New Things

There are some things that I thought I would never do. Actually, there are a lot of things I have never even thought about doing. They are good things, but just not on the radar. However, I’m a city girl married to a farm boy who loves cows, so the list is shrinking rapidly.

Lately, a new appreciation for fencing has grown in my heart. It’s a lot of work. It’s also a little messy.

Now, lest you think I actually did a lot of fencing recently, pulled barbed wire and dug post holes and such, I did not. But I did watch and help a little. In my book, holding up barbed wire and twisting it around a post and pounding the staple into the post all does count as a new experience.

Our latest household project has been repairing fence in a pasture to prepare it for cows. There was a large section of fence that actually needed to be replaced, so that was a learning experience for me.

Did you know there are several kinds of fencing that work on a farm? Do you know where and when to use barbed wire and stay wire and electric wire? How do you reinforce a wooden fence post? It’s a whole new world.

But learning experiences are great! Even if we don’t enjoy them in the moment, they add value and depth to our lives. 

So now we have a beautiful stretch of fencing and a pasture ready for cows…and I have learned a little bit of something new.

Consider: “Habits of Grace”

Habits of Grace by David Mathis is a book that deals with spiritual disciplines in a summary form. Here is a brief excerpt describing the author’s hope for the readers:

My hope in reshifting the focus from the spiritual disciplines to the means of grace — and then the various personal habits of grace that we develop in light of them — is to keep the gospel and the energy of God at the center… My prayer is that this approach will help to make the means of grace, and your own habits that develop around them, not just accessible and realistic but truly God’s means of your knowing and enjoying Jesus.

An excellent chapter on time management included this concept:

One way to make it practical is to schedule the time both for proactive good in the calling God has given us and reactive good that responds to the urgent needs of others.

The Epilogue alone — “Communing with Christ on a Crazy Day” — may be worth the price of the book for many of us!

 

 

These books are set here as possibilities for you to explore. Posts and links are not paid publicity.