As she continued to climb to the top of the mountain, through the pine trees and around the rocks, she readjusted her Gregory Baltoro 65 backpack.  The backpack carried everything she would need to get started on her new life.  As she reached the top and took a look out over the valley below, the scene instilled a sense of calm in her.  When she turned around to get her bearings and try to figure out which way to go now, she saw what she had been sent here to find….a lone cabin built of split logs and mortar.  It looks abandoned and deserted and like no one had been here in a LONG time.  The windows were dirty enough that you couldn’t see in them as you came up on the porch.  The chair that was on the porch was covered in dust.

What a place to start a new life?  This was her new home!

It seems like it’s been a LONG week and should be at least Friday by now!!!  Of course, it doesn’t help that I’ve been running all week either!!  Not sure if I’m running tomorrow or not, job-wise, but have a couple of different engagements to attend,  so may decide to bow out on the job for tomorrow.  Will see what morning brings, I think.  Maybe I’ll be recuperated and ready to go again?

Haven’t had much time at home this week, but have gotten some things done here, as well.

I had hands on a little filly that’s about 18 months old (from what we are told) yesterday and the day before.  This is the FIRST time this filly, which we affectionately named Pheline, has had someone touch her, from what we’ve been told.  Pheline has JUST enough curiosity in her that she has gotten a bit of courage and just a TAD of trust towards humans over the last 6 months or so since we’ve lived here.  I have been watching her over the last few months, as she has been getting closer and closer when I have been out at their stall.  (She is still in the same “run” that she was born in with her Mother, H.B. Alice, though that “run” has increased dramatically in size over the last few weeks!!)  The day before yesterday, I was feeding Alice and Pheline a bit of grain, and Pheline came close enough to let me feel her breath on my hand.  I stretched my fingers out (of course, she is doing this from as far away as possible), and she sniffed my fingers and barely rubbed her nose against them.  LAST night, though, I was just standing out there talking to them from outside their gate, and both Alice and Pheline came up and was standing there.  Pheline stepped closer and was sniffing my arm.  When she pulled her head back slightly, I VERY slowly extended my hand out towards her.  She again sniffed my hand and bumped my fingertips with her nose.  She didn’t pull back any farther than she was already, so when she moved her head to the side slightly so that she wasn’t touching my hand anymore, I ever-so-slowly matched her movements with my hand.  I then intentionally touched her nostrils as she moved her head a bit more to the side.  She didn’t bolt…she didn’t back up…she didn’t even lay her ears back at me!!  This is a BIG step for this little filly!!!  A few more days of that, I think, in between rain storms, and I will have hands all over her and I SHOULD be able to move towards her to pet her, if only to her forehead to start!!!  It has been a LONG 6 months or so with these two horses…..such pretty girls and SOOOOO close, yet SOOOOOO far away right now because of their “history” which has seemed to have made them “untouchable”…at least until we moved here.  I didn’t get to go out this evening to see if I could touch her again because it started raining JUST as we hit the house after school.  I didn’t even get to the mailbox from the driveway before it started raining.  But there IS tomorrow!!!  As for H.B. Alice, well, she is going to take a bit more time and patience, but she, also, has come a LONG way since we moved in!!!  No longer does she lay her ears back whenever anyone comes near her or her “run”.  No longer does she try to grab hay out of our hands when we are trying to throw it in to her!!  No longer does she go to the other end of the “run” when people come near!!  And no longer does she try to “protect” Pheline from us!!!  It’s amazing what a difference of attitude towards a horse can produce sometimes!!!

I got the final panel put up on what was going to be our “third run” which is now our “second run”.  I took the gate that was between the two runs down, such as it was, on Monday and let Pheline and Alice in there to munch what little grass there was.  That was Pheline’s first taste of grass that she didn’t have to push her nose under the fence to get too!  And Lord only knows when Alice had a taste of grass that she didn’t have to get through the fence!!  They BOTH seemed to enjoy the extra room!!  Now, my “round pen” is all set, except for a different gate between the two pens!!!  Now all I need to do is get the weather and the schedule to cooperate and I will have hands on Miss Alice!!!  One step at a time!!!  This next week, if I’m not working on a remodelling project, I SHOULD have a couple of days to work with Alice AND to ride at least one of the others that are in our pasture!!!  I’m kind of getting an itch to be back in the saddle, which is probably a GOOD thing, considering the number of horses I have lined up to work with throughout the Spring!!!  But, I have to get Alice and Pheline to where I can move them around in the pens, if need be, so I can have my “round corral” to work these other horses if I need it.  That, in itself, has kind of moved Alice and Pheline to the TOP of the list….at least to get halters and such on!!

Other than that, not much going on here….as if that’s not enough!!!  It’s about time for bed, me thinks, since it’s raining and windy outside again tonight.

You all have a BLESSED rest-of-the-week!!!

After a LONG day of earning money, I HAVE to say that I am GLAD that I’m just finishing things up here at home, for the most part, and it’s about bedtime!!  It wasn’t a bad day….just a LONG one, and tomorrow promises to be just about as long.

Read Luke 21-24 early this morning to try to get more morning off to a decent start.

About an hour after that, I started earning money, and looking at my other prospects for the end of the week.  All this while I was cooking dinner this afternoon, getting some of my stories found and into a format that will open on my newest computer, and playing with my son, too!!

But now I think it’s about time to say “God Bless” and ya’ll have a GOOD night!!!

I went to church last night and was looking around at the “literature” that they had put out since the LAST time I’d been there, and I found a little booklet FULL of poems and stories…so, of course, thinking that I might find some inspiration in it, I picked one up.  MUCH to my pleasant surprise, I found ALOT of encourage and inspiration in it.  The following is one of the stories in it, sent in by one of the readers.  I hope it makes you stop and think like it did me!!

I dreamt that I saw Jesus the other night!  As a crowd began to gather, Jesus singled out one particular man.

This fellow was nicely dressed in a blue golf shirt.  He stood in amazement before the Lord.

“Do you remember the toolbox I gave you years ago?” Jesus asked him.

The man nodded.  (Perhaps he was too stunned to speak.  I would have been.)

“Do you still have it?”

The man nodded again.

“May I see it?”  Jesus’ voice echoed with majesty, yet it was kind.

“I, I don’t have it with me,” the man said.  “It’s at home.”

“Would it be OK,” Jesus asked, “if I sent a messenger for it?”

“Sure,” the man said.

The Lord flicked His wrist and an angel appeared.

“In my closet,” the man said.  “Top shelf.”  With a beat of his wings, the angel sped off quick as a hummingbird.

Someone brought Jesus a chair.  He smiled and sat, then raised His gaze to someone standing near me at the back of the crowd.  He summoned that man.

That man looked shocked.  He ran his fingers through his hair then wiped his dirty hands on his gray-striped shirt and blue work pants.  I wondered if he was wiping off grease or nervous sweat.  Maybe both.

“I see you still have the toolbox I gave you,” Jesus said.

The man nodded.

“May I see it?” Jesus asked softly.

The man stooped down and picked up an old metal box, dented and scratched.  He moved to the front of the crowd, next to the first man in the blue golf shirt.  He held his toolbox out in both hands, trembling, offering it to the Lord.  Jesus motioned for him to set it down.

“Please open it,” Jesus said.

The man knelt, unhooked the toolbox latches, and flipped open the lid with the skill of fingers that had done so ten thousand times.  He lifted out the removable tray and set it next to the box.  He pulled open the bottom drawer.

Like others in the crowd, I stretched to see inside the box.  An assortment of ordinary looking tools lay there.  They appeared as beaten and battered as the box.

The Lord looked them over.  Pointing to a tool, He asked, “What happened to this one?”

“I use it alot,” the man replied.  “About wore it out, I guess.  But I’ve helped a lot of people with it.”

“And this one?” Jesus asked, pointing to another tool.

“It’s a good tool, found a lot of uses for it.  I guess You can tell,” he said a little sheepishly.  “Just this morning I used that tool to help a good ol’ boy get on his way again.  Didn’t take much.”

Jesus smiled.  His finger picked up greasy dirt as He ran it over the tools in the drawer, but He seemed to think nothing of it.  His gaze moved to the tools in the removable shelf.  “What happened to this one?” He asked.

The man slowly reached for the tool and tenderly lifted it with both hands.  “Broke it,” he admitted.  “Came across a woman and children in distress.  I didn’t have the right tool for the job needin’ to be done, so I used what I had, tryin’ to make do with this.  I got the job done, but I broke it tryin’.  No matter.  Important thing is I helped her get back on track again.”

Jesus nodded, though he didn’t say anything.

“Too bad.  It was a useful tool,” the man said.  “Was my favorite.”

A commotion at the back of the crowd drew my attention.  The angel strode through the drowd carrying a bright, shiny red box which he placed in front of the man in the blue golf shirt at the feet of Jesus.

Jesus looked it over.  The man quickly unhooked the latches, opened the lid, lifted out the removable shelf and opened the lower drawer.  That’s when it hit me.  The other man’s beat-up box had been identical to this one when it was new.

The Lord looked over the tools.  Laying in neat rows they appeared to be in perfect condition.  Just like new.

Jesus glanced at the end of His finger–the one He had run over the well used tools belonging to the other man.  He reached down and ran it over the sparkling tools in the shiny box, leaving a greasy print on one tool.  When He had inspected them, His gaze met the eager eyes of the first man.  “They hardly look used,” He said.

“Oh, I didn’t want anything to happen to the beautiful gift Your gave me,” the man said.  “I kept mine nice.”

Jesus rested His elbows on His knees and nodded thoughtfully.  He reached down and put the tray of the first man’s shiny toolbox back in it’s place, pushed shut the drawer, and latched the lid.  Grasping the handle, He moved the like-new toolbox beside His chair close to His foot.

Jesus motioned an angel to His side then whispered some instructions.  In a flurry of wings, several angels scattered, flying off in different directions.  Within moments, the angels began bringing shiny new tools.  They presented them to the second man.  Worn, broken tools were replaced and several new ones were added.  Then an angel arrived with a new shiny toolbox–much bigger than the old one.  The man looked up like a little boy who had just received all he had ever dreamed of for Christmas.

When the flurry of activity subsided, Jesus looked at the man in the golf shirt.  He reached down, patted that man’s shiny box, and said gently, “I know someone else who might use these.”

Then He turned His attention to the second man.  I had been watching him.  He had not only inspected each beautiful new tool, he was also gathering every dirty tool from his old box that wasn’t broken or worn beyond use and was trying to make them all fit into the new box.

Jesus laid one forearm across His knees and leaned in close to the second man.  When the second man realized this, he paused in his work and peered up into the face of the Lord.

Jesus’ eyes glistened as He looked the second man directly in the eyes.  He leaned in closer still.  Then, barely above a whisper, He simply said, “Well done!”

Diane Butts writes from Pueblo, Colorado

And I think THAT is one story that I am going to HAVE to do another entry with MY thoughts on!!!

Hope you enjoyed it!!!

God Bless!!!

My son and I have had some….interesting….discussions here lately.  Some of them have just been about whatever has been going on, others have been about books we’ve been reading, and still others have been about the Bible and religion.

One of our conversations about the Bible here about a month or so ago was about the verse in Matthew that says that you are supposed to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.  When my son asked me what that meant, I told him that, normally, the ones that persecute you are your enemies, which basically meant that we are to pray for our enemies.  He thinks about it for just a minute, and then he says “That’s not right!”.  I explained to him that it was a VERY difficult thing to do sometimes, but that’s what Jesus wants us to do…pray for our enemies.  He repeated “That’s not right!”…I kind of chuckled at him and told him that we didn’t have to like it, but that’s what Jesus/God wants us to do here on Earth, and that’s what we should do.  He repeated again that that was not right, and I asked him if he was willing to tell God that that wasn’t right when he got to Heaven.  He didn’t even hesitate before he said “Yeah!!! ‘Cause that’s not right!!!”…*LOL*  I can see my son going up to God in Heaven and saying that they needed to have a discussion because “That’s not right!!!”…*L*

Oh, the joy that children bring into our houses!!!
God Bless!!!