"Count Your Many Blessings" (re-post) @kingfishercrossing

Trying again. Yesterday blogspot wouldn't let me in to finish posting.

    When upon life’s billows you are tempest tossed,
    When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
    Count your many blessings name them one by one,
    And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.
        Count your blessings, name them one by one;
        Count your blessings, see what God hath done;
        Count your blessings, name them one by one,
            And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.

    Are you ever burdened with a load of care?
    Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear?
    Count your many blessings, every doubt will fly,
    And you will be singing as the days go by.
          Count your blessings, name them one by one;
          Count your blessings, see what God hath done;
         Count your blessings, name them one by one,
            And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.

Johnson Oatman, Jr.  1897

For more verses, and the tune to this hymn, see

    http://www.hymnal.net/hymn.php/h/707

Are you tempest-tossed, or burdened with a load of care?
(Or maybe today everything is going okay.)
What blessings are you counting today?


This post is shared with Laura Boggess

"Count Your Many Blessings"

A Pattern in Lace

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A PATTERN IN LACE


A piece of tossed string,
Flung onto a business mail envelope
That I’d just ripped inside-out.
This combo was to be the subject for a photo
Which might be transformed into some sort of artwork.
Alas, the photo turned out blurred!
Error, mistake – my whole idea a silly thing.

Ah, but a corner of the string
Did become a sort of “bling”.
Lace.  Who would have guessed it?
Not woven into lace by a hand or machine,
But made through graphic manipulation,
An interesting thing!

Motif, design, deco, or whimsy, or fling:
I created a piece of designy art.
God’s work in me is like that –
Intricate, wonderful, with unexpected outcome.
Do I have such a pattern in lace, in my life?
Oh, Creator of All, to you Lord God,
A tribute of joyous praise I sing.

copyright 2013 by Marilee Miller

This post is shared with Laura Boggess, The Wellspring

A Part of God's Family

A Part of God’s Family

She sent me a sack of red apples,
By way of her obliging son,
Beautiful shining crisp crimsons
From heavily-laden tree in her yard.

And I sent back, by her son,
Some books I’d wanted to give
For oh, so long a time, but
Just never got around to the delivery.

We hear so much these days
About the need for “being in community”.
But some of us have difficulty
Getting together physically, even one on one.

Sometimes, in our need, we cling
To our simple joy as part of the
Worldwide church, God’s family.
Letting that thought comfort us in our walk.

And then sometimes, God moves
Mysteriously, and “in community”
We are joined together in spirit and in life
By real kindness shown through a third party.

All Glory to the Lord, no matter how, or what!
Community comes in many flavors;
And we’re all a part of God’s family.  Blessed thought!



(c) 2013 by Marilee Miller



This post is shared with Laura Boggess'  "Playdates with God"

A Little-known Fact from US History

The Opinion Pages of the N Y Times relates a little-known incident from the US Civil War.

During the Civil War, the Northern army blockaded ports in Southern States, stopping commercial shipping.  The South didn’t have the means to build large ships that could become an effective navy.  So.  the Rebs sent raiders to sea, scuttling or torching ships that turned out to be American, and capturing vessels and trying to bribe crews of other nations to work for the South (to be paid by the Confederates after they won the war.) 

The Confederacy also secretly purchased European ships to re-outfit as warships.  One little-known story concerns such a vessel that had been berthed in England.  Newly converted and renamed, the Shenandoah sailed to the Bering Strait (off the coast of Alaska) under orders to destroy whaling ships that originated from New England, thus damaging the Northern economy.

Eventually the Shenandoah ended up circumnavigating the earth.  However, while still at sea, the captain learned that the Civil War had ended, and General Lee had surrendered, months before the Shenandoah had destroyed 21 Union ships in the Bering Sea.  The crew was guilty of  “maritime piracy”.


See http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/12/the-secrets-of-the-shenandoah/  by Tom Chaffin

(This review of the article is by Marilee Miller)

This incident suggests to me that I need to be in constant communication with Christ, my Leader.  I desire to do his will.  I want to live a godly life.  But it would be easy for me to think I knew what He wanted from me, and then charge ahead with my own plans.  When I continually give "all of me" to Him, may He equip me to be conformed to Christ's image.  Then I won't be guilty of failing to enter in to the process of becoming part of the Kingdom of God.

This post is shared with Laura Boggess, Playdates with God

 

Hidden

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HIDDEN

This is another "what is it?" photo. It was supposed to show a white cat. But she moved as I was clicking the shutter – so I captured only a mysterious bag, or amorphous blob. And the summer-sere grass isn’t lovely to look at.

Guess it’s time to play! I can’t reproduce the missing cat. However, my graphics program and my imagination can create a rock in front of a field of lavender flowers. Or a scruffy hill in storm-threat weather. Or a headland (bluff) against a vivid sky. All the hidden colors, surprisingly, emerge from the same set of shapes.

I am "hidden in Christ Jesus". I don’t always know if, or how, others see me. Maybe as not so beautiful. Maybe as a mystery? Sometimes I don’t even know who I really am! Yet how I praise God that in his eyes, I’m not an oddish bag lady or amorphous blob. I don’t even wear summer-sere! He sees my colors of faith and hope in him. And his glory both enhances my imagination, and brings out the hidden beauty in me.

"For I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I’ve committed unto him against that day."

"I know whom I have believed in, and am persuaded that he is able, to keep that which I’ve committed unto him, against that day" [of his return, or the day when I at last behold him face to face].

Hidden