Monday, October 7, 2013

What's Holding You Back?

Roy has just informed me that San Francisco's offense is on the field....Matt Schaub.  Pick Six, the best way to start a game.

We were those people this morning.  Up early, dressed, ready for church and the rain came down and we stayed home.  You can thank us for the rain because we took Sequisha to be detailed and cleaned Saturday afternoon.  I think I also have PTSD from all the rain driving I had to do on our trip.  I did take the morning time and read through our Genesis homework and scripture.  Genesis keeps coming alive to my heart and spirit.  I think the end of Chapter 11 with these words have gotten me to ponder and think on these things, "One day Terah took his son Abram, his daughter in law Sarai and his grandson Lot and moved away from Ur of the Chaldeans.  He was headed for the land of Canaan, but they stopped at Haran and settled there.  Terah lived for 205 years and died while still in Haran."  Terah means delay in Hebrew and Haran means parched.  Haran is also the place where caravans left for Canaan, leaving the Euphrates to strike across the desert.  We find out later that the Lord told Abram to leave his family and go to the land which I am about to show you.  But, there is Terah and Lot in Haran at the launching point to going to Canaan but there is that dang desert.  Oops, Abram...  Joshua 24:2 lets us know that Terah was sometimes an idol worshipper and he wasn't true to following the Lord God Almighty.   How many times have I heard in my spirit what to do or where to go and I am dragging my Terah or delay along with me?  Delayed in a Haran parched place looking at the desert that has to be crossed to get where I am supposed to go.  Abram didn't start for Canaan until after Terah died and Abram still took Lot when he left...  Lot's of trouble. Sorry, I'm not fully awake.  Wayne Styles has a great devotion on this subject today.  Not so much on Abram but on letting the little things keep you from what you need to do.  I don't know if Terah was a little thing to Abram or not but it seems like he kept them from moving on.  Was it the desert?  Was it too far?  Did they not have enough provision?  Was it the fear of the unknown and Haran or being parched was a known?  This morning, yes I started this last night, I am looking and praying about those little things that I have allowed to hold me back.  In what parched place have I settled?

Yesterday afternoon we decided to trim back the Mexican Heather, trim the hedge and pull out some flowers around one of the trees.  I got to work and it wasn't ten minutes and I thought it might be a trip to the ER for me.  I have come a long way and doing better all the time, but it might have been a tad warm for me to get into this kind of work.  Roy sent me in the house and I collapsed on the couch and fell asleep for over two hours.  He told me later, I didn't want to disturb you because you were either dead or asleep.  I didn't want to wake you in case you were alive.  Later at evening, I did help him pull weeds from the back flowerbed and clean out the bird bath. 

This week I have had a couple of heart episodes but I know what triggered them, stress about a situation and heat from the great out of doors.  And guess what are the two main triggers for a rapid, out of rhythm heartbeat is for me?  Stress and heat.  Go figure....

I finished one of the books I bought at Malapropos Bookstore in Asheville, Fortune's Children.  It is the story of the generations of the Vanderbilt's beginning with the Commodore and ending with the last Mrs. Vanderbilt who lived in the Gilded Age and died in the 1960's.  No, this book isn't available at any of the Biltmore gift shops.   It is an interesting and heartbreaking read.  Most of the Vanderbilt men didn't live past their 50's and only a few lived into their 60's.  The women fared better in life span but not always with a fortune.  The story is how the vast fortune of being the richest family in America slowly came apart leaving quite a few bankrupt and penniless Vanderbilt's in their old age.  Only two families one of them being George V's(he built Biltmore) and a sister had sustainable income from their properties.  Their farms made the upkeep of the property self sustaining.   Being social outcasts from high society and the work and vast sums of money that Alva Vanderbilt put toward challenging and finally being accepted by Mrs. Astor is phenomenal.  Lots of disinheriting, laziness, workaholics, lack of visionary's in later generations, and plain old wastefulness was the undoing in about three generations.  In between these stories are a few tidbits of gossip.  The book was published in 1989 and reissued in 2002 and it is written by a Vanderbilt. 

Well, the easing into the day portion is now coming to a close.  There are things that need to be done around here and a couple of errands that need to be run. 

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