31 Days to Clean

I am so excited about this new e-book! Sarah Mae is offering it for free this afternoon, if you tweet about it or post about it on your blog! Check out her blog for more details A Warm Cup of Coffee.

A Good Egg

photo copyright Penni Hill, April, 2011

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I took this photo a few days ago and I keep coming back to look at it. Something about it is so pleasing to me. The color is nearly flawless, a perfect "egg shell" beige with a tinge of fleshly pink. The shape is more round than oval. (It fit so nicely in my hand and was so smooth to the touch.) It is an all around "good egg". ~smile

I am convinced that the little things in life really are the biggest blessings. Not in and of themselves, but the sum total of them.  It would be a rare person who would have GREAT blessings each and every day, but we all have tiny little blessings, numerous ones, every day. 

The problem is, we don't notice them. Maybe we are too busy to slow down and see them. Maybe we feel they are too insignificant to notice. Or maybe we are determined that we do NOT receive any blessings and so we dismiss them.

God gives many examples of small blessings in His Word. In Proverbs 6:6, He tells us to go to the ants because we can learn from them. In Matthew 8, we read of a small boy, who had several small fishes. Nothing too impressive there, yet they were used in a mighty way. How about the widow's offering in Mark 12? It was so small, if we saw the equivalent on the ground today, in all likelihood we wouldn't waste our time picking it up. Yet, God used it and makes mention of it in His Word.

Little things...

God sends along little rays of sunshine to brighten our day and to help us keep our focus on Him. Don't pass by the seemingly ordinary, simple, or small blessings God is sending your way today. When you add them all up, you'll see just how blessed you really are! 

Oh! And....don't forget to thank the One who has sent along those blessings especially for you. If we neglect to do this, we will have missed the point entirely and missed the greatest blessing of all - knowing Christ.

The Joys of Spring

Mmmm... Springtime. 

A time of new life...and firsts...

The first pussy willows in bloom,

  The first peepers calling out to their ladies, trying desperately to impress them,

The first robins on your lawn, looking so proud as they search out worms,

The first bloom of the crocuses,

I love the look of the leaves and sticks surrounding the flowers.  Copyright Penni Hill

Spring is filled with excitement.

Even the tiniest little plant pushing it's fresh, green stem up through the soil is a miracle.

What a joy to have spring! Somehow I do not think I would enjoy spring half so much if our Maine winters were not so long...

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And just because I love my hens so, I have to post a picture I just snapped of one of my lovely ladies. Can't you tell she is contemplating the weightier matters of life? ~smile

Photo copyright Penni Hill, April 13, 2011

It's tick, tick, tick, tick, ticking away....

"The past, present, and future all stand together." 

Our pastor shared this thought Sunday evening at church, to watch his message go here: 
 The Fullness of Time

The concept of time and eternity is one I have been trying to grasp all my life. I have a beginning here on earth and I will have an ending (physically). But...to think that my soul will continue on forever. 

Wow. 

It is just too amazing to understand. AND to think that God has always been. He is Alpha and Omega. He is the beginning and the end. 

...To always have been? 

...To be the beginning? 

How does the human mind grasp that? I don't think as a person I will ever be able to fully understand it. I don't think it is possible. 

You know what? 

I don't need to understand the concept of time, because I know the One who created time and controls it. 

Knowing that God is, always has been, and always will be 

comforts me.

He is always there, never changing, forever. 
And I'm so glad He is. ~smile 

God loves us but that is only the beginning!

I have shared previously that I am reading Absolute Surrender by Andrew Murray.  This little book continues to get better and better the more I read it. Mr. Murray writes in such a way, that he makes topics clear that were previously hard to understand. What a joy it is to realize the truths in the following passage! (emphasis is mine)

LOVE CONQUERS SELFISHNESS 

"The fruit of the Spirit is love." Why? Because nothing but love can expel and conquer our selfishness. 

Self is the great curse, whether in its relation to God, or to our fellow-men in general, or to fellow Christians, thinking of ourselves and seeking our own. Self is our greatest curse. But, praise God, Christ came to redeem us from self. We sometimes talk about deliverance from the self-life-and thank God for every word that can be said about it to help us, But I am afraid some people think deliverance from the self-life means that now they are no longer going to have any. trouble in serving God. They forget that deliverance from self-life means to be a vessel overflowing with love to everybody all the day. 

And there you have the reason why many people pray for the power of the Holy Spirit. They get something, but oh, so little! because they prayed for power for work, and power for blessing, but they have not prayed for power for full deliverance from self. That means not only the righteous self in fellowship with God, but the unloving self in fellowship with men. And there is deliverance. "The fruit of the Spirit is love." I bring you the glorious promise of Christ that He is able to fill our hearts with love.

 

A great many of us try hard at times to love. We try to force ourselves to love, and I do not say that is wrong; it is better than nothing. But the end of it is always very sad. "I fail continually," many must confess. And what is the reason? The reason is simply this-they have never learned to believe and accept the truth that the Holy Spirit can pour God's love into their heart. That blessed text has often been limited!-"The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts" (Romans 5:5). It has often been understood in this sense: It means the love of God to me. Oh, what a limitation! That is only the beginning. The love of God is always the love of God in its entirety, in its fullness as an indwelling power. It is a love of God to me that leaps back to Him in love, and overflows to my fellow-men in love-God's love to me, and my love to God, and my love to my fellowmen. The three are one; you cannot separate them. 

Do believe that the love of God can be shed abroad in your heart and mind so that we can love all the day. 

"Ah!" you say, "how little I have understood that!" 

Why is a lamb always gentle? Because that is its nature. Does it cost the lamb any trouble to be gentle? No. Why not? It is so beautiful and gentle. Has a lamb to study to be gentle? No. Why does that come so easy? It is its nature. And a wolf-why does it cost a wolf no trouble to be cruel, and to put its fangs into the poor lamb or sheep? Because that is its nature. It does not have to summon up its courage; the wolfnature is. there. 

And how can I learn to love? I cannot learn to love until the Spirit of God fills my heart with God's love, and I begin to long for God's love in a very different sense from which I have sought it so selfishly-as a comfort, a joy, a happiness, and a pleasure to myself. I will not learn it until I realize that "God is love," and to claim and receive it as an indwelling power for self-sacrifice. I will not love until I begin to see that my glory, my blessedness, is to be like God and like Christ, in giving up everything in myself for my fellow-men. May God teach us this! Oh, the divine blessedness of the love with which the Holy Spirit can fill our hearts! "The fruit of the Spirit is love." 

pp.28-30, Absolute Surrender