Spring Break, Fiber Adventures, Farm Life and Trials

The last few days have been *something else*. We've had a 24 hr. visit with our wonderful daughter, Amanda. What a treat! I'm so very thankful for college Spring Breaks!

Fiber Adventures

I've been busy knitting more items for CIC and enjoying spinning on my Bosworth Midi Spindle with the Lincoln Lamb roving from Toni at The Fold. More knitting and fiber pictures will be posted soon.

And, we've had a very eventful week of ....

Farm Life

Living on a farm is both wonderful and, at times, very difficult. The animals are such a joy, but when one is injured or ill, it is very difficult. This has been the case at our farm this week.

Our *granddog*, Charlie, is currently living with us until our daughter and her husband move this coming June. Charlie is Amanda's dog...which makes him our Granddog. (We don't have grandchildren yet, so for now, the closest we have is Charlie!)

Amanda had only been with us about an hour when we let Charlie outside briefly. Just a few minutes later when we went to let him back inside we found him severely injured on the left side of his face. He had apparently been running outside when he hit something (maybe a low hanging branch or possibly some wire somewhere?) that left severe lacerations on the left side of his face. We rushed him to our vet where they immediately administered pain medication and started him on antibiotics. Yesterday they had to do surgery to remove his left eye since the lacerations had severely lacerated his cornea and left eye through the complete thickness of both. Last night we brought Charlie home along with his medications and I've been doing some semi-intensive care nursing caring for Charlie. Poor fellow....he looks so sad.

The left side of Charlie's face is shaved, swollen, and he has many large sutures. I hope that Charlie understands that we are doing our best to help him and keep him comfortable while he heals. I also hope he understands why we have to keep the Elizabethan collar (it looks like Charlie is has his head stuck in a megaphone) on him most of the time. It is necessary to keep him from scratching or pawing at his wounds and also provides him some protection from bumping his injury against anything. He hasn't adjusted yet to his limited vision and is frequently bumping into objects unseen on his left side.

Trials

I can think of many times in my life when I felt injured and had deep pain. I didn't always understand what had caused the pain, nor did I always understand the Lord's care and teaching during the time of recovery. But in hindsight, I see the care of our Heavenly Father is very evident and I am thankful for what I have learned and for stronger faith through each trial.

My prayer for each of us is that when times of trial or pain come into our lives, that we realize that the Lord is aware of our every need and will see us through any trial if we allow Him. We haven't been promised that everything would always be easy. But, we have been promised that God loves us with a never ending love and that He is *always* with us and will see us through every trial.

I pray that each of you have a wonderful upcoming weekend, contentment and joy in your heart, confidence and safety in knowing that our Heavenly Father is with you every moment and loves you unendingly, and strong faith even during times of trial.

Your Friend,

Shelly

P.S. I'm leaving you with a picure of our cat Barkley Bartholo*mew* relaxing in a knitted and felted kitty bed that I made for him. He's a big kitty and I almost made the kitty bed too small. Can you guess what I want to do with the combings from his coat? : )


NIV
James 1:2-6
2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4 Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. 6 But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.