THE IMPORTANCE OF TIME

This is my second attempt to write this post. My first attempt was lost when the arrow on the screen accidentally passed over something it should not have and I touched the pad and "POOF". All that remained was the title. So I went to "edit" and was writing my thoughts and the whole computer disconnected. My husbands computer also disconnected so it might have been a power surge or the cat stepping on the power button on the surge protector on the floor (That has happened before!). IT JUST HAPPENED AGAIN! OOPS! The recliner I am sitting in was resting on the power button and when I would move, it would partially turn off but then be on.!!! My Fault!

So what did I need to say about time, you ask?

I've been doing some reflecting today. Yesterday I sent an email out to everyone in my address book informing them of the change in my email address. We had duplicate services we were paying for and decided to drop one. As retirees, the funds stay the same and the expenses get higher. So we cut where we can. Anyway, I received a response from the gal in TX who keeps up with the former members of Morgan Avenue Baptist Church that I attended as a teen and in college. She had "lost" me the last three years and wanted to catch me up on news. One item was the passing of a man who had been the church audio/visual person for the last 50 years. He died in Nov of a heart attack in his small home that was "packed to the gills" with accumulated stuff. No one knew he had died and the police had to break into his home and found him. His ex-wife and step daughter had to make arrangements for his burial, had no information about insurance, accounts or any of his wishes for his accumulated wordly belongings. Herb Rehmus had a servant heart and tried to help people that came his way, especially young people. He gave my sister and me a ride to church for over 6months when we moved from in-town to out in a new subdivision because we didn't drive and our parents didn't go. He helped countless others with school projects, assisted in teaching his skills to kids, and was a mentor to many. For him to die alone with no one knowing, made me sad.

We don't get to choose how we go out of this world. Some go quickly and others have illnesses and consequences of their life choices that linger and linger and there is nothing left but a shell when they finally go. Some go out with joy, peace , thanksgiving and celebration. Those are the circumstances, but not the substance of life or death. For the unbeliever, they are alone because they do not have the presence of the one who created them. They fill up their time with whatever pleases them. So no matter how fast or slow death comes to them, they die alone rejecting the one who loves them and died so that they might be reconciled to Him. The believer has hope in God in that He promises to be with them through anything and everything. His Word in us is His presence in us and around us. So trusting in HIS WORD which is TRUTH in the midst of the circumstances of this world is all that is really important and lasting. The joy, peace, thanksgiving and celebration come from the Presence of God in our lives. HE is our source!

We only have this day. Yesterday is past and can't be changed, and tomorrow is an unknown or for some will never exist. What we do today is the only thing we can do anything about. We are commanded to share Gods love with others by showing God's love to others. We must ask Him for opportunities to serve others in love and use our time on earth for kingdom benefit.

AGING

I know. I know! It is a rotten subject! But from the day we are born, we are continually aging, moving each moment to the end of our life, whatever age that might be.

When we are young, time can't pass fast enough until we are "old enough" to ride our bike, or go to school. We are impatient for the time when our birthday or Christmas comes, when we can wear make up and "grown up shoes with little heels". Oh, and have our ears pierced. We long for the day when we can go to the mall with our friends shopping or just hanging out with no parental supervision, giggling over a soda and some cute boy that walks by. We endure (not always successfully) curfews and other people telling us what to do and when to do it, longing for the day when we can be on our own, away from parents and others rules.

Then comes higher education for some, not for others. The "old" firsts were sitting, walking, talking and feeding ourselves AND potty training. The "new" firsts are car, boyfriend (or girlfriend), job, marriage, apartment then house, baby, (not necessarily in that order) and so on and so on. All these things are wonderful and natural, but without Christ in the picture, they are meaningless.

I came to know Christ when I was 15 in Corpus Christi, TX. A neighbor invited my sister and me to a revival at Morgan Avenue Baptist Church. By the end of the week, I knew I believed in Him and went forward to make my "profession of faith in Christ" public. My dad did not want us to be "baptized" because he wanted us to study other denominations and religions before choosing. My sister and I were baptized anyway to follow Christs' example. Christ had sent the Holy spirit to quicken my spirit to know Him and I accepted Him as my personal Savior.

My faith in Christ has always been strong and He is the only true meaning for existing that I have found. I surrendered to missions at 18 and feel I have served in Minnesota mission field for 35 years at Crystal Lake Baptist Church. As I near the "autumn of my life" and time is now passing faster and faster with each day, God is working in me to draw me closer to Him, and even when I make wrong decisions, He gently brings me back to Him.. He has always been faithful and when I seek Him in His Word and prayer, He is always faithful to meet my needs. This is my testimony of Him, of His love, and of His mercy and grace.

So I CAN enter this last section of my aging process and know He will carry me though no matter what happens. Would that the whole world believed in Him and trusted Him to meet their needs. Only He is love, and only He is able to do all things. I praise Him with a heart full of thanksgiving for all He is, has been and will be to me.

We are commanded to share our testimony with others that they too might know Him personally. This my way of sharing my testimony with all who might read my blogspot.

FIRST SLEEPOVER

Milestones are points of change in our lives. If we are of any "age", beyond say 20-30, we become more aware of milestones. As we watch our grand daughters grow and change and have their milestones, it is an affirmation to me of God's presence in us. We are after all created in His image. I am not sure what all that means beyond that we have a body, a soul and spirit, but I KNOW HE IS THERE WITHIN ME.

In preparation for future overnight visits and possible cruises, we had Matti and Emma overnight and for the day too on Valentines. It allowed Bill and Jodi a Valentine date without their usual responsibilities.

The girls did wonderfully well and we did not have any spats or arguments. They seem to settle into a quieter routine. They know Papi sleeps late so were willing to do quieter activities. We played games and make believe (I had not heard of the game "Rescue the pigs in the mud"), and read books and watched a DVD or two. They ate well at meals and were very cooperative and as mommy and daddy say "being good listeners " and good doers too! : ) As they were settling down for sleep, Emma said her tummy hurt. So I had her lie on her tummy and I rubbed her back. Matti decided she needed her back rubbed too. We had already had our Bible story about creation and how God made everything in a week and then He rested. We said our prayers and prayed for their mommy and daddy. They know that Jesus "lives in their heart" and it is so precious as the first step in their journey to find the real Christ and accept His gift of eternal life.

Now THAT'S a milestone!

LIFE'S CANVAS

Painting is something I know about. I love color, watercolors in particular, and my hobbies throughout my life have tended to drift to those activities that use lots of color: sewing, cake decorating, cooking, card making and stamping, gardening, and the needle arts of knitting, crocheting, embroidery. So you can imagine my mind going bananas trying to come up with a "color" for painting the basement here at the WI condo. My eyes rolled around in my head @@ and as I looked at all the choices, I was reminded again that it takes me a while to make decisions about color. I have a similar problem when I am creating a card. I usually start with a stamp I want to use. Sometimes they are back ground stamps and take up the whole card and I only need to come up with a sentiment or greeting on the front. If I have chosen a smaller stamp, then I have "room" to do other techniques to fill in some of the card front. But no matter, it seems I can spend hours finding just the right paper, colors, inks, embellishments of brads, ribbon, punches, etc, etc, etc! And I am happy when I am creating. : )

All this to say, the decision for the color (s) used on the walls and floor of the basement was difficult. I was going to go with a gray-blue, darker on the floor and lighter above, but I came to the conclusion (after several days of agonizing thinking) that it wouldn't look much different than the natural cement color it is now. I wanted to brighten the area and reflect as much light as possible. We only have one window and need all the light we can get. We don't have anything but a few bare bulbs at the moment. I decided to make the basement be a "light canvas" and picked "alabaster white" for the walls, and after much flipping of samples, decided that "natural tan" would be darker than the walls but still give a clean look to the floor. The painter said it was a good choice because they don't have to mix that color and it would be easy to "touch up" when scuffed or scratch. After the choices were made. we asked if there would be a problem with the odor and he said "NO". We could have let him do the painting while we were in MN if there was a problem with odor...

WELL, I wish I had that conversation on tape because for three days it was awful in here with the paint fumes. The second day, when they did the epoxy on the floor, we had to leave the house because the smell was giving us both a headache. I felt for the cats wondering if they were smelling it or if it was affecting them in anyway. The third day there was a little smell and it was tolerable. We told the painter of course, but NO discount for the inconvenience. Bummer! His excuse was "I must be used to it" and "I didn't think it would be a problem." The operative words here are "...didn't think"! And we took his word for it!
Here Mari is taking her first tentative steps onto the newly painted floor(R) and she and Jack make their first exploration of the basement (L). They are a bit scared of all the open space but will be bugging us to come down the stairs again I am sure.

So now the basement is all painted. It is bright, clean, and will blend with just about any decor a person would want to put down there. Since we are still camping out here, we haven't brought over much from MN except the ping pong table and a futon couch. There is no bathroom down there yet, so the basement won't be a common destination. But when we get ready, it is ready for a few walls and a bathroom and maybe my own craft craft room where I can leave things I'm working on out and I can explore the wonderful world of color as my interests lead me.

So enjoy the blessing of color in your life. It is all around us and one of the simple gifts we have every day that give us joy. A "thankful heart" is the beginning of having happiness and joy and we all need that on the canvas of our life.

WHOOOSH!

Did any one see January go by? I sure didn't. And here it is February 12th and Valentines is 2 days away and I am still in the process of making cards for the family. I do have several done, but have several more to do. I am hoping to get them mailed by the big LOVE DAY! , but probably isn't going to happen.

I will include a couple of pictures of the cards so you can see my latest art endeavors. The frog and kitty Valentines are my design and the plaid card stock is homemade. I could not find a plaid with those colors in any store so made it with markers. I was able to attend a Valentine class at Archivers last Sat and it was a great experience. I so enjoy learning and trying new techniques. We did one card that was acetate and had a big sparkling heart with cut-outs. I learned that it is hard to stamp on acetate but not impossible. We used a lot of sheer tulle in 12"x3"pieces as the ribbon and it really was cool tied in a bow. We did 6 cards in 2 1/2 hours and I will include a couple of them for you. The heart card doesn't show the 5 little jewels in the left corner because of lighting but I punched 5 holes in the top and stuck the pink jewels on the inside to show through. It was such a fun class, : )

We were able to have the two grand daughters all day Tuesday, Feb 1oth and I helped them make 40 Valentines for their day-care class. I bought some white and red paper 3" doilies and I had a big glue stick for each of them and they glued them onto red, pink, or white 4" card stock hearts. They got a little energetic with the glue but were able to get them done. Then they picked out 3 Valentine stickers to stick on the front of each. We stamped "Be Mine" on the back. They also made some real cards with white card stock and they picked out stamps of mine to stamp in red or pink washable ink. Emma really liked the penguin with the heart tummy. She also liked the two little hearts over lapping for the back ground. Matti picked her choices and liked the frog with hearts on its body as well as those Emma used. I let them put the images where they wanted for the most part and they did pretty good for their ages, (almost) 3 and 4. I think I may have a couple of stampers in the family as they seemed to enjoy what they did. : ) Unfortunately I was so busy with them I didn't get a picture of the event. But we will do it again!

We still need to finish up our gingerbread house that we baked over the holidays in Dec. I bought candies in reds and pinks and whites to make it a Valentine house now. I just wanted them to have the experience of doing it and then next year we will do another with them doing more of the actual work. They did help roll and cut out the pieces of the house and crush the Life Saver cadies to make the stained glass windows. I may be able to get the house together this Sat. The girls will be spending the night with us Sat so Bill and Jodi can have a Valentine evening. We are getting the girls used to "sleepovers" with us in the event we need to do it at a later date. They love coming over and usually are not ready to leave when it is time. I am happy they enjoy their time with us and doing what we can do with them. May they remember us fondly all of their lives.