By Grace Alone...

I'm just in the mood to write a little.  The sun is shining and the birds are singing and life abounds everywhere I look.  I'm glad I went through Chemo in the winter months because I wouldn't have wanted to feel that oppressing weight that I felt during the light summer months. 

I love summer.  I've always loved summer.  When I was growing up it was a time for getting up and going to the city pool and spending all day with my friends playing pool games and getting brown in the sun.  The first summer my Mom bought me a season ticket to the pool, I stayed out in the sun 8 hours the first day it opened and burned myself to a crisp.  I had to wait weeks for my shoulders to heal before I could go back out to the pool.  I did stupid things as a child.  (I was only 12...what did I know about sunscreen...lol)  Now I'm not allowed to worship the Sun Gods...sigh.  I get to look at it outside my window though.  I wish you could hear these birds...they are so happy that summer has come.

I got my first haircut yesterday.  YUP...the back and sides have grown much faster than the top and we had to even it up so it didn't look like a really bad haircut.  That was kind of exciting.  I saw a bit of hair come flying off of her scissors and I said, "WOW...I just saw hair fall...how cool is that?"  I've been going to Nancy to get my hair and nails done for the last 4 years and she has become my friend and confidant.  She is a kindred spirit.  I love her dearly.  We have laughed and cried together from the first time we cut most of my hair off so it wouldn't be so bad when it started falling out to now when we are rejoicing over the ability to have hair to cut.    8-)  For those of you who might be wondering what type of hair I have now...it is definitely curly.  It was curly before and it is still curly so it isn't always the opposite type of hair that one gets after it falls out from chemo.  I wouldn't have minded having straight hair but I think that my hair is too fine for straight...it probably would have looked limp if it were straight so once again, God knows what he is doing.   8-)

My Mom is settling into an easy rhythm now that she has moved to Texas.  My sister and her children are taking very good care of her and making sure all her needs are met.  I'm really thankful for my sister and her sacrifices to take care of my Mom.  (Of course, she is her mom too...8-)

We are defintely going to Kentucky to see Tom's sister during our vacation in July.  We've decided that I really don't have the energy to travel on to see our son in North Dakota on the same trip so we will take this shorter trip and come back and relax before going back to work.  I believe the trip will do both of us good.  We are going to get the neighbor's son to check on Shadow (our cat) while we are gone.  She did not do well in the kennel last time so I don't want to go that route again. 

Here is a little Max for you for today...it touches Grace in an awesome way:

 "To Be Saved By Grace

By Max Lucado

“God gives us a free gift—life forever in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23

One of the hardest things to do is to be saved by grace. There’s something in us that reacts to God’s free gift. We have some weird compulsion to create laws, systems, and regulations that will make us “worthy” of our gift.

Why do we do that? The only reason I can figure is pride. To accept grace means to accept its necessity, and most folks don’t like to do that. To accept grace also means that one realizes his despair, and most people aren’t too keen on doing that either."

By Grace Alone -

Teresa