Advice, Small Talk and Regeneration

I had thought I would be on a blog hiatus while visiting our family, but who can pass up participating with Joyce on Wednesdays?

So after reading my post, please join others Here for our Hodgepodge hook-up.

1. April 22nd is Earth Day. Are you inspired by nature? In what way?

Oh yes I am.  In fact, I will finish this post with a few pictures I snapped on Monday afternoon of emerging signs of spring around this midwest home that has seen its worst winter in decades.  There are so many signs of God's amazing plan for creation.
 
2. Down to earth, four corners of the earth, move heaven and earth, not have an earthly chance, or salt of the earth...which earthly idiom have you most recently encountered? Explain.

On Sunday, we were part of a three family Easter lunch sharing time. (See Monday's post below).  I think the best way to describe these friendly, inclusive, loving folks is just plain "down to earth." Their good solid Christian values and the lack of any pretense is always so refreshing.  These qualities are precious regardless of the part of country one comes from.

Watching a funny YouTube video.

3. Share one piece of advice you might give a newly engaged couple.

Just one?  Heavens, you know that is not possible for us bloggers!  But for the sake of readability and cooperation, I'll try.
1.   Use this engagement time to really get to know each other and cement the mutual commitments to always put Christ first in your own life and that of your marriage, and that divorce will never be an option.

Okay, so maybe I crammed more than one in that answer, but I feel the engagement period is a time to firm up those bonds that will hold two very different people together when life becomes more than lace and roses.

4. When did you last engage someone to perform a job, task, service, home repair, or improvement? On a scale of 1-10 (ten being the best) how would you rate their work and/or your satisfaction with the job or service provided?

The last big project was enclosing our back porch into a sun room last spring.  I rate the completed job a 10.

5. When did you last find yourself engaged in small talk? Are you awkward or an expert or somewhere in between?

Again, refer to the answer of #1.  I spent a few minutes visiting with the mother of our host.  I really enjoyed getting to know her and we had a few things in common.  But, as a rule, I am not a small talker, or as we call it in the south, a chit-chatter.  I tire of this very quickly and am ready to move on.  Chit-chatters just wear me out.  I much prefer to speak and move on to an observatory position.

6.  What was the last historic place you visited?

I featured this in a former post that can be found Here.  It is the McCoy Plantation where slave Samuel Northrup, whose story was told in the movie "12 Years a Slave", last lived before gaining his freedom.  It is now part of the "Northrup Trail" in central Louisiana.  


7. The world would be a better place if we just__________________________.

• "Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you....." Matthew 5:44

• We are to mimic God as His children and "walk in love, just as Christ also loved us and gave Himself up for us..... Ephesians 5:1-2

• Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and others more than yourself.

• Keep and treasure in your heart the Ten Commandments.

  8.  Insert your own random thought here.

 Signs of Nature and Regeneration

"He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that being justified by His grace we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life."  Titus 3:5-7