Archive | August 2020

New and Old and What We Leave Behind

Aug17
I lift up my eyes to the hills.
    From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
     who made heaven and earth. Psalm 121:1-2

Another coolish August morning.

Jack and I enjoyed ourselves.

He doing “doggie” things, and I, listening to a pod cast.

The one I listened to this morning ⇾“What Silence Can Teach You About Sound”⇽ was not my normal one.

Not even my usual TYPE of pod cast.

It was spoken by Dallas Taylor, and provided by TED Talks Daily.

If you have been with me for any length of time, you might know that I cherish quietude.

So the title caught my eye, and listening to Dallas speak, I was flooded with new ideas about what I was surrounded with.

Maybe not new ideas, but instead, old ideas that finally found their voice.


27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?[a] 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Matthew 6:27-29 (ESV)

I’ll share some photos from my walk, and some thoughts that came along with them.

I was encouraged to pay attention to ordinary things, in an extra ordinary way.

Here we go.

Learn from the Old

This tree.

I love this tree.

This tree; only God Himself knows how long it’s been there.

I can see it from my office window, there under the hill.

I see it every time Jack and I walk.

I can see it on my road when I’m driving home from town.

I even see it in my dreams.

I love that tree so much.

The only thought I’ve had about it is that it has always been present.

One of our neighbors though, is clearing out the valley so that he can have more land for planting.

The only thing that saves this patch of trees, is that the original owner, though getting up there in years, is still alive and well; and she loves her trees.

One day, she will be no more, and I am sure her trees will follow.

I will mourn the passing of both.

I never thought about the “why” of my love for this tree until this mornings walk.

You see, here in Iowa, this past week we had what is known as a de·re·cho.

It is defined as – a line of intense, widespread, and fast-moving windstorms and sometimes thunderstorms that moves across a great distance and is characterized by damaging winds. Some sustained winds across Iowa were clocked at 115 mph.

Needless to say there is widespread destruction, and thousands without power for cooling, food preservation, and sanitation.

With that as a back drop, I had to wonder just how many storms this old tree has weathered.

As I neared my old friend, I saw that some of his pieces had fallen during the storm.

Bits and pieces of days gone by.

I also noted that there is much left to him, and he is still quite beautiful, in spite his losses.

Watch your step.

Upon my return back up the hill, my eye was drawn to this;

One lone flower.

Be strong. Hold on.

It had weathered the storm.

A message of hope.

Life goes on.

A light, shining after the storm.

There is still hope.

So I ask you.

Have you been in a storm?

Have you been embattled on every side?

Does COVID, quarantine, irrational happenings in our world, and such have you feeling like the last one?

You may even be the last one, but in a different season, life will be restored.

Guess what?

You are still beautiful, whether you have all the pieces you came into this world with or not.

So you get to decide.

What will you leave behind?

Will your parts end up in a stack somewhere where no one will understand all you have endured, or will you you shine out, like hope in a dark time?

I encourage you.

Pick up your pieces.

Share them out.

Tell your story.

Let someone, somewhere know of it’s importance.

When you’re done, be that light that shines out hope –

Hope for a new reason, a new season, a new time.

All because of a four and a half minute silent space inside a TED Talk.

Who knew?

Until next time …

Friday Favorites – Flashback!

Aug14

This Friday Favorite is a bit like time travel.

We’re going back in time to 2010, when the oldest of our seven grand children was just nine or so.

At that time his class room read a book called ⇾Flat Stanley⇽.

Our grandson Wyatt brought home his flat namesake – Flat Wyatt.

Flat Wyatt proceeded with us on our trip to San Jose’, California.

This Friday Favorite is made up of just a few of the places we visited.

Fifteen days on the road with my Hubby, and yes, still best friend.
We took along a little guy named Flat Wyatt.  The whole trip, he never complained once.  He certainly saw more than he thought he would!  I’ll introduce you to him here,

Friday morning we left on our adventure to the west coast.

We arrived in Littleton, Colorado at the home of our dear friends John and Sue around 6:00 pm.

We had a wonderful visit, and Wyatt enjoyed helping John and Sue to make breakfast before we left for more of our journey.

The Quaking Aspens were at their peak of color, and the views on the way to Telluride were unbelievably beautiful.

On the road to

Settled by Grampa’s ancestors.

Said to be once the richest man west of the Mississippi.

We toured Arches State Park in Utah. Grampa thought it looked like God just took some red clay and said “I’ll just throw this here.”

Here’s Flat Wyatt posing in front of “Balancing Rock” and showing you just how tall some of these rock formations were.

Some of the rocks looked like giants telling each other secrets, some looked like big cookies, and one even looked like an elephants behind!





God sure has a great sense of beauty, and a sense of humor too!


On Tuesday Night we stayed in the Hayward/Castro Valley, CA area.

We visited the place where Grampa spent a lot of time while he was in the Navy. It was called the Port O’ Call/ Neighborhood Church of Castro Valley.

It is in fact where Grampa met Jesus as his Savior.

We got to go inside and see the changes that have been made over the years.

Grampa got to catch up on some history that has happened since he left the area.


Painted Ladies – San Francisco

Everyone knows these ladies!

But do they know that truck?

Well, we saw much more, but sadly, as often happens with digital, some files were corrupted, and therefore are no more.

But I hope you enjoyed this mini tour across America with Flat Wyatt!

Until next time …

Hindsight 20/20 – #5 – The Orphan Heart

Aug12

How do we make these steps of recognition, and quality choices that work for us?

We cannot blame others for, or refuse to look at, the darker parts of our hearts.

They are our responsibility.

But how you ask?

We read in post #4 that God’s word judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

So let me make a suggestion beginning there, where the thoughts and intents begin.

We are so unaware of our heart condition, that we can’t even know that the words, and deeds done to us, and around us in our past, have clogged up our arteries.

Not with physical crud (although this may be true) but with spiritual crud.

Sludge that pulls at us, and weighs us down with anger, and depression, and anxiety galore.

We can have problems with our bodies, and have them fixed.

After that we keep going, but if our heart stops, we’re done.

Let’s look at what the Word of God says about how our hearts SHOULD be;

Galatians 5:22-23 says this – 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control.

If these things are evident in our life, we begin to clear our our spiritual arteries.

Never mind clearing them all out at once.

No one can do that!

But how about picking out the one you see lacking the most in your life.

Here’s my example.

It’s where I started.

I started with love.

It was THE most glaring lack that I could see.

I was “Looking for love in all the wrong places”.

If I did not recognize love from someone, I could not learn how to do it myself, much less, get it right.

I must say that the wrong ways I learned, took a very long time to un-learn.

It was a vicious circle filled with all kinds of wrongness.

None of which fulfilled my need.

I then met Jesus.

I learned about how He loved me, even if if others did not, and even if I could not.

I learned how He loved me, in a way that was different than any other way that I had tried.

I began to study His word, to learn about the ways He loved me.

The change in my heart was not overnight, but with continued seeking, reading, and learning, I began to feel some of the darkness melt away.

Ezekiel 36:26 says – And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 

That old mindset tried every once in a while to creep back in and tell me how unlovable I was, and at that point I had to remember what I had learned.

The old attitudes in my heart certainly kept it as hard as it could be.

My heart needed to be hard to “protect” me, or so I believed.

That protection was a racket – and kept me imprisoned until I began to let that light shine in to the dark corners.

I had to repent in and of that darkness, and begin to practice new behaviors in accordance with my new found beliefs.

My thoughts, my words, and my deeds began ever so slowly to change.

I had to, and still do sometimes, have to actively remember that He knows me, and He loves me.

I placed the helpful verses He showed me at the end of this post.

Next I moved on to self control, and then to joy, which are both stories for a different time.

Taking on one thing at a time from this positive list, caused me to be able to see a great lessening in the list from the “flesh” mentioned in post #4.

Psalms 139 O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
    and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
    behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
    and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
    it is high; I cannot attain it.

7 Where shall I go from your Spirit?
    Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
    If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
9 If I take the wings of the morning
    and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
    and your right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
    and the light about me be night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
    the night is bright as the day,
    for darkness is as light with you.

13 For you formed my inward parts;
    you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
    my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
    the days that were formed for me,
    when as yet there was none of them.

My prayer is that you can let the love of God begin to flow into your heart as well.

A little at a time, or a lot at once.

The speed isn’t the issue, it’s the quality of the decision to do so.

Until next time …