Thankful Thursday

"Thank [God] in everything [no matter what the circumstances may be, be thankful and give thanks], for this is the will of God for you [who are] in Christ Jesus [the Revealer and Mediator of that will]." 1 Thessalonians 5:18 Amplified Bible

It would be easy for me to thank God for the loving relationships He has established in my life. In fact, I do thank Him daily for my beloved husband, my family, my church family and for the amazing friends He has brought into my life. Paul however teaches us to be thankful in all circumstances. So.....

Today I choose to thank You, Lord God for those relationships in my life that are strained at this moment in time, knowing that Your work is being done even when I can't understand it. I choose to thank you for those relationships that have fractured and seem beyond repair, for You alone know when people need to move on and move out of my life. I know that there are lessons You wish me to learn from those people in my life that drive me crazy, so I thank you for them as well. Thank You for loving me enough to do those things that are best for me even when they might not be the things I myself would opt to do. You are my God, my King, seated on the throne and Lord of my life. Thank You for choosing me to be Your child, in Jesus name.

To read more Thankful Thursday posts, do visit Sting My Heart. Thank you for Iris for hosting!

Growing Faith

One of the many blessings I received when we moved to our country home was the chance to have a dog. I had owned house cats for years (indoor only), and people thought of me as a "cat person" not realizing the total fool I am for dogs. I simply was waiting for the right time and place to invite one into our lives. My years of urban apartment dwelling and a lifestyle that included very little time spent at home did not lend itself to properly caring for a dog. Cats, though they love our company, can be quite self sufficient as long as they have food, water and a clean litter box. Dogs that live indoors need someone to come home at reasonable intervals to walk them. With acres of space and no neighbors in close proximity, it was time to add a canine member to our family.

Enter a three month old border collie crossed with husky or malamute and who knows what else. Thinking border collie, I was expecting her to be black and white, not the lovely cream and tan ball of fluff Rick brought home in a box. She had crisp and engaging clear blue eyes and so much fur that we were calling her "polar bear butt". Was it love at first sight? You bet! I knew that I was to name her Faith. Young and small as she was, the joke became "Oh, you of little Faith."

She would become an outside dog, but until she was old enough to have all of her shots she spent most of her time in the house with me. One day I was working on the computer and she was curled up near my feet and I began to sing "My little Faith is growing, my Faith is growing bigger everyday." Immediately I sensed the Lord speak into my spirit "That is exactly as it should be."

Faith has grown to be a beautiful, energetic dog that seems to enjoy every moment of her life. She lavishes us with affection. She shows us the same unconditional love that our Heavenly Father desires us to walk in. When she sees me, she comes running towards me in bounding leaps.

No longer can it be said of me "Oh, you of little Faith" for now indeed I have "a bounding Faith". And again I hear my Father say "As it should be, My child. As it should be."

I've Been Tagged!!

Sam from Journey Through Faith tagged me for Six Random Facts. My very first tagging!

First I have to post the rules.... (yes, there are always rules)

1) Link to the person who tagged you.

2) Post the rules on your blog.

3) Write 6 random things about yourself.

4) Tag 6 people at the end of your post and link to them.

5) Let each person know they have been tagged, leave a comment on their blog.

6) Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Now in no particular order, six random things about me:

1) I am back in school now, at the age of almost 52. I am going to finish my bachelor’s degree which I began at Colombia College Chicago many, many years ago. Back then I was working toward a major in Fiction Writing. Now I am a distance student at Christian Leadership University. God changes some things, but others remain the same, for I believe I will be majoring in Prophetic Ministry and Christian Arts (still writing).

2) I love cinnamon, the look of it, the smell of it and the taste of it. It is warm. It is spicy. It is comfort to my bones.

3) I have an unusual affection for two of Hallmark’s most popular e-card characters Hoops and Yoyo. I have stuffed Hoops and Yoyos. I have a Hoops and Yoyo Christmas cd. I fantasize about Hoops and Yoyo creating a worship album, for I just know that their worship would be extravagant. No, I do not quite idolize them, but, Rick did have them put on the cakes for my 50th birthday party!

4) I have a 5 disc stereo in the bedroom that I load up with worship cds and let them play through the night as we sleep. It improves the atmosphere. The devil can’t stand when anyone worships God and just can’t bring himself to hang around! Often I will wake up to hear exactly the lyrics God needs me to hear.

5) God has given me the gift of hearing the sound of chimes when He desires to speak to me about something.

6) I try my best to appreciate all of God’s creation, but for the life of me cannot quite understand why he made mosquitoes. Here in Manitoba they’re often called the provincial bird.

That's it for my six random facts. Now, I am tagging the following six awesome women of God:

Leaving a Legacy
Looking for Rebecca
Sunflower Faith
Songs from My Journey
In His Grip

Faith Prints

More than meets the eye

On July 1st we took off alone to some less visited areas of Riding Mountain National Park, avoiding the crowds that were gathered at Clear Lake for all of the usual Canada Day festivities. In the beauty of His creation we both feel God’s presence more acutely.

Rick, as always, stayed busy snapping pictures with his still relatively new digital camera, purchased before our Uganda journey. We are both quite taken with the native wildflowers and many shots were captured.

Once home again, we plugged the media card into the computer and took a quick look at the pictures. Some very nice flowers indeed, we thought.

A few days later, with more time available, we decided to take a better look. Here was a nice shot of some sort of daisy type flower with strange pink balls on the edge.

We decided to enlarge the view to get a better look at them. Now we could see the pink balls better, but we also noticed something on the white part of the flower that looked like it might be an insect.

We enlarged it yet again to find a wonderful shot of an odd green bug.

This encouraged us to look closer at more of the photos.

This is a picture of a dried reed. When enlarged we found a damsel fly.

Enlarged again there is also a lady bug near the upper left corner.

It seemed that every picture we looked at began to show us more than we expected, and certainly things that Rick didn’t know were there when he took the shots.

I believe this was God teaching us to look closer. He was showing us that there is always much more than we can see with our natural eyes. He desires to enlarge our spiritual senses in the same way our computer enlarged the digital photos.

Forgive me Lord God for so often being content with my natural abilities and not asking for Your divine revelations. Help me to open the eyes and ears of my spirit, to be in tune with what You hear and what You see.

"Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account." Hebrews 4:13

Cafe Chat Week of July 26th

The question asked this week was: "What would be the title of a book about your life?"

So many answers are swirling about in my mind I don't think I can settle on only one.

• Saved From The Fire (and Into the Master's Furnace)


• How Did I Get Here? Only God Knows


• From Winding Roads to a Narrow Path


• Learning to Break the Alabaster Box


• Moving From Fear to Faith and Freedom

Addiction

Okay, it's time for a bit of confession and repentance. I get very testy when I don't have internet access at home, as these last few days have again shown me. In my journal last evening, while we still had no phone line, I wrote:

"Lord God, I know all things are within Your control, and You have a plan that I often do not understand. I want to be able to abandon my own will and be obedient to Yours. In the midst of my frustration at having no telephone and no internet, I realize that You are at work here. There is something You are trying to accomplish. Forgive me Lord if I have come kicking and screaming, whining and complaining. Forgive me for forgetting that if I have nothing but You I still have all that I need."

Leave it to our all knowing Father to arrange things in a way that will show us where our hearts are and open our eyes to priorities that may be misaligned. The internet is a tool, a marvelous tool, but it should never become our life.

Back in Kampala

Our building work for Watoto was completed, we were back from safari, and still had a few days before we had to leave for home. One of our hosts Bonny decided to give us a tour of the city.
We were stuck in one spot in traffic for more than half an hour, until our driver decided to back up, pull through a gas station and drive around on different streets to get us to a point where the flow of traffic was moving again. I remember talking with the Lord, telling Him I would go where He sends me, but please, please..... I've become too used to the wide spaces of country life to cope with congestion like this. Here are Boda Boda (motorcycle taxi) drivers near the largest and busiest market in Kampala, waiting to take people and their purchases home. We couldn't believe some of the things we saw carried on the backs of these small bikes, chairs, sofas, stacks of lumber and more.

Those who could afford the rent had space in this market, others, like this watch vender/repairman had his portable cart across the street.