Tag Archives: prayer

Jul28

What The Heart Knows As The Summer Blooms

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What The Heart Knows As The Summer Blooms

Summer can bring a frenzy of activity like the hummingbirds with their multiple flights to the sugar-water feeders. Dean is filling those feeders with his homemade recipe every 7 – 8 days. The finches and sparrows are the same with the suet blocks we put out. Fattening up, those birds of song. Summer blooms and songs all around. I read about blackberries, bees, and honey. I sit, observing from our cottage’s windows, taking it all in this week while recovering from COVID. This morning, I am feeling well enough to walk outside in the midst of the sights and sounds. Sunday’s sermon will be given courtesy of Mother’s Nature. The biscuit & gravy chef made a plate for me this morning. My last day of quarantine will be a beautiful one. How blessed I am.

While the rains water and the sun warm the earth, this is what the heart knows as the summer blooms: it is good to sit awhile to reflect and pray. I pray for my children and grandchildren. My disabled daughter who lost their house in a fire 1-1/2 years ago is living in a huge travel trailer on her husband’s family farm. Not quite the 3-bedroom house they were accustomed to. A final insurance settlement is almost completed. “Please God not another day of delay for them and give them wisdom on the best ways to spend these provisions.” My other daughter who fought and beat breast cancer in her early 30’s still struggles with brain fog after treatments. “Please God, clear her thoughts to see the next steps to take and the fortitude to walk those steps.” My son, who struggles with mental health challenges, like so many of us do. “Please God bring clarity and assurance of Your love for him. and each of us”

Take a walk in your neighborhood gardens and snap some green beans with your grandma today. I guarantee you will feel better.

Sweet Berry Kisses

Off to the blueberry bushes and blackberry brambles I am sent,

into the strawberry patch squishing overripe berries between my toes.

A painter’s palette smeared like rouge onto my cheeks

and all phalanges match my berry-stained face, lips, and tongue.

These delicious delectables satisfy my tummy’s rumbles

while the morning’s sun seals the sweet berry kisses to my lips.

Picking berries, berries, and more berries is my morning chore,

so, most make their way into Auntie’s heavy handled shiny bucket.

Pies, crisps, cobblers, buckles, and biscuits smothered with berry jams,

these Auntie anticipations as she twiddles her thumbs awaiting.

Down the garden path Auntie comes with a rabbit behind and bees a buzzing,

to lend a hand at picking plump berries into her long-handled metal pan.

Before noon into her kitchen baking oozing, finger-licking berry hand pies;

Oh, these juicy jewels create the sweetest berry kisses to my lips.

Anna Gall

May 4, 2024

Jun19

Before The Summer Solstice

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Before The Summer Solstice

The travels this late spring have been beautiful. We took several trips back to the Kansas City side of the state to get Dean’s parent’s house emptied before putting the house on the real estate market. The sunrises on Lake Wood as well as the sunsets were magnificent while on the road. The barns’ silhouettes and contrasting green landscapes vivid. Walks in our hometown of St. Charles and also while in the state of Tennessee for a partial week gave Dean and I admiring glimpses of gardens and art. A creative world we live in, cause to ponder a bit between the busy activities. Author Julie Cameron calls these types of walks “artist dates”. According to her, we should take these once a week for at least an hour or two. What sort of artist dates do you take?

May flew by, and June is proving similar. Cleaning and yard projects at the cottage as well as at Dean’s parents’ home took all of May. In June a sales contract written with a closing date before the end of the month, attending the Clarksville Writers’ Conference in Tennessee where I made a handmade book, an afternoon of Nashville music at the Ryman, the airshow at Spirit of St. Louis Airport with some excitable grandsons, the engagement party of my oldest granddaughter Hannah and her fiancé Jay, a week with my sister and visiting other family members and friends while she is in town, all this before the summer solstice. Wonder what the summer season will bring? I know a few more projects, but maybe some rest, relaxation, and healing for my body while we stay home for a few weeks. Home. I love the sound of that word.

On top of the busy activities, I have had medical appointments, tests, and now physical therapy. My world has literally been spinning since April. I woke up the morning of April 30 with a case of vertigo. Dizziness, nausea, migraines, and confusion comes and goes since then. Last week’s MRI shows a benign cyst on my right maxillary sinus, probably what caused those sinus infections from February through April, and the migraines since May. Vestibular physical therapy started yesterday. No fun, but hopeful this PT will help. Waiting to hear from the doctor about treatment for the sinus cyst. Hanging my worries out to dry. Please come Lord Jesus and take care of all of them.

Mar25

When The Heart Aches

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When The Heart Aches

“I’m fixin’ to get into some trouble. You comin’?” the meme says. When the heart aches, sometimes there is the temptation to escape it all and bring company along with. Get into some kind of trouble while having fun. Anything is better than this pain. Truly, my heart is aching, but I am not aiming to get into trouble. I love my Lord and Savior Jesus too much to go that route. Ready to have happy times again. It had been 4 weeks since Dean and I’s mental and body rejuvenating vacation to the southeast coast. A baby shower for a beloved niece brought some joy, and for Dean guy time at the shooting range with his brothers, sons, and father this past weekend. My heart still aches for the loved ones whose mental illness leads them astray. My heart aches to witness painful steps, one after the other of a faithful mother. My heart aches to see poverty rob a person from becoming all they can. Do you see and feel that kind of heart ache, too?

Then there is loneliness sometimes even in the midst of all the family and work obligations. I have done this thing called family life for so many years. Not always a good wife, mother, daughter. But tried to make family my priority. To be honest, family and friends fall short like I do. We are human, and all need Jesus. Go down memory lane, I realize decisions I would have made differently as a young adult, wife, mother, grandmother, adult child, employee, and neighbor. “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending,” wrote C.S. Lewis.

Jesus, heal my aching heart. Comfort those who my heart aches for. Bring them through another day. Let them know Your love. God, show me what You want me to spend time on today, in this winter season of my life. I may be getting older, but I am still willing to do Your will. Good works do not replace home life. Family and friends do not replace Jesus. Jesus. We need You.

The recently deceased country singer Toby Keith presented this song before his passing. Words so eloquent…

Don’t let the old man in
I wanna leave this alone
Can’t leave it up to him
He’s knocking on my door

And I knew all of my life
That someday it would end
Get up and go outside
Don’t let the old man in

Many moons I have lived
My body’s weathered and worn
Ask yourself how would you be
If you didn’t know the day you were born

Try to love on your wife
And stay close to your friends
Toast each sundown with wine
Don’t let the old man in

Many moons I have lived
My body’s weathered and worn
Ask yourself how would you be
If you didn’t know the day you were born

When he rides up on his horse
And you feel that cold bitter wind
Look out your window and smile
Don’t let the old man in

Look out your window and smile
Don’t let the old man in

Mar20

Then There Is Gardening

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This COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing mandates have everyone’s routines turned upside down.  Offices, schools, businesses, and now restaurant closings.  Remote work and make-shift offices and classrooms at home.  Priorities change, refocus on what is paramount, safety.  As we as a world make improvising arrangements with our employment, schooling, medical care, dental care, traveling, vacationing, shopping, dining, banking, faith-based activities, entertainment, and list goes on.  Cyberhackers take advantage, and magic potion con artists try their tactics.  But such heart-warming people and their actions shine brighter.  Did you see the California choir and their remote, online rendition of Over the Rainbow?   How about those Christmas lights and décor shining bright, and the Christmas carols over the radio?  The celebrities’ videos that keep us singing, laughing and smiling.  Hotels opening their empty rooms to paramedics and medical staff for COVID-19 testing and quarantine stations.  Neighbors helping each other with meals and errands.  Have you sat quietly and prayed?  I hope so. The world could use your prayers.

So after all the readjustments and new routines established, what are you doing with all the free time with no commutes or engagements?  Cannot go out to the movies, ball game, concert, winery, coffee shop, or vacation destination.  Please don’t turn to binge eating, drinking, or drugs. Keep yourself healthy and safe.  Projects like deep cleaning, decluttering, home repairs, and yardwork are suggestions, maybe not so appealing to some.  Indoor hobbies like scrapbooking, journaling, reading, painting, building a model, cooking, baking, making a music video, and blogging might be of interests. FaceTime, telephone, or do the old-fashion writing a letter to your friend or loved ones.  How about going outdoors, while keeping your distance from others?  Long walks on the paved sidewalk or trail in the woods, bird watch, shoot some hoops in your driveway court, or paint your front door a fresh color.  Then there is gardening!  I purchased my organic greens and herbs seeds, and will sow them in the warming organic soil at the screenhouse this week.  My office plants came home with me, and I will attend to them under the plant lights of our basement.  The Spring Equinox came yesterday evening, so perennial plants are closer to going outdoors each day.  This season we will always remember.  Make it a lemonade-out-of-lemons season.  Just sweeten it up with your love, God’s love.

 

 

Feb24

Almost Home

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I had a deja vu  moment this past weekend while walking down a neighborhood street to the auto part store with my Dean and our Midnight.  During our brisk walk I approached a view unforgettable from my childhood.  An old brick house, the grandmother’s house of a farm family I grew up with just down the road from my childhood home and tree farm.  I was 12-years old again and at the place where I knew I was more than 1/2 way home from the old town ball diamond where I played softball.  On occasion my sister and I would walk to ball practice and our games.  It was at least a 2-mile walk one way, and required us to cross over the interstate on a cross walk. Considered a summer adventure, not scary.  Over 40 years ago, my hometown St. Peters, Missouri was a farm community. Everyone knew each other, and for the most part everyone was trustworthy.  That cross walk was torn down a few years back.  But if it was still usable today, would I let my 10-year old or even 14-year old granddaughter walk that distance to ball practice from home and back again?  I would say “no” as this community has greatly changed in size. We do not know our “neighbors” like we did back then, and who knows about the interstate traffic and travelers.  The world has changed its character.

“Almost home” is like those familiar places and people.  Thankful for, content with. The rental house has been a temporary refuge for us, almost home.  But home and family is where we are meant to be.  All my senses clearly see, smell, hear, touch, and taste its warmth.  The pine wood and painted walls smell fresh, clean, new.  These colored walls are awaiting our human presence. I hear our birds chirp near the front porch in the maple and dogwood trees. And I feel the crisp new bed linens and quilt to my skin as I lay in my bed along side my husband. This weekend we will be moving our personal items back to our renovated home. And our hearts come with. Living minimally has been refreshing like the aromas of fresh wood. Dean and I vow to continue this.  As I wrote a few weeks ago, “’Home’ is where you lay your head, and share your heart and blessings with your family…” no matter the structure or belongings.  The Books of Matthew and Philippians in our Bible say, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not much more valuable than they?” and “I know both how to have a little, and I know how to have a lot. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content–whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need.”  My prayer for each of us, we know that God our Father provides for our every need and that we each are content with His provisions.

 

Jan4

Every Stopping Place

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Elisabeth Eliot
Elisabeth Elliot, a Christian speaker and author who devoted her life in missionary work, lost 2 husbands while in this work, now resides with her third husband of 37 years and both retired from heavy travels. Elisabeth’s works are down to earth. See http://www.elisabethelliot.org for more information on this amazing inspirational woman. There are many differences to my life and Elisabeth Elliot’s, though similarities indeed. My education is not in theology nor my travels and work with tribes in Ecuador or Africa. I have not written books or spoke at huge conferences. Though I am a Christian and I am educated with a summa cum laude honored Bachelors of Art degree in Human Resource Management. I use my education and God-given gifts of organization and leadership with working Americans, and attempt to write inspirational thought with work communique and this WordPress blog. I speak on occasions to fellow business colleagues. Elisabeth Elliot is quoted,“It is God to whom and with whom we travel, and while He is the End of our journey, He is also at every stopping place.” I am at “a stopping place”. I can count on my two hands the number of times I can recall “a stopping place.” Every stopping place is God-ordered. I do not sense a brick wall here. Though a time to be still, reflect, pray, get reenergized, and then get back to work. I am being called into some new work…I am still today, reflecting, and praying. The strength will come for that new work. The thick clouds have rolled in this afternoon. A winter snow warning has been issued for Missouri. Predicted are several inches of snow and ice, and severe Arctic winds and temperatures to follow. Sub-zero temps will keep me in my warm house while frosty art paints the windows, God’s healing hands bring health to my body. Tasks can wait at this God-ordered stopping place. The earthly journey comes soon enough.

Aug27

Jade Plants & Trees

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This past Saturday I prayed for good sales  as they have been petty the past couple of farmers’ markets.  No one is in the mood to see another plant die in this summer heat.   So we focused on indoor plants, and the people loved our jades!  Answered prayer.  We had littler jade plants in small terra cottas or vintage pots.

 And then we had trees …  have you ever had a jade plant bloom?  Please tell me about it!