May Fever and a Blessed Day

Job 3:6 “As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months.”

Did you miss me? I didn’t think so. 

Well, last week I caught May fever and wrote posts for five days in a row cornering me into an ‘I need a break’ phase. The weather has been a pleasant 60ish to 70ish, not the unbearable 80ish I, and my body, so detest. We’ve had plenty of rain that is keeping the roads nice and muddy and the grass long and lanky one day after a mowing. 

The farming season has begun with the trucks barreling down the road, tillers tilling the fields, and the ever sneezy atmosphere of the fertilizer sprays. Did I mention the tree pollen and my neighbors' twelve-inch grass blowing in the wind? Please don’t say, “Do the neighborly thing and mow it for her,” she has a working riding mower and only mows the property that she lives in not the property (trailer) she rents and keeps as a dog house. Ahh, the life in the country that I would not trade for the world!

Today marks our one-year wedding anniversary and yes, we made it a whole year, coupled with the thirteen years that we dated. We might go out to lunch and then take in an afternoon movie. No, I will not be seeing a Marvel movie, hopefully. Somewhere I matured and am so not into superheroes. (minus my Christian Bale Batman excitement). They just wear too thin in the CGI category and no real plot to the story with hot nobodies turned into superwomen somehow. I roll my eyes half the time frustrating the man beside me who grew up a comic book fan and has to see every Marvel movie ever made!

I won’t be doing my much-loved gardening this year since I don’t have a tiller, can’t do the garden work because of my back problems, so I’m just going to let what flowers come up, appear and tend to them upon arrival.

Today is Friday the Thirteenth and while many think this is a bad luck day, I see it as a GOOD numbered day since this is the day we wed one year ago, and it is our thirteenth year of being together. I don’t believe in luck but if there is such a thing, thirteen would be my lucky number! 

Minus the 35 MPH sustained winds, all in all, it was a good day. We went to lunch at the China Buffet and had a delicious very filling meal where we came home afterward to sit and feel bloated. This little woman fills up after two plates and dessert. We stopped at a nursery on the way home and bought some Salvia for my garden. They are hardy perennials that I know will return year after year.

We wobbled home and began watching a movie called Failure to Launch, a clean, funny, romantic comedy that had me in stitches! It starred Matthew McConaughey and Sarah Jessica Parker. I LOVE Matthew and have only heard of Jessica; never really seen her in anything before.  Instead of spending $40 that it would take to go to a theater we saved our money and bought plants instead.

By serendipity, the weeks end happened. I say serendipity because hubby was going to ask for the two days off but when he received his schedule, his boss already had him off for two days, today and tomorrow too. See? Friday the 13th is a GOOD day! We made it an entire year! Woohoo! Okay, after spending thirteen years together I thought that was funny. 

I’ve got great friends who all gave me well wishes and it turned out to be a blessed day. Now onto another movie… You’ve Got Mail! And a full moon tonight…… *twilight zone music plays*

God Bless!

Job 41:17 “They are joined one to another, they stick together, that they cannot be sundered.”

Lent: Day Ten ~ Spiritual Maturity

Prov. 3:6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

Spiritual Maturity

Well they were new words tossed out at us one Sunday, Spiritual Maturity. What did it mean? To be mature in your Christian journey?

I spoke the other day about being Born Again, and it is just that, you are reborn, your eyes see differently the new world surrounding you. Like a babe in a bassinet, your hands are curled in a tight grip, as you look around you, you see the world in a mobile; a newly spinning environment.

Does being born again mean you just one day wake up and become sinless? No, we are all sinners, even the ones who walk with Christ, our road has as much rubble and thorns as anyone else, we just handle the road a little differently. Like babes in a crib our beginning is being wrapped in love, we are pacified of all the dangers lurking, but they’re there nonetheless.

In my case I was walked through a dark valley with surrounding hills shadowing me. I had no one that supported my new ‘born again’ status but Jesus knew and every step I took He was there on the sidelines cheering me on, or sparing a shoulder to cry on, or carrying me along the sandy shores.

There was a river flowing right through the center of the valley with sandy beaches leading to the water, it became my living water, just as the bible says. I was no longer a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes; I was a toddler getting into everything I could. Climbing stairs where I knew danger lurked. Opening cabinets full of poison. Touching fire and getting burned.

As my adolescent years of being born again were full of mischievous iniquity, I pursued everything that I knew I shouldn’t have. Climbing in dark tunnels, trudging up the side of tree lined hills, only to be knocked down to the waters edge. Always the water, the cleansing healing water.

I waded in the water for a bit feeling the spiritual cleansing on my soul. I was growing but was not fully mature yet so my path, lined with stone, made the footing that much harder to walk on.

Job 19:8 He hath fenced up my way that I cannot pass, and he hath set darkness in my paths.

I could see the path up ahead. It was getting greener and greener and grass was lining the walkway. Church was calling to me but I had to endure more rubble in my road first. Some really big boulders blocked my path and it was up to me to move them out of the way, climb over them, or allow them to hinder my goal of finding a pasture filled with wildflowers and sheep.

Even in my darkened days, there was a Light shining as bright as the morning star, warming my body and filling me with hope that there was a pasture, waiting just for me up ahead.

I think I was on my thirty seventh mile of walking barefoot that I saw it, singing out to me and calling like a bird in a tree, it sang a beautiful melody and moved me on to maturity I had never known.

I was now feeling a Spiritual Maturity wrapping around me. I was clothed, I had shoes now that made the path more bearable. Had I reached my destination? No, not yet. More walking but now my hand was full of seeds. I scattered the seeds along the path so anyone coming behind me on their path would see, see the beauty that they know is up ahead.

When they say the grass is always greener on the other side, they weren’t kidding. I saw a lush pasture; every blade of grass had its own song that sung in the morning dew. Filled with wildflowers the song became an orchestra of melody that chimed from the ground and kissed the sky good morning.

Day after day this song in the field lightened the walk. I saw sheep gathered on the hill grazing, talking about the beauty that lay in this pasture. A layer of wool adorned the hill, but lo, behold, a wolf, looking very much like a sheep, lashed out; snarling with teeth exposed, he was moving in for the kill.  I sprinted forward to put some kind of fear into the wolf and keep the sheep safe, protected in this beautiful land.

SILENCE

That’s what fills the air when hatred seeps in among the well-fed sheep. He looked like all the others and that is why the sheep didn’t fear him, but the closer he got to them, the lure of his instinctive wiles made him out to be just what he was, a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

To protect the sheep, I knew I’d need a staff, to help me guide them to safety. With a rod in my right hand, the Word in my left, clothed in beautiful raiment and sandals that sometimes allowed my toes to feel the grass, I was mature enough to know my place in the valley. I was now at the new heights of… Spiritual Maturity.

Pss. 25:10 All the paths of the LORD are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies.

God’s Promise:

Isa. 42:16 And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.

Poetry Sunday~ Tended

Job 14: 7 For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease.
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Tended 
(c) Joni Zipp
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Lavish land erupts with life.
fingers work the palette knife
lonely garden has no room
for the doubtful saddened bloom.

Bursting forth in a frenzied display
leaves struggle to come what may.
Seeds sail to the moistened soil,
pleasantly placed with little toil.

Grass it bleeds from the blade
burning beads for lack of shade.
bouncing back not missing a step,
safely sprayed alive with pep!

Nurtured now all newly grown
your life can reap all its sown.
The garden bows in bashful delight
the moon it blinks a warm goodnight.

All rights reserved: copyright © Joni Zipp