Joy in the Journey

  He will cover you with his feathers and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. Psalm 91:4   Growing up I was a very timid child. For reasons that aren’t worth discussing I was quite fearful and had no real comfort zone. Still I felt worse when I was away from home. My mother was a big woman, prone to wearing dresses and skirts, most of which were bell shaped or flowy. I loved those skirts! They were my haven. Whenever I was totally intimidated, read that as most of the time, I would stand as close to my mother as possible and pull the material of her skirt in front of me. This morning while praying, I was blessed with the image of God’s giant hand holding the enemy back, off, away from me. As I prayed in thanksgiving I said. “I love it behind the shelter of your huge hand.” That reminded me of the skirts. Note it was not my mother’s presence that gave me comfort. She was not a comforting person, because, God bless her,

  Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like the shifting shadows. James 1:17   Earlier today I read a message about how God goes before us in life, planting little bits of joy, little treasures for us to find. That reminded me of my husband and my grandchildren, not for the obvious reason. My husband makes jewelry, beautiful jewelry created with precious and semi-precious gemstones. The stones he uses aren’t purchased. They are found. What he does purchase is dirt, dirt that he then sifts through to find the gems. The first time he did it at home our grandson Joey helped him. Joey was about four at that the time and would often miss something that was actually valuable. Pop-Pop patiently showed Joey how to slow down and consider each rock. Soon Joey was finding all kinds of things. Last night our grandson Samuel was showing me all the wonderful riches he’d found while going through a buc