Let the river flow…

So, we live on the Bearcamp River in NH. Every year we have lived here the river comes up within 3 feet of our deck and we get some water in the basement. Thanks to the sump pump it is usually not more than 1-4 inches…We had rain all day Monday and Tuesday. When I came home Tuesday the river was 3 feet from the deck, but we just had a trickle in the basement! As I looked out at the backyard aka swimming pool, I saw a lot of trash/garbage that had floated down the river and decided to “rest” in our yard. We have no control over the river; it goes where it wants to go. From history we can guesstimate where it will run, but that is it. As I watched the river flow some songs kept coming to mind…Let the river flow…or There is a river that flows from deep within, there is a fountain that frees the soul from sin, Come to this fountain there is a vast supply. There is a river that never shall run dry. I thought about how life is like that river and sometimes life has garbage in it. The garbage comes and the garbage goes. Jesus Christ died to free us – free me – from that garbage. This morning the river was already a foot lower and much of the garbage had floated down stream. Some garbage remains and will have to be cleaned up, but the water was free of most of the junk. This morning another song came to mind and I like this one for my life…

THE RIVER OF GOD

Down the mountain
the river flows
And it brings refreshing
wherever it goes
Through the valleys
and over the fields
The river is rushing
And the river is here

The river of God
Sets our feet a’dancing
The river of God
Fills our heart with cheer
The river of God
Fills our mouths with laughter
And we rejoice
For the river is here

The river of God
Is teaming with life
And all who touch it
Can be revived
And those who linger
On this river’s shore
Will come back thirsting
For more of the Lord

CHORUS

To the mountain we love to go
To find the presence of the Lord
Along the banks of the river we run
We dance with laughter giving praise to the Son

CHORUS

On another note, All My Memories is a wonderful, customer service driven company. I bought a laptop bag from them last year and had issues with it. They have gone above and beyond the call of duty to rectify the problem and today my new BAGS arrived. They are gorgeous and girlie and I like them. Thanks AMM!

Productive Day…

I got quite a bit accomplished today and it feels good. The bathroom shines and the kitchen/dining room floors are clean. Pippin slipped out the door and took a run to the river. When he returned he left muddy pawprints all over the floor. Thankfully that was BEFORE I had mopped. He spent a long time out in the sun drying off.  After a trip to Walmart (went last night too and hope that some day I live near one that is not 20+ miles away) I came home and attacked a BIG closet. It’s amazing what you find in the back corners. I filled a garbage bag with trash and have another bag for either a yard sale or Agape Ministries.  I hope to finish cleaning in our bedroom tomorrow.

John’s Mom was released from the hospital last night. I guess she is doing OK.  There is no residual damage to her heart – guess the Doctor said she has the heart of a 25 year old. I am sure she is much happier at home; she does not adjust well to new surroundings. Thanks for the prayers for her. Please continue to keep her and John’s Dad in prayer. John will swing by next Friday on his way to pick Katie up in PA. He is on call this week, so he couldn’t go today.

I have found myself missing the girls this week. Maybe it is because I got to spend time with Lindsey. Maybe it is just because they have been gone for awhile. We’ll get to see Hilary (and Andrew) on Sunday afternoon when A Capella sings at Jordan Hall. Katie will be home for the summer next Saturday.

Mount Washington looked beautiful today when I was in Conway. I didn’t have my camera with me, but here’s a photo from my phone. It was 65 degrees today, but still snow on the Mount.

Headed Back…

Well, our short jaunt to NC has come to an end. Surprisingly enough, me the photo queen or papparazzi as my daughters call me, took ZERO photos. We really didn’t do anything photo worthy, just enjoyed the company of many friends. Right now we are sitting in the airport waiting for our flight to Boston – then the bus to Portsmouth – then the hour ride home.

It was great to be with Lindsey and my sister, Melodie. We visited with Dick and Linda on Saturday and saw the Helms-Jenkins-Jacobs gang and children and grandchildren on Sunday as well as the Cottons and Baucoms. As I recounted earlier, we saw a number of friends on Monday at Lindsey’s school. Last night we saw friends from my home church. It was nice to visit. This morning we went back to the denominational headquarters to drop off a few things and saw a few more friends who work there. God is good.

While with friends, and cell phones off, we got a call that John’s Mom was in U Mass-Worcester and had a heart attack. They have put in a stent and she is recovering in CCU. We talked to his Dad last night and again a few minutes ago. They may release her tomorrow. We thank God for that and will continue to pray for her recovery and Jack as he takes care of her. John was down there 2 weeks ago, but may try to go down again Fri PM after work.

Tomorrow I’ll get to pick my “baby” up at the kennel, get some groceries and plan to clean a few closets. I am glad I have a few days at home before back to school on Monday. God has blessed us with a time of refreshing and a time of laughs, love and hugs.

NC – Hooray!

We’ve been at my sister’s a few days; however, her computer would not let me get on WordPress to write, so I decided to connect my computer to her internet cable today.

It has been great being with Lindsey and Melodie. We enjoyed a wonderful supper at Carrabas Saturday night and went with Lindsey to Elevation Church on Sunday. That afternoon we went to visit MANY friends from when we lived down here. I am always amazed, and blessed, by how we still are “family” to all of them after being gone for 15 years. When the plane landed in Charlotte I whispered to John, “we’re home…”. These people, and my family, are what make this home for both me and John.

We drove to Unionville to see Lindsey’s school this morning. I had been there, but John had not. While there we saw 5 dear friends (Pam, Peggy, Lorraine “Little Rain”, Wendy and Dee Dee). It was great to see them – once again we were with “family”. When I went to sign us out, the secretary asked if we were still up north or had moved down. I told her we were still up north, but maybe some day God would bless us and send us back home. She laughed. I said, “So if God is good…” and before I could finish saying “and chooses to bless us…”she said, “well, He is always good…but I know what you mean.” How refreshing…you would rarely if ever hear anyone say that at my school…

Then we went to our denominational offices. Many of our friends who work there were out of town, so we saw the EVP and his wife and a very dear friend, Shirley. John and I walked away feeling how odd it felt to be there. We both remembered how busy it used to be when both of my parents worked there.

I am completely enjoying being in warm weather and walking and walking and walking in this wonderful development called Lake Park. Lindsey should be here soon and we’ll probably take another walk. 2 more days and back to NH…it’s going to be hard to go…but we must…I am so thankful for this time of joy and blessing and feeling so loved. God is good.

Saturday School…

Today went OK for a Saturday at school. We had good attendance; in fact, 4 classes had perfect attendance. My kids did OK until about 11:30 am and then they began to get antsy. It was a good thing we were done at 12:30 pm. I made a quick trip to Portsmouth to pick up a new right contact and fought the crowds at the sales at Kohls and JC Penney…I came home with nothing. It was nice to see the sun and it was warmer than the weather man had predicted. John and I took a short drive around 6:00 pm – just to Meredith and back. We stopped In Center Harbor on the way home and went to the top of Coe Hill. Here is the lovely picture I was able to get with my phone. I like it so much I made it my header. Enjoy Lake Winnipesaukee…

That is not my daughter…

Hilary was in San Diego last week (Wed-Sun) for a national student government leadership conference. She is the only girl on ENC’s student government next year, so for the costume night they were to dress up as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (dwarves follows the rule I teach my kids in school, but Disney says Dwarfs). Below is the picture taken of the student government plus their advisors all dressed up. John looked at the picture and couldn’t find Hilary. I told him she was Snow White and he said, “that is not my daughter…” The black hair made her almost unrecognizable…see below

THIS is my daughter – on the edge of the Pacific Ocean at Point Loma.

Recipe Mess.

So, are any of you those people who have all their recipes neatly filed and can find any one of them at a moments notice? Well, I have had great plans over the last 2 years, but not a completed project. I took all my old cooking magazines and cut out the recipes I wanted and put them in envelopes and labeled them by type. That was as far as I got 2 years ago. 2 days ago I went looking through my stack of cards and pages printed off the internet for a cake recipe. After spending way too long with no recipe, I decided to get it organized. I at least have the pages and cards in the envelopes with the other recipes. Later this week I hope to get them all in the recipe book. Lo and behold I found the Banana Cake recipe I was looking for and also found a Chinese Romaine Salad recipe that I really like. Well, I found 1/2 of the recipe – it was torn and the other half was nowhere to be found. My thought was to email my sister and have her get it to me since I had emailed it to her. Funny thing is she called me tonight looking for the recipe. We both hung up and looked and talked to each other 2 more times before she called me and said she had found hers and would email it to me. Thanks Melodie. I guess this is the reason I really need to get those recipes organized. Hopefully by the weekend I’ll have success…oh wait….I have to go to school 1/2 a day on Saturday to make up a snow day!

Here is Katie’s latest painting. I don’t know how she finds time at school with all her classes; I guess it is relaxation for her. This is a piano in Workman Hall at Eastern University. Nice job Kate!

In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps” (Prov. 16:9, NIV)

John and I had some meetings yesterday and then spent some time at the Mall at Rockingham Park. I can’t tell you the last time John and I have shopped together at a mall.  I bought a Time Capsule at the Apple Store! I had been saving birthday/Christmas money to get an external hard drive and am so glad I waited for this one! 500GB, acts as a router and a wi-fi printer router! NICE!

When we got home I saw on the news that SKYBUS had shut down operations. That was a problem…you see we had tickets to fly out later in April to go see Lindsey and Melodie in NC! To make matters worse they are not issuing refunds directly, I had to go through our credit card company! I have started the process and the credit card company says it could take 1-3 weeks! In the meantime I spent 2 hours trying to look at all options to still get to NC without breaking the bank. As frustrated as I was that verse in Proverbs kept coming to mind. For whatever reason God did not want us on that plane or driving from Greensboro and I have to trust Him on that. I was finally able to get a flight from Boston to Charlotte. We’ll take C & J from Portsmouth to Logan…more expensive, but we still get to go. Right now John just needs to see something other than snow.

I had a good surprise yesterday too. A friend from the past “knocked” at the facebook door. It was so nice that Karen White found me. The biggest blessing was the years ago our families had loved each other and then had some falling outs…that were never really resolved. God in His mercy and love has been working behind the scenes to restore those relationships! Karen sent an email that brought tears (good tears) to my eyes as I read it to John. God is SO good! I hope to see her sometime when I am in NC – maybe later this summer. In the meantime, Karen, if you are reading this, I thank God for you and all He has done and is doing through you and your life at this point and time.

God is good!

Love them Like Jesus…

I got an AlertNow message from the school at 5:30am. It wasn’t a snow day, it was an important staff meeting. Over the last few years I’ve gotten a few of these calls – we received two this school year when the school was broken into. It always gives me an uneasy feeling because you know something has happened, but don’t know the what. It is that ominous feeling of tragedy, sorrow…

I sat in our staff meeting stunned…one of our Third Graders was killed in a snowmobile accident last night! His 17 year old cousin also died. Tears gently flowed down the cheeks of many of us. How do you explain to children about the death of a friend? More than one dozen children in our school are relatives of this young man. The morning was spent sharing the news in classrooms and letting kids grieve as they needed to. I don’t know how the classroom teacher and paraeducator kept it together today.  One of our 2nd Grade students told his teacher that the class should “Celebrate”. She was puzzled and asked him why and he said, “We should celebrate his life!” Out of the mouths of babes…more tears by adults.

Recess was the hardest time for me. He was not there running and playing. His best friend just sat on the steps – dazed. How do you console an 8 year old who has literally just lost his best friend? These lyrics by Casting Crowns came to me, “Love them like Jesus”. One little girl came to me and said, “Mrs. Gallagher, Hunter sits next to me in class…” Then she grabbed me and hugged me tight. My tears flowed. “Love them like Jesus”. How do you comfort a 12 year old who just lost 2 of his cousins? “Love them like Jesus”. I live in a small town and many of the people are related to this family. All I can do…the best thing I can do is pray for the family and friends and be there to listen and give BIG hugs…

“Just love them like Jesus, carry them to Him
His yoke is easy, His burden is light
You don’t need the answers to all of life’s questions
Just know that He loves them and stay by their side
Love them like Jesus”

April…

This desktop calendar is called “Signs of Spring” by Mistica. I think it is about as close as I’m going to get to seeing Spring for awhile…Happy April!