HI all,

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all! This is a time of work around the house for us, sensing in our spirits this time is set aside between travels for that purpose. The money collected and saved for a sidewalk/pad was used to pour the cement, which enables us to transfer Chris from wheelchair to car and back, and we are thrilled. 

At some point we’ll complete it as a garage, but for now we’re happy not to have to transfer him on mud, rocks, and dirt. I’ve always had to do what we call “4-wheel drive” his wheelchair to get him in the house, meaning tilting it back and muscling it over the rough ground and up the wheelchair ramp to the house. Whew, no more of that, thank you! 

We are still cutting wood from the Labor Day week tornado. I’ve had some help and we’ve filled 10 racks with firewood, but we have enough wood for about 15 more racks at least, but it is getting split, stacked, and the larger pieces will soon be cut to length. 

For years Barb and I have thought in terms of spiritual seasons rather than calendar dates. Those calendar dates are needed to function in this world because the world lives in hours and minutes. But God spoke of the sun, moon and stars and said “Let them be for ‘signs, seasons, days, and years.’ (Genesis 1:14). 

That’s a curious way to arrange time, but the more I walk with Him the more I see how He functions in those things. Signs from Him get our attention, appeal to the intellect, cause us to start seeking and asking what He has next for us. 

Seasons speaks to gradual transitions in our lives, and like seasons, in the transition there is a little of the old mixing with a little of the new, until one day we are living fully in the new season. That there are days within those seasons speaks to our gradual day by day progress, moving forward one foot in front of the other until the seasons fully change. 

And years, another way of marking the past and the new on a larger scale. Every one of us is in a spiritual season and a natural season of life. He is there in the midst. He is walking with us, within us, through each season. These are how He moves, and we would do well not to fret over our hours and minutes world, but to stop and look for His ‘signs, seasons, days, and years’ in our lives – and that is where we’ll find Him. 

Barb and I sure do appreciate you, and with every donation I stop and pray for that person, with many writing in ongoing prayer requests – you are prayed for! Thank you for being in our lives!

Blessings! John & Barb