Thoughts of the Month~December

[JudyB]

I got this as an email....Very good reminder!


"My sheep know my voice." (Jesus Christ)

In recent conversations, I have heard a couple of long-time Christ followers mention that they have a difficult time discerning God's voice. How can we know when God is speaking to us?

I think hearing and knowing God's voice comes with familiarity. Once you hear it, it is difficult to forget.

I had a very nice experience today. Our new baby granddaughter was in one of our church services. My wife was holding her on the back row. When I spoke, the baby reacted to my voice and started looking around for me. That's because my voice is familiar to her. And I think it is comforting to her.

I have a few theories about why we can't hear His voice:

We aren't listening. Maybe we are in too big of a hurry or maybe we have so many other voices in our heads or maybe we are so far from Him that we can't hear Him. Perhaps we don't like what He is saying so we tune Him out.
We are disobedient to what He tells us. Why would God talk to people who ignore Him – right?
We are duped into believing that we don't hear God's voice. Of course we hear it. Jesus said we would, and He doesn't lie. The enemy of our soul wants to keep us doubting ourselves and doubting God. How about if we stop buying what he is selling?
Whatever the issue, this is not a good situation. Hearing and knowing His voice is essential.

Here's the truth, if we don't hear His voice, we will get totally lost. And lost sheep get eaten by the wolf.

Hear the Word of the Lord:

Isaiah 28:23 - Listen and hear my voice; pay attention and hear what I say.
Isaiah 30:21 - Your own ears will hear him. Right behind you a voice will say, "This is the way you should go," whether to the right or to the left.

[Carol]

Rebot:   Thank you for your post on "Silent Night" in Irish.

[Carol]

A belated Merry Christmas to all.  We were 7 in total in the church pew -anything like that just makes me weepy -so thankful.

Judy:  Gentle hugs for you and to your sister, Pat as well.  We had such a nice visit but far too short when Pat came through Colorado.  Did you get enough wood stacked for the winter?  Hello to John, I have not seen him post in some time - or, have I missed it?

We had a wonderful visit with children and friends and lots of laughing as usual.  Cherishing all.   

[Rebot]

Greetings Carol  My thanks are sent to you. about my post.

Though it was not Silent Night in Irish, but the Manx language.

 

[Rebot]

Greetings Larry  I love the French language.

[Larry Hanna]

Hi Everyone. We are going to have a cloudy day with some brief showers this morning and then just clouds this afternoon with a low chance of further rain.  It is suppose to get to 60 degrees early this afternoon.  I am going to Sunday School and then come home and pick up Pat for Church.  Following Church we will go somewhere to eat.  This afternoon we are expecting Scott to come out for a little while as he still hasn't gotten his Christmas presents.  He won't be able to stay too long as he has to work again tonight.  I did watch a lot of football and some basketball yesterday afternoon and evening.  The final two teams to play for the National Championship have now been decided and one of them is Clemson, a South Carolina team, and the other is the University of Alabama.

Marilyn, I hope you will be able to have the eye surgery but they may need to delay it as they won't want you blood to be too thin.  Nice to read that Keith is doing better.

Janet, get out your dictionary as I don't believe "balmy" could be used to describe 5 degrees.  I am happy to see that something I have said has been of help to you.  It sounds like you have made the decision to not pick up the framing business again. Perhaps it is time for Janet not to be under so much pressure.  I also hope the cancer has disappeared from you sister.  Your speaking muddy and rutted roads brings back some not so pleasant memories of living on a dirt road and how bad the ruts could become. 

Judy, thanks for sharing that piece. 

Carol, I pray that someday my son and his daughter will come and worship with us or if not, attend another Church of their choice.  It sounds like you have had a nice time back in the Denver area. 

Rebot, the French language is certainly a pretty language but I have had no occasion where knowing it would have been helpful.  So I will just stick to English. 

[Carol]

Rebot:  I need to research your language - thank you for bringing it to my attention that I automatically thought it was Irish.  In our country, you well know this, we have very different sayings and dialects in separate areas.  It is really interesting in how that evolved. 

We are slowly recovering from our travel.  Yesterday, as I waited to step on the plane, I thought about how the gang-way could collapse and today I read that one did collapse at a different airport.  Everyone just wants to bunch up to get into the plane and there is too much weight.  It should never happen.

The flu is going around here so we are just staying home this morning and do our reading.  I thought about our season and how we like to say "Merry Christmas" and some will say "Happy Holidays".  Our our window, we can still see Bougainvillea blooming - they are a vivid red flowering bush.  It seems so odd to us from the north.

Janet:  Pace yourself - I am all for fewer projects and just visiting these days.   

[Janet]

Our early morning temp was 3* but now it's up to 22*.  Still pretty nippy!  We did go to church this morning; very sparse crowd there!  Many are away visiting family; pastor wasn't there, so one of the Baptist preachers spoke, it was very good.  We meet so early he could come and speak for us, then go to his church and preach there!

I never even heard of the Manx language until Rebot mentioned it.  Hmmm.  Maybe there are several things I don't know!?!?   

Carol, it's so good to see posts from you again, and glad you had a good Christmas.  And to know you are safely back in Arizona.  I hadn't heard about the gangway collapsing.

Our Abby is visiting friends in Denver.  Hope she gets back to Hugoton before more bad weather hits!

It was too cold upstairs yesterday for me to do any work up there.  That's where my mat cutter and frames are, and I can't cut mats wearing gloves.  So I came downstairs and did a little watercolor painting on rice paper.  I was amazed that the W.C. did not soak through that thin, soft paper!  I had never tried using it before, found some on sale and wanted to try it! 

Today is John's 60th birthday.  He did come to church, and we were going to take him out for lunch for his birthday, but he took off like his tail was on fire, before I could even collect my coat!  We went by his apartment and I asked him, but he said someone else had asked him first, and that's fine.  Glad he does have a few friends!

I'm going to my studio and play some more!

[Carol]

Sun is up - a new day is dawning....

Still, it froze last night and is too windy to take a walk. 

Our friend is coming over this afternoon  - she and her husband were friends in Minnesota and here in Arizona as well.

Janet:  I am such a chatty person - so it wasn't easy being unable to post. 

Larry:  Thank you for posting the message from Jack Scott. 

[Larry Hanna]

Hi Everyone.  On this New Year's Eve our day is foggy and cloudy with some possibility of rain.  However, we are to get into the low 70's this afternoon.  Certainly not a bad way to start a new year.  Nothing else planned so far for today.  I will likely watch some more college football and basketball.  We hope Scott will make it out today.  A friend was here for an hour this morning and the Heat Pump tech stopped by and looked at the outside unit.  All was fine and he didn't even come to the door.  He had told me he would be stopping by. 

Carol, I see you have made it back to Tuscon.  I hope you can have a few days to recover from your travels and all the activities you had over the holidays. It is a shame that people can't even say Merry Christmas as without Christ we would never have had this special day. 

Janet, it was cold in Kansas yesterday.  I noticed our attendance in Sunday School was down some but the Church service was pretty full as we had a combined service.  The older I get the more I realize there are many things that I don't know and some things I have known I can no longer recall.  Thanks to the search capability of the Internet we can usually look up most things that we want to know about.  I just wished it worked that way for peoples names because if you don't remember the name you can't look it up.  Are you expecting more bad weather?  I am glad to see that John has some friends and one of them invited him to dinner on his birthday.  Good for you in playing more yesterday--the way to go.

[Rebot]

Greetings Carol The Isle of Man is seventy miles from Ireland. Famous for the TT races, Tailless Cats and  Kippers.  And many other things as well. 

[Rebot]

Greetings Janet.  The Isle of Man has its own currency, its own Government and as my hubby would say, the oldest continuous Government in the World from 979AD.

And the first place in the Western world where ladies were given the vote.

[Rebot]

Greetings Larry   

[Jacqueline]

[Jane Walker]

Well, here I am on the last day of the year.  I traveled, via Amtrak, to California on the 18th and returned on Saturday, the 29th.  Of course two days of that time were spent aboard the train.  My grandson, David, hosted a Family Christmas party on the 23rd. Most of the attendees were my daughter, her daughters and their spouses and kids. David's cousin on his father's side was there with his wife and son, and of course three of David's kids were there.  His sisters and brother didn't make it.  Those two girls are the ones who have chosen to ignore me and refuse to have anything to do with me or Dot's girls, since they had a big "falling out" several years ago.  I'm sure that's why they didn't come to the party.  That's okay, we managed without them.

I managed to fall after getting out of the bus in Coos Bay Saturday night.  It was dark and raining and I lost my balance dragging my suitcase.  I banged up my left knee, but didn't see how badly until I got home and saw all the blood.  I also have a deep wound (looks like a puncture) on my right hand.  I'm moving rather slowly today, but I will recover.

I'm not too sure if I will be making many more trips to California.  That's something I'll have to give much consideration to in the days ahead.

I want to take this opportunity to wish each and every one of you, my friends, a very Happy New Year, and pray you will have peace and good health throughout the coming year.  I know there are serious health problems among us, and for those I continue to pray.  I recently was shocked to learn that a good friend from the past is in a memory care facility, where her dementia continues to grow worse every day. It is still hard to wrap my head around this, she was always so sharp and accomplished. I guess one never knows what the future holds. BUT we can know Who holds the future.

[Rebot]

Happy New Year Everyone

Health and Happiness to you all.

[JohnB]

I would just like to wish everyone a Happy New Year and all the best in 2019. May the upcoming year be filled with blessings for everyone.

[Marilyn]

I had my follow up appointment with my dr. yesterday, she gave me the results of the Echo of my heart, She said I have an enlarged heart  probably due to having me a 50 year smoker, I quit in 2003. She said I've  most likely had AFIB for many years and didn't know it. In retrospect, yes I do  believe I did as I can remember instances of the irregular heart beat.So now she has me on two  blood pressure pills. Metoprolol and Amlodipine, she also put me on Eliquis blood thinner. I go see her again in a month. when I called to find out how much the latter cost I was in shock, $180 for 30 pills.(that was my co-pay) So I applied directly to the manufacturer for patient assistance. I will hear from them later.The dr. gave me enough samples to last for a month.

Jamne so sorry to hear babout your fall, prayer being aid for a speedy recovery.

[Janet]

Rebot, when I read what you said about the Manx language, I thought, "The only Manx I have ever heard about is Manx cats!  Tailless cats look strange!

Jane!  Glad you are home, but so sorry about your fall!
I hope you heal up really fast!

Marilyn, I have been taking Amlodipine for years.  And other blood thinners are MUCH less expensive than the new one; they are just helping the pharmaceutical companies by pushing it.  I'm really glad I never had any desire to smoke!

Happy New Year to you, too, John!

Jacqueline, thank you for the pretty New Years' Card, and Happy New Year to you, too!

I have been painting again today!  Fun!  But what hasn't been done is mailing out Christmas cards and letters! 
Better late than never, I guess.

Miss you today, Larry!  Happy New Year!