Stop Awhile And Breathe

We have a lilac bush outside our kitchen door, and these pictures show the stages of it's blooming. Whenever we open the door or pull up in the car, the smell is amazing. This year, the smell of all the flowers is so much more fragrant and stronger than other years. It's not just me, because a friend mentioned it to me the other day. Have you noticed this? Did you know that your sense of smell is strongest when you are a child? By the time we get into our twenties, it slowly starts to decline. The older we are, the less effective our sense of smell is. Isn't it funny how a smell can bring back childhood memories even more than visualization? The fresh baked bread like grandma used to bake, the perfume mom used to wear...a mere waft can send us spinning back in time. I've read that no two people smell something the same way. I have a friend who is a cook, and an operation left her with no sense of smell or taste. She cannot taste whether her food is good or not. She cannot smell our beautiful lilac...

After dinner chores

When the lilacs are in bloom;

Stop awhile and breathe

Andromeda Jazmon

"But thanks be to God, who leads us in triumphful procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing." 2 Cor. 2:14

The Salt Of The Earth

Season all your grain offerings with salt. Do not leave the salt of the covenant of your God out of your grain offerings; add salt to all your offerings." Lev. 2:13

I seem to be very good at discovering tasty new foods that are bad for me. And in my Easter trip to the bakery, I found another. Rosemary And Sea Salt Foccacia. In the very close up picture, you can see the large grains of salt on top, can't you? You know about my love of bread, but I also adore salt. Salt may not sound good when sprinkled on bread, but let me assure you-yum! I have had chocolate covered potato chips, and they are awesome. Take a food that is bad for you already, and I can find it with something added to make it tastier and worse for your health. Salt is not good for me because I am already on two different blood pressure medications. I bought some new kinds to try, pictured above, because I read they may have a lower sodium content. Did you know that less than 6% of all salt produced each year goes into food? There are literally thousands of other uses for it. There are even two more kinds of salt I want to try. Fleur De Sel is considered the caviar of salt and the ultimate salt experience, closely followed by Celtic Gray Sea Salt, which used to be a well kept secret by chefs and food critics, and is now widely available for under $2.00 a pound. An old Norwegian superstition says if a person spills salt, he will shed as many tears as will be needed to dissolve the spilled salt. An old English belief is that every grain of spilled salt represents a future tear. Even God wanted his offerings salted, and the bible talks about God having a covenant of salt with us. My commentary suggests this could be because salt penetrates, preserves, and heals. So rather than eating so much salt, I need to Be more like salt, trying to bring out the best in people like salt brings out the best in food.

"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses it's saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men." Matthew 5:13

This Is A Real Gem

We were on our way to the drugstore a couple days ago, and look what we saw! It was parked by the highway because it was for sale, so I just had to stop and take a look. So cute! No, it's not a golf cart, it's an actual car. It's a real GEM, which stands for Global Electric Motors, a company owned by Chrysler. It's an electric car, which are street legal in all states. There are several different models, which can seat from two to six people, and prices start at about $7,000. You can even get one with a pickup style bed. They don't go much faster than 30 MPH, so can't be driven on the interstate. My last picture is when we finally got to the drugstore. In the foyer, we saw this little car shopping cart for kids to sit in. I thought it was too funny, because it looks just like the GEM electric car! The GEM can go up to 30 miles on one charge, and you just plug it into a regular household outlet. A full charge takes only six to eight hours. What do we do when we've gotten run down and need charging? Elijah called out to God in prayer and asked him to let him die. He was really at the end of his rope, and only God knew how to re-charge him. God let him rest, and had angels feed him. Then he gave him a new friend as support. When Elijah went running, God said to him "What are you doing here, Elijah?" So maybe when we are totally lost, we should pray "What am I doing here, God?". And I just bet he'll show us.

Hoop Dreams

How many of you have Hula Hooped? When I was a little kid, I was queen of the Hoop! I took to it naturally. I had one of the first hoops ever when they came out and were all the rage. Blue with a white stripe down the middle. I did it around my waist and arms. Even my neck. I still remember my mom "Stop that!! You'll choke yourself, you'll strangle yourself, you'll break your neck!!!" Of course I didn't listen, because when you are nine years old, you know that nothing bad will ever happen to you like it sometimes does to others. YOU are careful, YOU know what you are doing. Don't worry!! Anyway, in my search to find a fun exercise lately, here's what I thought. Hula Hoop! I could do it even better now that I had womanly hips to help hold it up! Off to the store I went, grabbed a hoop, and gave it a spin. It sunk to the floor. Again and again and again! I've lost the wiggle in my jiggle!! Whatever "It" is, I don't have it anymore. It's gone with the skinny little girl that was me. I thought it would be like riding a bike. Once you learn, you never forget. Are my hips a hinderance? Has the fat caused me to flunk? My short lived hoop dreams are over. I hula hoop, roller skate, and ride bikes only in my memories now, for, like the book says, it's a whole world now Gone With The Wind.

Do not say "Why were the old days better than these?" For it is not wise to ask such questions. Ecc. 7:10

The Forever Stamp

"He annointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come." 2 Cor. 1:22

Today I used my last Forever Stamp. Now they are history and the confusion begins. I have a fit with postage stamps, because they raise the prices really frequently. We have a drawer with lots of stamps, all with different prices, and I have no idea which is the current one to use! I could just pick out the higest priced one, but then what if they have raised the price since we bought it? I understand that the post office needs to raise the prices, but why put the price on the stamp? This serves no purpose at all. I don't need to know how much I paid for it, I need to know if it's still a current stamp. So my suggestion is that the post office take a cue from the grocery stores. Instead of the price, put the expiration date on the stamp!! Long ago, groceries used to have prices on them, till prices started to change so often. So now they just have expiration dates. A while ago, they sold Forever Stamps for a short time. You bought them, and they were good forever, no matter how many times the prices changed after that. But now I've used them all up. Did you know that God gives us a Forever Stamp? He already paid the price for us, which will never be raised. He has maked us as his own with this stamp, and we are signed, sealed, and DELIVERED. Guaranteed. We are marked as the children of God. And unlike the post office, which only sold these stamps for a short time, God's stamp is always waiting for us to accept it. All because of his great love for us.

"And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possesion-to the praise of his glory." Ephesians 1:13,14

Deer - Truck - Rabbit

Last year around New Years Eve, I said this on my blog. I don't know why people make such a huge fuss about the New Year coming in. New Years Day is but one of the many new chances we get each morning when we wake up. I've never felt that more strongly than right now, when I am so glad to be alive on this couch, writing to my dear followers. Because this month, we were almost killed three different times. When I took these three pictures at different times, I had no idea how they would affect my life and that they would all show up on a single blog post. Several weeks ago, we hit a deer. It ran in front of the car and went down, but then miraculously got up and ran back into the woods. We were shaken up but not hurt because we had only been going about 20 MPH. Not a mark on the car. Then on Easter Saturday, an 18 wheeler ran us off of the interstate at a very high speed. The driver had been distracted and fortunatly looked up just in the nick of time. Phil regained control of the car in a masterful driving maneuver. Again, shaken up, but not hurt. Later that same night, a rabbit ran in front of the car and in a quick swerve, almost caused a bad wreck. Three new chances at life in one month. A 17 year old friend of ours was just killed in a car accident, and all these things happened right after that. Why him? Why were we spared so many times? Everyone says that life is unfair, but that is just in the short span that we are on this earth. Eternally, God is fair. The bible says many times that He is a just God. He can see ahead and we cannot. I just read a devotional called "The Life Is Not In The Shell", and it states that God lets us die at the very moment that He decides that our body has fulfilled it's function. So does God have more for Phil and I to do down here? If so, I hope we will be able to serve Him well. But then, He must have forseen it, or maybe I wouldn't be sitting here writing to you right now.

"He has set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end." Ecc. 3:11

Photo Tag

I have been tagged by Judy from Thru Squirrel Eyes in a game of Photo Tag. Here's how it works. Go to your first photo album or folder and pick the tenth photo. Then tell the story of it. So here is mine. My husband, Phil, who plays accordian and piano, teaching little three year old Ella the accordian. I did a complete post on this quite a while back, and if you're interested, CLICK HERE. This will tell you why my husband did not want to study accordian growing up, but did anyway. And what instrument some Christians referred to as "The Devil's Box Of Whistles". Ella has her own little music basket and loves all things musical, so we thought it would be fun for her to see Phil's big accordian. She was fascinated. So whether you call it a squeeze box or a wheeze box, she is still too young to know how uncool and archaic it is considered to be. Five people should be tagged by me, so if you would like to participate, please go ahead. And no, we do not like polkas!!

"Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything..." Ephesians 5:19