Welcome Snowdrops, the sure sign that Spring is on its way!
I have a collection of pictures for you of the various February happenings here at our farm. We moved from big white snowbanks, to oodles of mud, to bits of green hinting of spring. My Valentines project called for collecting grapevines in the cold sharp wind and shaping some wreaths to decorate with hearts and ribbons. So pretty, with a curly touch of natural beauty.
Maybe you’d like to see this prickly Valentine I received as a token of smiling friendship. It tickles me!
Typically these are called Christmas cactus, so why would this be blooming for Valentines Day? One more thing on my list of things to be grateful for.
A big project over this winter was beading laces for the Fellowship of Christian Farmer’s ministry. As you recall, we like to take part in providing these laces for the folks in the ministry to pass out at fairs and farm shows where they are each tied onto a walking stick that gets handed out for free to those interested in hearing the Gospel story that the beads represent. You can read more about that on my site here: FCFI
We were happy to have completed 3,500 laces. You can see some of them here tied in bundles of 100. It is a privilege to be involved in supporting those who work with sharing God’s good news. Is there anything you can do to help spread the Word?
Here is a card that is attached to the walking sticks to explain the story of the beads.
This is the little tray that I use to hold the bead supply as I work. First a knot, then the 5 beads, then another knot. Then into piles of 100 to bundle. Meanwhile praying that God will bless the people who hear as well as the people who share the love of God from their hearts.
Another exciting part of February is the return of the eagles to the Wildlife Refuge near us. My Dad took these pictures through the spotting scope he uses. This shot shows the eagle at the top of the tree where they have built a new nest this year. Just look at the size of that nest! Imagine them flying in with sticks that big.
Below you will see the head of the female as she has now begun setting on eggs.
This next shot is a real classic. The eagles are such noble birds.
And now for some adorableness. Gracie is growing so quickly! At 14 weeks old she is loving lots of attention and a good romp with some silly fun thrown in.
Some longer hair is growing on her tail and belly but she is still so soft and fluffy, a joy to stroke.
The book I have been reading lately is The Autobiography of George Muller. He was the one to run the orphanages in Bristol, England in the 1800s totally on faith without expressing his needs to anyone but God alone. His desire was to show that God can be trusted, that He does care about our daily needs and can be relied upon to supply as the needs arise. God enjoyed the chance to demonstrate His abilities and did so amazingly. This book has been hugely inspiring to me.
Here is a quote from his May 7, 1841, diary entry:
“The primary business I must attend to every day is to fellowship with the Lord. The first concern is not how much I might serve the Lord, but how my inner man might be nourished. I may share the truth with the unconverted; I may try to encourage believers; I may relieve the distressed; or I may, in other ways, seek to behave as a child of God; yet, not being happy in the Lord and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, may result in this work being done in a wrong spirit.
The most important thing I had to do was to read the Word of God and to meditate on it. Thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, and instructed…
As the outward man is not fit for work for any length of time unless he eats, so it is with the inner man. What is the food for the inner man? Not prayer, but the Word of God – not the simple reading of the Word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe. No, we must consider what we read, ponder over it, and apply it to our hearts…
Through His Word… our Father speaks to us, encourages us, comforts us, instructs us, humbles us, and reproves us…
Meditation on God’s Word has given me the help and strength to pass peacefully through deep trials. What a difference there is when the soul is refreshed in fellowship with God early in the morning! Without spiritual preparation, the service, the trials, and the temptations of the day can be overwhelming.”
~ George Muller