I am so thankful for friends and family...and I'm not talking about a telephone plan either.  LOL  It's amazing to me that you don't always know how many friends you have until you have a tough time - then they come out of the woodwork.

The Bible says to have friends, you must show yourself friendly.....I must have done just that.  I have friends who have called, written, posted on Facebook, and sent emails just to say that they were praying for me, and would be glad to help me out if I needed anything after having surgery, would like to come and fix dinner, etc.  I appreciate good friends.  I hope I am that kind of friend as well.

The other friend that I am so glad to have is Jesus.  He is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.  Not only did He guide the surgeon's hand, but he also helps me through the painful recovery.  I can call on Him night or day.  Now, THAT is a friend!

I hope you all are having a great day with your friends! 

The First Gardener

Not very long ago, my brother and I were talking.  He said something that made me curious, and I had to check it out.  Bet you can't guess who the very first gardener was.....Yeah, I didn't get it right either.  God himself was the first gardener!  I listened to my brother talk while he said that God had a fascination with dirt.  What?  But God likes purity and cleanliness! ???  Nevertheless, I had to admit that Will had a point.  How many places in the Bible does it talk about God himself working with dirt.  For example, man was actually created from dirt; Jesus could have just touched the blind man and healed his eyes, but instead, he spit in the dirt, made a mudball, and put it on the man's eye (seems like a mud plaster might be better than a mustard plaster after all!); when the woman was caught in the act of adultery, the Lord forgave her, and stooped to write (not on the sidewalk) in the DIRT!  But one of the best things that I think He did in the dirt was to plant a garden.  If you think like I did, I thought that He just spoke the words, and this absolutely divine garden sprung into view with all of it's color and fragrances...paradise created!  So when my brother told me that he planted the garden, I had to check it out.

Genesis 2:8 tells us the God PLANTED himself a garden, and put man into that garden.  Hmmmm!  Doesn't that say a lot?  He created the planet, the skies and seas, the rocks and dirt all by speaking it into existence.  Yet the 2 things that I feel were closest to his heart, his garden and his companion (man), he created with his own 2 hands.  And isn't it funny that as soon as he planted the garden, he put man in it....I think He may have been saying, "My goodness, isn't that garden gorgeous!  Live in your garden and enjoy it!"

Now that I think about all of this, I think that since I'm off of work today, I may go to the garden center.  I'm going to buy an apple tree and stuff to create a miniature fairy garden.....But even after all of my hard work, I can just about guarantee that my garden will never look like His did!

Happy gardening, folks!

A Little "Squirrelly"

A favorite piece of technology that I own is my nature camera.  Even when I can't sit in my swing or on my garden bench to watch wildlife happen, my trusty camera is always on duty.  This week, I had to laugh about what we caught on camera when the squirrels and birds didn't know we were watching! 

We have a squirrel feeder that we fill with raw peanuts and sunflower seed for the squirrels to eat.  A couple years back, when we put it up, the woodpeckers decided that they wanted to share that food....but they wanted the 'lion's share'!  They would chase the squirrels off!  Poor little squirrels didn't have much out of that feeder.

Yesterday, the camera caught several shots of Mr. Squirrelly climbing the side of the tree, determined to get into the bird feeder.  There is poison ivy growing up one side of the tree, so you can't see the opening.  The birds won't go through that way.  Mr. Squirrelly must have figured that out, and up the side of the tree he went - right into the poison ivy, and through the opening!  We saw him stick his head in, and stick it through the other side to make sure no birds were going to chase him out, and then he got all the way into the jar and had himself a feast!  What great pictures we saw!  It was almost like being right there, up close and personal.

Are people like that too?  We know what we need to survive, but we are easily dissuaded from pursuit of that object by criicism, worry, or other "critters" that would rather us not have it.  They easily chase us away!  It took 2 years for the squirrels to finally realize there was another door, and that the birds wouldn't chase them if they went through that door.  Wonder how long it takes some of us to find a 'back door' to our pursuit of happiness?  And how can we circumvent the other 'critters' like worry, defeatism, low self-esteem, destructive criticism, sadness, and other types of thinking, that crowd us out of our own 'squirrel feeders'?  We know there is nutrition in that feeder, and that it will taste delicious, but those other critters just keep running us off!

I like it when Apostle Paul said, "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.  And King David exhorts us to encourage ourselves by singing hymns, psalms, and praises....I know that I can't be thinking negatively when I'm doing that.  I do believe that Paul and David, as well as other characters of faith in the Bible has a point - worship and thinking about the lovely character of Jesus (for he is all things that are true, honest, just, pure, and so on) will scare the other "critters" away.

 A song that crossed my mind today says:

I found Happiness, I found peace of mind
I found the joy of living, perfect love divine
I found real contentment,  happy living in accord
I found happiness all the time, wonderful peace of mind since I found the Lord.

I found the backdoor.....in a nutshell - inspired by Mr. Squirrelly himself.

The other day I sat very quietly and watched a robin very determinedly rip off a small chunk of straw or string from a large bunch of it.  She stood looking around her, shaking her head like a dog shakes a rag - behavior I had never been privileged to witness in a robin. She strutted for a couple of minutes, looked both ways as if she was checking to make sure the airways were clear for take-off, flapped her wings quickly, and flew away.  No doubt she was building a nest for her offspring - the new future of her species that she knew would arrive shortly after the nest was constructed.

Watching this made me thing about simple things.  What happens in the mind of a bird that helps it to know when the time is just right to come north for the summer and find little snips of string, strands of straw, and feathers to soften the nest with?  How does a rose know just when to put forth the first leaf, or a flower that first shoot when spring arrives?  How does a frog know when it's time to lay eggs that will become tadpoles?  Is there an instinct that almost silently proclaims, "It's time"?  Or is it merely the weather?  Is there something in the heart of a man or woman who has had cabin fever throughout the entire winter that says, "The ground is thawed, go tend your garden?"  And what do these things mean when they happen?

I've heard it said that a man can live for 40 days without food, 3 days without water, but only 12 seconds without hope.  If that is so, is spring a hope that is so aptly dangled in front of us when the grass blades are turning green, the cicadas are singing and the crickets chirping?  Is that hope offered in the form of fresh, fragrant air to fill our lungs, and vegetables that grow in a garden well-tended?  Is hope offered when we watch the birds' nests being built, and knowing that their kind will go on visiting our feeders and watching for seeds in our flowers to ripen for their take?  I, for one, adore watching the babies when they arrive...be it bird, mouse, mole, chicken, turkey, or a little human boy or girl baby.....whatever the species, they all represent hope to me; hope that life goes on in a special way every spring; hope that says we all have a chance for happiness and a life that goes far beyond mere existence.  I pause to wonder how in the world a man can say in his heart that there is no God when He offers hope to us in so many of the things that we witness in our everyday world.  The Bible is true without a doubt when it says that a fool says in his heart there is no God.

Many are the things we can learn if we, in our busy, have-to-rush-to-get-things-done world, will take the time to quietly just watch the robin build her nest.

So Thankful!

I remember one day a couple weeks ago when a friend of mine said on FaceBook:  What would you have if you woke up in the morning and all you had left was what you were thankful for yesterday?

I thought, "That would be great!  Thank you, Lord, for new dishes, for all of the pretty stuff on my walls, for my computers, my foot massager, the pretty things I have in my bedroom, love my designer purses and shoes, thankful for all of my nice clothes, for money to go to Red Lobster, and all of the books in my bookshelves I love to read....oh, yes, and let's not forget the woofers and tweeters that I just put on my computer soundboard, and my Mp3 player that I really like...and what else???  OH, YEAH!  My Android phone!"  I purposely left out the junk that sits around that my husband can't seem to get rid of, and his tools that he refuses to take to the garage....all of the stuff that he says he can't get rid of because his mom owned them or his dad made them (even though they would have been the first to tell him that they were worn out, that he should get rid of them)...... and all of the stuff that I can't seem to part with...craft stuff, cake stuff, technological stuff...stuff, Stuff, STUFF!  I wouldn't mind if I woke up and it wasn't there at all!

And then......came the tsunami, various hurricanes, and several tornadoes.......I saw people without STUFF.....without homes, without clothing or a way to keep the clothes on their backs clean.....without food or a place to eat it.....without pictures to preserve their memories....without anniversary gifts or Christmas presents.....children without toys, AND without their mothers and fathers, or parents without their children.....

So my attitude changed.....God, even if I have junk in my house, I'm thankful because I have a house to keep it in.....If my dishes are not the dishes that I really like, I still love the fact that I have food to eat in them and a table to eat it on.....I may not have designer clothing, and my shoes may have scuffs....my purses are not $200 or $300 dollars, but maybe came from the Goodwill - but that's okay because I have what some others do not have.  I have STUFF....it's mine, and You gave it to me.  Not only am I thankful for MY stuff, but I am also going to be thankful for 'stuff' for other people too - so that when they wake up in the morning, they will have that for which I have been thankful FOR them.

My husband is strong and healthy, faithful and true to God and family values.....for those things I am thankful too!  My kids are all safe with their families around them.  God is good!

I'm thankful for the country I live in - God bless America....I'm thankful not only for MY children, but for the children who belong to others.....God bless America, yes....but God bless the world who does without on a daily basis because many of them do not know you, and do not know how to be thankful.  See their need, and bless them - and hopefully they will learn to be thankful too.  You hold the whole world in your hands....and for that, I am thankful!