Choose Joy in the Journey

When my husband asked me to go fishing with him this morning, I was delighted.   We needed a break from the routine of fixing up the homestead. What did we catch?   A beautiful sunrise!   We woke up around 4:30 a.m. and just at the hint of some light in the sky, we drove to Dead Horse Ranch, a state park about 15 miles from home.   I was surprised how long our quiet morning stayed so pleasantly cool! I love mornings and nature.   I don’t know why I like this photo so much, but it’s special somehow. We explored. Look what we discovered ~ an old cabin.   Several of my blog buddies are teaching me to open my eyes and see the beauty all around me right where I live! Fishing is a simple pleasure that fits nicely into our simple retired life.   We look forward to more mornings like this to slow down and appreciate all the loveliness that surrounds us.

I heard a good sermon yesterday about vision, and God gave us special effects to go along with it!   We drove to church in pouring rain, the consistent soaking kind, which is pretty exciting in itself since we hardly see it in our desert town.   Our worship songs spoke of “rising up” and entering into the freedom that Jesus died to give us.   A special word of exhortation followed, challenging us to break free from the mud puddles we sometimes like to wallow in and to rise up and embrace God’s will for our future.   Looking back now, I think “Wow, those songs and that special word, even the rain, was a precursor to what the Lord was going to convey.” So many good points were made about “vision” for our lives and living out the rest of our days in imagination and dreams instead of past memories.   But I like the part about Proverbs 18:19:   “ A brother offended is harder to be won over than a strong city, and their contentions separate them like the bars of a castle.”   Bei