Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Sunshine Scripture 11

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
James 1:17


A perfect gift. What would it be like? Gifts are always exciting— wrapped in bright paper— full of expectations of delight. But a perfect gift, from the Father of lights, would be beyond our imagination. All that is good and right and uplifting comes to us as a gift from our Father. He has the perfect gift for you. Open it.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008







Ashleigh and Peter and I walked this afternoon to see what beautiful things we could find. We found tiny flowers that looked like sego lilies, and hollyhocks that were twice as tall as Ashleigh, and thistle heads and cattails by the old mill pond. It was a lovely day, but the things I found to be the most beautiful and amazing were the two little grandchildren I was with.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

How Blessed I Am!






Saturday I had such a wonderful walk! The day was perfect: a lively sky of deep blue with dancing white clouds, just enough wind to keep from overheating, a great gray promise of rain that only delivered a few drops but enough to steep the world in the scent of fresh water before clearing away. Marvelous.

Bird Power



This shows what can happen when a whole bunch of individually weak creatures get together with a greedy purpose! A covey of quail really went to work on our planter that sits underneath the bird feeder. They wanted every tiny seed, and they were willing to move mountains (well, nearly every pebble) in order to get them all. The second shot I took standing by one of the bits of rock that had been flung out of the planter. Amazing. And so funny. It has brought me loads of smiles to see this.

Monday, September 15, 2008

My Life




My life is not very exciting, but it's full of wonderful things. The first picture is the gorgeous full moon rising above the church to the east of us. Isn't it amazing how big the moon can look until you try to take a picture of it? It was glorious, though.

The second is our fun bird feeder. Tired of the mess of scattered seed that was flung across our patio, Don concocted the tray from a clear plastic cover that came with a large platter from BYU catering. He fastened the tray with screws to the bottom of the feeder and painted the edge white so the birds could see it better. It has been fun to watch them. He saw a small sparrow-like bird perch on the thin edge of plastic for a moment before flying off. Today the quail were pecking up the tiny seeds from the ground and planter below the feeder. They made an even bigger mess by flinging our small reddish lava pebbles out of the planter to try and find more seeds. They are so cute it is pitiful.

The third picture is the tree that grows on the northeast corner of our yard. In spring it has lovely delicate flowers, and now there are large clumps of orange berries of some sort that hang like upside down bouquets.

How blessed I am!

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Sunshine Scripture 10



And God saw everything that he had made,
and behold, it was very good.
Genesis 1:31



Everything that God made is good. Think of the array of things he has created. It includes mountains, sky, rivers, trees, oceans, flowers, rainbows, stars, universes. It includes every living thing: both creeping bug and fluttering butterfly. And it includes you.
Begin the day by knowing you are good because God made you. Be good.

Sunday, September 07, 2008

Sunshine Scripture 9


Praise the LORD with harp: sing unto him with the psaltery and an instrument of ten strings.
Psalms 33:2



What joy it will be to play musical instruments in praise of the Lord, even ones with ten strings! I hope we all get to sing and play a vast variety of music makers we have never even heard of. In the meantime, right now, praise Him with whatever means you have, even if it's only a croaky off-tune voice. He will love it.





Thanks to Shaunalei and Jennifer, we did have a Turner reunion on Saturday Sept. 6. It was nice to have a chance to sit around, eat, and visit a bit. Holding it at the Holdaway Park was convenient to those of us who live in Springville. Although there were many who weren't able to be there, I am glad we had it.