I love Fall

Fall is one of my favorite seasons (along with the other 3 ;-) ). One of the best things is to get away on a weekend retreat with the family. We love the mountain/wood area of Saluda , NC. There is a neat campground called Orchard Lake Campground that has tiny A-frames , camping, and lots of things to do for family. We have gone here for about 19 years as a family! We spent last weekend there. The only problem this year is the gas shortage caused by the hurricane in the gulf. We searched for 30 minutes and managed to find one open gas station that still had gas---all the others were out!

I love hiking in the woods and this was just a wonderful little place with water, rocks, and green!

This was my grandson's first mountain experience. My daughter was making sure he was warm ;-).

There is something so special about the lush green colors of fall after a rain storm, the feeling that stone bridges, and running water gives to me!!! I feel like I am in a story book or a new world .

The smells, the sounds, the colors, the life, the richness feeds my being!

One happy person!

Our Grand daughter enjoyed sliding on the rock.

And catching the drops dripping off this leaf laden ledge!

My hubby found a great comfortable pair of hiking shoes at a local shop----guess what I want for Christmas???

This trail had so many neat little areas.

Back at the campground we enjoyed the lakes, the boats, the ducks, the outdoors!!

I love the colors of fall and all of the growing things!

And of course a campfire with somores!!

And a touch of soccer!!

All in all a refreshing weekend.

At war

Was reading in a book about Satan schemes and it made some good points.

First of all in Eph 6:10-12 it refers to the "schemes of the devil". This writer was pointing out that Satan often follows a progressive pattern: distraction--addiction---destruction. " His goal is to reap destruction, but that's rarely his starting point. His usual opening is distraction. Scripture has a name for a small distraction that becomes a big distraction. It's called a stronghold. Scripture defines it as any and 'every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God' (2 Cor 10:5). Anything that becomes a bigger preoccupation in your mind than the truth and knowledge of God, anything that dwarfs His truth and knowledge in your imagination, is a stronghold. In other words, if I have a relationship through which I can no longer prioritize Christ and His Word, Satan is building a stronghold there. If watching what I eat is no longer a means to better health and instead has become a major preoccupation, Satan is building a stronghold."

She goes on to explain how the distraction can become an addiction--its kind of like us turning something we have into a place where we live. Defeat becomes a lifestyle. She explains that the present level of satisfaction will soon lose its sensitivity and then we need to indulge in more. This is true with sensuality, but also true of all sin. We get caught in the furious cycle of continual lust (she is talking about all sin here). We have to remember that Satan's goal is not just addiction, but destruction. "He wants to destroy our lives, our callings, our sense of godly significance, our personal intimacy with God, and every relationship that matters to us."

I thought these were excellent points and we often forget that daily we are in a war like situation just by being Christians.

Spiritual Sunday

My post for Spritual Sunday is found at my other blog: http://devotionalstuffy.blogspot.com/2008/09/song.html

Interesting Arguments about evil

I was reading a little of "Stand to Reason"--the newsletter. I like these thoughts about what Evil teaches us:

"The problem of evil is only a problem if evil is real. To say something is evil, though , is to make a moral judgment. Moral judgments require a moral standard--a moral law---and a moral law requires an author. If the standard is transcendent, then the law-giver must be, too."

"It would be self-defeating to acknowledge shadows, but deny light because light makes shadows possible in the first place. In the same way, it is self-defeating to complain that transcendent moral laws have been broken, yet deny that a transcendent moral law-giver (God) exixts."

"In a world bereft of God, there are many ways to characterize Hitchens's 'barbarism, misery, ignorance, slavery and early death'; sad, painful, unpleasant, even ghastly. Yet if God doesn't exist, the one thing we can never do is call such human destruction tragic, or wanton abuse wicked. If God doesn't exist to ground morality, the carnage ceases to be tragic at all, if by that word we mean a genuine breach of goodness."

Car in the shop

My car is in the shop so I am gazing at rain drops-----No.....I am getting a breather. I haven't been posting a whole lot, but thought about expressing the blessings of having a soul mate for the last 31 years. I happened to read a little this morning in Jan Karon's book called, "A Common Life; the Wedding Story". This made me reflect on how wonderful it is to share a life with someone you enjoy being with and doing things with (I know, I know, you aren't supposed to end a sentence with a preposition!).

It is so nice to have a soul mate. I love having someone to share life with that enables myself to just be myself. I love having a person that shares so many of the same interests and who spiritually can share all kinds of things. It really is like a comfortable shoe ---that always sounds so used, so trite, but how else do you explain just the plain comfort of having a person you can be real with???

Life can be so hard and I am so thankful to have someone who is here with me to travel this life with me----I know we may not have each other for much longer (one just never knows).....but I am so thankful to have another human being to share all of life with (I keep ending my sentences with with!!!---). There is so much right here to be thankful for---what a gift to have a beloved spouse!

spiritual sunday

It is spiritual sunday at

http://bloggerspirit.blogspot.com/2008/09/welcome-back-to-spiritual-sundays.html

My Spirtual Sunday post is on my devotion blog at:

http://devotionalstuffy.blogspot.com/2008/09/tim-tebow-for-spiritual-sunday.html

Show and Tell Friday

It is Show and Tell at Kelli's blog on Friday.http://kellishouse.blogspot.com/2008/09/show-and-tell-friday.html I am just posting this early. This is a gift that my grand daughter received and I thought it was a great idea. It holds her coloring books and paper and all of her crayons---such a neat idea!!