Friday Finds - The Late Edition

Squeezing this in...linking up with Kim's Friday Finds!

A walk in the Springfield Bog yesterday awarded me handsomely.

This Northern Bobwhite is a rare sighting in northern Ohio...and when one is suspected, they can be very elusive!  They have a very distinct call, "Bob-bob-white!"  You can hear it here:



Unfortunately their numbers have drastically declined due to loss of habitat.  I'm so thankful that someone did not allow this bog to be developed and it was purchased by our metro park system.

I feel even more blessed to have had such amazing, close ups of this little gem and hearing it call back and forth to a female!

HIGHLIGHT OF MY WEEK!

Celebrations and Fireworks ~ A Friday Finds

What a week!  We surely found a treasure!!!  Two hundred thirty-seven years ago today, our United States was born...

and my little Gabriel Joseph has not yet completed his third day of life.  He started July with bang at 5:30 p.m. at 6 lbs. 9 oz. and 18 inches long.

My third grandson...this never gets old.

And all seemed right with the world.

I have a unique perspective.  In some ways I know too much...working in a Children's hospital with babies in intensive care units.  My daughter was seen during the last four weeks of her pregnancy by a perinatal specialist physician with concern about his size and needing to rule out intrauterine growth restriction, which could have serious implications.

I know that every baby that survives outside its mother's womb is a miracle.  The intricate complexities that God has designed are a wonder!

And rediscovering that miracle in this brand new life brings exceeding joy beyond words.

Across the Room ~ A Friday Find

Sitting in my favorite chair...watching some episodes of the Bible on Netflix...I looked up across the room.  On the piano sits a clay pot...not unlike what might have been carried to the well for water in Bible times.

This pot is faded, cracked, and has been broken in two and sealed back together. Still usable.  Ed and I had this pot at the front of the church at our wedding...representing our lives with our past mistakes, hurts, wounds, pain.  Our brokenness.  I noticed that the rose I had saved and dried from Ed's mother's gravesite when she died in April had been placed inside of one of the cracks.

And I found beauty in it all...

I rediscovered and was reminded that it is through the challenges, the interruptions, the hurts, the darkness, the losses that we are changed.  It is the stress and heat of these things that refine and conform us into God's desire for us.

Pain and loss...loneliness and despair...are all part of loving and living.  And miracles happen when we choose to trust the One who has all under control.

The greatest opportunities I have had in this life to glorify Him have been a result of my most desperate seasons.

God miraculously restores us to let His beauty shine from our rubble. He uses us in spite of us.

That is a great find!  (Linking up with Kim's Friday Finds.)

The Way We Were ~ A Friday Finds

Can you hear the song?  Mmmmmmmmmemories...light the corners of my mind...

This week, celebrating and remembering those who have gone before, was a week filled with finds.  As I wrote here, we drive several hundred miles annually to remember and bestow honor.

What memories did I find?

• I saw my Grandmother once again braid her knee-length hair behind her back and roll it up into a bun. 
• I saw my Papaw bring in a bucket of coal for the coal-burning stove in the middle of the living room with the linoleum floor.
• I smelled my Mamaw's homemade rolls just out of the oven covered with a linen cloth.
• I watched my Bebaw throw out half of his toast on the backyard for the birds.  "Bird bread," he called it.
• I heard my mother's authentic laugh as she had got tickled by something really funny.
• I saw my dad practicing his drive swing leaving divets in our front yard next to the driveway.

and so many more...

I also memorialized great-grandparents and great-great grandparents with whom I have no charms for my bracelet...at least none that I experienced personally...only know of stories.

These are priceless jewels,  They challenge me to make sure that my children and grandchildren have plenty of their own charms for their memory bracelets they will inherit.

Make memories...take time...be still...find the preciousness in the every day.  

Linking up today with Kim Klassen's Friday Finds.

Instead of a Rainbow ~ A Friday Finds

We've had storms this week...and rain...some sun...sometimes rain and sun simultaneously...briefly.  That was yesterday.  I was reading the first week from Kim's Be Still 52 practicing stillness when I noticed.  I grabbed my Nikon...knowing what I would find!

But I was wrong...  There was no rainbow.

Turning to the door...I saw what I was to find.  My white lilac bush, so scrawny last year, was bursting with blooms...full blooms.

Some with diamonds...rain diamonds...

And then the sun hid its face back behind the clouds...but then came a different kind of beauty...

And though no rainbow...I could only think of this quote by Anne Frank...

And I am grateful...

Linking up today with Kim Klassen's Friday Finds

Lessons from Lambs - A Friday Finds

Maybe we came to West Virginia a week too early...or maybe Spring is a week late...(the high mountains are still pretty dormant).

But the timing for finding lambs could not have been more perfect!!!

We came across a flock of about 200 ewes...and the owner/caretaker said they average 2 lambs each.

Then things began to get very active...they were all very aware of their owner...and began crossing the road to follow him.  At first, mostly the ewes...

Then the lambs started to catch on...to follow their moms to the action.  But what was the action?

He brought out a tractor with a contraption that spread corn all over the grass. 

The ewes were ON it...like white on rice...and the lambs could not get a look for nothin'!

And even lambs who were in the thick of it even seemed clueless (or perhaps this one already had the pecking order down and knew it wasn't his turn)...so much to learn when you're a baby!

But I could not help but be fascinated at how these sheep knew who their shepherd was. It was obvious this was the owner and not just a hired hand.  They knew who cared for them.  And they never let him out of their sight, followed them without straying to the right or to the left, without doubt or fear.  Just having celebrated Easter, I thought about how Christ proclaimed to be the Good Shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep in John 10.  And the characteristics of His sheep are plain and simple:

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. (John 10:27)

Oh that I might follow my Shepherd as this gift of grace found in these sheep on the backroads today.

Look Who I Found? - A Friday Find!

I've been taking this awesome e-course by Brene' Brown based on her fantastic book, "The Gifts of Imperfection."  And I'm linking up with Kim's Friday Finds.

One assignment was to find a photo that is exuberant with the aura of who you truly are...

This was no easy task...it required a lot of time.

Well, here I am...pre-baggage!  Now this is a photo of the photo I put in my art journal...

And then we were to answer four questions and write them in our journal...

1. What do I see looking at her?
2. What do I love or admire about her?
3. What makes her light shine?
4. What can I do to take care of her?

Oooh...weird...thinking and writing about yourself in the third person!  But the truth is...we are so self-destructive in our thought patterns and maladaptive behaviors we use because the self-affliction we endure from ourselves...

So these are my responses...but this is an ongoing journey...

A profound exercise...not for the faint of heart...and not a one-stop-shop kind of deal.

I'm half tempted to put this photo up at work with a caption that says, "I'm on your side."

Hangin' Out with the Family Tree - A Friday Find

One of the most rewarding things about doing genealogy is finding...and if you're lucky...meeting in person family you never know you had!  What a find...to find family!

This top photograph is of my great-grandmother, Margaret Jane Gordon Kelley, and my grandmother, Dora Frances Kelley.  My great-grandmother was one of ten siblings.  She married later in life and had only one daughter.

Looking at photos of her and her family, I craved to know her (and them).  They looked close and had mutual affection.  But my father and grandmother are gone...how could I learn more?

Here is a photograph with her (left), with her brother (my great-grand uncle), William Wayne Gordon, and her sister (my great-grand aunt), Mary Gordon Bush in the 1920s.  My impression of her brother was that he was quite a colorful, light-hearted farmer with a strong faith and a kind heart.

Because of Facebook and a series of random events, I was able to meet three of his grandchildren while in West Virginia.

Sylvia, William Wayne, and Joan...and they oozed of looks similar to the Gordon photos of family long gone that were in my possession.  They were funny and spry and delightful.

And the cruise director of this gathering is my newly met third cousin (William Wayne Gordon's great-granddaughter), Sondra Gordon Nasseri, and her husband, Kuzum Nasseri.  What a hoot!  We had a wonderful lunch at Lightburn's at Stonewall Jackson Resort.  The guys went cruising on the boat...while we women pored over family photos in each other's possession...while planning to get together again...swapping stories...and embracing family.

So grateful for this find!