Sunday Reflection - What Is Love?

I could say a lot of words about what is love, what is God's love. This video speaks far more eloquently than I ever could.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Sunday Reflection - Jump Shot

March Madness starts this coming Wednesday. If there's someone who doesn't know what that means, it's the start of the NCAA college playoffs.

There's a man you haven't heard of who invented something that will be used in every game.

What does that have to do with my Sunday Reflection? Just watch the video and you'll understand.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Sunday Reflection - Tools of the Trade

My maternal grandfather was a hard working man. During his working career during my life he was a mechanic for Greyhound Bus Lines. However, somehow during his life he gained a lot of knowledge about woodworking.

When he retired from Greyhound he became a full time cabinet maker. My aunt was opening a Hallmark gift shop and he made all the display cases for her shop. We have a small table that he made and we use it in our tack room to hold our hay scale.

I didn't learn much about woodworking from him, but I did learn one important lesson -- a good craftsman takes care of his tools for without them he's in trouble. Cleaning and sharpening his tools was an important investment of his time.

As horse people our tools are our saddles and our bridles. We try to clean and condition our saddles and bridles every six months -- once in the Fall before cold weather hits and once in the Spring before the warm/hot weather hits.

That's what we did yesterday on Saturday afternoon. Cleaning and conditioning means taking everything off our saddles and bridles, applying some cleaner to get the worst of the dust off and working in some conditioner to keep the leather flexible.

If we don't do this regularly the leather will dry out and crack. Dry leather can even break and when you're riding you don't want your latigo (the long leather strap that holds the cinch to the horse's belly) to break. If that happens you can wind up riding under your horse because the saddle slips all the way under -- not a fun thing for you or your horse.

PS to our horse friends: Quite a few years ago we were in Ohio Amish country with some good friends. We found an Amish saddle maker/repairer way out in the country. I asked him what he used to clean and condition his saddles, especially the saddles he repaired. He recommended Bickmore Leather products. We used those almost exclusively since and find they do a great job on our leather items, including our shoes.

So, what does this have to do with a Sunday Reflection?

As we were cleaning and conditioning our tack I began to think about my tools in my Christian faith. There are several -- prayer, Bible study, gratitude, connection with other Christians, etc.

Like my Granddaddy's tools and our tack, if I don't take care of my faith tools they can get dull and dry.

Regular prayer makes for sharp and conditioned communion with God. Regular Bible study makes for a sharp and conditioned mind and spirit.

You get the idea.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Sunday Reflection -- The Agony of Defeat

There are only a few things about the Winter Olympics that get me interested -- figure skating and the ice hockey, especially the women's hockey. To me the women's hockey competition is the essence of the Olympic spirit. The competitors are hard-working amateurs -- not like the professionals in the men's competition (although I like watching them). I also like Olympic hockey because the emphasis is on competition and not fighting.

I watched the US vs. Canada gold medal game and it was exciting and heart-breaking at the same time. The US women had a 2-0 goal advantage going into the last four minutes. During that time, when Canada took their goalie out of the net to get a one person advantage, the US almost got an open-net goal, but the puck hit the bar of the net -- just an inch away from sealing their victory.

In that last few minutes Canada scored two goals to tie the game and won it in overtime.

For the US women it was so close. Canada had won the previous three Olympic gold medals and it looked like this was going to be the US women's year. But it didn't happen.

The agony of defeat.

All of us suffer some kind of defeat in our lives - physical, emotional, spiritual - and sometimes more than once.

When I look back on the defeats in my life the one thing I can see that makes them worthwhile is they made me stronger.

Victory is wonderful. Victory is the reward for hard work. Yet, victory often doesn't take us to the next level.

Defeat takes us to the next level. It can give us the motivation to work harder and smarter -- if we're willing to embrace our defeat with grace and courage.

Prior to going to the cross, the apostles were celebrating their 'victory.' They saw Jesus as the prophesied Messiah, the King who would bring them freedom from the oppression of the Romans and the Sanhedrin. They argued who would sit at his right hand in his new kingdom. They didn't see him as the sacrificial lamb for their sins.

His death on the cross seemed like the greatest defeat they could ever imagine. Even Satan thought he had won.

Jesus embraced his 'defeat' - not my will but your's be done.

Out of his 'defeat' came the greatest victory for all of us -- victory over sin and death. His apostles went from 'losers' to determined carriers of the good news of Jesus Christ -- even unto their own deaths. They were taken to a new level beyond anything they could ever imagine.

The US women will come back and I believe they will win the gold in four years. They embraced their defeat with grace and courage. They will come back at a new level.

I know Jesus has won the gold for me because of his 'defeat.' Some day we will stand on the podium of eternity and know the eternal victory he has won for us.

PS: For those too young, here's where 'the agony of defeat' had it's genesis in 1978:

 

Posted with Blogsy

Sunday Reflection - A Boy and His Dog

Sometimes God's love comes in unexpected ways.

A 7 year-old boy named Owen Howkins was born with a condition that makes him unique. Owen has Schwartz-Jampel syndrome, a disease that leaves his muscles constantly tense. Because of his condition he was afraid to interact with others.

Haatchi was a lonely dog that faced death and abandonment. He was tied to a train track and was hit by a train - he lost a leg. However, he was rescued and eventually wound up with Owen.

Together, though they make a pair that puts smiles on the faces of everyone they see.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Sunday Reflection - Enjoying the Ride

Betty and I rode Morgunn and Sugar in the back this morning (we're going to church on Thursday nights).

During the Winter about all we can do is work them on the basics and our back lot is great for that. We have enough room, about 3/4 acre, to work them on the basics and also to bring them up to a gait for exercise and muscle memory development.

Horses are a great example of the quote above. They live in the present. They don't hold onto the past. Betty and I have made so many mistakes with them in our learning journey yet they don't hold that against us. What we do at the moment is good enough for them.

Horses never worry about the future, unless it's the next time they're supposed to be fed. The idea of tomorrow and what it might bring is not on their radar. They just trust that tomorrow will bring food, rest and companionship.

Horses are also great mirrors. If we look for it, we can see ourselves in them. If we're calm and confident they're calm and confident. If we're stressed and worried, they're stressed and worried. Our present becomes their present.

Right now we're enjoying the ride. We don't know what tomorrow will bring - good or bad. If we worry about what tomorrow might bring we miss the grace and gifts of today, the present.

Have a good day.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Sunday Reflection - Useful vs. Beautiful

I have a lot of tools for working around the house, including most of the tools in the picture to the left. When I use them they are very useful. When I'm finished they get put away and I don't give them any more thought. Have I ever considered them beautiful? No.

I also have several tools I use with my horse, Sugar -- a saddle, a dressage whip (which is used as an extension of my hand and not as a whip in case you're wondering), a halter and lead rope, and a bit and bridle similar to the one in the picture to the left. When I use them they are very useful. When I'm finished they get put away and I don't give them any more thought. Have I ever considered them beautiful? Yes, actually I have. There is a beauty in leather workmanship that's easier to see than in mass produced products like my home tools above.

Yet, if I stopped to think about my home tools i can think there may be beauty there that I have been missing. The beauty is not in the design necessarily, yet each one is perfectly designed for it's use. The beauty is in idea of the designer, the person who first conceived the idea of that particular tool - how it may be safer to use, more efficient to use, more effective to use. There is a creative beauty behind almost everything we use if we stop and think about it.

It's easy for me to think of prayer to Jesus as a tool. Many, if not most, of my prayers to Jesus are requests - requests for safety, requests for healing, requests for someone's life to be changed and on and on.

Jesus be useful to me. I need, I need, I need...

There's nothing wrong with those prayers and we're asked to bring all things to him in prayer.

Yet, am I missing something when I think only of Jesus as someone who is just useful to me?

Is Jesus merely useful to you — or is He ultimately beautiful to you? When Jesus is merely useful to me, I want Him to move my world. When Jesus is ultimately beautiful to me, it’s my heart that is moved – and this begins to change the world. (Ann Voskamp, A Holy Experience Blog)

When I stop and think about the things that are useful to me I can find a beauty in them that has eluded me and I believe my world is slightly expanded by that insight.

When I stop and see, focus on and appreciate Jesus as the ultimate beauty in my life, my world is greatly expanded. My eyes, both human and spiritual, are opened and I see the world in a different way.

I can even begin to see beauty in a hammer - and maybe even a garbage disposal ;)

 

Posted with Blogsy

Sunday Reflection - It's 2014 and the War Still Rages

No, I'm not talking about the war in Afghanistan, or the war against terrorism, or the war that's about to reignite in Iraq, or the wars in many of the African nations, or the war against hunger or poverty, or the supposed war on women, or on and on and on.

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. (2 Corinthians 10 3,4)

I'm talking about the spiritual war that started with the serpent and Adam and Eve and continues to this day.

It's easy to forget that this war continues around us and, if we're not careful and vigilant, we can become casualties.

“Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one--the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts,...Your affectionate uncle, Screwtape.”― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

The enemy is the great dragon, Satan, and his army of demons.

And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. (Revelation 12:9)

Satan has two basic tactics he uses against Christians:

(1) He wants to blind us as to who God is.

(2) He wants to blind us as to who we are.

So, my goals for this year, and every year, are to keep my eyes on God, listen to him and remember two things:

(1) God is and he is unendingly, unquestionably good.

(2) I am a child of God, an heir of the kingdom and unendingly, unquestionably loved.

Everything else will fall into place according to his will for me.

Posted with Blogsy

Sunday Reflection - All Things New

We all know by now that it's a New Year -- full of promises, hopes and even maybe a few resolutions.

In reality, the New Year is an arbitrary creation of mankind to fit some notion of a calendar that helps us order our lives. I suspect to God there is no new or old year. Time is moving steadily to it's ordained completion when Christ returns.

In the meantime God is promising that he is making all things new.

And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He *said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.” Then He said to me, “ It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega,... (Revelation 21:5,6)

It is done and Christ sits on the throne this day and every day and, in a ways we may not understand he is contstantly making all things new. All things. Even the things we don't like or want in our lives. Even the people we don't like or want in our lives. Even the circumstances we don't like or want in our lives.

There is no exception to 'all things.' That is both hopeful and a little scary.

This past Friday morning there was another of our beautiful New Mexico sunrises when I was out feeding the horses. Yet, this one was different in that it affected, it changed the whole sky from East to West. It took two panorama shots to capture the beauty of God's work in our sky.

I pray that my eyes will be open to all of God's newness in this coming year and, I suspect, it will include a few surprises.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Sunday Reflection: Hallelujah - By Cloverton

Cloverton is a unique Christian singing group. They took the hit song by Leonard Cohen, "Hallelujah," and changed the lyrics to the story of the birth of Christ and why he was born...

I heard about this baby boy

Who comes to earth to bring us joy

And I just want to sing of this song to you

It goes like this

The fourth, the fifth

The minor fall, the major lift

With every breath I’m singing, ”Hallelujah”

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

A couple came to Bethlehem

Expecting child, they searched the inn

To find a place for your were coming soon

There was no room for them to stay

So in a manger filled with hay

God’s only son was born, oh Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

The shepherds left their flocks by night

To see this baby wrapped in light

A host of angels led them all to you

It was just as the angels

You’ll find him in a manger bed

And there you’ll meet your Savior, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

A star shown bright out in the east

To bethlehem, the wise-man three

Came many miles a journey long for you

Into the place at which you were

Their frankincense, gold, and myrrh

They came to you and cried out, “Hallelujah”

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I know you came to rescue me

This baby boy would grow to be

A man who’d one day die for me and you

Our sins will drive the nails in you

That rugged cross, was my cross, too

And every breath you drew was “Hallelujah”

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Now that you've read the lyrics, here's Cloverton performing their version of "Hallelujah" in a coffee house. Watch as the patrons go from a cool dispatch to most of them singing the Hallelujah chorus with a passion at the end. That's how the true Christmas story affects most of us.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Joy to the World!

We are told it is the season of joy.

One of our assistant pastors gave the message this week and it was on joy. It was a good message and the general theme was that God wants us to have the gift of joy.

However, his message and almost every message I have ever heard on joy always leaves out one important component - what is joy?

His message and others inadvertantly seem to imply that joy is the same thing as happiness and/or pleasure - God wants us to be happy.

I would have assumed this equivalence if I had not read C. S. Lewis' book, "Surprised by Joy." It's basically Lewis' story of how he came to be a Christian. One component of that process was being 'surprised' by joy and understanding how it is different from happiness and pleasure.

Here's a quote from his book.

“I call it Joy. It is itself the memory of a memory. As I stood beside a flowering currant bush on a summer day there suddenly arose in me without warning, and as if from a depth not of years but of centuries, the memory of that earlier morning at the Old House when my brother had brought his toy garden into the nursery. It is difficult or find words strong enough for the sensation which came over me; Milton's 'enormous bliss' of Eden (giving the full, ancient meaning to 'enormous') comes somewhere near it. It was a sensation, of course, of desire; but desire for what?...Before I knew what I desired, the desire itself was gone, the whole glimpse... withdrawn, the world turned commonplace again, or only stirred by a longing for the longing that had just ceased... In a sense the central story of my life is about nothing else... The quality common... is that of an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction. I call it Joy, which is here a technical term and must be sharply distinguished both from Happiness and Pleasure. Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic, and one only, in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again... I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. But then Joy is never in our power and Pleasure often is.”

Happiness and pleasure are results of our circumstances. Circumstances that make us feel good create a sense of happiness and pleasure within us. Change or remove those circumstances and the feeling of happiness and pleasure will cease.

Joy is not a feeling, nor is it dependent on our circumstances. Joy is a desire for something that we long for, something we know is greater and better than anything we experience in our circumstances, something that appears to be only slightly more than a dream vaguely remembered after we awake. Joy is a longing for reality in the midst of the world's unreality. Joy is the longing for the homeland in which we have never lived as we are truly strangers in a strange land. Joy is a longing for the 'enormous bliss' of Eden.

Joy is a gift from God and, as Lewis says above, is never in our power. We can not create it, nor can we create circumstances where it will occur.

When the angels told the shepherds, "I bring you tidings of great joy, for unto you is born this day a Savior," that announcement stirred a longing in their hearts so strong they left their flocks to see the baby that would change their lives, our lives and the whole world.

May the longing of pure joy fill your hearts as we once again celebrate the birth of the Christ child.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Sunday Reflection - Way of Beauty Prayer

I was given a book for my birthday by Betty's sister Margie - "Code Talker" by Chester Nez, one of the original 29 code talkers who developed the code that was used in the Pacific War. The code was never broken by the Japanese and was credited for saving countless lives.

The code talkers served in almost all of the Pacific campaigns with little time for rest and recreation between campaigns. Their service as code talkers were deemed too important. When their Marine buddies in their division were sent to R&R areas, they were reassigned to other divisions and prepared for another campaign.

After the war, Chester came back to his home of Chichiltah, New Mexico. Like many combat veterans he was troubled by all the violence and death he witnessed. Today we would call it post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

In the Navajo way he was not walking in the way of beauty. To help Chester return to the way of beauty a ceremony, a sing, was conducted by his family and friends.

Part of this ceremony was a Navajo prayer:

In beauty I walk.

With beauty before me I walk.

With beauty behind me I walk.

With beauty around me I walk.

With beauty above me I walk.

With beauty below me I walk.

In beauty all is made whole.

In beauty all is restored.

In my youth I am aware of it, and

In old age I shall walk quietly the beautiful trail.

In beauty it is begun

in beauty it is ended.

 

When I read this I remembered a portion of a Christian prayer called St. Patrick's Breastplate:

Christ be with me, Christ within me.

Christ behind me, Christ before me.

Christ beside me, Christ to win me.

Christ to comfort and restore me.

Christ beneath me, Christ above me.

Christ in quiet, Christ in danger.

Christ in hearts of all that love me.

Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

I believe that God works in many similar ways in many different cultures. And the way of Christ is the way of beauty.

Betty and I are in that part of life where we are walking the beautiful trail. May you walk in beauty all the days of your life.

Chester Nez, American hero

 

PS: I was privileged to sit next to one of the original code talkers, not Mr. Nez, at a New Mexico rodeo and I was able to thank him for his service. Also, the book mentions Chester Nez's son Mike and there are several pictures of him. It turns out that I know Mike Nez. I bought a silver feather ring that he made several years ago. I have seen him several times since then at various craft fairs before I read the book about his father. I hope to see him again so I can talk to him about Chester.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Sunday Reflection - Dark Before The Dawn

"It is always darkest just before the day dawneth." - Thomas Fuller (1608-1661)

In our day and age we usually say, "It's always darkest just before dawn." The truth is it's actually darkest at midnight, but it's still a good saying.

When I was in the Navy and our ship was deployed to the waters off North Vietnam, I always stood the 4:00 AM to 8:00 AM deck watch as Officer of the Deck. This was because as Navigator I had to be up early to take an early celestial sun fix so I might as well stand that watch.

I saw a lot of beautiful sunrises as the sun rose over the Chinese island of Hainan. However, that last hour before sunrise always seemed the darkest and was the hardest time to stay awake. During our deployments most of us were happy to get three to four hours of sleep at any one time. We caught sleep as we could throughout the day and night. I actually learned that I could sleep standing up - much like a horse does - but that's another story.

There are plenty of times in our lives when we go through dark hours before our dawns. Betty and I have had our share.

Perhaps our lives are like our days. We go through days, nights, dark hours and then dawn again - over and over.

The good news is God has designed it so the sun rises each morning no matter how dark the night has been. After every dark hour there is a sunrise - and, if you're lucky, there may also be balloons!

 

Posted with Blogsy

Sunday Reflection - A Lamp Unto My Feet

During my Bible study this week I worked my way through Psalm 119 - the longest psalm - that focuses on God's word. One of my favorite verses Psalm 119:103 - "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path."

Since I accepted Christ 29 years ago at age 39 God's word has come alive for me. As I have mentioned before my method of Bible study is to read the Bible through from Genesis to Revelation. Once I am done I start all over again.

This verse didn't have that much meaning to me until I understood what lamps looked like in Old Testament times. In our culture we think of lamps as having 100 watt light bulbs or being flashlights with LED light emitters. Both bring a significant amount of light into our lives and I am grateful for that.

However, Old Testament lamps (and those in Jesus' time) were small, clay lamps filled with oil derived from animal fat. They were usually small enough to fit in the hand. The light they put out was a warm, smoky, small circle of light that was probably a foot to a foot and a half in diameter at most - definitely not 100 watts.

In this context the "lamp unto my feet and light unto my path" is pretty small and doesn't dispel much of the darkness around the holder.

What I came to realize is the significance of this verse is more likely the concept that God's word shines a light for our next step.

That's all the light we have for darkness is still beyond the small glow of the oil lamp.

I believe God wants us to live and walk by faith which means trusting him for just our next step while our future steps are still in the darkness around us.

I know that my ultimate future is to live with Christ in God's kingdom because of what Jesus did on the cross. In the meantime I look to just the next step and trust God in the midst of the darkness around me.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Sunday Reflection - Life is Too Precious to Get Upset

I have been fortunate in so many ways - my wife, my kids and grandkids, our horses, our friends and on and on. I have also had my share of issues - prostate cancer and surgery, skin cancer, shoulder and knee surgeries, two hernia surgeries - some with complications. I have walked with Betty through her life issues.

Yet, life is too precious to get upset. No matter what God allows to come into our lives in the years to come, good or bad, I have so much to thank Him for.

I was reminded of that when I saw this video about Skidboot.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Sunday Reflection - Small Things

Sometimes we may think that if we're not doing a large thing for God, we're not doing our best. Check out this photo.

This photo was shot at the Childrens Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama. The window washing company employees decided to dress up as super heros - Superman (shown), Batman, Spider Man, etc. They stopped at every window and interacted with the child in that room.

A small thing in the grand scheme of things, but I believe these men made God smile. Well done, good and faithful servants.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Sunday Reflection - Adversity

The comments below are not original with me, but they seemed to go well with the Peanuts cartoon below that holds a lot of truth.

One of the most treasured pieces in the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vermont, is a rug bearing the Latin inscription Nec Aspera Terrent (Be Not Terrified by Adversity).

It always has had special meaning for Baroness Maria von Trapp and her children—the famous Trapp Family Singers—because the rug, a gift from a friend, arrived on December 21, 1980, a day after a fire razed the famous lodge, killing a guest and injuring seven others.

It took three years and $7 million to rebuild the lodge, but the Trapps never had any doubts about rebuilding. To battle adversity was nothing new to them. The family, immortalized in the musicalThe Sound of Music, fled Austria in 1938 rather than submit to orders directing Baron von Trapp, a former submarine captain, to return to the German Navy. On arrival in the United States, the family had only $3.50.

When work on their first Vermont lodge was nearing completion, the structure was destroyed by a storm, so they started all over with a second lodge—the one that burned down in 1980.

On December 18, 1983, the day the successor to the burned-down lodge opened, Johannes von Trapp recalled that, when the rug arrived right after the fire, he had decided it would be prominently placed in the lobby of the new hotel.

Adversity is a fact of life. It can’t be controlled. What we can control is how we react to it.

(The movie, 'Sound of Music' is special to Betty and me. We saw that movie the night I proposed to her and asked her to marry me.)

Posted with Blogsy

Sunday Reflections - Choices

Over the years I have made many choices that have affected my life - some for good and some not so good.

As I get older I realize that my choices are even more important as they will affect how I live the Autumn of my life (that's a poetic way of saying that how I'll live as an old man).

To make good choices it helps to have goals so that I can make choices that help me achieve my goals in this latter part of my life. Here are some of the goals that I have set.

Be a better follower of Christ. This is the most important goal for me and the choices I will make to achieve that goal. I hope to somehow shows God's love to others in small ways each and every day. If those choices I make help someone to come to Christ that will be wonderful.

Be a better husband to Betty. I choose every day what kind of husband I will be that day. God tells me to love Betty as Christ loves the church and gave his life for her. That's a tall order, but one I willingly accept.

Be a better father to Wade and Chris. Even though they are grown men with families of their own and I am no longer their parent, I'm still their father. I want to make choices that show them how much I love them, how I proud I am of them, to be a good example of how to live your life until the very end - which leads me to my last goal.

I do NOT want to be a grumpy, grouchy old man. I know that as I grow older, despite my best efforts at exercise and diet, my body and mind will some day let me down - disappoint me. That's the nature of the fallen life we live. As I 'lose' things, I pray that God will give me the grace and courage to accept those losses with grace and good humor.

I want to live my last days with joy, love and laughter.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Sunday Reflection - Land Sculpture

Betty and I went out for a walk this afternoon (Sunday).  We decided to walk over to the arroyo that is just South of us.  We haven't been there in a long while and we wanted to see what all the recent rain did.  Water can be pretty powerful and we were curious as to how it looked now.

We walked to the natural part of the arroyo.  Just a little to the East (toward the mountain) the concrete, maintained channel starts to funnel the water down under Corrales Road to a drainage area just short of the Rio Grande.  Last year they dug a deep retention pond at the end of the arroyo to catch silt before the water entered the channel.

Normally, the empty depth of that concrete channel under Corrales Road is about 10 feet.  With all the rain recently, and the silt that came down the arroyo from Rio Rancho to the West, the silt build up was over 7 feet deep.  There was only a 3 foot clearance between the top of the silt and the bottom of the bridge.  There was a real concern about flooding of the homes around the bridge, but fortunately that didn't happen.

The dirt pile behind Betty in the picture above is from the channel under the bridge.  It's an accumulation of about three year's worth of rain and silt and is over 30 feet high now.  The plain of the arroyo itself is almost twice as wide at this point as when we first moved here.  You're also looking at where the large, deep retention pond was - it's no longer there.  So, I guess it did it's job and caught that amount of silt before it could add to the 7 feet of silt in the channel under the bridge.  If they had not dug the retention pond, the flooding around the bridge might have happened and been a disaster for the families that live close to the bridge.

The power of water can be pretty awesome.

Sunday Reflection - Patience and Servanthood

When you have to go through recovery from a surgery you have plenty of time to think. The doctor has told me that I have to take it easy for three weeks. That means me not doing very much and Betty doing far more than she usually has to do.

During this time I have been thinking a lot about patience and servanthood.

Patience - In 2003 I had shoulder surgery. I remember the therapist telling me how important it was to follow the instructions I was given to rest the shoulder during the recovery period. She recounted one of her previous clients who had similar surgery.

One of the problems with the recovery period is after a week or two you start feeling much better. The surgery incision no longer hurts that much. You begin to feel like you can do some of the things you want or need to do - physically. One of my doctors has said that the outside heals quicker than the inside after a surgery.

She said this other patient started feeling better after a couple of weeks and started doing some of the things he was told not to do. And he paid for it. He re-injured his shoulder and had to have surgery again.

That made an impact on me. Patience is a virtue - not only in surgery recovery, but in most of our lives as well. I've found over the years that when I'm not patient in a situation I usually do something stupid and wind up paying for it.

Servanthood - I've had several surgeries over the years. Knee surgery, shoulder surgery, double hernia shoulder, prostate cancer surgery, and hernia surgery again - along with a few other minor surgeries. In every case, Betty has been a true servant to me as I went through the recovery period.

Her servanthood has been complicated over the last three surgeries because of us owning horses. In addition to taking care of me, cooking, cleaning up (which is usually my job), she also is taking care of the horses which is a big job in itself.

Betty truly has a servant's heart and you see this in so many ways. Her servant heart is fully revealed when she has to take care of me and the horses. She does all this with no complaints and still loves me deeply.

She loves Christ and she lives the servant's life as he did when he walked this earth. She's a good example for me. Well done, good and faithful servant.

 

Posted with Blogsy