A home in a hill

Took an unexpected side trip Saturday.  Coming back from working at Davey's, I saw an estate sale sign and I thought, "why not?"  10 miles and a one lane dirt road later, I came upon the estate sale.  First though, I had to cross a one lane bridge, go up a steep, rutted road, just to get to the house.  A 4 wheel drive vehicle would have been better than my car for sure.

Anyway, the sale was a bust but I got the joy of going through a house that was built into the side of a hill.  Small, nothing fancy but definitely different.  They did allow me to take a quick pic.

Not my first hillside home to view but the first one in this part of Texas!

Feed bag tote bag

A friend of mine saw some feed bag tote bags at the feedstore.  She brought me her empty feedsacks and asked if I could make her some.

This is my first attempt, based off instructions off the internet.  For the next bag, I need to shorten it and make the straps slightly wider.  Too bad she doesn't buy the other feed bags for goats, rabbits, etc.  I would love to make her a whole line of totes. 

Peaceful sleep

This email to the prayer group is from March 2012.

We had Roo this past weekend! I love that he is so creative in his play. For quite sometime, if something does not move etc likes he thinks, he says it is "stuck-ed". His new game? He will put his feet someplace, like under the ottoman or bed or his big Scobey Doo and then holler, "Mo Mo, I stuck-ed". My job of course, is to rescue him. I run to where he is, ask him if he is stuck-ed and then he lifts his arms to me to get him unstuck-ed. We give each other a big hug and he is off to another adventure only later, to be stuck-ed again.

Our loved ones and even maybe some of us, are "stuck-ed". We just need to call on our Father to come and rescue us, to lift our arms so that He can pull us out of our "stuck-edness", give us a hug and send us on another adventure.

I do have to share a true piece of joy. Saturday, they called Waylon into work so I had the nighttime Roo watch. He had a rough night, a lot of night terrors, which means, this Mo Mo only got about an hour of sleep on Saturday night. Sunday, I was in that drowsy stage all morning so instead of coming in from work and sleeping, Waylon stayed up with Devon and let me try to catch a few zzzzz's. By 7pm, Waylon could no longer keep his eyes open, after all, he had been up for over 24 hours. He told me to wake him and he would do his nighttime ritual with Devon. But God gave me a blessing, a true bit of joy. Devon was watching Toy Story in my room so I decided to read a book in bed. Waylon and mom were asleep, the house was dark. Next thing I know, Roo is climbing on my bed. He will usually bring a book and sit next to me. Not this time. This time he came and propped his head on my chest to watch his movie, which lasted all of about 5 minutes before he was at peace. I did not have to wake an exhausted Waylon and I got the blessing of loving on him as he drifted off to sleep, which Waylon usually does before he goes to work. Another blessing, a night of peace for my Roo and a night of sleep for me.

Do you think that is what God wants from us? To lay our head on His chest, to hear His heart beat, as He loves us on while we drift off to sleep? Sounds like a good thing to me.

Full as a dog tick

Again, this was an email in 2009 to my email prayer group.

 

We have had a lot of rain since Labor Day and more to come. It is like God is restoring the days of drought. As much rain as we have had, I read that we are still in drought conditions. I got a little over an 1" of rain at my house yesterday. The ground is so saturated with moisture that the rain was standing in pools around the yard, slowly sinking in.

When I was married, we lived in the country, a place north of Houston. It was very humid and ticks on the dogs were abundant. One day, my husband pulled a very full dog tick off Wolf. Wolf was a malamute/timberwolf mix. His fur was very thick and it was hard to see the ticks until they were ready to pop. Waylon, who was about 3 at the time, was in awe of the size of the tick. After we had eaten supper that night, Waylon looked down at his tummy and said, "Daddy, I'm full as a dog tick!"

Are we full as a dog tick? Are we saturated in God's Word? Are we about ready to bust we are so full?    We should be so full we just "ooze" Jesus!! 

 

 

A fox at the waterbowl

It has been great reading back over the emails I have sent out over the years to the Wednesday prayer group.   Here is another one from 2009.

Good morning!

Another day of rain is on the agenda. I am still amazed at how much rain we are getting after so many extremely hot, dry days; truly a season of drought.

A fawn and its mom have been coming into the yard on a regular basis. While mom can drink from the bird bath, the fawn is too small to reach the water, so I put a green plastic bowl on the ground filled with water. During these hot, dry days, many deer were coming to drink but one day, (in the daylight) so did a small gray fox. 

God showed me that the little gray fox was so desperate, so thirsty, that it risked coming into the enemies (man's) territory for some refreshment. WHOA!!!!!  So now,   I am praying our lost  loved ones become desperate enough to come into Jesus', who they may see as the enemy, territory for some living water.

 

Thank you God for opening my eyes to You in the daily happenings in our lives.

 

 

A double dose

Once again, these are 2 emails sent to my prayer group in 2009.  For those who have read my blog, you may wonder how it is I can still be struggling with the same issues 3 years later.  Well, so am I!

 

Part 1

For those who do not know, when I send out the prayer list, God sometimes instructs me to share things he has shown me. Many times, I would rather not as it shows a part of me of which I am not too proud. Please forgive my rambling writing but by the time I get to the end, I hope God has a point He wants me to share.

This year has been an emotional roller coaster with my son Waylon and the issues in his life. Adding to that, Waylon has chosen to live with Kristina, a young lady who flat out rubs me the wrong way. It is hard for me to want to be nice to her, however, I do not want to alienate my son. In the mix of things, is the beginning of my ex-husband John and his family coming back into Waylon's life.

Sunday, while cleaning the duck pool, God spoke to me. Picture this, here I am on bended knee, not in prayer but mucky duck poop. God asks me if I have given thanks for Kristina. Of course, I had not. Couldn't think of anything to thank God for regarding her, just want her out of my son's life. I felt like Peter, God asked me 3 times about thanking Him for her being in Waylon's life. The bad news, God showed me the hardness of my heart and my disobedience to give thanks in all things. The good news, I am willing to have heart surgery performed by the Great Physician and the duck pool is so clean it looks brand new.

During the weekend, I was reminded that God had shown me that Waylon and John would be reconciled. At the same time, he pointed out that John was not on the Wednesday prayer list.

Questions: Why I am not praying for John's salvation along with Waylon's? John left me in 1991. I used to pray for him. What happened? Did my desire to forget him and his part in my painful past cause me to harden my heart so much that I no longer prayed for the man who Waylon used to call Dad. Did I want John to suffer because of the pain he caused Waylon when he abandoned him?

WHY DID I QUIT PRAYING FOR JOHN??? WHY DO I FIND IT HARD TO THANK GOD FOR KRISTINA??? God knows the answers better than me.

By now, you are probably wondering what this is all about and would I finally make my point. Truthfully, until I got here in the email, I did not know the point, I was just typing.

God has shown me that I am not participating in the results I am desiring. God directs me to pray for my enemies but while Kristina may not truly be an enemy, she is someone who needs my prayers and my love. I need to thank God for her as she may be the catalyst God uses to answer my prayers regarding Waylon. I need to pray for John as he will be instrumental in Waylon's emotional healing.

I am not sure who needed to this tidbit of information. As I said before, I do relish sharing about my pride issues or the darkness in my heart, but who I am to say no to God!

I should not have to be reminded of my responsibilities as a christian. I should know to give thanks and to pray for those who I consider my enemy. With God's help, my hardened heart and disobedience are hindrances that I am quickly removing.

Part 2

This week, I have been around several individuals for whom we are praying. Did I notice anything different??? Not with them, but with me. God gave me a boldness to do something involving my son's life. You see, while praying for others, God revealed an area in which I was enabling my son. God showed me (again) that when I enable someone, I disable Him. I took a risk and on Sunday, changed things. The risk, my son once again removing himself from my life. I trust God. Waylon's salvation is much more important than me having a relationship with him for a season.

God also showed me how, in another person's life, I was also being a roadblock. It had not been my intention to do that, I wanted to show this person God's love, however, in "my" attempts, I overstepped the bounds God set. You see, I was making this person dependent on me, not on Christ. Once again, decisions had to be made and I willingly stepped back.

Last week, God showed me that I was not participating in the results I desired. This week, He revealed how I was participating wrongly because it was not in the ways He directed.

Will this scatterbrained child of God ever learn?  Yes, she will!

I have shingles!

This was sent out to my email prayer group in 2009.

 

Yesterday, I got a new roof. My old one was less than 2 years old but a hailstorm had cracked enough shingles to negate the 30 year warranty. John (my ex) is a roofer. He was here when the hailstorm hit. Talk about a God thing.  I had not seen him in 20 years.  Wife #3 had passed away and he came to see Waylon (the 1st time in 19 years). He stayed at my house so he was here when the storm hit.  He brought his crews back to roof it, which saved me some money (ain't that a PRAISE).

 

 

John made a comment about the number of people reporting damage and then taking the money to use for things other than a roof. Having been married to a roofer, I know that even though the shingles look OK, the ones slightly cracked will eventually break, opening the door to a possible leak and even more serious damage.  Cracked shingles mean a home has lost its protection.

 

 

How many times have we let a crack in our shingles (aka, our relationship with God) go unrepaired?   This may be the only time I say this, but I am sure glad I have shingles!!

A little poison can't hurt or can it?

I have a very dear friend who is an absolute blessing to be around.  She is a great teller of events in her life so today, I am stealing one to share and then adding the insight God showed me.

My girlfriend and her husband were both raised in town.  They were given the opportunity to have some land in the country so they jumped in to being country folk raising chickens and goats.

The land had an ant problem so they determined to put out ant poison in places, such as around the barn.  Not long after putting out the poison, much to their dismay, they discovered all of their chickens had died. It took them awhile to realize their mistake. Of course, you probably saw where this story was headed; the chickens thought the poison was something yummy to eat. 

God showed me that this is how we can be.  Something or someone irritates us so we throw a little poison out (anger, gossip...).  Many times, our solution inflicts pains or deep wounds on innocent victims, like the chickens in the story.  People who look to us as an example of Christ are now confused by "our solution".  Too many times, people have seen my solution instead of seeing Christ in action.

Before spreading poison around, make sure only the ants will be the ones to eat it.

Scroll down 2 posts for "Disconnecting the Power" + some other stuff

I want to thank Jody at Love Colored Glasses for inviting me to do a guest post on her blog.  Scroll down past "The Lesson of the Glasses" to "Disconnecting the Power" to see my post or better yet, clink the link on my sidebar and enjoy her blog.

I am discontinuing one of my 3 blogs.  Scatterbrained in Texas will no longer have posts, they have been referred to here.  Scatterbrained was just me ramblin' on and the group that I shared my ramblins with have gone on to Facebook for their contributions.  While Facebook is nice for a quick catch-up, I still like to blog.

Third, I changed the name to this blog, just cuz I had the song Help Me Rhonda rolling around in my head this morning and I can sing Help me Jesus to the same tune.  I haven't heard that song in a coons age so why all of a sudden it popped in is anybody's guess.  They don't call me Scatterbrained for nothing.

Simply because someone asked, my 3rd blog is Should I Buy the Book?  I review books I receive through Booksneeze and just some on my own. 

It has been great catching up but I need to actually get working on what I get paid to do.

Y'all come back now!

The Lesson of the Glasses

During a recent garage sale adventure, I purchased some Mr. MaGoo glasses for Roo.  He absolutely loves them.  Of course, they distort everything you see and can make you a little fuzzy headed if you wear them too long.

In the very wee hours of this morning, God taught me "The Lesson of the Glasses".   

On the left is us before we accept Christ.  We get up in the morning and put on our  Mr. Magoo glasses.  Our view of life is distorted by what the world says we should wear, what we should look like, what size home we live in, the car we should drive, the social life we should be living, ............

When we accept Christ, we get a new pair of glasses.  They have a red tint and no, they are not rose colored glasses.  They are Son glasses.  Get a mental picture of God putting them on.  Now when God looks at us, He sees us through the shed blood of his Son, Jesus Christ.  He sees the purity, perfection and holiness of Jesus Christ because we are IN Christ. (the "in red" portion of the post was given to me by Candi Reeves)

What do we see when we put them on?  We see life through the eyes of Jesus.  We care more for the people who are hurting than for us hurting people.  Our homes, our cars, our jobs become tools that God uses in our lives to reach out to others.

Sadly, there are days when I realize that I have not thrown away my Mr. MaGoo glasses, that I have chosen to wear them instead of the beautiful Son glasses I was given.

Lord, let me remember to always wear my Son glasses so that I see others as you do.

Disconnecting the power

We continue to have internet issues at our office.  While I was fussing that once again I could not send emails with an attachment, God reminded me of another internet issue in my life, back in 2009.  This is an excerpt from an email sent out to my prayer group.

I did something really head banging this weekend. I was taking staples, nails, etc off the outside walls, getting ready to have my house painted. I do not have any TV except the local station (yep, can only get 1 station) so I decided to remove the old TV cable that was on the house when I bought it.

Guess what???? Totally forgot the cable also went to my recently installed internet. The poor girl at the internet office was trying not to laugh while I explained why I needed new cable at my house. She suggested I put the cable I had removed on my porch and the serviceman would be glad to hook it back up. Her snickering increased when I told her I cut up the cable so it would fit in the trash can. We both started laughing.

How many times have we disconnected the cable and yanked out the staples? You see, God is like that cable. He is the source of our power and the staples are the sisters in Christ He has put in our lives to support us through prayer, words of encouragement and often, a good dose of accountability.

While I can laugh about temporarily disconnecting my internet service, it is no laughing matter to disconnect myself from God!