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Only a few days left . . .

This newest giveaway is worth $700,000. It’s a beautiful home – they call it an Urban Oasis  – and it could be mine! I love everything about it! If only I could win the Sweepstakes! I receive the email reminders. “Don’t miss today’s chance!” it states. “There’s only a few days left.”

I dream. Just as I have every year.

I envision my entire family (30 of us) driving or flying to Minneapolis (or to Whitefish, Montana or to Raleigh, North Carolina) – spending a few weeks of utterly blissful vacation. I’m realistic enough to know that we can’t afford to keep the home. We’ll sell it shortly. Meanwhile, the cash award included will pay the taxes; we’ll drive the Mercedes, and enjoy a lavish vacation.

The Dream Homes, Smart Homes, Urban Oasis Homes, Green Homes – I’ve dreamed about them all! Each is striking. Will I want to take a few pieces of furniture or decor before I list the home for sale? Take it back to my Michigan home or my little Florida cottage? To replace an older piece? To remind me of my short-lived extravagance? I dream of my new-found treasures!

Those of you who know me know that I love decorating. I look at the photos, take the “virtual tour” of each home, visualizing my family in each. It’s fun – sort of like reading a book. I’m traveling to South Carolina, Arizona, Florida, and Colorado. I’m imagining a place and a time of rest, of no troubles – no problems, of my family close to my side – all safe and healthy and happy.

And for a time, I have no cares or worries, no concerns about our upside-down nation, no thoughts of my unanswered prayers or of unborn babies dying or of children suffering.

Then I discover that the present sweepstakes has ended. I have not won. So I hope for the future. I look toward the next sweepstakes.

It’s all a bit like life in general. Hopes and dreams. Wanting to live in an unbroken world where all children laugh and play, where all people cherish life, honor each other, and honor God.

But I don’t really have to wait for the next sweepstakes. I only need to wait for Jesus. He will gather me, as He promised. The Bible tells me He has it all planned. Above my greatest dreams. It’s a little bit as though Joanna Gaines has decorated the house – I know I can trust her. I know I will love whatever she designs. God has that and so much more planned for me. I can trust Him. It’s above and beyond winning the sweepstakes or hiring Joanna Gaines.

So I can rest. And I can dream. And I can trust. And I can imagine the unbroken world He promises in His Word. I can visualize my children – all children – laughing and playing; my family close around me. Not a care of a problem or even a bit of anxiety within me. I’m sitting and relaxing. My heart is full, and I’m resting in His promise . . . There’s “only a few days left.”

“And behold, I am coming soon. Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.”

Revelation 22:7 

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The Library in My Woodland

My parents bought their 80-acre Butler Township Farm in 1952 from Elizabeth Ramsdell. Her husband, Ray Ramsdell had passed the year before, and Elizabeth did not want to keep up the farm herself. After selling the farm on land contract to my parents, she moved to a huge home on Washington Street with her sister, another widow or perhaps an unmarried woman. I simply remember them as “elderly” and looking back, I find they were younger than I am now!
 
I remember going with my mother every month to make the farm payment to Mrs. Ramsdell. The Washington Street house was a typical late 19th century, Victorian home. While Mother had tea with the ladies in the parlor, I was allowed to close the 10 foot pocket doors on two sides of the grand foyer and let my imagination run wild on each step of the massive open stairway and landings to the huge, probably unused, upstairs. Closed doorways throughout the wide hallways held stories I could only imagine, hopefully saved for another day. For about an hour a month, I visited airplanes and railroad cars, hospitals and hotels, and mansions and palaces. 

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Every Rag Rug Tells a Story

I saw it in the store one day – folded on the shelf amongst those made with polyesters, nylons, and other synthetic fabrics – some names I couldn’t pronounce. But this one, appearing to be cotton, caught my eye, so I unfurled it onto the cement floor of the aisle, stepped back, and stared at it. It began to speak to me – right then and there in the middle of that unseemly big-box department store. I’m sure no one else could hear, but I could.  I tossed it in the cart and bought that cotton rag rug that day and later went back to get a second – and a third – and a fourth . . .

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#3 My Pink Earplugs

We packed plenty of warm clothes for our trip to the northwest that year: jeans, sweaters, flannel shirts, fleece lined hoodies. We’d read of warm mornings at the campsite but cool temps in the mountains. Within the week before the trip, we began to observe different weather reports in the areas we planned to visit: a heat wave was taking place

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He won’t “unfriend” us!

Do you remember when you first heard of Facebook? I heard some women talking. “Are you friends with her?” they inquired of each other. At first, hearing the term friends in this manner was a foreign idea, but it soon caught on,

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Wait! First I Need My Helmet.

I post on my Facebook Author’s page every day, most often using photos or Bible verses, or “sayings” that have spoken to me. Sometimes I select the postings days in advance, scheduling them for a later time. After the post is published,  I review it, as though I haven’t seen it before.

And always – it speaks anew to me. 

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The Poppies of the Field

Passersby stopped their cars. Some actually drove in the big circle driveway, walked up the steps to the porch, and knocked on the kitchen door.

“May we look at your flower garden?” they asked.

 

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Green, Green Leaves of Grace

I awake again with a burdened heart, a sad heart. My daughter’s mastectomy broke me, the weight sitting on me like an elephant, taking my breath. Mornings on the porch restored my breath, albeit shallow, yet sustaining, consoling. The next bout in this healing process is now here – chemo.
 
I go once again, from my bed, to my porch.
 
I breathe in the morning breeze and feel the warmth of sunshine on my skin. I have a spirit to know it.
 
Orioles sing. Dogs bark on a farm on a far road. The sounds carried in the breeze. Peacocks and roosters crow across the country road. Chippy birds chatter. I have ears to hear.
 
Green, green maple leaves by the thousands – the millions – dance beside me. I have eyes to see.
 
I open the Word. I don’t choose the Psalm. It chooses me. It speaks. I listen. With the Psalmist, I “praise the Lord … I praise the name of the Lord … for the Lord is good … great … does whatever pleases Him … will vindicate His people and have compassion on His servants.” His servants. That’s me. That’s my daughter. We are His servants.
 
And now, once again, I know His grace. He has revealed it to me in a thousand ways. I have a spirit to know it. I have ears to hear and eyes to see. It is a beautiful sustaining grace like the green, green of the maple leaves.
 
I breathe it in – grace upon grace ..
 
Psalm 135
 
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The Sun Sets on Route 66 (Route 66, Chapter 7)

The Leaning Tower of Texas caught our eyes as we left Texas and entered Oklahoma . 

The tiny city of Sayre, Oklahoma welcomed us

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At the Cross (Route 66, Chapter 6)

Ron was hoping to see ranches, but Texas is a BIG state and there weren’t very many ranches this far north, in the panhandle. We did see a few, and I was fascinated with their old windmills.. catching pics of all I could see along the road.

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