Being Refined through the Mess by Blessings

The Refiner's Fire

By Jon Mohr

There burns a fire with sacred heat

White hot with holy flame

And all who dare pass through its blaze

Will not emerge the same

Some as bronze, and some as silver

Some as gold, then with great skill

All are hammered by their sufferings

On the anvil of his will

The Refiner's Fire

Has now become my soul desire

Purged and cleansed and purified

That the Lord be glorified

He is consuming my soul

Refining me, making me whole

No matter what I may lose

I choose the Refiner's Fire!

I'm learning now to trust His touch

To crave the fire's embrace

For though my past with sin was etched

His mercies did erase!

Each time His purging cleanses deeper

I'm not sure that I'll survive

Yet the strength in growing weaker

Keeps my hungry soul alive!

The Refiner's Fire

Has now become my soul desire

Purged and cleansed and purified

That the Lord be glorified

He is consuming my soul

Refining me, making me whole

No matter what I may lose

I choose the Refiner's Fire!

To stay awake yesterday while driving, I pushed in the cassette in the car (Yes, our car is old enough to have a cassette player.) and this song instantly came on. It caused my mind to go back over everything that has been happening in our lives for the last few years.

In less than ten years, our family has had many medical/physical emergencies:
- a son unconscious after being thrown off a four-wheeler at work. There was a brain bleed and permanent hearing loss
- a son life-flighted to a Regional Burn Center because of severe burns.
- a son with a laceration to his eye, which entailed emergency trip to a University hospital
- several daughters-in-law have had multiple miscarriages
- aging parents, needing surgeries or being over-night in the hospital for medical needs
- this summer a daughter-in-law going home to heaven soon after having a baby
- Mr Wonderful having two shoulder surgeries, and yesterday removal of a Squamous Cell Carcinoma tumor from the top of his head. Which the doctor could only give a 90% success rate because of the way it had grown.
And this incomplete list does not even contain the even harder relationship crises.

There have been many blessings, yet they too are often through a refining process:
- grandchildren born
- a grandchild miraculously alive after a fall from a third story window
- a grandchild, whose arm was not broken when a swather drove over it
- parents moving nearby
- marriages
- relationships in the process of being restored

Then this morning listening to Revive Our Hearts podcast for today, Carrie Gaul shared...

I don’t know all of what that means, but at the very least it means, in the middle of your mess and my mess, this place is where we’re going to see God to do incredible things. It’s where we’re going to experience more of His joy and His freedom and His peace. It’s where we’re going to see Him!

Life is messy. Relationships are messy. Yet, God miraculously works to refine and mold us into His work through these "blessings." They are all blessings.

As Laura Story wrote in, Blessings

Ready for the Freezer

Tomorrow, we say good-bye to Milkshake. 

He will return in a few weeks all wrapped up and ready to fill the freezer.

Which means during the summer, we were on the "irrigation/sprinkler moving rotation"

and there were Saturday mornings of moving cattle from one pasture to another.

But, we should end up at about $5.00 a pound for grass-fed meat.

The exercise of caring for the critters doesn't hurt us, as we both have "office jobs."

And that is about $3.00 a pound less 

than the cheapest grass-fed meat cuts at the grocery stores around here.

Winter in White

Sunday, before the latest storm really started...

Hello from Wyoming!

Old truck parked behind shop.

Mr. Wonderful used the tractor and snow blower to make a circular path in the back to feed the cows.

This bull and steer raced into the path and danced, kicking up their heals and prancing around

...before settling down to eat.

Snow on window during storm. Notice top of garbage can in garden. It is now completely covered.

I felt like a real Wyoming women digging through this to get to the woodpile.

There is more than a foot of snow on top of the pile, and at the bottom is about two feet.

Mr. Wonderful getting hay for the critters. 

The path he made on Sunday, is now completely blown in with fresh snow.

How Firewood Warms

Firewood warms you when you cut it,

 load it,

 un-load it,

 split it, 

stack it,

 bring it into the house,

 and finally when you burn it.

 That is a lot of energy!

May - November 2016

Computer died. I could never figure out how to load picts from the ipad. Thus the long delay in posts. But here are some pictures to bring us up to date quickly.

May a trip to Texas to enjoy Son #2's family: s'more smiles and giggles, Mother's Day picnic, and Galveston Bay

The Wyoming cousins - all girls!

June: Camping and wood-cutting, an egg found hidden in the grass while hiking, picnic and shooting - the girls were pretty silly with the balloons (targets), strawberries from the garden.

July - Children's concert with instrument "Petting Zoo" with two of the granddaughters.

September - another granddaughter! Older sister's birthday was celebrated with a trip to Bar-J Wranglers, a wounded woodpecker on our porch, 

October - playing in the leaves.

November - Mother and daughter, Tea Party hat, and

 Thanksgiving afternoon Auntie reads "Cowboy Sam."

Grandma again!

Just had to brag some…

Yea, he didn't like the tubes and pulled them out.

Cuter than a Pumpkin

Mr. Wonderful's birthday

An evening in the forest - target shooting

And a campfire dinner of chili on baked potatoes, garlic bread, and cupcakes.

Summer Sanctum

A chance to get-away with Mr. Wonderful...

to a peaceful, wildflower meadow in the Rocky Mountains...

Meadow where we camped was filled with white and purple wildflowers.

These interesting flowers where shoulder high.

The neighbors were quiet,

cautious, and dropped in to browse.

Campsite

We not only camped out, but we used the time to cut a load of firewood. It was easy access around the edge of the meadow. Beetle-killed lodgepole pine.

Sunday afternoon hike up to a ridge across from our campsite. First meadow.

Mr. Wonderful leading the way.

A profusion of wildflowers.

Part way up, looking back down.

Almost to the top.

The top.

Series of pictures from the top.

The sun was intense on top and the breeze felt wonderful.

On our way back down.

Ready to head home.