Rushing through life to take it slow

I fear I am in grave need of a post.
It has been quite some time, and with what I said in the last post I don't want any of you to think that this blog is just a passing fad. :)

It is funny the way life changes from just one day to the next.
Disappointment with something to do with one friend one day.
And then, the enjoyment of deep conversation with one that you have not gotten time with for seeming ages the very next.
This year is flying away from me, I don't know how it has gone so fast. I can hardly keep up with it!
Can you tell by the way of my typing that I have been watching Mansfeild Park with Mom? :D
Yes, that and Persuasion. That movie I must say, was made quite well (both of the two that I have seen, the 1995, and the 2007), but they come no where close to being as grand as the book is! :)
OK, so, before you all start thinking I am hopelessly lost in books such as these, I shall try to think of some thing else I can fill you in on from my past life.
Thanks to Hannah Elliott's patience with me (for very great it is!:). I have been able to be doing quite a bit of canning.
I must not be doing to bad, for she has already trusted me enough to bring over her canner and all the stuff to do Green Beans, for lack of time for her to can them herself.
All of the jars did just as they are meant to, and nothing blew up.
So, I was happy anyways. :)
Peaches is the thing for tomorrow.
For though we have already peeled, sliced, and canned 28 qrts. that only ended up being about a bushel, meaning we have 2 more to go!
My wrist is pleading for mercy, but alas, to no avail, it must be done.
Hopefully though, Hannah got the right knifes to do the job, and maybe our hands will not hurt so very much as last time they did.
We shall see.

This past week we had a splendid time getting to have my Dad's brother and his wife here with us! It was such a great deal of fun!
Being 8 years -yes I know that's a long time- since we have seen them, I hardly knew them but what I had heard from the past.
Think not that it was for hard feelings of any sort that we have not seen them.
It is just that life gets so busy, and with all the traveling we do, and having the kids so close, and so much day to day busyness, it's just hard to keep up with every one that we would like to.
I I'm sure it is quite the same with them.
Isn't it a strange thought, that the ones we have been so very close to through different stages of our lives, we hardly talk to now.
Not for loss of love, or hard feelings toward those people, but for life taking us down different roads.
For God leading us down different paths.
Yes, He keeps some of our old friends close by through out our lives.
But there are so many that we part with, without even thinking of it as parting.
Perhaps parting is the wrong word, maybe drifting is the one I'm looking for.
Can you count on one hand alone the people that you have drifted from over the years?
I don't think I can. It would take both hands, feet, and more to count the ones.
It is almost sad when one thinks of it, but at the same time, we have our own lives and God has us in quite the place He wants us right now.
I know I have said it before, but God has been so faithful in placing just the right friends in my life, at just the right times.
I don't know where I would be, without some of them being there for me at much needed times over the years.
But as I draw closer to the Lord, I am learning how great a friend He truly is!
He alone is the friend that I can count on to always have time to listen to my complaining, my joyful ramblings, or my thoughts of the day.
He understands me best of anyone.
Even better then I understand myself! By far! :)
Though I have asked Him "WHY?" so many times, He is always calmly waiting for me to say, "It's OK Lord, I know, it's in Your hands. I will let You take over, and leave it in Your hands."
Though it is hard and many times takes me quite a while to come to that point, I know once I have come to it, that that was what He was waiting for.
We cannot 'make' God do anything we want Him to do. That is not the way He works.
We have our own ideas of how this or that can work out, and we oft times like to -let Him know what we think... :)
Yes, I'm sure the God of everything likes to hear our little planes for our life and how we would like Him to work it out for us. Don't you?
As a great Preacher likes to say, HOG WASH!
:D That just seemed to fit right there really well! :)
Sure we should not sit back and do nothing for ourselves, but we should not think either that we can tell God what we want, when we want it, and that He is just going to give it at our biding.
No, not at all.
Hard we might think it is, to find the balance in such things as this. But it is there, we just need to learn how to come by it.
There are many things that we do not understand about God's ways. But is it because we cannot learn about them, or because we do not search them out?
He has given us more then enough to be able to get to know Him.
And we all should know that way is His word that He has so graciously given to us.
But how many of us truly 'search' them out?
How many of us go into our rooms at night, and pick up our Bibles to get our nightly Bible reading in, at the very same time that we get our nightly thinking in? And then the same thing in the morning? Or anytime it may be that you may read your Bible.
I know from myself that one night I can read and read and read and seem to get so much out of His word, and then the next night I'm trying to read through as fast as I can just so I can get to bed so I can wake up for the big day tomorrow! Yeah, Christ like indeed. Hmm.
How sad.
But now, this post must come to an end, for if I do not publish it now, I shall stay up even longer going on and on, and the very thing that I said was sad just now would happen once again this very night.
For I am to go help Hannah with the rest of the Peaches in the morning, and I do not wish to rush through my reading once again just so I can get up in time to rush through my morning reading so I can rush and get ready before she comes to get me!
Rushing to go slow, is that what life is all about?