Treasures

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I don’t know what brought this to mind this morning, but I decided to share it. I have never heard this song except at the church I attended as a teen when a new family came and sang it. I am not sure who wrote it — looking it up online I saw it quoted without an author several times, attributed to Martha Snell Nicholson a couple of times and a slightly different version of it in a poem by James S. Hewett. But whoever wrote it, it contains a good thought:

Treasures

One by one He took them from me
All the things I valued most;
‘Til I was empty-handed,
Every glittering toy was lost.

And I walked earth’s highways, grieving,
In my rags and poverty.
Until I heard His voice inviting,
“Lift those empty hands to Me!”

Then I turned my hands toward heaven,
And He filled them with a store
Of His own transcendent riches,
‘Till they could contain no more.

And at last I comprehended
With my stupid mind, and dull,
That God cannot pour His riches
Into hands already full.

Findings

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The big project Saturday was to make a serious dent in cleaning out our shed before getting ready to move. Some stuff (which somehow was mostly mine….) was in boxes that had not been touched since we moved here years ago. 😳 I knew I wouldn’t keep most of it, but I didn’t want to just throw the boxes away without looking through them first, because I knew there were some treasures in there.

So while Jim, Jeremy, and Jesse took care of some of the bigger items, I sorted through boxes of old magazine articles and recipes (that I had planned someday to file :roll:), letters, notes, etc. I just flipped through and threw away most of anything that appeared to be torn out of a magazine or newspaper — I figured if I had done without those clippings this long, I probably didn’t need them. But this struck me funny in light of all of our house-hunting:

I did find some old bulletins with some poems and quotes I want to keep. Some of them that I tossed included stories and poems that still circulate the Internet today! I found some “Pastorgraphs,” various thoughts on the backs of church bulletins from a beloved former pastor for whom our son Jesse is named, some of which I might post in the future.

I found an old notebook from college days with dividers for sections for devotions, sermon notes, prayer requests, Christmas shopping lists, etc. The very first page had this list:

And yes, I think I got him. 🙂 ♥

I found several pages of notes from devotions that I will have to read through later:

I don’t take notes like that any more, I think because I kept piling up all these notes without ever really consulting them again. But I probably should. What little bit I read was an interesting picture of what I was learning and thinking at the time. I probably would think through the passages better if I were still taking notes like that.

I also found a few letters and personal notes. One from Jim from dating days brought a smile. It said:

THIS IS A LEGAL DOCUMENT

Do not destroy until the agreement specified has been fulfilled.

To the bearer, Barbara F—, I,  James H—, promise to honor this note concerning an agreement made in the month of February 1979. Because of her gracious acceptance of a date on a Sunday of the previously mentioned month, I promise and rightfully owe Miss F— one day of her choosing in which I shall do whatever she wishes (within reason). This IOU is binding and shall not be dissolved.

Sincerely (i.e., “with love”),

Signed: James H—

Recipient signature: Barbara F—

I showed it to him and asked him if I had ever cashed in on that. He said, “Many times.” 😀

He found a stray slide on the floor, and saw that it was a picture of me from a couple of months after we started dating. He cleaned it up and printed it out:

We still haven’t figured out why it was in slide form.

I also found a pillow from a quilting class I took. I didn’t like the backing I had used, so I cut it off and want to see about remaking it with other fabric.

The front is pilling a little bit — I probably used cheap fabric. But we’ll see if it can be salvaged. I also found another pillow that I had spent hours embroidering and lost track of. Somehow it was stored in an open box and got all gunky.

Any suggestions for cleaning it? I am going to take the old stuffing out and soak the fabric in…something. Woolite, maybe?

As I sorted through and threw away so much stuff (I did keep all of the above, by the way!) I felt so embarrassed that I had had it all sitting out there so long only to be tossed out. But I comforted myself with the fact that I have learned better now! I keep much less of that kind of thing and try to be discriminating about what I might really look at again and treasure and use in the years to come. So at least  I haven’t accumulated another several boxes to add to those from our years here. Well, maybe I have accumulated as much stuff or more — but it’s not boxes of clippings, anyway! 🙂

After a very hot several hours out there (thankfully it has electricity and we had an old fan going), two trips to the dump and one to Salvation Army (and no, that wasn’t all only my stuff!!), we’re maybe — oh — more than a third but less than half done? I’m hoping to do some more this week, but as there are other obligations this week, we’ll see.

And after we get the shed done — next is the attic!

The Week In Words

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Welcome to The Week In Words, where we share quotes from the last week’s reading. If something you read this past week  inspired you, caused you to laugh, cry, think, dream, or just resonated with you in some way, please share it with us, attributing it to its source, which can be a book, newspaper, blog, Facebook — anything that you read. More information is here.

Here are some interesting quotes I saw this week:

From ivman:

“Nobody sins because they want to be miserable. We somehow think we’re better off to sin than to obey.” – Drew Conley

That reminds me about the verse that there is pleasure in sin for a season — but just a season. The misery from it will come soonser or later, but people forget that.

This one is a quote within a quote within a quote. 🙂 Girltalk quotes C. J. Mahaney quoting John Piper about reading:

Is reading worth the time investment when so much is forgotten? John Piper says yes.

In a message long ago (July 12, 1981) he said this:

What I have learned from about twenty-years of serious reading is this: It is sentences that change my life, not books. What changes my life is some new glimpse of truth, some powerful challenge, some resolution to a long-standing dilemma, and these usually come concentrated in a sentence or two. I do not remember 99% of what I read, but if the 1% of each book or article I do remember is a life-changing insight, then I don’t begrudge the 99%.

Read, but not to remember everything. Read because that 1% that you remember has to potential to change your life.

That is such a comfort to me, because I have gotten so frustrated with myself because I do tend to remember just a few sentences or principles rather than feeling as if I have a grasp of the whole book.

This is from p. 59 of Hoping for Something Better: Refusing to Settle for Life as Usual, a Bible study by Nancy Guthrie. It is an expansion on a similar quote from C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity about Christ being able to sympathize and help us in temptation because He faced temptation and resisted:

Jesus doesn’t roll his eyes and wonder how we could even consider taking a step in the direction we’re being tempted in. He doesn’t take lightly our struggles with sin, because he knows what it is like to be tempted. Jesus was tempted in all the ways we are — yet he never gave in to sin.

We might think that if Jesus never sinned, he really doesn’t know what temptation is like, But if you think about it, only the person who tries to resist temptation knows how strong it is. The one who gives in after a few minutes doesn’t know what it would be like after a few hours. Who has experienced greater temptation: the one who is tempted and quickly gives in to the temptation or the one who holds on and holds out and doesn’t give in? Christ, in never yielding to temptation, knows more about the strength of temptation and the suffering involved in temptation than we will ever know. He’s our advocate who understands.

If you have some family-friendly quotes you’d like to share, please leave the link to your “Week In Words” post with Mr. Linky below, and don’t forget to leave a comment telling me what you think about these quotes. :) And whether you have any you’d like to share, if you like reading you might find some interesting quotes at the other participants: I hope you’ll visit them as well.

Be Still My Soul

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“Be still, and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side.
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change, He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake
To guide the future, as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know
His voice Who ruled them while He dwelt below.

Be still, my soul: when dearest friends depart,
And all is darkened in the vale of tears,
Then shalt thou better know His love, His heart,
Who comes to soothe thy sorrow and thy fears.
Be still, my soul: thy Jesus can repay
From His own fullness all He takes away.

Be still, my soul: the hour is hastening on
When we shall be forever with the Lord.
When disappointment, grief and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past
All safe and blessèd we shall meet at last.

Be still, my soul: begin the song of praise
On earth, believing, to Thy Lord on high;
Acknowledge Him in all thy words and ways,
So shall He view thee with a well pleased eye.
Be still, my soul: the Sun of life divine
Through passing clouds shall but more brightly shine.

~ Katharina A. von Schlegel, 1855

Stray Thoughts

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An accumulation of various stray thoughts over the last several days…

  • I’ve often wished I could take photos during the drive to TN, but it’s pretty fast-moving traffic on winding roads for most of it. There is a shoulder, but I wouldn’t stop there unless it was an emergency. Once when it had been raining off and on, there were little wisps of clouds right at eye level.
  • Every time we’ve gone to the hotel in TN, I have planned to take a photo of the carpet in the hallway, but I keep forgetting. The design in it looks like fish bones. I wonder if the designer had fish before coming up with that design.
  • This last Thursday morning at the hotel, Jim went on to work and I stayed at the room a little longer, planning to leave at my leisure. He had told the front desk I would probably check out at 9 or 10, and I put out the “Do Not Disturb” sign so they wouldn’t come in to change towels til after I left. I was at the desk using the computer when two ladies from housekeeping barged in at 9:07. They apologized all over themselves — they had thought I was gone already. I was glad I wasn’t dressing or using the restroom — I don’t always close the restroom door all the way when I am in there by myself, but I did for the rest of the time I was there!
  • The hardest thing about looking at houses is that no one house has every feature we like. There was one gorgeous house, but it was squished up against the houses behind it — very little yard space, and very little distance between the kitchen table and one neighbor’s house. It would be disturbing to have neighbors right outside your window while you’re eating (at least for me). We loved the living area in one, the kitchen in another, the screened in porch, back yard, and bedrooms of another. We even gave a fleeting thought to building, but there’s not time at this stage, and I’ve heard that can be a major headache. We did find one that is nice, has the space we want, and is arranged well, with some extra features we like. The bedrooms are smaller than some we had seen, but I think they’re ok: the bathrooms aren’t as up-to-date as other houses, but they have the basic requirements. We’ll see what happens!
  • One house we looked at had a pink toilet! Really! I thought it was cute. Jesse said he would never use it. Jim said he probably would if he needed to badly enough, but Jesse maintained he wouldn’t. I told him a pink toilet was better than a yellow one. We saw one of those in another house.
  • A lot of houses up there have gas log fireplaces — just flip a switch, and voila! I’m assuming there is probably a little more snow up there than here, so that will be nice. We have a fireplace now, but it is wood-burning and we pretty much only use it when the power is out in winter. It’s smelly, requires tending, and you have to deal with cleaning out the ashes. So I am all for just flipping a switch.
  • We’ve known about the possibility of moving for almost a year, though we only decided to for sure a few months ago. We’ve needed to keep it quiet for various reasons, but we let Jesse tell his classmates so he could tell them good-bye, and word started to filter from there. Then we made it public a couple of weeks ago. So I understand that what we’ve had time to get adjusted to is new for many people we know. But some people have said things like, “I’m mad at you!” or “Why do you want to go off and leave us?” I know they’re teasing and basically mean, “We’re sorry to see you go,” but it comes across a little negative that way. With some people we’ve almost had to defend why we’re leaving. Only a very few people have said anything positive. One lady today told me she was going to miss us, but she was excited for what the Lord was doing for our family. That was such a balm.
  • Our church is going through a time of change: we’ve been without a youth pastor for a year, our business manager is retiring, our custodian is moving away, and our family is moving. I don’t mean to elevate myself to any level of importance, but the ladies’ ministry, especially, will undergo the most change by my leaving. And change can be disconcerting. I have one last ladies’ booklet to do, and one thing that has come to mind to share there is the last line of a stanza of a verse in “Be Still My Soul” — “In every change, He faithful will remain.” “For I am the LORD, I change not” (Malachi 3:6). “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and for ever” (Hebrews 13:8). God is with us throughout each change in life. He promises to work everything together for good. I’m sure He will raise up someone to take the ladies’ group to the next level, to take it places that I could not.
  • I’m sure I will need to remind myself of that many times as well. We’re excited about many of the changes coming up for our family, but actually facing getting to know new places and people, and especially the change of our family being scattered will be hard. I’m thankful we can count on God’s grace in every circumstance.

Friday’s Fave Five

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Susanne at Living to Tell the Story hosts Friday’s Fave Five so we can share our favorite things from the last week. This has been a wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God gives. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.

Here are some of my favorites from this week:

1. Another safe solo road trip to meet Jim in TN for another house-hunting expedition. We’ve made an offer on one — we’ll see how it goes!

2. A good realtor there who seems to really know her stuff.

3. Finding a good Christian radio station there. We have two good ones here, and when we moved away from this area before to GA, I really missed them. They both play online these days, though, so I listened to them a bit in the hotel, but flipping through stations in the car on the way back I found an affiliate of one of them there.

4. A beautiful drive. Road trips aren’t my favorite thing, even if I am not the one driving. But on many road trips on the highway, all you see is guard rails and trees. The drive between here and eastern TN is gorgeous through hills and mountains.

5. Finding my old Bible. When I drove up to TN a couple of weeks ago, somehow I grabbed my old Bible instead of my new one. After we attended church on a Wed. night that trip, I couldn’t find it, so I thought perhaps I had left it at the church. When we checked back this trip, they looked in their lost and found, but it wasn’t there. I was dismayed, because, though I have other Bibles, this was an old friend, one my husband gave me shortly after we married and which had accumulated a lot of notes over the years (I shared some flyleaf favorites from it a couple of years ago.) But when I was packing up to leave the hotel, I opened the zippered outer pocket on the suitcase to put something there — and there it was! I don’t remember putting it there. My husband says he may have. Somehow I didn’t think to check there after the last trip because I didn’t think I used that pocket. But I was just glad to see it again!

Hope you have a great Friday!

Flashback Friday: Home Sweet Home

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Mocha With Linda hosts a weekly meme called Flashback Friday. She’ll post a question every Thursday, and then Friday we can link our answers up on her site.

The question for this week is about the home we grew up in:

Where did you live when you were growing up? In a house or an apartment? A mobile home or a duplex? Did your parents rent or own? Was it big or small? In a city, small town, or rural area? In the USA or another country? Did you have your own room or share with siblings? Did you have a say in how your room was painted/decorated? Did your folks update/redecorate periodically or was your house “stuck” in a certain decade? Did you have a yard? A swingset or other play areas? What was your neighborhood like? Were there lots of kids to play with? Did your family stay in one place or did you move? If so, how many times did you move by the time you graduated from high school? Did you like moving or long to stay in one place? Are your parents still in the home you grew up in (or at least the one you lived in when you graduated from high school) or did they move and you haven’t lived with them in their latest house? Does it feel like home? What were your favorite and least favorite things about your physical home? How similar or different is it to where you live now?

I’ve always loved the idea of the old family homestead, large enough for the whole brood, passed down through the generations, the house everyone comes home to.

We didn’t have that, however. We moved around quite a lot — every two years for a while. The only house I have any memory from my early childhood is my grandfather’s house. We lived with him for a while, then it seems we lived there by ourselves for a time, but I can’t remember the order of it all. I don’t remember how long we lived there. I don’t know if it was the house he shared with my grandmother or if he moved there after she passed away. I don’t really remember anything distinctive about the house itself except that it seems like it was a peachy color, and the bathroom connected my parent’s bedroom and my room. I do remember the address: if I am ever back in Corpus Christi, TX, I may drive by and see if it is still there.

But I do have some distinct memories from that house. Here are a few:

  • My brother was born there. My mom had visited the doctor that day and had been told she was not ready to deliver yet. She didn’t have contractions in front, but had horrible back pain. I was four, and I remember being in my bedroom while she was in the bathroom when she shrieked for my father to come. He came and picked her up and carried her into their room — and they wouldn’t let me in! (Probably a good thing!) I remember lying on my bed wondering what was going on when my grandfather came in to check on me. Everything happened too fast for them to get to a hospital, but they did go after everything settled down. I did get to go in and see my mom and new little brother before they left.
  • A couple of years later, my brother and I shared a bedroom with bunk beds. I had the top bunk, and the bottom of my bed wasn’t covered over, so my brother’s view from the lower bunk was of all the coils from the box springs of my bed (It’s amazing he didn’t get a finger stuck in there or something.) He often had very vivid dreams involving wild animals, so one night when he went to tell my parents that there was a snake in the box springs, they thought he was just dreaming. But he insisted, and they came to check — and there was a snake, by that time on my mattress near my head!!! Somehow they got our neighbor, Mrs. Beeson, over there to kill it: I remember her chopping its head off with an axe (after they somehow got it off the bed) and watching its mouth opening and closing and its body still slithering while disconnected from each other. Creepy! She said it was an egg snake (?) after eggs in the nest in my window (which I hadn’t noticed before) and it wouldn’t have hurt me. But it was still creepy.
  • I don’t remember Mrs. Beeson’s face at all. She looked like she could have come from the Little House on the Prairie TV show set: she always wore a long skirt, blouse, and bonnet when she worked outside, which was a lot. I stayed with her for a few days while my mom was in the hospital after my brother’s birth. I don’t think she had a family of her own (at least not that lived with or near her), but there always seemed to be children at her house. She had a woody area behind her house where there was an old cabinet with various utensils and pans and pans, etc., and we all played back there making mud pies and such.
  • I must have had an active imagination of my own, because I remember one night on my top bunk waking up and seeing a rounded shape right in front of me. Somehow I was convinced it was a headhunter, and if I just kept my eyes closed and pretended I was asleep, he wouldn’t bother me. So I tried, peeking every now and then to see if it was still there. I finally fell back asleep, and when I woke up, I saw that that rounded shape was the head of my teddy bear. 😳

So, even though I don’t remember the house itself, I have fond memories of our time there.

When I was in 9th or 10th grade, we lived in a small town with less than 200 people. There was no high school — we were bussed to the next town 10 miles away. I think there was one traffic light. Our house was “the house on the second hill.” The thing I loved about that house was that you could open windows on opposite sides of the house and get a lovely breeze through there.

When my mother left my father and we moved to Houston, we lived in a trailer for a few years. Then my mom and step-father had a house built in a new sub-division where they moved when I was in college and lived there ever since. My mom passed away almost five years ago, but my step-father still lives there. It is paid for now, and he wants to stay there until he passes on. Since I only lived there during breaks from college, I don’t have the feelings associated with the family home except that it was my mom’s house for so many years. I have fond memories from visits back there as well. What’s funny is that my three youngest sisters were very little when we moved there, so for them that is the old family homestead. Funny the different perspectives from the different age groups!

Booking Through Thursday: Reviewed

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btt button The Booking Through Thursday question for this week is:

Do you read book reviews? Do you let them change your mind about reading/not reading a particular book?

I read some book reviews. If an author I like and have read before has a new book coming out, I am not likely to read a review of it until after I read it to see if others thought and felt the same way I did or not. But many bloggers I read post book reviews, and the great majority of them are positive and have added greatly to my “To Be Read” list. I will occasionally check the reviews at Amazon.com or Christianbook.com as well. There may have been a few times a review inclined me away from a book, but if the book was something I had a strong desire to read, I wouldn’t let that deter me. We do have to account for different tastes and personalities and the fact that not even the closest friends will like all the same things. But if there is a book I have some doubt about, there are people whose judgment I trust whose opinion I would seek before investing my time and money in a book.

“Where Bloggers Create” Party

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I posted way back on April 29 that I learned via Quill Cottage about a Where Bloggers Create party to be given June 19 at My Desert Cottage in which bloggers could show their creative space, whether a room or a corner or a table. Some great prizes from Jo Packham of the Where Women Create magazines and books are being given as well.

And then I forgot about it!

And then we found out we were moving, so I pretty much stopped working on it both because it was all going to be moved anyway plus now I have other packing and sorting to do.

But then the creative space of the first party participant I looked at was not at all “picture perfect,” so I thought I might join in after all.

It is functional enough to use — I’ve made a few things in here — but I still don’t have all my “stuff” in here yet and don’t have it all organized and have very little on the walls.

But here is what I have so far.

This is the view from the door. I probably would not have chosen dark blue walls if I were starting from scratch — I probably would have painted them creamy white like Anita‘s. But we had just redone this room for Jason a few years ago, and the paint was in fine shape, so we left it. As it turns out,  I really love the way the pink and white look against the blue. I don’t know if I’ll paint the craft room in the new house this color — we’ll have to see. At least I am pretty sure I will have a craft room — we might have to combine it with an office. We’re still house-hunting (I’d appreciate your prayer for that! We want to get in and settled before Jesse’s school starts.)

Anyway, back to the room. One thing I neglected to take a photo of were the studio lights Jason asked for when we redecorated his room, but they were very helpful in aiming the lights at the different work areas.

This is where I do my paper crafting or anything that needs table space:

As you can tell, I don’t have my little shelves filled up and organized yet. Some day… But I like having most everything within reach. My Cricut and Cuttlebug cartridges are in the pink file boxes below the table, and the floral file box…

…contains my scrapbooking and craft papers:

This little drawer set sits just to my left..

…and holds various tools and supplies, like my decorative scissors..

…punches…

…ribbons and trims…

I will probably separate those into different color families at some point, but for now I love to just rummage through them all.

This bookcase holds all my craft books as well as some decorative things that will go other places in the room some day. When I get those decorative things off the shelves, they will then probably hold more supplies.

I should have straightened that photo!

To the right there you see some things that will some day go on the walls.

This is the sewing area:

I really need to change that Holly Hobby red sewing machine cover! I’ve used this old desk for sewing for years, and it works fine except when excess fabric wants to slide off the left side of the table, so that’s why I put my pink file cabinet with craft and sewing booklets and clippings there — it provides a little extra surface area.

This shelf above the sewing area has a few decorative sewing-related items:

Continuing to move around the room, this wall is…the unfinished area. 🙂

The plan was to put a futon there, both so overnight guests would have a place to sleep and I might have a comfortable place to sit and do hand sewing or look through one of the books, or for my husband or kids to have a place to sit if they came up while I was working on something. We haven’t gotten one yet, and I need for that very old computer of Jason’s to be carted off somewhere.

Finally, this is the partially organized closet:

Some of those boxes contain gift bags, photos, mementos, stamps, etc.

This is one little project sitting out that has been awaiting a frame for a long time. It’s a good reminder!

This sign is still on the door.

My middle son, Jason put it there back when he started packing up some of his things from his room shortly before he got married. It didn’t really hit until I saw all those boxes that he was actually leaving, though I’d known it for months, and I got a little teary. My husband said, “Think sewing room!” and Jason put the sign up as an encouragement that I’d get to use the room for fun stuff after he was gone. 🙂

So there you have it, such as it is! You can find many more finished creative spaces at the party post at My Desert Cottage here. I’m looking forward to being inspired and getting some neat ideas.

In addition to the prizes offered at My Desert Cottage, Hydrangea Home is offering a prize of a $50 certificate from her store for party-goers: