{"id":977,"date":"2011-05-16T18:36:23","date_gmt":"2011-05-16T23:36:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/?p=977"},"modified":"2011-05-16T18:36:23","modified_gmt":"2011-05-16T23:36:23","slug":"surrounded-by-your-abundance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/?p=977","title":{"rendered":"Surrounded by Your Abundance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Lord; Happy Monday Father!<\/p>\n

You know Father, it\u2019s funny; some days I have to think, and pray, and ponder at length about what to focus on with our conversation, and then there are days like today where I have so many directions I\u2019d like to go that I don\u2019t know where to start!<\/p>\n

Therefore Father, to stay somewhat with tradition I decided to start out the week by giving thanks to You for the weekend.<\/p>\n

Shannon had back-to-back music performances this weekend, so for the most part Saturday and Sunday it was just the boys and I.\u00a0 The dogs had me up early Saturday morning, so after running them out I settled in on the couch with my coffee and was able to enjoy much of the Book of Deuteronomy without interruption.\u00a0 Fresh, dark coffee and the Word\u2026 What a wonderful way to wake up!\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

After the rest of the family was up, we all got dressed and were able to have lunch with Shannon before she had to head out to play viola at a wedding that afternoon.\u00a0 Other than a few little household chores, the boys and I spent the rest of Saturday baking fresh cinnamon-sugar swirl bread, relaxing, watching Doctor Who episodes and simply appreciating our time together.\u00a0 All in all, it was a nice, quiet day with my kids and I enjoyed it a great deal.<\/p>\n

Sunday came, and Shannon was once again out the door first thing in the morning to another performance.\u00a0 This is the last Symphony Concert she\u2019ll have for quite a while as they break during the summer, so other than the work she does with the quartet she belongs to her weekend schedule should slow down a bit now.\u00a0 Anyways, although the weather report looked quite threatening and the ominous sky appeared to support the forecast, we decided to risk getting rained on and headed out to Woodland Beach for a walk on the shore.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s always a wide variety of items to search through on Woodland Beach, but as we\u2019d had a nasty thunderstorm come through the night before the sands were freshly filled with new treasures from the Delaware Bay.\u00a0 Bits of colorful sea glass, shells and rocks of all size, shape and color covered our path.\u00a0 Jonathan even brought a metal detector he\u2019d received as a gift from his Grandfather a couple Christmases ago, and he and Aidan had a wonderful time chasing the \u201cblips\u201d<\/em> and \u201cbleeps\u201d<\/em> it made.\u00a0 While we won\u2019t be able to retire on the \u201criches\u201d<\/em> they unearthed (a corroded cell-phone battery, and a couple rusted chunks of metal from the old pier), they had an absolutely fantastic time which in my book is priceless nonetheless.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>While Aidan started out looking for bits of sea glass, Jonathan quickly got his attention when his metal detector started indicating it found something beneath the sand.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n


\n<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The boys had a great time digging in the sand chasing down the source of the signals the detector picked up.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

After we\u2019d combed the nearby stretch of beach quite thoroughly, the boys and I hopped back in the truck and headed off to take a look at a new stretch of shoreline we\u2019d heard about from a friend of mine.\u00a0 We arrived at Port Mahon about a half-hour later; a virtually forgotten area that was obviously much more heavily used in years gone by.\u00a0 The road was barely there, and I was quite thankful for my SUV\u2019s four-wheel-drive keeping us from being stuck in the sand and gravel.\u00a0 Rusting buffers and weathered, mussel-covered wooden piles lined the shore, now serving as lookouts for the wonderful variety of birds that swarmed the area.\u00a0 It was a photographer\u2019s paradise, and although I could have spent hours there capturing the essence of this waylaid port, our stomachs reminded us that we were overdue for sustenance, and we were forced to head home.\u00a0 Thankfully however, this new discovery of nature is only around 25 minutes from our home, so we\u2019re already planning a return trip soon.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>One of the best parts of our visit to Port Mahon was the abundant wildlife, most obviously the shore birds that were all around.\u00a0 I took a number of shots of this little fellow, but this was my favorite.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n


\n<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>These two looking out over the water brought the movie \u201cFinding Nemo\u201d to mind for some reason\u2026 Mine?\u00a0 Mine?\u00a0 \ud83d\ude09<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Once back at the house, the boys cleaned up while I cooked up a \u201cBreakfast for Dinner\u201d<\/em> feast for us.\u00a0 While we enjoyed that repast, we watched the live streaming message<\/a> put on by Cross Point Church at crosspoint.tv<\/a>.\u00a0 It was an excellent service, and a perfect way to close out the day\u2019s activities.<\/p>\n

Heavenly Father, thank You for yet another wonderful weekend with my family and friends.\u00a0 I feel truly Blessed to not only have this \u201cbonding\u201d<\/em> time with my children, but to live nearby to so many wondrous examples of Your Abundance in nature.\u00a0 I love seeing the light in my boys\u2019 eyes as they explore and examine the world You\u2019ve given us, and being able to share my appreciation of Your Gifts with them.\u00a0 I pray that they grow knowing that wonder, and remember these times with Your Love in their hearts.\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n

~Phather Phil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Lord; Happy Monday Father! You know Father, it\u2019s funny; some days I have to think, and pray, and ponder at length about what to focus on with our conversation, and then there are days like today where I have so many directions I\u2019d like to go that I don\u2019t know where to start! Therefore […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[426,502,505,181,99,618,168,256,372,1229,182,286,132,417,321,266,219,1194,1000,556,1061,915,375,36,635,1238,702,487,638,541,4,939,173,442,42,228,276,769,457,444,731,140,273,593,916,159,976,520,116,222,190,78,880,133,355,141,304,506,385,257,77,670,392,813,1239,69,46,585,609,629,1169,1221,227,117,867,631,764,114,40,468,562,135,346,49,379,371,1219,348,138,454],"class_list":["post-977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-emails-to-god","tag-abundance","tag-activities","tag-afternoon","tag-aidan","tag-attention","tag-bed","tag-bless","tag-blessed","tag-bond","tag-book-of-deuteronomy","tag-boys","tag-child","tag-children","tag-chores","tag-christ","tag-christmas","tag-church","tag-clean","tag-concert","tag-conversation","tag-cross-point-church","tag-dear-lord","tag-delaware","tag-direction","tag-doctor","tag-doctor-who","tag-drive","tag-earth","tag-episode","tag-example","tag-family","tag-family-and-friends","tag-father","tag-favorite","tag-focus","tag-friend","tag-gifts","tag-giving","tag-grow","tag-happy","tag-head","tag-heart","tag-hearts","tag-heavenly","tag-heavenly-father","tag-home","tag-house","tag-household","tag-jonathan","tag-joy","tag-kids","tag-life","tag-long","tag-love","tag-message","tag-mind","tag-monday","tag-morning","tag-movie","tag-music","tag-nature","tag-night","tag-obvious","tag-planning","tag-port-mahon","tag-quiet","tag-rain","tag-read","tag-remember","tag-saturday","tag-saturday-morning","tag-sea-glass","tag-shannon","tag-son","tag-storm","tag-sunday","tag-support","tag-thank-you","tag-thankful","tag-tradition","tag-wake-up","tag-weather","tag-wedding","tag-weekend","tag-wonderful","tag-wondrous","tag-woodland-beach","tag-word","tag-work","tag-works"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p18mMc-fL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=977"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":981,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977\/revisions\/981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}