This picture was taken at the Mayor's Ball in January.   I just found it last night  on a missing set of picture cds.  I have to still find Jacob's birthday pictures!

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It’s been busy around here this past week.  I spent hours Monday and Tuesday weeding my large raspberry and strawberry garden, and also my herb garden.  My vegetable garden is now completely prepared to plant peas and corn – this is something I hope to be able to accomplish today. I’ve been growing vegetables in my screened-in porch for the past month and they are ready – in fact, dangerously close to being over-ready, to be placed in the soil.

Wednesday I was on the run all day getting errands accomplished and a hair appointment.

Thursday was spent in Indianapolis at a business luncheon at Sullivan’s, and later spending several hours in a business meeting. I got home just in the nick of time to get Rachel to her riding lesson in the evening.

 Something I haven’t mentioned yet is the excitement that has permeated this week of activity.  We have two pregnant mares that are due any time.  I get up in the middle of the night, every night, and check on them to see if they are foaling.  I can’t express to you in words how excited I am about this!

My oldest daughter is also due to deliver her 4^th baby this week.  I am waiting for “the phone call.”  As it is going to be another homebirth (I had four at home, and my daughter has had all of hers at home so far) she has asked if I will come to her home to watch the little ones when she goes into labor.  Did I mention that this is an exciting week?  My stomach is turning over with a certain amount of nervousness every time I think of all the pending births this week. It boggles my mind every time I think of the timing of all of this – to have all of these births due at any moment.

My devotions this morning were applicable to this past week, having celebrated my 51st birthday.

“All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field.

The grass withereth, the flower fadeth…

(and then repeats -)

The grass withereth, the flower fadeth:

but the word of our God shall stand forever.”

Every birthday is a living testament to these verses in Isaiah 40. We are all fading, although the youth may not realize so! But the Word of God stands forever.  It is eternal. His Word will sustain and strengthen us as these verses in the same chapter so eloquently express;

Even the youths shall faint and be weary; and the young men shall utterly fall:

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; and they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

His Word has been my guiding point for the past three decades.  It is my compass.  When I feel weak, I am made strong through prayer and the reading of His Word.  I love this verse (in the same chapter) –

He giveth power to the faint: and to them that have no might He increaseth strength.”

I have found this to be true.  When I have been utterly exhausted in my own strength, over and over I have been given renewed strength. He has sustained me through trials and overwhelming difficulties at times. He has over and over renewed my strength when I felt myself to be in total weakness.  He has given me physical healing many times through just prayer.  At the age of 14 years old, I asked Jesus Christ to come into my heart and to forgive me of my sins.  At 51, I live to testify His faithfulness. His Word truly is faithful and has/will sustain and strengthen me.