Author Archives: Ellen

How Things Sit in May…

I wanted to get some views of our country bungalow so I would have some before shots since painting the exterior of our home is on our minds.

We are still deciding on the color palette. Our garage and shop are a biscuit color. We aren’t planning on matching the three structures.

While I was doing this walkabout I took some photos of our views first looking North.

This section of our front yard has this lane and to the right are some bushes and trees, a ditch and then the road.

Following our road you will eventually get to the Canadian border.

Southeast you see some of the destruction from a fire a few years before we moved here.

Looking to the East from our property.

We are more and more thankful for God’s leading in our move to this part of Washington State. I didn’t know how I’d manage being so far from a large city and all the conveniences a large city has to offer. We’ve managed just fine. I’ve embraced Wal-Mart. We have many small businesses that we try to support. We have a hospital. Our church is Bible believing (Inerrancy of the Bible), Bible teaching, Gospel centered (Teaching God’s Truth, not stories or opinion), and doctrinally sound. If that was missing it would be tough to live here. Having our middle son, his wife and our two grandchildren here goes a long way in adding to our country comfort. We are able to travel South whenever we feel the need to stock up the pantry with offerings from Costco or Trader Joe’s.  We travel about 70 miles generally without any traffic and at 60 miles an hour most of the way. There are only 2 stop lights between our home and the Spokane area. One of those stoplights is in our town and the other one is in Chewelah twenty three miles apart.  Spokane has all the box stores and a myriad of restaurants to choose from.

Moving onward into the last full week of May and ending with Memorial Weekend. Hope all is well from where you are sitting.

New Every Morning is the Love ~ Hymn

New Every Morning is the Love

New every morning is the love
Our wakening and uprising prove;
Through sleep and darkness safely brought,
Restored to life and power and thought.

New mercies, each returning day,
Hover around us while we pray;
New perils past, new sins forgiven,
New thoughts of God, new hopes of heaven.

If, on our daily course, our mind
Be set to hallow all we find,
New treasures still, of countless price,
God will provide for sacrifice.

Old friends, old scenes, will lovelier be,
As more of heaven in each we see;
Some softening gleam of love and prayer
Shall dawn on every cross and care.

We need not bid, for cloistered cell,
Our neighbor and our words farewell,
Nor strive to find ourselves too high
For sinful man beneath the sky.

The trivial round, the common task,
Will furnish all we ought to ask;
Room to deny ourselves, a road
To bring us daily nearer God.

Seek we no more; content with these,
Let present rapture, comfort, ease—
As heaven shall bid them, come and go:
The secret this of rest below.

Only, O Lord, in Thy dear love,
Fit us for perfect rest above,
And help us, this and every day,
To live more nearly as we pray.

Words: John Keble, 1827.

Merry Mid+Month of May

This past week we had beautiful days like this one. This is a photo from our kids’ drive. We had darker, rainy days. This Spring in general compared to last Spring has been colder and wetter. After a very dry Spring and Summer last year the ground is soaking up all the rain which bodes well for the summer and possibly less fire danger. Time will tell.

We spent a few days this past week tuning in to a livestream from the Truth Matters Conference staged at The Ark in Kentucky. It was so worthwhile to listen in. If you want to hear some good truth you can find the different sessions on YouTube soon. Just look up Truth Matters 2022 put on by Grace to You. I’ll sign off with this quote.

“The Kingdom of Light needs no help from the kingdom of darkness”

Hope your days are filled with God’s light!

Truth for Today #19

Thursday May 19th

On Thursdays my posts will include verses that stood out in my readings from the Bible during the week. One, two, three or maybe more. If you have a verse/verses that you read during the week and would like to share, leave it/them in the comments and I will add it/them to the post. Let’s dig deep in God’s Truth this year!

Colossians 4:2-6

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison–that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

From Leonard:

2 Thessalonians 1:6-7

God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels.

From Vera:

‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭5:21‬ ‭ESV‬‬

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Memories Hodgepodge

 

borsch-snoqualmie-001

It’s Wednesday and that means Jo From This Side of the Pond is asking questions for us to answer. Thank you Joyce!

1. What’s something that makes you feel stressed? How do you cope? 

Confrontation makes me stressed. If I can I walk away, I do. One of my coping mechanisms is to avoid it altogether. That’s okay unless I’m the cause for the need of the confrontation. Asking for forgiveness is a good solution. There are other situations where being a peacemaker is the solution.

2. What’s a food you eat that evokes a memory? Explain. 

Borsch (Borscht) evokes lots of memories of growing up. I hated it when I was little. The cabbage was not a pleasant texture to my palate. Having to sit at the table until I finished my bowl is not a good memory. I sat there for what seems hours after everyone else left the table. My solution was rebellious and I suffered for it by the reprimanding from my mom. While I was alone in the kitchen I decided the solution to my problem was to pour my bowl back in the pot. This would have worked except for the fact that I had soaked lots of bread in the bowl of soup. It was clear to my mom that I dumped my bowl of soup back in the pot. Oye, was I in trouble!

I love borsch now! Here’s our mom’s recipe.

3. This week’s Hodgepodge lands on National Visit Your Relatives Day. Will you celebrate by visiting a relative? If so is travel involved? Geographically, who is your nearest relative (not counting those living in your own house)?

No, I will not be visiting a relative. Our nearest relatives live 8 miles away from us. They are enjoying sunshine elsewhere right now. I will travel to their property to water the garden and maybe check the chicken coop for eggs. Our other relatives (children, siblings, aunts, nieces, nephews, cousins) live in Western Washington, California, Colorado, Texas, North Carolina, New York, Illinois, Florida and Israel. Dear and my parents, grandparents, uncles and all but one aunt are deceased.

I will see some of our California relatives and friends when I travel to Southern California for a Memorial Service in June.

4. What’s your most frequently used emoji?

Probably a heart or smiley face.

Do you make more phone calls, send more emails, or mainly text to communicate with friends and family? 

It used to be phone calls and emails but now it’s mainly text. Phone calls are few and far between because our country connections are dismal.

5. Tell us the story behind a favorite piece of furniture. 

We have an eclectic collection of furniture with lots of stories behind them but one of our newer purchases of an old piece is my current favorite. I wrote about it here.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

It’s Ice Cream weather for these two! Love seeing their faces via texts!

The Flying Saucer

Something odd appeared in a field across the road and to the north of us…

…a flying saucer that raised lots of questions in our heads.

The saucer is between the two middle trees far off in the distance.

One day after Dear crossed the road to get the mail he walked further north to inspect it. He met a new neighbor who filled him in on the story behind this bit of yard art.  This new neighbor commissioned someone to build this Flying Saucer for him. Before the Flying Saucer arrived we watched a shop/barndominium go up and lots of vehicles arrive. Don’t know if a house will be built on this piece of land or if the neighbor has made a place to live inside the shop.

Country/rural properties lend themselves to odd yard art and just plain junk yards. I’d rather see a flying saucer instead of some of the junk piled up on properties around here. You can see pristine properties to junkpile properties along our roads. I keep threatening to find an unusual piece of yard art to stick in our front acreage. I’m not really sure I want to draw unwanted attention to our property, though.

Have a good new week y’all.

There is a Green Hill Far Away

There is a Green Hill Far Away

There is a green hill far away,
Outside a city wall,
Where the dear Lord was crucified,
Who died to save us all.

Refrain

O dearly, dearly, has He loved,
And we must love Him, too,
And trust in His redeeming blood,
And try His works to do.

We may not know, we cannot tell,
What pains He had to bear;
But we believe it was for us
He hung and suffered there.

Refrain

He died that we might be forgiv’n,
He died to make us good,
That we might go at last to Heav’n,
Saved by His precious blood.

Refrain

There was no other good enough
To pay the price of sin;
He only could unlock the gate
Of heaven and let us in.

Refrain

O dearly, dearly has He loved,
And we must love Him, too,
And trust in His redeeming blood,
And try His works to do.

Refrain

Words: Cecil F. Alexander, 1847.

Mother’s Day Weekend

Dear and I drove over to the West side of our state to spend time with some of our family and friends who live there. We met up at two separate restaurants on Thursday afternoon and then Saturday morning with dear friends and spent a couple hours eating together and enjoying conversations and catching up. On Mother’s Day we attended our kids’ church for a great time of worship and preaching. I’ll share some quotes from the sermon at the end of this post. Words I want to remember.

At 1:00 on Sunday this group met up for a Mother’s Day Brunch. It was an honor to enjoy this meal with our westside kids and my sister and her husband. Thank you to Laura for making the reservations and getting everyone together.

Me and my baby sister.

Me and our firstborn son.

Josh and Laura on the waterfront in Kirkland, Washington. The sun finally crept out from behind the clouds for a glorious afternoon.

Josh and Laura created this embroidery together for me as part of my Mother’s day gift. They also treated me to an ornament and tea towel commemorating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. We enjoy so much about Great Britain and remember fondly traveling together in England back in 2013!

A meal out with our daughter and her hubby was another special treat and this lamb shank was a delicious surprise to see on the menu.

We drove back home on Monday morning and it was a rain free event until we entered Spokane, on our last stretch home. We stopped at our Eastside kids’ home to deliver gifts and greetings and were happy for sweet hugs and time with our grands. Home again we get busy with laundry and the need to mow the lawns!

Back to the Sunday service we attended at Canyon Hills Community Church in Bothell, Washington. Dr. Nicholas Ellen from Houston, Texas was the guest preacher for this Sunday. His sermon was titled The Premise and Process of Trusting God. I’m sharing the link.

Some quotes from the sermon that I wrote down…

“The God of reality is bigger than the God of your imagination.”

“Stand Under so one day you will Under Stand”

You Can Obey God ~ some hindrances…

  1. Lack of knowledge
  2. Lack of skill
  3. Lack of will

Don’t be strong and wrong!

God has called us to the process. We need to follow God’s direction. He gives promises and in those promises we need to follow the process He provides.

May is ticking away at full speed. We are enjoying all the color that Spring brings.

Truth for Today #18

Thursday May 12th

On Thursdays my posts will include verses that stood out in my readings from the Bible during the week. One, two, three or maybe more. If you have a verse/verses that you read during the week and would like to share, leave it/them in the comments and I will add it/them to the post. Let’s dig deep in God’s Truth this year!

Psalm 37:1-7

Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers! For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb. Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices!

From Vera:

“knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.”
‭‭1 Peter‬ ‭1:18-19‬ ‭ESV‬‬

From Leonard:

We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Thessalonians 1:3

From Karen:

John 1:17
For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

From Cheryl:

I have been reading Zechariah, and there is so much that stood out to me, (including several passages that directly point to the Messiah). But here is just one . . .
The hands of Zerubbabel
Have laid the foundation of this temple;
His hands shall also finish it.
Then you will know
That the Lord of hosts has sent Me to you.
For who has despised the day of small things?

Don’t you love the idea that “small things” are not to be despised? That is an encouragement to me!

Yes, Cheryl, that is encouraging.