The Last Autumn Outings - For This Year

Here are the photos of my last hikes and adventures before the cold weather really hit in. My rule is no long or moderately difficult hikes November - February. I'm just glad the weather held out long enough for some cool new places. Winter this year should be interesting...

Spring Outings

Once the rain stopped and the temperatures warmed a little late in April, I was finally able to get outside. Here are the photos from the few day trips I took this spring. 

New Year, New Hopes

I don't know about you, but I was so grateful when the calendar switched to 2021. Even though the covid pandemic is still here, the vaccines have arrived, we have a new President & VP, and artists are dropping new music. God is good, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Here are the top 5 tunes that are giving me hope right now.

1) Great You Are by Jordan Smith

2) Rescue by Lauren Daigle 

3) Angels We Have Heard (Glory Be) by Jordan Smith

4) Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone) by Pentatonix

5) No Longer Slaves by Jonathan David/Melissa Helser

What are you listening to?

Autumn Reflections

What can we say 9 months into 2020... From racial justice protests and vigils/memorials to historic wildfires & the smoke they brought... In times like these, we look to God, and can still find beauty and joy. With autumn comes rain, something I think everyone is grateful for this year...

Jeanette's & Mine Summer Vacation To Chalet Shalom

Here are the PICTURES from our very fun summer get-a-way to the Edel Family property!

Spring Is Still Blooming

Just because we're all staying home due to covid19 doesn't mean the world is ending. Spring is still blooming, and God is still good. Here are a couple of examples of God's beauty from my neighborhood this last week.

 

 

Autumn Jammin'

Here are the Top 5 songs I'm listening to right now!

1) So Will I (100 Billion X) by Hillsong Worship
2) Drops in the Ocean by Hawk Nelson
3) Speak the Name by Koryn Hawthorne, ft. Natalie Grant
4) You Raise Me Up by Josh Groban
5) All of Switchfoot, but mostly songs from their newest album 'Native Tongue'

What are you listening to?

Spring Tunes

Here are the Top 5 songs I'm listening to right now!

1) Ashes by Celine Dion, from the Deadpool Soundtrack (Written by Jordan Smith)
2) Radioactive by Imagine Dragons
3) Won't He Do It by Koryn Hawthorne
4) Who You Say I Am by Hillsong
5) All of Switchfoot :)

What are you listening to?

Christian Fantasy Discoveries

After being introduced to my current favorite allegorical fantasy author Jill Williamson, she introduced me to one of her publishers, Enclave. All they publish is Christian Fantasy & Sci-Fi!  😂  Faith readers who love adventure rejoice! Some of what I'm going to read next....

 
 

Currently Reading, Will Read, Super Excited

2018 is going to be a great year for reading books, I've already got three on my list! And you all know how picky I am 😉

Currently Reading:                            Will Read:
The Other Side of Beauty                 The Masterpiece
by Leah Darrow                                 by Francine Rivers

Super Excited about:
King's War
by Jill Williamson                   
     
*Even if you aren't into fashion, The Other Side of Beauty has something for every woman because we all have our own definitions of Love & Worth. *I was disappointed with River's last book, so I'm excited for a new book just released that's getting stellar reviews because it's based off a real-life artist. *And who wouldn't be excited for the epic conclusion to the Kinsman Chronicles?!!? After all, we FINALLY get to see who represents Christ! Available now for Kindle, paperback on June 19th! Like I said, a good year for good reads 😤

Serenity Prayer - Because We All Need This Right Now

God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
As it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
If I surrender to His Will;
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life
And supremely happy with Him
Forever and ever in the next.

Amen.

(Prayer attributed to Reinhold Neibuhr, 1892-1971)

Kicking Off 2018!

A new year has started, and I'm determined to write more blog posts this go-around! But today I don't really have a good topic... So here are my current favorite things, two days in...

• Favorite Song - Mary Did You Know by Jordan Smith / Rise by Katy Perry
• Favorite Book - Eagerly awaiting King's War by Jill Williamson, but in the long meantime... What should I read?
• Favorite Food - Christmas Cookies I made yesterday 😋
• Favorite TV Show - Mork & Mindy 
• Favorite Game - Celtic Heroes 

Happy New Year Everyone! What are you current favorite things?

Christmas = Joy, From A Pastor's Perspective

From "The Boy Who Is Lord" YouVersion Christmas Devotional by Mark Driscoll:

"Jesus’ visit to the temple represented a new epoch in human history. When Jesus and the temple come together, we see the fulfillment of the Old Covenant and the inauguration of the New Covenant taking place. Let me explain to you some of the theological significance of the temple, and that moment when Jesus arrived.

• The temple was the connecting place between heaven and earth.

The temple, particularly the Holy of Holies in the center of the temple, was the connection place between heaven and earth. God is in heaven as Creator, we are on earth as created, and God’s very presence dwelt in the temple, in the Holy of Holies, making it the most sacred place on earth.

• The temple was where God’s people would come to meet with him.

If you wanted to meet with God during the temple era, you had to visit the temple. God didn’t need a house; he created the heavens and the earth. But he did establish a place where people could come and meet with him. And people came from long distances to visit Jerusalem and set eyes on the place containing God’s very presence.

• The temple was the place where sin was atoned for.

All of the ritual purifications and sacrifices done in and around the temple were performed to symbolize the remission of sin. At the temple, before a holy and righteous God, people would acknowledge their guilt and sin.

One day every year, on Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), the high priest was permitted to enter the Holy of Holies to make a sacrifice on behalf of the people. On that day, two goats would be brought, a substitute goat and a scapegoat. The priest would pray over the substitute goat, confess the sins of the people, and then slaughter the animal to atone for their sins. The priest would then pray over the scapegoat, confess the sins of the people, and then send it away to represent how God not only forgives sin but removes it completely.

• The temple was the center of life and faith and worship.

God’s people were surrounded by enemies on every side who frequently threatened and attacked. The temple was a place where God’s people could unite and care for each other.

Four hundred years before Jesus’ birth, the prophet Malachi prophesied that the Messiah would come to the temple. When Mary holds Jesus tenderly in her arms, ascending the steps of the temple wearing white, she is fulfilling Malachi’s words. She is holding in her hands the fulfillment of the entire sacrificial system, the entire point of the Day of Atonement, the entire purpose of the nation of Israel, the consideration of the priests, and the existence of the temple itself.

The temple was destroyed in 70 A.D., just like Jesus said it would be (Matthew 26:61; Mark 14:58; John 2:19). The temple has been destroyed for almost 2,000 years. Why? We have no need of it any longer. It has served its purpose. For hundreds of years, the temple prepared people for the coming of Jesus. And then he came.

I have good news for you. We don’t need ritual baths anymore; Jesus cleanses our hearts through repentance and faith. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

We don’t need to go to the temple anymore. Where do we go to meet with God? Jesus. “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). Where is sin atoned for? Jesus. Where is the center of our life and our faith and our worship and our community? Jesus. No temple is required.

We do not have to bring a sacrifice to God any longer. Jesus has atoned for our sins. John the Baptizer said it well: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29) Unlike the Day of Atonement, which took place year after year, Jesus’ sacrifice was once and for all. “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14).

There’s no longer any high priest, because we don’t need one. The high priest was the intercessor and the advocate for the people. He would go between the people and God. He would bring the people’s sin to God and he would mediate and intercede. And the priesthood came to an end with Jesus. Why? Because he’s our great high priest (Hebrews 4:15) who alone is our mediator between us and God.

If you have Jesus, you have everything that everyone in the Old Covenant longed for, hoped for, and prayed for!"

No Reason To Be Sad At Christmas Time

Last week, after a horrendous new tax proposal, the US president started "honoring his promises to lobbyists" in rolling out cutbacks on many of the environmental safeguards Obama had put in place. While some of them, like the Bears Ears Native American National Monument in Utah are being protested in court (thank you Earthjustice!), others like the banning of oil drilling in the arctic and pesticide bans were lessened or annihilated all together, without room for discussion (though technically the vote isn't for another week, but still). Most Americans don't want this - I don't want this! My own backyard, the Cascade–Siskiyou National Monument is being shrunk - so as you can imagine it pissed me off! One tweet I saw online brought me to tears: "Why can’t daddy stop Congress from hurting caribou/polar bears?" asked the son of the CEO of Northwest Wildlife Foundation... I can only imagine how Collin O'Mara, the CEO, was feeling when he heard his son say it... But me, I was upset. I don't have kids yet, and I want them to be able to experience the greenery and natural beauty of this world, yet I fear that hope is getting farther and farther away. Feeling helpless to be able to do anything about it all days later, I cried to my mom, and another friend later in the week. I hadn't written a blog post in a while, and so my friend suggested that I write one about this, just to put my feelings out there in the world.

Driving home from my friend's office that day, a Christmas song came on the radio that shifted my perspective a tad. I don't remember which song it was, but basically the message was 'because Christ intervened, we have hope.' For some reason the image of the angel chorus that appeared to the shepherds came into my head. And the word that stuck was JOY.

Because of Jesus Christ, all of our sins and fears and burdens are washed away when we accept him as our Lord and Savior. Because of Jesus Christ, we will "not perish, but have everlasting life." We know this. But imagine you and everyone you know haven't heard from God in centuries, and you don't know what he's going to do or when. Put yourself in the shoes of the faithful Jews, shepherds or the wise man. Their hope was in an unanswered question. Will they see God fulfill his promise in their life? Their kids' or grand-kids' lives? What happens if not? And then boom! A star appears, and the answer is there! So close you can literally walk up an touch Him! How would you feel?

All of us are in no way perfect just because Christ is already in our lives. We often wallow in our earthly woes and miseries, forgetting that He can solve not just the big problems, but the itty bitty ones too. Sometimes we even take Jesus for granted because we know he's always there. Or like me this last week, we get mad when change is just beyond our fingertips, and yet we cannot grasp it, and the consequences are ugly. But what if Jesus hadn't come at all yet, or ever?

Christmas is the time of year in which we celebrate Jesus' physical entry into our world. The angels rejoiced, the shepherds were amazed, the wise men were in awe! John the baptist even 'lept for joy' in his mothers womb. Jesus has already intervened, already fulfilled God's promise, and paradise is tangibly within our future! If you really think about it, what reason do we have not to be joyful? The above still makes me sad, and people destroying God's creation always will, but it's Christmas time. The fact that we get to celebrate Jesus' birthday at all is a miracle. Truly keep 'Christ' in your holiday celebrations, and there will be no reason to be sad at Christmas time.

The Canterbury Renaissance Faire

Coming to you from the Canterbury Renaissance Faire in Silverton, Oregon! They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so enjoy this photographic journey! It was super, super fun!! Blogger doesn't upload albums, so click on the link to the google photos album I made.

God's Purposeful Creation

I recently watched the movie Secretariat, based on the true story of one of the greatest racing horses that's ever lived. While it wasn't quite the amazing comeback story of Seabiscuit, one thing stood out very clear. This horse was created with the intention to do the impossible by God, and he knew it. He loved to run, and blew everyone away with win after win when he started racing at only two years old. Only months later as a 3-year-old, he won the triple crown, breaking all three track records. The Belmont Stakes in particular he trampled by winning 31 lengths ahead of the next horse. Upon analysis, it was found that he sped up at every marker, finishing faster than he had started at a whopping 49 mph, a feat considered impossible on the league's longest track.

Of course the story attributes Secretariat's success to his trainer and owners' guidance, his pedigree, etc. We often do the same thing, crediting good things in our life to our own work or others influences. But the reality is that we would be nothing without God. If we achieve our dreams it is because God instilled things in us that we acknowledge are his, and trust that he will bring us to victory. While a horse, I believe Secretariat did this. 

No one could guess then that this horse's record at Belmont Stakes would still be the record now, 44 years later. But an autopsy on the horse after he died and newer photography science show what the horse knew all along. His heart was three times the size of a normal horse's heart, allowing his running stride to be 10-20% longer than any other racing horse in history at 110-115°. (To put this into perspective, a cheetah runs it's max with a 125° stride.) Secretariat knew he was born to win races, and he trusted that his God-made body would get him there. His colts didn't inherit his talent by the way, while he sired over 600 of them. It took another generation of horses in his lineage to start winning stakes again. Secretariat was truly unique.

In such a simple yet powerful way this reminded me that we are all truly just as unique, that we are all created with such a specific, amazing purpose. We may not know what that is yet or currently, I myself struggle with this from time to time. But we are God's, that's the most important thing! He designed us for untold victories, and we only need to acknowledge HIM in all we accomplish, and let him drive our dreams to win. One thing I loved about this movie and Secretariat's story was how closely it related to a chapter in the biblical book of Job. Here God is replying to Job's complaints saying, “Do you give the horse its strength or clothe its neck with a flowing mane? Do you make it leap like a locust, striking terror with its proud snorting? It paws fiercely, rejoicing in its strength, and charges into the fray. It laughs at fear, afraid of nothing; it does not shy away from the sword. The quiver rattles against its side, along with the flashing spear and lance. In frenzied excitement it eats up the ground; it cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds." -Job 39:19‭-‬24 NIV. Man does this describe Secretariat to a T! But it has a more important point: it's all God's power, not our own.

Secretariat knew where his strength and stamina came from, and it allowed him to do the impossible. And he was only a horse! Imagine where life would take us if we trusted head-on in God's purposeful plan for his most loved creation.

Rainy Day Favs

Rainy Spring days call for fun things to do indoors! Here's what I am into right now!!

While the noted San Diego band released their 10th album last summer, I only recently got it so I'm still in 😍 mode!

For a thrilling, high fantasy read with biblical allegory, try Jill Williamson's Kinsman Chronicles! I'm just now finishing the 2nd book, King's Blood! The 3rd won't be out for a while sadly...

But the next Medieval Fairy Tale by Melanie Dickerson, The Noble Servant (which hits book stores this May) should fill in the void quite nicely!

And recently the creative juices have been flowing with my own novel! If you can't find a book that you really want to read, write one yourself! 😃

On TV NBC's The Voice is back in full swing, and so is my favorite show Blindspot! 

🐝 And since it's Spring, might as well do some cleaning! 😉 What are your favorite things to do on a rainy day?

Mary Did You Know?

"Mary, did you know, That your baby boy will one day walk on water?

Mary, did you know, That your baby boy will save our sons and daughters?

Did you know That your baby boy has come to make you new?

This child that you've delivered Will soon deliver you

Mary, did you know, That your baby boy will give sight to a blind man?

Mary, did you know, That your baby boy will calm a storm with His hand?

Did you know That your baby boy has walked where angels trod?

And when you kiss your little baby You've kissed the face of God

The blind will see, The deaf will hear, And the dead will live again!

The lame will leap, The dumb will speak, The praises of the Lamb!

Mary, did you know, That your baby boy is Lord of all creation?

Mary, did you know, That your baby boy will one day rule the nations?

Did you know That your baby boy is heaven's perfect Lamb?

This sleeping child you're holding...

Is the Great I Am!

Oh Mary did you know?"

**Keep Christ In Christmas**

Why Staying Home for Thanksgiving Matters

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays, simply because it always brought my entire family together to enjoy each other's company. Growing up, and even more so now, we treated Thanksgiving like a potluck. The host usually made the turkey, but then everyone else brought their own additions, so the food was always special. But that was never the most important part. The company was. We always made a point to give each person a moment to say what they were thankful for that year, and we always said a prayer for the family before the night was over. After the meal, we would break out party activities. Some years those would be board games, other years parlor games (like charades). When all my cousins and I were teenagers, we had a tradition of watching a different Lord of the Rings movie each year. In recent years, we've been using the time to share photos of specials trips we've taken. But no matter what we did, it was always all together. It was always at someone's house, with candles lit, and a fire crackling away. It was always about community.

Black Friday has been a major shopping day for as long as I can remember. But it's only been in recent years that shopping on Thanksgiving has become a wide-spread thing. People now have Thanksgiving brunch so they can finish up and make the sale lines at 5pm. Last year sales on the holiday were very close to those that were made on Friday. Family time has become less important than getting the best holiday gift deal. Relaxing has become stressing out in checkout lines. Vandalism reports on the news have risen, and small, neighborhood corner-shops have been feeling squished. None of this is what Thanksgiving, a holiday to celebrate blessings and freedom, is all about.

Luckily more and more retailers and businesses are recognizing the problem, and are closing their doors on Thanksgiving Day. Some of the major ones include The Mall of America, Costco, Nordstrom, IKEA, Sam's Club, and AT&T. For a preliminary list this year, visit this article on KGW.com: Not Just The Mall Of America.

But we cannot just rely on big corporations to shift the holiday back to what it's supposed to be, especially when the world's largest retailer, Walmart, is refusing to close their doors. We must make an effort ourselves. An effort to stay home or go out of town with family and friends. An effort to stay away from shopping sales, in stores and online. An effort to connect with those we don't see every day. An effort to be thankful.

This year, let's make that effort.

Autumn Thoughts

"Daisy, give yourself away, Lookup at the rain, The beautiful display, Of power and surrender, Giving us today, And she gives herself away.

Rain, another rainy day, Comes up from the ocean, Give herself away, She comes down easy, On rich and debt the same, And she gives herself away.

Let it go, Daisy, Let it go, Open up your fist, This fallen world, Doesn't hold your interest, It doesn't hold your soul, Daisy, let it go.

Pain, give yourself a name, Call yourself contrition, Avarice of blame, Giving isn't easy, Neither is the rain, When she gives herself away.

Daisy, why another day?, Why another sunrise, Who will take the blame, For all redemptive motion, And every rainy day, When he gives himself away.

Let it go, Daisy, let it go, Open up your fist, This fallen world, It doesn't hold your interest, It doesn't hold your soul, Daisy, let it go.

Let it go."

~From the song 'Daisy' by Switchfoot