You've Won My Heart!

At the foot of the cross where grace and suffering meet
You have shown me Your love through the judgement You received
And You’ve won my heart, yes, You’ve won my heart!
Now I can trade these ashes in for beauty
And wear forgiveness like a crown
Coming to kiss the feet of mercy
I lay every burden down.
This is not the first time I have quoted this song, and it probably won’t be the last time either. The line that is on my heart since yesterday is: "You’ve won my heart..."
I got thinking about it... Is my day to day walk, my experience, my life, going in such a way that my heart is being won more and more to my Savior? Is He "sweeter and sweeter as the days go by"? Is this journey that I’m on leading me closer to Him? Do I stand increasingly more in awe of Him?
If this is not so, then I think we are not actually growing up in the measure of the stature of the fullness of God. We may grow in knowledge of and about Him, also grow in virtue, without growing in Him. Are we feeding on "life" and experiencing it more abundantly? Are we struggling to discipline ourselves to hunger for what we know we should be hungering for? Has He won our heart?
The fact of the matter is, HE IS BEAUTIFUL! If we aren’t seeing it in ever increasing measure, then something is hindering our sight. Do we have eyes to see? Ears to hear? Are we coming to God with a contract we’d like Him to agree to, and sign? Or are we coming to Him with a blank sheet with our name signed at the bottom, BEFORE we ever know what He will fill in the page with?
Let your heart be won by the One who loves with everlasting, unfailing , unconditional love. Let Him steal away your cares as you learn to trust and rest in Him. Responsibility does not rest heavily on a dead persons shoulders. Let your government be upon His shoulders in ALL aspects of your life. Dare to believe He will lead you where He wants you to go and never forsake you in the meantime.
Someone once said (actually more than once) that we have as much of God as we want. At first thought, that pricks. Then as we let it judge us, and acknowledge the truth of it, it becomes a catalyst that spurs us on to dying, so that He can live more freely in us. Mrs. Charles Cowman said, "We get no deeper into Christ than we allow Him to get into us."
We love Him because He first loved us! He is already keeping His end of the relationship. His name has already been signed...it’s my turn to give my life away!

A New Neighbor

Last Sunday evening when we were strolling down the lane looking for (picking and eating!) wild black raspberries, all at once there arose such a clamor! "There's a nest!" The kids were about beside themselves. It's not even waist high from the ground. Not noticable except to the observant eye, it is in the brush on the bank right behind our mailbox.

About as big as my fist, it is amazing! We have been checking it regularly, ever since. Today was breezy and it swung and swayed. What a lovely cradle to grow up in!

Mostly crafted with grasses and plant fibers, you can tell a spider contributed (or should I say "gave up") it's handiwork.
There are three eggs, white with sparse brown speckles...

According to my bird book, it's a White Eyed Vireo. I have yet to learn whether this is the female or male, in residence. It seems to always be this one. Supposedly very shy, it lets us get up real close as long as we move slowly and quietly. We have no idea when the eggs were laid, or how long they set, so the due date will be a surprise!

Seeing this nest made me think of the Rich Mullins song that says something like this...
"Birds have nests, foxes have dens.
But the hope of the whole world rests on the shoulders of a homeless man..."
We hope to be able to keep catching pictures as this little family grows!

Blessed Be Your Name

For a while now I have been listening to and singing this song, over and over. I've been wanting to post it, and suddenly realized I should post it today...

Blessed Be Your Name
In the land that is plentiful
Where the streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your Name.

Blessed be Your Name
When I'm found in the desert place
Tho' I walk through the wilderness
Blessed be Your Name

Every blessing You pour out I'll
Turn back to praise.
When the darkness closes in, Lord,
Still I will say...
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Blessed be Your name.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Blessed be Your glorious name.

Blessed be Your name
When the sun's shining down on me,
When the world's all as it should be,
Blessed be Your name.
Blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
When there's pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name.

Every blessing You pour out I'll
Turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord,
Still I will say...
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Blessed be Your name.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Blessed be Your glorious name.
You give and take away.
You give and take away.
My heart will choose to say,
Lord, blessed be Your name.

Carolie, you are not forgotten. You are missed. You are loved and longed for. Blessed be the name of the Lord, who daily loads us with benefits. You enrich our lives, from a distance. The only way to be near you, is to be near our Father's heart. One day, we will share His lap.

New Tradition

For a long time, my brother Dalen kept saying he wants to do "an Isaac breakfast"... cook a bunch of the family favorites that we grew up with for a big breakfast smorgasboard. Well, he finally decided to do it on Father's Day! There were huckleberry pancakes with homemade syrup...


Liver and onions...

Pan fried brook trout caught in the clear streams of North Idaho...

Venison smokies...

There was also braunsweiger (liver sausage, we call it) for with the pancakes, orange juice and grape juice.

It was wonderful! (Especially since all I had to bring was home canned grape juice! I did flip a few pancakes too. :)
Last, but definitely not least, as a Father's Day surprise for the guys, my sister Monica made her much-sought-after eclairs. One for each of us, two each for the "dads".

Needless to say, we decided we need to make this a tradition!
(Hungry, anyone?!)

Stone Laying Resumed

A week and a half ago, we got going on laying more stone on the house. Abe intended to work on it himself, along with Joe, but the corn needed cultivated and that can't wait! Now it's second cutting hay that needs cut and baled, so it may be another week or so before he gets his hands in the mud. Joe has steadily been working away on it... It is quite a process.

I have been "rock hunting". I feel like I've been thru the "bushes and the brambles" but not "where the rabbits wouldn't go"! Yesterday the girls and I were down in the creek, which they heartily approved of, beings it was HOT!
Before we started putting stones on the house, rocks were rocks. But I have learned to appreciate them a lot more! They are like snowflakes! "What!" you ask? Yes, they remind me of snowflakes, there are no two alike! Some are so pretty and some are nondescript, but they serve to showcase the pretty ones even more.

Somehow, handling these stones keeps working a deeper appreciation for God, in me. What a Creator, Designer, Builder He is!

Years ago in Idaho, I admired a small house sided with stone. I always thought of it as a "stone cottage". I loved it, it seemed like such an enduring shelter. I never dreamt...

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart."
Even those unconscious, un-named desires...
Like a never-ending romance, I find God more delightful all the time.
It seems too, He takes delight in our delight.

Heartwood

The other evening I noticed this tree...

I was struck by the way it has been ravished... the elements have taken their toll. At some point, it has been wounded to the core.
It's heartwood has been exposed.

But it is still a thing of beauty... a testimony to endurance.

With it's scars very evident, it still lives and glorifies.

"Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord. For he shall be like a tree..."
Jeremiah 17:5-8

Happy Father's Day to You!

Dear Dad,
I hardly know how to put into words what I would like to say... words hardly do justice to the enormity of thought and feeling sometimes. I just want you to know, your legacy lives on! I have never known anyone that demonstrated more deeply and closely the heart of Christ, to me. I keep discovering more truths that I was introduced to by you, they ministered to me then, but it was only a shadow of the reality you were experiencing and walking in. I now know some of why you wept, I weep too. You saw Him in His glory.
Thank you, Dad, for every valley you walked thru with patience. You pioneered paths for us to follow. They led me out of the mainstream, but then that's where God keeps meeting me and coming near. Thank you for never settling for second best, for insisting that the only tree we should be eating from is the Tree of Life!
Thank you for little things like York mint patties. God still sees to them for me, in ways more wondrous than I can hardly grasp.

Because of you, I have a richer view of who my heavenly Father is. Sometimes as I catch on to a new (to me) facet of who God is and how He works, I then see... "Why, He's just like Dad!" but I know it's actually the other way around... you just followed in His footsteps and loved us like He does. I'm forever grateful, to you, Dad, and to You, Abba!

Happy Father's Day to both of you!