Grace and Progress

Grace is described as unmerited favor. The most amazing grace of all is the unmerited favor God showers on us as salvation but there’s also God’s grace that is shown to us by others around us. On Sat. I visited my Faithful Friend and while there she handed me a gift her Mother had made for me. I lost it. I couldn’t do anything but stand there and cry (bawl, if you must know). Overwhelmed by unmerited favor. I met this friend’s Mother one time and since then she has given me a wonderful iron because I commented that mine leaked while using the steam feature, sent books for me to share, promised to save fabric scraps for quilts, gave me an  absolutely stunning purse that she had sewn and now a set of hand embroidered kitchen towels. I don’t mean a tiny little edge of embroidery, but full picture, hand done, time consuming, beautifully detailed embroidery.

I have another friend who would say this Mother is a ‘giver.’ I’d have to disagree to a point although I totally believe she gives and gives and gives but I think it’s because giving is as natural as breathing to her. If someone told her she was a ‘giver’ she’d look at them like they were speaking in a foreign language. Giving, loving, must be part of her DNA. If a scientist put one of her cells under a scope they’d find giving there. I know because I’ve seen it and I’ve seen it passed down, just like other physical genes, to her daughter. Both have such giving hearts they don’t even know they have them.

Lest I go completely sappy, on to Progress here at Beulah Land ………

I’ve picked several zucchini, cucumbers and 3 cantaloupe from the gardens lately. Pastures are mowed (return for allowing our neighbor to run his cattle on 50 of our acres), the yard is mowed and trimmed along with the herb garden, the front flower bed is taken out and the white stone border removed and reset in another area, the cattle panel fence is completed (YES!) and the goats love their new pasture area, most of the metal recycles have been taken in from the hay shed, three of the bucklings have been claimed and will go to their new home this week, AND we have found someone to repair and paint the wood on the house starting tomorrow.

This picture doesn’t do John justice but he just put in a full+ day of fencing work - one dirty, exhausted, pleased man! and one of his goats out to pasture!

It  feels like we are making definite progress to killing off the “Ma & Pa Kettle Lifestyle” around here.  I am so grateful for grace in the many ways it shows up in my life.

This entry was posted on July 21, 2009 at 09:02 am and is filed under Homestead living. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.