Woke up this morning to a bright sunlit top of Cherry Heights.  Encouraging for our neck of the woods, could actually see the top of Mt. Adams and the bottom of Mt. Hood, now both are covered with clouds and we have some moving in here.

Forecast high was 42, it is now 50 in the shade and close to 60 in Carla’s garden.  However, there is also supposed to be rain and/or snow this evening and overnight with a temp of 28 – we shall see.

I am a dog person, have almost always had a dog, and probably will always have a dog.  When Carla and I got married we started having cats and have ever since.

I do like them, and we have had some real characters.  Ozzie, the one that adopted Carla, has somehow become ‘my’ cat.  She is always close by.  Yesterday when I was sick and in bed, she came up, checked me over, laid down next to the pillow and started purring.

Wendy calls her my nurse cat.

----------------------------------------

“Did you thank God for that failure?” Questioned asked of Arvo Part, an Estonian conductor of both classic and religious music, by a little girl who was a daughter of a priest.

The conductor was sitting on a bench contemplating; a little girl came up to him and asked him what was wrong.  He said, “I told her I couldn’t come up with the music needed for a composition.”

She then asked me, “Did you thank God for that failure?”

Words of wisdom from a child.

This had an incredible impact on the composer and many years later he wrote about it in a book he wrote.

1 Thessalonians 5:18 “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” KJV

This has got to be one of the harder commandments on living for Christ that I have to work with, it is too easy to focus on our circumstances and forget that God has something for us through all of it.

Yesterday I started getting sick.  It was the same feeling that kept growing on me when I was hospitalized last September.

I went to bed in the afternoon, got up for a few minutes – just long enough to fix a salt and pepper roast for Carla – I couldn’t eat – then back to bed.

As I was dozing off I heard a voice telling me that I was going to be sicker than I have ever been, it would be far worse than September.

Carla would have to call an ambulance to take me to the hospital I would be so sick.

It was as if satan was standing over the top of me and hammering with these negative and frankly frightening thoughts, and taking great pleasure in doing it.

The last thing I remember, before waking up several hours later, was saying, “Okay.  God, who do you want me to talk to?”

Still not feeling well, but much better, slept for about 14 hours (off and on) and may have to lay down for a while later today, but I think we overcame satan’s taunts.

“In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”

Psalm 119:105  ^“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” KJV

I just need to follow that light.

Later, Art (-: