Happy, Happy, Happy!

We have to pray with our eyes on God, not on the difficulties. ~Oswald Chambers

It could take more than my lifetime to learn how to keep that quote in continual practice. At times I think I have it and then a week later, it has escaped me. However, today, I am happy, happy happy! I have received answers to prayer and news of good things I felt the Lord had promised, just blessings! Today I have much, so very much, for which I am thanking my Lord! It is too much to write right now; sorry to keep you in suspense, but I still have lots to do setting up a computer.

Okay, I will give you a tiny sweet morsel. I did restore my computer, mostly. It still has a very nasty Trojan with worms kind of virus on it and I have not found a way to remove it completely yet, but I have stopped the pop ups. I have most of my data files copied to an external drive (I say most because I keep finding a few I had forgotten), and I am in the process setting up an identical laptop, only it will be done a bit differently. It has reminded me of how I get stuck in ruts. I mean, what I do with my computer now is somewhat different than what I used to do when I first set it up and yet I did not reorganize it to make it more efficient for what I do now. I have been focusing on rearranging here and there to make my home fit our lifestyle better, so why not my computer too? It may take me a couple more weeks to get everything set up and settled in, but it is all looking good.

Happy dancing!

~ Thank you, my Lord, for hearing my prayers and providing a solution to get my data as You promised me. I always believe and hope, but I am still surprised at the things You do for me just because You love me in a way I cannot ever deserve. ~

The Outer Limits

There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat: there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to... The Outer Limits. ~Opening narration of the Outer Limits (1960s)

Yes, I have reached what must be the Outer Limits. In the span of one week, I have fried three computers...well, technically two computers and three hard drives. I am now typing on my computer with my husband's old hard drive, which he managed to revive today after I killed it yesterday. All have had different problems, but in the end the results were that I had no working computer.

Do you want to know more? In my last entry, I related that our phone line had been down, but we still had DSL. Then it came back and everything worked for a few hours. The next morning, the phone lines and the DSL were dead. They said lines were cut somewhere and it should be up by Friday. A day later everything worked but then...

Today I was drying my daughter's hair to hurry her along so we could get our shopping and errands done. The hair dyer suddenly seem to be losing power. I looked up at the lights to see if we were experiencing a brown out, but everything else was just fine. I turned it off and on a few times and it just stayed that way, so I tried to finish with what I had and suddenly without any reason, it began working normally again.

There is more! I get to the health food grocery store today that I have shopped for thirteen years and have never seen this problem, not even once, but the electronic scale would not work....No, I am not kidding! After several tries to get it to reset, the clerk was finally able to get it to work.

Folks, I am living out one of my daydreaming-mares that plays out a poignant message of how much I rely on technology...perhaps it has come to the place that was worshipping it? I seriously doubt if I spend as much time in prayer as I do in front of a computer screen, justifying it as I squeeze in a prayer about something or other while a program loads, if my daughter is not in need of my attention at that moment first.

Am I rethinking my priorities and how I manage my time? Yes, I am. Absolutely. Along with praying, cross-stitching, crocheting, drawing, reading, gardening, and general housework are far less complicated and now seem to be far more attractive pursuits to me.

Progress on the data recovery is being made. My husband can now see my data files on my old hard drive, but he cannot grab them yet. I feel the Lord has told me that he will recover them, so it is just a matter of when. My gaming computer has not been touched...yet. We are doing one hard drive at a time. I am again trying to load programs on this one, but this time we are backing it up...heavily.

~ My Lord, if You are trying to get my attention away from my computer and more on You, I have gotten the message. Help me keep my computer activities within Your will from now on, so that nothing replaces You as my highest priority. ~

Enough Already, Maybe Not Enough?

Our greatest victories are won on our knees and with empty stomachs.
~Julio C. Ruibal

There are times I can get beaten down and then there are times when I start getting angry because I feel like I am being pushed into a corner...and somewhere during those times I remind myself that my Lord is...He just is. I should be at peace in that.

I often think that my ideal of my Lord falls so short of what He really is. If I am to be brutally honest with myself, I just want Him to be my kind of god, but actually I really should want to be His kind of child. I am sure I fall way short of His ideal in that...way short.

Right now am typing this post on my daughter's computer. "Why?" You may ask. Why, indeed. Well, my husband has not yet been able to read the data off of my lap top hard drive, which still is not working, so I used my gaming computer to make my last post, then something happened to it as well and I cannot even get into Windows on it now either. I am actually afraid to even be typing on my daughter's computer! I know what you might be thinking. At least, we have computers to spare! Yes, it is one of the perks of being married to a techie kind of guy, but then we have computer parts everywhere collecting dust as well, so it has its downside too. I can say though, having had more than one computer for many years, I also know how incredibility unlikely it is to take down two computers within days of each other by the same person not doing the same thing to cause it.

I am not that upset (not like I usually would be, at least) about the computers. I am more upset that I cannot tell from where this is coming. Life in this existence is not paradise. I do not expect it to be good for me always, at least what I perceive as good for me, but I am just not sure that what is good for me from my Lord's perspective. I can see God's pathways laid out for other people quite clearly, but I am blind to my own. I am asking those, with gifts of discernment, if is this another aspect of an evil spiritual attack. It seems we have been enduring such a thing lately and some have told me is related to the fast and our 20% tithe commitment, perhaps our church also, or is this just my Lord disciplining me about how much I rely (and play, but generally just spend too much time in total) on my computer and the Internet, or is it all just a coincidence in which I would like to see a purpose when none exists.

Also, my husband noticed yesterday that our van is leaking oil again in an entirely different area than before, this after I drove it on Thursday. It could be that they simply did not get a good seal on the gasket they replaced or.... I don't want to think about the "or" actually.

Then another little thing: the temperature gauge I use to make yogurt glitched last night and I could not get it to turn off or do anything. I simply removed the battery and put it back in so it seems to be working, but right now it is like anything with technology is bent to glitch when I touch it.

This morning my husband went to a church board meeting and the good news is that our church is going forward with building onto our existing building as far as our building fund and faith will take us, which is an answer to my prayer for confirmation about the vision I believed I was given. Oh, and then I realized our phone line is dead.... Do you see what I mean? We made a call last night, but it was not working when I tried calling my husband after the meeting this afternoon.

I really am at a lost as to what I am suppose to do! Maybe I am just suppose to endure...and be content in doing so?

Ah, that may be the heart of my discontent! What probably is concerning me the most is my attitude. Regardless from where it is coming, am I honoring God in any of this? Do you see me honoring God in this, because I do not. Am I pleasing Him at all? Am I failing even more at being His ideal child? I am not disappointed in my Lord, I am disappointed in me. I want to be willing to accept anything from Him, even disciplining, but I do not know if I am being disciplined or being used as an example (some example I make) or if this is just all out spiritual warfare (for which I seem woefully incompetent to handle).

~ My Lord, for what should I pray? Please make me into what pleases You. ~

Computer Problems

The problem with troubleshooting is that trouble shoots back. ~Author Unknown

Yesterday I went onto a website and the next thing I knew, it looked like something was being downloaded and then...BAM! I cannot get my computer to come up at all. Fortunately, I am married to a computer savvy kind of guy. I think my data was backed up about a month ago, so I will not lose much if we have do the the worst thing, which is reformat the hard drive. However, it will take some time to reload programs, although I might have to do that anyway even if we don't have to reformat.

We have other computers so I can get online. I am using our gaming computer right now, which has not been turned on for at least a year because who has time for games? However, I do use my laptop for other really important things, like homeschool records and creating homeschool materials, so I am feeling a bit down this morning. Fortunately...and unfortunately...it is my errand day. My husband can work on it while I am gone and not hovering over him, but last night he purchased an external drive enclosure for my laptop's hard drive so he could access it and it did not work. Now he needs to find one that will with only one computer store around before I have to leave on my errands or it will be several more days. He does this stuff all the time so he is patient and careful, but I have seen him when it is his own computer and I know that he finds it far less stressful when he is fixing any computer belonging to someone else.

You never really realize how nice you have everything set up on your personal computer until you have to use another one. I don't have bookmarks! I don't have mobility! I don't have all those nifty programs and graphics! I don't even have Firefox and I so dislike IE for my browser. I have to remember my online access to my email!

All this on the day I have to leave earlier because my daughter has an hour piano lesson so we have to be there earlier and my husband was hoping to have the van to himself this evening, rather than working on a computer.

Some good unrelated news:
The last van repair not only fixed the oil leak but Pegusus stopped burning oil too, which meant that she probably was leaking only when she was running previously and the engine is still in good shape overall. Happy dancing here!

My oven is working again and I made sourdough bread and sourdough biscuits. My husband told me yesterday that he really likes my bread. That put a smile on my face at a time when I was feeling like the I had been a bad teacher because my daughter could not even tell me what an adjective is, which she has been taught and seemed to know for some years and should be able to recall at anytime and now we are going to be spending lots of time reviewing, but no matter, my husband likes my bread!

~ My Lord, You know how much I rely on this technology, particularly my PC. Please let it be easy to resolve and done quickly. Please? And, thank you so very much for my husband. You chose wisely for me. ~

Counting Sixteenth Notes

Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul. ~Plato

I have dreaded this moment since my daughter began piano in May of 2005...yes, five and a half years ago. For those of you who are new readers, my daughter started piano just after she turned four years old, after begging me for a year, and she has a gift for it. This is the Princess at 4½ years old, with just six months of lessons, at her very first informal recital at a coffee shop. Quite a difference when comparing her last recital this spring: The Little Lady Plays a Minuet.

Aw, such a sweet memory! It was all so simple and fun, but even then I knew it was inevitable, this dreaded moment, and now it is upon me: counting sixteenth notes!

The Princess is learning another Bach piece, this one with sixteenth notes, that she must have ready for judging in a few months. Those of you who enjoy music but have had no training may not fully appreciate my repugnance to learning to count sixteen notes. Quarter notes in 3/4 time, as minuets are, are just simply counting 1, 2, 3. That was easy! Somewhere in her second year of her formal training, she learned eighth notes. Counting them is not that difficult: 1 and 2 and 3 and (or in short hand 1 + 2 + 3 +)...repeatedly.

Now it is sixteenth notes and it it just unnatural for me. We need to learn to count like this: 1 ee and ah 2 ee and ah 3 ee and ah. In the meantime, my daughter is playing with her right hand a dotted eight note, then a sixteenth note and then two staccato quarter notes (detached or just hit the key and lift so you do not hold it at all giving an abrupt and often playful sound). That is just the first measure and we can barely do it!!!

Now if this was the only song she has to learn, memorize, and perform without music for the judging, I know she would get it and she will get it, however she has to also pick another song to begin learning for this same judging and these are not simple pieces. In between we have two holiday breaks so she will not have at least three lessons with her teacher too.

I have to say, though, in performance when most children tend to freeze up, the Princess really shines, but I also know the hours of practice, prayers, and tears with which we both struggle to be performance ready just so she is able to sit there playing as if it is the easiest, most natural thing in the world for her to do.

~ My Lord, one of my fears is that I will be a hindrance in what training You wish have for my daughter as she is being prepared to for Your purpose, so please help me learn to count sixteenth notes with ease. ~

Peaceful in the Quiet

Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart is not quiet until it rests in Thee. ~Saint Augustine

My husband mentioned something to me this morning that I have also been feeling myself. Ever since the 40-day fast, we have enjoyed quiet...true quiet. We had our TV service turned off just before the fast, but that was not all of it.

We often would listen to talk radio too and, of course, Christian stations also. He was saying that since the fast, he has enjoyed quiet. He does not listen to much radio, just a few minutes a day periodically. He likes music playing softly in the evenings at times, but even then not as much as we used to do.

I told him that it was strange because I have been feeling the exact same thing. I am far more at peace with quiet, not looking to turn on something producing sound, and far more in peace when it is quiet. I think I listened to ten minutes of radio all this week. I find that I am less inclined to yell when things are making me upset. I am more inclined to think of a way to respond more positively. I am not telling the dog, cat, or child to move because one of them is in the way between the remote and the TV or yelling at them to quiet down (so counterproductive and ironic, that) so I can hear a show or the news. Why did I ever treated them as if they were less important to me than what I might be missing on TV or the radio?

Now I am wondering....was I using these things to drown out the noise in my mind, and, in so doing, adding more noise, tension, and stress in my mind, in my home? Did I create a no-win situation where all the things I used in an effort to achieve escapism were actually trapping me into the need to escape even more? Worse: Was I trying to drown out God too? (I have to be honest here, I knew down deep that I was even when it was not intentional, but was it really ever unintentional?)

Our TV service allows us to turn it off six months out of the year. It is scheduled to come back on the week before Christmas, but we have said we will probably turn it on before Thanksgiving. I am not sure what we will do after Christmas exactly yet. Maybe we will leave it on as it will be dark and cold outside so early in the evening and we will limit ourselves from watching much. Maybe we will save the money and just turn it off for good...?

A couple more thoughts:

Isn't watching TV a rather selfish indulgence? Not that we should never enjoy anything and not that we should never watch TV just for fun sometimes, but it is the amount of it, as well as content. I wonder if we purposely use it to artificially fill an emptiness in ourselves which would be better filled by serving God and other people.

How does watching hours of TV each day associate with living in the Kingdom, or at least are preparing our souls to be living in the Kingdom? Are we going to expect heaven to be a place where we are constantly entertained? Let's be honest here! We, most likely, have some expectation along those lines, because we would naturally tend to associate what brings us pleasure here as what will bring us pleasure in heaven.

I thought I was pretty strict with the TV before, but when I stepped away from it completely, I realized that the pleasure it provides is not lasting nor genuine and more often it adds tension in my home and pushes God aside. With a better perspective on how it affects my family, I will be far more careful with it in the future.

~ My Lord, thank you for the agreement my husband and I, and even our daughter, share in regards to enjoying the quiet and having peace in it. ~

A Persuaded Heart

To the world you may be just one person, but to one person you may be the world.
~Brandi Snyder

I just have to say that Persuaded at Tomato Soup Cake shames me to no end and she does it without meaning to do so. She just has such a loving heart, the kind that shines a light on your own faults and make you want to hide them, yet still you are drawn to the light of her loving kindness.

I first was introduced to Persuaded through her blog listed on a mutual friend's blog and I would once in awhile creep over to her place. I tried very hard not to get caught up into another blog, trying to keep my Internet addictions down to a minimum, but...I just could not help myself. I fell in love with this woman despite it all. She reminds me of Aunt Bee of the Mayberry with a bit more spunk and far more patience. I quite imagine that she often has twinkles in her eyes. I am still trying to figure out how she makes me feel like a child when she is only a few years older than I am!

She was even gracious enough to talk with me by phone just recently, with the battery of her cell phone drained completely as being the only way to break me away from her. Poor woman! I am hoping that her good ear is still good after all that.

What I like about Persuaded:
She has an amazing heart.
She has a strange attraction for clotheslines.
She has another strange attraction for plastic storage containers.
She sews, sews, and sews some more.
She loves just about anything vintage...an-y-thing...even this!
She has a rather cute sense of humor.

How can you not just love her?

Persuaded, this is my wish for you:
Comfort on difficult days,
smiles when sadness intrudes,
rainbows to follow the clouds,
laughter to kiss your lips,
sunsets to warm your heart,
hugs when spirits sag,
beauty for your eyes to see,
friendships to brighten your being,
faith so that you can believe,
confidence for when you doubt,
courage to know yourself,
patience to accept the truth,
Love to complete your life.

~ My Lord, please bless this dear lady and thank you for placing her in my heart. ~

Wanted: Spiritual Compass

A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for. ~William Shedd

I am not one to point fingers at Satan and his fallen angels as being the cause of all my troubles. Often, I see people who just make bad choices blaming it on the devil, like Eve did in Eden. I am one to take personal responsibility for my wrong doings instead of looking for someone to blame...and it took me some years with guidance from my Lord to undo a childhood where someone else honestly was to blame, because I tended to use that same excuse to cover my own behavior, my own choices, years later.

Abuse has a way of skewing one's perspective of people, of the world, of life, of even God for both victims of it, so it is easy to play the blame game. I learned that at some point in one's spiritual growth, a person should realize that he must accept the blame and ask forgiveness for his actions, regardless of what another person has done to him.

With that said, perhaps you can understand a bit about why the last place I look to in times of trouble in my life is to the spiritual realm. I constantly am seeking my Lord and trying to please Him...trying... but I am referring to the other side. I basically ignore Satan and his followers. I am not ignorant of them, I just do not believe that they can do anything without God allowing it, as seen in Job, so I try keep my focus on my Lord, the Light, and do not look to the darkness at all.

Some of my friends with very good discernment seem to be in agreement that my family is presently under spiritual attack and I spoken to my Lord on this issue also receiving confirmation. Things very spiritual occurred surrounding the 40-day fast my church did, but the church financial situation did not improve and more was required of us. My husband and I felt led by the Lord afterward to make a commitment to double our tithe for six months, putting ourselves financially vulnerable. We also planned to do more outreach work, which we have not been able to do because things just keep getting in the way, like going to Florida to help family twice since the fast.

I suppose I should not be surprised that here we are with several problems requiring money to fix and trying to make decisions about which has priority, which we will live with for now, and all the typical decisions one has to make at such times. Having car problems definitely hampers our outreach plans. On top of that I am fighting my own emotions nearly daily and just when I think I have a handle on it, something else crops up. I readily admit that finances are security to me. Even though we went through something of complete financial reliance on my Lord three years ago when my husband lost his job, I have been wondering if this is more of the same. Is my Lord trying to wrestle the reliance on money out of me? Or is this just a spiritual attack because of the fast and tithe and service commitment?

Yet, I now feel strongly this is not really about money; that part is just is a method of undermining our purpose.

Spiritual warfare....I have been in it at times praying for illnesses with demonic involvement, those illnesses that would not respond as they normally would to treatments, or did something not seen before and obviously aberrant things like that. However, I feel like a babe in the woods with this one: alone, isolated, and without a compass. I have friends, mostly you, who are reading this, praying for me and I do thank each one of you. On the other hand, I am not sure that it is even safe to be friends with me right now; I am concern for people I care so much getting caught in the fallout.

I really have to spend some time in prayer about all this. I wondered if my fight really is with Satan because I believe he really cannot have power unless my Lord allows it; He is Master of All. This reminds me of something my grandfather used to say: "God never puts more on you than you can take, but I wish He did not think so much of me."

So, the real question is what would my Lord have me do? I would like a spiritual compass!

My Lord, whatever is from You I accept readily and ask that You protect my church, my friends, and my family from what is not. Show me the way I am to go and I will keep trying to get there.

The Divine Whisperer

Blessed are the ears that hear the pulse of the divine whisperer, and give no heed to the many whisperings of the world. ~Thomas Kempis

I have been contemplating different ways we approach God and how, even my most devoted aunt, did not give me list of things I should do, as she would with housekeeping, to teach me about how to have a relationship with God. She would readily talk about her special prayer place, miracles she has seen, and conversations she had with God, but we did not have a daily family devotion or anything like that. We were very involved with church! We also had a Christian band with practice on Thursday nights and we performed at places now and then. One would often hear my aunt singing a Christian song throughout the house. I suppose to her it was so natural, just an integral part of herself that she felt was too personal and/or, perhaps, she just trusted the Lord to lead others according to how He needed to do so and she was only to be a living example.

For me, a bit more guidance would have been helpful since I lacked churching much of my life until then, but I found my way. I would sit in the quiet of the library quite early in the morning before anyone else was awake and just talk with God.

I have been attempting to relate to my daughter an awareness of God and that prayer is speaking with Him, not at Him, and, since it is a conversation, that He has things He will be saying to her, so she should be listening as well. She now tells me that she hears Him give yes and no answers, but she says she has to ask questions so the answer is just yes or no. I have told her that there will be times that God has more to say than yes or no, but it is a start. I am very pleased with her trying to really hear God—some life-long Christians do not learn this discipline!

This is an improvement over when she asked me how I hear God some years ago while I was driving to her piano lesson. I remember telling her that she needed to try to listen. She said she had been trying but she still could not hear Him. I was still contemplating on how to respond since she seemed so serious. Then, she quickly decided that the solution was simple: she would asked God to speak louder. I remember smiling at the simplicity and pureness of her faith.

In this era, it is particularly difficult not to fill our time and minds with all the conveniences technology has made so readily available to us: telephones, radio, TV, computers, Internet, video games, email, even blogging, and more. On what do we spend the most time of our day?

The best way to learn to hear God is to practice daily at listening to Him. That is what we should be doing all day. Yes, that constant prayer (conversation) which includes Him in every moment of our lives. In turn, we are included in His every moment as well.

That is the place to be: in each moment with the Lord, in the kingdom at hand as Jesus described. It could start humbly, like a child would do, with simple questions begging yes-or-no answers and listening for God speak them...with great anticipation!

~ My Lord, thank you for hearing me and help me to hear You. I am definitely trying to listen right now. Please talk to me. ~

Perserving Pegasus

Preserve me, O God: for in thee do I put my trust. ~Psalms 16:1

After we returned from Florida, we began to see some problems with Pegasus. She is sickly and needs some tending. I have been a bit worried this time she may not pull through.

I suppose it is odd to name a vehicle, but we had good a reason to do so. When the Princess had just turned four years old, she began piano lessons with the only teacher who would consider taking a child so young that I could find. I have written about all this previously at Thursday's Child Has Far to Go. What I did not tell about in that story, after the second lesson, Sarah and I were in an accident on the way home.

I was making a left hand turn at a light and I am the type of driver that does not pull out into the intersection until I can make the turn. There were no cars coming and I began to pull out to make the turn. My eye caught motion on the right side and I realized in that nanosecond we were going to be hit broadside. Not only we were hit, but we began tipping over rather gently and the next thing I knew the van was resting on the driver' side and my daughter was screaming behind me. Neither one of us was hurt...well, in my hurry to get back to my daughter, I placed my hand down on broken glass and a day later I had those normal slight aches and pains that happen with things like that. I had to be helped out through the passenger side window after I had handed my daughter to someone to get her out. The Princess was not hurt at all but it was horribly hot that day, and later she was rather upset that they hauled our van away.

The police officer told me I was at fault but that he was not going to cite me. At the time I thought it was strange, but I was still shaken up and concerned about the Princess and my husband was at least an hour away. Traffic was very bad so by the time my husband got there, the accident scene had been completely cleaned up and I was cooling off in the corner store where I had the time to think it all out with a clearer head. During that time it dawned on me that there was no sound before the jeep was crunching metal in the side of my van. You know, you tend to hear the screech of tires and look around hoping you at not the one they are going to hit, right? There was no sound, no warning, just that motion I saw in my peripheral vision.

My husband inspected the crash site for himself and confirmed that the other driver had not touched her brakes at all. The only rubber on the road was from our own tires were she pushed us sideways before we tipped. Obviously, she had not tried to avoid the accident and had her foot on the acceleration as she hit, which made her push on it harder. That and the fact that she had a vehicle that is higher off the road and I had a conversion van that is more top heavy...well, we tipped over.

The other thing that bothered me is that I knew the road was clear before I started my turn, but I remember two vehicles in the right turn lane and the second one might have been hers as the first one was still there after the accident. I think she had popped out of the turn lane, and obviously was not looking straight ahead, where this huge, white, hi-top conversion van was broadside in front of her, when she come into the intersection. Maybe she was looking behind to be sure she was clear that way...?

Now I feel I should tell you why I was rather relaxed as we were being hit. The Lord had been preparing me through dreams and feelings about being hit on that very side and tipping over gently with just the Princess and me for about six months before it happened. My husband during that time moved the car seat from the driver's side to the passenger side and, because of these dreams, I moved it back. I knew we were going to be fine, but I also knew that if the Princess had been on that side, she would have been hurt. The chair had taken the greatest impact and ended up askew in the middle of the van. God's warning protected her.

Anyway, the result was our conversion van was totaled, we had a few extra visits to the chiropractor, and the Princess had fears about tipping over every time we turned, especially if I was driving. We replaced that vehicle with another conversion van, a black one, and I named it "The Panther" so that she would feel a bit more secure because the Panther was strong and protective. It worked well for the following year and, in time, her fears subsided. As much as I wanted to keep the Panther, as it was a great van, I felt the Lord's calling for us to downside about two years later, so we sold it and purchased a white mini-van; all this before we even knew that my husband was to be let go from his job.

Since our last vehicle had a name, this one would need one as well, so the Princess felt, and Pegasus seemed to be appealing to all. Pegasus was only meant to be a second vehicle, as my husband had always had a company vehicle most of the years of our marriage. However, after he lost his job, Pegasus has been our main and only vehicle, as the new job required traveling more by plane. It concerned me when we found out, after the sale, that she was a repo and had been in an accident, but I had prayed about the van and I felt this is the one we were to get. She has her quirks and had a great deal of miles when we first got her, but she has been rather dependable as we put a great deal more miles on her.

Back to today...as you know, we just returned from Florida and we knew it was time for some regular maintenance, changing the timing belt and water pump, but the Pegasus began leaking oil too. I was supposed to take the Princess to piano lessons and go grocery shopping today, so my husband suggested that I stop on the way at the garage we have do our servicing—great Christian people—to have them give her a look-see. We were very concerned because Pegasus is over ten years old with high mileage, so anything really major is probably not going to be worth repairing.

There may be a day that we will have to make a decision to give up on her...I am happy to say that today is not that day after all. Yes, she needs some repairs and she is going to be in the shop all day tomorrow and it will cost us more than we hoped but also far less than we feared. Because of the possible results with her problem, we did not go out for errands after all, but just came back home to let her rest.

~ My Lord, thank you for giving us a dependable vehicle and that we have been able to afford its maintenance and repairs. You know our needs, my Lord, and we are trusting you to provide them. ~