All things beautiful

Today is Five Minute Friday. The prompt is 'beautiful'. The idea is to write for five minutes straight, unedited. Just raw words. Here is what I wrote today. Head over to Lisa's blog to join in or read some others! Thanks for stopping by.


He makes all things beautiful in His time.

Is that the saying? 

Do you believe that? 

Life is hard and often times it doesn't seem beautiful at all. 

Voices raised, money is short. 

Relationships strain under under communicated feelings and over reactions. 

Clouds get gray and the sun seems distant. 

Yet, He promises to always be near me. To never ever forsake me. 

He promises that underneath me are his everlasting arms holding me close.

I have to daily remind myself of these things because I so easily forget. 

I am SO easily distracted! So quick to believe the enemy’s lie…

that my God has vanished and doesn’t care.

That He’s surely too busy to listen to my constant repetition. My daily cry for help.

As I speak words of truth out loud about who I am and about Whose I am

I can find joy.

Even in the midst of pain. 

The words need to be heard by my own ears though, so I can 

remember.

~Anne

Seven things I learned in June

Emily at Chattingatthesky started something really fun. She was doing end of the month posts of the things she learned. Then she invited her readers to do the same and link up. So, I am! Check out her post for this month and link up or join in next month!

Here are my seven things I learned in June.

1. Watching Knight and Day with my hubby never gets old.  Yeah, we are funny. We watch movies over and over again. We both love Knight and Day and watched it for the umpteenth time in June. We love the action (that doesn't take itself too seriously), the chemistry between Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, and the humor. All the elements we love rolled into one movie. (Never mind that hubby would take Star Trek over any other movie we watch.)


2. A sub-woofer and speakers makes ANY movie better. We moved our college graduate son home in mid-May. What didn't dawn on us right away, dawned on us a few days into his stay at home. That his gargantuan sub-woofer and  speakers would be moving home with him. We came home one night to find he and his 19 year old sister watching a movie on our TV, but with all the extra sound accouterments added. I didn't tell my adult kids, but at that very moment I did a little happy dance inside. See, they both left for the summer at the first of June and hubby and I have been crankin' tunes and watching movies with enhanced sound. Ever since. Did I say it is a big sub-woofer? He might not get them back.



3. My husband loves baby bunnies. So one day, my hubby is out mowing. He comes in and says, with a big grin on his face, "There's a nest of baby bunnies in our back yard! There are six babies!" He practically dragged me out there to see them. Then he carefully uncovered the nest that was hidden underneath in grass clippings and showed me the ball of bunnies nestled inside. Next thing we know, pop! pop!, those bunnies hopped right out of the hole! They were pretty tiny still, so I was worried that they would get hurt and now WE would be responsible! So, my husband put on a pair of gloves and chased these bunnies down, crawling on his hands and knees in the bushes and under the deck. Bunnies rescued! And, my heart warmed.

4. My fear of cooking vegan food has all but disappeared! This is really a bonus. A few years ago, after my son met his future wife, they both decided to become vegan. That's right, no meat, no dairy, no eggs. I think that is great for them, but I'm gonna admit, it kind of freaked me out to think about cooking for them. ANYTIME. Like, I would literally start shaking in my boots. Or shoes.  But, then I found a cookbook at the library that had simple explanations and the way she wrote it didn't make me feel stupid for not knowing how to soak beans, or what hummus was actually made of. Wah, lah. I can now cook vegan. Quite well. And, I'm starting to cut some meat out of my diet in the mean time which isn't all bad. :)



5. People who cook vegan REALLY like to take pictures of their food. I'm on Instagram {annebritty} and one day I made a really good vegan dinner for my hubby and me. I thought, why not take a pic and put it on Instagram? I'm feeling like bragging just a little bit. So, I put that pic on there and within seconds I had ten likes. I know that's not much, but it is for me. So, I click into some of the clickers pics (does that make sense) and I see tons of food pics!! Who knew? I'm now a foodie! (if that's what you call people that take pics of the food they cook)



6. I don't like to be the only shopper. What I mean is that if I'm at a garage sale or a small gift shop where it's obvious that I'm the ONLY one shopping, I feel pressure. I feel a lot of pressure to buy something. I'm not sure where this comes from because I don't think the sellers are necessarily putting that on me. I think I put that on me. So, if I'm at your garage sale as a lone shopper, and I don't buy anything, just know that I still like you.





7. I heart mud love. This could be a long story but I'll try to make it short. In December my engineer husband was asked by two strangers on a flight to help them design deep well water pumps in Africa. (insert breath) It was a divine appointment if I've ever seen one. This last weekend, I went with him to Winona Lake, IN to meet the founders of Design Outreach. Turns out the brother of one of these guys also has a local non-profit. Called Mud Love. Don't you just love that name? Anyway, for every five dollar bracelet they sell, someone in Africa gets clean water for a year. Isn't that just awesome? Anyway, I wanted to tell you all about them because the bracelets (or necklaces) are made out of clay (mud) and they are so cool you are just going to want to buy a truckload. And, they will even custom make one for you. 

So there you have it. Seven things I learned in June and this was so fun I wish I could do it every week. Well, for sure I'll come back and do one at the end of July. Won't you join me?