I Reach Out Just the Same: More snow!

           This morning welcomed another 3-4 in of snow! Thank goodness we shoveled last night, I am not sure if our shovel would have made it as long as it did yesterday if we had had all of this new snow too! Our tools this morning included the snow shovel - minus the handle (it broke last night), a garden hoe turned ice pick, and a shop broom. Our mission: clear the driveways and sidewalk. Participants: Caroline, Natalie, and our neighbor boy whom neither Caroline or I can remember his name...:( Sad and shameful I know. I think our neighbors must have felt bad for us and sent him over after they saw us "shoveling" with the broom and broken shovel. They are so thoughtful!
           Church was canceled due to road conditions so the four of us had our own little worship service in our pj's on the couch! There is something wonderous about being able to worship wherever you are, whether it's in a church building, a make-shift church building, outside, at home, and with thousands of people, four people, or alone...He never changes...He Is and that's all we need to know. As long as He Is, then it doesn't matter where we choose to come before Him.
          We read from The Cross Centered Life: Keeping the Gospel the Main Thing, by C.J. Mahaney for a devotional and then sang a few hymns. The chapter we read from juxtaposed talking to yourself and listening to yourself. Mahaney illustrated how he ends up listening to how he feels about things or a situation more often then he talks to himself and focuses on who God is and on His truths regardless of what is happening in his life. For example, in the morning when he awakens his mind immediately beings to think about having to get up too early, the arguement he had with someone the day before, how everywhere he looks something needs to be cleaned or fixed....and so on and so forth. He is so busy thinking/feeling about things that he doesn't have time to pray or spend time with God before the day begins. Inevitably, any of us who begin our day this way usually walk out of the house already in a hurry, stressed and flustered. I can relate. Can you?
          Mahaney challenged us to talk to rather than listen to ourselves. By talking to ourselves he doesn't mean walking around looking like a loon, he simply means meditating on what we know to be true about God and who He is, what He's done for us. Food for thought, no?

Here are a few more pics of the additional snow and the first blue sky we've seen in weeks!