crickets and stars....

okay, I am a born and raised city girl and all of my husband's "country ways" are usually not that appealing to me... until last night.
Growing up in the city all my life I would see a "starry night" from time to time but nothing like being "in the country"...

And one of the things that I love about our new house is that it's "in the country" a little bit (we live by a lot of farms and fields and people around here refer to Maple Grove as "going into the city") but we're only 2 minutes from 94.
So last night, stepping outside and gazing at the beautiful starry sky and enjoying ONLY hearing the crickets was so peaceful!
I guess maybe there's a little "country" in me after all... well, we'll see.

SO much to say...

Okay - I started this blog back at the end of June with the GREAT intention of keeping everyone "in the know" as to all that was happening in our lives - but to be honest TOO MUCH happened! And now I'm trying to play catch up... well, after moving, a trip to the hospital, a funeral, camp and another trip to the hospital - here I am trying to catch up. I just have to say though, God is faithful! I could have NEVER made it through the last 3-4 weeks without His grace, mercy, love, patience and faithfulness! And there is SOOO much more good stuff to tell everyone that's happened - but I will take time later to catch you up on God's goodness... so be looking for it later! :)
ANYWAY... today God hit me with this really cool thought, so I wanted to share it.
THIS:















is what I spent my evening last night and about an hour (so far - I'm currently taking a break) today doing - PULLING WEEDS! I love my new house - but it sat vacant from sometime around the end of April - and someone mowed the lawn but there are TONS of weeds all over.
And the one thing we all know about weeds is they SPREAD!! So as I was picking all of these AWFUL things, I got to thinking about all the "weeds" in my heart (that seem really little to me) like this...














Just a small "innocent" grouping of green in my rocks... but OH HOW QUICKLY it becomes:















IT SPREADS... so trying really hard not to be judgemental - because we all have weeds... what "weeds" are trying to "spread" in your heart?

I think about how my whining attitude can quickly become complaining, and then yelling at my husband and can quickly turn into unforgiveness (because he didn't baby me like I wanted him to) - all from one little "weed" of complaining. Like I said, it SPREADS!! All I can say is thank you Lord for your grace when I think I'm so perfect, but really I have more weeds to pull.

Which brings up another point - did you know its easier to pull weeds when the ground is wet and soft??? Kinda like coming home from camp when you spent some time in awesome praise and worship and had our Father TOTALLY touch your heart - your heart is tender (you've been rained on by His presence and your heart it tender towards Him) and ready for Him to gently help you remove those things. (It's SO much easier with help - its hard to do it on your own!)