Happy Birthday in Heaven!

Today you would have turned 65! But you're in a place where you will never get older, you will never have pain and never cry. Here on earth the pain is still great and sometimes I don't know if I can stand it. The pain of knowing I'll not hear your voice on the telephone again, I'll never hike another trail with you, never go camping with you, never have another lesson from you about the stars. It's hard knowing that Mom faces lonely nights and weekends. Sometimes we thought you talked too much, but now I just wish I could hear you one more time! Every holiday that comes around brings thoughts of you and what you would have done to celebrate, how you would always point us to Jesus, for without him we wouldn't have any holidays. The tears still come and the pain is still there but there is a peace knowing you are safe in Heaven. I love you and miss you, Daddy, more than I can say, but someday I'll see you again!!

Our new baby!!

Just a few pics of our new baby - Peanut! She's absolutely adorable!! She is a South African Boerboel (mastiff family) We just got her today and she already follows me around. She is 8 weeks old and a little over 10 lbs! The cats don't know what to think!

Ravi Zacharias - "The Problem of Pleasure"

Ravi Zacharias spoke at Brooklyn Tabernacle on Sunday, May 17 @ 3:30. I've heard him many times on the radio and have read many of his books. My sweet hubby was kind enough to take me 2 and a half hours to hear him.
The message was awesome. I would gladly have skipped some of the music there to hear more preaching. He spoke on "The Problem of Pleasure" and gave 3 principles for choosing our pleasures. He first encouraged everyone to write out a personal mission statement to help us apply these principles. Principle #1 "Anything that refreshes you without distracting from, diminishing or destroying your ultimate goal is a legitimate pleasure." #2 "Any pleasure that jeopardizes the sacred right of another is an illicit pleasure." #3 "Any pleasure, however good, if not kept in balance will distort reality and destroy appetite making it an illicit pleasure." He also referenced Susanna Wesley's definition of sin - "Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience,obscures your sense of God, or takes off your relish of spiritual things; in short whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself." What a lot of food for thought! He preached over an hour, but it sure didn't seem that long. I had taken my copy of his book "Jesus Among Other Gods" and was able to get it signed by him. Mike had never heard him on the radio or otherwise, but he's hooked! He downloaded two of Ravi's books to his ipod and was listening to them as he mowed today.

My Perennial Garden

Just a few pics of my favorite flower garden behind my house! All perennials - I've been working on it for four years, buying and adding a few perennials at a time. Oops, the hanging basket isn't a perennial!