New Beginnings

Summer came to an end (officially Sept 22) and that means new beginnings.  Hello, Fall!

The cicadas crawled out of their old shells, or exoskeletons, discarding them to fly about.  A new start for them, a new way of life.

I was reminded of Ephesians 4:22-24 "you should put away the old self of your former way of life, corrupted through deceitful desire, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created in God's way in righteousness and holiness of truth."

Bonnie, a friend of ours, a new widow, was selling her riding lawn mower.  We had been keeping our eye open for one.  

Al is thrilled with it.  Our old lawn mower was no longer a "self-propelled" one, but rather a "self-push hard" one!  Now as Al rides the mower into the garage, he jokes "Oh, that was such HARD work!"

I said good-bye to summer decorations and put out my fall ones.

Summer vacation came to an end - off to school to new classes for our grandkids!

My husband started a new decade!  He's in his 70's now. 

The kids did a conference call to sing Happy Birthday to him!

Birthday pecan pie.

With the fall comes new beginnings for women's Bible studies start ups!  

My older women's group is studying:

We each take turns bringing morning refreshments.

My dear friend, Bobbie, and I brought goodies this day.

The young mom's group that I co-lead began also; we meet every other week. 

There are women from 5 different churches that attend.

We are reading this book and doing the video/workbook also.

Awana started up at church again.  I help teach the Bible stories for the Cubbies group, ages 3-5.  Such a delightful time!  Praying that these little ones would learn how much Jesus loves them.  That He listens to them.  He will help them.  He desires them to follow Him.

I don't have a current picture from this year, but here is one from the past.

We had our first Women's Legacy of the year.  We have one quarterly.  

My dear friend Marilyn spoke; the title of her talk was "Faithful to the End".

These ladies sang and led us in song also.

Some from our small group have moved or are in the process of moving.  Bryan and Della were showing us their house plans.  We plan to visit our friend Tarenda who has moved to another town this coming month.  New beginnings!  There is a bit of sadness in saying good-bye to long time friends as they move on.  But we are happy for them and how exciting to see the LORD open doors for them!

Morgan, from nearby Hutch, went to Japan 6 years ago.  She married a guy there who is a Japanese/UK and they came to the States to share about a new church plant that they are hoping for.  They shared their vision, along with a Japanese pastor and a South African church planter.  New beginnings of a church in Urawa Misono.

You can hear the message here.  Not a good videoing.  I didn't have my tripod. 

Our hearts were broken and shocked by the martyrdom of Charlie Kirk.  We listened to about 5 hours of worship.  Many lives have been changed as people have given their lives to Christ and continue to do so.  New beginnings for them as they learn what it means to follow Christ.

We had several baptisms on Sunday at our church also.  New beginnings as these fellow believers have chosen to follow Christ intentionally.

I started a new journal.  Back in my early days a journal would last at least a year or more.  Now I go through them every 3 months it seems!  I love to write down what the LORD speaks to me about.  

 

 I start with Praise and Thanksgiving.

     "Enter His gates with singing and His courts with praise; 

                give thanks to Him and praise His Name." 

                                                                     Psalm 100:4 

"Here I am.  I am listening."

Blessings to you on your "new beginnings" this fall. 

                 Keep your eyes on the LORD!