Tulip in the Thicket

Olivia and the kids came over for a nice little visit. We enjoyed each other and the unseasonably cool air on this refreshing August evening. August weather has been like September! I do hope September weather is also like September weather should be!


Liv and Chloe

Eleanor

Sean brought a pinecone frome home. He was quite pleased with the little gem, so I couldn't resist posting "Pinecone Lovely" from Gustafer Yellowgold.

While I'm on the subject ...
When God first captured my heart, I remember a friend chiding me and saying that I was only hiding in religion. I wanted to shout out, "No! I wasn’t hiding! I had been hiding and in the dark! Now I've been exposed! Yes, now Christ is my "hiding place" and He is the Light of the world!” But back then I probably gave a weak reply and may have felt misunderstood. Now every time I hear or sing songs that speak of Christ being our hiding place, I think back to that time and I am grateful that Christ is my hiding place and that hiding place is in the Light!
John 3:16-21

Rock of Ages, cleft for me! Let me hide myself in Thee!


Augustus Toplady, was the author of the hymn "Rock of Ages"
In his farewell sermon at Blagdon he said:

"If God were to justify and save only those who are pure and upright, heaven would be empty of inhabitants. I say not this to encourage sin; but to encourage those who are grieved for their sins; who fly to the blood of the Cross for pardon, and whose prayer is that they may henceforward be renewed in the spirit of their mind and bring forth acceptable fruit unto God. Let not such be afraid to meet Him: let not such say, "How shall I stand when He appears?" For such have a Foundation to stand upon, a Foundation that cannot fail, even Jesus, the Mediator and Surety of the covenant, Christ, the Rock of Ages. He died for such. Their sins which lay like an unsurmountable impediment, or stood like a vast partition wall, and blocked up the passage to eternal life; I say He took the sins of His penitent people o…

... how to get to Reformatory Street because I lived there until I was about 5 or 6 years old.Our house sat on a wide street on a block of about 10 houses and at one end of the street was the entrance to the Reformatory. See the guard tower? The noon whistle would blow each day and it seems like each day I had to make a conscious effort to trust that the whistle was blowing because it was noon and not because a horrible prisoner had escaped and was heading my direction. Even with the perceived ever present threat of dangerthe time of my childhood living on Reformatory Street was a special time. *I remember sharing mumps and measles with my older brother (Maybe that doesn't sound so special, but our Mom knew how to make our sicknessesseem almost like a treat with all her TLC!)*I remember getting a baby brother, playing paper dolls with my neighbor, having to get my tonsils out, staying clear, but wanting to be part of the fun when my older brother and his buddies were having dirt cl…

"Fascination" is possibly a strong word for this shell of a house, but when I see this old homestead, I imagine a home, a family, sweat of a brow, hard work, heat of the summer, relief of the autumn, simple pleasures, a mother's labor pains, a nursing baby, a father's vision, the joy of children laughing and playing contentedly without cars, computers or text messaging and I imagine all the hopes, tears, prayers and stories I'll never know. Can you enlarge the photo by clicking on it to get a better view then click the "back arrow" to return? Mike and I drove out again to take a fresh look at the possible work involved, but it was too muddy to drive through the field. This photo is from the roadside.

Amemory I have of coming to live in my husband’s hometown is Swedish rusks. Mike, Tabitha, Olivia and I were in Lindsborg looking for a house to rent since Mike had gotten a job in Lindsborg and we were to move from Hutchinson. Mike was born and grew up primarily in Lindsborg. (I’d been to Lindsborg before I met Mike when our high school marching band had come to be part of the Hyllningsfest Parade and my friend and I were left behind in Lindsborg when we didn’t make it back to the bus on time, which is another story for another time...) One Saturday, after house searching, our family took a lunch break at the old City Bakery. Doctor and Mrs. Fuller were also there. Doc Fuller is the man who delivered Mike and was his family’s Doctor for many years. I was pleased to finally meet the man I’d heard so much about! After introductions were made, Mike had a reunion and catch-up visit and before we left we had been invited to live in their country home (built by Mike's Dad) as guests an…

Maybe I was a morose child, but I remember playing a game called something like: "Choice of Infirmities". The players would entertain a series of questions: "Would you rather be deaf, blind or paralyzed?" The game could be magnified by combining infirmities or even adding to them. Say, blind and one-legged! Or we played with a symbolic "ace up our sleeves" that if pulled out at just the right time would "win the game" granting us our own choice of "none of the above infirmities"! Have you ever played that game? Ha! What a game! What an asinine game! To think we are omniscient to make a wise choice! I'm done playing! Or am I? There is always temptation to believe we might know something He doesn't know that He should consider before He allows anything we don't like into our lives! I remembered the game we used to play after I read this poem called, "Choice of Diseases". 
Choice of Diseases Now that I'm sick…

The FedEx truck driver stopped by and made a delivery this morning. I received my MS "drug therapy" in the mail today; a three month supply to be taken subcutaneously (as an injection) every other day. I'm not sure why I get excited as if I'd received a Christmas surprise package at my door, but I do! One of the things I remember my neurologist saying on the day I was diagnosed after I asked him if I had to use any kind of drug is, "I've been a neurologist a long time and before the drug therapies came out we treated the symptoms with steroids, then we treated the side-effects of the steroids with other drugs. It was a vicious cycle. So, no, you don't have to take any of the drug therapies, but I've seen the effects of not doing anything, and I've seen the effects of taking them and I suggest we do something." After much turmoil and many tears, I opted for a drug therapy which cost us almost $10,000 (a credit card panic) in one year and the re…

It's that time of year again. The summer night noises are comforting. We hear crickets and as long as they are outside, the chirping music is expected, constant and in some way, comforting.

Who have displayed Your splendor above the heavens! O LORD, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth! From Psalm 8:1-9 (which begins and ends the same!)

From the previous quote in the post below, I was thinking of hymns we sing with references to wine and the beauty of the words:
(I'm sure there are more I can't think of just now. Can you?)

"O I am my Beloved’s
And my Beloved is mine!
He brings a poor vile sinner
Into His house of wine
I stand upon His merit -
I know no other stand,
Not e’en where glory dwelleth
In Immanuel’s land"
(From "Immanuel's Land", words by Anne R. Cousin
We sing it to this tune. No offense to our little flock, but I don't think we sound quite like this choir...except to the ears of God!
Honestly I love the sound of the tunes sung by our church gathering!


Also- "Here, O our Lord" (words below)  sung to the tune of "Abide with Me".
We sing it a bit more upbeat, but isn't it pretty?



1 Here, O our Lord, we see Thee face to face,
Here would we touch and handle things unseen,
Here grasp with firmer hand eternal grace,
And all our weariness upon You lean.

2 We have no help…

When I am in the cellar of affliction, I look for the Lord's choicest wines. —Samuel Rutherford

LyricalThe spaniel next door yaps at the sparrows, He yaps at the crows and the mailman, Yaps at the compost pile and the sunflower, Yaps at the rain and the sky. He yaps at the steps leading down to the creek where the flax plants bloom high as my waist and blue flowers force their way up though small stones the color of night. He yaps at the garbage truck's back-up beeper, Iron bell song of the priest and bridegroom, Song of the lone ship, song of the train, Song of the big waves rolling and breaking over the western reefs. He yaps at the rosebush, Yaps at the fence, song of the sidewalk cracked in half, The wine bottle resting against the curb, The neighbor who doesn't come home. by Joseph Millar, from Fortune (Eastern Washington University Press, 2007. ) I can thankfully say we don't have this problem. For the most part, we live in a quiet area. But I've lived in areas where a dog barks incessantly. We had a dog one time (he was our dog) that was barking up a storm so much…