Speaking to Ourselves

Psalm 103

"Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name..."

This Scripture was truly a blessing to me this day! Do not let the pressures from people or circumstances of this old world get you sidetracked. When God blesses you with something and He makes it clear that He wants us to share it, do so.

Two great quotes that I heard in a chapel hour sermon this morning:

A grateful heart can be just as contagious as a bitter heart. Therefore, cultivate a heart of thanksgiving.

We should spend more time speaking to ourselves and less time listening to ourselves.

Most all of Psalm 103 involves David speaking to Himself about the things of God. In hearing this, I realized that this is what my blogging does the most for me. These 'musings' are probably much more for my benefit than for the blessing of any of you readers. We keep ourselves in  remembrance of these things as we write them down. Though many of the excerpts sound "preachy", they serve as wonderful reminders of daily blessings from my heavenly Father. Spurgeon wrote that many people do not ever get to know themselves enough to speak to themselves. We should remind ourselves daily of the blessings and gifts that God has blessed us with!

This morning I'm reminded that, just as Godly thoughts can strengthen our actions; daily work, committed to the Lord, will establish our thoughts. I have a small hand-written plaque on my desk at work that reads, 

"Commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established". Proverbs 16:3

It is a snowy, Spring day on the hill. How deep the mud has gotten! The sap will flow once the days warm up. All the buckets are hung and ready. This transition time is one of prose and poetry. Already there is one forming in my mind, but just no time to develop it yet. One of these quiet mornings the words will come. Recent photos are waiting to be posted too. It is a prayer request of mine that perhaps the Lord will allow work to slack up a bit so that I'm not running in quite so many directions. What is wonderful is that, whether pressures come or go, He is the One who establishes our thoughts. Our job is to commit our works to Him on a moment by moment basis. 

I'm so glad you stopped by Darling Hill today. Whether on foot, or vehicle, keep in the middle of the road and your tires on the high spots, or you'll find yourself stuck in the mire. Leave a note to say you've come by. I love reading your notes.

The Still Small Voice

The mountains are covered in a new dusting of snow this morning. How beautiful to come to the mountain top. These weeks we've been at the mountain top with our God also. One doesn't always have to leave their house to go to a revival with the Lord. While God has reminded me and taught me things about myself through the Word, my heart keeps saying, "Lord, don't let these things filter out and leave. Please teach me and let me meditate on them that they will stay forever settled there." 

As Elijah, after his mountain-top experience, we all find ourselves back down in the dull, everyday experiences of life. This is where we live, after all. Out of I Kings 19 this morning I read about God coming to a discouraged Elijah, "what doest thou here, Elijah".  He told him to go up to the mountaintop and showed him that great wind, the mighty earthquake and the consuming fire. He was not in those, this time. God was in the 'still small voice', where he asked the question of Elijah again. As Elijah arose and listened, God told him what to do next and that He had a remnant who had not bowed the knee to idols.

I'm so glad that the Lord knows just what I need at every moment. I want to listen to His still small voice today and every day, don't you? depending on His settled Word, which is quick and powerful and sharper than a two-edged sword. It is His words that are there for us to listen to and to live by, moment by moment.

"Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord." Col. 3:16 

Hill Happenings, Again

Hmmmm! what have we here?

...leashes - 1,2,3...

Coco's come to stay for a few days, as her people are on a short trip!

This morning she plopped herself down, one stair at a time, behind the two boys, who "CHARGE!" down at 5:00 a.m. every day. Coco stopped on the landing to watch the door fly open as eight legs rushed through. She had no intention of going out into the darkness, and SO early! As she got up in the chair, the door again flies open and big & little dog scramble to their "places". Here, Ruger sits still as a stone while Sturm's front feet do the breakfast dance as he sits. Coco must think it's the craziest scene, as I am told that she often doesn't even go outside until possibly 9:00 a.m. She did decide to go out around 6:30 and even munched a little of her food at about that time. As I tap out this post, all three are asleep next to me, in just about the same places as above. They went up to work with me this morning and then we all took Mom and Sarah for a ride during the afternoon. We ladies had a sandwich and pie, while they got their usual dog bone-treats.

I can't believe it's been over a week since my last post! It's been a busy week and a good one also. Here are a few pretty pictures we took on Sunday, two weeks ago. The first one is my Grandpa's barn and house. It was such a pretty morning snow scene. Then the snow laden field lay to our left as we returned from church, to Darling Hill.

I did not intend to get that 'no trespassing' sign in the picture!

After morning church Grammy R helped little Leah do some walking. They had such fun.

That evening we continued our celebration of Grammy and Mrs R's birthdays. The dogs seemed very interested in what Mrs. R was preparing in the kitchen...ham sandwiches...who wouldn't be!? All three were standing behind her at one point, but Ruger moved on before I could get the camera out.

I think Mom's winking that she likes her Boston Creme cake! Her 84th birthday!

We've been so blessed this week in the Word. One of these days I will blog about some of the lessons that the Lord has been speaking to my heart about. This was just a 'catch up' post. We did have a nice visit this past Sunday evening, with the grandson of our dear friend, Eddy (who recently went to be with the Lord). Richard and Alyssa stopped up at Mom's house, where we were again having cake!! celebrating my brother's birthday this time. They came in for cake and conversation. We were so glad to have that time together with neighbors.

Thanks for stopping by the Hill today. 

The Things We Learn

God has blessed in such a wonderful way this week. I can't explain it all, but He has used a series of messages to reveal some things to my heart about myself. The messages came from Evangelist, Chuck Crabtree. I believe I mentioned him in my last post. We knew Evangelist Crabtree from when we lived in South Carolina, though he is from the West. When I googled his name, up came sermonaudio.com, there I found "Be Humble to be Used By God", "Let God Use You Where You Are" and "Obedience Brings Blessings" (the last of which I have yet to hear). These all taken from II Tim. 2:1,2.

I am convinced that I learned things about myself today because I slowed down long enough to listen and let God reveal them to me. It didn't take hours of study, it took minutes of meditation. When God used it over a period of two or three days He is getting them settled down in my heart. By His grace these "besetting sins" (even though I had been doing them mostly out of ignorance, perhaps "presumptuous sins"?) will never beset me again. I wonder how many other Christians they "beset" along the way. For this I am so sorry!

When I was a young Christian I remember reading the verse from the Psalms which speaks of declaring things "among the great congregation". I understood it to be the body of the believers. I know that blogging is a medium that encompasses not only you, dear believers, but also those who do not know the Lord Jesus Christ yet. I wish to shout it from the housetops when God reveals these things to me. I'm sure you do too. Blogging is a wonderful way to do just that!

I will leave you with a picture of the beautiful snowfall we have this morning. It is taken from our back porch. Look at that lonnnnggg icicle!

This is our resident owl that sits out back...keeping our rodent population down!

Isn't this a beautiful Amarylis? Given to us by a Post office patron

Me and Mr Lion (a gift from Syd years ago). When you squeeze his paw he goes, "grr, rrr, GRR" and shakes all over. He  visits our PO on Valentine's Day every year. The children (and adults ) love him.

Established!

"Commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established." Prov. 16:3

We live in a depressed world. If you're a Christian, dear friend, I hope and pray that you can rise above it with the Lord. Imagine if we wallowed in our sin and past failures, that we just wouldn't let the Lord carry us on to do great exploits for Him. I've had periods of wallowing this way. It's a reproach to my Lord though.

I'm glad you stopped by the Hill today and leave you with a thought that God's Spirit helped me see this morning. I read from Matthew 26, where Jesus told his disciples to sit in the garden while He went to the Father in prayer. He told them to "watch with me". Jesus approached them three times and told them to watch. They kept failing Him, falling asleep on the job. Finally He came, finding them asleep again. They had failed in this instance. He then told them to "rise, let us be going"... on to the next work that was ahead. Imagine if those disciples wallowed in their failure; if Peter wallowed in his utter failure of actually denying with a curse, his Lord and Savior? When God gives forgiveness, He gives it FULLY. A Christian today who has failed Him, but comes in honest confession to God, can be carried on to be bountifully used of Him! Some live as though we have "the curse of God" on our life and just cannot be used of Him anymore.

If you're like me, your thoughts can get you into trouble. Depression can set into anyone's life as we let past failure pull us down. Our thoughts CAN be "established" rightly. It will happen as we commit our works unto the Lord daily, momentarily. These were encouraging verses and thoughts to my heart today. I hope, to yours also.

Faithful, for the Day Ahead?

Often, when washing my morning dishes, I will tune into our favorite radio station, WMUU out of Greenville, SC. I love listening to Beneth Jones share her Sunshine on the Soapsuds. Though each excerpt is only 5 minutes long, the lessons bless my heart. This week a dear evangelist, Chuck Crabtree, has been on my heart. I 'googled' his name and there was a site which offered downloads of sermons preached by him. Praise God for this treat! The one I listened to this morning was, Being Humble to be Used By God. The Scripture was IITim. 2:1,2. One could just listen to a blessed sermon like this while washing dishes, but in a chair with open Bible was the setting of choice this morning.

"Thou, therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that thou hast heard from me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also."

Though there are many things that I hate about it, the world-wide web, if used correctly, can bring wonderful tools to our fingertips. This message was just what I needed this morning, else the Lord would not have directed me to it.

The zero temperatures and high winds are making their way in around the cracks of the windows this morning. I am praising the Lord for out little furnace on the wall that is working hard to keep us toasty warm (if you can stay out of the breeze). Our little drove of redpolls are feeding in a frenzy at the feeder on the back porch. They seem to make their rounds between all the neighbors on Darling Hill, as they will be gone for over an hour at a time, then back they come! I can see the sun has come up at Mom's house and is making its way along the mountains across the valley. This time of year is nice, being able to see through the leafless woods. Soon enough the trees will bud and the view be obstructed for a time; a time, long-awaited, here in the north.

The dishes are done now and it's time to move into the day. Old, brown bananas on the counter are waiting to be turned into bread. Dust bunnies lay in the corners and wait to be sucked up by the vacuum and many more projects are 'waiting in the wings'. The challenge in God's mesage today was: Do I need it? Did I get it? Will I live it? and Will I give it? As I read the Scripture passage over again, these fit in perfectly. They also fit into my order of the day. Every new morning we could ask these question when we come to the Word of God and then to the tasks ahead; ultimately to the task of daily walking by faith with the Lord Jesus Christ. Humble, faithful men (and women) are surely what God wants. These are what He uses to carry on the Word and His work.

I hope you enjoy the day. Thanks for coming up on the Hill this morning.

Quick Friday Update

I am enjoying a couple of new blogs this morning. Just added them to my reading list. I must encourage both to update more often (: (you know who you are, hee hee!) graywulffvt.blogspot.com and finallyafarmgirl.blogspot.com (our cousin near Lancaster County). I KNOW, I can update my  hubby's blog anytime I want, just have been so lax. I have lots of new painted floorcloths to put on there, for instance.  Since (semi) signing off Facebook, blogs have been more and more of a blessing. FB is simply a burden. The only reason I wanted to be on there is to reconnect with some really old friends and kids from school we worked at. We have been able to do that, but there's just so much STUFF to wade through and so much wasted words, pictures ("shared" from internet) and junk, it was just getting overwhelming.  The personal posts are really great, just few and far between.  This is a short post this morning.

Syd and I so enjoyed a nice dinner at our favorite Italian Restaurant last night. We were surprised and happy to see a great fiddler/guitarist who we have known, Spencer Lewis. He accompanied dinner all night and even came to our table with the fiddle at one point. It was a joy and a beautiful evening with my Sweetie.

Signing off now, but thanks for stopping by Darling Hill. Expecting snow here today. BIG snow-shoe-a-thon in our town tomorrow. It goes right up over The Hill. There will be over 300 snowshoers descending upon us. Better keep little Sturm inside. He's apt to scare them all with his little 13 lb body barking!

Take care, all.