It's Pink Saturday Again!

Once again it's time for another edition of Pink Saturday. For this week's edition I have a couple of lovely pinks for you. The first is a quilt I made for my daughter. Her bedroom is a loft above our kitchen and it is all pink. She has pink cabinets, pink bow borders and pink walls. She loves pink and this is the quilt I made for her bed.

This next photo is of one of my daughters and believe it or not, it was taken just last week on Cape Cod in MA. We had a beautiful fairly warm day in the midst of snowing and cold and took the opportunity to head to the ocean while we were at my mom's. We have been studying oceans and were at the point of studying shells so we were looking for a chance to collect some, and boy did we, we came home loaded down. I love this photo, don't you think even the water looks pink?



















By the way, the lovely lady in this photo is participating in Pink Saturday this week on her very own blog. She is very excited and would love for you all to drop by at
www.crittersncrafts.blogspot.com

Thanks to Beverly at How Sweet The Sound for organizing Pink Saturday for us all.

Handmade Blank Journal from Vintage Book Cover

I made the outside of this journal from the cover of a book called "Do You Love Someone?" The journal is a pretty pinkish color and closes with a corded tie. Inside you'll find 28 cream colored pages with deckle cut edges. You'll also find some stitched fabric pockets to hold notes and keepsakes. I also included some of the little images from the original book on the corners of a few of the pages.

Faith for Today, Hope for Tomorrow

I was traveling recently to visit my Grandmother who is fighting leukemia at 83 years of age. As I was driving, I was listening to a recording of a friend of ours, he had given a talk on the subject of hope. It seems when hope is mentioned in scripture is it referring to things in the future. But when faith is mentioned it is referring to things of the present.

2 Corinthians 5:7
"For we walk by faith and not by sight."

2 Timothy 4:7
"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."

His talk got me thinking about my Grandmother, my Great-Grandmother and my Mother.
My Great-Grandmother was a Swedish immigrant who after moving to America as a young woman, never returned to her homeland. She never saw her mother or most of her family again. Times were so different then with no telephones, email, facetime, skype or webcams and communication was done primarily through letter writing. My family has many of the letters which my Great-Grandmother wrote home to Sweden and they have been translated from Swedish. In those letters is expressed the heartbreak of homesickness and longing. Buried in one of those letters is one line which still resounds in my heart many years after first reading them. I am paraphrasing that line here because I would have to go through every letter to find the exact line but it says something like this "if not for the hope of Glory, I would not be able to endure the heartache of missing you all".
While listening to the audio of our friend speaking it struck me that the legacy my Great-Grandmother, my Grandmother and my Mother have tried to instill in us all, is a legacy of faith and hope. They have instilled in us a faith in God, a faith which helps get us through today and the trials of life. But in addition to faith they have tried to point us towards hope, hope for Eternity, hope for Glory, hope for tomorrow. What a beautiful legacy to leave for those you love. In the end, isn't what really matters knowing that your loved ones know the Lord and Savior Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior? I know it is for me. I only hope I can leave a legacy of faith and hope for my children. I am so grateful that three incredible ladies loved me enough to pass on that legacy to me. Thank you Ma, I can't wait to meet you in Glory, and Thank you Nana and Thank you Mom. I love you with all my heart.

Still Praying for Rain

In one of my prior posts I shared how I was praying for rain and someone shared a song with me in regard to that post. I wanted to share that song with you. Here is a link to "Let it Rain" by Michael W. Smith.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qttxhgc8d9E
I hope you enjoy.

New Crafting Blog for Young Girls

If any of you have daughters who are into crafting you may want to have them check out a new blog. My 13 year old daughter has created a blog geared towards girls who are into creating and who are crazy about critters. She already has some great tutorials on there and has already taken pictures for more posts. She is very excited about it and would love to have some comments and / or followers. We promise you it will be a safe and wholesome place for your young ladies to visit on the web. Thanks for checking it out for her.
http://www.crittersncrafts.blogspot.com/

Pink Saturday - Valentines Day

Last week, when I was uploading pictures from my camera for Pink Saturday, I came across a photo and knew it had to be the next Pink Saturday picture. This is my daughter at a recent church sledding party. It's funny how on the day of the sledding party, I hadn't even noticed all the pink but when I saw the picture it was all I could see. How's that for Pink, one of my little valentines in all her pretty pink.
Happy Pink Saturday!
Happy Valentines Day!

Let it Rain!!

Ask the Lord for rain in the time of the latter rain.

The Lord will make flashing clouds;
He will give them showers of rain,
Grass in the field for everyone.
Zechariah 10:1

I am not sure why but I feel the Lord has asked me to pray for rain. And although I may never totally understand why He wants me to pray for rain, I know I will be blessed by the obedience of doing so. So I am praying. I also have been studying rain as it appears throughout scripture and I thought I would share some of my observations with you.

I see two types of physical rain in scripture. There is the type of rain which can be a scary, flooding, destroying, downpour, an example of which we see in Genesis with the Noah flood. The other type of rain is a sweet rain, a rain which nourishes a dry and thirsty ground, an example of this can be seen in 1 Kings. In Verse 18:1 of 1 Kings it says

"And it came to pass after many days that the word of the Lord came to Elijah, in the third year, saying, "Go, present yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the earth."

Then in verse 41 it says

"Then Elijah said to Ahab, "Go up, eat and drink; for there is the sound of abundance of rain."

This was the end of a drought. These people were happy to see the rain finally come.
Now, the other type of rain I see in scripture is not physical but is used for the sake of analogy.
We see examples of this many times throughout scripture, here are a few examples:

Sow for yourselves righteousness;
Reap in mercy;
Break up your fallow (or unplowed, unproductive) ground
For it is time to seek the Lord,
Till He comes and rains righteousness on you.
Hosea 10:12

I will make them and the places all around My hill a blessing;
and I will cause showers to come down in their season;
there shall be showers of blessing.
Ezekiel 34:26

There are many more verses where things like righteousness and blessings are said to "shower" down. Now the question which came to my mind while I was studying is this: Why did the Lord use the comparison of rain in these instances? I think it is because He wants us to know that the righteousness and the blessings which He will shower down are going to be abundant. Not only will they be abundant but they are going to be refreshing as well, like rain is to a dry, parched and thirsty ground.

So when storm clouds come, they don't necessarily mean dark days ahead. As the above verse from Zechariah says, flashing clouds, which we often think of as frightening, also come before blessing and refreshment. If there are dark clouds in your life right now, don't despair. Thank the Lord for the clouds and get on your knees and let's pray together for rain.