This little guy

This little guy sings to me as I'm laying in bed at night.   

The smell, the crunch, the colour.  Spectacular abundance of beauty.

There's been lots of picking going on around here lately!

And these two friends?  They are gifts that I just can't imagine living without.  God meets me very tangibly through them.  

Again and again.   

Patrice and I went for a little walk on Sunday and there was so much glory to behold.  As usual I take a gazillion pictures, as if  I haven't lived out here in the countryside for the past 12 years of my life.

But the beauty never gets old and I keep wanting to capture it...

He dances, He swirls, He claps His Hands and the heavens reveal His beauty.

Women of Valour

My Butterfly Club met this morning at White Spot and even though there were just four of us present, God showed up in a BIG WAY.  Somehow the name "butterfly" didn't seem quite as fitting for these warriors, whose armour was flashing and whose eyes were burning with passion for Jesus.

I LOVE these women and their journey of faith.
They are all just going hard after God and He is being found by them.
In the midst of all of the strange and hard and difficult challenges of life.

My faith was certainly stirred up in the presence of their faith and I know that heaven touched earth right there at that table.  How incredibly valuable it is to surround yourself with ones who dare to believe God for the impossible and who search the scriptures and put their faith in to practice.

We had a marvellous little prayer meeting right there at the table - their hands upon mine, calling forth blessing and healing and removing the enemy's plans.  Declaring I will be in Jerusalem in November and that God's plans will come to pass.

So where I have been believing lies, where I have been focusing on things other than God's glory and ability to do MORE THAN I can even ask or imagine...I am starting fresh again right now.

Cause that's how it works,  His mercies are pouring down all over me.

Job 22:21 - 28

Submit to God and be at peace with him;

in this way prosperity will come to you.

Accept instruction from his mouth

and lay up his words in your heart.

If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored:

If you remove wickedness far from your tent

and assign your nuggets to the dust,

your gold of Ophir to the rocks in the ravines,

then the Almighty will be your gold,

the choicest silver for you.

Surely then you will find delight in the Almighty

and will lift up your face to God.

You will pray to him, and he will hear you,

and you will fulfill your vows.

What you decide on will be done,

and light will shine on your ways.

My Bookish Club

I've got this spectacular bunch of women in my life and we started out as a book club a few years ago, I've written about them before.

Way back in the day we actually read books and discussed them.
But somehow we have morphed into more of a "bookish" club, where we mention books in our meeting and we often have a book lying on the table so that it feels a little more "official", but we're not doing much reading any more.

In fact, I don't know if we have read a book this year. Every once in awhile we talk about possibly reading a book and there are maybe one or two members left who would actually like to be doing that, but they are definitely in the minority.

But oh do we ever know how to have fun.
We tell stories and eat goodies, sometimes we drink wine and we laugh a LOT.
It is THE most therapeutic book club.

We feel no pressure to perform in any way.
Or even to read any books.

And tonight I lowered the bar completely as far as being the hostess.
I got home so late from the Society of Hope 25th Anniversary Celebration that I just decided to make popcorn and serve tea.
Ha!  I've come a long way baby.  A whole new level of freedom has been achieved here.
At least the kitchen was clean and I had candles lit and a big bowl of freshly picked apples on the table.

And, as usual, these lovely friends of mine brought yummy snacks and someone brought a fizzy drink so we celebrated the Jewish New Year crying out Mazel Tov and LaChiam as we clinked our glasses!

Ah, these are sweet and precious gatherings, where life is shared, stories are told, courage is imparted and prayers are prayed.

They prayed for me - for my hands and there were a couple of insights.  One gal had a picture of me, like Paul, chained to others through this "disability".  I was sharing how I love to spend time with my new chiropractor and it is a season where I need to be ministered to by others and am "chained onto them" in a sense through my need.  They are subsequently part of my "sphere of influence" and I a part of theirs.  Someone else got a picture of me playing drums with short handles, kind of those polynesian type drums I think. Not too sure what that's about except that I feel like drums are like the heartbeat of God - and that the beat helps us to keep rhythm.  Praying I'll help others to walk in the rhythm of God...

Cool eh?  So that's what our book club looks like...

Someday maybe we'll even read a book again.

Awake

I'm awake in the night with too many thoughts.

With the thoughts comes sadness and in trying to push it away I read all sorts of stuff.  Trying to stay away from too much news because that makes my brain hurt even more. I've got enough of my own, personal "news" happening.

I'm partly grieving, and partly in denial and shock.
It's thinking about my hands, of course, causing these feelings.

And it's family stuff too.  It all feels too big and too complicated so I need to scale down my thought perimeters.  Scaling down to think about what is true, noble, right, pure and lovely... for starters.

Somehow it always works out in the end though,
so I may as well start relaxing now!

And the big thoughts about my future with my new barely working hands will have to be muddled through in these next weeks.

It's a little odd to me that not only do my feet and legs not work
but this thing with my hands?
It has completely blindsided me.
I really didn't see it coming.

The simplest activities now cause me pain.
Like turning the page in a book.
Or opening a container.
Putting on my pants.
Let alone moving through the house just to do my "activities of daily living".
Because my thumbs are involved in almost everything I do.

Sometimes the pain feels like a hot knife, sometimes there is aching and sometimes it is sharp and sudden and makes me cry out.
It's both thumbs, but the right one is considerably worse.  Cause I'm right handed.

So, I'm thinking about electric wheelchairs and vans and who needs to live here to help me because the lovely girls that live with me now are not of the "care giving" variety and they are young and they have lives.

Patrice as my daughter is always in my picture and she is the easiest one for me to lean into, but sometimes (often recently) she feels fragile in her own complicated life, so I can't really depend on her.  Plus she needs to know that she is free to go off and make her own life so I must figure this life of mine out.

Anyways, that's what's happening in my head tonight.
God is still looking after me of course.  And He is truly GOOD, all of the time!
Right now I'm just thinking about the parts of life that I need to "do" after the praying part.

HOWEVER,

I still live in a gorgeous place, in a super amazing home surrounded by wonderful people and I know I'm saved and going to heaven at the end of the story so that's the ongoing really good part.

So Much Beautiful

Fall is gently reaching its fingers into our days turning a few leaves into red and gold, but we've been having the loveliest sunny hot days.  Im still living in some dreamworld where summer hangs on until the last possible minute so I'm not paying much attention to the fingertips of fall.

Apples are EVERYWHERE - hanging in thick clusters on branches like clumps of grapes!  Must be some sort of bumper harvest.  And thankfully we weren't pelted by hail this year so our crop is perfect!  I am loving my drives up and down the hills - I am enthralled with HIS BEAUTY and He lets me live here...now.
I'm so very grateful.

My days have been full of visits with beautiful people.  I've even become friends with a lovely woman named Harmony who does chiropractic and massage treatments on me.  Oh man, she's GOOD and she's taught me some exercises which should keep my ribs from popping out in strange places (causing me some  agony) and which should help my posture from becoming completely CROOKED!  I'm battling the scoliosis so it's a little more problematic over time, but this in turn is strengthening my faith muscles.  Smile.  There's always an upside with God.

My amazing faithbuildling friend of many years came to visit for an afternoon which was just pure bliss. We had to talk pretty much non stop cause we had a LOT of ground to cover.  I think we hadn't seen each other for one and a half years which is an awful lot of talking. (interspersed with generous amounts of prayer!)  Barb is also a massage therapist so she gave me a treatment on my hands and arms and shoulders which was just heavenly.  That night my hands didn't ache and I had such a good sleep.

So, yes, it's a good, rich beautiful season and I haven't even started work yet which allows me to live in my magical world of never ending holidays and heat.

Sweet September

So we arrived home to a gorgeous September.
Lots of sunshine and warmth plus my super wonderful bed and bathroom.
(cue music) These are a few of my favourite things.

I LOVE this month with its crisp evening air and the still longish days and the afternoon heat that still feels like summer.
And I LOVE that I don't quite have to start work yet.
I'm on holidays and it feels extra special because, well, it's September and it feels like I SHOULD be at work or school but I'm playing hookie.

The trip home was arduous due to delayed ferries and lack of planning.  Oops on my part...Patrice was really not impressed. Therefore, the drive down the rainy sunshine coast to Vancouver took about 13 hours.  However, at some point on the holiday I was wrapped in some sort of blanket of peace and I just kept snuggling into it.  Trials come and trials go, but this peace and calm in the midst of either?  I'll take it!  It felt otherworldly and I loved it.  Thank you Jesus.

And hallelujah, Anita's condo provided a somewhat comfortable refuge (I slept on a rather narrow couch) to break up the trip back. We continued on to Kelowna, beloved home, the next day.

This week we celebrated Mom and Dad's 64th!!!! anniversary at the Orient with Chinese Food and Mom gave testimony of how she had been healed of her dizziness and fainting spells at a prayer meeting last week.  Apparently she had fainted in the car on the way there as Elsie drove and therefore Elsie felt compelled to get that group to pray for mom despite her protests.  As usual, Mom simply wanted prayer for her unbelieving husband, but for the second time in her life, the Lord healed her instead of Dad getting saved quite yet.  He's sure digging in his heels. Look at this cute little bunch of us, still soldiering on...

I am thrilled to report that Mom has not had any dizzy or fainting spells in the 10 days since that time.  They had been plaguing her with increasing frequency but are now GONE!  This whole prayer and healing thing??  It remains a mystery, but I'm ridiculously happy when that power lands on someone - ANYONE - and delivers them from pain down here while they're still struggling through.

Since getting home I have also been selling furniture out of the shop.  We have so much STUFF that I'm eager to purge and yesterday I gave a king sized bed to two gals.  They drove away with it on the roof of their little white car which i found quite amazing.  Part of me wants to keep stuff "just in case" and I realize that mentality is not one of faith or of living simply.  So I hope to improve in my ability to trust.  And let go.  And live more simply.

And today has been a lovely, quiet, sunny Saturday.  Patrice and I were sitting out on the front porch enjoying the beautiful morning with the puppies when Daniel came biking by and drove up to spend some time with us.  That was just lovely.  I didn't know these kids would be adults with their own lives so soon and I drink in the moments that I get to sit in their presence and enjoy their easy camaraderie. I wish it would happen more, but ... contentment.  Gratefulness.  This is all only temporary.

My hands and back are so uncomfortable that I have just stayed home and done very little.  I am pondering how I am going to manage life with this much pain in my hands and with my right shoulder being so tight and painful.  Even after a fabulous massage and chiro treatment yesterday.

It almost seems surreal that this osteoarthritis is not going to reverse itself and I have to make huge life changes in order to protect what mobility I still have.  I'm moving in and out of these thoughts as I ponder how and when to make big changes.  Unless of course one of those healings happen to fall on me.  That would be super awesome.

Trusting.
And enjoying being home with my beloved daughter.  These kind of beautiful things happen when she is around.  She can even make breakfast look like a piece of artwork.