Picture DEES ~~~~Close to Home

The day was dedicated to picking out a butcher pig for the family. As the grand kids piled into the car we were on our way to our new adventure. However, soon it turned into a rainbow chasing session.

As the recent rain showers ended the sky was replaced with faded rainbows, short ones, double ones, and ones that shined for only a few minutes. As much as I tried to get a good shot at one it just wasn't working out.

After our joint adventure and returning home I at last gave up on my desire to get a good picture of a rainbow. After going inside the house to prepare lunch I soon found myself outside again announcing its completion. As I walked over to our pig pen where my husband was there in the sky was a complete rainbow arching its full beauty across the sky.

After all the chasing of rainbows earlier God had came close to my home to deliver me the rainbow I was searching for. A rainbow full in size, bright in beauty, and rich in promises. Too often we think we will find our rainbow or pot of gold away from our home but that isn't always the case. 
God knew how badly I wanted my rainbow picture and there it was showing up in my front yard. The thought that God looks at the rainbow the same time I am fascinates me and that's why I nicknamed my oldest granddaughter "rainbow."  It reminds me He is watching over her even when I am not around to see.

Close to home God is watching over all of us. I in my cancer, her in her teens, my daughter in her adulthood, everyone is on His list. Our job is to watch for Him and not give up on that thing in the sky that reminds us He is there. A bird in flight, a cloud on the move, a colorful sunset or sunrise, or a rainbow in the sky it doesn't matter.

Close to home is close to our hearts and that is where we need to be. A place to meet our rainbow and draw closer to God. Seek God. Start chasing today.

Copyright 2015 Karen J Gillett at Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing. 

A lesson from my garden

Several weeks ago in the middle of the night we had a wind storm go thru our garden with winds up to 60 miles per hour. The next morning when my husband went outside to check on the animals he noticed something different about the garden.

 

Walking over there to explore what it was that was different he noticed the corn was totally flat. It wasn't only flat but halfway down the rows of corn there was a circled spot where it was beyond just flat. It almost looked as if that was where the wind tunnel originally touched down. Running into the house he got me to go and take a look. "Wow!" I said. I had never seen anything like that before. The entire crop of  tall stalks of corn over seven feet tall was lying flat on the ground with the remainder of the garden and yard untouched.

 

After marveling over the loss of our corn crop we went to work. I figured I would get a picture of this later and share it with my friends on Facebook. That night when I got home from work it was dark so I planned on taking a picture of the corn the following morning on Saturday once it got daylight. Much to our surprise come Saturday morning, almost two days after the corn was flattened, we woke up to a big surprise. The corn was standing upright!

 

How could it be? One day it was flat on the ground and now it was standing once more. Was it really going to be okay? Would we ever see a kernel of corn off of them? Well it's been over a month now and the corn remains standing and is producing terrific corn.

 

As I stand and look at the corn as it stands tall in the garden I think of the lesson we can learn from it. Often in life there is something that touches down in our lives that knocks us down flat. We have the choice to stay down there or get back up and keep moving forward. God has equipped us to be able to do that no differently than the corn stalks He created. We should use that which God has supplied us with and pop back up in an upright position so quickly that world around doesn't even have a chance to notice we are down.

 

I don't know what it was that made the corn come back up but what we have is the Holy Spirit within us to help pop us back up. We have God's written word of encouragement and directions to help as well. Recently when a devastating thing struck my family, as my youngest granddaughter cried I told her we need to just trust in the promises of God. That is what will help up stand upright once again is trusting in the promises of God thru any storm.

 

Another lesson from my garden is the one from the sunflower that is standing near the corn. The lesson I learn from it is the fact that every morning it faces the morning sun and follows it thru the day. It would do us well to begin and end our day the same way, facing the rising Son, Jesus Christ. Truly this is another way that will help us to stand upright when life knocks us down.

 

Thank you Lord for the lessons learned and the beauty You have created in my garden both physically and spiritually. You are the best Gardener there is! I love you.

 

 

Picture Dees #37 Hole in the Cloud

Picture Dees are devotionals with a picture. Read them alone or share them with your family and friends to get the opportunity to talk out what God wants us to learn through the simple use of pictures and words.


Picture Dees #37 Hole in the Cloud

In life there will be days when it seems like everything is clouded over dark and stormy with things going on at school, problems in the family, parents splitting up, and so much more. No matter how stormy life gets we need to know there is a hole in the cloud, a break in the storm, a ray of sunshine if we would only look and wait.

The clouds don’t have to part for us at our command like grown-ups think they can do with a traffic light getting it to change at their demand. In the midst of the storms we need to hang on to Jesus, get into His Word which is the Bible and stay close. Before we know it there will be a break in the clouds. Like the tree in the picture pointing to the hole in the cloud there will be something out there pointing to that hole in the cloud in your life.

Like it or not, there’s no such thing as a life that is storm-free, we all go through them. Its how prepared we are that matters. We don’t need to chase after them for the thrill of it. We don’t need to hide from them either. Jesus is our guide through them, our hope to hang on, and our strength to endure.

We need to be watching, waiting, and willing to hop on board with Jesus.

© 2010 Karen J. Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing

In The News

Hi there,

I’m just dropping in to let you know to watch for “In the News.” There are a lot of things that happen in the news we need to discuss. Its amazing what you can learn from other people both for the good and bad. Jesus wants us to learn for the good of course. Our goal through “In the news” is that you do just that. Learning daily how to learn for the good of you in your walk with Jesus. How you succeed or fail in life depends on you and how willing you are to strive for your goals and make the right choices to achieve those goals.

Lesson 1: In the news “SPELLING”

Recently in the news a school teacher suggested that the school take off the “wrong” list some frequently misspelled words. To the teacher it was too much of a bother to deal with words the kids were never going to get right in the first place. To put these words on the ignore list would make grading papers a lot easier. After all, they figure, the kids were making the same mistake over and over so why bother.

Why bother? You bother because you need to care about yourself. Even if others are ready to give up on you, you should never give up on yourself. You may misspell a word or two the rest of your life but its no excuse to give up on yourself. I’m well over the junior high, High School and college years and I still struggle with the word “potatoe” no its “POTATO.” If it wasn’t for spell check I’d probably keep getting it wrong but some day I may suddenly stop the habit of wanting to add an E on the ende, just kidding… END.

We need to do all we can to learn as we apply ourselves to improve where improvement is needed. If we manage to fall short in one area of our life then that’s fine too. It’s just going to take a little extra time and effort to do better. Giving up on yourself won’t get you there. It’s not an option, it’s not an excuse.

If it takes you well into your college years or beyond to get certain words straight in your head then so be it. Don’t ever give up on yourself. Try your best to learn those words and learn from your mistakes. At the same time do all you can to better yourself instead of accepting yourself where you are.

God loves us where we are, Praise the Lord. However, our love for God should be the driving force that makes us want to better ourselves. God certainly doesn’t want us to stay the way we are simply because He first loved us that way. He expects us to be obedient to His Word and mature into the children He would have us to be. Even when others want to give up on you never give up on yourself as God won’t give up on you either. Satan will try to make you think He has but He won’t. So keep on speelllin or I should say SPELLING! I Love Jesus!

Copyright 2008 Karen J. Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing