Today I will write several things that have been on my mind to put down on "paper" but just haven't gotten to it. I guess I am still having trouble with that New Year's Resolution to slow down. Some friends and I were trying to find a time that we could all get together and it was into June before we might possibly be able to. How did this happen? Anyway... The bluebirds didn't hatch. We waited past the due date, not being sure when they had been laid, but they were evidently duds. There had been 5 eggs and one day there were suddenly 2 missing and the parents didn't come back. So maybe the parents took 2 eggs somewhere where they wouldn't be checked so often by humans. My sons enjoyed holding the eggs that were left, but I strongly enforced the rule that they remain outside. I took the old nest out as was suggested and the next day a new bluebird was there building a nest. I haven't seen any eggs yet, but maybe we will get a chance to see babies after all. The garden is growing well now. We finally have been getting some rain. We have been in drought conditions most of the winter. I was thinking this morning that it is amazing that I can try to make the garden grow by watering it myself, but when the real rain falls it takes off as if I had been doing nothing. Sort of like trying to grow as a christian can be done only so long without God and then He has to take over for real growth to happen. A girl that studied the Bible with my husband when we lived in TX called a week or so ago. Her family is Hindi and she had never committed to Christ before we left. She called to say she was baptized last September and she is preparing to go to seminary to become a christian counselor. Her family is not allowed to speak to her, though her mother and brother do on the sly. She has given up much more than I to follow the Savior. The following 2 prayers have been my devotional prayer the last several months.

• Grant us grace, O Father, not to pass by suffering or joy without eyes to see. Give us understanding and sympathy, and guard us from selfishness, that we may enter into the joys and sufferings of others. Use us to gladden and strengthen those who are weak and suffering; that by our lives we may help others to believe and serve thee, and shed forth thy light which is the light of life. -H.R.L. Sheppherd
• O Lord, open my eyes that I may see the needs of others; open my ears that I may hear their cries; open my heart that they need not be without succor; let me not be afraid to defend the weak because of the anger of the strong, nor afraid to defend the poor because of the anger of the rich. Show me where love, and faith, and hope are needed, and use me to bring them to those places. And so open my eyes and my ears that I may this coming day be able to do some work of peace for thee. Amen. -Alan Paton

Another answered prayer: Monday we woke so very tired, my husband and I. It had been a busy week and we weren't looking forward to beginning yet another. So during my morning prayer time, I asked God to somehow give us rest that particular day. 2 of my 3 children that I care for were sick and didn't come. So it was a slower day for me that included a nap when the little one napped. My husband had a meeting cancelled and got to come home for a nap. God is so generous.