038 ~ Grasshoppers

Friday, November 26, 2010

(it's late - lol - see day 037 for an explanation)

Same cookies, different camera options.

If you don't recognize them, these are the 

Girl Scouts' Thin Mints Cookies.

They happen to be a favorite in our house. 

However they are also available year-round at most grocery stores (probably a little cheaper too) under the Keebler label with the name of Grasshoppers!

A few other Girl Scout cookies are out there too!

You can't get all of them anytime you want but several are available if you search them out.  You should be aware though, not all stores will carry all that could be available to you.  So it may take some tough tracking to find your favorite!

The art of photography escapes me it seems.  I know I pushed different buttons to effect the differences in these two pictures but it's not something I really took note of, so I've no idea what it was that made each result come out like it did.  My photographer friends would think me silly for not knowing.  Oh well, not my sort of expertise!  ;-)

I do however love the difference in two things that I know, since I arranged the cookies and took the pictures, are exactly the same things!  In an abstract way it shows how two people might see the same thing completely differently!  Or it could show how two identical twins could be so completely different in so many ways from one another!

So much of what we observe in our lives is unique to our perspective!  If we have the belief that our dead loved ones will be one day resurrected with all their ailments and imperfections removed, then the death of our loved ones is not a sad nor painful thing but it is joyful because the next time we see them we shall all be totally healthy and happy and ready to fully enjoy living!

Not everyone agrees with me.

Friends of mine who also believe in this resurrection are deeply saddened when a loved one dies.  They can be inconsolable at times.  They spend a lot of time mourning.  They have a hard time focusing on living.  They feel like a part of them is lost and gone forever and they don't know how to move on, to move ahead with their lives because this person is no longer a regular part of it.

I am truly empathetic of all they are experiencing.

I have been all these things; many times; too many times.  But I have come to see that there is no benefit to me, nor to the one who died, in all my sorrow and mourning.  I will cry still each time it happens.  I mourn the loss of their company.  I mourn the loss of their friendship.  I mourn the loss of their smile, their laugh, the way they made me laugh.  Yes, I mourn too.

But I will still be filled with joy because I know their suffering is over.  They will now not have to struggle to survive these difficult times we live in.  They won't have to live in pain all the time anymore.  They won't have to have someone always around to care for them or just help them do things they used to do but can't anymore.  They will be whole again the next time we meet.  They will be in paradise, where Jehovah will satisfy their every desire.  Who wouldn't be happy, even overjoyed to know that their loved one's next moment in life would be like this?

032 ~ Heavenly

Heavenly Moon

I love this snapshot of the moon so perfectly framed in the bare branches of this tree.

This was a totally random shot taken in an attempt to capture the iridescent ring around the moon last night.  The colors didn't come out as well as we would have liked but it's still pretty.

Gazing up at the moon I often think of my Heavenly Father and all of his many creations.  How thankful I am for His many gifts each day, and each night.  Tonight especially I pray to my Heavenly Father to give whatever it is that my very dear sister Carolyn is in need of to get her through the night and into the day tomorrow until we can manage to visit her.  She is recovering from surgery, with complications now, and suffering from a terminal lung disease now compromised by all the stress of this surgery and it's complications.

Jehovah God cares for His People so lovingly and so tenderly, I find it hard to comprehend how some people can think He does not exist or does not care about us.  One has only to learn what it is that God wants them to do with their lives in order to see all that He does for them and gives to them each and every moment they are alive.  My friend Carolyn is certainly one that Jehovah God shall not forget and shall reward her for her love and faithfulness.

Rev. 21:4