Thankful Thursday~ Blessings and God's Mercy

It's Thursday, and I am thankful today for many things.  I've been trying to sort out a lot of thoughts and feelings today to figure out a way to share a story with you.  I haven't quite got it all together yet, so let's see how it unfolds as we go through these pictures...

After all, according to my Lipton tea bag, "Inspiration is just a sip away"

And even my dishes are inspiring me to "Believe",  and write to you today...

The tea mug says:

"The whole world is a series of miracles, but we're so used to them we call them ordinary things."

Hans Christian Anderson

I know you are probably wondering how I can drink a cup of hot tea when the temperature is rising every moment as we speak... this was the temperature this morning at 10:47 a.m., in the shade:

But I just checked again now at 1:36 p.m., and it is 93 degrees and still rising.  So I am inside the cool house, very thankful that our repaired air conditioner is still working just fine. In case you missed THAT STORY, you can go back and read about it HERE.  And believe it or not, this cup of hot tea is very soothing to me right now.  I'll explain more about that as we move along.

How many of you have noticed the beautiful full moon the past couple of nights?

I have heard someone say this is called the "Strawberry Moon".  According to what I read on Google,

"A strawberry moon refers the full moon for the month of June. In 2022, June's strawberry moon qualified as a super moon because it occurred while the moon's orbit was especially close to the Earth – giving an appearance of an even larger and brighter full moon." 

 

I'm glad I didn't miss it. That picture was taken early yesterday morning before it descended over Still Waters Pond.  I saw it again late late last night, actually around 12:30 this morning, but I didn't take a picture of it then. I wish I had. But I had other things on my mind.

However, in honor of the "strawberry moon", I thought I would add some fresh strawberries to my salad for lunch today, along with some fresh blueberries, apple slices, spinach, swiss cheese, a few Fritos and some of my super duper "chia seeds" sprinkled over the Marie's Cole Slaw dressing that I always use.

Yes, I love the Marie's Cole Slaw dressing for my regular salad dressing because it has celery seeds in it and it is a kind of sweet and sour creamy dressing that is especially tasty with spinach. The chia seeds added a nice crunch, but I definitely needed to brush my teeth after eating to make sure I got all the seeds out of my teeth. I wouldn't want them to sprout chia seed green hair! LOL.  It was a very tasty salad.

For breakfast I had some of the blueberry bran muffins that I baked a couple of mornings ago. (along with a scrambled egg)

Recipe can be found HERE.

And for a snack with my tea I should be having one of these peanut butter cookies that I baked a couple of days ago also.  I don't do a lot of baking usually in the summer time because of the heat and our gas range really throws out a lot of heat in the kitchen, but the family loves some kind of cookie snack and the store bought kind aren't always as good.  So once in a while I get busy and do some baking to keep everyone happy. I think they are almost gone anyway. I'd better save some for the guys.

Back to nature for a few minutes while I collect my thoughts...saw this "yellow bellied slider" turtle roaming through the yard again the other morning. I don't know if she is looking for a place to lay some eggs or what is going on. She wandered off into the brushy woodsy area maybe to have some privacy.

This is a little fuzzy, but one of our blueberry bushes is finally getting some ripe berries!  Thankfully the birds haven't found them yet. I'd better keep an eye on them.

I wandered around our yard this morning before it got too hot, (well, that's when it was 89 degrees), and I was most appreciative for our big live oak trees in the front yard that help keep that part of the yard and house cooler.  They are messy trees, with TONS of acorns for the squirrels and millions of little leaves that fall in early spring that create a real big mess to rake up, but they stay pretty much covered in leaves year round so they are a constant source of shade. For that part we are very thankful.

I also wandered around to the butterfly garden area, which needs weeding really badly, but it has been much too hot even in the early morning to be doing any weeding right now. It's all I can do to keep it watered because we haven't had much rain at all. But the flowers are still blooming and growing and I enjoy looking at it even if it does need weeding.

This beautiful Gloxinia is blooming again! This is a plant that I brought with us when we moved here almost 3 years ago. It was in a little pot, and it kept blooming and blooming. I finally planted it in the Secret Memorial Garden, and this is the first time it has bloomed since it was planted in the ground. I love it's beautiful purple velvety blossom, don't you?

These little some kind of sun flowers say they are very sun tolerant, but I've had to water them constantly to keep them growing. Thankfully they are finally starting to bloom again.

I needed to sit outside in the shade of the Secret Memorial Garden this morning and spend some time praising God for His kindness and mercy once again.

This little Cuban Anole, or "Brown Anole", was keeping a close watch on me while I sat in the garden.

He kept showing off his bright orange "dewlap" while he sat there, but it was hard to get a picture of it while fully open.

He wanted me to know that he was the king of this "jungle", and I'd better mind my manners.  They tend to be very territorial.  They are fun to watch, but they are an invasive species that has pretty much driven out the cute little green gecko chameleons in Florida, and so I really wish he would just move on, but I'm afraid they are here to stay.

Mr. Bluebird was also keeping a watchful eye over me and over the birdhouse where his babies are still hiding out.  I don't know why they haven't fledged yet. It seems like it's past time...but they know when it is time to move out and I need to not interfere.  I just keep praying that big old ugly crow will stay away.

Mama and Papa Bluebird are also extremely protective and territorial, driving away any other birds that happen to fly too close to the nest or the whole back yard for that matter. My pretty red cardinals and other birds have to try to steal a seed from the bird feeder on the sly and hope the Bluebirds don't catch them.

But soon enough the babies will fledge and the family will move on to the next place, wherever that may be. So I will enjoy watching them while I can. I wonder if they will have one more brood of babies this summer again like they did last year?  Time will tell.

Okay, so I've come to the end of the pictures and I still haven't told you about what is on my mind. I mentioned that I saw the full moon last night around 12:30 a.m.   If you know me at all, you know that I am usually in bed LONG before that, and last night was no exception to that rule.  It took me a while to get to sleep,  but I am sure I was pretty much out of it before 10:30 or thereabouts.  So you can imagine my concern and dismay and shock to hear someone pounding on our front door around 12:30 a.m.   My husband and I both jumped up out of bed to run to the door without giving much thought to what we were wearing. Thankfully my gown covers the subject. But anyway, my first thought was that our son had somehow either forgotten his key or had locked himself out accidentally. He was not home when we went to bed earlier, and we had not heard him arrive home.  But he is usually home before that time as he has to get up early to drive a long distance to work each morning.

We were shocked and very concerned to see two law enforcement officers standing there.

A parent's worst nightmare.

My heart started racing as the officer said "I'm sorry to bother you at this late hour, and I don't know how to tell you this, but..."   and my mind was imagining every possible scenario as I clung to my husband's arm. I didn't want to hear the next words that I feared were going to come out of the officer's mouth. He kept kind of stammering around the subject, asking my husband where he had been and if he had been out in the car that evening, which of course he had not. He said our car had been involved in an accident...and I'm thinking what is he talking about? Our car is right there in the driveway where it belongs and it hadn't left. I'm getting very confused, and the officer keeps questioning my husband and telling him to just tell the truth. What?  I'm thinking this man is going to tell us that our son has been involved in an accident and is possibly either seriously injured or worse yet, dead. That is where my brain was at that moment, and I couldn't understand why the officer wouldn't come out with the whole story. Finally, after what seemed an eternity to me, we realized he wasn't talking about our car, but our son's truck. Our son and my husband have the same first name, and therefore the officer was also very confused.  But our son's truck was right there in the place where he usually parks it. 

And at that moment I realized:

Glory Hallelujah! My son must be at home in bed! 

And so I ran to his room and praise God, there he was, sound asleep in his bed. I woke him up and told him what was going on, and he groggily got up, got dressed and came out to talk to the officers.

Long story short, there had been an "incident", not an accident. Apparently a kind of road rage incident, and from the story I heard, not totally our son's fault, but the other party had called in his tag number to the police. No one had been hurt, and whatever really happened will now be up to the court to determine...it's a "his word against her word" kind of situation.  I wasn't there so I cannot say who was right or wrong. The judge will have to decide. And our adult son will have to abide by whatever the outcome of that decision may be.

All I can say as a mother is Praise God, my son is alive!  My worst nightmare did not come true. 

And when the officer was finally finished interrogating our son I told the officer what I thought he was going to tell us that night, and then I broke down and hugged my son so tightly and cried and cried. My son apologized for causing us such anxiety.  Finally we were able to go back to bed and after a while I was able to go back to sleep, but not before praising God again for sparing our son.

Yes, I hesitated to share this story with you because it would be an admission that our family is less than perfect.  People who know us well already knew that. That's not new news. But I decided to share it with you because to me it was a more important story of God's mercy and grace. The ending of this story could have been so much worse. It could have been a horrific tragedy. Other people's lives could have been terribly changed in a moment as well.  There could have been other lives lost, not just the possibility of our own son's life. We just never know when our loved ones go out the door if they will come back home to us again.  Last evening we actually had had a wonderful time with our son before he left to go visit a friend.  He had just been offered and had accepted a very good new job opportunity, with a nice raise in pay.  The job is in another city where his friend lives, who had already offered him a room for rent so he wouldn't have to commute back and forth to work like he's been doing now for so long. It was a real blessing and an answer to prayer for our son, as almost half of his pay has been going into gas and car expenses, not to mention the question of safety on the roads. And so to have such a joyous event spoiled by an almost tragic ending would have been even more heart breaking.

And so today I truly want to give God praise and thanks for His kindness to our family. 

Just some thoughts today from Psalm 130

"1 Out of the depths I have cried to You, O Lord;

2 Lord, hear my voice!

Let Your ears be attentive

To the voice of my supplications.

3 If You, Lord, should mark iniquities,

O Lord, who could stand?

4 But there is forgiveness with You,

That You may be feared.

5 I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,

And in His word I do hope.

6 My soul waits for the Lord

More than those who watch for the morning—

Yes, more than those who watch for the morning.

7 O Israel, hope in the Lord;

For with the Lord there is mercy,

And with Him is abundant redemption.

8 And He shall redeem Israel

From all his iniquities."

Praise God!