Amazing Love

The other day I was looking up at the sky and it was so beautiful, such a deep blue and the clouds were swirling like this in the wind up there, it was so pretty I called Andy out to see it.  If you ever take a moment to gaze up into the sky it doesn't take long and you feel pretty small.  The universe is just so huge and vast.  Did you know God's love is that big?  Psalm 57:10 and Psalm 103:11 say,

For great is your love, reaching to the heavens;

your faithfulness reaches to the skies.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

so great is his love for those who fear him.

That's a lot of love!  These verses from Romans 5:8, and Ephesians 2:4-5 tell us how God made his love for us real.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this:

While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

But because of his great love for us,

God, who is rich in mercy,

made us alive with Christ

even when we were dead in transgressions —

it is by grace you have been saved.

What an amazing, good, God we have.  His love is perfect.



In memory of Trigger

Our little miniature foal, Trigger, died today.  She fell into some muddy water and couldn't get back out and so she drowned.  Isn't that awful?  Andy pulled her out but it was too late.  We are all so sad.  She was such a fun little horse and so friendly.  When we were walking across the yard she would come up behind us and nibble on our back, trying to get attention so we'd scratch her back and pet her.  We'll miss her.  She was almost more like a dog than a horse, how she would follow us around.  The kids loved her too- as you can see in this picture of SJ and Trigger. 

In everything?

Every once in a while God gives us insight into why he allows those really tough things into our lives.  Even when he does, sometimes it's still hard to be thankful for it.  But just this morning I felt God telling me that I needed to write down one of those hard things on my thankful list.  So I did, through my tears.

#725. Infertility 

It was so hard to write down!  But if we had always been able to have babies easily, we would never have adopted, I'm sure of it.  We would have thought it was too expensive and too complicated.  There would have been no PD, DJ, SJ or AJ in our family!  And that thought is unbearable.  In this situation, God gave me the insight into why he allowed such a hard thing into our lives. 

Give thanks in all circumstances,

for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

1 Thessalonians 5:18

Always giving thanks to God the Father for everything,

in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 5:20  

No matter what your struggle is, God is sovereign- that means he knows all about it, he knows why he allowed it in your life, he has a good purpose in it and he knows what the future holds for you.  That is why we can give him thanks in everything.  He can be fully trusted.

Five year old reasoning

Our little AJ is really thinking things through these days.  It's so funny the things he comes up with!  He is learning that God made the world and everything in it, so we have daily discussions about how God made everything, but then people take the things that God made and make other things, like houses, chocolate chip cookies, etc. 

Well, one day AJ said, "I think God forgot when he made Bud Light."  I guess God didn't realize that might be a bad thing to make???

As we were driving home from church yesterday he said, "I think the gas slowly leaks out of the car, that's why we have to fill it up with gas every once in a while."  I had to let Andy explain that one!

The other day AJ told Andy he knew how they make scooters.  He said, "First they take scooter juice, pour it in a machine, and out comes a scooter!"

Wildflowers

Our boys know how much I like flowers so this morning LA and SJ surprised me with some wildflowers they found in the clearing.  Aren't they pretty?  They found some nice ones.  I wish I knew the names of all the different kinds.  If anyone knows what they are you can leave a comment!

Hooray for feeling good!

Some of the wildflowers blooming in our pasture right now.

(To read the beginning of this story click here).  The last few weeks I haven't been feeling too good.  There have been a lot of "laying on the couch all day" days.  It can get a little discouraging.  Last week the doctor gave me some new pills and they seem to have helped though and the last couple days I have felt better than I have in a long time.  It's so exciting to feel good when you've felt bad for so long!  It seems a little silly to be excited to be able to push your shopping cart all the way through Walmart without wearing out but just last week I couldn't even push it a little ways and this week I did the whole thing myself!  (:

Feeling good and having energy is such a wonderful blessing and I am so thankful to be feeling better this week.  You don't realize what a blessing good health is until it's gone.  God is good and he gives us what we need-- yes, there are days when I am so tired of feeling bad-- but God continues to teach me to rely on him and remember that he is the great Healer.  My doctor is great, but he can't heal me, only God can do that. 

But as for me, I will always have hope;

I will praise you more and more.  Psalm 71:14

Yummy BBQ Ribs

Many years ago I got this great BBQ ribs recipe from my friend, Tonya.  It's so easy and tastes so great, that I thought I'd share it with you.  We had it for supper tonight and there aren't any leftovers!  This recipe works with any type of ribs, but we prefer the boneless pork ribs.  First you get a big piece of tin foil and line a 9x13 pan with it.  Then you place the ribs in the pan.

Next, you pour most of a bottle of BBQ sauce on top of the ribs and add a little water.  This is a good opportunity to use up the last little bits of BBQ sauce in the bottom of the bottles that you have been saving in your fridge.  Maybe you don't do that, but we always seem to have one or two. 

Now you just wrap the foil around the ribs and kind of fold it together to seal.  Then put them in the oven and bake at 350 for about 3 hours.  These go great with Nicole's Potatoes recipe that I posted a while back.  Hope you like them!