Dear Reader:
Chris Frazier sent me this beautiful metaphorical story awhile back and I have just found time to catch up on some “messenger” notices since my return from Pawleys. But this story touched me as apparently it did Chris when she forwarded it on to me.
Such a beautiful lesson on life and our ability to create beauty every single day…each of us using our unique God-given talents.
The story goes like this:
An artist in Europe goes to the ocean and places stones in unique formations knowing that they will be scattered with the tide. Later, he gathers the same stones and places them in a different position just as beautiful as the time before. Each day the outcome is different even though he is using the same stones.
What if we took that same outlook on life?
What if we took all our talents and started fresh everyday creating beautiful things?
Just like those stones… they don’t go away.
It’s what you do with them… how you use them!
Don’t ever give up, make beautiful things happen with what God gives you every day! 💙💙💙💙
His loving kindness begins afresh each day and so can ours!
Source: Jon Foreman: Sculpt the World
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AS I continued scrolling down I discovered another God Wink. Last Thursday night I had trouble sleeping and my thoughts had wandered back to that night before my first major surgery following my breast cancer diagnosis.
I felt completely numb…too much news too fast to absorb and surgery scheduled a day after getting it. I was completely lost and the only thing I knew to do was “parrot” one thought over and over and over. “Help me God…What do you want me to do?” Please tell me what to do?” “Please, please, please!”
And then through that deepest, darkest night…came God’s response…cutting straight through my muddled jumbled thoughts.
“HOLD MY HAND!” That was it…nothing else. Though I am sure He understood that it was all I could take in that dark night amid confusion and bewilderment. All I had to do was “Hold God’s Hand.”
And now 12 years later …here I am (after the surgeon’s four year life expectancy prediction) still holding God’s hand.
My good friend Harriett…a fellow traveler along the breast cancer journey ….saw this sign below…thought of me and sent it in Messenger too recently.
Thank you Harriett…I needed this reminder…because God has never let go! Thank you.
So until tomorrow….God continues to hold our hands and show us your God-given talents we need to share with others to bring fresh daily beauty to Your world!
“Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Pooh
I had a pop-up memory from two years ago today and it was little Eloise and family….how fast they grow in two years! Slow down please!
***We got wonderful news from the Barbour side of the family yesterday…Ady just heard that she got in the Rollings Middle School of the Arts next year in vocal chorus. It is very competitive so we are so proud of you Ady! I know you will have a great time there “where learning is an art!” (Right up your “Ady” alley! 🙂
Almost overnight now when I look out the window by my computer while working on a post…the azalea bushes/almost trees are blooming more and more every day! I get the privilege of seeing nature at its best with one glance in its direction. Beauty on a daily basis from God using His talents to bring me nature at its best!
ichaseferalcats
John Turner
Legally Ohm
Becky Dingle
Becky …so many times in my devotionals there is mention of holding God’s hand…the right hand of God…etc. I will always remember you telling me about the voice and how you got up to see if it was Ben…and how when you woke your hand was in a position of being held…everything in God’s timing…
Exactly….hardest lesson we mortals must learning…not our timing…God’s timing! A tough one!
Dearest Becky….You have done it again! I was blessed, so fully blessed and encouraged, first thing this morning (4:30 Pacific Standard Time) by your meditations on some beautiful and precious thoughts regarding the things we can do to quietly bring beauty into our world each and every day. Those shell creations were so pretty and each so unique too.s Only a God who loves and creates beauty can inspire someone to take the time to do this. And I’m also thinking how around us each day are simple items, which when taken in hand with loving care and creativity, can produce beauty in our world…not only for ourselves but for others to enjoy too. The enjoyment may be brief and our creations sometimes break or are sort of “washed away” with the careless remarks of others…BUT GOD sees, knows and understands our hearts and all the intents of our hearts as well. So He looks on and smiles and blesses us for taking the time to say..”Well done thou good and faithful servant…” You see it’s God who first created beauty in our world; now He inspires us to do the same. One of my favourite sayings is: “Beauty is practical for it inspires”! Isn’t this so very true?
This gets me to thinking about this past summer…July 27th, 2019. It was the day we had chosen to celebrate our 50th anniv. (which was actually on June 21st). On the 21st of June we had a simple but lovely celebration as we enjoyed dinner out with dear friends also celebrating 50 years married, but a bit later on in August.s We dressed up and carried on out to a beautiful golf clubhouse for an elegant buffet style dinners. Turned out we weren’t the only ones celebrating there on this first-first-day-of-summer evening. A few dozen high school graduates were there as well…not inside eating but outside and close to our window they were posing for photos and just enjoying the loveliness of the warm and gentle summer evening. Here they were dressed to the nines and looking ahead to a future yet with many unknowns, while we in our 70’s were there to celebrate God’s loving kindness and faithfulness through many years….years of parenting, working at various jobs; moves to many different places; heartaches, sadness; but oh, so many joys too! We were looking back at the faithfulness of our loving Father as He constantly held our hands through all those challenges and changes– through the good times and the bad. We were more mature and hopefully more confident of our future as we look ahead and walk into our sunset years. Always we know that He will walk there with us. We will look back and see the two sets of footprints in the sand….BUT, on occasion we review the past and look behind us to see only one set of footprints in the sand. What happened there we ask? Was that when I felt so troubled and forsaken? Perhaps, those were tragic and trying days of great “tribulation”, heartache and tears. BUT, our Father had not forsaken us….this was when He looked down with us with compassion and decided to gently pick us up and carry us in His strong arms of love. I’m sure you have been there. I for sure have been there many times in my life. Only one of these times was when I began my journey with breast cancer which began with my diagnosis in October of 1995….actually Friday the 13th of that October. If I had been superstitious this news from the doctor could have sent me into the pit of despair. BUT, I’m not superstitious and though fearful I was also very sure that my Father would carry me through even this. The prognosis was in by early December. I not only had breast cancer (as had my own mother who passed on to her heavenly Home at the age of 48)….I had a stage 4 breast cancer. It was unclear at that time whether this cancer had already metasticized and spread further in my body or not. But we did know for sure that my cancer was very serious. My female oncologist gently comforted me saying that though they could offer no cures, they would do all they could with radiation and chemotherapy to put me into remission for a few years–possibly ten years at the most. Ten years as a possibility sounded good to me when other patients that I had known had succumbed to their dread disease within just a few months or a handful of years.
BUT GOD had other plans for me (Jeremiah 29:11 says simply….”For I know the plans for you says the Lord; plans of good and not for evil; to give you a future and a HOPE”…..)
Aren’t those wonderful words of comfort? This is one of my life verses for sure. Now, some 24 years later I can look back and thank my Father for allowing me to enjoy so many more beautiful days, months and years of walking with Him, holding His hand and being carried by His arms of compassion and care.
But what about that 50th anniversary that I started out talking about? (I’m sorry that I’ve rambled on about so much else instead of focusing on that one point…forgive me please!) The afternoon “tea party” here on our Fraser Fir Farm in Aldergrove, British Columbia, Canada was simply wonderful and very beautiful and meaningful in so many ways. It was a time of celebration that drew all of our family home to us for that day. This meant our son flew from Myanmar in SE Asia where he works in Bible translation. Then our daughter and family came from their home in Greeley, Colorado. And our oldest son, Jeff, with wife and three children stayed home….because “home” for them, and for us is the same place—Fraser Fir Farm in the fertile Fraser Valley only one hour east of the city of Vancouver, B.C. Yes, this little Christmas tree farm is where our Lord has planted us for this season of our lives. He has led us all the way and we know He will gently lead us onward towards heaven too. But for today He blesses us with “mercies new every morning”. And all He asks is that we share those blessings and create a bit of beauty from the things we find around us. This is what our family did on that warm and lovely afternoon of July 27th. They gathered things lovely but simple (like fresh flowers in quart sealer vases) and set up a few tables on the grass behind our ancient barn…and there we paused for a few hours to share and celebrate with family and friends from all over the world. For sure “beauty is practical for it inspires”! Lovingly, Lynn
P.S. and thank you dear “sister” (and breast cancer survivors), Becky, for drawing our thoughts heavenward again today. ….your daily Chapel of Hope stories are always just a beautiful way for me to begin my day!!