Photo: Marysville Falls
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.
I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
(John 10:10)
Tag: photography
Hope: Vision-led endurance
Photo: I waited all through a dark, dreary, rainy day to be able to go out for a walk. Finally, in the early evening, the sun broke through.
This is going to sound weird because, well, it is weird.
About 4 ½ years ago we had a particularly difficult week in our family. We received three bits of bad news, any one of which meant a change in lifestyle –and all of them negative. Two were diagnoses of incurable degenerative diseases and one was about a business my husband put a lot of effort and time into, which literally went south.
Then I had a strange experience. I awoke hearing a voice with a BBC accent saying, “Follow 228 ban our tires.” It sounded like a commercial that adds a voice-over saying, “For further information go to www dot…”
It was so clear I grabbed a pen and pad and wrote it down, like it was a phone message.
In the morning I looked at it and felt rather silly. What an odd thing to write down. I never told anyone, but secretly, later in the day I googled it.
Nothing. I put the experience down to stress.
The next day I was thinking about the strange note to self when I remembered the voice had a British accent and in the UK tires is spelled tyres.
I googled it again using the “proper” spelling.
This time I followed the trail to a British bicycle shop site selling tyres which were featured in a click-able box at the top. On the side of the page was a box with an advertisement for Ray Ban glasses. Featured in the center was a photo and description of a head lamp for a racing bike. It must have been for very serious bikers because it cost 228 pounds.
Here’s the odd thing. The lamp was an LED Vision lamp made by the Hope company and called the Endurance model. What jumped out at me when I looked at the page was this:
Hope: Vision-LED Endurance.
As a person who suffered from depression for many years I know that living without a sense of hope is hell, but I wasn’t sure what hope really was. I knew it didn’t mean “a dream is a wish your heart makes” or “any dream will do”. I believe God was giving me a puzzle to solve in which the answer was a definition of hope, “vision-led endurance.” The Bible says without a vision (I believe the word there is a God-given active rhema word) the people perish. Hope means endurance that is attached to a promise from God. Hope gives a reason to live and a purpose with which to fight discouragement.
God is faithful. Those three problems which loomed so large that week are no longer big problems. One was healed out-right, quite miraculously, shortly afterward; one became less threatening when God had an unusual creative solution and is much improved, (hubs is not wheel-chair bound, in fact, he jogs six kilometres nearly every day); and the project is back on the rails –with much more reliable partners this time.
Jesus never ceases to amaze me.
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Messengers
Bless the Lord, O you his angels,
you mighty ones who do his word,
obeying the voice of his word!
Bless the Lord, all his hosts,
his ministers, who do his will!
Bless the Lord, all his works,
in all places of his dominion.
Bless the Lord, O my soul!
(Psalm 103:20-22)
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Ending well
Photo: going out in a blaze of glory
How wonderful it is to spend time with elderly people who are filled with hope, not only for themselves, but for the generations yet to come. How encouraging it is to listen to those who have experienced many trials and come through praising God for his goodness.
I watched a documentary on the characteristics of centenarians (100-year olds). They had little in common as far as diet, exercise, or lifestyle were concerned. What they did have in common was a reason to get up everyday -a project that mattered to them or other people or pets to care for. The other practice they had in common was the ability to handle grief well. When a person lives to 100 years they have probably lost most, if not all, of their familiar friends and family. The ability to grieve and avoid bitterness seems essential to remaining a person who is physically, mentally and spiritually healthy and capable of seeing past their own aches and pains and weaknesses.
Oh Lord, may we be thankful and increase in fruitfulness even as we grow older. May we remember to tell the next generations the wonderful stories of your grace.
Give ear, O my people, to my teaching;
incline your ears to the words of my mouth!
I will open my mouth in a parable;
I will utter dark sayings from of old, things that we have heard and known,
that our fathers have told us.
We will not hide them from their children,
but tell to the coming generation
the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might,
and the wonders that he has done.
(Psalm 78)
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Laudamus te
Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.
(Psalm 95:1,2)
Laudamus te (We praise thee)
Benedicimus te (We bless thee)
Adoramus te (We worship thee)
Glorificamus te (We glorify thee)
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Blue Shadows on the Trail
Photos:Sunset on the Cowboy Trail last night
Yes, that is snow.
One of my great joys is listening to my son sing lullabies to his son. He does the best cover of “Blue Shadows on the Trail” that I have ever heard. That boy –OK, man– can sing.
Thank you God. You are good. I have lived to see my children’s children.
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Author! Author!
And my husband wonders why it takes me so much longer to drive this route than Google maps says it should take.
And all the trees will clap their hands.
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The Lord make His face shine upon you
Photo: Somewhere between Pincher Creek and Beauvais Lake this morning
“The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace”
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Bye Bye, Lovely September
Thank you, Lord! We just had the loveliest September I think I can remember. It was like an extra month of summer. Wie lieblich.
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Upon receiving a nude photo from Mark Twain on Facebook
This is a public domain photo of Mark Twain with his shirt back on.
Apparently reports of Mr. Twain’s death have been greatly exaggerated for just last week I received a nude photo of him on Facebook. I put him down as one of my “likes” but it would seem I did not define the nature of the relationship adequately, for there he was in all his understated glory staring expectantly at me (from the waist up, of course. Decorum, please, madame.) I tried to let him down gently, but….
I have enjoyed Facebook. It has expanded my circle of friends from those who I really intended to phone, to those to whom I really intended to send Christmas cards, to those with witty online personalities, to friends of friends with interesting online personalities to a couple of people I can’t for the life of me remember, but I don’t want to admit the possibility of early senility, so there they are.
But lately I realize that I need to dislike some things. Hey guys, when I said I liked your book, or film or cause I didn’t mean we should move in together. I don’t need updates on your latest whereabouts and definitely not on your reactions to spicy food.
And Twitter? Thus far I have avoided Twitter (because I know I would probably add another addiction and lose even more time on there.) I know everybody with influence tweets and I realize the benefits of learning to write succinctly, and I think there’s a verse in the Bible somewhere that says something like, “Where many words are spoken transgression is unavoidable,” but I think there ought to be one somewhere there that says, “When quoting oneself out of context beware of cynics, heresy hunters and fans.”
Fans may be the most dangerous. For a brief time, long, long ago, I had a taste of knowing what it was like to live in a world where more people knew me than I knew back. Big fish in little pond stuff mostly, but enough to realize that anything one does or one does not do can and will be reported by people who specialize in knocking the stuffin’s out of one and replacing it with straw.
I have read articles about myself that prompted me to say, “This sounds like someone completely different from anyone I have ever known. I would like to meet this person.” (Never, never read your own P.R.) I’ve also read articles that credited me with statements I swear never passed my lips.
What upset me about my few fans is that they assumed they knew me, and oddly enough, that I knew them. They knew a few stage personas and thought that spending time reading about me was as good as spending time with me.
The preacher in a church I visited today pointed out that the difference between being a follower of someone on social media and knowing them personally was like the difference between reading about Jesus Christ and getting to know him by actually spending one-on-one time with him.
If Jesus tweeted, “Fed fish burgers to 5000 guys today” he’d get a thousand “way-to-go-dudes,” but how many would sit down with him after the crowds had gone and ask, “So what did you mean when you told us to feed those guys ourselves? How on earth are we supposed to do that? You can really baffle me sometimes. I’m tempted to go back to my day job, but I mean, wow, I just saw it happen my with my own eyes –in my own basket. Who are you?”
Sometimes on Facebook, because we are reminded of people’s activities and comment on their statuses, and they on ours, we think we know them. We don’t. We know their grandchildren are perfect and they baked 12 dozen buns, 6 dozen muffins and changed the oil in the Mazda before starting their 7 a.m. shift, or that politician’s names flame out of their keyboards like cuss words, or that the trunk full of cases of beer is intended, not for a party of 36, but a party of four guys and a labradoodle, but we don’t really know them.
I was reminded recently that I can miss it by a mile. I congratulated a couple on the birth of a child only to discover, when the photos came out, that the mother was not the wife my friend had last time I saw him. In fact she looks about 20 years younger. Awkward.
Nothing substitutes for real relationship. So read the Book, read books about the Book, talk to friends of Jesus, but don’t think that anything but real relationship is real.
Matthew 7:21 “It is not everyone who keeps saying to me ‘Lord, Lord’ who will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but the man who actually does my Heavenly Father’s will.
22-23 “In ‘that day’ many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we preach in your name, didn’t we cast out devils in your name, and do many great things in your name?’ Then I shall tell them plainly, ‘I have never known you. Go away from me, you have worked on the side of evil!’”
Charis: Subject to Change 
