An Impromptu Trip to the Mountains...and an Impromptu Shooting Competition - Pictures, not Animals

Tim gets credit for this one. ::sigh:: He saw this, and locked down on the brakes of his Ford truck. He jumped out the driver's side door with my camera, composed the shot (manual mode, all the way...shutter speed, apperture, zoom, and focus...he set it all!) and shot it. Darn him. The dappled sun was hitting the base of this tree like a spotlight.

...a Flycatcher...I got this shot, but nevermind. It pales in comparison to Tim's moss-on-the-base-of-the-tree shot. I feel a competition coming on. And I will win. He has no right to get better shots with my Nikon and new 55-200 mm lens than I get with my Nikon and 55-200 mm lens.

...fungus...again, spotlighted by dappled sunlight. Again, Tim. Incredible shot. This is exactly how it appeared - glowing. This shot is "SOOC"...that means "straight out of camera", no retouching, no photoshopping. In fact, not a single photo has been Photoshopped.

My mountains...

My beloved Smokies...can you see why they are called the "Smokey" mountains?

Side-lit splendor...golden autumn sun...no other time of year has this quality of light.

I got it! I got the shot! When you slllllllow down the shutter speed, you get that lovely sheeting action, when you shoot moving water. Fast shutter speed = seeing water more like the naked eye sees it, sometimes even freezing individual droplets in the picture. Slow shutter speed = that flow-ey, sheeting action. Love!

(Slowing your shutter speed, plus shooting in overcast conditions is not for the faint of heart, however. This shot best not attempted without a tripod...not without tears and swearing. Just kidding about the swearing. And the tears. But I was frustrated. I didn't bring my tripod. I asked Tim to bend over, and I planted my elbows in his back and shot for several minutes. Not kidding. He is so good to me. That man patiently watched me shoot scenes around the Smokey Mountains for three hours, until past dark.

In this shot above, notice how the surrounding, stationary non-water parts of this photo are not tack-sharp. No tripod. Tim's back helped, but next time, I am bringing my tripod.)

So proud of this shot. No tripod. No Tim's back, either. But I managed it. I set the camera to shutter mode, set the speed for a slow shutter, and compensated with apperture. ISO was 800.

Quotable Quote

"Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry."

~Mark Twain

What do you want your husband, children, close friends, and other family members to be able to say about you when you die?

Live that way. Get to it. Now.

You never know...you know?

Fall Decorating

I began the process of putting away most of my summer kitchen today. I plan to pack away the turquoise blue mugs, all the blue glass, and the particularly summer-ish turquoise blue tea towels. Then, I got out my packed-away spice-orange things.

Here is a sneak peek:



The weather here has been a bit fall-ish this week. This makes me feel poignant. I still love September, but I dislike seeing summer go away. So, to cheer myself, I've begun the switch-out to autumn...getting out the harvest wheat sheaves, the pottery and glass in varying shades of ivory and spice pumpkin.

Last year, the palette was white, orange, and brown...with shades of each between. This year, I am sticking with the same palette, but adding a small touch of turquoise, too. I've left out a few of my turquoise summer things, only now instead of there being a strong note of turquoise, it is just the barest of accent color.

I'll post more photos when I'm done. I hope your September is Blessed and Highly Favored...

...in Christ, there is no such thing as not Blessed and Highly Favored.

How God loves us!

Obvious and Simple

"Obviously, the law applies to those to whom it was given, for its purpose is to keep people from having excuses, and to show that the entire world is guilty before God. For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are." Romans 3: 19-20, NLT

Simply. "The law simply shows us". We human beings love to complicate the Gospel in an effort to justify our own existence. We want to make our good works the thing that the Gospel is all about, when the Gospel is way more scandalous than that. The Gospel is about blood sacrifice that speaks of a shouted grace, freely given, and vigorously appropriated by those who can see simple things clearly.

Our good works are the cosmetics...the adornment...the accessorizing, if you will, of the One Work that Matters...the finished work of Christ. Look up your Greek in Titus 2, where it says that we are to adorn the Gospel with our good behavior.

Kosmeo. Yeah...we get our English word "cosmetics" from that Greek word. I need nothing else, in the way of proof text, but there is a lot more than that...however, it is September, it is Labor Day, and I am feeling mellow.

So if you wanna keep believin' that your works are anything more than (beautiful, significant, because all that is truly beautiful is significant) adornments to beautify the message of Scandalous Grace...go right ahead. One of us is wrong, and it isn't me.

Obviously. How about that word? "Obviously, the law applies to those to whom it was given..." (um, and that would be Old Covenant Hebrew People...)

Unfortunately, that darn veil obscures the obvious for many believers. What should be obvious....ain't. It is satan's Grand Scheme. To obscure the obvious. He's very, very good at it. Every day, I uncover some small (or large) truth he has managed to minimize, distort, or obscure in my understanding. And I get to happily repent and change my mind.

"After all, repentance is a gift...an opportunity...an invitation to The Good Life." And, by the way, that is a quote from The Preacher's message in church yesterday. It was - no bull - the best message on repentance I have ever, ever heard. Foundational. In the context of the Gospel. You do not want to miss it. And "obviously", repentance is part of the Gospel, and has always been preached at Harvest Church.

(I know, right? We are so "imbalanced"...)

But it's September. It's Labor Day, and I am feeling really mellow, so I'll save the fullness of all the past weeks and months of Romans study for another post.

Summer's last gasp. I am enjoying it. I am loving these days of simple dinners and detailed desserts, and the four or so pounds I've gained be hanged, I truly do not care...

...of waiting for the green beans I planted late to come in...of grandsons and first football games of the season. Of breakfasts at Burger King with the goal if discipleship and the attainment of so much more. Days of ridin' with my baby in his Ford pickup, listening to a Kenny Chesney tune. Days of takin' the back roads. The long way home. Puttin' a little gravel in our travel.

All my ducklings are in the nest, for today. It is Labor Day, friends. Let us rock it together, shall we? Some things really are so simple and obvious.

Simply Rock This Day. With Obvious Grace.

Worship Gone Wrong

Octavius Winslow

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Ephesians 6:12

"Let us inquire what is that which Satan desires to assault? It is the work of God in the soul. Against his own kingdom not a weapon is raised. It is his aim and his policy to keep all there undisturbed and peaceful. But against the work of the Holy Spirit in the renewed mind, his artillery is brought to bear; not a part of this work escapes him.

Every grace comes in for its share of malignant attack; but especially the grace of faith. When, for example, a repentant and believing soul approaches Christ with lowliness and hesitancy, and with the tremulous hand of faith attempts to touch the border of His garment, or with a tearful eye looks up to His cross, then comes the assault upon faith in the form of a suggestive doubt of Christ’s power and willingness to save. “Is Jesus able to save me? Has He power to rescue my soul from hell? Can He blot out my transgressions, and redeem my life from destruction? Will He receive a sinner, so vile, so unworthy, so poor as I? Has He compassion, has He love, has He mercy sufficient to meet my case?”

In this way Satan assails the earliest and the feeblest exercises of faith in the soul. Does this page address itself to any such? It is Satan’s great effort to keep you from Jesus. By holding up to your view a false picture of His character, from which everything loving, winning, inviting, and attractive is excluded, by suggesting wrong views of His work, in which everything gloomy, contracted, and repulsive is foisted upon the mind; by assailing the atonement, questioning the compassion, and limiting the grace of Christ, he would persuade you that in that heart which bled on Calvary there is no room for you, and that upon that work which received the Father’s seal there is not breadth sufficient for you to stand.

All his endeavors are directed, and all his assaults are shaped, with a view to keep your soul back from Christ. It is thus he seeks to vent his wrath upon the Savior, and his malignity upon you.

Nor does he less assail the more matured faith of the believer. Not infrequently the sharpest attacks and the fiercest onsets are made, and made successfully, upon the strongest believers. Seizing upon powerful corruptions, taking advantage of dark providences, and sometimes of bright ones, and never allowing any position of influence, any usefulness, gift, or grace, that would give force, success, and brilliance to his exploit, to escape his notice, he is perpetually on the alert to sift and winnow God’s precious wheat.

His implacable hatred of God, the deep revenge he cherishes against Jesus, his malignant opposition to the Holy Spirit, fit him for any dark design and work implicating the holiness and happiness of the believer. Therefore we find that the histories of the most eminent saints of God, as written by the faithful pen of the Holy Spirit, are histories of the severest temptations of faith, in the most of which there was a temporary triumph of the enemy; the giant oak bending before the storm. And even in instances where there was no defeat of faith, there yet was the sharp trial of faith.

The case of Joseph, and that of his illustrious antitype, the Lord Jesus, present examples of this. Fearful was the assault upon the faith of both, sharp the conflict through which both passed, yet both left the battlefield victorious. But still faith was not the less really or severely sifted."

~Octavius Winslow.org

Harvesting the Seeds of the Gospel

Our entire church is beginning to experience a great harvest, on the seeds of the Gospel that have been faithfully sown from the pulpit for over two years running now.

Does that sound like I am giving the credit to my Preacher? If you think so, you still don't get how grace works...nor the apostolic gift. That isn't what I am doing at all.

Paul said, in a teaching about the apostolic gifting, that some plant, and some water. There is a "planting" apostolic man...and there is a "watering" apostolic man.

God alone gives the increase.

However, this is where you get into the concept of the believer's cooperation with grace. Had The Preacher not planted the Gospel seed courageously, in the face of much (and very personal) opposition, there would be no increase today. And had he not faithfully watered, lo' these two years straight, there would be no increase.

Someone else would have had to be brought in to re-plant, plow and re-plant, plow and re-plant...you get the idea. Without the watering, the planting has to be done over and over and over, because seeds die without water.

They just do.

So now...ask me again why my Preacher has stuck with the grace-Gospel like a dog on a bone. Or like a water hose on grace-seed. And heck yes, I am proud of him.

And without the saints eagerly receiving, being good Bereans, and tending the gospel-seed sown and watered in their hearts, there would be no increase.

But God alone gives the increase. Grace, grace.

And if one word could describe what is happening in Harvest Families, it is I-N-C-R-E-A-S-E.

Physically. (better health for many, and out-and-out supernatural healing for some!)

Financially. (Oh. Mah. Weeeeerd. Some serious increase going on. With more on the way.)

Um....."gynecologically". Need I say more? Harvest Church is the proud haven to seven new babies. Count 'em.

Spiritually. Harvest has increased and advanced spiritually by light-years. This means more to me than all the others put together. Because when people are increased, fat and flourishing in spirit, the rest comes in time, and when it comes, it usually stays. Because the roots run so deep into the love of God, you see. The blessing that comes with revelation comes to stay.

To stay.

Do you hear me Baileys? Kears? Howes? Buycks? McConnells? Cooks? Ewings? Jernecjics? Cantrells? Fanchers? Damrons?...and all the many others who have experienced great increase and miraculous blessing recently, some even just this week?

Your God establishes you. He makes your steps sure. He keeps you from falling. Which means you move forward, not backward. Forward, not backward. (Remember that word?)

Your blessings aren't going anywhere. Because you didn't earn them. Be glad you didn't earn them. What you earn, you have to maintain. Your blessings? They came by the grace of God, and remain by the same Power.

But you already know that.

Which brings me back to this post's very first sentence.