We love sand! It’s fun to play with and to walk on too. We like going to the beach where we can make sand castles and write in the sand, only to see it washed clean when the first wave rolls into shore. But sometimes . . .
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When my Aunt Ruth was dying, the Lord brought cousin Judy (Ruth’s only living child) one of the “old” songs each day to comfort and encourage her, songs like “It is Well With My Soul,” “I Love to Tell the Story,” and “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” It is that last one that I’ve been thinking about a lot this week.
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She was a middle-aged woman, approaching us while we were cleaning up after our breakfast in a local park in Morro Bay, CA. Her greeting, however, caught us by surprise.
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Sometimes things happen that we just don’t understand, like the artwork above. We had planned to stay a week in San Jose near Daniel and Dia, and then head on down to Yosemite, Sequoia, and Grand Canyon before the weather got too cool in the mountains to visit those awesome features of nature. When our van was damaged, it necessitated a change in plans, and as it turned out, the accident truly did become a blessing in disguise. Let me enumerate our blessings:
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Our previous article left some of our readers with unanswered questions. So we are attempting to resolve those questions. Whenever a particular experience takes place, there is always some kind of “resolution” as time moves forward.
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What do you do when the unexpected happens? In our case, we had parked the van and were in a store when a Toyota decided to take our parking place.
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Believed to have originated in Japan or China, the Resurrection Lily has simple leaves, which are not present when the flowers emerge from the crown. The leaves sprout and grow in the spring, then die back during June. Then in late July or early August the flowers appear. The flowers are white or pink and fragrant. The flowers spring dramatically from the ground in mid to late summer; it usually takes only four to five days from first emergence to full bloom.
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Bonnie and I have heard from “our youth up” about the Redwood trees and how big they grow. They actually are taller than the giant Sequoya trees but they are only half the diameter at the base. Nevertheless, they are giants created by an even bigger God who delights in amazing His people.
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The California Costal Redwoods are gigantic trees that cannot easily be conveyed with still pictures or even with videos.
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While exploring the Oregon coast, we made it a goal to visit all nine of the historic lighthouses on the Oregon coast—and we did it!
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We were taking a little hike to see the Octopus Tree. We didn’t really know what to expect and were anxious to get a glimpse of this wonder of God’s creation. When the tree came into view we were quite surprised by the shape and size of the tree. But that wasn’t the only thing that was a surprise to us that day.
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It’s hard to believe that we’ve been away from Tennessee for over seven months. I intended to write a reflection on the first six months, but we were so busy in August just keeping up with our travel blogs, that I didn’t have a chance. So this morning I’m sitting in a church parking lot at 6 am, unable to sleep, and thought I’d give it a go.
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While we were at Fort Langley, two of the docents sang this song for us. Nette said this was one of the songs that was sung during the gold rush period. It struck a chord with us.
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At 8:32 AM, Pacific TIme, on May 18, 1980, the volcano known as Mount St. Helens exploded sending ash and mountain dust around the world and killing 57 people.
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Family—we are constantly reminded of the importance of the family unit to everyday living. How much more important it is to those who are undertaking a treacherous journey, as were the settlers who by the hundreds of thousands in the 1830s through the 1860s started out from Independence, Missouri to find a new life in the far west.
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