CAMP OSTBY
This is as good as it gets...our 6 kids along with our 8 grandkids, a beautiful house right on the beach and perfect weather. Sue has done well this week, we girls took 2 long walks on the beach, about a mile each time and she got to get nice and wet as Nicko and Dana took her into the waves.
God truly blessed our week and we've extended it in part because, now back in Wake Forest, we still have Dana, Sue and family here, Mark andTam and family 10 minutes away and Logan and Jordan (Kent and Kradan's kids) for another week. (Just couldn't get Kent to take another week off work!)
Our screened in porch is a perfect place for reading and thinking early in the morning and there's a Carolina Wren who sits on our flagpole and sings to me which definitely adds to the charm.
Yesterday while reading the following from O.Chambers "You can never give another person that which you have found, but you can make him homesick for what you have."
my thoughts immediatelly went to Sue. How she is walking through her suffering, I believe, make many 'homesick for what she has', which is a sweet, sweet closeness with Jesus".
And actually, in maybe a less significant way, as believers we should all be making someone 'homesick for what we have', by how we 'do life'...face hardship, react to tough times, have joy in everyday things. A smile at a grouchy clerk in a supermarket, asking your server in a restaurant if they have a prayer request you can add when you pray for your food, there are lots of little ways to show Christ's love...I'm learning more all the time.
Posted

THE PILOT'S HALO

On a CA flight some time ago God reminded of His protection over His people with a beautiful 'visual'. We were flying above solid clouds with the shadow of our plane clearly outlined against them and then, because the sun was evidently shining behind us, it created a 'circular rainbow', completely around the plane. Whether we increased or decreased our speed, whether we gained altitude or flew lower, we remained in that beautiful circle.

I've since learned from a pilot this is referred to as a pilot's halo and doesn't happen often, only when conditions are just right. (In fact, with all the traveling I do, I've only seen it twice and I always look for it.) Yet in God's economy the conditions are always 'just right' for His circle of protection around His own. Cool thought to start off the day knowing He will never leave us or forsake us...that His Holy Spirit encircles us always.

This is beach month for the Ostbys. Please pray for us as we enjoy our wonderful week togther at Topsail; this year Caleb will be in Peru on a Missions Trip..he'll be missed, especially by his cousins..they love the week the most because all of the cousins are together.

Please pray too for Dana and Sue as they travel; technically speaking it would be easier to stay home, and we're glad they don't, but it's challenging for all of them.

Please pray too that Trudi will get off for all or at least most of the week from her job at Starbucks, June is a popular vacation month.

Biggest news from our 4 acres: we now have five huge turtles in our pond and 'have given birth' to two broods of Carolina Wrens (one in a hanging basket on my porch ... had to let the flowers die so I wouldn't drown the babies) and one in Gene's fishing creel in the garage (their favorite spot)....plus one brood of Bluebirds..they're working on their second nest as I write this.

Happy summer,

Maxine