To The Work!

I loved the little excerpt from my morning devotional,

"You are not in heaven yet; get up, get dressed and get to work!"

This lesson from the account of Peter's prison wake up call by the angel of the Lord. It's simply an illustration, but it does make one think!

A prayer request: Bob Nutting is an elderly man who is dying from cancer. As far as we know he is unsaved. We hope to visit him today or this evening. Whether you get this days from now or not, could any of you Christians out there please pray for him? Our church is already doing so, I know. Thank you.

As I was closing in prayer time this morning, the Lord brought two elderly ladies to mind again. He reminded me of them weeks ago and I should've looked them up. Olive and Miriam Kingsbury.
These two ladies used to do after school Bible clubs in the home of a friend of mine. It is where I first heard of the Lord Jesus Christ and His death on the cross for me. I looked them up today and find them listed as still living (87 and 95 years old) in the same hometown, just miles from where I grew up. Through the years when I was a child, they would call my mother on the phone or stop in at our house and ask her to pray with them for a particular person or need.

We never know how the Lord will use our lives to touch another person. Lord, let us get up and get going; working faithfully for You and waiting on YOU for the results until we get to our only "resting place", Heaven.

I share this with you because I love this photo of Pastor and his twin grandchildren. How sweet!

Happenings

This week has been quiet on Darling Hill. My hubby did take two days off to work on the house. Not only do I love having him here, but he spent time getting more siding on our gable ends. We can get a before and after picture soon, awaiting the electric company to come and put a sling on the electrical wires so that Syd can get up into the very peak. We lost electricity (storms in the area) for a few hours on Tuesday, so he even got to take the canoe and get a little fishing in at the nearby pond! an added plus!

I have no pictures to show for it, but we got a quick visit from our niece Loken and the family. We did enjoy it so much but can't believe I didn't take a picture! Little Jaden played hard with Ruger, as did Ethan. When Ahren asked Jaden what the dog's name was, he replied, "Yogurt". What a cutie pie! Megan is a young lady now. They all grow up too fast.

God has blessed through His Word this week...I leave that on the stand alone page above.

Focus, focus, focus (may even be our next series in our Sunday School class):

"Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in  your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin." Hebrews 12:2-4

Yes, We Gathered At The River!

The Lord gave us a beautiful day for baptism on Saturday. At my best count, there were 18 people baptized in the beautiful pool, just below the cascading falls. I got pictures of most of them, but sorry to say, I missed a few. These first two are the adults who have been most recently saved, Carol and Gary.

This man had been prayed for by his Christian wife, son and family and by our church for years before recently receiving Jesus Christ as his Savior!

Our dear brother, Jim, had always feared the water greatly, and therefore had not dared to go through baptism. The Lord truly did the work in his heart when Jim asked Pastor recently if he could be included in this round of baptisms! He also joined the church the next day. God never gives up on His children. I am glad that growth comes at every age and that the Lord never stops His work of conforming us to His image.

I will give the next pictures in family groups:
I totally missed Matt and Zach's photos from the H family. Not sure where my camera was at times, I guess. Sorry, guys!

 ~ These from the R family, which I did not get all their photos either. There were 7 of their children baptized!

Amos

I am sorry that I don't have the photo of Amos actually turned around, but there was a bit of a mishap as he stepped into the water. I do have the photo of Pastor, as he'd slipped down in to the pool...the photo of Amos and Mr V laughing, but decided not to include it here!

Salinn

Lydia

Hosea

I missed several of the photos of the R family. Also I missed Samuel, from the A family photos below, I'm sorry!

Grace

Jonathan

Then the B family; I'm sorry again, I missed two here.

Ben

Henry

Annette

Mom was there, as each came out of the water, to encourage and remind each one to carry on with the Lord and that they can "talk to the Lord at any time."

Following this blessed time of baptisms we had our church/family picnic. The fellowship with family and friends -- and the food...all made for a wonderful day!

Friends, Mom and Rose

Jim says Hi to Katelyn

...and great Grammy, to Madison

Girls, gathered around the babies, of course!

Our cooks, Syd & Dustin

Jim & Gary

A large group for volleyball!

...and of course, the food tables.

At the end of the day we were tired, but Syd and I just couldn't stop thanking the Lord and talking about the blessings of it all, especially for those who followed the Lord through the testimony of baptism...a testimony of each believer's faith in the Lord; the picture that they "died with Christ, were buried with Him and rose with Him, to justification," and publicly showing the desire and decision to keep waking with the Lord throughout the remainder of life.

"...they came to a certain water; and the eunuch said, 'what doth hinder me to be baptized?' And Philip said, 'If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest.' And he answered and said, 'I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.' And he commanded the chariot to stand still; and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him." 

Acts 8:36-38

Loving, Obedient Service

I am thankful for people's patience toward me. The Lord has blessed me in listening to the beginning of a challenge from Pastor Monroe (Greenville, SC) on 'Leaving thy first Love' (not exact title) from Revelation 2. Today I ask myself...am I doing all that I can do in the service of the local church? the answer, 'no'. It was a challenge to prayer, prayer, prayer, encouragement toward the saints and service in even the 'little things', ongoing, more and more in the days ahead. A quote that I heard the other day, "If I only look at the level I am on, I will never be challenged to go to the next level." Having been praying for revival in my own heart for many months now, a deeper prayer life, for salvation of souls in our communities, for OBEDIENCE to go out to the lost with the love that the Lord Jesus Christ has for them...for so many other things...this sermon, only an addition and follow-up to the feeding we get from God's Word weekly through our own Pastor, was truly a challenge to service to the point of exhaustion perhaps. It did not get to the point of leaving our first love, which we recognize to be leaving Jesus Christ OUT of and apart from our Christian service. I'm looking forward to the messages to come!

This post began with "I am thankful for people's patience toward me", partly because I cannot figure out HOW to get a stand alone page that can be added to regularly. Therefore "Daily Meditations..." at the top of the page, still only has one post. I guess that a person must actually need to set up another BLOG if we want to have a section of 'Meditations', apart from 'Daily Musings'. I can't say that I have the patience for all this technology these days.

I want to share some fun pictures from the week...but they're stuck in my PHONE which I need to be in a place that has CELL SERVICE in order to send them to my EMAIL...see what I mean? technology all around us! I am going to publish this, then perhaps at some point today I can stop on a little hill somewhere and try to get enough BARS to send the photos to myself...Oh for the simple life!

Thanks for stopping by. Hopefully pictures will follow later today.
Take care, all.

A Refreshing Recipe

We were grilling chicken last night and wanted something kind of sweet/tart to put on it. Over the weekend we had heard of someone putting a WHOLE lemon in the blender and adding some spices to it. We did a variation and it turned out GREAT. Thought I'd share this really simple, refreshing recipe with you.

We decided to call it...
Zingy Citrus Sauce
Wash 1 lemon (thoroughly; I use vinegar and water)
Peel 1/2 of the zest away, but leave plenty of zest on (to taste, I guess)
Slice lengthwise, simply so that you can get all seeds out
Put all in the blender with: (amounts are all relative, but the combination is great)
A splash of lime juice, if you have it
Another splash of water
A teaspoon or so of honey
A little salt and pepper
1 small handful of wild strawberries

Blend it up thoroughly and serve it cold over your grilled chicken (or pork would be good too)
We had done lightly curried chicken breasts. I wanted to do ginger chicken, but Syd had already sprinkled with curry before I caught him. It was really good and gave that chicken a Zing!

A Bed For Ruger

When I was a little girl one of my very favorite books was, "A Bed For Bitsy". Bitsy came to live with the folks as a tiny little puppy and the story went through all the beds that Bitsy had as he got bigger and bigger. I would have Mom read it over and over to me. Today it was Ruger's turn for a new bed.

What a blessing a sewing machine is! My sweetie got me mine several years ago now and before that I had yard sale finds and then my mother in law's.

The bird book was there to remind me; today's bird was the Slate-colored Junco. He sat on a stump and trilled to us all through lunch.

Last night, as I lay in bed listening to Ruger shake his head, as his ear is "ailing" again...(he gets the dirtiest left ear, sometimes gets infected, though I try to flush it out at least once per week)...I got to thinking that, just MAYBE, he's allergic to foam. He had a really nice "nest" bed that Syd had fashioned for  him from a couch cushion, up until he decided to first scratch the cover away, then the poly covering, then play with Sturm so rough that the foamy pieces tore out more and more...strewing them into the corners of the bedroom, etc, etc...

This morning I decided that before the day was out, I'd make it one of today's goals to fix a new bed for him. After working for a couple hours at the office on the hill I came home and Mom and I did up a load of laundry & hung it out (what a BEAUTIFUL day for that!) then we came down to get started. I wish I'd taken pictures, as we started with THREE poly-filled bed pillows, old ones that I was using in pillow shams. As you can see, Ruger tends to like a hole in the middle of his bed with support around the edges, so Mom and I put our heads together with those three pillows. Using my machine, which was NOT an easy task, I ended up sewing the three pillows together so that the least of their stuffings were toward the middle. We then took an old sheet, folded in quarters and made a huge pillow case.

You don't actually see the clean "pillow case" here, as I couldn't bear to let him get his dirty feet on it yet. He'll do that tonight.

 When we got done we called Ruger in and he took one look and curled up on his new bed. He LOVES getting new things and he whined and cooed, with licks and tail wags. Even if he's not allergic to foam, at least all those little pieces of foam rubber won't be floating all over the corners of the bedroom anymore! You can see the pile that I swept up, in the little trashcan below. Now Sturm and Ruger each have their beds again intact. They'll likely fight over this new one, as they had done with the old one (until it got all chewed up, then Sturm didn't really desire it at all anymore).
After their night time snack they would RACE to bed to see who would get the "nest bed", though we could never figure out what made it so special.

While I made sandwiches & salad for lunch, Mom took Ruger for his walk along the road. I think the hydrangea bush is going to be quite full this year!

Then they picked a few strawberries. I wish I'd gotten the picture of Mom feeding Ruger one. It was so cute. We still have strawberries coming on. We've picked nearly three pints from that abundant wild berry patch. It doesn't get a lot of afternoon sunshine, I suppose that's why they're still doing so well. There are more to pick.

I guess it is time to head back to the top of the hill to see whether the clothes have finished drying. With this air today, they are likely perfect and smell so fresh. Mom is out in our woods, picking up sticks. I just took her some water and she told me that she and Ruger had gotten the pile pretty well stacked up! Thanks for stopping by to see what's going on on Darling Hill.

A Challenge

If you would like a CHALLENGE today, listen to Mike Allison preaching, "How to Get Right with God" from Psalm 51, preached Sunday 7/13/14. There is a link to SermonAudio to the right side of the blog.
I couldn't begin to share all that the Lord worked in my own heart about. Our Father uses His Word to cleanse and to rebuke and chasten and challenge. What a wonderful God we serve.

II Timothy 3:16, 17