God's Blessing's!

God's gift to us this morning!  Thank you Lord for this beautiful view of your creation.

God's blessings are all around us.  This morning we woke up to snow, lots of snow. It is so beautiful, fresh, clean - just how God sees us with all our imperfections. 

The view outside our motor home window this morning.  The bay is behind the trees.

Another view of the campground this morning with all the beautiful snow!

I thought about how God sees us a few times today as I reflected on a friendship Ron and I have had for many years. Ron and I have been blessed to be friends with Al & Selma Geinger since early 1989 when we moved back to the Blaine, WA area.  In fact, Ron has known them all his life.  I was blessed to meet them late 1977 when Ron traveled to Holland for his job in the Air Force and I stayed with his parents until he had housing for us.  

Our friendship together really began though once we were living up here.  Al & Selma were Ron's parents age.  Al & Selma just kinda adopted us and our two boys. Jamie & Brandon greeted them whenever we saw them just as Max & Christopher greet us ~ with open arms, hugs and kisses.  We have shared many meals,  attended many basketball games around Whatcom County as well as District and State Tournaments.  We have visited with each other in our homes and even gone on a few camping trips together at Mt. Vernon, WA and Birch Bay, WA.  Al & Selma loved us with all our imperfections and weirdness.  They loved us through some great times and rough times.  We laughed and cried together and even disagreed once in awhile.  They stood by us through medical emergencies and celebrated special birthday's, wedding's, and graduations.  And through it all we knew we were loved by them at all times.

We heard this morning that Al went home to the Lord early this morning.  He is now with his beloved Selma who left us just over two years ago.  As soon as we heard the news I told Ron I was so thankful we followed the Lord's leading and stopped in to see Al last Saturday while we were in Bellingham.  Al welcomed us into his home.  He was sitting in his chair watching football.  We started talking like we had just seen each other the day before.  That was not the case, it had been a long time since we had seen him.  We only stayed about an half hour as he seemed to be tired.  He asked about our boys.  He was excited to hear that Brandon is now coaching a boys high school basketball team.  Al said he just knows Brandon will do well at that.  We showed him pictures of Opal, Max and Christopher.  Al said Jamie is going to have his hands full with that precious little girl. 

Opal Rae Trulock-Workentin.  Al said her smile reminded him of Jamie.

And for us to remember to love on those grands as often as we can.  We told him that is not a problem for us ~ we love to hold, snuggle and love on them all.  Al asked us if we were still going to church ~ he lovingly called us "church hoppers" as we went to three different churches over the last 22 years we have lived here in Blaine.  He said one time he didn't understand why we had to leave the Birch Bay Mennonite Church but he was glad we were attending a Bible believing, God loving church and participating in the fellowship of other believers.  We will miss you Al (and Selma too) and are so thankful that you were a part of our family.   We have so many wonderful memories of our time with you both.  Thank you for loving us as your own children and grandchildren.  Thank you Lord for blessing us with Al & Selma for all these years.

Ron and I shared with each other some of our memories of Al & Selma, reflecting again how glad we were that we saw him just last week.  What a reminder to take those little nudges the Lord sends our way, follow up on those thoughts "I should call so and so."  You may never know the reason the Lord nudges you do to do something but in this case we do ~ God knew we would have felt horrible if we had not had time for a visit with Al.  Thank you Lord for the little nudge last Saturday.

Then it was time to get on with our day.  Ron did some work around the motor home and then loaded our little jeep up with more stuff to take to the storage unit.  We have just a couple more days before we head off on our new adventure.

Ron and our new jeep.

Here he is again.  Don't the two of them look like a great pair.  We are so happy we have this little 4x4 that we can tow behind the motor home.  It handled great in the snow.  Ron just popped it into 4 wheel drive and off we went.

Ron and I both worked at the church for a couple of hours today.  Ron and Phil put in the new dishwasher and I finished up the bulletin and script for the Sunday service tomorrow as well as finished up a project for Pastor Charles. As I finished up I felt some sadness as I put some notes on Charles' desk and turned the heat down for the last time.  As I pulled the door shut behind me I thought this is the last time I walk out of the office as church secretary.  I have so enjoyed my time working with Charles and for Northwood Alliance Church and will miss it lots.  I am excited that Tina is stepping into that position.  I know she will do a great job.  I shared with her one of the things I have learned over the years "remember to laugh often and be flexible."  Thank you Charles for teaching those two important tools in any job I will have in the future.  Thank you Northwood Family for letting me serve you these past seven years. I love you all and will miss you as we travel and work on this journey we call life.  A few tears fell down my cheeks as we drove away from Northwood ~ we are still a part of the Northwood family, just in a different way.

This little guy greeted us as we pulled into Beachwood upon our return from Blaine.

After we got back to the motor home I made a pot of minestrone soup.  It was so good on this cold night.  The weatherman is calling for more snow tonight and tomorrow.  I hope it does not dump too much as we are driving to Redmond tomorrow to meet up with Chuck from Noel Christmas Trees. Tomorrow we will get a little training and instructions.  Am thinking the learning curve for selling Christmas trees will be easy compared to learning the ropes at the carnival. We found out we will be selling trees in Edmonds, WA.  We start next Wednesday.  Once we have the address of the Christmas tree lot we will send it on to all of you.  Who knows, maybe some of you will be able to come by and say hello!  I plan to have coffee and hot chocolate readily available.

Till next time!