Walkin' in a Winter Wonderland...

..............minus the snow. :(

Well...these are a little random

I have to say something here or the pictures will stick together.

Madi just loves winter walks!!!

an attempt at creativity. Not my strongpoint.

our swamp. If you're not careful, It'll suck you in!

What is this??? I don't know.

The Awesome-ness of Isaiah

I am now among the employed people of America. I work at a little bank, where I put on my nicest clothes and work hard and in return I bring home a reasonable paycheck. Do I like working at the bank? Yes. But would I work there if it weren't for the benefit of pay? No.

And that reminds me of why we 'work for the Lord' so to speak. We are God's servants. We do things to serve Him because He has saved us and given us hope. That in itself is enough pay above and beyond what we could ask for, but sometimes we forget that. Sometimes it's hard to serve Him! I've felt that way before, asking the question "Why exactly am I going through this again???"

But I've been reading Isaiah, and found SO MANY verses that are just downright encouraging for people who feel this way, so I'm gonna write them down. They tell us not to be afraid because we belong to God, He'll pave the way for us to do hard things, He's had unmeasurable grief and knows what we go through, and His peace and kindness for us will last longer than the whole earth!

Fear not, for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by name, thou art mine. 43:1

When you pass through the waters, I will be with thee...when you walk through the fire, thou shalt not be burned. 43:2

I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in SUNDER (I love that word) the bars of iron! 45:2

And they (Israelites) thirsted not when he led threm through the deserts. He caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them. 48:21

I, even I, am He that comforteth you. 50:12

He is despised and rejected of men...and acquainted with grief...SURELY he has born our griefs. 53:3

The mountains shall depart, and the hills shall be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, nor the covenant of my peace be removed. 54:10

No weapon that is formed against you shall prosper...this is the heritage of the servants of the Lord. 54:17

BTW: I'm not saying God says to us, "If you'll work for me, I'll protect you and give you good things." It's just that when we DO serve Him, we get to experience all His blessings.

For Lack of a Good Title....

Well I've been a been sad story of a let-down when it comes to blogging faithfulness, but I'm here to eradicate that. These photographs (as the proper people call them) are what came of a Saturday afternoon, a camera, and the park in Canby.

Here's me and my cool niece Ally

Family Fun

Mollie and her girls came over last weekend, and the visit was just grande, so I am here to document it. Hopefully it will more pleasant than the previous chicken documentation.

We were going to TRY to have a little photo session........

(even if the kids were a little on the cheesy side)

.....but we quit after a couple uncooperative pictures and headed for the trampoline.

This was so funny. Malachi just layed on top of Claire like this for a long time, while she just stroked his head and let him lay there.

Care of Baby Kittens: by Aunt Madalyne

Yeah, cute little neices are one of my favorite parts about life.

Looks like Camden took to the kitten training like a natural!

Our family, Mollie's family, and Melody's family all headed to McDonalds for a smash-bangin ice cream party! There's nothing like chocolate-dipped cones, french fries, and kids on blue slides!

I'll give you three guesses......

Well guys.....how do you suppose our family spent a sunny afternoon last week? We butchered 35 chickens!! And since this activity is something not very many people get to participate in, this Hubbard Country gal has decided to give you all a step-by-step of the fascinating process!

Step 1: Cart the chickens into the backyard.



Step 2: (for lack of a more humane word) Kill the fowl and hang it upside down.



After we're sure they are dead, Dad soaks them in scalding water to loosen up the feathers. Doesn't he look like an impressive chicken soaker?



Here's my job: I use this high-tech chicken plucker and rid the birds of all their dignity.



Poor little guy...



Here's Madalyne, our industrious sister who cuts the feet off the chickens and cools them in cold water.



Mom's got the worst, but most important job of anyone here. She....well....ahem... "viscerates" them.



And Maggie.............*sigh* I don't know WHAT she is doing.




The end. Now, if you ever visit us for dinner, you'll know where your food came from, and will be able to rest a little easier in your beds.

Felicidades is how they say Congratualtions in Mexico

Well, after 12 years of education furtheration, these great friends of mine graduated, and I was there to see it!
This is actually the only picture I have of anybody with their gown/cap on.



I guess Betsy was happy to have graduated!



Nyaah nyaaah! I'm taller than Katherine!

Proud to be in a picture with Mr Shrock.....don't be fooled by his glum expression--he enjoyed it more than we did!

My gal Staci

Do I Really Want it THAT Bad?

Great Scott! It's been a long time since I've posted word or picture. I apologize to anyone who has been checking my blog with a sad tear in their eye for lack of anything from Miriam. To prove my remorse, I have here a little lesson that I'm learning, that I would like to show you.

Isn’t it funny how when God wants to teach a person a lesson, He starts peppering every area of your life with some new way to learn that lesson? Well, here’s some of that ‘pepper’ He’s been seasoning me with. It’s called “Being Content.”

First of all....... through my daily Bible reading. There’s a lot of things in the books of the law that if you’re not paying attention, you can easily miss. But thankfully, I was paying attention and her they are:

• When the Israelites harvested their crops in the fall, if by chance they forgot a couple “sheaves of grain” as Deuteronomy puts it, God instructs them not to go back and gather the rest, but to leave them there for strangers/widows who would come by later looking for food.
• At the end of every seven years, everybody was required to: Release anybody from any and all debt they owed to that person, and to free any Hebrew slaves they had acquired.
  
• Every day, more than once a day, each person had to pick out a quality animal from their flock (it had to be flawless, which would make it very expensive) and give it to God.
  
• For the year of Jubilee, which came very 50 years, they couldn’t plant or harvest any crops, or do any trade with each other for products.
  
  

Do ya catch a pattern here? In each of these instances, the people had to give something up—whether it was animals, land, or people, they had to give it away and be rid of it. Why? Well maybe God wanted to teach the people not to be so attached to their possessions. After all, if they knew that they would be giving their most quality animals to God for sacrifice, they probably wouldn’t let themselves get too fond of those animals, and their focus would be taken OFF of their stuff, and ON to the fact they were just there to please God.

Secondly.........I heard a sermon. The guy who preached it pointed out Hebrews 13:5, which instructs us not to have covetousness in our conversations, but to be content because God will never leave us or forsake us. Gee willakers, how could we want more than that?????? He gave another verse that is a little more shocking in its nature: Eph. 5:5- “…No covetous man , who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.” Why is covetousness idolatry? Ok, let’s take that back a question farther. Why would anyone want to worship idols? Because they’re not content with God! They think He’s not good enough and they want something else. When we covet things we don’t have, we say “God, you’re not good enough. I’m not happy that you will never leave me. I want more,” and that's the same as idolatry. Sobering, isn’t it?

So there you have it! That’s what God has been teaching me, and there are actually several different things in my life that He is using to teach it to me, but I don’t want to be really long and boring, because I would like people to actually READ this! I hope it helps other people out.

Dinah's Twelve Brothers

A story that we really don’t hear much of very often is that of Dinah, Jacob’s daughter, and Sheckem, the son of Hamar. He basically ‘defiles’ her, as the Bible puts it, and then his dad has the nerve to come over and ask Jacob if Sheckem can marry her! This scene slightly amuses me, because it is such a ‘brothers and father getting out the shotgun’ scene. All 12 of the brothers come home just indignant as soon as they hear, and have quite a heated discussion with Hamar. (They hammered their opinions into Hamar.)

Well, they end up tricking Hamar, giving a few conditions that say they’ll let Dinah marry Sheckem, but then later, the brothers go in and kill every male in that town. But here’s the lesson I learned from this story: “They slew Hamar and Sheckem…and took Dinah out of Sheckem’s house, AND WENT OUT” (Genesis 34:26). As soon as they did what was necessary, they got out of there. Those people had been a sinful group, and if the brothers had remained in the city any longer, they could have gotten caught up in some of that sin. There are many situations where we would do well to get out as soon as we can as well. One that comes to my mind is the watching of movies—occasionally, when we’re watching a really cool movie, a bad scene will come on, or God’s name will be used in vain, and we need to make the decision to either keep watching or to get away. Here’s another one: If we are friends with a non-Christian and trying to witness, we have to be careful to no get involved in any wrong things they may do.

This lesson is even further cemented later on in the story when Dinah’s brothers come home, and their father finds out what they did. He pretty much asks, “Was all that quite necessary??” After all, killing all the males does seem a little extreme! But the brothers just reply with, “We can’t let people deal with our sister that way, and allow them get away with it!” They had such a hatred for evil. They were willing to do whatever it took to be rid of evil and sin. Am I? Or am I willing to compromise because getting rid of sin is hard or inconvenient? That’s something I’ve been asking myself, and I’ve found that some of the things I watch/do have sin in them and I need to get away from those things as fast as I possibly can.


(p.s. The only problem with those brothers is that they kind of picked and chose what sin to hate. They had no problem with lying or murdering! Just a little sidenote….)

A Lesson from the Tower of Babel

Have you ever considered how vitally imperative is the ability to talk to people? There is NO means of communication that is as effective as language. Sure, there’s sign language, hand gestures, writing on chalk boards, but really the best and most feasible means of speech is through speech itself. Genesis 11 is a chapter which demonstrates this. But sign language, writing, and hand gestures are no solution in this story! It is the story of the Tower of Babel.

The whole world used to be a sort of community. People lived in really the same general area, everyone spoke the same language, and they even worked together to accomplish certain things...which is why they decided to build this huge tower reaching all the way to heaven. However, their motives were indubitably of questionable acceptability—they were saying that they wanted to be just as high as God. Well of course, God wasn’t going to tolerate this kind of behavior, so this is how He completely foibled the project they were working on: He said, “Let us go down, and there confound their language that they may not understand one another’s speech.” Then it was a mass of confusion! All of a sudden, people who used to be friends with each other, could no longer understand what one another said. After things calmed down a little though, they started realizing that there was a whole group of people that could understand them, so they gathered together that body of people, and moved away to be in a place where they could start a new community and a new life.

But the whole tower they were building was forgotten! Why? Because they couldn’t speak to each other! Their language was confounded, they couldn’t understand what one another was saying, and they had to give up the whole thing.

Now, isn’t that true with Christians too? We are supposed to be of one body and of one mind (that’s in Acts), working towards a common “project,” so to speak. That project is serving God and bringing glory to Him. Yet sometimes, Christians can’t communicate properly. I don’t mean speaking the same language—I’m talking about the fact that in every church there is going to be someone who ‘steps on our toes’ (to borrow the common phraseology) with a spiritual matter, OR somebody who just plain offends us by something they say just in normal conversation. And it’s always a natural response to allow our feelings to get hurt, or to get angry, and to not want to be around them, to make things more difficult and to turn it into a bad relationship altogether. But if I get mad at somebody for something they’ve said or done to me, then my chances of, say, working together with them in a ministry, or evangelizing or something else important, are very slim. So then what really suffers? OUR GOAL! Our effectiveness in furthering God’s glory is lessened greatly. And that’s very sad.

Hence, WHAT TO WATCH FOR: Beware if you begin to feel yourself taking offense or getting bitter. When this happens, remember the Tower builders, and what happened to their project when they couldn’t talk to each other, and just……forgive!

God's Gotcha Covered

God knows our needs. We never have to doubt that. Here’s an example from scripture:

God had just finished creating the world, and it was perfect—everything imaginable was created in the most beautiful way, Adam was made and instructed not to eat of the tree of good and evil. But God noticed that something was wrong. To Himself He said, “It is not good that the man should be alone, I will make an helpmeet for him.”

Well, some time went by, and Adam received the job of naming the animals. That is when he started seeing that something was missing. In the same verse that tells of Adam’s duties, it says, “But for Adam there was not found an helpmeet for him.” Now we see that Adam knew there was a need—he felt lonely. And that’s when God did His work. He put Adam to sleep…..and Eve was made, completely filling that need Adam felt.

This story shows us that God looks at us and sees our necessities BEFORE we do, so that when we finally notice that need ourselves, and talk to Him about it, He’s got everything in control and is ready to take care of us. Sadly though, there are so many times that, once we feel our need, we spend our time worrying, or complaining, or even trying to fill it ourselves, all of which are totally unacceptable. Why? Well, for instance, when one worries or complains over a need they have, they are so focused on how bad the situation is, and are disturbed because they can’t fix the problem themselves, there is no room for the joy of resting in the Lord. He’s going to take care of that problem anyway. So we can choose to spend the time of waiting either worrying and being stressed, or having peace while we trust Him.

Also, if a problem is attempted to be solved by us, we mess it all up, and our outcome becomes a lame and pathetic substitute for the wonderful solution that God already had planned in the first place. Otto Koning was a missionary in New Guinea and he tells a story that perfectly illustrates what I have just said. Once, he planted a pineapple garden, and he was absolutely stoked about eating what he had planted. As soon as the plants had grown, however, the natives of the country kept stealing the pineapples! He tried numerous things to get them to quit stealing his pineapples (closing down his medical clinic, closing down his store, getting a ferocious dog…), but nothing worked, and the natives became angry with him, because he was so selfish. Well, he finally decided to give the pineapples to God, and a few days later, he told the natives they weren’t stealing his pineapples, but God’s. After hearing that, the natives immediately quit stealing from him, and he was able to eat all the pineapples he could, and share the rest with the natives as well! He quit trying to solve the problem himself, leaving it up to God, who solved the situation perfectly.

Now, to sum up what I just said: When you realize you have a need, know that God already knows what it is, so just talk to Him about it and be joyful instead of resorting to disagreeable alternatives like complaining, worrying, or taking things in your own hands.

Happy Valentine's Day

Well, I'm generally not a huge fan of Valentine's Day, but I have a swell mom and dad, who gave us some nice chocolate. I kind of wonder if they regret the lip shaped chocolates because of this picture, but to show our gratitude for their mad parenting skills, Madalyne and I wrote them each a little poem. I've decided to put them on here to show that even though I may be a cinic when it comes to flowers and valentines and other such festivities like that, I CAN make a nice valentine for my parents!

DAD'S:
For our family, Dad's a good cheif.
He buys us all our daily beef!

He's very smart--
When I have questions, to him I always dart.

He takes me for rides in his plane
Except for when there is rain.

We know his name's not Peter...
But he sure is a great leader!

MOM'S:
In all the world when we think of our mother,
We know that we'd rather have no other!

Mom's a good friend;
She'll be there to the bitter end.

Mom teaches us
So we don't have to ride the bus.

We know God has a special place
For Mom who serves with grace.

Email Quality

In case nobody has noticed, Paul is one of my favorite people to write about and learn from. There is so much to learn from his life, his walk with the Lord…and his letters—which is what I am going to write about at this time. You can tell a lot about a person by reading what they write—the things that are important to them, the things they like or detest, and what they think about. Paul is, of course, no exception, and his letters are incredible! They are just packed with every topic imaginable of how to grow in your spiritual walk. Now, Paul had God telling him what exactly to write, but at the time, he probably didn’t know that his letters would become a big part of the Bible. He was just a man who had a desire to write to his friends and encourage them to grow closer to God.

Now, this is 2009, and people never sit down with a crusty piece of parchment and pen in hand to send a letter. Well ok, maybe a small minority do, but only a few, and a lot of people don’t even like to write in the first place. Instead, we send emails all the time. Everybody. It’s something I, and almost all the other people I know love to do. Whether the email is long or short, written by friend or foe, I simply love opening up the email and seeing that I have messages in my inbox. And as a matter of fact, I consider myself a pretty good email-writer. I can put in silly quotes, and express my emotions with smiley faces, and exclamation points and all that, and I’m very faithful at replying to emails sent my way. But when I look over the last, say…20 emails that I have sent, and compare them with the letters Paul sent to his friends, it makes me feel ashamed. I have Christian friends that I care deeply about, and I really want to see them growing closer to the Lord, but I often waste far too much time sending rather pointless emails and letters that have nothing to do with exhortation or spiritual growth.

So today I really have no insightful scripture to share, but rather a thought that I have developed (with the help of my friend Emily), and a little tidbit to encourage all of us to use our emailing and chatting and that sort of thing (even writing letters, if that’s what suits your fancy!) as an opportunity not only to have fun, but also to exhort one another, and push each other forward in our walk with the Lord.

“Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another; and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching” (Hebrews 10:25).

Read Your Bible!

“And when he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, afterward he was hungry” (Matthew 4:3).

There is only one recorded time when the devil comes to tempt Jesus. Matthew chapter four recounts it. Now, an interesting fact about the words he chooses to record: it mentions that Jesus was hungry. Usually the Bible just says the bare facts and doesn’t make a fuss over things like hunger and love and happiness and such, but this time, it speaks of Jesus hungering. At first I was surprised, as this was not expected, but as I think on it more, I realize that this is not an excess adjective, because right after it mentions his being hungry, Satan comes to tempt him. Moreover, Satan tempts him the area of food—challenging him by saying to turn the stones into bread.

I believe the reason God chose to place those words in there was to teach us a lesson. A lesson where we learn that, like Jesus, who ‘was tempted in every way we are’ (Hebrews 4:15), the tempter comes when we are hungry. And I should hope you know that I don’t mean physical food! I mean when we allow ourselves to fast from God’s Word, which is the bread of the life, it is detrimental.

God calls his Word our sword (Ephesians 6:17). When that was written, it was during the time of Roman soldiers with their swords and armor, and those Romans had their swords with them all the time. They never, ever let that weapon out of sight or out of reach, but kept it constantly sharp, and at the ready. We are obliged to imitate this if we don’t want to be ‘hungry.’ Many times in my life, I have decided it would be alright to just skip reading my Bible for one day, because I was so tired or too busy. That is such a terrible mistake! Days when I make that decision, and am hungry, the tempter comes much oftener, and I don’t have the strength I need to resist, causing me to be prone to anger and pride and all manner of unseemly things.

We can’t let ourselves get hungry. We have got to decide to read our Bibles every single day, and never, ever miss.

Lots of Liberty, Lack of Law

I remember that first time I prayed with an eight year old girl to receive Christ. We were sitting on the edge of a playground, me with a wordless book in my hand, and she with her hands folded as she prayed. When she looked up, she had tears in her eyes and a smile on her face. It is something I won’t forget, and I think of her often to pray for her. I would love to see her again, to know how she’s doing. I think my situation is very similar to Paul’s. He went to Galatia and stayed with the people for awhile, preaching to them, and showing them the gospel. After a while, many were saved and a church was established. I can only imagine the joy Paul felt over that. I’m sure he could think back to those days and see the changes in their life. Well, later, after he had been away for quite a long time, he did hear how they were doing, and it just saddened him immensely, because he found that there were some people coming into the Galatian church, telling them to follow the law, and encouraging them to exchange their faith in God’s grace for a life in the law.

So what did Paul do? He sent them a letter. In that letter, he told them how absolutely unacceptable it is to put our faith in the keeping of the law (some would call it good works), and that when we do so, we are “frustrating grace” (Galatians 2:21). They simply must trust in Christ for their salvation. Of course, we know that God gave Paul the words to say, and that they are for us to read and practice. Most of us know that we aren’t saved by works/the law; instead by faith in God, but this can also be a valid lesson to learn even after we are saved. It is sometimes thought that if a Christian does not follow every rule that God has set, it is impossible to please Him, and they are not living a fruitful and godly life. This isn’t true! God gives grace, so that when we do mess up Jesus’ blood covers that, and God still sees us as righteous!

The fact of the matter is, although God wants us not to live in the law, there certainly are some things He tells us are absolutely imperative that we do. I have been very confused many times because of this, trying to figure what it means to live trusting in God’s grace, but at the same time doing the things that please Him. So here’s the test: “For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another” (Galatians 5:13). This verse binds both concepts together by saying that we are indeed called to live in freedom, not in a strict keeping of the rules. Instead, we focus wholly on the most important command, which is to love God with everything that you have, and to love other people more than yourself. If we love God and other people with everything inside of us, we will fulfill the law. Every other command that God gave is fulfilled if we do this.

I think that it would benefit each Christian to think about the things they do and the rules they have, and to be sure that they are not done to keep the law, but to please God and to love others. If we notice an excess of strife, anger, or disagreements, perhaps we are not truly seeking to serve one another and please God. And if that’s the case, it needs to change!

Working Out

So Paul and Silas travel all over the world preaching the gospel. They don’t go anywhere unless God tells them to, but for a while He doesn’t tell them to leave the place they’re at. Finally, while at Troas, God sends a vision to Paul of a man in Macedonia, beckoning to him. So the two set out for Macedonia to look for that man calling them over.

Lots of people have visions. Maybe not in the form of special dreams that come to them, but just in a calling from God. My mom had a dream a long time ago of having lots of kids, a little while later, she had one of those real visions the she would end with two sons. My dad is another one of those people. He is a pilot. He has loved flying for years and years, and he's been very excited about living next to an airstrip and having our own hangar so he can fly often. He really thought God was calling him to be a missionary pilot. He even went through an aviation program and everything. He was pretty sure he was headed for the mission field.

Once the two men arrive at their destination, I’m sure they’re desirous of finding that man calling them. But they have an interruption. By the shore of the island, a crowd of ladies are hanging out, washing their laundry. And Paul and Silas stop to talk with them. Now, I can see how it would be frustrating to be deterred from their vision.. They’re thinking that they’re on a mission to find man who desperately needs them, that they share the gospel with him, and change his life. Rather than being angry, however, Paul’s missionary heart kicks in and he begins to witness to these women. In the end, he meets Lydia, who is a Christian and he really encourages her and her family.

Well, Paul finishes talking to the ladies, and is on his way. And yet, something occurred to distract from his mission again. This time there is much more cause for frustration because he is arrested! So Paul and Silas are stuck in prison—completely a dead end. Why did God send him a vision of a man beckoning for help, only to let them be in prison? But Paul trusts God, so (we know what he did) he and Silas pray and praise God with singing!

Both of my parents were distracted from their visions they had. Amongst all of us kids, my mom had 8 miscarriages. So many times, she would be excited to add another to her “collection,” but would be let down in a situation that seemed tragic. The last two were especially difficult. They were twin boys and they came right after her ninth child. It just seemed so perfect. She had 9 children, and was reaching the end of her fruitful years and now this would fulfill her vision—ending with two boys. So she named them and prepared for their birth, but they also miscarried. God fulfilled her dream though, because after 8 years in between Mark, Malachi was born. He was her last kid, and she ended with two boys. My dad never did become a missionary. Why would he have had that desire and that calling, only to be disappointed? But what he did end up doing was teaching at a college to train younger people to go be aviation missionaries.

God also works it out for Paul and Silas. As they’re singing, He sends an earthquake, breaking their chains, and busting the doors open. The jailer freaks out and is about to kill himself, when Paul stops him. The man believes on Jesus, and he and his family’s lives are changed. I think this was the man in Paul’s vision. It took distractions, problems, and prison, but God caused it to work.

God always fulfills what He starts with us!!!!

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