The Lord is My Shepherd...

Hello all! It's been awhile since I last posted. I took a technology hiatus for a couple of months which I found to be most edifying. It allowed me to step back and reevaluate how I was spending my time, pin down time wasters and spend more time with the Lord in a more unhindered and less distracted way. I wouldn't trade that time for the world either. This past summer has been one of growth for our family on the whole and on the individual level as well. There seemed to be an unusual number of deaths; our dear uncle Bruce went to be with the Lord as well as a sweet lady from our church, both to cancer. Several others, a pastor, a missionary's wife, all of these instances proved to be a sobering reminder that man is as grass, here one day and gone the next. And in the midst of it all we passed the one year anniversary mark of my dear father's heart attack. We are so grateful that the Lord spared him to us! But I was reminded of the fleetingness of life. I found myself a bundle of fear, clinging desperately to my family lest they too should be taken away. Sometimes when I was alone, I would cry miserably to myself, knowing that nothing I could do would keep my family together always. In the midst of my inner turmoil the Lord was gently working to unclasp my clutching fingers from frail humanity and clasp them firmly in His own strong everlasting hands, the nail-scarred ones that were pierced in love for me. During that time the Lord drew me to Himself and taught me to trust Him on a whole new intimate level. Our church family is currently going through a study on the book, "Heaven" by Randy Alcorn. And as a testament to God's faithfulness and the strength He gives His children; the study is being led by the man who lost his wife just two short months ago. It is amazing to see the joy in his face and in his tone as he is discussing and expounding on the wonders of heaven. He once remarked when the group was pondering a particular question regarding the subject, "I wish I could ask Becky about that, but I'll just have to wait" And to see my recently bereaved Aunt go on patiently, trusting the Lord to provide, not giving way to despair at the prospect of being a single mother with two young sons to raise alone. Yet not alone. Christ knows our frame, and He knows our pain. "For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities;... let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." Heb. 4:15-16. 

Truly the Lord is with us through the valley of the shadow.

-Morgan

Fuhrmann Trip

I'm back! Mom, Gabe and I have been at "Our Father's Farm" "babysitting/helping" the Fuhrmann children run the farm while their parents were out of town for a long weekend. We had a great time visiting with them. At the beginning, Mom and I decided we would split up the responsibilities, i.e Mom would be in charge of meals and household and I would be in charge of the children and helping with farm chores. It mostly worked out that way and I spent my days roving the farm with the children and feeling like I child again myself. (Not that I'm so old and matronly at the ripe old age of 20;) But the past few months have been rather stressful and it did me a world of good. The countryside in Gretna, Virginia is so lovely and picturesque! I fall in love with it each time I visit. I was so bummed that I forgot the camera and so am picture-less... The mornings were so cool and fresh. Each morning I tromped outside with the children to milk their 18 cows. They only milk once a day and so it was kind of nice to get a break in the evenings instead of heading out to milk again. The girls took me out on the pond in their boat that has a slow leak and we had lovely girl chats:) We took long bike-rides up and down the rolling countryside, visited their neighbors and patted their monstrous Belgian horse. Took the cows back out to pasture through the woods and rolling fields. Was given a tour of "Collin's Wallow" and was told the complete story with every express detail;) Helped to successfully launch the premier of the "Dishwasher's Talk-show" over a sink of dirty dishes:) Cuddled with the adorable baby Peace out on the porch swing. Over-indulged the cute-as-a-button 3 year old by hand-feeding him his dinner, telling him stories and reading to him for too long when I was supposed to be putting him down for his nap. (How could I resist his winsome pleads for me to stay?:) Braided lots of little girl hair. Tried to retain my composure at the incorrigible 12 year old boy's roguish behavior. (but failed at times and couldn't contain the twinkle in my eye and the smile that wouldn't be straightened behind a reproving frown:) And put to action the long planned "Dishwasher's Talk-Show" with the 15 year old son. Needless to say I had a wonderful time and was refreshed and encouraged, I am always blessed by time spent with the Fuhrmann family and I always seem to take away some new truth that the Lord has showed me while staying at their house. My little brother Gabe wore himself out spending his days with the youngest Fuhrmann children and playing "Monster's" out on their swing set. There was also a very sweet, older couple staying with the Fuhrmanns and they were a tremendous help as well as Mr. Fuhrmann's sweet mother who lives with them.
We were welcomed home Sunday afternoon by the rest of the family. And I held up milking filling my sisters in on all of the happenings while I was away. I hadn't realized how much I has missed everyone! Home sweet Home!
There is a busy week ahead with processing, buying clubs and such. Its good to be back!
I hope you all have a good rest of your week! Also, thank you all for your nice comments on the last post:)
Morgan

Give Thanks Unto The Lord For He Is Good!

It's been a while! Is anyone still out there?:) It's a lovely day out today! It's near peak here and the weather is cool and brisk. Apple cider and hot chocolate are welcome refreshments on these crisp afternoons. This afternoon a large buck was chased onto our property by a pack of hunting dogs. He broke through several fences, (causing the cows to go crazy!) and got himself caught in some wire, he was finally able to free himself and he bounded away into the neighboring woods. This week is a busy crunch week for us leading up to the butchering of our large flock of Thanksgiving Turkeys and then the huge Pick-up day this Saturday. The Lord has abundantly blessed and we are sold out of the turkeys. (We take reservations before hand) As we draw closer to the season where we pause and remember of our Pilgrim forefathers, and God's providence in the founding of our country, I reflect on God's Hand of faithfulness in our family and in my own walk. How great is our God and worthy to be praised!

Psalm 100

Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands.Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing.

Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.

For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.

~

"This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.

It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed,
because His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning: great is Thy faithfulness.
The Lord is my portion, saith my soul;
therefore will I hope in Him.
The Lord is good unto them that wait for Him,
To the soul that seeketh Him.
It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait
for the salvation of the Lord.
~Lamentations 3:21-26

This has been an amazing year of growth for our family, as a whole as well as the individual, which has been exciting to see. Now, I didn't say that growth was easy!:) But the refining, the drawing closer to the Lord, the heartaches, the happiness, the struggles, the joys and the tears alike have made this year one that I will remember and look back on with thankfulness to God for the work He is doing in our family. As this year draws to a close I am left with the feeling like unto nearing the end of a journal. A satisfied full feeling of contentment, while flipping through the pages that hold the year's story. I have not nearly finished all of the "goals" I set for myself for this year:) But God has brought about much higher and loftier things for me to accomplish then I ever imagined, some I had thought nearly impossible. But I am now all the more assured of this truth... "With man, it is impossible. But with God, all things are possible" Such joy and thankfulness wells up inside of me as I contemplate on His goodness, His amazing might, His perfect ways, His realness in my life. "Great and Marvelous are all Your works! Lord, God Almighty!"
Well, I hope you all have a blessed week and a wonderful Thanksgiving with your families! I will close with this hymn....

We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing;
He chastens and hastens His will to make known;
The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing,
Sing praises to His name: He forgets not his own.

Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining,
Ordaining, maintaining His kingdom divine
So from the beginning the fight we were winning;
Thou, Lord, wast at our side, All glory be thine!

-Morgan

Of Spring and Growth of Many Kinds

We have been enjoying this weather so much! This warm weather brings hope of Spring, the renewal of life, color and growth to come! I stumbled across this verse in Song of Solomon that seemed to fit perfectly. "For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;" Song of Solomon 2:11-12 We were able to get our spring garden in the ground before all of this rain. We planted an abundance of potatoes, carrots, onions, peas (yum! raw peas straight from the garden taste like candy!) broccoli, cabbage and other such things that escape my memory:) I so enjoyed getting in the garden and planting the tiny seeds and plants. Some of our potatoes we had saved from last year's harvest and so we planted those along with the other seed potatoes we had bought. Our family loves potatoes and with 11 people we can go through up to 10lbs at a meal!
We have had 12 baby goats born over the last month. Maddie runs the dairy goat business, last year she sold a few shares but this year she is planning on expanding. We purchased a goat milking machine! Two to be exact:) But the second one hasn't arrived yet. Maddie has been working with her goats to get them trained to the milker. We have two batches of chicks in the brooders, one batch of broilers and one batch of pullets. Katie headed up the team that moved the first batch of broilers out to pasture yesterday. After yesterday morning's rain, Dad exclaimed that he could almost see the grass growing! Hooray for grass! Hooray for green in general! I'm sure the cows are happy about it, they have been escaping every chance they can to get at the new shoots of grass. They have managed to find the spring onions too! I could smell it as I strained the milk the other day:) We have had several calves born as well. We are running out of girl names for our calves! The two that were born recently we named Honey and Marigold. Marigold's mother is a first time milker. She kicks something dreadful and has a "bad attitude"! A farmer friend of ours taught us a trick for cows that kick. You hold up their tail vertically in the air and they will not kick. I think it's because it makes them feel off balance and so they won't move their legs to kick, at any rate it does work. We also have ten pigs at the present, great big fellows too! Pork seems to be a very popular product. Though probably beef ranks the top, we can never have enough beef to meet the demand. And so we are beginning to bust at the seems again! I am grateful for the start of another busy season. We were blessed to be able to really take a little break this winter and not "go, go, go" all year long, but now I am glad to start back up with the busyness again! One of the things the Lord has been reminding me of recently is that His ways are not our ways. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:8-9
Sometimes, just when I think I have everything planned out, the Lord lands something I had never considered in my lap! While I look back on my crumpled plans and moan, "But Lord, I thought this was what you had for me! This new plan doesn't make any sense!" The Lord reminds me. "Didn't you give your plans, dreams and future to Me?" And I know in my heart that God has the the ultimate best plan. He wants me to give Him my nearest and dearest plans, hopes, dreams, everything! And He will give me something far greater than anything I could ever dream up or plan! "For I know the thoughts I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart" Jeremiah 19:11-13. These times draw me close to the Lord, it pushes me to seek Him more often, spend more time in His Word, praying and asking Him what His will is, what He wants me to do. Even though these growing times are painful, I wouldn't trade them for the world!
Hope everyone has a great week!
-Morgan

Howdy Strangers!

There. I tried to title it with something a little more interesting then a simple, "I'm back". I took a little blogging break for a week, I like to every now and then to kind of restore my focus:) I missed everyone! Happy New Years! It sure has been cold for the past week! We've been piling on the layers to brave the Arctic temperatures! (Okay, maybe not Arctic:) Anyways here's an update on what we've been about this past week.....

On New Years Eve some of us stayed up until midnight. We basically watched Andy Griffith re-runs on the Internet until 12pm, toasted with sparkling apple cider and them fell into our beds! Here are some pictures Maddie took of our feeble attempts to stay awake:)

We toasted as a family before the little ones went to bed. (We used sparkling cider:)

The night seemed to drag a little......

Last Saturday, Dad, Katie, Maddie, Hannah and Will went over to the Solomons house to help prepare it to put on the market again. On Sunday, Church was at the Heffingtons. (Joanna and Rachel, I immensely enjoyed our "therapy session" upstairs in the girls room!:) then on Monday we started back up with our normal routine, regular chores and work. After our "holiday" of several weeks in December I was more than ready to get back to our normal busyness! On Wednesday, Justin, Tim and Ben came over for a work day. We did a huge farm clean-up, we positively scoured the place! That's pretty much what we did that day, apart from chasing two runaway calves, and preparing some of the hoops for the winter. Thursday morning, Mom and I met Mrs. Heffington and Rachel for breakfast, we had a great time visiting! I think Rachel and I got a little carried away with our laughter because we had to be shushed by the moms:) (Good thing that coffee cup wasn't full Rachel:)

It has been so cold lately that the hoses have stayed frozen sometimes all day, but a little 'ol frozen hose doesn't stop us! We have our methods.......:)

Last winter we made a sled out of an old pallet and a couple of four by fours, it works well to haul a large quantity of water with.

And then this past Thursday was our little Gabe's 4th birthday!

We all laughed so while watching Gabe open his birthday presents! He tore through the wrapping paper like a crazy man, presents flying everywhere! After having opened every last one of them he thanked everyone, admired the paper and then began to examine his presents! He was so funny!

I am excited to see what God has for us this new year! I'm also looking forward to the usual farm planning that takes place this month. I enjoy being a part of the planning and seeing the year laid out before us on the big calender! Of course we can't know everything that will take place. Only our Sovereign Lord knows that, but I love having a vision and goals to accomplish! Some of my personal goals include; getting my permit/drivers licence, (I will be 19 in April, it's kind of embarrassing that I still don't have it yet! It would be very useful to have, it's just hard making myself study the boring drivers manual!:) anyways..... and finish up with a few important homemaking skills. I also have a big reading list:) I received several new book for my graduation as well as gift cards for Christmas, so I've been stocking up on books! I've been keeping Vision Forum in business:) I was able to take advantage of the great after Christmas sale they had so I really got my gift card's worth!

Well, that should pretty much catch you all up. Enough of my ramblings for now! Have a great weekend!

-Morgan

Happy 25th Wedding Anniversary Mom and Dad!

First of all I would like to state how thankful I am to our parents for bringing us up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord! I have found that verse in Proverbs to be so true.

"My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: for they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck."

Daniel, at his graduation was remarking on this same verse. Their instruction and "law" truly is a graceful ornament on our heads. My parents have that way of making things seem "all better" I know that for me, since my early years, when I would get overwhelmed or "bogged down" by some seeming weighty matter, spilling my heart to my parents and receiving their wisdom and advice was one of the sweetest things! I have learned so much from them, it is such a blessing to be able to talk to them anytime about anything! Well, this has to be cut short, as my dad is calling me to bed. I wish I could write up something grand and wonderful for you, Mom and Dad, but my writing skills are in no way equal to those of the well written Miss Rachel, so I shall close by saying, I love you Mom and Dad and I so appreciate all you do, and all you have taught us!

Love,

Morgan

My Graduation

A big Thank You to everyone who attended my graduation yesterday! I had such a good time and was so blessed by your presence! Here are some pictures. I love what Meredith wrote about the day on her blog, so if you would like to hear some more specific details you can head over to her blog:)

My family.

After the meal we had a short ceremony, and then my parents gave me a blessing. In was very sweet and encouraging!

Me and my sweet daddy.

We had quite a crowd, about 150 people!

Then some of the ladies sang for me. Thank you girls! It was very lovely!

Then we had cake, Mrs. Walker had made three lovely cakes for the event.

Then we did some dancing. Sweet Maryanna Thompson brought her beautiful civil war ball dress for me to wear.

My Uncle Cret, Justin and Daniel provided us with live music.

"Bow to your partner"

"Right hand turn!"

"Left hand turn!"

Matthew and Lucy

Wesley Wright and Ben Keckley.

My littlest brother, Gabe.

Harrison and Sheridan Alexander.

Mrs. Heffington and Daniel

Hannah, Lydia and Rebekah

Katie and sweet Grandma June.

Our little cousin Zinnia

Hannah Doering and Emma Wright.

I had a wonderful day and will remember it very fondly!

-Morgan