Life Here and Spring Pictures!! :)

Today I got outside and took some pictures of the lovely flowers that are showing up around our house at last! They have just started coming out this week and I am past thrilled to see them!


Life here has been very crazy; I have been running around like the proverbial chicken trying to keep up with school, work, life here at home, getting ready for college, and preparing to leave on a mission trip to Arizona this Thursday.


So it's quite nice to get outside and see the flowers, hear the birds, and feel the warm spring breezes. Makes me happy I live a mile and a half from my job and get to walk home three days a week! :) But almost even better is getting pictures of spring!


Courage to everyone in more northerly climates...just hold on and this, too, will be yours in a few weeks or months! :D For now, it's off with me to northern Arizona, where the highs will be somewhere in the 50s and we might get snow...hmmm, I suppose it will make me appreciate this more when I get back!

And these pictures are all "un-Photoshopped" too. I think I begin to get the hang of this! ;)

Why?

(big old tree on a hike in the Appalachian mountains last fall)

Last fall we went up to a local apple orchard with some friends. What a beautiful fall day! Even though I hate being cold, I can't help but love fall! It's so cozy and warm and brings back such good memories.

On the way back home (with lots of apples and some "rainbow" popcorn) we passed a church with a little "saying" on its sign. I enjoy these aphorisms in general, but this one really caught my eye...and not exactly in a good way either. In bold black letters it proclaimed: SHARING THE GOSPEL BECAUSE OF GOD'S ANGER.

I admit to being a little shocked. Sharing the gospel...the "good news"...because of God's anger? Is that the best reason for witnessing!?! Is that even a good reason for sharing who we are--however we choose to share? If what we're sharing is innately "good news," do we even need another reason to share it?

But then I started thinking. To spread things out a little (because I don't go around all day consciously witnessing) why am I serving God and others in the ways that I am? Why are all of us? Some of us are homeschooled teens like myself, others stay-at-home daughters, others stay-at-home moms, others working at various jobs...I don't know who you all are. But why are we doing what we're doing? Is it because we're afraid, consciously or not, of what will happen if we don't do it? Or is it because we're in love with Jesus and convinced that His plan for our lives--and the lives of others--is beyond our wildest best dreams?

"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." (2 Tim. 1:7) Just something to think on.

Photo--February Week 1

Little waterfall in the creek two ridges over from our house. I went out and took "water pictures" today and this was one of my favorites! :) By the way, this photo is entirely unedited. I'm working on creating more pictures that turn out without extensive Photoshop. ;)