How Can I Keep from Singing?

Here is a song for you today. I hope your heart and life reflect the peace and joy this song does!
We sang this yesterday at the Catholic church and I have been humming it ever since!

HOW CAN I KEEP FROM SINGING?
Text: Robert Lowry 1826-1899

My life flows on in endless song, above earth's lamentation.
I hear the clear, though faroff hymn, that hails a new creation.

Through all the tumult and the strife, I hear that music ringing.
It finds an echo in my soul. How can I keep from singing?

No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that Rock I'm clinging.
Since love is Lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?


What though my joys and comforts die? I know my Savior liveth.
What though the darkness gather round? Songs in the night he giveth.

The peace of Christ makes fresh my heart, a fountain ever springing!
All things are mine since I am his! How can I keep from singing?

No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that Rock I'm clinging.
Since love is Lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?

LOOKS LIKE WE MADE IT LORI..........

Today, Cliff and I were honored to be among the invited guests to the wedding of my dear friend Lori and her (now) husband Kim. They were married in a very traditional, heavily decorated, ornate Catholic church that makes you feel like you are "in church" just by being there. It is an awesome feeling - you can sense God there.

Lori and I met in a group that helps you learn to live after a broken relationship. There were 6 of us that finished in that group - we became bonded through our broken hearts.

I was the first to marry. And today Lori married the love of her life.

She was a beautiful, smiling, beaming, elegant bride. He was the adoring groom. And God met them at the altar and sealed their spoken vows.

Lori - after all the tears we shed - after all the "why did this happen to me?" - after all the questions that never were answered - after all the dates that didn't work out - after all the years of waiting..............LOOKS LIKE WE MADE IT GIRL.

And now Lori and Kim begin their "happily ever after."

God Bless you Lori and Kim - may your joys be many and your sorrows few.

Congratulations and Best Wishes!

Where I am from.......

I've been working on my genealogy and it prompted my memory as to this post from a previous blog around June 2006.......... Where are you from?


WHERE I'M FROM
Shelley Kay Littlefield-Craine

I am from the era of black and white televisions, automatic washers & dryers, Captain Penney and Mr. Green Jeans, Chatty Cathy, Barbie & Ken, the scent of Firestone rubber on my Dad's uniform, the first man on the moon, Communism, the Cold War, Donny Osmond, David Cassidy, Saturday night Fever, Vietnam and air-conditioning (!).

I am from Ohio and Georgia, feeling a part of both and a part of neither, from a brick house in Ohio and one in Georgia with big white columns, proud to be an Ohio Buckeye, a Georgia Bulldog, a Dover Tornado, spending summers dipping my toes into the cool waters of the creek that flowed into the Tuscarawas River as minnows tickled my ankles and sneaking down to the Flint River in Georgia to watch the copperheads swim, spending the Ohio winters building snowmen and the Georgia winters counting the rain drops as we played on the red carpet in the family room.

I'm from my childhood memories of riding bikes and interpreting cloud formations with my brother Scott - a Shetland Sheepdog at our side, sledding down the hill at Greensburg, skinned knees, kitty cats with kittens, rollerskating on Friday nights, Cruncher Parker, and Dover football games with Mexican exchange student, Alejandro.

I am from the Ohio Buckeye tree, the tall proud Midwestern corn fields and the Georgia Pecan tree and the tall proud peanut and cotton fields.

I am from the Littlefields of Georgia and the Longs of Michigan, stubborn and quick to laugh, long-lived and long-suffering, loving and God-fearing, hardworking and hospitable, survivors of whatever life brought along - Grandpa Otto Long and Grandmother Hazel Long, Grandpa Tom Littlefield and Grandmother Helen Mayberry.

I am from the hands of farmers, construction workers, salesmen, law enforcement, homemakers, avon ladies and dental assistants with a strong work ethic and a "do what it takes" attitude.

I am from vacations in the mountains of Tennessee looking for the Indian child "Falling Rock" (I'm still looking!); the vacation to Colorado, Pikes Peak and the cold mountain streams, Uncle Ike's cabin in the Mountains; and hot, sunburned skin at Panama City, Venice Beach and Virginia Beach. Visiting Aunt Lois and Uncle Eman and those late afternoon everyday rains and the tried and true childhood advice of my mother that proper ladies are never "hot"- they're warm, they're never "good" - they're nice, and above all be sweet !

I am from a world of music that began in my young spirit and was expressed on a old Upright piano and progressed to playing for recitals in college to weddings, funerals and church services today.

I am from the Church of the Nazarene - pulled away too young, part Baptist, part Methodist, part Lutheran, part Catholic, but always Nazarene in my heart and always a child of God.

I am from the third generation born at St. Thomas Hospital in Akron, Ohio of British, Hungarian, German and Irish stock, Lawson's Ice cream and Snickerdoodles, Christmas Marzipan cookies and the Gumdrop tree, weekends at my Aunt Evelyn's with my cousin Tammy & Rollie, Easter Sunday Egg hunts at Uncle Walt's and Aunt Hazel's and Sunday nights at Uncle Russ and Aunt Pat's house (after church) eating barbeque ham sandwiches and potato chips with my cousins Tim and Sue at the kitchen table.

I am part of a heritage of natural born teachers from my Grandpa Littlefield teaching me through the stories of our family, my Dad teaching me through stories of his life experience, to my own teaching journey of as a High School teacher and now a College Instructor.

I'm from the fragments of the generations gone before - success and failure; marriage, divorce and re-marriage; fried squash and breaded pork chops, swiss steak and mashed potatoes with gravy, games of Aggravation and Dodge ball, picnics at Tall Timbers and holiday gatherings, the scent of Magnolias, the pride of our heritage, and a strong, deep and abiding faith in God.