What Ever Happens Tomorrow...We've Had Today

Ok, so I've been watching movies this weekend.  The second one was called "One Day".  It's about a guy and a girl who meet very early in their lives.  For whatever reason, they stay only friends for years, literally.  However, there are some obvious, to us, feelings they don't really share with each other.  Finally the get together and are very much in love.  I won't ruin the ending, but one of the messages of the movie is, at the end of the movie, which is actually a flash back to the front of the movie, she says "whatever happens tomorrow, we've had today".  The message to me was don't live for tomorrow.  Make the best of EACH and every day, as if there is or will be no tomorrow.  Life is short.  Life flashes by so fast we don't even realize it.  Before you know it, days, weeks, months and years have flown by. So live each day to the fullest.  Wear yourself out.  Do everything you want to do when you get the chance.  Don't wait; don't put things off; don't wait for a better time and place.  Just love life.  Love people.  Live life.  Just love and live!

Deuteronomy 4:40
Keep his decrees and commands, which I am giving you today, so that it may go well with you and your children after you and that you may live long in the land the LORD your God gives you for all time.

Encourage One Another

Continuing the journey on fresh paths.

"Courageous" The Movie

Deuteronomy 31:6
Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”


Courageous!


This is a very powerful and touching movie about the Godly, Christian role of a father.  If you have not seen it, I recommend that you do.  It has a very strong message.  The message is below.


To Fathers...
Leave a Godly legacy.
Love God with all that you are.
Love and mentor others who need help and direction.
Be a man whose Heart is willing and courageous.
By God's grace you can do this.
You have responsibility for you family.
Raising children, mothers are not intended to carry this weight alone; a child desperately needs a daddy.
None of us recognize the priceless time we have with our children.
We must courageously step up to be and do whatever it takes to be involved in the lives of our children.
It means more than just being there, it means to walk with them and be a visual characterization of their Father in heaven.
Protect, discipline and  teach them about God.
Teach them to have integrity and respect.
To be responsible men and women.
Who will be accountable to God to the position of influence he has given you?
You will realize that your job and your hobbies have no eternal value, but your children do.
If you just live for yourself you will waste a valuable opportunity.
Regardless of your mistakes, pray for forgiveness and love God with all that you are and teach your children to do the same.
A Godly father will guide his family and love them.
He will teach them to follow Christ.
He provide and protect for them.
He will break the chain of destructive patterns of his family and 
teach his children to do what ever God calls them to do.
We all want God's favor and blessing on our home.
Pray for and bless your children for whatever they chose to do.
Be men of courage and fathers who fear the lord.


                                   


Joshua 24;15  "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord"


I was blessed to have this father, a man who followed God and lead his family to the Kingdom!

                                        
                                            In Loving Memory
                                  November 2,1924--July 26, 2010
Encourage One Another


Continuing the journey on fresh paths.

You Have To Get Up Before The Sun Rises

...to SEE the sun rise.  Got it.  Lesson number one for today.  You have to get up before the sun rises to see the sunrise.  That's before 7am.  Today I left the house on my walk about 6:50am.  I learned when you hit the road early, there's a pay off.  Here it is.

It's coming up behind the trees.

This is the time of year the sage blooms.  It's prolific.  It's everywhere in town.  It's here in the beauty of the sunrise.

These are the shadows taken from the east to the west.

This place has been kind of a haven for me, a walking place of peace and solitude.  It's quiet.  It's green.  It's blessed by God.  It's holy ground.

My walk goes from my house, by and through the cemetery, by and around the duck pond. 

It's a great place for people and dog watching...and duck watching of course.   

This is Jimi (Hendrix).  See his "fro"?

This is his family.

Nice to have ducks in the neighborhood!

I live in a great area of town to walk as you can see.  I will miss this when I am gone, however, I am hopeful God puts fabulous new walking trails in my path.  Why just today he opened my eyes to a wonder I have not seen in the 5 years I've been walking this same path.  

I am continuing my journey, on fresh paths.  HE is good!

Deuteronomy 2:7
The LORD your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He has watched over your journey through this vast wilderness. These forty years the LORD your God has been with you, and you have not lacked anything.

Encourage One Another

Agua Dulce (Sweet Water)

Well, you've seen me write about the irrigation system in the cotton patch.  Since the farmer fixed the pump area and there are few leaks at that spot, the water doesn't pool like it use to so Mosey could get a drink.  He still stops and stares at the water, but unfortunately he knows that drinking is not an option.  Well today he figured out something else.  He can drink from the sprinkler head on the big irrigation sprinkler.  I've walked him through these sprinklers while they were running with water going everywhere however, we never stopped to check them out.  Today we did.  He got the drift immediately.  He and running water are old friends as he loves to drink out of the water hose as well.  But here he is, getting him a big ole drink of sweet water after a hot ride.  He's as happy as a fish in water!

 If you look close you can see his tongue!

Water from the other spouts were spraying him all around his face and chest.  He thought it was raining.
This is one happy boy!

Encourage One Another

Continuing the journey on fresh paths.

Reality Set In

I've known for a while that things were not and would not ever be the same, but the reality of it is seriously starting to set in. About a year ago, on the place east of town, gravel roads, oil platforms, oil rigs, oil tanks, refining equipment, oil and water trucks, pick ups trucks, strangers, and every imaginable type of oil well equipment started to take over that property. And the caliche dust from all that was unbelievable. It literally covered everything! Tons of trees were bulldozed and chopped up. No longer was the most foreign thing on that property the barbed wire fence. The prospective loss of wildlife was immense, from birds, rabbits, possums, squirrels, hogs and deer. What remained alive has long sense left the area. When I saw it I cried. One of my worst fears was that that same atmosphere would take over the “ranch”. I voiced that fear and was assured that would not happen.

The truth is, it has. All those same things are now taking over the ranch. New gravel roads are everywhere. Traffic signs like speed limits, no littering, Yield and Stop signs need to be there. Privacy, safety, solitude, and peacefulness are virtually non-existant.

As you know, I'm a walker. This morning I tried to do my 3/4 mile walk. I tried to stay off the dirt pasture roads. This time of year the pasture trails can be a concern for tall grass, awful green stickers and thorns, pesky mosquitoes and more importantly snakes. I knew there was a chance that trucks would travel down the road but thought I'd take a chance. Upon staying on the limestone however, pick ups and big trucks zoomed past me with no regard for the rising dust that was filling my lungs. I eventually covered my mouth with my shirt so as to take it all in and walked at the most rapid pace I could to get back to the house. It was an extremely unpleasant experience. I will not do it again. Thoughts of the dollars replacing the place of peace, comfort and family heritage this ranch use to be just didn't seem enough. But then, it's not up to me. None of it. So, once again life changes. Progress, or something like that, takes the place of the nice simple life, the simple life I love so much. I love this place.  Part of my heart is here.  And my next worse fear, the inability to ride my horse there, looms on the horizon!

Encourage One Another

Continuing the journey with fresh paths.

PS I don't have any pictures of limestone or caliche dust!

Another Pair of Boots

OK, just for grins, I'm blogging about another boot give away...Can you tell I would love a new pair of boots.  I read the Farmer's Trophy wife blog and she's a cowgirl too who just got home from the "Calgary Stampede" rodeo...lucky her. Here are the ones she received and wore to the rodeo!

 So if you too want to win a pair, go here and enter.  Let me know if you enter and if you win.
There is a FABULOUS boot giveaway going on thanks to @FarmerTrphyWife and @BootBarn!!  Follow this link to enter!http://wp.me/pKkEY-1nd


Encourage One Another

Boots

OK, i have not done this before...this link to a giveaway on my blog.  But here goes the first one.  Go here:
http://westernglamour.net/these-boots-are-made-for-giveaway/#comment-629
For a chance to win some boots!  Western Glamour Mag is giving them away.
They're awesome and I'd like for you or me to win them!  Let me know if you go and if you do!

Encourage One Another

Beyond Repair

It's sad to see something you once love be neglected to the point of decomposer and decay;  Something neglected to the point of worthlessness;  Something neglected to the point of inability to rectify or repair; Something neglected to the point of rottenness and the inability to reconcile.  That's the way the "saddle house" was today when I walked in it.  It started with the door, hole ridden and swollen to the point of inability to open it.

Once I got it open the sight inside was devastating, unbelievable.  It had a dark musty rotten smell.  The floor was rotten beyond recognition.  Everywhere I stepped I stepped softly for fear of falling through.

Evidence of mice and rats was everywhere; spider webs and visual scorpions kept my eyes open wide.  This is a place I used to frequent numerous times a week, gathering up my tack and equipment to ride those rides that gave me peace and comfort for so many years.  Since I've been gone from here, the place has gone to ruin, literally.  The saddles are gnawed and chewed on by who knows what type of vermin.  Many would now be unsafe to ride besides just being unsightly and, in my opinion, ruined.  Varmints of all types have lived and continue to live in this once safe place to keep your saddle.  To those of you who don't ride, don't have the love for your equipment that I do, don't have the desire for your saddle and tack to be in good safe shape, this might not seem like such a big deal.  But for a true rider and horse lover, it's a travesty.  It's unacceptable.  While my pony will most likely be spending his time back at this place in the pasture, my saddles will remain safely in my home, taken care of and free of mice teeth!  Without a good safe saddle and good strong feet on your horse, a cowgirl or cowboy is just out of luck.  So my hope is that the recent prosperity of this ranch will one day soon see the need of a new saddle house to keep the pride in the tack and the saddles that kept the cowboy, the rancher, and the way of the West, alive.
                                    

Wow, Talk About Perfect Timing

My daughter writes a blog.  This scripture was included this week.  While she did not include it for me, it was truly meant for me.  The timing couldn't have been more perfect.

Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world.

1 John 2:15-17

In preparation for my move back down south, closer to my daughter, grandson and son in law, I have been going through everything I own in order to "purge, case off, chuck, deep-six, ditch, dump, 86, exorcise, fling, pitch, purge, reject, scrap, shed, suck off, throw way, throw out, toss, unload, jettison, junk, lose and dispose" of everything I possibly can so as not to overflow the house I am moving into.  And it has been hard!  I've been through every box I brought out here over 5 years ago, some I've been through before, some not.  I've been through every picture/photo envelop and photo album I've owned since about Junior high.  I've been through every card I ever kept and every card and letter my mother EVER received.  I lived each event, happy or sad, over again.  I've been through newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, file cabinets, cedar chests and storage units.  I've gone down to the bones.  And I've thrown out tons of stuff.  Boxes and bags of stuff have gone to the dumpster.  Boxes and racks of stuff have gone to the resale shop.  I've wrapped things back up and put them in the "too go" box zillions of times even though I really wanted to keep it.  It's stuff I've gathered, loved and owned for a little while or a long time.  It's been my grandmother's, my mother's, my daughter's, my daughter's grandmother's, my friend's, and my own.  Some treasures, some not so much.  I learned a few years ago when my father died and we were able to acquire VERY little of what belonged to him from his wife at the time, that "stuff is just stuff".  What really matters is the love and the memories that go with those things.

^{Matthew 6:19} “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy,and where thieves break in and steal. ²⁰ But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven,where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

So this is just another lesson along that same realm.  In the big picture, all of that stuff, what I've kept and what I've thrown out or gotten rid of, really doesn't matter.  What does matter is that I have all the memories that go with those things.  And what matters even more is the memories I'm going to make with my daughter, my grandson (who you know I adore), my son in law and the rest of my family, my sister, my brother in law, my nieces, my loved ones and my friends in the rest of my life.  After all, remember I am "continuing the journey...on fresh paths".  I'm going to be "refreshing" things, getting some new things, starting with some other things, and making some new memories.

So here's to leaving the past behind, the "starting over" of sorts, only it's more like starting fresh, like after a rain when everything is cool and glistening, shiny and clean.  I'm following you God.  Your in my lead.  Bring it on.  Once again, I'm stepping out of the boat!

^{Matthew 14:25} Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. ²⁶ When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.

²⁷ But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

²⁸ “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”

²⁹ “Come,” he said.

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. ³⁰ But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”

³¹ Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said,“why did you doubt?”

³² And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. ³³ Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”


Encourage ONe Another

A West Texas Ride to Remember OR I Must Have Thought My God Was Too Small

My thinking it was going to be an ordinary day changed pretty quickly this morning.  I was saddled and horseback by 7:45am and off for a cool morning ride.  First rattle out of the box, a little miniature black pony comes running up to us like a long lost friend.  He sniffs and snorts at Mosey and Mosey sniffs and cocks his head a little and off goes the little horse as quickly as he came up to us.  He found some other horses across a fence close by and he decided to hang out with them.  A bit concerned he would get out into the road, it was way to early to go knocking on the doors of strangers, so we just left the little guy by the fence with his friends and off we went.

As we were strolling through the cotton patch, low and behold I see a small horny toad.

 They are around these parts, but seeing horny toads is a pretty rare sight.  I look at him and appreciate him as he sits in between the rows of cotton.  I think to myself "this might be the last horny toad I see.  There aren't many down south because the fire ants eat them.  I've only seen maybe 8 or so in the last 5 years since I've been in west Texas.  In fact, I better get off and take a photo or two because "this might be the last one I ever see".  I won't be having too many more rides out here because I'll be moving soon.".  So, I get off and take a few photos.  As I ride off I again start thinking to myself "Hays may never see a horny toad; there just aren't many; it's not likely he'll really ever visit west Texas; he might see one in a zoo or something but that's not the wild; how sad; there just aren't many of them left; they might almost be extinct or something." I am really appreciating the opportunity to see this "last" horny toad today. I ride on and see some birds swooping along the ground knowing they are gathering some of the oats that were left after harvesting.  I remember the scripture...

Matthew 6:26
Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?
Matthew 6:25-27

I'm thinking how great God is to provide for us every day, every thing we need.  Mose and I are ambling along, minding our own business, just enjoying a fine morning.  Next thing I know, I see another horny toad.  I think "oh my goodness...it just couldn't be".  We take another step closer and I see ANOTHER horn toad.  I look again in disbelief, aghast, thinking "how could this be?  Three horny toads in one day.  But wait, there are only a few left".  I stop and watch.  I get off to shoot some more photos of the strange phenomenon of multiple horny toads in one day.  I discover that these two horny toads are "mates", they are trying to breed.  Who in the world on the day that they think they have probably seen their last horny toad, then sees two more who are multiplying at that very moment.

I was just blown away.  As I'm watching them I thinking, "wow, you better listen up here.  You are thinking God is too small and he is giving you a big lesson in 'I am not small.  Stop thinking in such limits.  Start thinking in abundance, not in limits.  Be expectant.  Expect big things.  Start thinking in beginnings not endings.  Your life is just beginning.  Your life is being refreshed.  You are going to be continuing the journey on fresh paths.  Look ahead.  Look up.  Be positive.'"  No really, all this was going through my mind as I watched these two horny toads.  What a huge message in such a small creature.

Proverbs 11:25
A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.


2 Corinthians 9:8
And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

I finally got back on my pony and let those two alone to populate the world.  All in all on this ride I saw those guys, the random little black pony, several sparrow hawks, a fox, a jack rabbit, 12 quail (also sparse in south Texas due to the fire ants), three baby lizards (I've only seen these types of lizards as grown ups), ground squirrels, a bird catch a grasshopper, and a butterfly brushed against my hand as she was flying by.  Wow, what a day.  What a message.

And the clincher, when we were almost home, we saw our fourth horny toad.

Unbelievable...no.  Just in case He hadn't convinced me to "be watchful and be expectant"...He drove the message home.

Psalm 5:3
In the morning, LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly.

Continuing the journey on fresh paths.

Encourage One Another!

Living Water

Two things.
I'm packing...well, I'm purging my house in preparation for packing.  Friday I found a small yellow card with a scripture or  prayer written on it that use to hang on the mirror in my bedroom back home.
I was delighted to find it.  I use to read it every day.  It said,

"God, whose grace overflows at times we find ourselves in a dry and weary land, lead us to streams in the desert.  Quench the thirst of our souls with your living water".

Today as I was riding I thought of the scripture again.
Last year I wrote about my horse and I finding this "oasis" in the desert which was created by an irrigation system in the cotton field.  Well, it's irrigation time again in west Texas and last Saturday, the "creek was flowing".  My horse could not get enough.  He drank and played and pawed and stuck his head in the water.

On Sunday when we rode again it was not on.  He truly was very disappointed.  Both times going past it in both directions he just stopped and stared.  I felt so bad for him.
Well, today, praise God, the system was watering again.  Today he did the same thing, drinking and walking through the water.

We could see it from a distance.

After drinking, he just stopped and rested and enjoyed the water bouncing off his head.  He was at peace feeling what felt like rain.
What came to mind for me, was the scripture I had just read.  How God will create a stream in the desert to quench our souls.  He will truly let water or his word flow into us to revive us, to give our souls living water.
For that I am truly thankful.
And to the cotton farmer I am also thankful.  He gives my horse a reprieve from the heat, from the dry dusty earth and waters his soul as well.

Glory be to God!

I tried to find this scripture in "Bible Gateway" but could not find it exactly under several translations so I am not sure if it is a scripture or a prayer.  Either way there are a number of scriptures in the Bible expressing the same thing.

NOTE TO ME who has a short memory...I put this card back where I found it in the Justin boot box with my buckles and belts.

Continuing the journey, with fresh paths.
Encourage one another