quite a spill

June was a stormy month! At least as far as walking by faith is concerned.

Here at CCB the old adage “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything” is my rule of thumb. That’s why there were only two posts in June.  But honestly, June was a series of raging storms. I had bouts of depression, rebellion and misery; symptoms of illness almost every night and lots of pain. There were several contributing factors. None of them were very nice, so they shall remain nameless here. Just let it be said—there was little or no faith connected to any of those storms.

What? You thought everything was always perfect around here?

HA! Right….

So.o.o I spent a good bit of time painting clowns in my journal, refining the images and posting ’em on facebook.

No…really! It actually helped me move forward.

And, yes. Thank you. July has been MUCH better.  So much better, in fact,  that I’ve been busy and productive.

Spent hours updating the coding on both of D’s websites—turning them into WordPress blogs so he can post his projects and thoughts.

Isaiah496.org is the blog where he shares his “daily musings” from God’s Word.  The new look is clean and elegant. Rebuilding it reminded me just how much I enjoy the design
and coding process. I’m no pro, not since HTML 5 arrived, but it’s still something I love doing.

Pop’s Attic dot com is “a place where a kid from the 50’s” shares his love of art, model building, and so much more. He’s been posting there a lot lately and I’ve had fun watching both the building and blogging process unfold.

On the bright side, there have been a couple of really outstanding and miraculous blessings in the midst of all the storms. It would be remiss of me to mention the bad without telling you about the blessings. God is so very good to us.

…and he has showered down upon us the richness of his grace—for how well he understands us and knows what is best for us at all times. 

Ephesians 1:8 Living Bible (TLB)

On the 22nd of June I decided to hang another bouquet of roses to dry in the studio. Not able to reach the hook, I decided to step up on my desk chair. Stupid! Stupid, stupid, stoopid! Bracing myself on the rocker and putting all my weight on my not-too-flexible right knee, up I stepped. The rocker rocked. The knee didn’t cooperate. The desk chair tipped. And I fell. HARD.  Landing on my behind, with my head slamming the concrete floor in the tiny space between the other rocker and the book case. Ouch!

I screamed for D, who dashed to help. We did what we always do under similar circumstances—there have been a few others. We took a few seconds to gather our wits and then pronounced together, “Jesus is Lord” over it.

My fall left a mark. For sure. In fact it left a black and blue area about the size of my hand right above my tailbone and a good sized goose egg on my noggin.

How is that a blessing, you may be asking?

Well, nothing was broken. Nothing was severely damaged. Within half an hour I had all of my marbles gathered, and I could swear there was a guardian angel beside me to break my fall in what otherwise might have been a disastrous accident.  Looking at the space where I landed an angel is the only answer that makes sense.  Thank  you Jesus.

Coincidentally, a man who lives down the lane from us tripped over a throw-rug in his home around that same date. His fall resulted in a compound fracture of the femur. He’s in a wheel-chair for the next several months.  Did I say “Thank you Jesus!”?

The second miraculous blessing came by way of a bit of healing knowledge that could have only come from God.

As some of you know, I’ve been fighting a chronic cough and fairly severe breathing problems since late last November. During May and June those symptoms came and went as we prayed for healing, spoke scriptures and shared in the Holy Communion each day during out devotions. By the end of June, I have to tell you…I was scared. Added to the symptoms were the suggestions (fiery darts) going through my thoughts as to what might be wrong.  D was almost at the point of hauling me to a doctor despite my continually insisting “I’m alright. God’s got this.”

After the fall, as we thanked God repeatedly for His mercy and favor (sometimes I still look at that spot where I landed and marvel that I didn’t sustain a really major injury) the Holy Spirit revealed the cause of my cough and breathing problem.

For over a year now I’ve been habitually enjoying a glass or two of iced coffee in the afternoon while drawing or blogging. And, yes I was probably hooked on the caffeine and sugar. But that was not the problem. To be perfectly honest, I’m not exactly certain what the problem was. The espresso powder I used (1 tablespoon per glass) comes from Mexico, and is readily available in our local markets. I’ve been buying it every week since…oh last May…or before.

Anyway, I just felt lead to drink water instead of iced coffee.

So, here’s the miraculous bit. Two days without my afternoon iced coffee and the pain stopped. The coughing stopped! The inability to breath deeply was gone! We were able to go shopping without stopping every few minutes for me to catch my breath and get the pain under control. In the past week I’ve done more than I’ve been able to do in six months. Bending over to make the bed or wipe up a spill from the floor doesn’t require that I go sit down for a few minutes.

It’s wonderful! It’s a miracle. Thanks to a bit of knowledge from the Lord and a bit of obedience on my part we have our life back.

Again….THANK YOU JESUS!!