First, a hearty happy birthday to one of my sisters! 🥰
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Aaaaand… let’s see… I slept in a good bit today. Goddess, I don’t think I got up for good until 8:45. Of course, I woke up about 80 trillion times, but I fell back asleep each time until finally prying myself out.
It was a cloudy morning, so my van didn’t heat up quickly, gratefully.
Still, I wish South Dakota had shade. 🙃
That said, I think it’s been high 90s and even over 100 back in Arkansas. 🥵
So… I’ll take the shadeless rolling hills for now. 🙃
Did some morning routine stuff. Spent some time pondering what it looks like to follow God out of a love for God.
This is what I wrote this morning following those thoughts:
***
Choosing to be obedient out of love: What does that look like?
Today might be the first day I’ve spent time in meaningful pondering of that idea and the first day I’ve received a meaningful, if still incomplete, understanding.
Here are my preliminary thoughts:
Because I love God, I want Him to be filled with joy. One powerful source of joy for Him comes in seeing me choose love, choose light, choose Him.
He joys in me and with me.
Obeying out of love means, at least in part, obeying out of a desire for His joy.
I give Him the gift of my heart, and because He is who He is, He is filled with joy (His joy increases?) because of me.
And that joy is synergistic in both of us. 🥰
***
There’s probably a whole lot more that I haven’t thought about. This was only a small bit of pondering, but it’s meaningful for me as I am going to be pulling together what I believe and why and posting it in a different section on this website.
Spend some time trying to work on cleaning up the rest of the septic drain field.
It continues to boggle my mind how one simple mistake, not knowing to dig the middle trench first, turned a job of a few days into a job of a month with massive collateral, though superficial, destruction that’s going to take so much longer for nature to repair.
It’s sort of mind blowing to me how it’s possible that that one mistake could have such far-reaching and long-lasting negative consequences.
Honestly, I gave up pretty quickly for the day today… Every effort I try to make seems to either make barely a dent or make things worse.
Tomorrow might be different because it rained today, so I might be able to make some decent progress with softened soil.
🤞
After giving up, I decided to take Zora to JH Keith park today to let her have a fun experience, hopefully, in the water.
She used to love the water, I think, but now being blind, she was pretty scared, at least at first. I coaxed her into the water a few times, but it’s deeper than she is tall, so she has to swim, but I helped her by putting my arm under her and lifting a little bit to keep her further out of the water.
She spent a good little while wandering around the premises trying to get a feel for where she was and what was there, and I think she began to enjoy herself a little bit more. I didn’t let her wander off very far because I didn’t want her to get ticks.
I didn’t mention it, but I got three ticks yesterday while doing my little bit of exploring.
Or maybe I did mention it? I don’t remember.
I noticed two on me right after having walked through the overgrown grass and trees on the one end of the area there.
Then after getting home and crawling into bed, I found one crawling on my neck. 😅
Gratefully, they were all adult ticks. I didn’t notice any little babies like I get in Arkansas all the time.
Anyway, I spent hours at JH Keith park–probably three or four. 🙃. I chatted with several tourists who came in and then left, including the last three, two of whom were from Cuba. I got to practice my Spanish a little bit with them. 😊
I hope Zora enjoyed her time there. I’m going to take her again and see if she seems to enjoy her time more the second time, with it being more familiar.
Hung out with Heather and Hans the rest of the night, an awesome storm rolling in just as I was driving home, the clouds looking greenish blue.
I was hoping for a tornado. 🙃
But it was only strong wind and rain.
Nice and cool outside now, though, and hopefully, the rain will help the grass begin to grow back in the drainfield area quicker. 🤞
Gratitude:
- I’m grateful for evaporative cooling.
- I’m grateful that I was able to take Zora with me today without too much trouble.
- I’m grateful I was able to do a little bit of meaningful pondering.
- I’m grateful for no text today.
- I’m grateful for mangoes… At least the fleshy part. 🙃 The peels and sap can die the eternal death. 😅
Success:
- I was at least a little better today at putting my priorities where I want them.
Improvement:
- Still a long ways to go in that same prioritization effort
Thought of the Day:
“When we love God with all our hearts, He turns our hearts to the well-being of others in a beautiful virtuous cycle.”
~ Russell M. Nelson
Hand of God In My Life Today:
Felt that deep spiritual hunger and a divine connection today. 😊
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 