A Journey of Faith: A Promise Kept

A journey of faith began for me in 1980.  At that time I longed to have a godly marriage, children and see the miraculous and transforming work of the Holy Spirit in my life and the lives of many others. God speaking to me about this journey started with this picture that was taken in May of 1980.  This picture is special as it was the first double exposure I had ever taken and I was never able to do another double exposure as beautiful.  This was all before digital photography and photo shop software.  So you had to depend on natural light and focusing and correctly layering the 2 images to get it to come out right.  I kept this photo for many years.  Even though I lost the ring and had some hard and unexpected disappointments in the beginning of this journey of faith, by the grace of God I was able to keep going and not lose hope. Over time God used this picture to show me a beautiful symbolism of His promises of the work of the Spirit in my life. 

The cross and dove on the ring is the symbol used by the church to represent Pentecost.  Pentecost was the  empowering of his disciples by confirming miracles, as they would be going into all the world to teach the words of Christ that go  across grain to the agenda of this fallen world.  They would be examples of this transforming power to free people from the bondage of practicing sin, to follow Christ's words, to have strength to endure under the rejection and persecution given them by unregenerate people and the religious people who were saying they believed in God but were covering up their sin and were without spiritual confirmation of miracles.    

The soft pink flowers behind the ring were rhododendron blossoms that were in my mother's garden.  The translucent quality of the flower petals coming through the ring and my hand, gave it a dream like feeling or effect.  So the symbolism of the 3 flowers were of a 3 part spiritual dream that God would give me 14 years later in 1994.  I was 34 years old at the time and still single.  I had been setting time aside each month to take a day of fasting and prayer asking God when would I meet the husband that He had chosen for me.  On the 5th month of doing this, God gave me a three part spiritual dream in the night.  The first part was concerning my future husband that would be a godly man that would date me in purity and truly love me and the people around me would be telling me how fortunate I was.  This would occur at the time I took a missions trip to Russia.  I took this trip in 2001 when I was 41. Six days before I went on the trip, my future husband, Rich called me up and asked me out on a date.

The second part of the dream was about my future family that God would give my husband and I.  We would be coming to the understanding of the godly order that God has established for men and women, practice it and share it with others.  There would be some hardship involved with this as our culture is going in the opposite direction with feminism and gender confusion.  But through it all God would gave us a baby girl with me being 46 years and my husband being 51, with no complications for me or physical defects for her.  We would homeschool her and our family would be strong in faith.

The 3rd part of the dream was concerning the work of the Spirit, revival, that God would be leading us into. Something from our past will be the hope for the future.   This work will be outside a church building in a neutral location. It will not be run like a business with budgets to meet and hierarchy developed by paid staff but it will be like true family.  People who are not related genetically will become true  family and will be sharing the truths of Christ's words with confirming miracles.  Hearts will be changed and the bondages of sin will drop off and people will be set free!

These 3 works of the Lord's Spirit in our life happen according to God's timeline and not ours.  He had us waiting for the glory of God and nothing could be more wonderful than that.  Our life here on earth is fleeting but we are heading for eternity.  We need to keep our focus on that and not on our time table or what we think we need.  Isaiah puts it so beautifully....They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.  God is faithful and in these years of my life, he has kept His promises to me and never gone back on His word.

Wind and Fire

Wind and Fire

I remember waking up that Tuesday morning and looking out our front window and seeing the East wind blow. It was a weird feeling and I told Rich, look at that, the wind is blowing from the East. The wind around here blows from the North West almost all the time. Our neighbors across the way have a flag pole with an American flag, so I can always look outside and see the direction of the wind. Later in the day I took Mary to her piano lesson across town. I noticed the traffic was unusually heavy on 99 for a mid afternoon. When we got to the big intersection by the Mall, instead of going into town, the police were directing traffic to go right. So I thought, wow there must be a big accident on the road. So we took a round about route on Columbus to Stewart to her piano teacher's house. When we got inside, Mary's piano teacher said there was a big fire in Ashland. As I was sitting on the couch listening to Mary play, her teacher's little dog kept getting up on the couch and looking out at all the wind and the darkening day as the smoke filled the air. She was nervous and unsettled as she usually just sleeps on the floor by the teacher as Mary plays. After the lesson, we wished her teacher well and headed back the route that we came. I looked behind and saw a gigantic column of smoke rising in the air in the southern sky. I told Mary that we needed to go straight home and not stop at the store. When we got home around 3:30 pm I told Rich to turn on the TV and see what was going on. To my horror I saw that it wasn't a brush fire in Ashland but Talent was burning and it was going into Phoenix and heading for Medford. We were glued to the news on the TV and computer until well after 10PM. I couldn't hardly process what was going on. We texted our friends and Rich's mom to see if everyone was OK. One couple lost their house in the fire but everyone else was safe. The next day we were notified of a Stage 2 evacuation for our neighborhood because of fire breaking out near Costco. So we began to pack our things. I became frightened thinking of what I would take. I prayed and asked God and He helped me. We only had a small car with the 3 of us and the kitty would not leave much room for anything else. Getting ready to go was like a refining fire. I was thinking what really matters here, well really only our lives. Would I be sad, if everything got burned up? Yeah, really sad, especially my garden, all the lovely flowers and rose bushes gone. I couldn't stay in that thought very long, it was too dark. Fortunaely we didn't have to go. Our stuff stayed packed for a while. Then the videos started pouring in on facebook of the fire and the after math of it. I couldn't stop crying seeing all the suffering and loss. My heart was breaking. I had seen fires in other places and felt bad but it was nothing like this. This was my home, the place I had grown up in. All the memories began to flood in of the places that are now burned and in ashes. My beautiful valley on fire. It will never be the same. Something happened that Tuesday that has changed the course of history for me. Things will be rebuilt, but a scar will still be in my memory. Good things will come from the fire, people coming together to help each other and comfort each other. I flooded my facebook page with places that were giving help and pets being found and ones trying to find lost kitties.

Then I began to think of the Lord's refining fire and how on the day of Pentecost those many centuries ago, the Lord used those signs of wind that filled the house and tongues of fire appearing on their heads. That is what happened that day in our communities and wind filled the valley followed by fire. It made me think of revival fire. Fire causes loss, just as following Jesus we will experience loss. Many followers of Jesus joyfully gave up what they didn't need and shared with those who needed things. Then persecution came to those following Jesus from those who did not believe, those who were proud and did not want to change, did not want to give up their lives to do the Father's will. They liked their lives and their positions of influence and the followers of Jesus were upsetting the apple cart. The Lord was confirming his followers with miracles, the lame were walking, the dead were being raised, the sick were being healed. So now many of the followers of Jesus were being chased out of their homes, rejected by their families and had to flee to other towns. How were they able to withstand this kind of refining fire, because their treasure was in the future, the day their salvation would be completed when they would dwell with the Lord forever. Revival fire makes us realize we are but dust, ashes and the things of this life will not last forever. We need to focus on what God wants, what things will last forever.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter!  Time is racing by.  Spring is here and we are working out in the garden a lot.  Rich mowed and weed wacked the whole place and it looks so nice.  I have so many pretty flowers coming up.  I have over 30 lily bulbs coming up.  Also roses, peonies, dalias, cone flower, liatris and so much more.  Mary and I planted a bunch of seedlings and they are all coming up in pots.  We have zinnias, black eye susans, holly hocks, snap dragons and whole bunch of wild flowers.  She also planted a pot of cat grass for her kitty, Ellie.  Here are some photos I took of Mary at Easter in front of her grandmother's cherry tree.  My sister, Linda, gave her the beautiful dress she is wearing.  She is growing up so fast and I love the sweet and godly your lady she is becoming!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

From the shores of Ireland, they came, the sturdy Scott-Irish, to the farmlands of Pennsylvania and the mountains of Kentucky. With a fiddle, a jig and a fiery spirit they became the backbone of America. With the fear of God and a patriot's heart fought for the dream of everyone having a voice. From these people, our ancestors came, Margaret Gamble and Mary Peaden right down to our Mary, a sweet colleen.

Thanksgiving 2019

A warm and cozy Thanksgiving morning.

The rack in the pan wore out so Rich used carrots to make a rack for the turkey.

Ready to go in!

Spices for the stuffing all lined up.

Carving it up

I sure love this guy and also the wonderful things he cooks.  Since he has retired has done pretty much all the cooking and I love it!

He baked non gluten bread to make the stuffing with and it was delicious.

We were at Rich's mom's house.  His sister and her husband and nephew were with us.

Somebody loves turkey legs!

I am so thankful for my loving family!

Halloween

We had so much fun this year.  Mary dressed up her kitty, we handed candy out to a bunch of Trick or Treaters.  We also watched a couple of old scary movies including Arsenic and Old Lace.  We had home made guacamole with chips and apple slices with caramel to munch on during the movies.  I just love this time of year.  The trees pictured below are the 2 trees in front of Rich's mom's house.  The comic strip is by Mary of the Peanuts cartoon.  It was her writing assignment for this week.

Mary is a Teenager!

Mary had a wonderful birthday.  Rich's mom went in with us to buy Mary a real opal birth stone ring and she was thrilled.  After we got her the ring we had a girls day at a nail salon.  Mary had her first professional manicure.  We had so much fun.  Mom's birthday was the 25th so she celebrated her birthday with Mary.  Rich made a wonderful chocolate cheese cake from scratch using our homemade sour cream and cream cheese.  To say the least it was delicious!!  On Sunday we took them out to Olive Garden for their birthday dinner.  Rich's sister, Maura, was able to join us for the celebration.  After dinner we came home and opened cards and ate the chocolate cheese cake.  

I am so proud of the loving sweet young lady Mary is growing up to be.  She loves the Lord and her family very much.  She is such a precious gift from the Lord to us and he is giving us the strength and vitality to raise her.   We have so much fun together as a family and we love working together and doing projects together.  We can't wait to see all that the Lord has in store for her!

Ellie, our little pumpkin

Ellie had a photo shoot with our fall mums, kale and pumpkin.  She is such a fun little kitty!

Hi!

The kale leaves are delicious.

I know I am beautiful.

Cutest little profile!

Beautiful Crater Lake

We had a beautiful day at Crater Lake.  There wasn't a cloud in the sky and hardly any wind so the lake was like glass.  We brought a pic-nic lunch and drove all the way around the lake.  Something I had not done before.  The little ground squirrels were so tame and so cute!  We stopped at Becky's restaurant in Prospect on the way back for some pie.