August

August, you were amazing. August, you were hot and steamy, fast and funny,  you gave us thrills from the  2024 Olympics,  a sweet celebration at our wedding anniversary,  140 year church anniversary,  a 69th Carter Family Reunion, songs, Sunday School, Church Services and a month filled with prayers.  God, we thank you for August. 

Monday Musings ... What does the Kingdom of God look like?

"Oneness is the way of the kingdom of God in the world.  Gospel-centered, kingdom-oriented  unity has always been a unity within diversity. Unity does not happen when we are the same. True , robust, healthy and vibrant unity happens within our unique and diverse expressions. The church is best expressed as a bouquet of unique flowers rather than twelve red roses. We are better together."

Kristi McLelland  

Company or solitude

"The difference between friends and pets is that we allow friends into our company, 

pets we allow into our solitude."

Robert Brault 

 

Friendship Friday

 "Yet, true friendship are still there for you when there is nothing in the tank. At your darkest hour, when you are running on E, they show up.  You laugh freely together, cry unabashedly together,  and pull shenanigans together.  That is friendship. "

Online source 

Seniors

 August 21, 2024  National Seniors Citizens Day

This day is intended to recognize the achievements  of the more mature representatives of our of our nation.

"The theme for this day is the Powered by Connection which recognizes the profound impact that meaningful relationships and social connections have on our health and well-being." While this may be intended for those who are more mature in our lives, the reality that healthy relationships are vital to humanity. 

Do you enjoy receiving an encouraging text? When you see someone's phone number  light up your cell phone, do you smile? What about an unexpected card in the mail. Do you enjoy scheduling time for lunch with a friend? All these ways and so many more can help us to be powered by connection. 

You may not be a Senior Citizen it is okay to seek ways to have meaningful relationships and connections at any age. 

Monday Musings ... Tuesday Edition

Yesterday, we celebrated forty-six years of marriage. We enjoyed a dinner, quiet conversation, laughter, remembering our beginnings,  our children, our challenges, and how we grew to understand the important of having healthy conflict.  

During our marriage we have enjoyed the sweetness of commitment, endured the challenges of surgeries,  the joy of seeing our children mature,  welcoming the birth of our grandchild, comforting one another in the sickness and  of death of our relatives,  receiving God's comfort in sadness, enduring work challenges and successes,  standing at the  gravesites of our loved ones and  the  the joy of worshiping the Lord Jesus in church. 

God has been our source of provision, protection and peace. God will continue to be at the center of our lives until we will be with Him.

"I will follow you, my love,

to the edge of all of our days, 

to the very last of our tomorrows."

Atticus Poetry

encouraging one another -

 "And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another - and all the more as you see the Day approaching."

Hebrews 10 - 24-25

Friendship Friday

 Half Hood

Half Holy

That Means Pray with me 

Don't Play with me. 

Monday Musings ...

 "The novelist with Christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be make these appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural;  and he may well be forced to take ever more violent means to get his vision across to this hostile audience ... to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind you draw large and starling figures."

Flannery O'Conner, novelist March 25, 1925 - August 3, 1964

 

While this was written in the fifties. I think  it could well describe our current culture.  When things are truly disturbing seem natural to the culture.  How do we share a different worldview without shouting. I think it is certainly something worth praying about. 

I am still confident of this ...

 "I am still confident of this:

I will see the goodness of the 

LORD

in the land of the living.

Wait for the LORD;

be strong and take heart

and wait for the LORD. 

Psalm 27: 13 - 14

Friendship Friday

 "It is great to have friends

when one is young, 

but indeed it is still more so

when you are getting old.

When we are young 

friends are like everything else, 

a matter of course. 

In the old days, we know 

what it means to have them."

Edvard Greig

August

Breathe 

the

 sweetness 

that hovers 

in August. 

Denise Levertov