Dear Reader:

Isn’t this quilt gorgeous? Many talented women in our church worked long and hard to create symbols of our church as a memento to our hard-working, talented Associate Pastor, who is leaving us.

Sunday was our Associate Pastor (Dorothy Blackwelder) last day in the pulpit at our church-Dorchester Presbyterian. She had prayed all week she could get through the sermon without breaking down and she nearly made it. (But I think sometimes tears just make the message of leaving/saying good-bye saltier and more palpable to swallow. It was heartfelt and the tears flowed in both directions.)

Dorothy spent a significant portion of her last message explaining the difficult period of time she underwent… while stuck in the valley of indecision…trying to weigh the pro’s and con’s of a life-altering resolution that would affect the family…though, hopefully…for the better.

She only got glimpses of the path she was to follow from the one Source she most wanted to hear from…perhaps with a burning bush or angel bugle blaring dramatic scene. None of that happened. Dorothy kept wondering why God wasn’t weighing in on her major decision…where was He?

And then, one day, it hit home why she couldn’t see a straight, clear road to follow…. Life is a  long and winding road … for a reason. God wants us to depend on Him for the next day’s directions. We were not created to go it alone….to see too far down the road…for dual reasons: Our emotional protection and the opportunity to communicate with Him every day.

God is more interested in building a personal relationship with us than in just handing out directions. I, sometimes, think it really doesn’t matter which way we go…if we rely on God’s Guidance…eventually we all reach the same place….Home.

And besides….don’t we like getting off the interstate at intervals to follow the back roads and see the real beauty of God’s world? I think God is a back-roads kind of Guy… He doesn’t want us whizzing through life without seeing the beautiful playground He built just for us.

As I mentioned earlier Eva Cate is staying with me this week to attend Vacation Bible School and I think we will definitely find time to spend some of it on the back roads and back playground of life.

So until tomorrow…Teach us Father to be follow in Your Footsteps…Looking to you for the right Path to follow.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

As if enough isn’t going on at the Dingles…. Poogan cut her foot seriously on some oyster shells and now it is bandaged with stitches….Rutledge feels a strong affinity for his canine buddy.

Eva Cate had a first great day at Vacation Bible School and so did Boo with the storytelling…

Eva Cate must be bringing me Good Luck ….beautiful moon flower bloomed last night.