Sayings – Page 5 – Home's Cool!

Believe it or not!, Blessings of Habit, Homemaking, Inspiring, Photos, Sayings, Scripture, Wisdom

Cheery Tomatoes

Posted on November 2, 2011November 2, 2011 by Katharine

I can’t exactly call them cherry tomatoes, although they are of that variety. Trouble is, cherries are red.

But these are cheer, personified. I planted them beside my front porch because they would be yellow and everything in the front of our house is yellow, from the roses, to the foundation plantings.

: Happy Fruits

As you can see, the vines have become bedraggled, as is normal for all annual type plants in fall. What you cannot see is how much better they look than they did even a week ago. I mourned all the promising green fruits because I thought they were dying. Maybe they were.

But they did not give up. They eventually received some rain and the temps are so much milder, now, these poor South American natives can finally breathe and reproduce! Like the “Little Engine That Could” they thought they could until they did.

I love how the most hope-giving mottos of life are from the Bible: “Do not grow weary in well-doing, for in due season, ye shall reap, if ye faint not.” (Galatians 6:9)

How many times have I held on because of those words! How many times have I not wanted to forgive, but did, anyway. How many times have I feared, but followed through; have I reached out, tended to, lent a hand, smiled, listened, when I really wanted to go my own way.

How many times have I offered to help and been handed something too hard, something I then had to learn how to do, because, after all, I offered? And then I learned more than I knew was possible for me to grasp. And my life became richer. And my thanksgiving became more sincere. And my love became deeper.

Let’s keep on keeping on. Let’s not give up. Let’s “faint not”.

Believe it or not!, Blessings of Habit, Inspiring, Scripture, Wisdom

Sunday Scriptures – Opportunity

Posted on October 23, 2011October 23, 2011 by Katharine

Then He said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He though to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink, and be merry.”

But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night you life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.”

Luke 12:15-21 NIV

Believe it or not!, Inspiring, Scripture, Wisdom

Sunday Scriptures – Sunset

Posted on October 2, 2011October 2, 2011 by Katharine

Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: neither give place to the devil.

Ephesians 4:26-27

Blessings of Habit, Homemaking, Husbands, Inspiring, Photos, Rain, Sayings, Wisdom

Weekly Photo Challenge: Up

Posted on August 27, 2011September 27, 2013 by Katharine

THINGS ARE LOOKING UP AT OUR HOUSE

Ever have a day when your plans vanish? I’m there. It is good, though.

Today, I assist my carpenter. UP there.

You see, in our world, snow hardly ever falls, but last winter, we frolicked in lots of it. And our guttering suffered from lots of it. It sagged. It bulged. It pulled loose.

Then we learned the rest of the story.

Rot.

In our world, rain usually falls in buckets. Torrents. Sometimes, rain so furiously dumps on us in sheets and waterfalls, that we have seen it splash against a neighbor’s roof with enough force to make a wave that actually rains UP a few yards before surrendering to gravity again.

We need the guttering.

So, today, in firm belief that someday rain will actually fall on us again, we are removing the guttering, removing the siding, mending the rotted places, and re-attaching everything.

It’s a little like other problems: Have to deal with the cause of it to really stop it.

“GREAT DAY FOR UP!”
–Dr. Seuss

Inspiring, Sayings, Wisdom

Saturday Sayings: Entrance

Posted on August 13, 2011August 13, 2011 by Katharine

Beware of entrance to a quarrel . . . –Shakespeare, Hamlet

All the world’s a stage,/ and all the men and women merely players./ The have their exits and their entrances . . . –Shakespeare, As You Like It

Music, verily, is the mediator between intellectual and sensuous life . . . the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend. –Ludwig van Beethoven

Inspiring, Photos, Wisdom

Weekly Photo Challenge: Broken

Posted on July 29, 2011July 30, 2011 by Katharine

Broken things lead to other broken things. They can be like dominos. An exploding lightbulb can knock over a fragile vase. A broken tree can break another tree as it falls:

broken tree breaking tree — Broken Tree Breaking Tree

These trees, near our chicken house, are probably going to fall onto the chicken yard fence and break it, too. Ever try to bend or move a tree? Think of the extreme power in a falling tree that it can bend, and even break, a tree near it.

When we humans break, we need to be careful how we fall. We have the above type of power over our fellow man, sometimes.

But look at this:

This poor old tree, though obviously having seen better days, someone has mended in hopes it will last a bit longer. I like its pluck. See how it seems to be trying to dance with the grasses?

May we all try to copy it!

Believe it or not!, Blessings of Habit, Good ol' days, Health, Herbs, Homemaking, Inspiring, Photos, Scripture, Wisdom, Womanhood

Get All You Can–Can All You Get – Part 3

Posted on July 27, 2011March 27, 2018 by Katharine

romantic rose honey — Romantic Rose Honey

Cannng Failure and the Moral of the Story!

Let’s talk a moment about canning failure. Although any canned food that fails to seal is acceptable if refrigerated and eaten within 3 days, undetected failure gives you food that is spoiled. It is unusable, offensive, and poison.

Either way, we must empty the jar, clean it, and try to find and fix the problem.

If the only trouble was debris on the jar rim, or a defective flat, it is an easy fix. Refill it next time and it will work fine.

However, if that rim is the problem, the jar is useless the way it is. Unless you know someone who knows how to do the impossible job of fixing a broken jar, the best thing you can do is to get it out of your life so you can avoid those problems in the future. It’s best to place it inside a bag, break it, and throw it away, to prevent its accidental re-use.

Sisters, we are the jars.

Yes, we are the earthen vessels that God uses for storage. But instead of physical nourishment, the things stored within us are spiritual life-giving treasures.

He gives His Living Word (Rhema) to us (John 1:1-4). It is so refreshing, like fresh fruit to our bodies, satisfying thirst and energizing us, but must be handled with extreme care.

Then He sustains us with His Written Word (Logos), which is also life-giving to us, the routine staple diet every Christian needs and longs for (John 20:31).

He also desires us to contain His meat: obedience and righteousness (John 4:32, 34; Hebrews 5:12-14).

Why does God desire to store His heavenly treasures within us? So that much good can come from these treasures here on this earth. God’s ways are difficult for the unchurched to know of. As vessels, we make the Kingdom more available and more palatable to the spiritually starving.

There is much we can do to make careless people notice God favorably (Romans 10:14). You’ve heard the saying: “You are the only Bible some people will ever read.” Another Christian saying goes: “Do not force the reason for your hope upon those who don’t ask for it, but live so that they will ask.”

Oftentimes God also uses us to make His Kingdom more understandable to some who desire it but are confused (Acts 8:30-31).

He uses us to make the Kingdom more easily acceptable to others (1 Corinthians 9:19-22).

It’s that dinner invitation, soft answer, or offer of baby-sitting that can woo people to Christ who would otherwise never turn to him. We are always to be His containers.

Just like the food we pressure can, God’s treasure within us must be prepared for the process. We must be sure it is clean, pure wisdom; no dirt or bug spots allowed (James 3:17).

Sometimes we cannot receive it all at once, either, any more than a jar could receive a whole potato (John 8:31-32, 16:12-13).

Sometimes it simply “goes in” better once it’s been softened by teaching, summary, or example (Ephesians 4:11-13).

Tomorrow: The Master Potter!