their houses, their place of shelter; respite from the world outside which comes a'knocking no matter how feverishly we guard the castle walls of our lives. The only real shelter we know comes by the hand of the Almighty, and by his grace we live today, thriving in this place we call home.

A Dark and Windy Night

Psalm 18: 7 - 18

Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth. There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also, and came down: and darkness was under his feet. And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies. At the brightness that was before him his thick clouds passed, hail stones and coals of fire. The LORD also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave his voice; hail stones and coals of fire. Yea, he sent out his arrows, and scattered them; and he shot out lightnings, and discomfited them. Then the channels of waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were discovered at thy rebuke, O LORD, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils. He sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of many waters.
He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them which hated me: for they were too strong for me. They prevented me in the day of my calamity: but the LORD was my stay.

~*~

Our God is so magestic!!!

A Different Kind of Flower

In the evening, Alice sat on her Grandfather's knee and listened to his stories of faraway places. When he had finished, Alice would say, "When I grow up, I too will go to faraway places, and when I grow old, I too will live beside the sea."

"That is all very well, little Alice," said her Grandfather, "but there is a third thing you must do."

"What is that?" asked Alice.

"You must do something to make the world more beautiful," said her grandfather.

"All right," said Alice. But she did not know what that could be.

In the meantime Alice got up and washed her face and ate porridge for breakfast. She went to school and came home and did her homework.

And pretty soon she was grown up.

From Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney