Honey From the Rock

Well, hello there! It's been quite a while hasn't it? Life has been VERY bumpy around here. Mike lost a very special co-worker and friend a couple of weeks ago. We rejoice because we know that she is at peace and enjoying the rest of eternity with the Lord, and there's no better place to be than that. :o) We do, however, have quite a hole in our hearts right now as we miss her and her sweet, sweet smile oh so terribly. :o(

In His faithful fashion, the Lord continues to encourage and bless during this rough time. The ladies of my church go to a Ladies' Retreat every spring, and what a retreat it was! The fellowship was so sweet, and the messages were amazing! God never ceases to amaze me in how he gives messages to the teachers that seem to be just what I need, when I need it. More on that later.

First of all, I don't have any pictures of me. I was the official photographer for the retreat and I haven't figured out how to get myself in front of the camera when I'm behind it. I had such a fun time running around getting pictures of each of the activities and classes though. I can't post most of the 900+ photos I took on here, but I will share some of them with you.

There was a serious snowstorm forecast to hit us the morning of our departure, so we ended up leaving a day early. It was a good thing we did because the weatherman was right. We got a foot or so that morning at our house. Our trip was a little rough going at first. We had some frozen, rainy, haily (my new word) kind of weather to drive through for the first couple of hours. This was one of our vehicles when we made a bathroom stop.

 I love these little kids. They always look so joyful, even on cold, dreary, rainy mornings.

 This beautiful flower was inside the main office space. It was so nice to see such bright color again.

OK, so this one looks weird, I know, but I had to take it. Lately I've started noticing natural hearts all over the place. I kind of see them as a "love note" from the Lord. I decided that whenever I can, I'm going to get a picture of it. This happened to be a splatter of mud on a step. I love what my friend said about it. "In this drop of yucky mud can be seen a heart (love). Isn't that how it is with us? We are the yucky mud that others can see the love of God through." 

These were outside in the garden. A simple reminder to us that new life will come, spring is almost here. :o)

Because I was the photographer, and wanted to make sure I got all the classes and activities, I didn't get to sit and listen to any of the regular classes. Thankfully, this year they recorded them, so I will get a chance to listen to them later. :o) I did get to go to the special "Chalk Talk" class that was held the first evening. Our guest speaker is a chalk artist and uses her beautiful drawings to share God's Word. Some of you may have seen something like this before. I hadn't.

This part of the drawing was finished when we arrived in class.

Then she gave us a wonderful message of living by faith and not by sight. She encouraged us to remember that God is always there and working in our lives, even if we don't see Him or understand what's going on. She then began to draw the foreground to this picture.

 Here's the finished drawing. Beautiful, isn't it?

But there was a surprise. As she lowered the lights and turned on a black light we could see what we couldn't see before.

Makes me smile whenever I see it. :o)

Back to those messages God had for me. While I didn't get to hear all of the classes,  I did get to sit in on the general sessions. I guess "sit" probably isn't quite the right word here since I walked around snapping shots of the lovely ladies throughout a lot of it, but I did get to hear the messages. :o) So many gold nuggets of treasure. I can't wait to listen to these again when they're up on our website. One little nugget stood out to me and really blessed me. She read from Psalm 81:16. "He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee." Honey out of a rock. I've read this verse many times and I've always looked at it as God reminding us that He can do anything, even get honey from a rock, but our speaker brought up something new to me. She said the rock is those hard times in our lives. You know the ones, I'm sure you've had them too. The times when we're down in the valley and not up on the mountain top. The times when we don't know what to do or where to turn. The times when we don't see anything good happening. That's the rock, and our wonderful, amazing God can bring sweetness from that rock. Sweetness we may never know this side of heaven, but sweetness none the less.

So, while we are still going through a bit of a rock right now, I am looking for and praising Him for the honey. One bit of sweetness has been getting to know our friend's children better and developing a wonderful friendship there.

Well, I better close this here. Got a busy weekend ahead.

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!