Picket Fences

 I thought it was dead.  I bought this pretty hydrangea tree last year. Over the winter we had a horrible ice storm. Most of my plants made it through okay, but the hydrangea didn't look so good. I did some investigating on the internet. I found a Gardner who showed how to prune the dead limbs and cross limbs off the hydrangea.  I followed the direction of the Gardner very carefully. I ended up with a awkward looking bare limbed looking tree. I even heard the question, what happened to it? I waited. I checked to see if there were any buds periodically. Nothing. Then one day I saw what appeared to be buds down on the lower branches.  I became excited about the tree possibly being alive. I planned to cut the branches down to what appeared to be buds.  First, I prayed over each branch to have life and to bloom.  I checked on it again to see if the little buds were blooming. Not much appeared to be happening.  Would the tree bloom? Would the beautiful flowers of the tree show it's

  Have you ever finished cleaning a room and someone comes behind you and messes it up? Or have you ever completed a project and somehow the project is destroyed? I have. It can be frustrating. While reading the book of Genesis, it looks to me as though God has experienced this too.   At the end of each day of creation, God would look at His creation and say, "it is good." He created two incredible people who hung out with Him in His beautiful garden.   Imagine how beautiful it all looked at the beginning of time. Imagine a garden without weeds.   Then a day came when it all went downhill, Adam and Eve took a bite of the fruit from the forbidden tree.   The downhill roll has been going and going ever since. I can only imagine God having to watch the work of His creation as the choices people make messes it up or destroys it. My husband worked on our yard to make it a wonderful oasis. He made a part of this oasis where I can have a beautiful garden and there

  Pretty much every morning I open my eyes to a cute little cat staring at me waiting for me to wake up. My other cat is prowling around the bed meowing trying to get me up, usually way before I want to wake up. I say good morning to them, pet them, and they follow me around the room. Then I go into my office where my dogs sleep and let them out of their kennels. Those two dogs get so excited. Their tails wag, and their little bodies wiggle crazily about me while I pet them. Then they greet each other by panting in each other’s faces, chewing at each other, and wagging their tails more. It is truly an ordeal to get down the stairs safely, they are so excited. Once they go outside and eat, as soon as I sit down, they wiggle their way to me and rub their excited little bodies up against me and just want to be talked to and petted. They get so excited as I talk to them and get full of energy, rolling on the floor, jumping, and ending up wrestling with one another. Each of these 4 animals