I Look To The Shepherd

Yesterday I was playing the piano and came across this song in a book which I had not played from in several years. Memories of the first time I heard this quickly came back to me...I was sitting in our car with a friend and we were just listening to music on the car cassette tape player (remember those?).  The beauty of it caught me by surprise and I was moved to the depths of my soul. It quickly became one of my favorite "praise" songs.

Having it brought once again to my attention, I searched for it on youtube and was so happy to find it so I am posting it here. Please allow it to be a blessing to you!



I Look To The Shepherd

Walt Harrah

© 1987 Maranatha Music ASCAP

                                                                        PSALM 23 (NASB).

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures;

He leads me beside quiet waters.

He restores my soul;

He guides me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I fear no evil, for You are with me;

Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

You have anointed my head with oil;

My cup overflows.

Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,

And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

A Promise

Lovely Lines In Pleasant Places

I love the shapes and lines of every flower but recently I have been duly impressed with the lovely, graceful lines of the calla lily. In Portuguese these are called copo de leite or "cup of milk". Very appropriate, yes?Without further ado, I would just like to post several of my favorites photos of these beauties, at different phases and from different angles.

       I adore those daring drops of water on the tip of the little squirrely-gig thingie. Fascinating!

                                                    

To those of you really interested in these beauties, here's an interesting and helpful site that I found:

http://www.callalilyguide.com/ I learned that a calla lily is neither a calla nor a lily. Go figure.

I've chosen this next one as my favorite. I asked my husband if this didn't look just like milk being poured out but he seemed to think it looked like milk going down a drain! Honestly.

                              These lovely lines of the calla lily remind me of a verse in the Psalms

                                             which speak of our "goodly" (beautiful) heritage.

"The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places;

yea, I have a goodly heritage."

(Psalm 16:6)

Fresh Home-Made Ricotta

I have never posted a recipe here on my blog but I think I need to start. That's what blogs like mine are supposed to do...post recipes. Well, once in awhile. Maybe just once?

ANYway, I was sorting through some papers (oh, those mountains of papers!), getting ready for furlough, and found a couple pages of recipes that I'd torn out of a magazine in some distant, foggy past and this one caught my eye: Fresh Ricotta. Only 3 ingredients and 30 minutes, that's all I needed. Well, it took about 15 minutes more than that but, considering everything, I think this is a very good recipe. If you like ricotta, that is. And I do. And fresh, home-made ricotta is SO good and yummy!

I think that I will be making more of this. It only cost around $2 p/lb. That's a very rough calculation, using our ever-changing dollar exchange and my not-totally-dependable food scale.

So click on the pic, notice the creaminess, read the recipe and, if you like all of that, then make it and let me know what you think!
(After posting this, I noticed that the recipe isn't easy to read ("new & improved" Blogger stuff, I guess). Anyway, here's a link to a site that has a similar recipe with only slight differences in the number of minutes. And I made mine using low-fat milk for part of it. Neither did I use cheesecloth. I've never used cheesecloth. I don't know the reason for using cheesecloth. Any clean cloth will do!)

"180" Has One Million Viewers!

I don't normally use this blog for promoting certain agendas (except the spiritual) but I just wanted to give an update about the 180 Movie, for those who are interested. Today the number of viewers reached one million! I'd been waiting for this news, just so I could post it. If you missed the original post, you can see it here. I am trying to keep a running update about it on this page so from now on I will only post them there.

I'm including this photo because, somehow, it seems to depict the feelings of a child, seeing its mother go away but unable to do anything about it. May we forever be sensitive to the feelings of the little ones, even the unborn.

"Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish." (Matthew 8:14)

The Birds Of The Air

 Last week my husband discovered this nest of a sabiá (robin) built on top of our water heater outside. Quite the interior decorator, I'd say!

                                     Look at the cute greenery circling the top of the nest...

And the red trim! Maybe she's getting ready for Christmas, huh?

Well, since the day the nest was discovered, we haven't seen any bird in or near the nest. Not sure what's going on. Maybe she detected that I'd be nearby taking TOO many pics...Gotta find a safer, more private place, she said. 
But I daily hear robins singing, charming us with their plaintive but melodic songs. We are in our Springtime here in southern Brazil so the variety of birds with their songs and activity is an entertainment for me these days. Gotta love it.
                                                           Can you find 2 birds here?

 "Oh, robin, fat robin, you're the symbol of Spring!

    You're the orange-breasted creature with a sweet song to sing.

Without you my yard would be a quite dreary place,

For you add to its beauty with your color and grace..."

(except from "Message Of The Birds")

Postscript Oct 16: A comment by a reader got me curious so I researched a bit and found out that the sabiá (or sabiá-laranjeira) is a Turdus rufiventris or Rufous-bellied Thrush which is only one of about 85 species of the thrush family. Wow, I learned alot!

  "And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, 

   and the birds of the air have nests,

   but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head."

    (Luke 9: 58) 

Still Life

These flowers in a church window caught my eye recently, I took several pictures of it from different angles. Could hardly choose which one to post. Are you as blessed as I am by looking at the lines, light and colors here? Wowzers...

This photo makes me think of this verse...

"Be still, and know that I am God:

I will be exalted among the heathen,

 I will be exalted in the earth."

(Psalm 46:10) 

AND...the other day I heard this beautiful song which goes along with this theme. I pray that it is a blessing to you.

The Love Of God

                               Thank You, Lord, for your comforting Word to me this day.
"For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."  (Romans 8:38,39)

On His Wings

A recent return plane trip was uneventful (we love "uneventful"!) except for our landing. As we neared our destination, the pilot came on and said the normal, giving the general weather report about where we were about to land..."58 degrees and cloud-covered", not at all unusual for our fair city. As we gradually lost altitude, I could see kind of a whitish glow through the clouds up ahead and surmised that it was our city. But the clouds below the plane just looked like they were getting thicker and thicker, it was like a carpet of darkish cotton (it was 11:30 p.m.).  As we descended down into that carpet, it was white swirling around outside, then in a couple minutes it was black swirls and we could see nothing. After another minute or so I strained my eyes and began to faintly see a couple of lights glowing below us and then, all of a sudden we realized that those were the lights of the runway! In a few seconds we had landed and I saw that the fog was quite thick there at the airport, visibility looked to be no more than two blocks. 

What I don't understand, is why they could land then, but on other occasions (2 times) they couldn't land because of fog and we had to go back! Anyway, as I thought about this experience the next day, I was kind of shaking my head at the wonder of it all. I was also imagining the pilots...Were they high-fiving it when they landed, saying something like "Yes! we did it! a bit risky but, hey, such is flying." Hopefully, they were totally confident about going ahead and landing. I'd hate to think that they did it taking a risk!

As I thought about this experience the next day, I had grateful tears as the Lord showed me, not only that He (not the pilots) was the one protecting us but that circumstances in our lives are often like this. As the dark swirls of difficulties surround us the Lord says "Trust Me. I will carry you on My wings and we will arrive at the planned destination."  I am one very blessed and grateful child to have such a God and Father!

"As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings,

taketh them, beareth them on her wings:

So the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him."

 (Deuteronomy 32:11,12)