Blessing 1,445,

My blessing today is being surrounded by so much of God. I look out in the morning & see a new day, each one unique in the color palette that it opens & closes with. Each sunrise & sunset is unique & different in the colors & design. The trees are never the same, clouds, nothing is exactly the same. I can take photos day to day & they are always different. I am amazed at how the solar system works, how the human body is put together & in some way interchangeable so we can often help each other; & yet still survive. When our blood types are the same we are able to do a blood transfusion, no matter the outer covering of our body; but it is determined by the inner workings. There there is the ability to transplant organs, the details that it must have taken to create beings that could be made to be able to assist each other in this way. A person can give an match one of their kidneys or a portion of your liver. You can swap bone marrow, skin grafts, lung & more. Even though these are in no way meant to be a means of income; but a gift of life, some people do abuse this out of greed or necessity. The point being that just we are complex & unique; but wonderfully made & designed.  I won't go into that since it is not a blessing & this is about a blessing, or making a difference for others.

I am so in awe of nature around me, of so many things. I often stand on our deck, even that is a wonder & look around at all the beauty surrounding our corner of town.  We are blessed to own a 60 acre corner piece of land.  There are gravel roads going for a mile in 4 directions from our homestead. 

The trees that grew to give me this deck, this safe haven, after a year of battling Lyme's disease & Belle's Palsy.  The ability for Eddie to do 95% on his own (thank you to my sister, Vicki, & her husband, Bryan, for help positioning the largest frame section into place). He is 60% disabled; but he worked slowly, took his time, lots of graph paper figuring out the angles so we only have one actual step to climb & we have a wrap around deck from vehicle to door to wood pile. 

All this, I believe, can go back to God's gifts because He also gave us the ability to use our hands & to think through some challenges. What both us saw as an impossible task, we simply began to chip away at & do. We put it to prayer, then we started sketching & eventually came up with ideas. Those ideas worked & we have a rather nice deck as a result.  Often we simply see a task as impossible & give up, when if we pray about it.  Then take it one step at a time.  Small steps, just like on a journey, we begin to see that it was not the giant we thought; but a series of smaller steps that led to a final goal.  That is how it was with our deck.  First we replaced our smaller back porch with a bit larger one.  Then we added an add-on of just a few feet long & wide, slightly slanted downward.  The next was kind of large; but we began to set the supports then did some framing.  Being over 20 feet, this is where my sister's help came in.  They helped us to slide the frame into place on the supports.  Then my hubby & I added the decking, connected the smaller add-on section.  The final area for that was to put a small downward section to where we park our vehicles across the front of the trailers.  Then step down one step & we are at the car.  

We found a unique grocery cart, not the basket kind; but upright for a dollar at an auction.  It has two levels, the upper one flips up when needed.  We use it when we bring home groceries.  Fill it up & one trip to the door.  It can also be loaded with wood, that was our next added section.  A 4x4 flat area, then a ramp down to a 4x6 flat area just above the wood shed.  Load up the cart & either wheel it back up or if too heavy we also have a ratchet winch that hooks to the top of the ramp.  We are both elderly, so it comes in quite handily.  We thank God for the ideas, know-how & ability to complete our deck.  We added railings in key places with some unique iron cut rail designs from a local craftsman for a rustic touch (frogs included to remember to Fully Rely On God) & our deck is complete & comfortable.

I love being able to look around & see what doesn't make sense to the human eye; being thankful that God sees it differently. It is such a blessing to be able to use this gift He has given & so many more to bless others & make a difference in their lives as well.

Then knowing when we have the faith, to step beyond what we think we can't do & place our trust in Him, that He will guide us as we go