Picket Fences

Sunday morning at church a friend of mine prayed with me. Her words, “I won’t pray for the storm clouds to go away, but for your kingdom to come…” Since then I’ve really been thinking about the meaning of “your kingdom come…” When Jesus was teaching the disciples how to pray, He said, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Matthew 6:10. I started thinking of the things I’ve learned about God and His kingdom…goodness, holiness, joy, peace, love, redemption…I’d really like for those things to be clearly evident in the situations around me! Today, the devotional I read was on this very same verse. I was pretty excited about that. They pointed out that in heaven, when God speaks; the angels do His bidding without questions. His will is done in heaven. When Jesus was in the garden praying, he prayed for the Father’s will and not his to be done. It didn’t look like it was a wonderful thing at the time, but it turned out to be an eternal blessing ...

Last Saturday morning as we were enjoying a late breakfast, an old friend of ours knocked on our door. He used to be our neighbor and lately we’d been missing him being around lately. During the summer he’d set up his BBQ and make us some burgers. He was always good for a chat since he is a friendly caring guy. Also, he and his wife started going to church with us which was fun too. Well, when he moved though, it was a really sad and tough time for all of us. I sent out prayer request for them constantly and prayed for them again and again. Still, they lost everything and ended up moving into a trailer. That was two years ago. Now, they are living in a home with an option to buy it, he has his own business, and his wife was able to have the surgery she has needed. As I listened to him share his accomplishments, I realized I was listening to God’s answer to mine and many others people prayers. I remember how I felt when I watched them sell all they had. And the day th...

At first glance, this pot looks like it’s a Nasturtium plant with a few petunias in it. But when you move the leaves of the Nasturtiums aside you also will find a daisy, and some marigolds. The nasturtiums seeds had been planted after all of the other flowers had already been placed in this container and were growing quite well. But one day the seeds of this plant just took off and well, it took over the pot. If you look really close at the next picture you can see how the nasturtium is choking out the other flowers. But not the petunia! The petunia is growing and showing its colors in spite of what the other plants are doing. I read a devotional on Caleb the other day, about how he asked Joshua to give him the mountain and had faith that the Lord may be with him to drive out the enemies on the mountain. The Israelites had driven their enemies to this mountain and Caleb chose to take a challenge and trust in God to help him with that challenge. Forty years earli...

I wish I had pictures to share with you today, so you could see how beautiful the surf was at the beach. I stood at the edge of the water while my husband and daughter, who are like fish, jumped the waves or stood letting the waves pour over them. It was so peaceful. I watched and listened, enjoying what was happening around me, oh, it was so beautiful. And fun, the birds were running around in the wet sand, the seagulls were pulling at the salmon heads left behind by the fishermen, and mine and other families were just plain having fun. The sky was a brilliant blue and the sun shined, the weather was just right, not to hot, not to cold. I looked out at the vast ocean, and thought to myself, how can a person stand here and not come to the realization of how majestic God is? I imagined the sea life that was swimming around, whales, sea lions, otters, dolphins, sharks. Goodness, whales alone are humungous. I remember when I saw Keiko at the aquarium and was intimidated by his si...

Isn’t this an incredible view? This is taken from the top of a column in which you have to climb 165 circular stairs. Ugh! I will admit I did not take the climb this time, my husband and daughter did and they took this great picture from way up there. Notice in the middle of the water…there is an extremely long bridge. The Astoria bridge ...it used to fill me with an almost crippling fear. As soon as we took the curve around the on-ramp and started to ascend to the upper portion my mind would fill with horrifying things like, the extremely high bridge collapsing . As we make our descent down to the long flat part that rides close to the water… My thoughts would get worse. I knew somehow we were going to end up crashed in the water. Another real creepy part of this bridge is the birds fly real close to the cars. So there is the fear of a bird crashing through our car window. It seems as though this bridge goes on forever and....EVER. Now though, things are...