Tuesday 4: Memorials and Memories

 

Memorials...


Welcome to Toni Taddeo's Tuesday 4.

We celebrated Memorial Day on Monday... let's talk about memorials and memories.

1. Do you find memories comforting or troubling?

For the most part, most of my life's memories are comforting. But, like everyone in this world, there have been times in my life that were not so pleasant and I prefer "not to go back there".  

However, we should learn from our past mistakes or heartaches and press forward, knowing that God will give us the strength and courage to keep moving ahead with His grace and love.

2. Have you set up a memorial for a loved one or friend?

Yes, we have a "Memorial Garden" for our son Matthew, who passed away on May 25, 2014. Because at that time his home was in Maine and we live in Florida, we knew that we would never or seldom be able to ever visit his grave, we just felt like we needed something at our home to be set aside as a place to remember him in a positive and pleasant way.  It became a family project from the beginning...HERE is the post I wrote about that at the time...  and this is a picture of that first Memorial Garden:

But then, as most of you know, we moved a few years later to our present home, and we knew we wanted to establish a new Memorial Garden here as well. It is not as elaborate as the first one, and actually it is still a work in progress, but here is how it looks now:

We chose this spot because it is beside Still Waters Pond, and I know that Matthew would have loved it here.  He loved to fish and also the peacefulness of a pond...so this is a perfect spot.

I often just sit here in the Memorial Garden and talk to God, pray, sometimes sing hymns...and my thoughts often go to Matthew, and I wonder just what he's doing up there in heaven these days. I wish I could talk to him, and I will admit that sometimes I do, but of course he doesn't answer in an audible way, but yet I feel a sense of peace that all is well and I am comforted in knowing he is safe and healthy and very happy right where he is, and we WILL see him again someday. And that is very comforting.

3. What songs bring back good memories for you?

That's a hard question. I love music and there are so many songs that go all the way back to my childhood. I can remember my Grandpa Tedlie singing "I love you, a bushel and a peck, a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck, a hug around the neck".  I can remember my parents singing to us and to each other, "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are gray. You'll never know dear, how much I love you; Please don't take my sunshine away."  And I used to always sing to my three little boys when we'd tuck them into bed at night after saying their prayers...we'd sing "Jesus Loves me, this I know; For the Bible tells me so; Little ones to Him belong, they are weak, but He is strong! Yes, Jesus loves me, Yes Jesus loves me, Yes Jesus loves me! The Bible tells me so!"  And then I'd sing, "Away in the Manger, no crib for His bed; the little Lord Jesus laid down His sweet head; The stars in the sky look down where He lay, the Little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay."  And we had special motions we'd do, like when the song says "the stars in the sky look down where He lay", I would point up to the stars, and then my hand would come down and tickle them on their tummies and they'd all giggle and be so happy...and then it was time to settle down and go to sleep.  Every time I hear that song I think of that precious memory.  Sometimes it brings tears to my eyes, but they are happy tears from some very happy and sweet times together with our precious little boys.

4. Have you visited Civil War or Revolutionary War sites?

Yes, we visited Gettysburg with our young sons many years ago. There may have been some others, but that one was the most significant. My husband and our boys all really enjoyed that a lot. My husband would love to go visit some other sites if we could ever get around to planning a vacation...whenever the gas prices go back down...I hope we live to see that day sooner rather than later.

I was able to find these two photos from our trip to Gettysburg in 1983. Wow, that was a LONG time ago!  I can't tell you what these two particular monuments are...maybe some of you know.  But this was a very special vacation we took with our kids.

John and our boys, Scott, Benton, Matthew at Gettysburg 1983

Matthew at Gettysburg, 1983

Update:  I believe this was The Gettysburg Address monument and that is Abraham Lincoln way up above, and I believe Matthew was reciting as much of the Gettysburg address as any 10 year old boy could do. 

And with that I will close this Tuesday 4 post on Memories.  I have enjoyed this little walk down memory lane. I hope you have too...and I hope it has stirred up some pleasant memories for you as well. If so, please share them over at Tuesday 4-Memorials.  Have a blessed and happy day!

Memorial Day Promises

It's Sunday, May 29th. Memorial Day weekend.  In case you want to sing along,

here is our little choir singing

"America the Beautiful"

"O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain

For purple mountain majesties above the fruited plan!

America! America! God shed His grace on thee

And crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet, whose stern, impassioned stress

A thoroughfare for freedom beat across the wilderness!

America! America! God mend thine every flaw

Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law!

O beautiful for heroes proved in liberating strife

Who more than self their country loved and mercy more than life!

America! America! May God thy gold refine

Till all success be nobleness, and every gain divine!

O beautiful for patriot dream that sees beyond the years

Thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears!

America! America! God shed His grace on thee

And crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea!

I hope you were standing while we sang. What a wonderful song. We have so much to be thankful for on this Memorial Day. Without those "heroes proved in liberating strife, who more than self their country loved and mercy more than life", where would we be as a country? Probably locked in a battle still with countries like Russia or China...may God protect us and continue to "shed His grace on thee and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea."  We sure need God's protection more and more in these turbulent and evil days.  

Our Pastor's message is titled “Ascension Sunday.” The Scripture reading is from Acts 1:1-11, if you want to follow along.  It was a very good message and a wonderful service today. 

Our closing hymn was "God Bless America", and one of our Marine veterans, who happened to survive the bombing in Beirut in 1983, held the flag in attention while we sang. He suffers still from serious PTSD as a result of that horrific tragedy, and if weren't for the Lord in his life he would probably not be able to cope at all. It's been very very hard. He suffers from survivor's guilt,  among other things. So, when we honor those who gave up their lives for our country, we should also remember those who were seriously wounded both emotionally and/or physically in service to our country. They have also given up a big portion of their lives.

However, just now we saw this beautiful rainbow outside our front door.  There's a storm in the distance, but we are only seeing the sign of God's promise to us...yes His promise that He would never again destroy the earth with water like He did the great flood. You can read all about that in Genesis chapters 6-9.  But this is what God said to Noah after the flood waters receded:

Genesis 9:12-17

12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: 13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. 16 Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”

17 So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.”

Isn't it wonderful to think that right now God is remembering His covenant with Noah and with us? He is thinking of us, His creation, and even though things are looking very grim in the world, we are on God's heart and mind. He loves us very much, and He wants us to be reminded of His love, especially right now.

A perfect way to end this Memorial Day Sunday, don't you think?

I hope you have a blessed and peaceful day tomorrow as well.

Good night Friends.

 

Friday Foto Friends~Memorial Day Weekend

Greetings Friday Foto Friends! Happy Friday!

It's been a difficult week for our country, and our hearts are still broken for those families in Uvalde, Texas. We must keep them in our prayers as the grief sets in as they must bury their beloved children.

I love what Sean Dietrich wrote in his column about these precious children:

"Homecoming". Click the link for his post. Some may ask how you can be so sure all those children entered heaven's gates?  Well, all I know is Jesus loves the little children. He says in Matthew 18:2-4 the following:

2 Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, 3 and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."

And again in Matthew 19:14

14 But Jesus said, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

You can believe whatever you want to believe, but I believe Jesus was there waiting to welcome these precious children into heaven...every one of them. 

Now, with that being said, let us move on to some pictures from the week. I really don't have anything too exciting to share, but here we go:

I scattered some bird seed on the ground for the Sand Hill Cranes, and they came right away to clean it up. 

They seemed to be quite grateful...

We've also had some young Cardinals come calling this week. I believe some of them are juveniles (not delinquents...just young birds, you understand. LOL)

The one on the chair above may be our bob-tailed cardinal.  Looks like he's missing his tail feathers.

Anyway, they like to come up on our porch and wait their turn for the bird feeder:

Not sure if this is a big family or just different ones coming and going, but it has been fun to see them up close.

The Milkweed plant is blooming in the butterfly garden. I hope it attracts some pretty butterflies:

And this Foxglove is really pretty. I hear hummingbirds like it, but we haven't seen too many this spring. I finally put my feeder away because they weren't coming and it is a lot of work to keep making new "nectar" for the feeder and changing it every couple of days so it doesn't ferment in this heat.

Foxglove

When we were out walking the other day I noticed this little wildflower blooming, and checked to see what it was:

Foxglove Beardtongue

And guess what? It is also a type of foxglove plant, only wild. They say these can be dangerous for people because they contain digitalis, which is a heart medicine of sorts. Medicine might be made from this, but it is not good for us to use it without understanding how it works or how strong it is.  

I also checked on the wild plum trees, and some have plums that look like these above...not quite ripe yet.

And others are a little more ripe than those. However, they are still small, about the size of a grape, and not sweet enough for us to eat. I suppose if you were able to gather enough ripe ones you could make jam.  However, I've found that by the time they are all ripe enough they are already dropping on the ground or the critters have found them first.

And here are some wild Paw-Paws.  There are quite a few of these plants scattered throughout the woods. And again, it's better to just let the critters have them. I tried one one time, and wasn't too impressed. LOL.

Meanwhile, back at our Still Waters Pond, Mrs. Bluebird continues to wait patiently on her nest for her new brood of babies to hatch.  She spends a lot of time these days looking out her window and breathing the fresh air. I can imagine it is pretty hot and stuffy inside that birdhouse, as hot as it is out here these days.  Hopefully we will get some much needed rain this afternoon, and maybe that will cool things off a little...(wishful thinking).

Our kids are on a little vacation trip to the mountains this weekend. They were so kind to send us some pictures of how beautiful it is there:

They are staying at an Airnb with great views and lovely accommodations.

And it sounds like it is about 20 degrees cooler there than it is here in Florida.

Of course I'm not envious. I'm just happy for them.

Their 7 a.m. phone call to tell us how beautiful it was and how fresh and cool and crisp the air was didn't bother me a bit. LOL.  

Seriously, we are very happy for them to have this little break away. They work very hard and they really deserve a rest.

So, what big plans do you have for this weekend?  We are staying inside due to the high heat and humidity, but are very thankful for the AC.  We will go to church on Sunday as per usual, and then on Monday our church is having a picnic at the church parsonage. Hopefully the weather will permit us to stay outside in the shady yard and eat our hamburgers and hot dogs. If not, we will go inside where it's cool.

We are blessed to have cool places to escape the heat. Very thankful indeed.

Okay, folks! That's it for today! I pray you and yours have a safe and happy Memorial Day Weekend. 

And let us always remember those who died in service to our country, to give us these freedoms and privileges.  May we never take these freedoms for granted. It's becoming too easy for those in leadership to take freedom away with the stroke of a pen.

May God Bless America, the land of the free!

"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land."

II Chronicles 7:14

 

Is It Time To Dance? Updated

This post was originally written on June 28, 2014, just a little over one month after the passing of our dear son Matthew from this life to heaven, following a four year battle with cancer.  When I wrote this I was still  reeling from the pain of saying farewell to our son, and trying to cope with the reality of never seeing him again on this earth.  Now, as of today, 5/25/2022, it has been eight years since that day. A lot has happened in this span of time...we've added new members to our family, and we've said farewell to some other dear ones.  By the time we reach heaven's gates ourselves, I have a feeling there will be more of us waiting there than there are here. It's just the way life is.  Today I haven't really felt like writing...our nation is grieving over the horrific tragic loss of so many precious children and teachers in Uvalde, Texas. My heart is breaking and grieving with those families who have lost their precious children to a crazed madman.  They didn't have the opportunity to say good bye to their child...they had no time to prepare for their unexpected passing from this earth to heaven. Their hearts are broken...for them there is no sense of peace or comfort at this time.  Some may never get to the place where they will feel like it is time to dance ever again. But I pray for them...I pray that God will wrap His loving arms around them and cradle them close to His heart and just hold them, reassuring them of His great love and compassion...and helping them to know that their precious child is safe with Him now...they need not fear for their children anymore...they are where there will be no more crying, no more pain, no more sorrow or fear.  Safe in the arms of Jesus...there can be no better place to be. May God comfort them with those thoughts...and may they be at peace with God, knowing that they will one day be reunited because of their faith in Christ.  That is my prayer for them.  That is what comforts me eight years later. I pray they will also know this great comfort. Amen.

Here is the original post I wrote eight years ago:

"Cause me to hear Your lovingkindness in the morning,

For in You do I trust;

Cause me to know the way in which I should walk,

For I lift up my soul to You."

Psalm 143:8

Today I read in "Jesus Calling" by Sarah Young the following passage:

"Rest with Me a while. You have journeyed up a steep, rugged path in recent days.

The way ahead is shrouded in uncertainty.  Look neither behind you nor before you.

Instead, focus your attention on Me, your constant Companion.  Trust that I will equip you fully

for whatever awaits you on your journey."

Actually this particular devotional was written for yesterday's date, but I didn't look at it until today. No matter, it is still appropriate and right on.  Yes, I have journeyed up a "steep, rugged path in recent days." Saying farewell to our precious son until we reunite in heaven still seems unreal. Since his earthly home was over 1500 miles away from us anyway, it is easy to allow myself to think that he's still there waiting for us to come up and visit again.  But then the reality hits, and I remember that he's not there...and it will most likely be a long time before we see him again.

My husband the preacher says that time in heaven is not something they are focused upon like we are here on earth.  That is hard for us to understand because we are so governed by time. We must make every minute count, we can never be late, time is of the essence, hurry up and wait...

King Solomon thought about time quite a bit.  In Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 he wrote:

"To everything there is a season,

A time for every purpose under heaven;

A time to be born,

And a time to die;

A time to plant,

And a time to pluck what is planted;

A time to kill,

And a time to heal;

A time to break down,

And a time to build up;

A time to weep,

And a time to laugh;

A time to mourn,

And a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones,

And a time to gather stones;

A time to embrace,

And a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to gain,

And a time to lose;

A time to keep,

And a time to throw away;

A time to tear,

And a time to sew;

A time to keep silence,

And a time to speak;

A time to love,

And a time to hate;

A time of war,

And a time of peace."

I am still adjusting to this "new time" in my life.  I am not sure what time it is...I believe I am somewhere in the "time to weep and a time to laugh...A time to mourn, and a time to dance".  There are still moments when I feel like weeping and mourning...but there are also times that I want and need to laugh...and I find myself wanting to dance. Not a frenzied kind of dance...not even a waltz...just a holy dance between me and my Lord...where I allow Him to take the lead and twirl me around in His strong and capable arms...lifting me up above my grief and sorrow and showing me the new path that we will travel together. Such a lovely thought.

I am blessed beyond measure...I am not totally bereft of family...I still have my wonderful husband, two healthy and strong sons, a wonderful daughter in law and marvelous grandson...plus many other loved ones near and far.  I do not want to appear to be wallowing in self-pity or lacking in gratitude for all that God has done for me.  But there is this empty place in this mother's heart...a space that will always be missing that one precious son who has gone on to glory much too soon. 

Our precious son, Matthew.

2/25/1973 ~ 5/25/2014

So, what time is it in your  life?  I guess what I am learning is that no matter what season of life we may be in, there is much to learn...and we don't need to feel that we are all alone. God has promised to be with us in our life's journey...from beginning to end.  Perhaps you may discover that it is time for you to let Him take the lead...and just dance. I think I am beginning to understand that better now too.

Tuesday 4-It's About Time

 

Time...

Hi! Welcome to Toni Taddeo's Tuesday 4. Toni has moved on to higher ground but we keep her memory alive.

Let's consider time....

1. When you say "in a couple of days" what time period are you thinking? Is your time exact or fluid?

I guess it all depends on what I am referring to...if it is a specific thing that I am planning to do, then my time is exact, but I would probably state exactly what day it will be.  If it is in reference to something I am thinking about doing, like housework...it can be very fluid..."in a couple of days I will dust the house..." might mean anything from tomorrow to whenever I get around to it.  Case in point, for a while now I have been wanting to replace the mini blinds in our bedroom.  They were very very dusty and grungy on the outside of the blind that is next to the window. We never open those blinds because that side of the house gets a lot of bright sun during the day and it makes the room too hot if we open the blinds. And of course, one never opens the blinds in a bedroom at night, right? Not if it faces another house or street, that is. So, for a while my thought was to replace the blinds because they were old and yucky (they came with the house) and I thought it would be easier to just replace them than to take them down and try to clean them. And so I finally got around to buying new ones to replace them. I thought it would be a simple take down the old and fit the new one into the same bracket and not have to do any changing of the hardware.  Wrong!  The new blinds needed a different kind of bracket to hold them and would not fit into the old brackets. This would require making new holes in the wall and screwing new brackets in different places to hold the blind.  Our house is a manufactured home, and the walls are not as thick as regular drywall.  Plus the stud boards are farther apart, and anyway, long story short, it was going to be a much bigger deal than we thought to put up these new blinds. And so, after looking at the old blinds more carefully, I decided they weren't so bad after all. So I finally got around to taking them outside on the back porch and hosing them down really well. Thankfully the dust and grime came off quite easily. Why didn't I do this sooner???  And now, "in a couple of days" (or whenever we get around to going the 15 miles back to town), we will take the new blinds back to Walmart for a refund. Thankfully I didn't mess them up too much taking them out of the box, etc. and I saved my receipt.  LOL.  

Oh, and of course one thing led to another in this process of taking down the blinds...everything had to be moved away from the windows first, and then that revealed other places that needed extra cleaning of dust accumulation where the vacuum cleaner doesn't always reach on a regular hurry up and vacuum the floor kind of day.  Yeah, I think I need to be more specific when I say I am going to dust in a couple of days and stop putting it off...as you can probably tell, housework is not my most favorite thing to do. I'd rather be outside watching the birds or sitting here writing to you...  Oh, and now my goal is to do one room at a time and take down the blinds and clean them really good like should have been done long before this.  Two windows down, seven windows to go..."in a couple of days..."

2.Does time get away from you? How do you handle time?

Yes, time does get away from me. Now that I am retired, I am not as concerned about time to get up, time to get to bed, etc., except on days when we have specific appointments or church, etc.  However, my husband is the time-keeper here. He keeps me on schedule pretty well. Like right now, it is 7:14 a.m.  Normally we sit down together by 7:00 a.m. and have our morning devotions, and then I fix breakfast, after which we get dressed for the day and go take care of errands, etc., and then come home and have lunch usually by noon.  When it comes to mealtimes, he likes to eat at specific times every day and gets "cranky" if we get too far off schedule. LOL.  Supper is normally around 5:00.   Anyway, I've used up my time to keep writing here this morning, so I need to take a break and come back to this later. If you don't see this until this afternoon you will know that I was having to stay on task and get other things done first. LOL.

P.S....we just got back from Walmart, and yes, I took back the blinds that we didn't want. Now I am back here trying to get this post finished before noon. But this keeps distracting me:

Bluebirds and squirrels...

Squirrel having an acorn snack on our back porch...

Mama Bluebird sticking her head out of the house to check on the whereabouts of the squirrel...

Squirrel on the bird bath, talking to his friend "Bobby" The squirrel,

But actually he is calculating how far of a leap he would have to make to get to the bird feeder from there.

I think he's decided it would be a leap too far.  The "baffle on the birdfeeder" has been working just fine in keeping him off of it.  But he keeps trying. You gotta hand it to him...he's very determined.

I think Mama Bluebird is sitting there laughing and saying "silly squirrel".   I'm surprised she didn't come out and bop him on the head.  That's what they usually do, but she could see he was more interested in the birdfeeder than he was in the birdhouse. So she gave him a break today. LOL.

But this is why I don't get much done.

3. People say time is short. Then why do you do so many things you don't like and so few of the things you do like?

Well, life gets in the way. We have to eat, we have to have clean clothes and a clean house. We have to shop for groceries, we have to maintain our yard and other essentials. We have to go to the doctor. We have other errands that need to be run on a regular basis...car maintenance, etc., etc. We have to sleep.  You'd think when you are retired you would have plenty of time for all of this and also to have fun too.  Well, I've learned that if you want to do things that are fun or hobbies, etc., you have to plan for those things.  You have to allow yourself the freedom to pursue things other than the mundane from time to time.  Frankly, we haven't really learned how to balance all of that yet. We do take walks every day, weather permitting. But with the gas prices the way they are, any kind of trips or vacations are pretty much out of the question for us right now. We live on a very fixed income. That's probably the real reason we don't do so many things we would "like" to do. It takes money. Pure and simple.

4. Do you have enough time to do the things you want to do or live as you would like to live?

I am sure we could have enough time if we planned for it.  But like I said in #3 above, time is one thing, but having the money to do things is another. We did not plan well for our retirement, due to a lot of circumstances beyond our control.  We are very thankful for what we have, however. God has provided a very nice roof over our heads and a lovely place to live. We have good health (for the most part), and we are managing without having to go back to work.  We have plenty of food to eat and we are thankful for having good friends and family nearby. Our church family is very special and important to us, and that is one of our primary sources of fellowship as well as worship. Having spent the majority of our adult lives in working in the ministry in one way or another, that has always been a major part of our way of living. Therefore, it stands to reason that it would continue to be an important consideration in our retirement as well. Our relationship with the Lord is more than just a "job" for us. He is the very source of our existence, both spiritually and physically. And so we are extremely thankful that He gives us the breath and health to live this life we are living. We really wouldn't want it any other way.

"From the rising of the sun 

to its going down

The Lord’s name is to be praised."

Psalm 113:3

Amen.

And now I am being reminded it is time to fix lunch. LOL. So with that I will bid you adieu.  Have a blessed and wonderful day.

Thank you to Annie for coming up with these questions each week for our Tuesday 4.  You are always welcome to join in HERE.

Monday Monday

Good Morning! Not much new to share today, but thought you'd want to know that the Sand Hill Crane Family came back by for a visit.  "Colt" (on the right below) is getting almost as big as his mother. I don't know where they've been the past week...maybe they took a "Spring Break" vacation to show "Colt" the sights around town. But anyway they came back and stepped right back into their routine where they left off.

Mrs. Bluebird stuck her head out of her house to see what was going on in her yard this time. 

Between the turtles laying eggs and the Sand Hill Cranes trampling through the garden, I think she's beginning to think that "Still Waters Pond" isn't so still after all!

The cranes were happy to take a bath and find some good juicy snacks in the water.

And then they wandered on around to other places to eat and eventually back out to the island to sleep for the night.  I'm glad they are back. I was missing their daily activities.

Oh, and speaking of the butterfly garden...here's a picture of the first "butterfly" to visit the garden that I've seen.  This is a Common Checkered Skipper.  He may not be the most beautiful butterfly in God's kingdom, but he's cute, and he seems to like the flowers, so that makes me happy.

Speaking of things that make me happy, our church has a breakfast every 3rd Saturday and every 5th Saturday.  It is open to the public and is a way to reach out to the community and welcome them to our church.

So we went on Saturday morning and enjoyed a great breakfast of pancakes, eggs, sausage...or you could have biscuits and sausage gravy, grits, eggs any way you want them, french toast or regular toast. You can pick and choose what you want, or you can have some of each. It's a great deal/meal for $6.00! Includes coffee, tea, and/or juice.

Y'all come!

Speaking of church, here's our service from yesterday.

The choir was singing an old hymn favorite,

"Great Is Thy Faithfulness"

and the Pastor preached from I Corinthians 12:12-30, entitled "Ouch, That Hurts!", a message about the Body of Christ, and when one part of the body hurts, so does the rest of the body...and how much we need each other.  Great message.

"Great is thy faithfulness, O God, my Father;

There is no shadow of turning with thee.

Thou changest not; Thy compassions, they fail not.

As thou hast been Thou forever wilt be.

Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness!

Morning by morning new mercies I see

All I have needed Thy hand hath provided

Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

Summer and winter, and springtime and harvest

Sun, moon and stars in their courses above

Join with all nature in manifold witness

To thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love

Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness!

Morning by morning new mercies I see

All I have needed Thy hand hath provided

Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth

Thy own dear presence to cheer and to guide

Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow

Blessings all mine with ten thousand beside!

Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness!

Morning by morning new mercies I see

All I have needed Thy hand hath provided

Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!"

We love our little church family. It's a wonderful place to worship God and grow in His Word. We have a wonderful pastor, and his wife is our music/worship leader.  For such a small church, we have a lot of outreach ministries that we support in our community and beyond. And now my hubby is serving as the teacher of the Adult Sunday School class as well as a Men's Bible Fellowship on Monday mornings. I am so happy that he is able to continue using his gifts of teaching God's Word even though he is retired. It's been really good for him.

Another thing we enjoy is going out to lunch after church with a group of church friends. We never know exactly who all will join us as it might change from week to week.  Lately we've been meeting at this little country cafe' in town called Nanna's Country Cafe'.  It's good country cooking...nothing fancy, but most weeks we have a reserved big table where we can squeeze in as many as possible.  I think I counted 13 people from our church there yesterday, but we couldn't all fit at the same table. Even so, it was just great having that added time of fellowship after church with sweet people. To me it's like the icing on the cake after a good church service!

One of the joys of living in a small town. We don't have a lot of places to choose from to go eat, but this place has been the most accommodating for our groups each week, so they win the prize!

Then we went home and took a nap. LOL.  But later our "kids" came over for supper and brought homemade egg rolls. I wish I had taken some pictures of them. Rose really knows how to cook them. They were SO good!  They were a meal in themselves, but I also cooked up an egg omelette with spinach and cheese and sausage in them and that made for a great supper! It was fun to have our kids over. We don't get to see them as much it seems these days because their business keeps them so busy. Happy for them that they are going to take a little vacation this coming weekend up to the mountains of Georgia.  They said we could go too if we wanted to, but even though we would love to do so, we really feel like they need a vacation without the parents along this time.  It was sweet of them to ask, but I think they were probably just as relieved that we said no.  LOL.

Well, I guess that's all for today. Here's a good thought/verse for the day:

Ephesians 4:1-3

1. "I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, 

beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, 

2. with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, 3. endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."

Amen.