Yearly Archives: 2012

Great combination.  Visit my daughter and her family . . . and go to a car show with smoke!!

There really is a car in the middle of the smoke!  You chain down the car to a cement pad, water the pad down, and then let the tires smoke as  you spin the tires.  A bit smelly but rather fun to watch. 

As I stood there, I wondered how you could judge the contest.  After one of two cars the obvious began to appear.  The cars that could rev high and run fast, with exhaust that vented around the wheel wells put on a great show.  The rest . . . well, smoke is fun! 

And then there is the truck that I almost won as a giveaway.  Me, and 350 others.  Unfortunately only one winner . . . But I did get to stand in front of the truck with my daughter and her family.  Next best thing to winning.

Great day – wouldn’t trade it for anything!

Three weeks in a row I have sat down on Thursday evening with young adults.  We potluck together.  Tonight was taco night – I supplied the meats.  Others brought a fruit salad (which had pasta as part of the ingredients – marvelous).  Another brought taco shells.  Another brought dilly bars.  Another one or two brought themselves.

Around the table I ask questions.  One about favourite books.  And another about favourite Bible verses.  The rest of the evening is just conversation.  Around a quick game of UNO, or around the dishes, or even setting the table and sitting at table. 

I laughed so hard, as did others, that we were using our napkins as tissue.  I heard some doubts in life and some situations that require God and others.

I wish I could say that this is an answer table.  Where people come to hear and walk away with surety in their lives.  Well, I do trust God to provide.  At the same time we do plan on being together again next Thursday.  In some ways the promise of a future is not a bad thing. 

So, young adults!  6:00 at my house next Thursday.  It’s pasta night!!

I began today with a little thought from A.W. Tozer.  In his devotional thrust he mentions the need to think rightly.

Interestingly, his thoughts headed down a path I should have expected, but almost missed.  As a boomer I tend to be caught in rational thought.  As post-moderns many are caught in unfocused mystery.  Such extremes often leave us wanting to find the radical middle.

Perhaps the in between is thinking God’s thoughts.  Which starts with prayer.  Uninhibited expressions to God.  Unexpected promptings returned by God.  A sense that I will intentionally spend the time. 

• Spend time lavishly on praise. 
• Spend time lavishly on heart searching. 
• Spend time lavishly on meditation. 
• Spend time lavishly on focusing on Jesus. 
• Spend time lavishly on returning a heart that wanders too easily. 
• Spend time lavishly on God.

I’m  somewhat new at this flower and planter thing.

This summer one of my friends gave me a planter of petunias and some crawling plants (do you call them vines?).  For the summer they have hung from the front porch.  I faithfully water the pot and watched with amazement when part way through the summer a new species emerged.

Now I watching again in wonder. 

On the petunia stem a new type of pod has begun to emerge.  At first I thought I would just deadhead the pod.  But then I began to examine the pod further.

I call it a pod.  I’m not sure what else to call it.  A tiny beak appears to be situated where a flower should emerge.  I separated the beak on the first pod.  I thought small bugs or aphids were escaping.  The second pod appeared to be the same.  By the third pod a realization overcame me.

These were seeds.  I am naive as to when seeds begin to appear.  I thought maybe in later September.  Of course, harvesters are out in the fields around Kindersley combining peas and lentils and other crops.  Why not petunias seeding at this point in the season?

And so, I brought the seeds inside, placed them on a paper and taped them down (they were so small even a puff of wind could blow them away – and I’m not sure my camera could do them justice).  Just imagine tiny dots situated on a white expanse.  There sit my seeds.    A marvel of nature that from this seed comes such beauty!!