Majesty

I'm sitting under my carport as a scattered thunderstorm pops up.  I'm beginning to smell the wet asphalt and the cadence of the rain is getting more rapid.  The activity of the birds has slowed quite a bit as all of the nesting birds fly back to warm their exposed eggs.  I see a few stray birds here and there, probably the Daddy's watching over their brides.  The chirp of the Cardinal (my Jesus) is the loudest sound I hear right now.  His Majesty is everywhere!

Baby Oh Baby

So much has happened since baby robin was born a little over a month ago.  Life has flown at a shutter speed pace, with our 18 year old winding down her Senior year of high school...prom...CATS...graduation...oh, I'm getting sidetracked.  I'll talk about her later.  Back to this bird...God has shown me lots of lessons through this small life.

Lesson #1  Time passes so fast... It seems like just yesterday that my kids were babies.

Lesson #2  Along with this bird, there was another egg that never hatched.  As baby continued to grow, momma robin realized that her other baby would never be a baby, so she kicked it out of the nest to crack on the concrete.  What God showed me about this is that so many times we focus on what might have been that we miss out on what already is.  If momma would have continued to sit on the nest trying to hatch the other egg, she would begin to neglect the baby that already lived. 

Lesson #3  A momma's work is never done...nothing more to say about that!!

Lesson #4  Sometimes life scares the bejeebies out of us, but God still holds us in the palm of His Hands.  On day 12 of this new life, we had a bunch of people over to our house for Kinsey's graduation celebration.  As we were preparing, we scared the baby just one too many times and it literally jumped out of the nest and ran off into the bushes.  It wasn't quite ready to fly!  We never saw baby again...We kept checking the nest, watching for momma, and praying that she found him, but resting in the fact that God cares about all of His creation.  I honestly don't know what became of him.  I'm just hoping that he got to try out his wings!

Lesson #5  Life moves on...4 or 5 days have passed, and I was shocked to see momma robin come back to the nest and what does she do?  She lays 3 MORE EGGS!

Discipleship

I have a dear neighbor that lets me steal flowers from her.  She has a bunch of daisies, so I knew she wouldn't mind some of them making their way to my yard.  I've been realizing a little bit about transplanting flowers.  They need lots of water!!!  Each day, I would go outside and this daisy would be drooping again, as if to say, "I need more water so I can grow!"  So what do I do?  I water, and I water, and I water!

God's whisper to me in the daisies is this..."New believers need lots of watering!"  My heart couldn't help thinking about young children who accept Jesus as their Savior, believe that He is God's Son who died for their sins and rose to life again, and who also commit their lives to Him.  So many times, just like this daisy, I feel like they make that decision and are "planted", but then, we as parents and older disciples, leave them to droop because we don't "water" them!  New believers, just like new plants, need tons of attention to flourish!  We want our world to bloom with the love of Christ in His believers, so we have to take the time to invest in the future of the Kingdom...those young daisies!!

I'm a Grandmother!!

For two weeks, I have been watching a robin carefully, methodically build her nest, lay her eggs, and screech at anyone who disturbed her. She laid three eggs, but only two survived. We have had the most gorgeous past two weeks, up until this past weekend when we got the most rainfall in two days that I have ever witnessed. Tennessee got 25 percent of our yearly rainfall in two days. I have never seen such flooding. 22 have lost their lives so far, which absolutely breaks my heart.  In the midst of the downpours, I kept a close eye on my robin.  Rain poured down upon her all day for two days, but like devoted mothers do, she sat patiently on her nest all weekend long, knowing, like a mother's heart does, that her precious ones were soon to arrive.  Today is Monday, and after a long and frightening weekend, we awoke to the glorious glow of the sunshine.  When I checked on the nest, this is the sight that I found!!!  Life came out of the dark of the rainy, flood-filled weekend.  Hallelujah!  I feel like a grandmother!  (Gigi is what I want to be called) 

New Life!

My heart has been leaping with all of the new life in Spring!  The South is absolutely gorgeous in the Spring, with every type of tree budding and blooming, daffodils scattering their yellow everywhere you look, and tulips popping their heads left and right.  I take many pictures of my beloved cardinal in the winter, because the bare limbs allow me to see them more clearly.  Winter symbolizes death for me, with all of life pretty much asleep, so when Spring came this year, my heart yearned to take a picture of the cardinal in the bloom of LIFE!  How perfect that God gave me this picture on Easter!  The day that Jesus rose from the dead so that we all could LIVE is the very day that I was able to capture this precious scene.  GLORY!!  Anyone who accepts Jesus as Savior is clothed in LIFE!  Hallelujah!  I live because He lives!!

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."  (John 10:10)

Bitter Roots

"See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many."  (Hebrews 12:15)

This tree, well now it's a dead tree, has been taunting me for weeks.  I drive by it almost every day, and each time it's as if screams, "Take a picture of me!  I have a word to speak!"  Every time I'm reminded to capture it, I don't have my camera in the car.  It's Springtime, and the chainsaws are screaming, so I've been in a panic thinking that someone would cut the tree down before I could take a picture.

The tree is totally dead.  Some sort of root has trailed up the trunk and squeezed, inch by inch, bit by bit, the life that once lived in this tree.  Just like this tree, bitterness is a deadly root that can take hold of our lives and inch by inch, bit by bit, squeeze the life out of us and out of those we are embittered toward.

I have seen marriages suffocated because of bitterness.  I have watched churches disintegrate because of bitterness.  I have seen friendships vanish because a root of bitterness has taken hold.

"Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice."  (Ephesians 4:31)

Is bitterness a root that is squeezing the life out of you?

God's Heart

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting LIFE".  (John 3:16)

My daughter Kinsey took this picture on Easter at my parents house.  I love this old oak tree in every season, because the sun always sets behind it.  I quote the "oaks of righteousness" verse quite a bit as I strive to live a free life in Christ.  It is so fitting that the day that Jesus took every sin ever committed and bore it on His perfect Body, He once and FOR ALL made those who would believe in Him righteous before Him.  We are clean because He had to wear our dirty stains.

"Amazing Love, O what sacrifice!  The Son of God given for me.  My debt He paid, and MY DEATH He died, that I might LIVE, that I might LIVE"!!

"God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."  (2 Cor. 5:21)