Abba's Girl

It is that time of year down here, time to cut back summer flowers, fill in areas where the topsoil eroded, plant bulbs - I ordered too many daffodils because they were on sale, plan what winter annuals I want to plant next month, and pull weeds which sprang up after tropical storm Imelda. It is also cool enough to prune shrubs, they have not been pruned since May and need a good trim. Just like the flower beds, our spiritual lives require maintenance. If I look honestly at my spiritual life, I realize my prayer life has been a little sparse over the last 3 weeks. I am not giving the Lord the first fruits of my time, He's been further down the list. I've been avoiding extended prayer time. Most days I pray for friends, family, and the world, but I've not been sitting quietly before Him or praying for myself. I'm avoiding it because grief hit me hard on my mother's birthday at the end of September and there are residual emotions from being a caretaker for 10 years ...

A couple of weeks ago, I took my first vacation in 14 years. One of my sisters-in-law accompanied me. My husband AKA the Man remained at home with the glamorous duty of dogsitting. His concern was would my sister-in-law and I run out of things to discuss. I wanted to drive, my sister-in-law Diane wanted to fly, she was not interested in an epic road trip which meant riding over 1000 miles each way in my Beetle. She assured me it wasn't personal, she was not interested in a road trip with anyone, anywhere, in any vehicle. I rented a 2 bedroom property on the Rio Grande River in South Fork, CO and she took care of the airline reservations and car rental. The night before we left, my husband took me to her house to spend the night because she lives 30 minutes from the airport. Her husband dropped us off on his way to the office the next morning. It was sprinkling, we checked in, our flight was on time. We sit down United Airlines let us know our flight is delayed because it is s...