Excerpt from The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom

"It grew harder and harder. Even within these four walls there was too much misery, too much seemingly pointless suffering. Every day something else failed to make sense, something else grew too heavy.


"But as the rest of the world grew stranger, one thing became increasingly clear. And that was the reason the two of us were here. Why others should suffer we were not shown. As for us, from morning until lights-out, whenever we were not in ranks for roll call, our Bible was the center of an ever-widening circle of health and hope.


"Like waifs clustered around a blazing fire, we gathered about it, holding out our hearts to its warmth and light. The blacker the night around us grew, the brighter and truer and more beautiful burned the Word of God.


"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?...Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us."


"I would look about us as Betsie read, watching the light leap from face to face. More than conquerors...It was not a wish. It was a fact.


"We knew it, we experienced it minute by minute--poor, hated, hungry. We are more than conquerors. Not "we shall be." We are!"


-The Hiding Place

1 Peter 2:24

And He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross,
so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness;
for by His wounds you were healed.

Wow!! It has been a long time since I have posted! Sorry.



This is a little part of a song from a book I like.



" Oak granite,

Lilies by the road,

Remember me?

I remember you.

Clouds brushing

Clover hills,

Remember me?

Sister, child,

Grown tall,

Remember me?

I remember you."



From Ella Enchanted

Friends

This is a little something I wrote.

Sometimes when people make friends they pick the people that are nice or look like they will be nice. Some people pick friends very slowly and it takes time for them to become friends. Then there are people who make friends with whoever comes her or his way. And then again, there are people who will be nice to you and slowly make you, willing or not, to like them. I am one of those people. Let me explain what I mean. I had a friend that I had made, in a sense, like me. I was in soccer and she was on my team. She was having trouble making friends at school, and when she did they would turn their back on her. She decided that she would not make friends at soccer just to have them go away. (In other words, when you make friends at sports you might call each other for a week or so, but you probably don't stay in touch that long. ) I was sitting on my ball looking at all the girls when I saw her. When I see someone I like I make friends with them, or try to. Well, she was the chosen prey. And as I said before, she did not want to make friends. But I, not knowing this, started with a friendly "hi" as anyone does when meeting someone new. Then I asked questions. The first one of course was, "What is your name?" then came, "How old are you?" and so forth. Soon I had her talking. As she told me later, she was only being nice, but as I said, I got her talking and we became friends. Week after week we called each other, even after soccer was over for the season. It has been five years now and we are as close as ever.

My Grandma & Me

A Shawl

My mom made this shawl for me for Christmas.
It is soooo pretty!

Sewing

This is a doll dress my mom and I worked on for two days.
I received the pattern for Christmas.
She did the pinning and I did the sewing.

Happy New Year

Christmas

Take another look at the manger this Christmas.
Look beyond the tender scene and see what Jesus
Himself knew even before He came-that He was born to die.

He died for you. He bore your sin. He purchased your salvation.
He guaranteed your sanctification. He destroyed your enemy.
And He became a sympathetic high priest. Even as you read this,
He is seated next to the Father in heaven,
ready to make intercession for you (Hebrews 7:25).

This is God's gift to you.

God's Gift of Christmas~ John MacArthur

Christmas

"She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus,
for He will save His people from their sins."
~Matthew 1:21

The name, Jesus, means "Jehovah will save."

"Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son,
and they shall call His name Immanuel," which
translated means, "God with us."
~Matthew 1:23

"For today in the city of David there has been
born for you a Savior, Who is Christ the Lord."
~Luke 2:11

The title Christ means "the annointed one."

Christmas

This is the immeasurable gift of Christmas. Christ,
God's own Son, gave up His wealth and privilege to
live as God with us, Immanuel, that He might save
His people from our sins and that through His
poverty we might become rich.

The miraculous gift of Christmas is God being born
in a manger, so we can be born again in His glory.

God's Gift of Christmas~ John MacArthur

Christmas

The word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
-John 1:14

Winter fun!

snow
angels!

















sledding!












More
sledding

Christmas Cactus

A Recipe for You

~Pumpkin Scones~

2 c. flour (all-purpose)

1 1/2 t. baking powder

1/2 t. salt

1 1/2 t. pumpkin pie spice

6 T. butter

1/3 c. pumpkin puree (fresh or canned)
1/3 c. heavy cream

6 T. brown sugar

1 t. vanilla

The key is cold ingredients.

Cut the butter into pats and put back in the fridge.

Measure the flour, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, and salt in bowl,

and put that bowl in the fridge as well.

In another bowl, combine pumpkin puree, cream, brown sugar, and vanilla.

Mix well. Put in fridge.

Remove flour and butter from fridge, and cut the butter into the flour mixture

using a pastry cutter until the flour is coarse crumbles.

Add in the pumpkin mixture from the fridge, and stir just until everything is moist.

Turn dough out onto flour-dusted surface.

Knead just enough until everything sticks together.

Form into a circle approximately 1 inch thick.

Cut into 8 pie pieces.

Place on baking stone or parchment lined sheet.

Don't let the scones touch each other.

Bake for 15 min. at 425. or until done.

Molasses icing: Combine 1 T. molasses, 1 T. milk, 1/2 t. ground ginger,

and enough powdered sugar to make a thick icing.

Drizzle over the top of the scones once they've slightly cooled.

Autumn Sunset

The wind struck swiftly, swinging the bright banners to and fro,
clutching at bits and sending tatters of the maple's gold, the oak's crimson,
the beech's copper into the air, reaching vainly for the pine's dark strength.
The trees quivered and were silent as the wind raged around them;
they stood with dark trunks rooted in the earth and crossed boughs held
uplifted to the heavens.
As Jared gazed at the boughs, now almost bare, he saw on every twig
tight buds outlined against the sunset gold: the crimson secret of the oak,
the enscaled cradle of the maple, the little sheathed sword of the beech.
"Faith, my friend," the pine seemed to whisper, "faith has the last
word always."

The Journeyman~Elizabeth Yates

Spiderman

This is Andrew on his birthday.

It is soooo cute!

first snow

Andrew, Sophie, and I built our first snowmen of the season.

cell phone~vs~Bible

Ever wonder what would happen if we treated
our Bible like we treated our cell phone?
What if we carried it around in our purses or pockets?
What if we flipped through it several times a day?
What if we turned back to go get it if we forgot it?
What if we used it to receive messages from the text?
What if we treated it like we couldn't live without it?
What if we gave it to kids as gifts?
What if we used it when we traveled?
What if we used it in case of emergency?
This is something to make you go....hmm...where is my Bible?

~writer not known

The Swing

How do you like to go up in a swing,

Up in the air so blue?

Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing

Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,

Till I can see so wide,

River and trees and cattle and all

Over the countryside--

Till I look down on the garden green,

Down on the roof so brown--

Up in the air I go flying again,

Up in the air and down!

By Robert Louis Stevenson

I say "to-may-to" you say "to-mah-to" ~~

Smile!

little brother's first lost tooth

A little snack~apple fries.
Notice the "ketchup".
See the little polka dotted
antique bowl?

a quote for my dad

"I love the fall. I love it because of the smells that you speak of; and also because things are dying, things that you don't have to take care of anymore, and the grass stops growing."

- Mark Van Doren

For my friends, The W's

The Hayloft
by Robert Louis Stevenson

Through all the pleasant meadow-side
The grass grew shoulder-high,
Till the shining scythes went far and wide
And cut it down to dry.

Those green and sweetly smelling crops
They led in wagons home;
And they piled them here in mountain tops
For mountaineers to roam.

Here is Mount Clear, Mount Rusty-Nail,
Mount Eagle and Mount High;--
The mice that in these mountains dwell,
No happier are than I!

Oh, what a joy to clamber there,
Oh, what a place for play,
With the sweet, the dim, the dusty air,
The happy hills of hay!

Gathering Leaves

by Robert Frost

Spades take up leaves

No better than spoons,

And bags full of leaves

Are light as balloons.

I make a great noise

Of rustling all day

Like rabbit and deer

Running away.

But the mountains I raise

Elude my embrace,

Flowing over my arms
And into my face.

I may load and unload

Again and again

Till I fill the whole shed,

And what have I then?

Next to nothing for weight,

And since they grew duller

From contact with earth,

Next to nothing for color.

Next to nothing for use.

But a crop is a crop,

And who's to say where

The harvest shall stop?

Of all the forest creatures that dwell under forest eaves,

Perched upon the branches or feasting on it leaves,

There lives a mighty mite more mighty than them all.

It does not claw or scratch and stands only one inch tall.

It will not strangle like a serpent or stalk you like a cat.

It does not beat you like a bugbear or bite you like a bat.

It cannot crush its prey or maim it or drop it down a hole.
It has no deadly poison but is as a troll.

So what is this fell and mighty beast? And what terror does it hold.
That rules the sprawling forest and makes faint hearts of the bold?
Why, it is the purple spotted meep frog, a truly perilous pest.
And lest you laugh, I promise it is more fearsome than the rest.

For doughty knight may face a panther or the fiery dragon slay,
But if he sees the purple meep, he'll clutch his ears and run away.
For one little meeper is bad enough, its meeping song annoys.
But when there are ten thousand they will drive you mad with noise!

from The Rise of the Wyrm Lord (#2 of The Door Within Trilogy)

-Wayne Thomas Batson

Sometime

Sometime, when all life's lessons have been learned,
And suns and stars forevermore have set,
The things o'er which we grieved with lashes wet,
Will flash before us out of life's dark night,
As stars shine most in deeper tints of blue;
And we shall see how all God's plans are right,
And how what seemed like reproof was love most true.

Then be content poor heart;
God's plans, like lilies pure and white, unfold;
We must not tear the close-shut leaves apart,-
Time will reveal the chalices of gold.
And if, through patient toil, we reach the land
Where tired feet, with sandals loosed, may rest,
When we shall clearly see and understand,
I think that we will say, "God knew the best."

-May Riley Smith