The Daily Cute

The Daily Cute This is a great site for sweet and funny animal videos ;-)

Happy 4th of July

In Memory of Seurat

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change." Our little green rump parrotlet,Seurat, died today and our home is too quiet. His joyous sounds filled our hearts with love, and I can't bear the thought that I will never hear him say "bye, bye baby" as I leave to work in the morning. I have never known a sweeter bird. Heaven is blessed to have him......Rest in Peace.

Resurrection Day

In the saga of the dove, life goes on. For 2 days I looked for remnants of the cat kill, wanting to bury her, but there was nothing but a few feathers blowing on the lawn. This morning as I prepared food for the Easter feast I glanced at the bird feeder, and there on the ground two doves were contently eating. A third close by clung to another feeder happily munching away. We've only had 3 doves visit our yard, so unless one got a new mate then the dove family lives on...Happy Easter.

Good Friday

The mournful calling of a lone dove echoed in the early foggy morning. Opening my kitchen blinds I gasped; the nest was empty. Rushing to the door I saw the evidence I hoped not to see, broken eggs and feathers lay scattered on the ground. Hope dashed in the morning light. My hope that the dove family was a sign that we were out of the Valley of the Shadow of Death ended in a whimper as I cried out to John...another death...too many this year. The symbolism of last nights killing was not lost on me, last night it was Passover and the angel of death visited us again. Then, a vision of the priest at the temple in Jerusalem accepting the dove, the prescribed sacrifice for God to cleanse His people from sin. Another vision: our little dove giving her life to protect her family hoping to bring about new life, and now today, Good Friday, the day I remember that Jesus Christ died for love, to cleanse our sins. The little dove precious to God, Jesus his son precious to Him, and His beloved mankind ransomed when He laid down His Life. There is my hope, a hope that sustains me in this valley.

A Little Bit of Hope

The worst thing about losing your mother is all the little things you want to share with her. Daily, since January when she left for heaven, I have caught myself thinking Mom would love this...like this picture I took today. Emily Dickinson wrote that "Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul." Sometimes it takes a little hope sent from heaven to remember that even with your loved one gone, life can be joyfull...now look carefully at the little bit of hope I found outside my kitchen window. Look it's perched in the grapevine behind the angel.

"Away in a manger..."

Every year I fill my manger scene with more images that bring a fuller picture of Jesus' life. It is not your normal Christmas display. I don't have a stable outside of an Inn, so I set it on a shelf beneath a light where an angel from my mom's childhood looks over the Holy Family in Bethlehem. In the background a book of watercolors painted in the 1800's of the Holy Land, give the shepherd and his flock a hillside in Jerusalem to graze on as he makes his way to see Jesus. There are gifts of Frankincense and Myrrh, olive oil from Galilee, stones from Jerusalem, water from the Jordan River, shells from the Red Sea and a worn smooth stone from the Emmaus Road. Among the gifts, there is an alabaster jar, and a wooden jar from Lebanon that holds a petrified pine cone from the Cedars that grew there. In the corner the wise men bring their camel past an Egyptian pyramid, and through a herd of African elephants.

A small olive wood cross stands silently reminding me that this is the destination of the baby Jesus, and a large square-head nail tells the story of pain our sin cost Him. At His feet a shekel points to betrayal, and next to it a widows mite reminds me that the little I have is a fortune when used for His glory.

A few years ago John added something else--green plastic soldiers in combat, a sad image of the constant fighting in the Middle East. Join us as we pray for the peace of Jerusalem and for our soldiers far from home. God Bless you and Merry Christmas.