Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Good Morning Sunshine

The sun coming through our back windows yesterday morning.  This morning is grey and gloomy, but yesterday we got to see this beauty!  I am totally aware of the lack of quality in these photos, fyi ;) 





Makes me think of the start to one of my favorite Psalms...

Psalm 19: 1-6

The heavens declare the glory of God, 
and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech, 
and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out throughout all the earth, 
and their words to the end of the world.  
In them He has set a tent for the sun, 
which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
and, like a strong man, runs it's course with joy.
Its rising is from the end of the heavens, 
and its circuit to the end of them,
and there is nothing hidden from its heat.

Happy "Leap" Day! 

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

For the day after...

Since yesterday was the official day of "love" here in the US, I thought it might still be appropriate to post on love today.  

Yesterday, in the midst of my Valentine's Day preparations (we celebrate V-Day when my husband gets home from work), I started really thinking about love & what it means to love.  As I was reflecting on this, it really started to bother me that I so often equate love with a mushy-gushy feeling.  It's like a habitual cycle with-in my brain that automatically happens when I hear the word "love."  Love = a mushy feeling.

And I know that love is so far beyond teenage romantic butterflies & mushy feelings, but it was bothering me that I was having trouble answering the question I was posing to myself...


So, after a few minutes of trying to define it myself, I decided to go to the love dictionary...my Bible.

Who better to define love than the one who made it.

And this is what I read:
Love is patient and kind;
Love does not envy or boast;
It is not arrogant or rude.

It does not insist on its own way;
It is not irritable or resentful;
It does not rejoice at wrongdoing,
But rejoices with truth.

Love bears all things,
Believes all things,
Hopes all things,
Endures all things.

Love never ends
1 Corinthians 13:4-8

As I thought about this, I was reminded that the One who was defining love for me, is the one who calls Himself, "The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness." In fact, he repeatedly says that exact phrase about Himself over & over throughout His word.  He even tells us in 1 John 4, "love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God an knows God...In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another."  

As I reflected on God's example of love in the giving of His Son for the sin of the world, and as I reflected on the words above (from 1 Corinthians) I realized that love is so much more than a feeling.  Love is about action.  God did not define His love for us using terms that described how he "feels" toward us.  He defined it in terms that describe how He "acts" toward us.  Again, love is about action.  Love is seeking the well-being or the benefit of another.  Love is about seeking that person's well-being or benefit above our own.  Love is a choice.  It's a choice of the will and a commitment to act in ways that promote the good of another person.  It's a matter of the heart.

I pray that my definition of love might become more in line with this one.  I pray that I would be thankful for the mushy feelings I get to experience toward my husband, b/c they are indeed a gift from God.  But more than that, I pray that when I hear the word "love," I begin to equate it with the realization that love is about the other person, not about me.  

May the rest of your week, be filled with a truer understanding of the vast depths of love; the kind of love God has toward us & the kind of love He calls us to have toward each other. 

Happy Valentine's <3

Monday, February 13, 2012

IHF photo challenge | Hearts |

This week's theme over on I Heart Faces is "Hearts."

Here's my entry of two little hearts <3 <3 



Click here to see more fun entries! Happy Valentine's...


Thursday, February 9, 2012

M.I.A.

That is totally me, right now.  Missing In Action, lol!

Is anyone else swamped with things to do?

I figure I'm not the only one out there.  So...something to make you smile in midst of a busy day:


Aren't they adorable?  It's the twins I got to shoot last week.  Don't you just want to cuddle them?!

Now...back to my to-do's.  Happy rest of the week to you!

Thursday, February 2, 2012

blue skies

Today, the 2nd day of February, here in rural NC - it feels like spring.  It is so hard to believe!  I went for a walk this morning & I swear if I didn't have a calendar to go by, I would have bet money that it was mid-April.

It honestly is quite surreal.  And although I've been dreaming about snow, the warm wind & bright sunshine made me a little homesick for warmer weather.  

It'll be interesting to see what the next two months have in store for us weather wise, since our little ground hog predicted 6 more weeks of winter this morning.  I'm wondering if his internal clock was off this am, lol.  

Since it's been so warm over the past few weeks I've taken my camera out "riding" a few times.  Like I said, we live an a rural area, which I LOVE, so it's a great place to capture farm land & open skies.  Here are a few pictures from my January landscape outings. 

 The sky from one afternoon last week.  It looks the same today...crystal blue with big puffy clouds. 
 Just beautiful!!

Farm land...makes my heart soar! 

Only in the country can you lay down in the middle of the road for 5 minutes and never see a car!  

I am so grateful that I actually get to experience days like this again.  That was one of the hardest things for me when I was working my old job.  I was cooped up in an office all day with no time to experience the beauty of God's creation.  Getting to do that now, is priceless for me.  Thank you, Lord! 

I hope you too have time to experience the beauty of the world outside sometime this week!  What's the weather like in your neck of the woods?