Friday

 

This is me taken yesterday. I am now 63, and this photo was only edited to remove the back of my seat that was showing and a bit of lint on my shoulder!

Hi Friends!

I hope you are all well. The election was not good, but it's also not the worst.

I am praying for wisdom, for all of us to see God's hand in it, and that we may grow closer to the Lord.

I am not a doomer. I'm a born optimist, so when I say things like "grow closer to the Lord" I don't mean it as the world is going to end. I simply mean it as we need to get back to our roots as a nation. We've strayed far from walking with God, and more into modern philosophies. 

God, however is still God. He is the king over everything. He has provided all we need - life, salvation, righteousness through Jesus, eternal life.

I confess that I don't talk about the Lord on this blog very much. I've spoken so much about politics that you may think that that is where I think my salvation will come from. But no, friends, my salvation is from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. 

My Help Comes from the Lord

A Song of Ascents.

121 I lift up my eyes to the hills.
    From where does my help come?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
    who made heaven and earth.

3 He will not let your foot be moved;
    he who keeps you will not slumber.
4 Behold, he who keeps Israel
    will neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The Lord is your keeper;
    the Lord is your shade on your right hand.
6 The sun shall not strike you by day,
    nor the moon by night.

7 The Lord will keep you from all evil;
    he will keep your life.
8 The Lord will keep
    your going out and your coming in
    from this time forth and forevermore.

Do you know why it is called a Song of Ascents? It was a psalm song on the journey to Jerusalem which is a high point in the land. Not the highest but if you were coming to Jerusalem it was all uphill! This song reminded the people that God was with them and a helper and keeper.

We could use that kind of reminder daily, right?! I am going to work to memorize this Psalm.

This week the Lord has reminded me that even if we had the most amazing country, when people die without the Lord their souls will forever be separated from the Lord. That should be what matters most to me.

I will always be passionate about our nation, and want us to be a Godly nation that does good for it's people. I hate to see how people are so confused and lost and hurting.

My focus on my blog is going to be less politics. After 7 years of writing my Information Friday posts, I am taking a break. Maybe permanently - we'll see. 

I want to share uplifting things, how we open our home for hospitality, care for my aging parents, love on our adult kids and grands.

I put most of my posts into draft mode earlier this year, after a few of my kids asked that I remove photos of them and their families from online. I have been blogging since 2007, and that is thousands of posts, so the quickest way to honor their request was to remove all the posts! 

I may blog more than just Mondays and Fridays, and I may actually post on Substack. You can find me there at @deannarabe696945.

Have a great weekend.

Weekend

 

What a beautiful autumn it's been here in Lancaster County. We still have lovely color but it is beginning to wane. See my tree above? I took that photo last Wednesday out of my bedroom window.

I watched the leaves fall all weekend.

It's sad, but these trees have been glorious and have given me a lot of joy.

We now are four weeks away from Thanksgiving, and before that I have a Friendsgiving meal with co-op moms (being hosted by my sweet friend Britt) and I am cooking the Turkey and making the gravy, and I am decorating tables for our church Thanksgiving meal. I've done this for about four years now.

Yesterday, our daughter and son in law and sweet baby, and Kyle came for lunch. We got pizza from a local place we like, and had a relaxing afternoon. Baby girl is nearly three months already and is very smiley and chatty right now. We had a grand chat together yesterday! 

Today, I am going to do some dusting and vacuuming, always needed in our home, and figure out dinner. I made a roast on Saturday in my crock pot, with potatoes, onions, and carrots. It was delicious. I always season it with Dry Onion Soup mix - 2 packets. I put the roast in the crock pot, add water to cover the meat, put the soup packets in. I cooked it on high for about five hours, then cut up potatoes, and onion put them in the crock pot with the meat and added baby carrots. I let it all continue on high for several more hours. The meat fell off the bone, and I put it all meat and veg on a big platter and took some of the juices and made gravy. 

As my friend Sherry would say - Swoon!

I hope you all had a lovely weekend, too!

Weekend

 

This is the grave stone of my dads'  (and my) ancestor on dads' mothers' side. He has spoken of this man and seen his grave stone online.  We've talked about going up there - it's about five hours northwest from where we live. 

Since we always do a fall foliage trip we decided to do our annual trip to Chandlers Valley, Pennsylvania. 

We left Saturday morning and had a good trip up. It was really foggy for an hour or two of the trip and we wondered if we'd see anything! Lol! It cleared and we had great weather all weekend.

We found the cemetery, and we found the grave stone. Josiah Chandler was born in Connecticut in 1754. We don't know what made him settle in this area in Pennsylvania, but we have a few ideas. One is that this area would have been considered the western frontier. He may have been wanting to move west after the war. 

We do know that he is our ancestor and he survived the Revolutionary War. His stone says Veteran of Rev. War.

Pretty cool.

This makes at least two ancestors on my grandmothers' side that were involved in the Revolution. One - Thomas Lynch, Jr of South Carolina is a signer of the Declaration of Independence!

As a history lover, and proud American, this is amazing!

Josiah Chandler died at age 86. My dad is 87, and a veteran of the Vietnam war.

I'm thinking the stone may have been replaced at some point, as you can see the stone behind my dad is older, and Josiah's would have looked more like that originally.

On our way home yesterday, we also got to stop and visit our dear friend Ruth. She's had some health issues lately, so she hasn't been able to visit her son (our friend) much this year. We were so happy to be able to see her hometown and her, of course!

She is a natural optimist, like her son Mike. Mike is Tim's best friend, her daughter in law Jen is one of mine, their son Daniel is Kyle's, and their daughter Brooke is one of Rachel's best friends. We love this family dearly.

We got to watch the full moon rise last night on the way home. God is good, and greater than any other power. He is mighty and full of love and compassion. 

Lamentations 3:22-33 ESV - 

The ^steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;¹

his ^gmercies never come to an end;

23  they are new ^hevery morning;

great is your ⁱfaithfulness.

24  “The Lord is ^jmy portion,” says my soul,

“therefore I will ^khope in him.”

25  The Lord is good to those who ^lwait for him,

to the soul who ^mseeks him.

26  It is good that one should wait ⁿquietly

for the salvation of the Lord.

27  It is good for a man that he bear

the yoke in his youth.

28  Let him sit alone in silence

when it is laid on him;

29  let him put his mouth in the dust—

there may yet be hope;

30  let him give his ^ocheek to the one who strikes,

and let him be filled with insults.

31  For the Lord will not

cast off forever,

32  for, though he cause grief, he will have compassion

according to the ^pabundance of his steadfast love;

33  for ^qhe does not afflict from his heart

or grieve the children of men.