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Morning Devotional...
From Chris Saunders
 
"If you then are risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is seated on the right hand of God. Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth." Col. 3.
If you are risen with Christ.. Then you   must have died with Christ and died to self with all it's worldly desires and lusts ,  you now have no longer a desire to enjoy to the utmost the things that the unbelievers lust after, that has now gone, left in the grave with your old man.
To seek those things that are above, what is above.. God is above, our Heavenly home is above, Angels and Archangels and all the Hosts of Heaven are above, and there we have our desires.
Still dwelling on Covid theories.. Does it really matter.. Compared with the Glories to come when we shall see Him face to face and know as we are known? What will He say to us about all the times we took our eyes off Him and were filled with empty, worldly cares.
God is love, God is the Friend of sinners, God cares, God directs the people of this world without them even knowing or understanding, but you should understand this. So don't be anxious about anything.


Here is a chorus that is new to me....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5okDDchZaDU

Have a wonderful day friends!  I hope the month of May is warmer for us than April has been.  Today was snow and it has stayed on the trees.  This could damage the fruit tree bloom that we rely on so very much.

It is late and I am still up!  Need to get some sleep, which appears to be in short supply these days.

Good night and God bless!

Judy...
...good night and God Bless to you...It is 8.30am here in UK and i have been up and about three hours already...

Alvy Gerber Quispe
 
THOSE WHO SOW IN TEARS....
In 1921 David and Svea Flood went with their two-year-old son from Sweden to the heart of Africa, to what was then called the Belgian Congo. This missionary couple met up with the Ericksons, another young Scandinavian couple, and the four of them sought God for direction. In those days of much devotion and sacrifice, they felt led of the Lord to set out from the main mission station to take the gospel to the village of N'dolera, a remote area.
This was a huge step of faith.
There, they were rebuffed by the chief, who would not let them enter his town for fear of alienating the local gods. The two couples opted to build their own mud huts half a mile up the slope.
They prayed for a spiritual breakthrough, but there was none. Their only contact with the villagers was a young boy, who was allowed to sell them chickens and eggs twice a week.
Svea Flood—a tiny woman only four feet, eight inches tall—decided that if this was the only African she could talk to, she would try to lead the boy to Jesus. And she succeeded!
Meanwhile, malaria struck one member of the little missionary band after another. In time, the Ericksons decided they had had enough suffering and left to return to the central mission station.
David and Svea Flood remained near N'dolera to carry on alone.
Then, Svea found herself pregnant in the middle of the primitive wilderness. When the time came for her to give birth, the village chief softened enough to allow a midwife to help her. A little girl was born, whom they named Aina. The delivery was exhausting. Svea Flood was already weak from bouts of malaria so the birthing process was a heavy blow to her stamina. She died only 17 days after Aina was born.
Something snapped Inside David Flood at that moment. He dug a crude grave, buried his 27-year-old wife, and then went back down the mountain with his children to the mission station.
Giving baby Aina to the Ericksons, he snarled, "I'm going back to Sweden. I've lost my wife, and I obviously can't take care of this baby. God has ruined my life!"
With that, he headed for the port, rejecting not only his calling, but God Himself.
Within eight months, both the Ericksons were stricken with a mysterious malady and died within days of each other. Baby Aina was then turned over to another American missionary family who changed her Swedish name to "Aggie". Eventually they took her back to the United States at age three.
This family loved Aggie. Afraid that if they tried to return to Africa some legal obstacle might separate her from them, they decided to stay in their home country and switch from missionary work to pastoral ministry. That is how Aggie grew up in South Dakota.
As a young woman, she attended North Central Bible College in Minneapolis. There she met and married Dewey Hurst.
Years passed. The Hursts enjoyed a fruitful ministry. Aggie gave birth first to a daughter, then a son. In time, her husband became president of a Christian college in the Seattle area, and Aggie was intrigued to find so much Scandinavian heritage there.
One day she found a Swedish religious magazine in their mailbox. She had no idea who had sent it, and of course she couldn't read the words, but as she turned the pages, a photo suddenly stopped her cold.
There, in a primitive setting, was a grave with a white cross—and on the cross were the words SVEA FLOOD.
Aggie got in her car and drove straight to a college faculty member whom she knew could translate the article.
"What does this article say?"
The teacher shared a summary of the story.
"It is about missionaries who went to N'dolera, Africa, long ago. A baby was born. The young mother died. One little African boy was led to Jesus before that. After the whites had all left, the boy all grown up finally persuaded the chief to let him build a school in the village. He gradually won all his students to Christ and the children led their parents to Him. Even the chief became a follower of Jesus! Today there are six hundred believers in that village, all because of the sacrifice of David and Svea Flood."
Aggie was elated!
For the Hursts' 25th wedding anniversary, the college presented them with the gift of a vacation to Sweden.
Aggie sought out her birth father.
David Flood was an old man now. He had remarried, fathered four more children, and generally dissipated his life with alcohol. He had recently suffered a stroke. Still bitter, he had one rule in his family: "Never mention the name of God! God took everything from me!"
After an emotional reunion with her half-brothers and half-sister, Aggie brought up the subject of her longing to see her father. They hesitated....
"You can talk to him, but he's very ill now. You need to know that whenever he hears the name of God, he flies into a rage."
Aggie walked into the squalid apartment, which had liquor bottles strewn everywhere, and slowly approached her 73-year-old father lying in a rumpled bed.
"Papa," she said tentatively.
He turned and began to cry.
"Aina!"
"I never meant to give you away!"
"It's all right, Papa," she replied, taking him gently in her arms.
"God took good care of me."
Her father instantly stiffened and his tears stopped.
"God forgot all of us. Our lives have been like this because of Him."
He turned his face back to the wall.
Aggie stroked his face and then continued, undaunted.
"Papa, I've got a marvelous story to tell you!"
"You didn't go to Africa in vain. Mama didn't die in vain. The little boy you won to the Lord grew up to win that whole village to Jesus! The one seed you planted in his heart kept growing and growing! Today there are 600 people serving the Lord because you were faithful to the call of God in your life!"
"Papa, Jesus loves you. He has never hated you or abandoned us."
The old father turned back to look into his daughter's eyes. His body relaxed.
He slowly began to talk.
And by the end of the afternoon, he had come back to the God he had resented for so many years. Over the next few days, father and daughter enjoyed warm moments together. A few weeks after Aggie and her husband returned to America, David Flood died.
And a few years later....
Aggie and her husband were attending an evangelism conference in London, England, when a report was given from Zaire (the former Belgian Congo).
The superintendent of the national church, representing some 110,000 baptized believers, spoke eloquently of the Gospel's spread in his nation.
Aggie could not help going to ask him afterward if he had ever heard of David and Svea Flood.
"Yes, madam," the man replied in French, his words being translated into English.
"Svea Flood led me to Jesus Christ! I was the boy who brought food to your parents before you were born. In fact, to this day, your mother's grave and her memory are honored by all of us."
He embraced Aggie for a long time, sobbing.
"You must come to Zaire! Your mother is the most famous and honored person in our history."
When Aggie and her husband went to N'dolera, they were welcomed by cheering throngs of villagers. Aggie even met the man who had been hired by her father to carry her down the mountain in a hammock-cradle.
Then the pastor escorted Aggie to see her mother's tomb with a white cross bearing her name. She knelt in the soil to pray and give thanks to God.
Later that day, in the church, the boy turned pastor read....
"I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." John 12:24
"Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy." Psalm 126:5

Thank you, Judy, for that beautiful story!  I really needed to read that today.

Judy and Jane...
...yes a beautiful story that gives me hope how life can turn when you have hit " rock bottom, " as i have lost count the amount of tears i have been shedding over these past two years...

Forgot to ask, any relation to Joni Eareckson Tada,.... " Ericksons  " with a slight twist in the spelling of her name but both sets of missionaries...but if not, how very uncanny...

THe name. I really don't know,  I got the true life story from Elizabeth Elliott's FB page.  I love her quotes and stories.

I'm glad you enjoyed the story, copy and paste it and share with other friends!

Amazing story!  It is amazing how our lives are planned.  Looking back, we can see how everything is planned.

Hooray!  The racoon in the attic is gone.  After three visits, the pest company was able to put a heavy duty cover on the entrance to the attic near the roof.  Hard to explain - It took three working visits but everything is secure now.

Giving thanks for my children!

 

Hello, dear ones,
I have been among the missing again.  Won't bore you with excuses, just say "I'm sorry, and move on.

We got a wonderful half inch of rain yesterday afternoon, for which we are so grateful.

I attended my high school reunion a week or so ago.  We are all getting older; who knows how many more we will be able to attend?  This was 100 miles from here, so I spent the night with a good friend of many years, and we had a wonderful visit.  Darrel doesn't know those people so he preferred to stay home, and since I'm not allowed to drive at night, it worked out great!

We may be making a little car trip over into Missouri next week, at least that's the plan at the moment.  Might as well get used to only driving, since Big Brother insists everybody get the "jab" before you can go on any public transportation.  I sure miss freedom!!

Good to read your posts today!

Janet:  Great to "see" you again.  Your trip to visit friends sounds so fun.

 Here, I have a Minnesota cousin arriving tomorrow after their winter stay in Arizona.  I am hoping they can spend the night. We have gone through with some Springtime snow and rain and today the roads are clear.  Some trees are flowering.  [



 

Today's follow up Dr. appointment not so good.  Seems I'm in A-Fib all the time, and I'm being referred to a Cardiologist.  Need to slack off on caffeine and start back using my CPAP machine.  Came away with a bunch of new prescriptions to add to what I already have.  It's really not a whole lot of fun getting old, but I guess it's better than the alternative.

Jane:  First and foremost, my prayers for your health.  It is a shock whenever the doc's assessment of your health isn't top notch - this is good to have the warning and good that there are changes you can make.  Let us all pray for better check-up the next time you see your doctor.

I just spent some time going through my meds and found that I did not lose some pills.  Whew!  A cousin and her husband came for a day visit - they drove to Colorado to visit a a young newly wed girl who is wheelchair bound.  Cousin's son is a missionary in one of the "stan" countries.  He and wife have spent they years rescuing handicapped children and having them nursed back to health.  Now, he will be moving near here in a year or so - and wants to work with a tribe.

Weather is not cooperating for Mother's Day.  Snow, hail, and wind predicted.  Three of the children and only one grand daughter plan to bring a meal - I hope they watch the weather first. 

Jane:  Good wishes on stopping coffee.  It was hard for me but not worth the pain.  -------I just had to run all over the house to find the cell phone hidden by my sewing machine in the basement.  Found the little rascal!

 

Carol, it surely was a surprise to learn my heart is slightly enlarged, retaining some fluid, and in constant a-fib!  He put me on a blood thinner to prevent clots and metoprolol to slow my heart down and a diuretic.  I have not been feeling any symptoms other than shortness of breath when walking and I tire easily!  Also a shock to learn my heart has stopped a few times during this period of tests and monitoring.  He wants me to slowly faze out to decaf, and I guess I can do that. Also thinking the bc and subsequent meds could have played a part in it all. As I've heard: "getting older isn't for sissies" 

Jane:  We are all " with you"

/This old
HP laptop is really having fits - it cannot be my fault 

Hello all I too have been among the missing. However I am  sorting and tossing into the dumpster all that we will not be taking to California when we move in a month or so, I  keep finding other people's garbage bags in this dumpster I rented, every morning I go out and look in the dumpster and find that someone has ripped open the bags and made a mess.  I hope to get enough in there this next week or so to have the garbage company pick it up.  We are moving from a 4 bedroom house into a 2 bedroom w bath  manufactured home in a senior park in Arcata to be close to family so they can help me with Keith and I will be  closer  as I get older and need more help.

Carol, Jane, Marilyn, Jane take care, turn to decalf, it does help!  Carol good to "see you" with your update!  Marilyn is there any way you could put a lock on the container?  if so that could be a help for you.  Glad you have a place that is smaller and easier to care for.

We had a nice day here on Sunday. Liz and our grand daughter Bree were here for the afternoon and evening. Bree stayed in our spare room that is under construction.  Liz is our son's soon to be bride.  She is a real sweetheart!  Heather and Jon are living here, and it was good to have family together for supper.

Last night I picked up my glasses to put on and the arm came right off.  I left it for John to see....Hoping he would have a pair of screws to secure the arm on again.  No luck with that.  It means taking it in to a place that sells glasses..... and we are in lock down.  I may be without them for a while. It is what it is.
With schools closed we don't have bus runs, so John is puting in time driving truck on day runs.  Government closed schools and shut down bus runs, so we still get paid.  The thing is we have a porch to repair and we are looking at over $100 for one sheet of plywood.  Considering that a sheet pre-covid was about $30 the current price of a rip off.... The job needs to be done so we are out of choices.

2 Chronicles 7:14
If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

We all need our land healed, so lets pray according to this verse!

Good Day all!  I went to bed last night feeling crabby.  Just as I was in the hallway by the bedroom - there was the sound of a critter right over my head in the attic. So depressing - it has to be another racoon. Oh, well - this too shall pass.

It is so nice to read all your posts on everyday life.  I read the morning top news and Israel is fighting with Hamas.  Poor little Israel - they are in my prayers. 

Life today is all about sorting pills - I don't know how this happens but we have to keep on top of our meds and that is what irks me but yet am thankful for the treatment. 

Judy:  Best wishes for you on the remodel job.  I dropped coffee quite some time ago - really do miss it but my non caf tea is a pretty good substitute.  Thank you - you are so caring for all of us.  Family and company visits are the best medicine. 

Marilyn:  good wishes for the sorting.  We moved so many times over the years and this is the easiest and most comfortable house so I hope you get to the same housing - meeting new friends as well. 

I found an old recipe book that is from the islands off Seattle.  This has recipes from school mates and a lot of fish recipes too.  It will be fun to read.
 

"We hear that Christ no longer refuses to be a judge or a divider between money-hungry brothers. He can now be persuaded to assist the brother that has accepted Him to get the better of the brother who has not! Whoever seeks God as a means toward desired ends will not find God. God will not be one of many treasures. His mercy and grace are infinite, and His patient understanding is beyond measure. But He will not aid men in selfish striving after personal gain. If we love God as much as we should, surely we cannot dream of a loved object beyond Him that He might help us to obtain!" -A.W. TOZER

June 30th 2018 I had the worst phone call that anyone can get.  My 18 year old grand daughter had died.  Above that, she died at her own hand.  Life had got too hard. she couldn't cope. Counselling was 3 weeks off.....That in and of itself is a major problem to those struggling.  Her father has started to shine a flashlight on depression,and suicide. 
This year he has challenged everyone to go outside at dusk and turn on a flashlight, and take a picture of it being on.  Then post it to social media, with either hashtag  #tfm2021 or #theflashlightmovement.

The following song was a favourite of Kimi's NeedToBreathe was a favourite group. Enjoy!

Dear Judy ... today is the first I've learned of the manner of death for your sweet granddaughter. 
  I want you, and Heather and Jon, to know this is not something to hide or be ashamed of.  Our young people are, so often, keeping their depression and feelings under wraps and trying to put on a brave front when, as you say, life is just too difficult for them to cope.  And they really don't have the tools.  I'm in tears to learn the heartache you have been holding in all this time. 
  I know of others, here on our forum, who have also lost loved ones in the same manner. Much love to each of you.

Thankyou Jane.  The most difficult part was/is being there for Heather and her husband.  I remained strong and had/have that shoulder for family to lean/cry on.

If you know anyone who is depressed talk with them, find out why.  Don't offer solutions, ask questions,  what, who, what can you do today that will accomplish something today,(shower, dress, brush your hair etc.) that is accomplishing something. What can you do tomorrow to accomplish something, Walk to the road and back, make your bed, make a healthy breakfast.... YOu get the idea.  Ask what is above the clouds, (sunshine) clouds don't last. the sunshine is always there just hidden for them to find....I think you get the picture.  Coaching them to find their own answers to feeling better.

What to do when someone is suicidal: Have the number for the national suicide pevention line, or crisis line.  Direct the person to someone who is a professional who has training in prevention. Super key: shut up and listen.....even if they don't talk.....listen.....
 
I'm sorry I have gone overboard with the above..

So many people view suicide as sin.  Telling someone who is suicidal that they will be sinning doesn't help, it pushes them further down!

Have a great day folks and remember the Son is always shining above your clouds.

Judy:  I cannot imagine your grief.  Bless you and all friends and family who loved Kimi.

The thing is, though, a person often doesn't show signs of depression specifically.  Take, for instance, Robin Williams.  But, you are so correct in saying be aware.  Let the ones you care about know you are there for them.  Take time; listen; just love on them.  I know about the having to be strong for others, too. I've lost two of my three daughters and each time I've been alone in my grief because I've had to be the strong one for the rest of the family and all their friends.

My daughter, Dottie, had a friend in Washington whose daughter died.  The girl had been close friends with my granddaughters and Dottie and her girls went to Spokane for the memorial.  The mother was a wasted alcoholic (and actually the one who had led her daughter down that same path until she died from it) she kept lamenting that she didn't want to live without her daughter, that she was her everything - her life.  She had another daughter there and she finally said "But Mom YOU STILL HAVE ME!"... Dottie told me what an impact that had on everyone, and I made note of that and made sure I didn't do the same thing when Dottie's sister died.  I have never publicly voiced my deep sorrow and grief at losing Jean and Joy. I don't want Dottie to feel as if she doesn't matter. 

As I mentioned, there is one of our own who has lost family to suicide. We should all be aware of the fact that everyone has struggles and personal tragedy that they keep to themselves -- for whatever reason.  In other words, as the Scriptures teach: Let us love one another.

Thank you Jane. I lost my second son to suicide Jan 12 2020. That phone call from my daughter  that morning was a  Mother's worst nightmare. II sat in my  car and screamed. I was just leaving the gym when she called to tell me that he had shot himself in the head/

Ohhhhh had a post ready to post and poof!!!

I will be back.