Prayers from a Cold Winter Walk

A cold Winter Walk and Prayerful Reflections.

The ground is frozen solid. Don’t let my heart be the same way. Or the hearts of my family. We need you to soften us with your Holy Spirit.

You’ve covered everything in white. A sparkling blanket of purity. Cover me with your beautiful character and help me to reflect your brightness.

You’ve sprinkled the bare ground with diamonds, one of a kind! Only You can make my rough character into something so original and lovely!

The sun comes up and melts away the wonder of the frosty world. Help me not to miss opportunities with You to see your wonder!

The rocks tumble down from the mountain into the path, yet I can’t see how they lost their hold. Lord, without You holding us up, our whole foundation will crumble. I want to hold onto you so I don’t slip and tumble down, taking others with me.

It’s so quiet up in the forest. Help me to turn to you often, and less to the distractions below. Yet, I need to do my work, so help me to remember my time up here with You.

In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.

Isaiah 30:15

Let me live in your shadow, and please light my way, before and behind. With your help, I can stand taller and be bold to speak for you.

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Related: Sabbath Walk…

He who dwells in the secret place of the most high will abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

I will say of the Lord He is my Refuge and my Fortress, my God, in Him will I trust.

Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the perilous pestilence

He shall cover you with His feathers

And under His wings you shall take refuge

His truth shall be thy shield and buckler

You shall not be afraid of the terror by night nor from the arrow that flies by day

Nor from the pestilence that lays wait in darkness, nor from the destruction that lays waste at noonday

A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come near thee.

Plasm 91:1-6

We memorized Psalm 91 several years ago. I wrote the above six verses from memory. I remember a bunch of it, but I noticed that I got several of the phrases mixed up in their order. Just a reminder to me to keep at it—use it or lose it.

It’s cold here today. Somewhere around 20 degrees through the day (yesterday) and into the teens, like 12 in the night.

This means that our water has frozen. The line that fills the tank for using in the camper. We have waned to combat this by bringing in the hoses to thaw, then we can run it.

Today, however, the lines from the holding tanks are also frozen. Since we will actually get temps up to the 40s today, it should thaw so we can run the water. most of the time it does not do this. We’ve learned to fill the tank before the lines freeze at night so we can have water in the night and morning. Just one of the little nuances of gravity feed water systems. I

t’s not the end goal, but a step along the way to setting up the gravity feed up top on the middle ridge.

We have decently-working system. Our solar well pump (which has its own solar panel) pumps water into the large holding tank, and we fill the camper tank with that, so we don’t have to run the pump much, except on sunny days. when we finish the cabin, our system will be similar, just larger.

I’ll try to give occasional peeks into the off grid way of life more often. It’s different, but when you figure it out, it feels good.

Stay warm, enjoy some time outside, and have a great day! ❄️

Joke is on me!

Stay tuned, because literally, as I finished this post, Andrew came in with the wonderful news that our main pipe coming from the well pump was/is broken. So that’s a whole ‘nother can of worms to deal with.

Looks like I’ll be launched into emergency run to Lowes mode.

Perhaps I shall sign off, and say, “Lord, give me patience…” and that whole serenity prayer.

Gonna need it.

Keeping it real!

~Laurie~