Monday Monday! The Day After Mother's Day

 Well, yesterday was Mother's Day, and I pray that it was a lovely day for you in every way. Our day was very special, even with a few unexpected events, but God is good and we are very thankful.

I'll start out with our church service and choir anthem.  It's a good thing this was recorded ahead of time, because we ended up not being able to stay for church afterall.  We made it to and through Sunday School (hubby is the teacher of the adult class), and then just before the worship service was ready to start hubby came to me and said he was not feeling well and needed to go home.  So long story short, we came home, and thankfully son Scott had already arrived here and helped me get him inside and to bed. He rested awhile, and when Benton and Rose arrived after church he got up and tried to eat, which he did manage to eat a bit and I think that helped revive him. He still was  rather weak and wobbly, but refused to go to the ER and get checked out.  As the afternoon progressed he felt a bit stronger and this morning as I am writing this, he is up and having his coffee and seems to be much better. We think he either had a blood sugar drop issue because he hadn't eaten much before church, or very possibly a mild TIA. I would like to take him to the doctor this morning, but we'll see how things go. As most of you probably know, men can be stubborn when it comes to their health...enough said, but I am very thankful that it wasn't something much worse and that he recovered, so we praise the Lord for helping him. **

**After I wrote this earlier this morning, I did call the doctor's office and they were able to work him in right away.  They did an EKG and checked his BP, etc., and all that seemed okay, but he was having a bit of a weak spell there.  The doctor sent in a referral for a CT scan and some other tests and we were able to get into the  radiology office this afternoon and got it all taken care of. We will go back to the doctor next week, unless things change between now and then. But I am now writing this in the evening, and he is feeling a lot better, praise God!

Hmm, this song seems to be appropriate..."You are my strength when I am weak..."  Yes, that is so true for me and for hubby too...

Song: You Are My All in All

"You are my strength when I am weak,

You are the treasure that I seek,

You are my all in all...

Seeking You as a precious jewel,

Lord, to give up I'd be a fool.

Jesus, You're the Lamb of God,

Worthy is Your Name

Jesus, Lamb of God,

Worthy is Your Name.

All to Jesus I surrender,

All to Him I freely give

I will ever love and trust Him

In His presence daily live,

I surrender All

I surrender All

All to Thee my blessed Savior

I surrender all.

Taking my sin my cross my shame

Rising again I bless Your name

You are my all in all

When I fall down you pick me up

When I am dry You fill my cup

You are my all in all

Jesus Lamb of God worthy is Your name

Jesus Lamb of God worthy is Your name

Worthy is Your name

Worthy is Your name."

Amen.

Oh my, just now as I am writing this it is pouring down rain again! It rained all night long too! Praise God!  This is exactly what we've needed, and we are SO grateful for this rain!!  (that was this morning. Now I am back to writing in the evening, and it is cloudy, but no more rain for now. Still, it was a good soaker and Still Waters Pond is very happy).

It rained off and on all yesterday afternoon, and the kitties were content to stay on the porch. I took these pictures last evening when Sunshine surprised us by jumping up on the porch rail right outside our glass doors...I've never seen him do that before. I think he wanted to see what we were doing. 

It's funny because the TV is reflecting on the glass doors, so it looks like he has a TV hologram out there to watch! He really can't see that, but it looks like he's watching it. LOL.

After a while he just settled right down on that skinny ledge and took a catnap.  I'm surprised he didn't fall off!

Blackie Sue is more sensible and stays on the porch, but still she was right there where she could see what we were doing also. They both have become much more watchful of our every move...and are always right there at the back door when we try to open it to go out. Someday I expect they will try to just move on in...but woe to the stuff in high places in our house because Sunshine, in particular, loves to jump up onto high places.  That just wouldn't be a good idea here in this house! LOL.

And no. Blackie Sue has not had any kittens and it does not appear that she will. Her appointment is set for next Friday to get things "fixed", and then that concern will be over finally! I am very thankful.

So back to our Mother's Day dinner and time with the family.  I am so thankful the kids were here and we had a good time even though hubby wasn't feeling up to par, he still wanted to be with the family as much as possible.  We had a wonderful dinner of BBQ boneless ribs cooked in the crockpot, and they turned out really good. The corn on the cob also turned out really sweet and yummy, and Rose's scalloped poatoes were perfect, as was the salad. I didn't take any pictures of the food.  My mind was a bit preoccupied with hubby and making sure he was really okay.  

However, I did ask Scott to take a picture of me before I changed clothes after we got home from Sunday School cause it seems like we never get pictures of us in our Sunday clothes. This dress is old, but it only gets worn a few times a year.

I wore this dress because it went well with that new pendant I bought on Saturday:

Here's our sweet Rose...and guess what she and Benton gave me for Mother's Day?

A Rose Bush of course!! LOL. And it is loaded with buds! Here is a picture of what the roses will look like:

Wow! I can't wait to see them bloom. I pray I won't kill this rosebush! It's beautiful!!

And last but not least, here is our family portrait. We decided we wanted to add our son Matthew's portrait to this family picture, because he is one of the precious children that God gave us, and also because he is certainly with us in spirit.  

Oh, yes, Lily Grace wanted to be in the picture too.  Our family humors me quite a bit. Gotta love them.

This Psalm just seems like an appropriate passage to end this post today, especially verses 4-5 and 11-12.

 

Palm 30

"1 I will extol You, O Lord, for You have lifted me up,

And have not let my foes rejoice over me.

2 O Lord my God, I cried out to You,

And You healed me.

3 O Lord, You brought my soul up from the grave;

You have kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.

4 Sing praise to the Lord, you saints of His,

And give thanks at the remembrance of His holy name.

5 For His anger is but for a moment,

His favor is for life;

Weeping may endure for a night,

But joy comes in the morning.

6 Now in my prosperity I said,

“I shall never be moved.”

7 Lord, by Your favor You have made my mountain stand strong;

You hid Your face, and I was troubled.

8 I cried out to You, O Lord;

And to the Lord I made supplication:

9 “What profit is there in my blood,

When I go down to the pit?

Will the dust praise You?

Will it declare Your truth?

10 Hear, O Lord, and have mercy on me;

Lord, be my helper!”

11 You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;

You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness,

12 To the end that my glory may sing praise to You and not be silent.

O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever."

Amen.

I hope you've all had a good weekend and day. I haven't had time to get around to reading any posts yet as I spent most of the day going to and from appointments and trying to do some laundry in between and fixing our lunch and supper (which was leftovers, thankfully, from yesterday!) So now, barring unforeseen circumstances, I will try to get around to your posts and saying hello!! Thank you all for being here!  Good Night!

Joy Comes in the Morning

I noticed as we walked by the place where these wild plum trees were blooming that they were looking kind of "pink"!  

I had never noticed that before so I had to go have a closer look, and what it is is the centers of the blossoms and the stamen and pistils are actually pink, and the white petals are starting to drop off. Soon they will begin to form the fruit! I will be watching for this now that I know where these trees are!  The wild plum is rather small and I don't know how sweet they are, but they might make some good jam or jelly! We shall see what develops. (And how energetic I might be when the fruit ripens...if there is any fruit!)

I just think they are so pretty, and they are growing wild all around through the woods where we like to take our walks. This sight made me smile today after a rather sad weekend.

After our walk we came back to our house and I noticed these little yellow flowers growing along the fence on our property boundary.

Upon closer inspection I realized that this is a wild "Carolina Jessamine", a type of jasmine.

This gives me great joy also, even though I know it is wild and the blooming season will be short lived, but it brings color and beauty to our "landscape"...and some surprising flowers that I did not know were here! These are the little things that God does to make me happy! Such a blessing!

I rather liked this picture of this solitary Canadian Goose relaxing on the pond. She/he really wasn't alone. His/her (?) mate wasn't far off, but I liked this particular "pose".

 Kind of goes along with this picture below:

 Now, I know you are wondering how many more pictures of these Ring-Necked ducks are you going to have to endure! Well, I don't know...Today there were at least a dozen of these ducks out there all at the same time...I think that is a record! I couldn't just ignore that, could I?

Especially when they started standing up and flapping their wings for me, showing off a little bit!

Speaking of a dozen all gathered around, flapping their wings and showing off for us...on Friday we were pleased to be invited over to a couple's home for supper and to "play Scrabble".  These are friends from our church, and we were truly looking forward to the fellowship and playing games as well.  However, our plans got a little bit changed as our friends are grandparents to a lovely little family that has five beautiful, darling children. I've written about this family before HERE.  Due to some family issues, our friends were asked to babysit for the kids for the afternoon, and so our quiet little get together with this couple went from the four of us playing scrabble and having supper together to, before the evening was over, there were TWELVE of us sitting around their dining room table, enjoying a wonderful meatloaf dinner that the grandchildren actually helped prepare, and such laughter and fun and antics...(we kind of looked like that flock of ducks above)  Well, we never did play Scrabble, but we had such a great time that we didn't even miss it.  I love it when spontaneous fun and fellowship happens! Don't you?   And our friends promised that we WILL play Scrabble together soon, but we really don't mind one way or the other. We were blessed to be a part of this beautiful family for a day!

As I've probably shared before, we only have the one grandson, and he is now 20 years old and lives 1500 miles away, so we don't often have the opportunity to spend time with him or with little ones around. These kids ranged in age from 13 years down to 3 years old...and every one of them is so full of love and sweetness they just blessed our hearts.

I love how God brought beauty and laughter and joy into our lives this weekend, in the midst of some sad news about our friend who died so unexpectedly, (at least it was unexpected to us). 

Psalm 30 seems to go along with this...

 A Song at the dedication of the house of David.

1I will extol You, O Lord, for You have lifted me up,

And have not let my foes rejoice over me.

2O Lord my God, I cried out to You,

And You healed me.

3O Lord, You brought my soul up from the grave;

You have kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.

4Sing praise to the Lord, you saints of His,

And give thanks at the remembrance of His holy name.

5For His anger is but for a moment,

His favor is for life;

Weeping may endure for a night,

But joy comes in the morning.

6Now in my prosperity I said,

“I shall never be moved.”

7Lord, by Your favor You have made my mountain stand strong;

You hid Your face, and I was troubled.

8I cried out to You, O Lord;

And to the Lord I made supplication:

9“What profit is there in my blood,

When I go down to the pit?

Will the dust praise You?

Will it declare Your truth?

10Hear, O Lord, and have mercy on me;

Lord, be my helper!”

11You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;

You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness,

12To the end that my glory may sing praise to You

 

and not be silent.

O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever.

How about you? Have you experienced these special times of joy after times of sorrow? Have you seen the ways that God does not leave us in our sorrows, but "His favor is for life...Weeping may endure for a night, But Joy comes in the morning."  Sometimes it takes a while before we are even able to think about singing praise and dancing again after a great loss...but God in His mercy, knows just what we need and when we need it. We need to be open to His love and being clothed with gladness...and open our hearts to sing praise to Him and not be silent. I pray for those who are grieving right now, that their hearts will be softened by His loving Presence, and that joy will flood their souls to overflowing.  Amen.