Five Years?!

Recently I was with a very special friend in my Pretty Purple Room.  As I gazed at the closet behind me, I asked him if thought I’d ever use all of these supplies I had bought for crafts and for scrapbooking.  His response?  “If you’d stop buying more, maybe you could use these up that you already have.”

Smart alec.

But his words echo in my mind today and I can’t help but smile.  This friend definitely has some wisdom and words that I should apply.  Words that I should apply today as I ponder on my life verses for this year.  In case you need a reminder of what they are, here they are from 2 Corinthians 8:10-12:

The best thing you can do right now is to finish what you started last year and not let those good intentions grow stale. Your heart's been in the right place all along. You've got what it takes to finish it up, so go to it. Once the commitment is clear, you do what you can, not what you can't. The heart regulates the hands.

Intentions are all well and good but until they become deeds they just...well, they sit on a shelf, much like my crafting items do.  They’re great to ponder and look upon and to think about all the wonderful things they could do and become and the beauty that could be the end result.  However, until they become tools in my hand and are put together in whatever project it is that I work on, they are just empty vessels.

This friend told me I probably had enough to keep me busy for five years.  I wouldn’t disagree with that.  This picture only partially shows the things I have to work on.  My other storage areas would reveal many more items that are just sitting there, waiting for their turn to be molded into works of art.  Compare this to the things in my mind that I think of doing and indeed:  five years could be an appropriate measure of time until their purpose has been completed!

Sigh.  But we just aren’t guaranteed time, friends, are we?  We have today and today is what matters.  Those cards I have been meaning to send?  I think I shall go back to my PPR and get them out.  They aren’t much good, are they, sitting in the box, encouraging it instead of the ones I bought them for?  Those stamps in their container don’t need to just sit there when instead they could be stuck to said cards and be put into motion, and those pens?  Yeah, now would be a good time to practice my handwriting skills as I pray over the words that I will write with them, words that will hopefully build up and motivate and perhaps even bring some smiles to some folks who could use a pick-me-up.

Goodbye then, for now.  Hopefully I can put a dent into some of these things and see you before five years is over.  😏

Let’s pray!

Dear Lord, as I purpose now to go be a doer I ask You to guide my words that will go onto these cards.  I ask You to bless the ones who are hurting that I shall be sending them to.  And mostly Lord, I thank You for this opportunity to make good use of my time instead of wasting it.  

Thank You for friends who point out the obvious and thank You for setting the example of how to be a true friend.  Your love is the difference, Father, and I pray that difference will be shown in my actions today.  In the precious name of Jesus I pray this.  Amen.

Clouds on the Horizon

May 11, 2015

How many of us are trusting our important documents, pictures, and private matters to a "cloud" that we cannot see?  You know the ones I'm referring to, right?  Google has one, as does Amazon.  Other sites use them as well to "store" our things in...in where exactly?  A "cloud"?  A "cloud" that I cannot see yet can access anytime, anywhere, as long as I am logged into that source?  Sounds pretty strange to me and yet...

It works.  Whenever I go to check on my blogs, my photographs, my messages, I can be in a place that was different from where they were sent from.  I can be in another town, another state, and (I'm assuming because I get messages from folks) even other countries.  While I cannot physically hold these notes, pics, and documents in my hand, I can view them on my electronic devices.  How wild is that?  If we had told our parents and grandparents this would one day be the future, for them to forget about filing cabinets and saving all of those tax returns, check stubs, and marriage certificates, to not worry about making scrapbooks (eek!!) because who really would develop those treasured memories and spend all of that time pasting and prettying them up in albums, or to not keep their journals and private thoughts in books anymore but rather store them in this unseen cloud, what would their responses have been?

They might surprise us.  They might tell us that for most of their lives they have been storing up treasures where neither moth nor mold could corrupt them.  They might have told us that those memories of all the good times (and the sad ones too) are being kept in a record indeed up in the sky, where thieves cannot steal them.  They might even tell us about how all of those tears we've cried are stored in a jar on a shelf.  They might tell us that this newfangled cloud isn't so new, isn't so amazing, nor is it as unbelievable as it seems.  

For you see, they've been trusting in an unseen Hand for eons now.  They've been placing their trust in a Man Whom they've never seen face-to-face, yet their lives are in His hands.  They might tell us about their unspoken prayers that keep getting answered--and they didn't even have to write them down first to be uploaded to this storage device in the sky!

Let's not sell our senior citizens too shortly.  They still have a thing or two to teach us.  Why not take the time today to invest some of your time with one or two and see what other marvels that you think you've recently discovered can't even compare with the mysteries they have to tell you all about?  I daresay it just might be the most fascinating conversation you've had in a while--although it will require putting away your electronic appendages and sitting a spell with a real-live, genuine, person.  I also think you might just have the time of your lives doing so!

Let's pray!

Dear Lord God, as technology continues to evolve and amaze, allow us to remember that there is nothing new under the sun.  Remind us that the stories of old are worth retelling as they teach us about Your Book of Life, Your eternal records of our lives, and Your etching in even Your own hand which can tell us the most personal story we've ever been a part of.

Thank You for being such a personal God, Lord.  Thank You for always having time for us.  We look forward to that day of cloud watching from a different vantage point as You reveal to us those things that we cannot see.  We love You.  I love You!  In the name of Jesus I pray.  Amen.