Through The Seasons

Thought I'd add a few pics from my deck - I will call it the 'My Deck Through The Seasons' or maybe 'Deck The Halls' montage.  
I got these beautiful red berries along the road in Cape Breton.  I kept seeing them as I was driving along, and finally I couldn't wait any longer, I just had to have them!  All I had with me was a little box cutter and I was standing in the bushes trying to cut off the branches and praying that no one would stop and catch me!  I know, I know, praying I wouldn't get caught swiping plants, that's a whole other conversation for later :-)

I had hoped they would last for the winter, but alas, the hurricane weather we've been having lately did a number on them, and I had to let them go.  

Actually, the weather has done a number on quite a few things on my deck recently.  The latest, my plastic angel that I had standing outside for Christmas.  She took flight last week and landed down in the woods!  I'm thinking that I'm going to let her have her freedom...

Home For Christmas

Time has gotten away from me and my blog is being sadly neglected.  I've got a lot of things bubbling away waiting for me to have time for a 'creative moment,' but they are hard to come by these days!

I've made a few changes, check out the blog list and the books I've added.   Just in case you don't know what to buy someone for Christmas, books are the way to go :-)

I'm going home for Christmas, were my childhood home waits along with my Mum, sisters and all their family!  Home, it warms the heart and there is nothing quite like the farm to bring peace and rest to my spirit.  

To all my friends and family, may you have a wonderful Christmas, full of laughter, special times and memory making fun!

Remember The Maginot Line

“Remember The Maginot Line”. This is what the Lord said to me a couple of weeks ago when I was at the front of the church during our worship service. I hadn’t thought about the Maginot Line for years, but I knew exactly what He was talking about the moment that He said it to me.

“The Maginot Line” was a defense system that the government of France had built along its’ border with Germany, because after WWI they were determined that their country would never be invaded again by Germany. They erected a series of fortresses, walls, and bunkers, stretching all the way along the border and ending at the alpine forests where the mountains began. These fortresses were manned with French soldiers who stood guard at all times. The line was named after a famous French general, Andre Maginot.

As the Second World War started, the world watched as Hitler and his armies first invaded Poland, and Czechoslovakia, and then set their determined sights on France. The French people were assured that their country remained secure because the Germans would never get past the impenetrable wall of the “Maginot Line.” They could sleep at night because there were soldiers standing watch at all times. What they did not take into account was that Germany had planes that could fly over the Maginot Line, and they had tanks that they were able to maneuver through the thick pine forests, and up the steep inclines of the mountains beyond the end of the line. Within a matter of hours and days they had broken through the famous Maginot Line, and very quickly made their way to Paris.

The German Nazis used a battle technique called “blitzkrieg”, which operated on three basis foundations – the elements of speed, surprise and confusion. They would move in with great speed with their planes and very agile tanks, seemingly coming from nowhere, and cause such confusion and panic among the civilian people, that the defending armies were practically powerless to defend themselves because they were unable to operate around or through the fleeing masses of people.

Do you have areas in your life that are not so much areas where the devil attacks you, but that are more like immovable walls that are built up before you, and regardless of the amount of prayer or what strategy you use against them, you just can’t seem to get past them or around them? Do you ever hear things go through your mind like “You’ve been in debt for years, and you always will be.” Or “You’ve struggled with this problem/relationship forever; nothing is going to change.” Or even “You have been praying for that unsaved person for years, and no prayer or no word that you say is going to make any difference.” Massive, imposing, unmovable walls that you keep coming up against time after time, and no amount of praying, or reasoning, or strategizing has seemed to change anything.

When the Lord spoke those words to me that day, He told me to spread my wings and get ready to fly. We need to remind ourselves that even though the enemy may have built up incredible walls against us, the Lord, in an instant, can cause us to fly over those walls or go around them in ways that the enemy never imagined. He can cause such confusion among the devil and his demons that they will be unable to fight against us. Prayers that have seemingly gone unanswered for years will suddenly break through.

So, if you are facing some seemingly immovable walls that the enemy has built up against you in your life…just remember “The Maginot Line.”

Sharing Heaven

I decided to share my little piece of heaven with some good friends, so we moved the table outside and had a great evening together! God has blessed me with the richness of wonderful friends...

My Haven

I’ve decided that I’m going to give it a go at resurrecting my blog, and I thought I would start out with these pictures of my deck. I call it “My Haven”, and that is what it has been to me this summer.

There is a scale that I have seen before where they measure the amount of stress in your life by certain life events that happen to you, like losing a job, getting married (or divorced) etc. I looked back over my life this year, and here are a few items on the list of what I have gone through:

-Quit my job in order to do missions work
-Lived in a foreign country for 10 weeks
-Returned home and found out that I had to move out of my apartment
-Was jobless for two months
-Lived out of a suitcase for two months
-Moved into a much smaller apartment and had to downsize in a major way
-Started a new job
-Went through some very painful relationship issues
-Was in a car accident and totaled my car – did not find a new one until five days before Christmas.

In reviewing this list, I think I must have racked up a few points on the scale!

In some ways, it has been a very difficult summer, a difficult year actually, but when it would all seem to be too much for me, I would go and sit on my deck for a while, and somehow I would make it through.

I remember reading in one of John Eldredge’s books where he wrote about the grief that he experienced after his best friend died, and he said that the only thing that would really help him was to be outside, to be surrounded by nature. It was the one thing that seemed to bring him healing. I feel the same when I sit outside and I listen to the birds, and watch them flit among the trees, or see the sunlight filtering through the leaves. It does something inside of me. It feeds my soul.

It was a bit of a transition to move into an apartment that is much smaller, but what I did not take into account when I moved in the winter, was this wonderful deck that I have. It’s like having an extra room, and if there was any way that I could move my bed out there, I would!

It’s been a bit of a quiet summer actually – much different than any I’ve experienced for a long time. I’ve spent many evenings out on that deck just thinking and praying, and sometimes I feel guilty when I see how busy some of my friends are, but when I think about the fact that I spent last summer living in a house with nine people (5 of them children), living on tortillas and beans, and doing children’s VBS programs every other week, I don’t feel so guilty any more! I just say “Lord, there were a lot of twists and turns in the road that brought me here, but I am thankful for ‘My Haven’.”