Slow…

 Slow…

The other day, I went with some of my family to the Phoenix Zoo…one f the pictures I came away with was one of the tortoise exhibits…a rabbit was sitting next to this huge tortoise…was a reminder of the old story of the “ Tortoise and the Hare”…where the hare challenges the tortoise to a race…of course, the hare just knew he would win, but story tells a different ending, the tortoise-slow and steady , wins…

The scene of the two animals together made me think of the times the word “slow” is used, especially in regard to God being “slow to anger”…

It is repeated several times by several different writers…David, Joel, Jonah, Nahum, James, Peter…along with the character qualities of compassion, gracious, power, great love, patience…

Thank YOU…

 But you, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God,slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.

Ps.86.15

 The Lord is compassionate and gracious,slow to anger, abounding in love.

 He will not always accuse,nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.

 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west,so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

Ps.103.8-12

 The Lord is gracious and compassionate,slow to anger and rich in love. The Lord is good to all;he has compassion on all he has made. 

Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,and your dominion endures through all generations.The Lord is trustworthy in all he promises and faithful in all he does.

Ps.145.8,Ps.145.9,Ps.145.13

 Rend your heart and not your garments.Return to the Lord your God,for he is gracious and compassionate,slow to anger and abounding in love,and he relents from sending calamity.

Joel.2.13

 He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home?

 That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish.

 I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.

Jonah.4.2

 The Lord is slow to anger but great in power;the Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished.His way is in the whirlwind and the storm,and clouds are the dust of his feet.

Nah.1.3

 My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry,

Jas.1.19

 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

2Pet.3.9

Numerous “quickly” references, especially in the book of Psalms…

 Lord, do not forsake me;do not be far from me, my God. Come quickly to help me,my Lord and my Savior.

Ps.38.21-21

Ten thousand reasons…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXDGE_lRI0E

Friends in many places…

 Friends in many places…

Moving a from home to home  several times over a lifetime can be both hard and great…meeting new people, leaving others behind is both hard and great as well.

I have been blessed for so many friends in each place from grade school on…many of whom I still keep in touch with sporadically and regularly…we have shared history, backgrounds, basic commonalities…two friends called this past week in one day, just needing to talk, both had lost their spouses this past year and feelings are raw…another I met yesterday on the plane going through the same things…

I thought of these verses…Jonathan and David…”sworn friendship” through the thick and thin…

 Jonathan said to David, “Go in peace, for we have sworn friendship with each other in the name of the Lord, saying, ‘The Lord is witness between you and me, and between your descendants and my descendants forever.’”

Then David left, and Jonathan went back to the town.

1Sam.20.42

 My intercessor is my friend as my eyes pour out tears to God; on behalf of a man he pleads with God as one pleads for a friend.

Job.16.20-21

My friends are not these that David talks about…

 My friends and companions avoid me because of my wounds;my neighbors stay far away.

Ps.38.11

 The righteous choose their friends carefully….

Prov.12.26a

 A friend loves at all times,and a brother is born for a time of adversity. 

One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin,but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Prov.17.17,Prov.18.24

 One who loves a pure heart and who speaks with grace will have the king for a friend.

Prov.22.11

 “But you, Israel, my servant,Jacob, whom I have chosen,you descendants of Abraham my friend,

Isa.41.8

And John speaks of faithfulness… even with strangers..and he writes as a friend one to another, encouraging those to whom he is writing…

 Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well. It gave me great joy when some believers came and testified about your faithfulness to the truth, telling how you continue to walk in it. 

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. 

Dear friend, you are faithful in what you are doing for the brothers and sisters, even though they are strangers to you. Peace to you. 

The friends here send their greetings. Greet the friends there by name.

3John.1.2,3John.1.3,3John.1.4,3John.1.5,3John.1.15

Thank YOU…

Friend and friends forever…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOnSToVsBz4

 

Owyhee summer…

 

Amazing video by local artist…

https://creationinfocus.org/

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lm4BFke4otI

Faith building….

 

Faith building…

There was a time that people left food at our door step…we hadn’t said anything about our needs…I was making “stone soup”…making our own crackers from flour I had…jobs were scarce…and my husband worked for a local printing business rather than pursue his dreams in geology…it was a season of “famine” nestled between “feasts”…a faith building time…there were and still are many “ faith building “ times…

I thought of the need for food, discontentment as I read through Numbers 11. Yesterday I had a lengthy conversation with a friend who lives just west of the devastation in North Carolina. Her church has sent truckloads of supplies to their neighbors in the last few months…so many people are devastated by the storm which blew through there…the needs are sooooo great…simple needs to more complex…things we take for granted until we experience loss…

Moses faced his people in their complaints, God provided in a miraculous way…Moses was carrying burdens that only God can fulfill…the people were focusing on the negative….God gave them a faith building time…and teaches lessons along the way….

Thank YOU….

 Moses heard the people of every family wailing at the entrance to their tents. The Lord became exceedingly angry, and Moses was troubled. He asked the Lord, “Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me? Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth? Why do you tell me to carry them in my arms, as a nurse carries an infant, to the land you promised on oath to their ancestors? Where can I get meat for all these people? They keep wailing to me, ‘Give us meat to eat!’ I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me. If this is how you are going to treat me, please go ahead and kill me—if I have found favor in your eyes—and do not let me face my own ruin…

Num.11.10-15

 The Lord answered Moses, “Is the Lord’s arm too short? Now you will see whether or not what I say will come true for you.” 

Now a wind went out from the Lord and drove quail in from the sea. It scattered them up to two cubits deep all around the camp, as far as a day’s walk in any direction. All that day and night and all the next day the people went out and gathered quail. No one gathered less than ten homers. Then they spread them out all around the camp. But while the meat was still between their teeth and before it could be consumed, the anger of the Lord burned against the people, and he struck them with a severe plague. Therefore the place was named Kibroth Hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had craved other food.

Num.11.23,Num.11.31-34

God will make a way….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zo3fJYtS-o

 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

 Matt.11.28-30

Comfort verses 15…

 Comfort verses 15….

 I am still collecting comfort verses….

This past week was cat scan week, followed this week with blood tests and doctor consults…this goes on into the future…

All the cancer friends I know do or have done this for years ahead…there is always anxiousness with these events… even though we have put it into God’s hands and we are in his care…the stomach still seems a bit filled with butterflies, the “what ifs” still troll the mind…the results can go either way at any given time…but God is still in control and his plan is still paramount……

Thank YOU….

Cast your cares on the Lordand he will sustain you;he will never let the righteous be shaken.

Ps.55.22

[God] alone is my safe place. His wraparound presence always protects me as my champion defender. There’s no risk of failure with God! So why would I let worry paralyze me, even when troubles multiply around me? (Psalm 62:5-6 TPT)

Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand (Proverbs 19:21 ESV

Though he may stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand (Psalm 37:24 NIV).  

Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” (Luke 1:45 NIV)  

This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it (Psalm 118:24 ESV).

Psalm 40:17/ 

As for me, I am poor and needy,
    but the Lord takes thought for me.
You are my help and my deliverer;
    do not delay, O my God!

I cast all my cares..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKM4NoTKLzo

What a year…2..

 What a year…2…

The other day as I looked at my grandma’s pearls, I found notes written by her that I had kept, along with the funeral programs of she and my grandpa…it was a reminder to me of the brevity of life…and the verses,

“ “Show me, Lord, my life’s end and the number of my days;let me know how fleeting my life is. 

You have made my days a mere handbreadth;the span of my years is as nothing before you.

Everyone is but a breath,even those who seem secure.”

Ps.39.4-5

My grandparents, parents, relatives and I  have genes for life ending anytime from their late seventies to late nineties…and I am in entering those years…I have no idea how many days God has planned for me…. I want them to count for good…

I have taken care of my parents and husband  through their illnesses, and their final days…I grieved and still grieve their lives and loss…it makes you or should make you get your lives, affairs in order, which it did and does…but, when you yourself face the same, it seems a bit different…it is not those “other people”, it is you and deeply personal…no one can do it for you…

This year I have gotten to hold the hands of  two great grandchildren as well as my own children and grandchildren…those generations that we are a part of…what a gift in time and heart…what will be their number of days and what will they do with them…

What legacy are we leaving…a worldly one, a spiritual one?

Christ took the burden of our sin to the cross for us, died and was resurrected that we might have eternal life if We but believe in him…it is a free gift to all who believe…acknowledge that HE is the sin of God…he alone has conquered death victoriously…

 Show me your ways, Lord,teach me your paths. 

Guide me in your truth and teach me,for you are God my Savior,and my hope is in you all day long.

Ps.25.4-5

Teach me knowledge and good judgment,for I trust your commands. 

You are good, and what you do is good;teach me your decrees. 

It was good for me to be afflictedso that I might learn your decrees. 

May your unfailing love be my comfort,according to your promise to your servant. 

May I wholeheartedly follow your decrees,that I may not be put to shame.

Ps.119.66,Ps.119.68,Ps.119.71,Ps.119.76,Ps.119.80

 What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus.

2Tim.1.13

 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

John.3.16-17

Thank YOU….

When we all get to heaven…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDL85-FoJWg

Full disclosure…I didn’t want to write this blog…facing your own mortality is hard…and admitting it is hard…we want to live this life and see as much as we can see, do as much as we can do and enjoy life to the fullest here on earth…we want to see those generations who are coming grow up, be a part of their lives…I want to keep on living, I don’t want to bring grief to those around me…but this past year has brought me face to face with my own mortality…each day has been and is a gift…but, our greatest gift is eternal life…Thank YOU….

What a year…

 What a year!

I got to take my wrist cast off yesterday to be replaced by a removable brace for a month…

When I think back over this year, it went so fast..for which I am thankful now…but, at times, it seemed that the days were in slow motion…

Each hard time had bright spots, easy to be thankful spots….we are to be thankful in the hard spots as well, even though it can be hard, but that is when Gods peace surrounds, fills us…

 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!

Phil.4.6-9,Phil.4.5,Phil.4.4

I changed the order of the  verses around a bit…I like that “Rejoice” part…

Through the hard times, there have been so many great spots, two new great grandsons, family get togethers, laughing times, planning times, worshipping times, photo times, great new acquaintances, learning times, friend times, painting times, visiting times, writing and reading times…and so much more…these are the things I want to dwell on, rather than the pain…

Thank YOU for being there, for the comfort through it all…for holding my hand in the darkness of pain, bringing joy in the mornings…

 Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love,that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. 

Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,for as many years as we have seen trouble. 

May your deeds be shown to your servants,your splendor to their children. 

May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us;establish the work of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands.

Ps.90.14-17

Blessings and Happy New Year …

Joy in the morning ….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7UrjZaoUSY