Branching Out

This little sweetie was a new bird in my yard yesterday.

Along with about 10-or so friends.

Thinking of my Grandma Marj,

I quick snapped some pictures through the screens and rain.

Then I took her green hard-cover Roger Tory Peterson

field guide to western birds and started searching.

I like hers because it rests softly in my hand, falling open easily

like an old well-worn Bible...

the sides of the pages stained with the oils of fingertips

searching over the years.

A pine warbler

is what I think it is.

Which got me thinking about this theme of "Branching Out".

It is what keeps popping into my head.

Branching out with my writing, photography and art.

That is what blogging has been.

For so long, I have kept my photos on my computer

and my scrapbook pages tucked away in books,

and my writing in my journals,

and leading Bible study with my comfy little group of dear sweet friends.

But it is time to "branch out" . . .

to go out on a limb and share all of this.

Not to stop doing the things that are here at home and with my friends.

Because that is the foundation.

But to extend it out there.  Out on a branch.  Out on a limb.

It is what I am preparing to do.

And I am anticipating sharing the fullness of it with you soon.

But I will wait until it is prepared, so that you can be a part of it . . .

no matter where you live.

No matter how crowded or how isolated you are.

Jesus said this about branches . . .

"Abide in Me, and I in you. 

As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself,

unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.

I am the vine, you are the branches.

He who abides in Me, and I in him,

bears much fruit;

for without Me you can do nothing."

John 15:4-5 NKJV

And in Phillippians 4:13, it says,

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."

{Without Him nothing.  With Him all things.}

In The Message it says it this way,

"Live in me.  Make your home in me just as I do in you. 

In the same way that a branch can't bear grapes by itself

but only by being joined to the vine,

you can't bear fruit unless you are joined with me.

I am the Vine, you are the branches.

When you're joined with me and I with you,

the relation intimate and organic,

the harvest is sure to be abundant."

Copyright 2010 Jodene (Jodi) Shaw