Midnight Psalms

Nov 4th midnight

 Psalm 96

"Sing to the Lord a new song." 

One we haven't sung before 

because there are new experiences, 

new heartaches, new troubles we haven't known before. 

Our song is new....it's different. 

But we will sing it. 

God is doing things we've never seen Him do before. 

It makes us walk in deeper faith and trust. 

We cling to Him 

because everything 

we've ever thought of as strength in our lives

 has crumbled in our hands.

 We were heading strong towards a mark 

and precious things were crushed and stolen

 from those You entrusted us with.

So our song is now a little more humble, 

a little more contrite and dependent on God. 

Our need is so much greater, 

our cry is more desperate. 

There is no more of our own strength. 

"Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name; bring an offering and come into His courts."

I'm remembering the glory that is due the Lord tonight 

and laying down a precious offering. 

A costly offering, 

but I know He will consume it 

with great mercy and grace. 

I'm laying this precious thing, 

this pearl, down on Your altar. 

I offer this to You for Your will and purpose. 

Breathe new life in and cast all that is evil out. 

Your mercies are new every morning. 

Great is Your faithfulness, Oh Lord.

Some morning I want to wake

 to a new song 

of victory

 over what was restored 

and given back ten fold.

I waited patiently for the Lord;

    he inclined to me and heard my cry.

 

He drew me up from the pit of destruction,

    out of the miry bog,

and set my feet upon a rock,

    making my steps secure.

 

He put a new song in my mouth,

    a song of praise to our God.

Many will see and fear,

    and put their trust in the Lord.   Psalm 40:1-3

For the Lord your God is living among you.

    He is a mighty savior.

He will take delight in you with gladness.

    With his love, he will calm all your fears.

    He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.  Zeph 3:17

I'll wait for You.

Remember

A prayer for our wandering loved ones. 

Our wandering journey to the Promised Land sometimes takes us through a violent, stormy parting of sea, but God always goes before us. I'm remembering when He's done it before, His mighty power, set in motion through nights of prayer and choosing to trust Him to work in our loved one's life, surrendering them to Him. I opened the Bible this morning, worried and desperate for answers and this was my Psalm for today. 

Oh, and I should mention that my word for the year 2020 is Remember. 

And my prayer word for her is Promised Land. 

Psalm 77

1 

I cried out to God for help;

    I cried out to God to hear me.

 

When I was in distress, I sought the Lord;

    at night I stretched out untiring hands,

    and I would not be comforted.

I remembered you, God, and I groaned;

    I meditated, and my spirit grew faint.

 

You kept my eyes from closing;

    I was too troubled to speak. 

I thought about the former days,

    the years of long ago; 

I remembered my songs in the night.

    My heart meditated and my spirit asked:

“Will the Lord reject forever?

    Will he never show his favor again?

Has his unfailing love vanished forever?

    Has his promise failed for all time?

 

Has God forgotten to be merciful?

    Has he in anger withheld his compassion?”

Then I thought, “To this I will appeal:

    the years when the Most High stretched out his right hand.

 

I will remember the deeds of the Lord;

    yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.

 

I will consider all your works

    and meditate on all your mighty deeds.”

Your ways, God, are holy.

    What god is as great as our God?

 

You are the God who performs miracles;

    you display your power among the peoples.

 

With your mighty arm you redeemed your people,

    the descendants of Jacob and Joseph.

The waters saw you, God,

    the waters saw you and writhed;

    the very depths were convulsed.

The clouds poured down water,

    the heavens resounded with thunder;

    your arrows flashed back and forth.

 

Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind,

    your lightning lit up the world;

    the earth trembled and quaked.

 

Your path led through the sea,

    your way through the mighty waters,

    though your footprints were not seen.

You led your people like a flock

    by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

Love like a waterfall

Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.

By day the Lord directs his love,
at night his song is with me—
a prayer to the God of my life.

I read this from Psalm 42:7-8 this morning. The wind here today is roaring like a waterfall, so I've been enjoying the thought of sitting by God's waterfalls, waves and breakers of understanding and love sweeping over me.

He knows the deep places of our souls, our longings and aching.  He understands and directs His love toward us like waves and waterfalls. Amazing.

New Living Translation:

I hear the tumult of the raging seas
    as your waves and surging tides sweep over me.

 But each day the Lord pours his unfailing love upon me,
    and through each night I sing his songs,
    praying to God who gives me life.

Full of?

Beth Moore quote.

God's fullness is about being full of the right thing....recognizing the wrong things.

Filled to the measure

Fullness sounded like such a great word a few weeks ago.

Then I was listening to or reading something about 2 weeks ago....I can't remember where... I was instantly taken away in thought about it. The thought was that in order to be filled with one thing you have to be empty of all else.

If a cup is full of water, that means there is no tea in it. It is filled with water.

I realize of course, that this will not be easy. The emptying has begun and it seems to be emptying through my eyes. Leaking, pooling, downright weeping. No point in wearing eye makeup these days. I'm being emptied.



Paul asked God to bless his friends with the fullness of God.
  

For this reason I kneel before the Father,   

from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.  

 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you 

with power through his Spirit in your inner being,   

 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. 

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,  

 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, 

to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,   

and to know this love that surpasses knowledge

—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Ephesians 3:14-19

I love that.  I guess I still think it's a great word. 

And then he concluded the prayer with this:

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, 

according to his power that is at work within us,   

to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus 

throughout all generations, for ever and ever! 

Amen. Ephesians 3:20-21

For His glory, according to His power, immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine.....throughout all generations. Forever.

I may have to buy stock in the Kleenex tissue company.

Gracious Blessings

  So the Word became human and made his home among us. 

He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness.  

And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son...

 

 From his abundance [fullness] we have all received one gracious blessing after another.

John 1:14-16

Our first Sunday service of the year, the floor was opened up for testimonies on what God had done in our lives in 2013. One by one, my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ stood to honor God's gracious blessing in their life. My tears would not stop flowing. 

He's been so good to them....to us.... to me...

....I'm not talking about our great circumstances, material wealth or ease of life, but because of God's work, guidance, care and favor in spite of our circumstances.... because of His abundant grace in our lives.  And it is absolutely radiant in these dear people. 

"From his abundance [fullness] we have all received one gracious blessing after another."

We have all received one gracious blessing after another. Look around and you'll see God's grace in the lives around you, as well as in your own. Then take time to acknowledge it, honor Him. It's kind of like treasure hunting.

It's been 3 weeks now and I can't seem to keep my eye makeup on through a worship service since then. There is a real connection between gratefulness and sincere worship...looking back to remember what He's done, acknowledging His work and His grace in our lives. Then worship flows.

In health or in warfare, there is fullness of joy in the presence of the Lord

Is January zipping by for everyone or is it just me! I need to get back in the habit of posting here, but I'm not making any promises....or resolutions.

I'm just not a resolute type of person I guess. There are many things I should be resolute about, but, ehn. So a few years ago, I gave up making New Year resolutions and began asking God to give me a word for the year.

I began this spiritual practice at the end of 2010, being challenged by a group of other pastors' wives I am involved with. Here is my little history of what God's shown me in the past few years....

2011 Joy ....coming after a few terribly stressful years. The housing crisis hit and we were devastated and humbled by it. I lost 2 jobs because of lay offs.  I felt very unsure of myself and vulnerable. These, along with a lot of other things that involved loss, just made it a difficult series of years for us that led up to 2011. In fact, when I got this word after praying for one, I kept rethinking it. I was in such a state of being humbled and vulnerable that I kept thinking it was just wishful thinking and not something from God. But it was, it kept being confirmed to me and I finally, thankfully, accepted it.

Even though it wasn't a perfectly happy and pain free year, God developed an inner peace and contentment throughout that year that I truly realized the truth I did know in my head, I just wasn't practicing it. Joy comes from within, from being submitted to the Lord, grateful and obedient to Him, not from outer circumstances. The word could have been trust, because I was learning to trust what He was doing in our life, but that was the process....the gift was accepting joy.

The beginning of that year found us packing up our home and moving to a very cheap rental house, wondering what would come next. But it was a freeing time too. We no longer had a huge house payment and I did not have to work. We could afford for me to stay home again and it was...joyful. We were content to live in that little rental house and had plans to be there for as long as we could foresee. But the end of the year found us moving into a large, beautiful home owned by a generous person who charged us less rent than the cheap rental house. We learned to be content and find joy wherever we were. It was kind of an amazing journey of letting go of stuff and trusting what God was doing.

2012 Health ....not striving for health (which was my first thought), but a gift of... an answer to a lot of different health problems that did not seem connected. I was beginning to feel very worn down,  used up and in pain a lot. In February an ultrasound for female things showed that I had a left kidney full of stones. Even though I'd had numerous kidney stones before, I had no idea that was where my pain and problems were coming from. After a grueling 2 lithotripsies and an emergency hospitalization, I remembered an old friend's kidney stone problem was caused by an overactive parathyroid gland, so I mentioned that to my doctor. One simple blood test later, I ended up having one of my parathyroid glands taken out and wow, what a difference! I'm so thankful.

2013 War. Scary word, but I was invited to join in the spiritual warfare that was raging against my family and our church. The word Victory was popping up all over the place, even the day after I got this word, so it was a very hopeful time, even though it was a very hard year....the hardest of my life. There were many victories too. Trust me.

This is the main reason I have not blogged very often this year. The things going on in my life and head were a little too personal and not really about me, so I could not share.

2014 Fullness

 Are you kidding me! Bring it! I am ready. Already I am hearing this word pop up in my husband's sermons....even before telling him my word. And see it all the time in my devotional time.  I made a Pinterest board on it. The verse I'm mainly focused on is Psalm 16:11...

You will make known to me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.
Psalm 16:11 NAS

Fullness only comes from God, so I am eagerly anticipating this year and what He will show me. God is so good to us in that group of women I meet with, giving us a little glimpse of the year, a little prophetic word to hold on to, to anticipate....  Each woman has a story to tell about their words. He is active and working and teaching us so much.

Signs in the Sky

I would never have classified myself as a signs and wonders type of person. I mean I always knew God could perform signs and wonders if He wanted to, but I didn't think they were necessarily something for my daily life.

But y'know what? That is changing. It's not that the signs and wonders weren't there before, it's that I didn't recognize them. I wasn't looking or expecting anything. God is working all the time, all around us. He wants us to join in and notice......to be grateful and mindful of His power and presence.

A couple of weeks ago, Maggie and I were driving in to Albuquerque for a driver's education practice and I looked up at the mountains that divide Albuquerque from our East Mountain area. I always look at them when we're driving and since she was driving, I was really looking. It's a beautiful view of the green covered sweeping mountain ridge, lately with patches of yellow aspen. Right above the top of the ridge--I kid you not!--was a semicolon. It was made from a couple of small clouds. It was the only patch of clouds I could see, sitting there all alone in a perfect backwards semicolon. I even pointed it out to Maggie and she said yes, it was a semicolon and added that I was weird. (I was a little excited, that's all)

Punctuation in the sky.

It gets your attention. It is weird.

I dropped her off to drive with her instructor and then I had to google semicolon to see what it's purpose is because, clearly it was a sign of some sort.

--A semicolon is used to join 2 independent, yet somewhat related, statements.
--Semicolons are described by writers as old fashioned, middle class, and optional.
--Semicolons can be used to link transitional phrases.
--Semicolons are used to separate words of opposed meaning.
--They also allow for a rapid change of direction in a sentence.

 In full time ministry lifestyle, we are constantly praying for God to put a kind of symbolic semicolon into people's lives.

Charlie used drugs to escape the emptiness of life; when he turned his life over to Christ, he was set free and now has direction and Hope.

Susan's life was all about fighting for cause after cause; God showed her true purpose in life, to let Him love others through her.

Our church has been prayer walking together at least once a month in different neighborhoods. It is amazing what you are led to pray for someone by just walking by their property. It gets very personal and it's obvious that people need a semicolon these days. The last 3 uses listed anyway.

--To link transitional phrases.
--To separate words of opposed meaning.
--Allows for a rapid change of direction in a sentence.

On October 31st we will be taking the children of our church trick or treating in a neighborhood near our church. As the children go to the doors, the adults will be covering that household in prayer. The children will hand the person answering the door a small gift bag with a little gift and a card that tells them we care and have prayed for their household.

We want to see that huge semicolon inserted into people's lives....transitions, radical changes, true Hope where there is now only emptiness.

Snapping back

This past week my mind has snapped back into action. Toward the end of last year, I asked God for a word for the year. I do this each year, the past few years and it is amazing what God shows me. It opens my eyes spiritually. The word He gave me for this year is war. NOT a lackadaisical kind of word....not one you really look forward to having for a whole year.  Not a real pleasant word. But then I thought about how God works. I remembered I had a  Pinterest board about it. Just looking at the pins on that board, mostly Bible verses, I feel strength to jump back in....because I got lazy and the enemy gained ground.


So anyway, being snapped back into action and all. I was reminded like a slap in the face, that I am in a year of warfare. And war is proactive. There is nothing passive about it unless you want to get creamed.

And I don't want that.

So I am stepping back on the battlefield today, right now. I thought maybe someone who reads this may need the same encouragement to get back in their armor. We are all involved in this battle. And it is never in vain. We must fight for each other.

God help us.

The Dovecot

I love it when I'm doing something ordinary and something extraordinary happens.

My sister Julie asked me to send her Hannah and Bradley's new address. They are on their honeymoon, so I was trying to figure out their house number on my own. I looked it up on Google maps and then clicked on the street view option. I couldn't see the house number but while I was looking at it from different angles something else jumped out at me.

So I took a screen shot of the Google map view.

In one angle of the street view, there are two birds (they look like doves) taking flight right in front of the one eave on the house. It is a tiny, tiny house....400 square feet I think. When my sister Julie saw it last week, she said it reminded her of the little cottage where Meg and John Brook live in Little Women. They called it the Dovecot.

I love how symbolic it is that the doves are just taking off in flight, just like the newlywed couple.

Many, many blessed times and years to them.

Caged beauty

My dog, Maisy, eats my pansies. They haven't bloomed all summer until now

....inside their cages. 

I tell them it's for their own protection.

Maisy has moved on to squirrels, but she hasn't gotten to taste one yet....though not for lack of digging after them into their holes.

Autumn came in my mailbox today

We haven't live in New Jersey since 1997, but a bit of NJ autumn arrived in our mailbox today!

Ivins' Spiced Wafers...... I wrote a whole post about these little cookies once ( and here
and here). The recipe there is a good ginger snap recipe, but it's really nothing like Ivins'.

I have talked about them so much since moving away from New Jersey that my friend Sue thinks of me every time she sees them in the store.....which is only during the fall! They only make them for fall. The rest of the year you must have to anticipate (or stockpile them in your freezer).

Well this year, when Sue saw them in the store, she not only thought of me, but she bought me some and mailed them all the way to New Mexico. (the postage cost more than the cookies) She is that kind of wonderful. And it made my day! Sue, you are a really cool friend and I thank you, thank you, thank you!

Oh and the reason I don't have a picture of the actual cookie is because I must wait to eat them until I have a tall glass of ice cold apple cider to accompany them.

Oatmeal Marmalade Cookies

Tomorrow Maggie is coming home! She's been gone for 33 days now. Mission trip and then visiting in Phoenix. My sister is driving her home tomorrow and will be here to visit for a few days.

I got some baking mojo last night, so that I'd have some treats for company,  and baked a new kind of cookie, so I thought I would share the recipe (because I am that nice). :)

 When we moved into this rental house, our landlord baked us cookies as a housewarming gift. (there were even homemade dog biscuits that were pumpkin flavor) She labeled each kind and one was Oatmeal Marmalade Cookies....chewy oatmeal cookies with a slight orange flavor. I've made 2 recipes and this is the one that turned out the best.





Oatmeal Marmalade Cookies
IMPORTANT: Do not mix the marmalade in with the wet ingredients. Follow the instructions and stir it in last, with the raisins, after everything is mixed. They will not turn out right if you mix it in. (been there, done that)

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 1/4 cups old fashioned oats
1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger

1/4 tsp nutmeg


1/3 cup softened butter

1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar

1  egg

1 tsp. vanilla


1 cup golden raisins

1/3 cup orange marmalade

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Combine flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg and set aside.

Beat together the butter, sugar and brown sugar. Beat in the egg and vanilla.

Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir by hand until almost combined. Add the raisins and marmalade, and stir until just blended.

Drop rounded teaspoonfuls of dough 2” apart on a cookie sheet. Parchment paper really helps them not to stick to the pan! Bake for 15–20 minutes, until deep golden all over, but not brown (see photo). Cool for a few minutes on the cookie sheet, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Makes 2-3 dozen cookies.

The Mountain

The mountain opened up again yesterday after being closed because of fire danger, so we took a walk.

We're so thankful for the rains recently!

Things I haven't blogged about lately...

This is my catch up list! (with very fancy bullet points)

- I sent Maggie off on a mission trip. Our youth group went to Oakland/San Francisco, California to help clean up a neighborhood and be Light to the people there. They have some wonderful stories too!
- Sent Charles off to Phoenix (you are seeing a trend here I assume) to perform a wedding and to pack up our outdoor furniture, grill, chiminea, lawn mower, weed whacker, and assorted other outdoorish things. We didn't have room in our original moving truck for these things and have been begging and borrowing lawn mowers and eating only indoor cooked foods since we moved here so...YAY! We've also broken every folding camping chair we had except one because we sit on our deck so much. Love having our furniture set again. Love having a mowed lawn and grilling food outside.
- I flew to Phoenix 2 days after Charles to attend Hannah's wedding shower at her sister-in-law-to-be's house. Then we went whirlwind shopping to try to find a bridesmaid dress for Emma which was unsuccessful but fun. Then I met Charles at the church, where the wedding he reception he was involved with was wrapping up, hopped into the small moving truck drove with him back to Albuquerque (from which I flew away early that same morning). We arrived somewhere around 3:30am, bleary eyed and almost in an altered state! ;)
- Youth mission team arrived back on Monday night but without Maggie. Her sisters picked her up as they drove through Flagstaff and she has been in Phoenix visiting ever since. She helped with our former church's Vacation Bible School this past week and left yesterday to go to youth camp with her old youth group until Tuesday. She will be home Thursday, when my sister will drive up to visit for a few days.
- I have found that life around here is either full steam, barreling ahead or it's completely quiet and peaceful until your ears are ringing. Maggie described it that it's like being dropped in honey....every. thing. slowwwwwws. doooooown. Meditate on this for a while. It's taken a while to get used to but we are enjoying it now. I think it's healthy and was needed. And now imagine floating in honey without a Maggie in the house. You've gone from honey to molasses in January. I am cracking up because that is exactly what it was like for a week or so. .....and then the barreling starts.
- In one long weekend we volunteered at a field day for the community center's children's summer recreation program. I manned the dart game.....with real darts with one inch stickers on the ends. (Yes, that was as intimidating and stressful as it sounds when you are assisting keyed up K-6th graders with dangerous weapons) Sunburn number one happened.
- The very next day, our church put on a block party. Our church does a block party every summer as a way to get to know the community better. But this year we also did it as a fund raiser for a neighbor of ours named Steve. On Memorial Day weekend, our neighbor 7 houses down the road lost his house in a fire. Sometimes it takes something tragic to bring people together and we have seen how God's used this tragedy to bring our neighborhood closer. No one was hurt in the fire, but he lost everything. As a single dad, he's been blown away by the community's concern and help for him. We had tons of help at the block party, but with prep, set up, greeting and visiting with dozens of new people, helping an out of town youth group get set up and know what to do, and standing for 7 hours, hooo, baby, I was wiped out. We didn't feel it until we hit our front door. It was a great day, full of energy and neighbors becoming friends, and people pouring out money and concern for Steve.
- Had the out of town youth group over for the afternoon after the block party while they did their debriefing and finished their blog and photo booth projects. Fed them tacos. (Thankfully they cleaned up my kitchen afterwards! Very cool.) Then they left for the next leg of their mission trip and we basically collapsed into a heap. :)
- Sunday was youth led worship and service. They all gave testimonies about their mission trip and what God did in their own lives. Leadership team meeting after church until almost 6pm. I did not contribute much, just kind of sat there and tried to stay focused and take notes for the newsletter.
- This week, I demanded Charles actually take a day off. He was very willing after that busy weekend. So we decided to tour northern New Mexico. We drove up to Taos, visited a place he wants to take our young adult group for a retreat in a month and drove home that evening. It was beautiful weather and scenery. This is a spectacular place with a lot of unspoiled wilderness and natural beauty. There is not even a big highway that goes up there, you have to take little state highways and figure out your route carefully to get where you want to go.
- The forest fires here are mostly out now and the rain has finally been falling....almost daily! It's like everything in our yard has come back to life and the trees of our field are clapping their hands in delight of moisture and blessing. It's refreshing to the human soul as well.
- I've been getting curriculum and classes lined up for Maggie because we are going back to homeschooling this year! She is done with dramatic drama in schools and is ready to focus on school and enrichment studies without the anxiety. She auditioned for a concert choir in a homeschool enrichment studies program and made it in. And in a week she will begin driver's education class at a school in Albuquerque. Our last girl to start driving. I find it is one of the most stressful times in my life, when my kids start driving. But God uses it to grow my faith and trust in Him every time! I will have to write on that in another post.


God is good. He is giving us vision and showing us where to join in with Him in this community....where our church fits in and how we can be effective here to show His love and be His Light. 

- ETA: The men's breakfast was held in my house this morning, giving me time to hide out in my room and write this post. Last night I told someone I wasn't going to come out of my room until the kitchen was clean. And it was! Thank you to the guys! My husband made bisquits & sausage gravy, scrambled eggs and orange juice ...another man brought bacon. And now my kitchen is all clean and Charles is out mowing the lawn while I was adding some Miracle Grow to my gardens. Everything is growing great now that the air has a little moisture in it and it's been raining each day. I will try to post a picture soon. 

Snakes in the laundry room

This happened today....

 

Our landlord took our back door off to get a new one the correct size. In the meantime someone (named George) took full advantage of the situation.

Even though he looks dangerous, he is only a bull snake and harmless, unless you are a songbird or mouse. They also chase away dangerous snakes from your yard, so we'll keep him. Charles wrangled him out the door and we covered it up and chased him into the part of the yard where there are gopher holes. ;) 

Go George go!

Blog subscriptions

If you use Google Reader to read the blogs you like to keep up with, you probably already know that they are discontinuing blog subscription service on July 1! I have over 100 blogs that I like to keep up with, so I was researching today on what other options are out there.

I found Bloglovin is very user friendly and once you sign up, it gives you an immediate prompt to import your Google Reader subscriptions. It was so easy! And you just have to post this link: Follow my blog with Bloglovin to get stats on your blog traffic there too.

And if you follow several blogs, it's smart to subscribe to this kind of reader because it updates you every time someone has a new post up. :) (especially good if they are a slacker and don't post regularly like me)

Droughts

The days have been warm enough this week to turn on the cooler around 1pm and keep it on until evening. It does a great job cooling down the house.  It's a swamp cooler, not air conditioning. And it's very effective here in this very dry climate. I think it's a lot drier here than it is in Phoenix....my lips get chapped quite often.

We are praying for rain. They've had a few years of drought here and there are now 4 big forest fires raging in the mountains around us...not our mountain range, but near enough to see the smoke. Last night I could hear the thunder and saw a few sprigs of lightning light up my living room window, but the rain did not fall on our neighborhood. I go out every morning and walk through the powdery dust of our front yard and water my little vegetable garden. The birds all fuss at me to fill the bird bath with water. There is never any moisture left in it 24 hours later.

The other night I was invited to eat dinner with a church friend. Our husbands were both out of town, so we planned a visit. She lives at the very top of a mountain. We sat out on the patio as the sun went down behind us and watched the mountain ranges change colors, the smoke from distant fires blew down the valleys and the lights of the nearby neighborhoods and then of Santa Fe came up and glistened as we chatted. Hummingbirds zipped all around our heads by the dozens! I think there were about 2 dozen of them at least, coming to her feeders to get their last sips of the day. A few times we saw 10-12 birds on one feeder, all sitting shoulder to tiny shoulder, heads popping up occasionally to peep at each other. I loved it! There were also all sorts of birds at other feeders and coming to drink at the pond and waterfall in front of us. She and her husband had very lovingly made an oasis in the dry climate. Plants, flowers and water all carefully placed and planned out, chairs and pathways in just the right places to catch the different venues of wildlife, nature and views.

We talked about our lives, where we'd lived, our families, our coming to know Christ. We talked about our love for the area and for nature. And we talked about how dear it is to have such a great fellowship of Christian friends here in the middle of this spiritually arid climate of secular society. That doesn't just happen and it is more and more dear, the older I get.  I realized that has to be carefully and lovingly cultivated as well. It takes spending time together, just sitting together in the quiet evening, chatting about life or in each others' homes learning to better handle the Word of Truth.

As darkness came, her solar lighting came on and the landscaping made it's own little island of glowing lights. I realized it was time to drive back home. The mountain road seemed endless in the pitch black night (oh, I dislike driving by myself at night) and I was never so glad to see the main highway and know I was back to other people, to streetlights and the sure way home.

I feel the same way about our little church here, so blessed to have this community in this culturally arid climate. We need the rain, so the land will flourish again. It's nice to be in an oasis of life to enjoy when the land is so starved and dry. It's a vivid picture to me of what else we're missing....God's Word and Spirit to flow out of the oasis, so the dry souls will flourish too.

God, bless the land with rain, but most of all, bless the people here. The fires are ravaging the land, but the enemy is ravaging the people with false beliefs and sin. Send refreshing showers and the life-giving nourishment of Your Truth. Let Your love flow through Your servants like rain blesses a dry land.....

God help us after the storms

It's the time of year for dust devils. This past week I've seen dozens of them on the horizon as we drive along. Tall funnels of dust and debri towering up into the sky.

The wind here can be strong in the spring. I often have to put my folding camp chairs back upright when I go outside. Once when Maggie and I were waiting in the car for Charles at the gas company I pointed out about 70 tumbleweeds piled up on their chain link fence, frozen in mid-tumble. She looked at them and asked, "Those are tumbleweeds?"  and at that moment the wind shifted and those tumbleweeds all came tumbling at us like a stampeding herd. We both squealed because it was startling and funny. For about 30 seconds it seemed like we were being attacked by them, barreling at us and scratching on the car.

Today the wind just seemed like a very bad memory, knowing what damage it caused across the middle of the United States.

Then this morning my husband got an email from someone who just moved from this area. His former neighbor's son had just died. Charles met him briefly while helping this friend pack his truck for the move, so he felt compelled to minister to him. As we drove out to their house in the next town over, he explained to me what had happened. The man's grown son had been helping roof another neighbor's house when a gust of wind lifted the roof off beneath him and hurled him down. He was found in the rubble 300 feet away.

That was on Monday, the same day as the Moore, Oklahoma tornado.

Today was calm, sunny, and peaceful. No one answered the door of the house, although the driveway was filled with cars and trucks. The wind whipped around the house.... they were probably in the back having lunch and didn't hear the knocking. So Charles left a sympathy card with his phone number on the porch, held there with a large rock so the wind wouldn't steal it away.

Dust devils spiraled up on the open fields. I counted 8-10 of them on the way back home. I had no fascination for them today, only sadness.

“Go out and stand before me on the mountain,” the Lord told him. And as Elijah stood there, the Lord passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper. 1 Kings 19:11-12

After the wind blows through and the violence of the storm is over, God is there in the gentle whisper, in the aftermath while we are standing there disheveled and bewildered, quiet and solemn.
He is there. God help us in the wake of the storms.

...that we may live peaceful and quiet lives

We are getting more used to the slower pace of life here. It's nice.

My neck spasms are noticeably less. The last 2 years have been stressful in both good and hard ways. About a year ago I woke up and could not move my neck without extreme pain. Gradually it got better, but it is now my body's go-to stress reaction for my neck to clench and muscles spasm. I don't have to take Advil until later in the day now, although I don't think I'm down to not taking any yet.

We are doing a lot of getting to know people and getting to know the area.  I am taking lots of pictures so I got an Instagram account so that my family in Phoenix can see what we're doing here. Follow the adventure here. It's a fun way to keep connected.

The link for Instagram is also in my side bar. 

There is so much to be said for a quiet and peaceful life.  I know it's not going to always be so peaceful and quiet here, but it seems to be the general state so far.  :)