Inspirational Quote for the Day

Here is a great quote from an email I received today: "When you're down to nothing, God is up to something."

Free indeed

If Joseph had not been Egypt's prisoner, he had never been Egypt's governor. The iron chain about his feet ushered in the golden chain about his neck.--Selected
"Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress" (Ps. 4:1)

Oliver finds a home:)

Two of a kind

Lexie and Princess Genevieve

Lexie and Princess Genevieve
Originally uploaded by yankeegal.

Hahaaha

Hahaaha
Originally uploaded by yankeegal.

Do you see what I see?

Do you see what I see?
Originally uploaded by yankeegal.

Fresh air break

Fresh air break
Originally uploaded by yankeegal.

Caught you looking for once!

Caught you looking for once!
Originally uploaded by yankeegal.

Christmas critters

Christmas critters
Originally uploaded by yankeegal.

Christmas musings

I heard a Christmas reading at an Advent service about 7 years ago which moved me and has stuck with me ever since. Here is the main idea: God chose Winter, the bleakest, darkest season of the year to send Jesus to earth. All of nature was asleep or dead. It is typical of the way God works in terms of irony. The King of Glory comes to earth-not in a burst of glory, or to a palace, but in obscurity, within a damp, smelly, animal shelter, and in winter. So it is that Jesus comes into our lives when we feel the bleakest, and most desperate. When things are worse than they've ever been, hope has died, and we have noone else with solutions, He suddenly appears, in the cold and in the dark. Later it was in the Spring, a time of rebirth, when Jesus was crucified. Just as the birds were starting to sing, and new life was blooming, Jesus died and was put into the grave. Just when we finally thought we could hope again. What a time of year for life to end...but it was not the end. Then, and only then, did God have the last word. And today, like then, we can have Hope, because He came to turn despair, and death and darkness on its head. I'm thankful for His indescribable gift....

You are the New Day

I've been listening to a wonderful Christmas song sung by the King's Singers. It's set to an exhilarating tune, and the lyrics are even more uplifting...

Born on a New Day

Meekness, love, humility
Come down to us this day.
Christ, your birth has proved to me
You are the new day.


Quiet in a stall you lie,
Angels watching in the sky
Whisper to you from on high,
“You are the new day.”

When our life is darkest night
Hope has burned away;
Love, your ray of guiding light,
Show us the new day.

Love of all things great and small
Leaving none, embracing all
Fold around me where I fall,
Bring in the new day.

This new day will be
A turning point for everyone
If we let the Christ-child in and
Reach for the new day.

John David, Arr. Peter Knight Text: Philip Lawson

The little traveller

The little traveller
Originally uploaded by yankeegal.

Lexie was a 'traveller' in her school nativity play yesterday. Suppose it's a pc way of describing one of those who were travelling to Bethlehem. New one to me, but I guess I'm getting old, and this crazy world just keeps coining new terms all the time. Anyway, later in the play the kids put on some kind of dance that sounded very Israeli and Lexie was the star of the show as she pulled out all her moves.

Memory

Memory Can Tell Us Only What We Were
By Richard Fife

Memory can tell us only what we were,

In company with those we loved;

It cannot help us find out what each of us,

Alone, must now become.

Yet, no person is really alone;

Those who live no more still echo

Within our thoughts and words,

And what they did has become

Woven into what we are.

Andrew

Blue autumn sky
Leaves at their peak
Gentle breezes whisper
All is not bleak

Absent in body
Still you are near
Not just in memory
Somehow you're here

I think you're watching
Sometimes I feel
That cloud of witnesses
Is even more real

Andrew, we miss you
I hope you know
How much we all love you
We miss you so

Furry friends in the park

Riding the 'roundabout'