At Home in Wyoming

Take It From Trigger

The one ironclad rule that I have around here is that no dogs are allowed on the furniture.  I assumed that when I went to bed at night my obedient dogs would sleep where they nap during the day...underfoot, but definitely not on the furniture!  Imagine my surprise when an early morning foray to start the coffee caught a sleeping dog dead smack in the act of disobedience!

Trigger started me thinking about the things we do when we think no one is looking.  The things that we say to each other in the privacy of our homes that we would never dare to say in church.   The TV shows that we might watch, the gossip we might listen to, the movies we might rent or the poor stewardship of our time and priorities when we really know better.  Remember those buzzwords "situational ethics"?  Our culture tried to tell us that our ethics can and should be based on the situation that we happen to find ourselves in.  Is that how I live out my convictions...based on the situation I'm in when no one is looking and I forgot Christ was watching...or are my convictions pure and true? Do I live accordingly, no matter what the situation?

We all know that we reap what we sow, but I think sometimes we forget that we reap LATER than we sow the seed of sin.  Enough time slips by that we think we got away with it, only to find that every time  the consequences of sin catch up with us.  Christians are forgiven, but sin still has its payday.  Don't take my word for it, read all about it through the life of David in the Bible.  God loves us enough to not let us get away with willful disobedience.

Jesus tells us, in Mark 13:35-37, to pay attention to the way that we live our lives...in public or in private...

"Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cock crowing, or in the morning:

Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping.

And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch."

Would the choices that you make in your daily life be different if you knew that the Lord was coming back at three o'clock this afternoon?  Would you still be winking at sin?  Would your priorities be different?

Settle it now folks, our will for His will.  Our way for His way.  Because the Master of the House IS coming back, when you least expect it. 

Take it from Trigger, don't be caught napping in your disobedience!   DLB

 

A Peep At The New Arrivals!

I was driving down the road today and caught a glimpse of this little beauty, just a few days old.  When I pulled over to take a picture for my blog, the horse breeder graciously invited me in to take a look at her other babies...

 

 
Like mama, like baby.  This little cutie looks like a stuffed animal horse that you buy in the toy store.

This little darlin' was eager to make a new friend, and trotted all the way over from the other barn for a visit!

One thing that I really love about our state is that people are really friendly, so hats off to the nice lady that let you, and me take a peep at those frisky little colts all ready to greet the new world!   DLB

 

 

 

  

A Snowy Night

I leaned out my upstairs window a few minutes ago to take this picture of my yard filling up with snow.  The light on the upper right is the roof of the Irma on Main Street.  We have had glorious weather the last few days, but all good things must come to an end...I hear we are supposed to get one to two inches tonight.  DLB 

 

Pancake Day

 
There was a dance held at the old Grange building on Sage Creek thisValentine's Day, which I believe was a fund raiser for the FFA...

Did you know that if you lived in England you would have called today Pancake Day?  Do you know why?  Today is the last day before the season of Lent begins, and traditionally it was a day to clean the larder out of all your eggs, sugar and fat, because those ingredients were restricted during the fasting often associated with the season of Lent.

The pancakes were thicker than a French crepe, and often served with a meat based stew which was considered a luxury.  Sometimes meat was cooked into the pancake, but today they are mostly plain and topped with a little lemon juice and confectioners sugar. 

I am not of a denomination that follows the Protestant liturgical calendar, although I am all for any day that promotes pancakes!  But even though my church does not follow the Protestant liturgical calendar, I personally do (it must be my Methodist upbringing popping out when I least expect it!), but I guess I do it in a nontraditional way. 

I use the season of Lent to do things that I hope will further my Christian walk.  This year my sister and I are doing a daily Bible study together (over the phone) on the Holy Spirit.  I am also dividing up the 40 days before Easter into 10 day slots, and each of those 10 days reading one of the gospels (for instance, the next ten days I will read and ponder Matthew, then 10 days to read Mark, and so on).  I also have some other things planned that are personal and won't go into here, but unfortunately none of it has anything to do with pancakes!

Now I am certainly NOT advocating that those who do not follow the Protestant liturgical calendar begin to do so, I am just sharing something that has been of a personal help to me, the disorganized person that I am, in my Christian walk.  Setting aside time during the season of Lent to delve a little deeper into Scripture has been of benefit to me, as I focus on the Cross. 

And what was done for us on that Cross, my friends, is what Easter is all about!     DLB

 

 

 

 

Take A Trip To Mitford

 

An antique Clorox bottle makes a unique base for a droopy Valentine tree made of lilac branches, Easter grass and some dollar store hearts.  I love the way that the sun shines through those old amber bottles.

I read somewhere that you can tell a lot about a person not so much by what they read, but by what they re-read...over and over again.  Do you have books like that?  Worn and spotty, with pages kind of mottled because you got water on them while reading as you soaked in the tub, or personalized with catchup stains because you hauled them to a picnic and tried to eat a hamburger and read at the same time.

If you looked on my bookshelf, that is the way that you would find my Mitford books.  The Mitford books (there is a whole series of them, starting with "At Home in Mitford") are books written by Jan Karon about life in the fictional small town of Mitford.  Where everything and nothing much happens at the same time, and God is woven into the story of everyday people just living out their everyday lives.  I love how this author takes the ordinary, throws in God...and the ordinary becomes extraordinary.  And you know how she does it?  She uses scripture and sprinkles it around as liberally as my husband does salt on meat.  And as with salt, the scripture is what flavors these little books.  I read them over and over again, and they have become as familiar as old friends.

So if you have had a day that pinched like you had on a too tight pair of shoes, give the Mitford books a try.  They are as soothing as a pair of old slippers...and I always leave smiling when I can relax and spend a few minutes in Mitford!   DLB

 

 

A Gloomy Day In February

 
My fireplace mantel in the library...the room that I painted burgundy a few weeks past...all decked out for Valentine's Day.  I won't show you where I spilled burgundy paint all over the white rug, but I will tell you this.  Did you know that watered down burgundy and white...makes pink! 

I would love to sit here and write something profound tonight, but my mind is tired and I think that I am coming down with a cold (Teresa, I am hoping it is not the same virus that you had).  If there is ever a month that I veer toward depression, February is it.  

It is the month that I have resigned from jobs, cut my hair, rearranged every room in the house and pulled up and threw out the wall to wall carpet.  It is the month my father died and I am sure that it is the month that my husband feels like murdering me (just ask him).

Today was one of those gray February days that made me long for spring.  And tonight I found a poem by Ruth Bell Graham that perfectly illustrated how I felt today...

Not fears

I need deliverance from

today--

but nothingness;

inertia,

skies gray

and windless;

no sun,

no rain,

no stab of joy

no pain,

no strong regret,

no reaching after,

no tears,

no laughter,

no black despair,

no bliss.

Deliver me

today

. . . from this.

( by Ruth Bell Graham in "Footprints of a Pilgrim" which I believe is available from Billy Graham.org)

Now tomorrow should be better because I think that the sun is supposed to shine, but if it doesn't...that white carpet turned pink with the burgundy paint is a goner.  And you will find me smiling as I throw it in the back of the pickup and haul it off to the dump!  Or maybe I will settle for something less drastic, like a trip to the greenhouse nursery to smell soil and peat and things growing...whatever it takes to survive a gloomy day in February!  DLB 

 

 

 

 

 

A Word About Sunday

 
Ok, I know that you all are tired of deer pictures, but yesterday I made the mistake of having my son take scenery pictures for the blog, and they all came back out of focus.  His 50 million pictures of mule deer, on the other hand, came back crystal clear.  Go figure!

I remember talking to a friend once who had just returned from a trip to Jerusalem.  I asked for her impressions...and she said that what struck her the most was the reverence with which they treated the Sabbath.  Apparently the Jewish Sabbath begins at sundown, and she recounted how a holy hush fell over the city as the sun began to sink.  She said that you really got a feel that this was a day set apart to honor God, and for rest.

Contrast that with the Christian Sunday, the Lord's Day.  When I was child in Virginia, I remember very well the Sunday Blue Laws, which have since been repealed.  Each Sunday the stores were closed, bars were shut down, and if I remember right gas stations used to take turns being open, one station every so many miles, so that people could get gas in the case of emergencies.  I am thinking that most of the restaurants were closed too, but I could be wrong about that.  But what impressed me as a child was knowing that things were closed because it was a day to go to church and honor God.  I wasn't sure of all the ramifications, but I sensed that Sunday was a different day, a special day, a day set apart from the others.  A day that commerce took a back seat.  A day to slow down.  Sunday was important, different, and to treat it as such was the LAW.

Now I am certainly not a Bible scholar, or here to do some legalistic sermonette on what everyone should be doing on Sundays.  But after church yesterday I drove past Walmart, and noticed that the parking lot was just as full on Sunday as it was on Saturday.  And I enjoyed the lunch that I ate at the restaurant, and I was glad that the gas station was open so that I could go on my Sunday drive.  It was convenient, but I don't know if it was necessarily good.  Jesus talked about that in Mark 2:27-28:

"And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath:

Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath."

In my mind He was saying that we don't serve the sabbath, the sabbath was created to serve us.  A day set apart to honor God and rest...was made just for us.  It is good for us.  To not set that day apart is to miss out on something beneficial that God has intended for us.  He made us, He knows our needs, and He knows that we need this.

So...maybe it would behoove some of us to rethink Sunday.  To pray about it, and ask God if we have been living in a way that we miss out on something that is good for our body, mind and especially our spirit.  In our 24/7 world, it is no longer the law that we set apart a day a week to honor God.  To rest, relax, enjoy our loved ones.  We are free to shop, do the laundry, clean the house, mow the yard and scrub the toilet to our heart's desire.  We can get all of our work done so we are ready for Monday.  Our culture practically dictates this.

But...Jesus said that the sabbath was made for man.  God does not create anything by accident.  So maybe the time has come to get on our knees...and ask Him to show us how He would have us spend our Sundays.   DLB