Joleyn Larson Photography & Design

cute lil spidey treats.

Dear Father God, please give them the strength they need to endure this journey. WE know that it’s only bringing them closer to you. Allow your love and peace to wrap them tightly, so they doubt Your love for them. In Jesus Name….Jo

Today’s Daily Word – Sunday, October 26, 2008

Aware

Spirit within has given me life and is renewing me with life.

Once when Jesus was attempting to explain a spiritual truth, His disciples complained because the teaching was difficult. They were looking at it through a filter of limited thinking. He was teaching them about spiritual insight that was beyond what they were comprehending in the physical world. It was a message of “spirit and life.”

Whenever life seems difficult and there is a need for healing, I affirm: Spirit within has given me life and is renewing me with life. Having affirmed wholeness, I sit in the silence continuing to be aware that Spirit is healing and strengthening me.

Guided by Spirit, I honor and take care of my physical body. I always know, however, that Spirit within is my true source of wholeness. In this awareness, I am at peace.

“It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”–John 6:63

From: Jenny Gilbert
Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2008 3:35 PM
Subject: Update 10/26/08

Sara..my lil sis….was looking at crockpot recipes and found this one for Pumpkin Latte’s…sounded so yummy!

–2 cups milk (I used 1%)
–2 T canned pumpkin
–2 T white sugar
–2 T vanilla (not a typo. it asks for tablespoons)
–1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
OR: 1/4 tsp cinnamon, 1/8 tsp cloves, 1/8 tsp nutmeg, and a teeny tiny pinch of ground ginger
–1/2 cup brewed espresso or 3/4 cup strong brewed coffee
–garnish with whipped cream (optional)

The Directions.

This will make enough for 2 people to have a big mug with a bit leftover. If you are having friends over, adjust the recipe accordingly. I used a 4-quart crockpot, but as small as a 1.5 quart will work with these amounts.

Add the coffee/espresso and milk to the crockpot. Whisk in the pumpkin, spices, sugar, and vanilla.

Cover and cook on high for 2 hours if everything is cold. Whisk again.

Ladle into mugs, and garnish with whipped cream and additional cinnamon. I added a cinnamon stick to be fancy.
(if I rinse it off, can I re-use it? It seems wasteful to toss.)

Q. What does your marriage need?
A. A photograph of the two of you.

Experts recommend using a picture that’s less than five years old. Not a family photo. No in-laws. No kids. And no wedding photos. Ideally it’s a photo of the two of you doing something goofy. Every time you see your special photograph, you’ll be reminded of your commitment to remaining a couple.

–John Tesh, from Intelligence for Your Life

I sat, with two friends, in the picture window of a quaint restaurant just off the corner of the town-square. The food and the company  were both especially good that day.  

As we talked, my attention was drawn outside, across the street. There, walking into town, was a man who appeared to be carrying all his worldly goods on his back. He was carrying, a well-worn sign that read, ‘I will work for food.’ My heart sank.  

I brought him to the attention of my friends and noticed that others around us had stopped eating to focus on him. Heads moved in a mixture of sadness and disbelief.  

We continued with our meal, but his image lingered in my mind. We finished our meal and went our separate ways. I had errands to do and quickly set out to accomplish them. I glanced toward the town square, looking somewhat halfheartedly for the strange visitor. I was fearful, knowing that seeing him again would call some response. I drove through town and saw nothing of him. I made some purchases at a store and got back in my car.  

Deep within me, the Spirit of God kept speaking to me: ‘Don’t go back to the office until you’ve at least driven once more around the square.’  

Then with some hesitancy, I headed back into town. As I turned the square’s third corner, I saw him. He was standing on the steps of the store front church, going through his sack.  

I stopped and looked; feeling both compelled to speak to him, yet wanting to drive on. The empty parking space on the corner seemed to be a sign from God: an invitation to park. I pulled in, got out and approached the town’s newest visitor.  

‘Looking for the pastor?’ I asked.  

‘Not really,’ he replied, ‘just resting.’  

‘Have you eaten today?’  

‘Oh, I ate something early this morning.’  

‘Would you like to have lunch with me?’  

‘Do you have some work I could do for you?’  

‘No work,’ I replied ‘I commute here to work from the city, but I would like to take you to lunch.’  

‘Sure,’ he replied with a smile.  

As he began to gather his things, I asked some surface questions. Where you headed?’  

‘ St. Louis ‘  

‘Where you from?’  

‘Oh, all over; mostly Florida .’  

‘How long you been walking?’  

‘Fourteen years,’ came the reply.  

I knew I had met someone unusual. We sat across from each other in the same restaurant I had left earlier. His face was weathered slightly beyond his 38 years. His eyes were dark yet clear, and he spoke with an eloquence and articulation that was startling. He removed his jacket to reveal a bright red T-shirt that said, ‘Jesus is The Never Ending Story.’  

Then Daniel’s story began to unfold. He had seen rough times early in life. He’d made some wrong choices and reaped the consequences. Fourteen years earlier, while backpacking across the country, he had stopped on the beach in Daytona. He tried to hire on with some men who were putting up a large tent and some equipment. A concert, he thought.  

He was hired, but the tent would not house a concert but revival services, and in those services he saw life more clearly. He gave his life over to God ‘Nothing’s been the same since,’ he said, ‘I felt the Lord telling me to keep walking, and so I did, some 14 years now.’  

‘Ever think of stopping?’ I asked.  

‘Oh, once in a while, when it seems to get the best of me But God has given me this calling. I give out Bibles That’s what’s in my sack. I work to buy food and Bibles, and I give them out when His Spirit leads.’  

I sat amazed. My homeless friend was not homeless. He was on a mission and lived this way by choice. The question burned inside for a moment and then I asked: ‘What’s it like?’  

‘What?’  

‘To walk into a town carrying all your things on your back and to show your sign?’  

‘Oh, it was humiliating at first. People would stare and make comments. Once someone tossed a piece of half-eaten bread and made a gesture that certainly didn’t make me feel welcome. But then it became humbling to realize that God was using me to touch lives and change people’s concepts of other folks like me.’  

My concept was changing, too. We finished our dessert and gathered his things. Just outside the door, he paused He turned to me and said, ‘Come Ye blessed of my Father and inherit the kingdom I’ve prepared for you. For when I was hungry you gave me food, when I was thirsty you gave me drink, a stranger and you took me in.’  

I felt as if we were on holy ground. ‘Could you use another Bible?’ I asked.  

He said he preferred a certain translation. It traveled well and was not too heavy. It was also his personal favorite. ‘I’ve read through it 14 times,’ he said.  

‘I’m not sure we’ve got one of those, but let’s stop by our church and see’ I was able to find my new friend a Bible that would do well, and he seemed very grateful.  

‘Where are you headed from here?’ I asked.  

‘Well, I found this little map on the back of this amusement park coupon.’  

‘Are you hoping to hire on there for awhile?’  

‘No, I just figure I should go there. I figure someone under that star right there needs a Bible, so that’s where I’m going next.’  

He smiled, and the warmth of his spirit radiated the sincerity of his mission. I drove him back to the town-square where we’d met two hours earlier, and as we drove, it started raining. We parked and unloaded his things.  

‘Would you sign my autograph book?’ he asked. ‘I like to keep messages from folks I meet.’  

I wrote in his little book that his commitment to his calling had touched my life. I encouraged him to stay strong. And I left him with a verse of scripture from Jeremiah, ‘I know the plans I have for you, declared the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you; Plans to give you a future and a hope.’  

‘Thanks, man,’ he said. ‘I know we just met and we’re really just strangers, but I love you.’  

‘I know,’ I said, ‘I love you, too.’ ‘The Lord is good!’  

‘Yes, He is. How long has it been since someone hugged you?’ I asked.  

A long time,’ he replied  

And so on the busy street corner in the drizzling rain, my new friend and I embraced, and I felt deep inside that I had been changed. He put his things on his back, smiled his winning smile and said, ‘See you in the New Jerusalem.’  

‘I’ll be there!’ was my reply.  

He began his journey again. He headed away with his sign dangling from his bedroll and pack of Bibles. He stopped, turned and said, ‘When you see something that makes you think of me, will you pray for me?’  

‘You bet,’ I shouted back, ‘God bless.’  

‘God bless.’ And that was the last I saw of him.  

Late that evening as I left my office, the wind blew strong. The cold front had settled hard upon the town. I bundled up and hurried to my car. As I sat back and reached for the emergency brake, I saw them… a pair of well-worn brown work gloves neatly laid over the length of the handle. I picked them up and thought of my friend and wondered if his hands would stay warm that night without them.  

Then I remembered his words: ‘If you see something that makes you think of me, will you pray for me?’  

Today his gloves lie on my desk in my office. They help me to see the world and its people in a new way, and they help me remember those two hours with my unique friend and to pray for his ministry. ‘See you in the New Jerusalem,’ he said.

Yes, Daniel, I know I will…  

‘I shall pass this way but once. Therefore, any good that I can do or any kindness that I can show, let me do it now, for I shall not pass this way again.’

Ooey, gooey caramel apples.

You can check them out on my DG site….sign the comments…let me know what you think. J

http://www.thedigigirl.com/blog

We got out our carving tools last night. Carved us some spooky little pum’kins.

My mom sent me the words to this song…I love them It’s what I say to my kids every day.

The kids entered these essays/drawings in a contest for the “family fun dad”.  

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we’ll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we’ll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

A Time to Think :: It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light. —Anonymous

To Act :: Remember that life is not a competition, it is a journey.

To Pray :: Lord when I am full of fear and worry help me to take my eyes off of myself and to focus on You.