A Slower Pace

Today is a day of anticipation. I have been planning for weeks now to attend an extended weekend Emmaus walk. I leave tonight and will not return until Sunday night. If you are a regular reader, don’t worry. I have pre-posted material for your enjoyment.

I have several friends who have attended previous walks. They have been encouraging me to go for a while. They tell me it is a pivotal time where your walk with Christ is strengthened and grown. I have been wanting to go for a while but have never found the “right time”. Additionally, I wanted my wife to go too and we both never made it a priority. Well, if you wait for the right time there will never be one. So we both finally committed and scheduled it back in Dec/Jan. I go this weekend and my wife will follow on the women’s weekend in 2 weeks.

We are both excited knowing that our relationship with Christ will strengthen, grow and change. We are looking forward to it with open minds and open hearts. We have been told to “Don’t anticipate; participate!”

So that is what I will do this weekend. It will be interesting to see what I write about when I return.

Stay tuned.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

Throughout our life we are lucky if we have a positive impact on others. Scripturally it is what we are called to do. However, because of our sin, we are lucky if we succeed. And it truly isn’t luck; it is the grace of God that we are used to love and touch others.

Quite often we don’t see our positive impact. And that is ok. Sometimes we are called only to plant seeds. Other times we water and fertilize. And sometimes we are lucky enough to harvest. Rarely do we do all three and usually it is only one or a combination but we don’t always see the fruits of our labor.

Today I was lucky enough to get some feedback that something I had written — actually just passed on from a devotional — had positively impacted someone else. You see, a post from October 2005 resonated with a reader and she kept that thought with her through tough times. It is not every day that someone tells you that you had a positive impact on their lives. It is encouraging and wonderful. And that should be another lesson for all of us — if someone has impacted your life in a positive manner, please communicate that to them. You’d be amazed at the encouragement that it provides.

If you are interested to see the impactful post from Oct 2005, click here. I am just lucky that God finds that He can actually use someone as flawed as me.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

“God just doesn’t want you to believe in him,
he wants to have a relationship with you!”

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

This prayer came to me to focus on during devotions recently:

Lord, teach me to love more.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

While Saturday and Sunday were absolutely beautiful and mild, today beat both of them. It got up to 65F degrees and the sun shined brightly. The kids spent all day outside after school was done and my wife relaxed on the front porch for about an hour.

After dinner I walked to the back where our property backs up to another 200 acre farm. There are two horses that the kids have been taking apples and carrots to along with rows of hay rolls that they play on. Not having any apples or carrots, I picked some onion grass to feed the horses. I then walked out to the middle of the harvested corn field to visualize where I want to build my off-the-grid house. It was dusk and the sun was going down. The airplane contrails were beautifully changed from their normal white to a stunning orange-red. The air was still and you could hear the kids’ happy sounds and noises bounce off the distant treelines. It reminded me of back when I was a kid and we’d play in the neighborhood and hear playing sounds. Except this was out in the country and even better. A calm and serene feeling came over me and I just soaked it all in as I said a thank you prayer to God for allowing this to all be ours.

The sun released the rest of its light giving rays and we walked home on the gravel drive at last light.

On a different note, God made me laugh this morning. I was doing my morning devotions with breakfast and I turned directly to Romans 2. I mean — directly to the page. No turning, no trying to get close. Right smack to the correct page. I chuckled and recalled only one other time that has happened.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

Since my transition from HoDaddy to a better domain hosting company, American Discount Web Hosting, I have been slowly transferring my old posts over. Unfortunately, because I switched from Serendipity blog software to WordPress at the same time, all the transition has been manual. I have backups of all my old posts but have had to update each post one at a time instead of uploading a bulk file. The good side is that it has allowed me to review my old writings which is a literary form of looking at old pictures. The bad side is that it will take me quite a long time to get current. I have been writing this blog for over 5 years. I started in Nov 2004 and am only up to May 2005. Granted, as I upload old posts, I am also writing new ones like this so 2010 is also current. But I still need to cover June 2005 to Dec 2009.

Bit by bit I will get there. If you are new and haven’t read our CA to KY transition story, go here, scroll to the bottom and start reading up. That will start you off and cover a lot of what got us here.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

The sunset this evening was very pretty and a book end to the day, especially because I capture this morning’s beautiful sunrise.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

Good morning! This Kentucky sunrise literally just happened minutes ago and is still unfolding before my eyes. Today is our God and family day and I can’t wait to soak it all up. It is going to be spectacular. I hope the same for you.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

My oldest daughter came up to me this evening and asked me for something she’s never asked before. No, she didn’t ask for the keys to the car. She didn’t ask if she could date a boy. She didn’t even ask for money.

She asked for a prayer request. This caught me off guard and I am pleased to abide by her request for so many reasons. Because she felt open enough in our parent-teen relationship to communicate such a touching request. Because she feels that my spirituality is something that can add positively to the situation. That she has a faith that is active and a part of her, not just on Sunday mornings. All the way around I was very pleased with my daughter.

And now the request — a classmate of her’s, Dalton, lost his dad today. Thankfully, the family is strong and believes in Christ as their Savior so his dad is finally home. However, that does not ease the pain he or his family is going through right now.

I am getting on my knees. If you can in your part of the world and at your time, please join me in praying for this family.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

Last Tuesday’s post was about a local cyclops buck that we spotted on the way home from Scouts with only one of his antlers. It is the season for the males to drop or “shed” their antlers. And because it is hunting the kids can do, we enjoy going out back and seeing if we can find any. Our shed hunting escapade last year was only successful in the fun category — we actually didn’t find any antlers.

However, this year was different. My son and I had been out for about 45 minutes and were making our way back towards the pond. We were along the property line where there is an old farm barbed wire fence. The deer path there is heavily trafficed and there was evidence of deer — tracks, droppings, beddings and tree scrapes.

As I went up the path to continue scouting, my son nonchalantly says “Here’s one”.

He picked it up and we both excitedly looked it over. We then scanned 20-30 feet up and down the path hoping to find the other one that the deer rubbed off. Unless it is still on him. And maybe that is what we saw last Tuesday.

Maybe we should give it back to him so he has a complete set. Anyway, it was our first deer shed find and very cool.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net