Good Morning, Dear Friends and Prayer Partners! This is the day that the Lord has made and we will rejoice and be glad in it! The wind is blowing, the sun is shining,and the air is getting cooler, but it is a beautiful day, especially compared to our northern friends who have snow and rain and generally yucky weather!
I am still trying to get used to the idea of losing an hour's sleep this weekend when we change the time ahead. I wish it would stay the same all year! Takes me a day or two to get over the lost sleep. Sometimes I doze off while reading in the afternoon but not often!
I got a lot done around the house yesterday, as I wrote, with all the laundry and bed making. Then I took a walk around the house, especially the back yard and the brick slab where the shed used to be. I stopped and admired the pale pink azalea on the north side of the house. No grass will grow there because of the shade from the very tall hedge of the neighbors, but the little azalea seems to thrive. We used to have a whole row of them, but this is the only survivor.
I drove to the park in the afternoon, and the only animal I saw was a turtle on the bank of the weir. This is so strange, because the squirrels are always around. But all I saw were people. Well, I should qualify that statement; I did see dogs being walked, but I was thinking of native animals. But God is good!
From the devotional book Quiet Moments with God:
Blessed are those who hear the joyful blast of the trumpet
for they shall walk in the light of your presence. Psalm 89:15 TLB
"Getting away from it all" takes on a whole new meaning when you decide,
as a young Scottish girl did, to walk around the world. A troubled home life
convinced her she needed a change of scenery, as will as a challenge that
would test her mettle.
How does one go about walking around the world? In Ffyona's case, she spent
eleven years and covered more tha nineteen thousand miles walking from northern
Scotland to southern England; New York to Los Angeles; Sydney to Perth, Australia;
and South Africa to Morocco. Along the way, she fought disease, poisonous insects,
bad weather, blisters, stonings , and loneliness.
To keep herself going, she had to come up with a way to motivate her often tired
feet. She quickly discovered that if she could focus her mind on doing what
had to be done to make it through each phase of the walk, her body would do
the rest. The stronger her mind, the better her body performed.
Another of Fyona's important discoveries was that she needed to take one day at a time.
Each day she would say to herself, "If I walk ten miles right now, I can stop and
have a meal." Building in breaks and small rewards along the way made it much
easier for her to stay committed to her bigger goal.
Walking seems like such a simple thing to do. But, oh, the power of a walk! Even
when we have no particular destination, our feet can take us to a new place and
give us both a physical and psychological break from where we've been. Walking
away from a heated debate is sometimes the smartest thing to do and the best way
to protect a relationship. Crossing a room to talk to someone who looks lonely is
often the first step in building a new friendship.
"The steps of good men are directed by the Lord"( Psalm 37:23 TLB)
I always give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers with thanksgiving, joy and love!
Love and hugs,
Amaryllis
