Good Sunday Morning!
Hope you are having a beautiful SONday wherever you are!
Come join us in singing "Love Lifted Me" and then stay for the sermon from our wonderful Pastor, if you please...
"I was sinking deep in sin
Far from the peaceful shore
Very deeply stained within
Sinking to rise no more
But the Master of the sea
Heard my despairing cry
From the waters lifted me
Now safe am I
Chorus:
Love lifted me
Love lifted me
When nothing else could help
Love lifted me
Love lifted me
Love lifted me
When nothing else could help
Love lifted me
All my heart to Him I give
Ever to Him I'll cling
In His blessed presence live
And ever His praises sing
Love so mighty and so true
It merits my soul's best songs
Faithful, loving service, too
To Him belongs
Chorus
Souls in danger, look above,
Jesus completely saves;
He will lift you by His love
Out of the angry waves.
He’s the Master of the sea,
Billows His will obey;
He your Savior wants to be—
Be saved today."
Chorus
It has rained and rained and rained. And thundered and thundered and thundered, with angry flashes of lightning all around.
And finally when the rain would let up for a while...
She would pop her head back out of her house and look around as if to say, "Is it safe to come out yet?"
And then she'd fly away for a little while to gather more twigs for her nest, where I am assuming she is already sitting on some new eggs. Father Bluebird comes around regularly to check on her and guard the nest from any intruders. So she feels safe inside knowing she is being cared for.
How much like our Heavenly Father is that? He is always right there, watching over us, guarding our "nest" so that we are safe from those who would seek to do us harm.
Some good references for this can be found in Matthew 8:23-27, Mark 4:36-41, and Luke 8:22-25.
My favorite verses come from Matthew 8:25-26
"Then His disciples came to Him and awoke Him, saying,
“Lord, save us! We are perishing!”
But He said to them, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea,
and there was a great calm."
And even when our little "boat" of life is tossing in the tempestuous seas so that we fear we may sink and never rise up again, all we have to do is cry out to Jesus, and He will be right there to lift us up out of the depths and put us back on solid ground. He will calm the waves and the angry seas around us and give us peace once again. Our part is to have faith and believe...Jesus' part is to save us. And He will...because He loves us.
Today let us keep our faith in God no matter what the world may be tossing at us. He is there to rescue us and save us from all that would seek to do us harm. There is no need to fear...Jesus is always near.
On a different note, if you notice up in the right hand corner of the sidebar, I have added a button for a new way to follow this blog by email, called:
If you currently follow my blog(s) via email notification only, starting in July the previous method (Feedburner) will no longer be sending notification of my new posts to you by email. In order to receive this notification, you will have to resubscribe using this new link to "Follow It." I do hope you will continue to follow my posts via email by using this new method. If you also follow me on The Adventures of Lily Grace via email, you will have to go over to that blog page and select the "Follow this blog" icon there as well.
Once you have subscribed using this new method, please let me know if you have any problems in receiving notification for my posts. Since this is all new to me, I won't know if it works unless you let me know! Thank you for your patience as we try to work through these new technological issues.
"I focus on this one thing:
Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead."
Philippians 3:13
We've been getting some rain too finally. The bluebirds seem quite happy and they're so cute. Glad you figured out the new email subscription. Have a blessed Sunday!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Martha. I hope the new email thingy works. I don't know that I really had that many who depend on email to notify any way, as most of my readers are bloggers themselves. It's funny the feedburner thing said I had over 900 email subscribers...must be a lot of "peeping toms" who have never said hello. LOL. Have a blessed week.
DeleteBeautiful post today.
ReplyDeleteWe have had lots of rain these day so I
won't have a sunny Sunday.
Hope you have a good day.
https://gloriasretiredlife.blogspot.com/
Thank you, Gloria. We are having our first sunny day in a week, so it is nice to see it again. I think the rains are coming back tomorrow, however. Our pond is nice and full!! Have a blessed day.
DeleteOh, the precious bluebirds are so hard at work again! His eye is on the sparrow...and the bluebird...and us!
ReplyDeleteYes, His eye is always watching over us, no matter what we do or where we are...and He is always ready to rescue us and put us back on safe ground. We are so blessed.
DeleteThat's one of my favorite praise hymns. I do so enjoy the old ones.
ReplyDeleteWonderful photos. Our Blue Birds raised a brood and have started over. It's so much fun to watch them.
Blessings. xx
That's what our blue birds are doing...she's sitting on the nest. I hope it's a big brood and that they all survive!! I love the old hymns too. I am happy our church still loves to sing them!
DeleteI'm now following you in Follow It, Pamela, and also get your posts through Blogger. Mom was taken to the hospital today; her lungs were filling up and she couldn't breathe well. We think she's about to go home to the Lord. Prayers!
ReplyDeleteOh my dear Martha, my heart goes out to you in this time of trial. Praying for the Lord to be with your mother, and give her complete peace. Praying He will also be there for you, giving you that same kind of peace that passes all understanding. You know you can trust in Him to do what is right and best. (((hugs))) for you right now.
DeleteI'm so sorry to read this news, Martha. I have been praying for your mom. God be with you all. xo
DeletePretty photos as always and lovely words to match.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Annie. I hope you are feeling better. I am always happy to hear from you and hope things are getting better for you these days.
DeleteComing here is always a fun visit, Pam. Thanks for the Follow-me idea. I think I just copied you and hope it works on my site too. A good alternative!! Have a blessed week! xo
ReplyDeleteI am always happy to visit with you, Terri. I do hope the Follow It link works. I will try it on your blog once you've placed it there and see how it works, and if you will do the same for me, maybe we can both get an idea if it is working. I hope so, because it was pretty simple to do. I need simple...LOL. I hope your week is blessed as well.
DeleteOh, I love this uplifting song ... what a great ear-worm to catch! (And someone has an awesome baritone, doesn't he?) Our Pastor Janet addressed this very verse this morning. (But our music wasn't as good.)
ReplyDeleteyour bluebirds cheer me so. Suppose Ms. Bluebird needs a blog of her very own?
Oh dear, I hadn't thought about another blog for Mrs. Bluebird...I wonder how she'd like that? I think she's much too busy sitting on her nest right now to think about writing anything. I suppose she could dictate it to Mr. Bluebird, and he could sing it to me...but then again...They will soon be too busy once those eggs hatch, going back and forth fetching grasshoppers and bugs and such to keep their hungry babies fed...they won't have time to think about writing a blog...and me? well, I don't speak their language very well... But it was a nice thought indeed. Perhaps I 'll think more about it tomorrow...
DeleteI love the song you quoted. It brings back memories of my youth, when we often sang it. I must try to put a new link on my blog as well.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Ruth. I love the old hymns and am so thankful our church still loves to sing them. We have a good mix of songs, but we love the oldies. I hope the new Follow It link will work for you. I notice that it takes about 12 hours to show up on someone's email from the time it is posted, but I think the other one was like that too. So we shall see. It was pretty easy to do. Take care and have a good week.
DeleteWonderful pictures, Pam. That old hymn is such a beautiful one and is playing in my head now. So many churches have left the old hymns and I miss them. xo Diana
ReplyDeleteThank you, Diana. I love the old hymns and am so glad our church still sings them, along with a few modern choruses too, but a very good blend. We are a very traditional church, but a happy and loving place and that's why we love it so much. I hope you have a wonderful week. Tell Scruffy to keep you under control! LOL.
DeletePam: It's been super warm here. Last night it didn't seem to cool off. We had a problem with our phone, television and internet server. It all started at midnight. We couldn't get a technician to come out yesterday. We were told one would be here this morning, so, I had to stay home from church. He got us fixed up and explained things to us that we really didn't know. Peace and blessings.
ReplyDeleteOh, dear, Cecelia...I don't like it that our phones, TV and internet are all connected these days, so if the internet goes down, so does everything else. Thank goodness for cell phones in times like that! We actually don't even use our house phone anymore as all we receive on it are spam calls so we shut it off. No one knew the number anyway since it was new when we moved here. We keep it just to make an emergency call if we had no other option, but only have basic service on it for 911 and no long distance. Thankfully our cell phones work here at this house or else we couldn't do that. I am glad your technician came and got it fixed for you, even if it was on a Sunday! Sorry you had to miss church, however. Hope your heat wave cools down soon. Of course, we live in a perpetual heat wave here in the summertime, so we don't expect a cool down until late September, hopefully! Sometimes October and November are pretty warm too. But at least we don't have freezing temps or snow or ice all winter! LOL. It's a trade off. Have a peaceful and blessed week!
Delete