Collecting Sunshine

                                                               Today was from the start
                                    just more cold like what we have had throughout this winter.
      I long for Spring to arrive now. This is just not going to happen so you do what you have to do.
We were blessed with glorious sunshine today and it stayed throughout the day. I took advantage of it. It started with a sense of tiredness that took over earlier this morning so that I decided to listen to it. As I went to lie on my bed I spotted sunshine on my husbands side of the bed. Without hesitation I headed for it. It was glorious and warm reaching to the places in my mind that are so craving the Spring. Of course the sun moves in the sky so I had to keep shifting myself to stay in its glow and warmth but this, too, was worth it. At one point my dog Poppy was so warm she was panting like it was summer heat.
  After a while I knew I had eggs to collect and fires to tend so off I went to do what is necessary. The sun was so refreshing and I was ready for getting back to it. Before I knew it it was past lunch time and I could see that sun still shining and knowing it is so warm I headed to the upstairs to my favorite bedroom . It is my daughters room but I want that room.  It was as I knew it would be full of sun so  I dropped onto her bed and stretched out . I syayed much longer up there but I am not feeling bad about it at all ! I needed that sunshine and the rest I got in it. I thank God for this day and the sun he blessed me with. I also thank him for my wonderful husband who made me a bird feeder to replace the fancy one we had bought last year that the pesky squirrels chewed and destroyed. I don't believe those squirrels can destroy this one .
   I hope you had a wonderful day today. God bless you and thanks for reading my post.

   

Life has Beauty

                                                                    I love this picture!
It is so bright and it calls me back to my favorite spot to sit and be aware of what there is to be enjoyed in the great outdoors. It may not be another persons idea of beauty but for me it represents so
Much peace and quiet, and beauty. I know what it sounds like to sit here in all the seasons. I know what it has been for me through chest wrenching grief and success through deep snow to arrive here.
  This is my sanctuary and where I meet with The Lord in many ways. God is so good to give me so much beauty to experience, and he meets me here.
 Praise The Lord ! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens! Psalm 150 : 1
Psalm 146: 1-2
 Praise The Lord ! Praise The Lord, O my soul! I will praise The Lord as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.
 Thank you Jesus for the gift of this sanctuary and for the life I have . Amen 

Learn to Embrace the Benefits Instead of Resisting the Hardships.

 "  Learn to Embrace the Benefits Instead of Resisting the Hardships. "  Lysa Terkeurst
 

 I just love this saying and I have been using it a lot since I read it! Amazing day I had today on a snow shoe-ing hike I took to the back fields here behind my house. I need to say that a few times as I fought through the depths of that snow and my snow shoes were coming off behind my heels I was unsure I would get there. I mastered it though. I set my goal for the back tree sanctuary that I love to sit in and just relax.

A couple times I did not know if my first adventure out to snow shoe this year was going get me all the way to my desired destination. I stopped a number of times as my heartbeat was racing and pounding in my temples. I prayed and hiked on until I had to stop again. I "embraced the benefits of the work out and resisted the hardships" and kept moving forward. I reached my goal!

I need to continue to embrace the benefits instead of resisting the hardships in my daily struggles to keep my focus and reach for the goals I have, and will have, in Christ Jesus.  On to the rewards of seeking my Savior and finding him in it all.
  I am doing as The Lord God Almighty says , Giving careful thought to my ways. Haggai 1:7
 I have circled this mountain of depression and loss,fear and anxiety, along with discontent, grief and escapism long enough. Now with Gods help and the sound of his calling: I am Heading North . Deuteronomy 2:3
Thank you Lord Jesus, for the blessings of your calling on our lives. Thank you that you go with us and lead us. You never leave us or forsake us and you cover us before and behind and encircle us all about. Thank you Jesus. Amen 

Learning new things

                                                                         Haggai 1:7
                    This is what The Lord Almighty says " Give careful thought to your ways."
 
     I am having some break throughs in my life right now as I search the Word of God in doing this online Bible study over at proverbs31 online bible study.  I was struggling with the new study in trying to find out what it is God wants me to be working on changing as I work on what it is I am using to fill the cravings that were meant for God alone to fill. It isn't that I had no idea of what things I crave but more that one of those is not an issue at this time. Eating sweets has always been some thing I have struggled with but have had some health isssues the last year so I had to cut sugar out. This has lead to some healthy changes for which I am thankful.
   So I have been praying I would realize what I am to be working on and I believe The Lord has revealed to me that I am filling my time unwisely. Now this is no surprise to me as I tend to escape into mindless DIY programs and Pinterest and the like when life seems overwhelming. When my grief is strong and life is just wearing on me I shut down and try to forget what is painful. This is a habit that I have stuck to now for the last five years or so since I lost my mom and my son. Now I see that The Lord wants me to seek him,crave his presence when what I really feel I need to escape to places that make me forget, that sedate the pain and the sinking feelings of my life. These things are not bad things but the problem is I need to get my healing from Jesus and not escape to some thing that can never fill the ache of life. So I am setting some goals with Gods help and I am going to work at resisting the temptation to escape and get free of my pain. I will by Gods grace go and receive his healing power and move away from escapism and into his life giving freedom.
  Deuteronomy 2:3
 " You have circled this mountain long enough. Now turn North!"
Thank you lord Jesus for revealing your truth to me and asking me to move on from this circling of the mountain . I will need your help to set my goals and plans for moving away from this pattern of life. Thank you for your working in me and delivering me . I pray for others on a journey as mine and ask for their deliverance as well . Thank you lord Jesus . Amen

I Long for the Easier Times

                   A new day arrived and here we are already nearing the end of it.
                    Amazing how fast days go and how fast our lives do the same.

       So I long today for the easier times when the loved ones who have left me were still around.
  I long for the easier times when my heart did not know the searing loss of a son, my mother's absence and long days of pain.
   I long for the Spring when the sound of the peeper's is so loud you can hardly sleep.
I long for the Summer and the heat it brings, the tall grass and butterflies and creepy crawly things.
   I long for the easier days when youth was secure along with the the color that was in my hair.
I long for the freedom to walk with ease and not know of the heartache of dreaded disease .
   I long for the easier times when mom was my closest friend and she told me stories of day without end.
 I long for my Jesus to wake me in Heaven and the freedom that comes as I see eternity.
    Along with this longing I thankfully praise for all that I have known and the Savior who sees.
Along this journey I walk hand in hand with the One who has taken the Victory Dance. The dance of the savior who lived and then died , only to rise with eternity His. I praise for the freedom to know I am saved and knowing I will one day see the one's I  love once again.
    I long for the streets of God and the Lord who took my sins and carried them to the cross for cleansing of them.
  I praise him and thank him for the children he gave and the blessings of a life with each single one.
 

 Today I am longing for the easier days that passed far faster than I would have foreseen. I long for the touch of the baby hand reaching. I long for the sweetness of toddlers creeping. I long for the words of a child to his mother when still an innocent love for his mother.
  As this day is ending I lift up my heart to the giver of life and thank Him again for the life I have.
 

Lord Jesus,
 Thank you for the days I live and what you give. Thank you for the kids and the fun we have had. Thank you for grandchildren and the sweet sounds of love. I Love you Jesus and need your compassion in every longing I have for the easier days.  Thank you, Jesus,  amen .

Happy Valentine's Day!

   Well we have a whole lot more of the white stuff on the ground today.  Here we are at valentine's day and we get hit with a foot of snow, but it is ok in my book. We have a a while yet to see old man winter blowing storms and cold at us. But we have hope that is closer to us then when we started .

   In that thought is the truth for me as a believer that I have hope closer to me now then when I began my faith journey as a child. Amazing how the struggles and heart aches of life can now be considered hope being closer to me. But it is ! And I am thankful for this hope that I hold to that surrounds me like a warmth that keeps me secure. I may not always feel secure but at the worst places in this journey it is what I cling to.  At times I feel desperately lost in my struggles and yet hope comes to My rescue every time .

   Today on this day we celebrate love I am celebrating The Love of Christ Jesus my savior!
The hope I have comes from Him and sustains me, as the Word of God says , to my gray hairs.

Isaiah 40:31
But they that wait upon The Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not grow faint.

Sunny on the Outside and Sunny on the Inside too

                                                  Hello and welcome to this sunny day!
I am so thankful for prayers said that change the heart and mind of people. The other day as you may have read here on my blog I was having a very difficult day grieving my son. I was miserable and couldn't see the light beyond it. I poured out my heart here and I believe others prayed for me. I know a lady came along side me from my online Bible study at Proverbs31 ministries and she prayed for me and encouraged me, along with sharing her losses with me. Within a short time that grief lifted and I was able to do a 90 minute workout. Now that is some serious answers to prayer I think!
  I love that God is at God near at hand and that he cares for us and all we care about. It is such a peaceful place to be when I am resting in His love and care. There is a renewed hope and sense of strength as I move away from that strong place of grief. My son won't be coming back to me and it has not changed since Monday when I hurt so deeply but my heart was touched by Jesus and by the prayers being said for me. There is a hope in this moment and every moment I walk close to Jesus and let him hold my hurts and cares. So once again I can stand up and brace the truth of loss and all it's hard ache and deep pains while stepping back and letting it go and not holding it back but coming around to the deep sense of peace as Jesus takes me and leads me back into the land of the living.
  I praise The Lord for his unfailing love to me and that he holds my son with him and is holding me with the same loving arms that keep me going.
  Lamentations 3:19-26
Remember my affliction and roaming, the wormwood and the gall. My soul still remembers and sinks within me. This I recall to mind, therefore I have hope . Through  the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, his compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. " The Lord is my portion," my soul says ,"Therefore I hope in Him !"  The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul that seeks Him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of The Lord. 

Today Let Me Be Real,Please !

                                                          May I be real with you today?
These photos are of my son who is no longer here in this life. He may not be alive and well and living the life of a young man but his memory and the ache of missing him is real and active! I hurt and I am tired. The pain is holding me down and threatening to keep me down.
  I have to work at living in the here and now and to not be suffocated by the pain of his being gone. It would seem I am useless at times because my emotions are so strong and pain cuts so deeply it keeps me held almost captive to it. It all seems so wrong and I know I am a child of God and he is ever present, always helping me, but I am still human! I am still a mother who is crushed by her son's death. Although I carry no scars on the outside my heart is torn apart and it tries to heal only to be ripped open where healing has begun.
 Please don't misunderstand me God has done many things in my life over the last 5 years. He has healed me in ways I cannot fully put down yet in words, but there is this constant process it seems.  I want my Zeb!  I want him all to myself. I want  him to be here. I want to hug him and say "I love you!" I want to hear him say he loves me too! I don't want to keep waking up, as it were, and being hit with this reality again and again that he is not here! He will not be returning, he is not living his life, and I will not go to him nor will he come to me and share in what mom's and their kids share in . It is done, finished, 22 years of life gone just like that!
   I had the opportunity in the last couple days to talk with a couple people about him and I love to talk about him. The thing is, it is all past tense now and the raw of his death is always right now. The struggle is on like a light that wont go out. Today I need the Word of God but I don't want to read it. I know terrible. It is what helps and gets me through but today, right now, I feel angry again. I am out of sorts and in pain and I will have to trust that God is taking this to His loving heart as a prayer for help. Today is not a day where I toss my head up and heavenward to look into the distance  and see my son waiting for me to arrive. It is not a day where I try to get beyond this and be an encourager. It is a day I come to you and say I am hurting and I could use encouragement and prayers. So I pour out the reality here of who I am and what I am feeling, living right here, raw and real. I leave you with this verse.
 Isaiah 58:11 " The Lord will guide you always, He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden , like a spring whose waters never fail."

Winter's Hanging ON

       I am struggling this winter and it has been a while since winter seemed so long to me.
For some reason I can't get past feeling tired and blah and like I am fighting some health issues every couple days. This does not make for a nice winter. Recently I ordered one of those light boxes to try and give me a boost and it does help, but the health is in need of a boost as well. What I would love is a nice long walk in the woods and to sit by the stream and listen to the sounds of it while watching the little water skippers going across the top of it. But for now I am stuck inside unless I want to snow machine to the back woods and ride through the woods. I will be doing that with my husband this weekend as we got snow enough this week to allow for this . Yaya!!
   I cannot wait for it to warm up enough, above the current below zero mark, so I can snow shoe to the back fields and really get a fresh air work out. Right now I am feeling a lift just thinking about all this outside activity and what a blessing. My hens are waiting impatiently for their freedom too, and for the bugs to return along with the grass. Free range is the song I hear them singing these days.
    The other day I went to collect eggs. When I am there I talk, yes talk, to them and pet them in the nest boxes. This one hen , I call all my hens Henny-Penny , and my rooster is Mr. Cockadoodledoo, yes, silly but true. so Henny-Penny she was all happy and sitting on an egg and I  was chatting away telling her what a good girl she was and thanking her for her egg, all the while I am petting her and she enjoying it. Then she lifts up and as she does she lays an egg right there in front of me. I was amazed !!! The egg she was on was not her own obviously and I got to see her lay her egg which was a nice thing for me.
   So winter is long and I am weary of it but I manage to find distractions and things to be thankful
For. Now if I could get my body to be thankful and back to a balance in this last month or two, we never know Here in Vermont , it would be a blessing for me . I hope you are getting a good season where ever you live .
  Matthew 11:28  " Come to me all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."
Lord Jesus , I am weary of winter and my health is not happy . I lift this weariness to you and I ask for any one reading this blog post who may be in the same place I am, or worse, Lord to be blessed with your strength and healing . I pray for warmth in spirit that you alone can deliver that lasts and gets us through . Thank you Jesus for hearing and answering this prayer. In Jesus we pray amen. 

Thursday blog hop

                                              Isaiah 45:3

                                                        New King James Version (NKJV)                                                         I will give you the treasures of darkness

And hidden riches of secret places,
That you may know that I, the Lord,
Who call you by your name,
Am the God of Israel                                               

Today is Blog Hop Thursday at our online Bible Study over at Proverbs 31 ministries and I have chosen the verse above from their topic suggestions to share here on my blog.                                                                    

  I have been thinking since Sunday when this verse was posted about the first  eight words in this verse." I will give you the treasures of darkness"  and I keep going back to the fact that darkness is not always looked at as holding any sort of treasure.  Many people are afraid of darkness so how could they feel a peace being told that they would be given treasures of darkness? 

 As I think on this I begin to focus on the fact that this should be cause for questions in prayer to God asking what treasures are you talking about, Lord Jesus, in darkness? Of course as I already am aware from sleeping out side in the dark of night there are innumerable treasures in the night sky alone. I see the stars and the milky way and the awesome night lights that shower me with the beauty they hold and it brings me near to tears at the wonder of how Big my God is. Then here he is telling me in this verse he will give me the treasures of darkness. WOW! 

 Then there is the fireflies that do their mating lights in the summer. The crickets and night sounds that you don't hear in daylight.Oh yes, what can I have for treasures in darkness that could even outweigh these earthly things he has blessed us with? The verse goes on to say " And the hidden riches of secret places." Now I am thinking in the area of God's Word on this part and I know as I have read the Bible now for many years that it has revealed new things to me at different times as I needed.One of the treasures of God's Word is it's being alive and active to feed new truths to our hearts and minds. So I see here the hidden riches of secret places in light of one definition of hidden that says:prevent (an emotion or fact) from being apparent or known; keep secret ... At the right time God reveals the truth ~ hidden riches of secret places ~ maybe the secret places of His Heart , love that thought. Then at the right time because of his great love for me he gives me these treasures in darkness and the hidden riches of secret places. He says He does this that I may know He is the Lord and that He is the God.

  I have lots more to think on and am so blessed by His word! I hope this is a blessing to you as well. 

  Lord Jesus,

    Thank you for Your great love for me and Your Word that brings life and treasures to those who read it. I am so thankful Lord Jesus that you have given us your breath of life in the Words of the Bible. Thank you . Amen