Day 16 - { an invincible summer }

Okay. I have something to say again. :)

Have you ever noticed that oranges and grapefruits ripen and are harvested in the dead of winter? Right when our immune systems need a boost the most, eh? I think that's really cool. On the way home from our trip to Texas a couple of weeks ago. I stopped at the beautamus store of H.E.B. and bought. . . .

a HUGE bag of Texas grapefruit

and

a HUGE bag of Texas oranges

And now we are plowing through them with much gusto and delight. (*Update: we're done with the grapefruit. sniff sniff!)

Isn't Heavenly Father amazing, designing oranges and grapefruit this way! It's a wonderful system. :)

It makes me think of something else. . . .

Here is something beautiful and inspiring that we have been watching ever since November.

It was a birthday present for Benjamin from his Aunt Joy -- a kit for growing an oak tree, starting with an acorn!

I have loved watching it sprout and develop leaves during the winter, when all the other oak trees are "asleep." It has brought comfort to watch something grow, and think about what it will become as the years pass.

The last picture in the collage is what it looked like a couple of days ago. Isn't that amazing?

 

I have more to say, but it will have to wait for the next post. :)

Things are clearing emotionally.

I am so grateful.

 

Some notes from recent scripture study. . . .

Jacob 4.

4 For, for this intent have we written these things, that they may know that we knew of Christ, and we had a hope of his glory many hundred years before his coming; and not only we ourselves had a hope of his glory, but also all the holy prophets which were before us.

~ couldn't this apply to His Second Coming, too? ~

 

6 Wherefore, we search the prophets, and we have many revelations and the spirit of prophecy; and having all these witnesses we obtain a hope, and our faith becometh unshaken, insomuch that we truly can command in the name of Jesus and the very trees obey us, or the mountains, or the waves of the sea.

~ my faith is still a bit shaken, but I'm starting to obtain that hope! ~

11 Wherefore, beloved brethren, be reconciled unto him through the atonement of Christ, his Only Begotten Son, and ye may obtain a resurrection, according to the power of the resurrection which is in Christ, and be presented as the first-fruits of Christ unto God, having faith, and obtained a good hope of glory in him before he manifesteth himself in the flesh.

12 And now, beloved, marvel not that I tell you these things; for why not speak of the atonement of Christ, and attain to a perfect knowledge of him, as to attain to the knowledge of a resurrection and the world to come?

~ oh, how I long for a perfect knowledge of the world to come ~

13 Behold, my brethren, he that prophesieth, let him prophesy to the understanding of men; for the Spirit speaketh the truth and lieth not. Wherefore, it speaketh of things as they really are, and of things as they really will be; wherefore, these things are manifested unto us plainly, for the salvation of our souls. But behold, we are not witnesses alone in these things; for God also spake them unto prophets of old.

~ "things as they really are, and things as they really will be" -- I LOVE that part ~

 

Ether 12: 19 (18-19). 

19 And there were many whose faith was so exceedingly strong, even before Christ came, who could not be kept from within the veil, but truly saw with their eyes the things which they had beheld with an eye of faith, and they were glad.

~ something to work for ~

He Anointed the Eyes of the Blind, Walter Rane