"Return to your rest, O my soul,

For the Lord has dealt bountifully with you."

Psalm 116:7

Random Thoughts from our Nest...

Addie said one night recently, "Mom, when I grow up, you can live in my pool house."

So, we are setting a good example.

Ezra sat studiously writing his Christmas list at the table when we came over for dinner the other night.  He asked for an iPhone 11, daredevil triplet brothers, a time machine, a gang in the garage (?), and a kitten.  Which do you think he will get?  None of the above according to his parents.

Our brand of humor: Al says that maybe he will join the gym where people pull tires up and down the sidewalk.  I told him if he did, I would pull up my folding chair in the gutter to watch him and laugh my head off.  

Life in the country means watching eight year old Ezra running around in his skivvies chasing his dogs Phineas and Belle while Addie comes over in her nightgown and chases our dog Maggie in the big field.  It means one neighbor puts on live rock concerts using hits from the seventies and eighties while the other blasts music from a Mexican radio station on the other side.  As for us, we turn up our Blue Grass music or contemporary Christian music.  Fortunately, we don't all do it at the same time.  But perhaps the best music is that of birdsong that sends us searching for our bird book.

Retirement means cheering on our long time favorite teams, the S.F. Giants and the Kings, but adding the Washington Nationals and even the 49ers.  It means watching the grass grown in our mini fenced yard racing the gophers.  It means trying to fattening up the hubby as well as searching for his lost glasses or medicines.  (How can we lose things in our tiny nest?)  It means sitting on our porch soaking up the Indian summer sun while reading, reading, and reading some more on our Kindle ebooks.  (My superpower is being able to read while also watching the news, sports, westerns and even Hallmark movies.)  It means simmering thoughts that may turn into a poem...

Gardens were not made for weeds;

Fruits were not all made to be eaten;

Leaves were not made for hiding;

Paths were not meant for walking alone.

Eyes were not made for tears;

Hearts, not made for sorrow;

Bodies, not made for sickness;

Days, not made to be drear.

But faith is sure of the unseen;

Hope is anchored in heaven;

Patience waits in the storm for the rainbow;

Love, on tiptoe with joy for what will be.

LESSONS FROM A ROCK

"I ALSO SAY TO THEE, THAT THOU ART PETER,

AND UPON THIS ROCK I WILL BUILD MY CHURCH,

"AND THE GATES OF HELL SHALL NOT PREVAIL AGAINST IT."

(Matthew 16:18, KJV)

Peter is the Rock.  It reminds me of the picture of a rock that has split open with a flower or tree growing out of it.  So the author of I Peter (the rock man) says, 

"FOR YOU HAVE BEEN BORN AGAIN NOT  OF SEED 

WHICH IS PERISHABLE BUT IMPERISHABLE,

THAT IS THROUGH THE LIVING AND ENDURING 

WORD OF GOD.

FOR, 'ALL FLESH IS LIKE GRASS,

AND ALL IT GLORY LIKE THE FLOWER OF GRASS.

THE GRASS WITHERS, AND THE FLOWER FALLS OFF,

BUT THE WORD OF THE LORD

ENDURES FOREVER.'

AND THIS IS THE WORD WHICH WAS PREACHED TO YOU."

I Peter 1:23-25

It's spring and all thoughts are turned to seeds.  I don't know about you, but I can get my hands dirty, dig, and plant little bitty seeds, water them, but half the time those seeds are duds and never appear due to my not so green thumb.  They don't even grow so they can wither and their flower can fall off.  So "seed" can mean that which can be planted to make things grow in the dirt of earth--or not, like me--, or it can mean the seed implanted by a man in a woman that can also make something grow, a baby, providing descendants.  I've had three of those myself.

This last is not a common contemporary use of the word, but is more Bible-talk.  I think of when the Holy Spirit came upon the virgin Mary, and overshadowed her, she conceived "the holy thing begotten." This is the seed which is imperishable.  They planted Jesus in the ground three days before He rose out of there, breaking the power of sin and death, showing that the Word is imperishable.  As humans we will be like that grass that withers or that flower that  falls off.  Don't even get me started on how I'm withering.  Yet when we were born again, everything changed.  We too are now born of imperishable seed!  How?  Through the living and enduring Word of God, that which endures forever.  Who is the Word?  I John says He is the Word.

"What which was from the beginning, 

which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes,

which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled,

of the Word of life."

(I John 1:1)

There is the mystery of Jesus' conception with the virgin Mary.  Also, there is a mystery when we are born again through the same Spirit, not in the womb, but through the Word that endures forever.  By baptism we water that seed.  We nurture its growth in the Word.  And it is this Word that promises that we will endure forever, a promise given and a promise kept.  In other words, the bio-gradable peanut shell perishes, but the nut goes to heaven, some glad morning.

I will now be using my blog

at scriptureandstoriesblogspot.com