or tradition dictates the spot or maybe you appreciate a different look each year. Have you retrieved all the decorations from their eleven-month hiding spots and hung greenery in all the right places? How about the shopping? Are your gifts all hidden away until the big day? Have you finished the wrapping? Do you have a special menu planned and dishes assigned to various family members or friends? Have you baked cookies for everyone at the office? Have the kids made all their wishes known to Santa and had their pictures taken at the mall?
I think God intentionally left gaps in all the stories of the Bible because he wanted us to fill them with our own faith-filled concepts. He wanted to offer all His children an opportunity to trust in His good timing for everything in our lives. He wants us to trust in Him but He gave us the opportunity to ask questions, to develop an ongoing dialog with Him. How close do you want Him to be?
Holidays can be some of the most beautiful times of our year, yet it doesn’t turn out that way for everyone. So as we gather to give thanks to God for his blessings in our lives, perhaps we know someone who may be alone and hurting, someone who’s a stranger in town or just living alone with no family nearby? Why not ask them to join us? Embrace them into our family and make them feel welcome. It’s what Jesus would do. In fact, he embraced anyone at any time, no matter how busy he might have been or how far behind in his journeys. He always had time to stop and talk for a while and maybe offer a hug of friendship. And he didn’t surround himself with royalty or affluent dignitaries. He dwelt among the common people of his day. He was one of them.
For a great part of my life the word “worship” meant the aggregate of many components that when combined created a church service, aggregate meaning a whole formed by combining several elements. Church was a worship service combining prayer, music, and a spiritual message. I attended regularly each Sunday morning and evening while growing up and was also there on Wednesday evenings. As I look back, I wonder just how “present” I really was. Oh, I was definitely invested in the special programs and cantatas that surrounded the holidays. I put in the required study time to be baptized and accepted into membership and, yes, many of the scriptures that I memorized are still lying deep in the hollows of my brain. I recognize them when they are read or spoken but I am not always consciously aware of them.
Many years ago, on the day Ken and I said our marriage vows before God and all our witnesses, my heart thanked God for this perfect life partner he had brought into my life and that was certainly worship. When over the years I’ve looked into the eyes of my newborn children and grandchildren and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are the greatest gifts our God can give to us, my eyes filled with mist and that also was worship.
And then some volunteers made my husband smile during a very difficult day. On our arrival in the ER, Ken looked up from his gurney and said to me: “This is why people vote early.” We had chosen to vote at our local polling place on election day. Ken never misses an opportunity to vote. After serving eight years in the military to preserve that privilege, he takes it very seriously. When our daughter learned that he was distressed over not having voted, she immediately got on the phone to the Christian County Courthouse to see if anything could be done. They took all his information and said they would put forth their best effort to get someone there, but they couldn’t promise that a team would be available. It was then that I discovered I had left Ken’s wallet, including ID, at home that morning. So our daughter hopped in the car and drove right back down the road we had just traveled to retrieve his ID, just in case. And, sure enough, at about three o’clock on election day afternoon, in walked two total strangers with a ballot. Ken’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. He voted and that made his day. Four people at Mercy Hospital were able to vote that day because of volunteers. If you ever are looking for a place to volunteer your time, I can tell you this is a very worthy one.
ALL FEEDING OUR NEED TO SHOP and, lest we forget, all these things will rot and decay over time unless they become outdated first! What we once thought was treasure will become trash.
For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. Ecclesiastes 3:1
Okay, it was time….or maybe past time, to grab my pruners, my garden gloves and some trash bags. I dread removing the faded debris from my precious perennials when their season is finished. It seems so final. And this season has been a roller coaster for perennials, actually for my annuals as well. Our last frost in the spring occurred pretty early and, being a lover of bright garden color, I picked up a few long blooming annuals to jump-start the color palette and fill in spaces between perennials. After crawling on my hands and knees to get them into the ground, I stood back to admire my handiwork and was very pleased with the view from our street.
It seemed, however, that the critters in our neighborhood had a different take on my additions. What had been healthy, vibrant hibiscus and lantanas covered in beautiful blooms when I went to bed looked like a desert wasteland the next morning. An ever-growing family of bunnies had nipped off every single bloom and some of the leaves. And to add insult to injury, the squirrels had turned all that disturbed ground and new topsoil into something that resembled a war zone. The only things remaining were a few spindly stems that bore irregular leaves. I replanted them in pots, hoping that would place them out of bunny reach and it did, but the squirrels continued to dig until I placed rocks on the soil and sprinkled in a liberal amount of cayenne pepper. Finally, they became less aggressive in their digging. Those particular lantana never reached their potential but the hibiscus are still bringing smiles to my face with their huge red flowers, and it’s almost November.
The growing season has been a roller coaster, too much rain then not enough and our recent drought has brought many of the perennials to their knees. Most of them have a nature-prescribed season to grow vigorously and create beautiful blooms that mature into seeds, and then many die back until the next season. A few, however, stay with me for the summer if I coddle them a bit and deadhead their blooms regularly to keep them from going to seed. But all the water that I gave them this year couldn’t make up for the lack of late-season rain. It was time to remove the mess left behind and take down a few that were trying to keep going but just requiring too much hand watering to be considered reasonable. I had to let them go for their ultimate health as well as that of my water bill. Forcing them to go on when they were well past their normal growing season could result in weaker plants for next year.
Pruning and removing dead wood is an extremely important aspect of gardening. Halfway through the summer, I give my impatiens a major haircut. They look pretty rough for a couple of weeks but they come back much stronger and last until the frost finally claims them. We are nearing November and my pots are providing good color.
Timing is also very important to the pruning process. Many perennials bloom on old wood and need to be pruned immediately after they bloom to ensure new growth that will then become the old wood for the following spring. Sometimes we prune to remove a diseased portion of the plant or tree and sometimes when two branches rub together causing raw, open wounds on both of them. Whenever pruning occurs and for whatever reason, if done properly, it assures that the plant will be healthier and provide many years of beauty in the garden.
I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. John 15:1-2
And how, I ask, could all this pruning of trees and plants be any different from the pruning in our lives? Does God not work daily to remove the bad things from our lives, to strengthen us by challenging who we are in Him?
The Lord corrects those he loves, just as a father corrects a child in whom he delights. Proverbs 3:12
When I feel there is nothing left in me, He fills my well again with thoughts and words, messages that I need to hear in my quest to be more like Him. I need that precious connection and so do you. And with that connection, reality settles in….I don’t use my gift of words to gain glory on this earth. The words He gives to me flow back to Him, my perfect audience of One, and if they also land in someone’s world who needs to hear them, that’s a bonus. 
John 14:27 
We have family who were impacted during both storms and waiting to hear is a very sobering business. We finally did learn that while they have a lot of clean-up in their futures, they’re safe.
against that wall for a few months now, dealing with several health issues. Our doctor ordered each of us to go through a brain MRI. That happened last week and I have to tell you that I had my share of concerns. First and foremost is the question of what exactly is causing our symptoms and then comes the uncertainty of what the test will be like and I’d heard some very negative descriptions. And, in my case, the fear of the IV needle insertion is paramount. But, for the last few times, I’ve had blood drawn, I’ve placed my fear in God’s hands and He’s gotten me through it. And so, I gave the MRI to Him, as well. I felt totally at peace isolated in that tube with loud and annoying sounds all around me, and when it came time for the needle, one quick stick was all that was needed to inject the contrast dye. It ended sooner than I expected and I left the test area feeling relaxed and comforted.
