Changed By Love

Changed By Love

Following the Lamb wherever he goes… Revelation 14:4

Blessed Birthday and – Surprise! We Found a Hitchhiker in Our Milkweed

Mommy’s Birthday Nature Walk
Buckeye Butterfly – Shawn took the picture for me

 

Those flowers that looked like milkweed, which is what Monarchs lay their eggs on because the caterpillars eat their leaves, must have actually been in the milkweed family.
Look what we found when we got home with some of those flowers!

We found this little guy by accident. We picked flowers and when we got home Katie found a tiny Monarch caterpillar on them. A wonderful birthday present for me.
The ice cream cakes Gary got for me. Yes, that is Elmo on there. I guess he’s trying to keep me young!
The bouquet the kids picked for my birthday
Monarch caterpillar on the second day – he’s growing!
Now we have our very own very hungry caterpillar – and he’s still growing!

Update on Monarch Caterpillar – Day 3:

Look how big he is now!

This is our caterpillar on Day 5.

Here is our caterpillar on Day 6. You can see that his antenna or “whiplashes” are getting longer. They will droop down as they get longer. He has two sets of them. The ones near his head are getting very long. The ones in the back are the “fake” ones. He doesn’t do as much with them. They just throw off birds and other possible predators. But the birds don’t bother him, because they know he tastes bad. His bright colors warn them that he’s one of those nasty-tasting caterpillars just like those Monarch butterflies that taste so bad.

Anna and I went Milkweed hunting today. We saw lots of them in the ditches, but I didn’t want to stop by the busy road. So we went to some real country roads with little to no traffic. We got on a dead end road and found a whole bevy of Milkweeds and butterflies, including several Monarchs.

Anna bravely went out amongst the weeds and snake holes and snatched up a milkweed plant by the roots. I still haven’t figured out if this Milkweed we’re finding is a cousin to the Milkweed I’ve always known and loved or if it’s an earlier stage of it or what. I need to do some more research. There’s no milky stuff coming from the leaves. The leaves aren’t as thick as the ones I knew of. The plants aren’t as tall or straight up. And there are no milkweed pods! I will let you know what I find out.

I rewarded Anna with a McFlurry and myself with a chocolate shake. Then we went home and fed my caterpillar some fresh leaves.

Day 7 – our caterpillar grew a lot today! We took him upstairs to get him away from the noise. I think it helped him to grow more!

Day 8 – Our caterpillar is about 1 and a half inches long now. When he’s 2 inches long, I think he will be ready to make a chrysalis. I think we’ll stretch some nylon hose across the top soon so he can hang his chrysalis from that.

This is another picture from Day 8. He got so excited about the new leaves and flowers that I decided to take some pictures of his animated movements.
He made a U-turn to get over to those flowers.

Did you know that Milkweed is pretty??? I didn’t. Just look at the beautiful photos here at Butterfly Encounters. Guess what kind of milkweed we have? SWAMP MILKWEED!!! I’m not surprised.


I thought this video retelling of “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” was good.

And this one is good. Eric Carle actually reads “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” himself.

This Very Hungry Caterpillar unit is taking on a life of its own! I just explained to Abby that our caterpillar is going to turn into a butterfly like the one in this video. I wonder if she understands.

WARNING: This is a “home movie” to the max. I could watch it all day, but it’s really just Abby responding to the pictures and videos from my birthday. Probably not the most interesting to anybody but her mother. You might want to skip this.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zv138DRB1U&list=UUmj5V9frXUDeGkuFRzZtgRg&index=100&t=0s

https://vimeo.com/14412575

Happy Birthday Dear Mommy from Penney Douglas on Vimeo.

You can click on “Happy Birthday Dear Mommy” and see me blowing out my fake candles and see Garrett’s adorable face as he’s begging his Daddy to let him take a picture of Mommy. This is for you, Kristi!

A Prayer Request from the Most Unlikely Founding Father

I’ve been reading Original Intent by David Barton.

It is loaded with quotes by the Founders that credit God and Christianity as the motivation for the founding of this country and the only foundation that our new form of government could stand on.

One particular quote is really amazing me right now.  It is actually a fairly long speech by Benjamin Franklin, one of the least religious of all of the Founders.

He addressed this to George Washington, the President of the Convention that met to revise the Articles of Confederation, the Constitutional Convention:

Mr. President:
The small progress we have made after four or five weeks close attendance and continual reasoning with each other – our different sentiments on almost every question, several of the last producing as many noes as ayes is, methinks, a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the human understanding. We indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom since we have been running about in search of it…

In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights, to illuminate our understanding? In the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for the Divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance?

I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth – that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, sir, in the Sacred Writings, that “except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel: we shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and byword down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing governments by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war, and conquest.

I therefore beg leave to move – that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service.

Have our leaders forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do they imagine we no longer need His assistance?

That’s not the only thing. Do you and I as Christians sometimes forget that powerful Friend or imagine that we no longer need His assistance? I take this as a reminder that prayerlessness can be the biggest problem we have in our family. Even now after we have been through so much refining and purifying, sometimes, like the children of Israel, we forget the great things He has done for us. And we get distracted and busy with the daily things of life, and we don’t give God the honor, glory, praise and worship that He deserves. We act like we can take it from here. Thanks, God, I’ve got it now. See ya later. But that’s not how it works. That’s not how God has it set up. We are to abide in Him. If we want to live the great life He has planned for us, that is. If we want to live a mediocre, average, normal life, then we can get by with some prayerlessness. But if we want to be great in God, we need to be faithful and fervent in prayer. Oh, I’m getting so convicted! I’m just going to have to go pray right now. I hear Anna playing her guitar. I’m going to go in there and worship with her. Catch ya later!

What Husbands Want

Bless our Husbands!!

Ways that a Wife Can Bless Her Husband taken from ideas given by a group of husbands.

1. Pray for your husband daily, not just casually (“God Bless Hubby”) but for specific areas of need and blessing.

2. Thank God for your husband’s strengths, for the growth you see, and for the kindnesses that he shows you and the needs he meets in your life.

3. Meditate often (at least once a week) on the Scriptures that teach your responsibilities and position in the home.

4. Listen to him. Try to really hear what he is saying when he communicates with you.

5. When he seems perplexed and troubled, do not pressure him. Support him by prayer, your presence, and words of encouragement.

6. Be ready to share your observations and insights in a meek spirit, but openly and honestly, when he asks you. You can be his best counselor. You can anchor him when he needs it most.

7. Encourage him. Do not nag him, or boss him. Do not argue with him even if you are sure he is wrong. He may have something in mind that you are not aware of or do not understand. Ask his counsel and advice.

8. Only say upbuilding and affirming things about your husband to others. Do not criticize him even in a joking manner. Very rarely should you find yourself sharing anything about his faults or failings, and then only with someone who is truly in a position to help.

9. Bless your husband in public. Do not apologize for his background, weaknesses or failures. This will build up your reverence for him and help establish the trust that you should both have for each other.

10. If your husband has failed, entreat him in meekness, don’t exaggerate the issue or berate him.

11. Let him know that you want him to be your leader not only by what you say but by what you do. You get that message across by the way you respond to the leadership he does give you.

12. Seek to please your husband even when he does not spell out what he wants you to do. Try to determine what his heart’s desire is and do it as fully as possible.

13. Teach your children to honor him, respect him, and bless him. You do this best by your own example.

14. Depend on him. Be very sensitive to areas in which he wants you to act independently. Do not run away with this responsibility. Handle it carefully. If in question, choose dependence not independence.

15. Seek opportunities to serve your husband in love. Find ways to show him that he is your “lord.”

16. Be ready to make changes in your day or schedule to accommodate his needs or desires, especially if you run a home business and he needs you or the children to serve in some capacity.

17. When you need to make an appeal, prepare carefully. Choose your words wisely. Choose the time well so that you can have his attention and time to explain yourself. That way you can be sure that he understands you. When he is weary, at the end of a long day is not a good time to communicate weighty matters.

18. Always let your husband have the last word, the deciding vote, the majority rule.

19. Don’t say “I told you so.”

20. Show appreciation for the way he provides for you.

21. Let your husband know that you love his attention to you and his singleness of heart for you. Bask in this attention and help him relate discreetly to other women especially by letting him know what makes women respond.

22. Reserve yourself, your beauty, and your charm for him. Maintain true modesty and reserve while relating to other men.

There are many, many ways to bless your husband that were not even touched here. These are just a few of the ways some husbands discussed that would make them feel honored. Women tend to think of kisses, hugs, notes in lunch boxes and a meal spent together alone. I am sure that our men appreciate all of those things. But as I typed this list that husbands had made, I was extremely impressed with their need for support and encouragement. They need and want a visible show of this. It is born out in our everyday life in the way we walk and talk, and in the way we respond to their leadership, plans, and desires.

I think that many times we ladies are blind to how much contriving and planning we do to get our own way. Perhaps not consciously, but nonetheless we often tend to get what we really desire. We think we just make good valid appeals. These appeals are in order sometimes, but where is your heart? Is it where your husband can safely rest or are you always pushing the limit? Are you always going to bat for your young people and helping your husband to see why this or that is such a good idea? No doubt you do have good ideas that need to be shared, sometimes. But I am fully persuaded that I, all too often, am really blind to my husband’s true desires. Let us pray for each other and meditate on how we can be women whose husbands can safely trust in.

Let us be supporters, encourages and blessers. Let us affirm our husbands and be there for them. I think it is especially important as our families grow up and husbands need to make boundaries and guidelines for our young people. Often these guidelines are hard to make and even harder to implement. Let us back our husbands up and help them in their sincere desire to guide our families right. We can make their job infinitely easier and thus build a relationship of trust that deepens through the years, rather than ones that erode as our young people grow in maturity.

This list and comments came from:

http://fernshomestead.com/blessinghusband.html

I was made aware of it by my Facebook friend, Debbie Allen-Tuott.  Thank you, Debbie!

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What I see in this is the man’s need for respect, especially from his wife.  I talked about his need for respect in this post.

Some women think these ideas are outdated.  They think they are more like the views of society in the 50’s.  They think that these reflect a time when men were considered superior to women, and women did not have equal rights.  Our standard should be the Bible, not what society says.   Societal values have changed with the times.  But biblical values haven’t.

This is a list made by real men.  A major theme I see is that husbands want their wives to show them respect.  Really now, what is so bad about that?  When a woman treats her husband disrespectfully, does that cause peace and harmony in the marriage?  Does that create a good atmosphere in the home?  These men are also asking for patience, love, and encouragement from their wives.  Is that so unreasonable?

As Christians, we should see this as our reasonable service.  Even the part where we let the husband have the last word, the deciding vote.  The Bible tells us that he is our head.  He is accountable to God for the decisions that he makes and how he takes care of his family.  He is to honor her and let his wife express her opinion, but the final decision is on his shoulders.  In reality, this takes the burden off of the wife.  If she bears this kind of burden, it is a burden that she was not intended to bear.  Men were made to carry these responsibilities.  If this place is usurped by his wife, a man does not feel like a man.  And this leads to lots of other relationship problems.  Which lead to problems in every area of life.  Man is made to be a leader.  Let him lead.

A man has different needs than a woman.  Okay, that’s just how it is.  He needs respect, honor, encouragement, cheerleading, and quiet understanding even when he’s not able to express himself well.  The way I see it, this is the way of love.  How can we go wrong showing love to our husbands?

My Day With Davy Crockett by Morgan

My Day With Davy Crockett

On a nice spring day, me, Davy and Georgie Russel were riding through the woods toward Davy’s house to say bye to his two kids and his lovely wife, Polly. When we arrived Polly came out and threw her arms around Davy. “Davy, promise me that you won’t be gone very long,” she pleaded. “Well, don’t you worry. I’ll be back before you know it,” said Davy. Next thing I knew Russel was sitting on a log and — this was the scariest thing I ever saw– Davy was standing in front of a HUGE BLACK BEAR!!!

My eyes almost bulged out of my head when I saw that Davy was armed with only a knife. And to make matters worse, it was still in its sheath as he was face-to-face with the bear. I was just about to start running and screaming until Russel grabbed me and covered my mouth. “Don’t make a single move, kid,” he said.

“Where is Crockett?” We saw a boat moving up the river that was in front of us. It had four soldiers rowing it, with Major Norton in the front of it. “Where is Crockett?” he barked. Russel held up his hand in a signal of silence. “Speak up, man,” he barked again. Russel pointed at Davy, staring right at the bear’s eyes. Major Norton’s eyes almost bulged out of his head the same way mine did. He instantly pulled out his pistols. The bear ran into a huge tangle of bushes. BLAM BLAM!!! Davy turned on Norton, who was getting out of the boat, looking very angry. “Oh now you gone and done it,” he said angrily, taking his knife out of its sheath and plunging into the bushes after the bear. The bushes shook like wild fire. Growls and snarls filled the air. “AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!” I screamed. “It’s going to jump out and kill us all!”

Only Davy came out of the bushes with his knife dripping blood. He wiped it on his pant legs and said, “Now what do you need, Major?” “Get back to camp immediately!” Norton replied, with a snap instead of a bark.

Eleven minutes later four men were carrying Davy’s bear into camp. It was getting late by that time, but no one noticed except me. Sergeant Cameron was waiting in his tent when me, Davy & Russel went inside. There he was, a tall, strong man sitting on a chair. “Crocket, you and a platoon of men are going to go aid General Jackson and his men. They’re fighting Creek Indians.” “Well, ok,” I said. “Wait a minute -!” said Russel. “Let him come” said Davy quietly. “Ok,” Russel replied.

A few minutes later, we were fighting in a battle. I tried as best I could to help. When an Indian came in front of a soldier, I’d throw a rock at him. At the end of the battle, Davy beat the living daylights out of two Indians at the same time IN A HAND TO HAND FIGHT! After the battle we returned to camp and went to sleep. It had been a very long day.

Morgan (9) wrote this for a lapbook we did on Early American History. It’s the lapbook we got from Hands of a Child.
He had to write about a day with Davy Crockett. He read an old Disney book about Davy Crockett, and developed his story based on that. He started out writing it by hand but was struggling with the handwriting part and his hand hurt, so I let him switch to computer. He needed practice with keyboarding and word processing anyway. 🙂

I had to do quite a bit of editing for spelling and punctuation, but the words are all his.

I thought he did an excellent job, so I wanted to share it with all of you!

This post was included in the Homeschool Showcase at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers. See what other homeschoolers are doing to keep learning fun and interesting and how they’re living with and loving their families. The Homeschool Showcase is a blog carnival that spotlights great, hands-on projects, encouraging and inspiring blog posts, and all the just plain fun ways that homeschooling families live, learn, and celebrate life together.

Walking By Faith, Not By Sight… Again

We have a potential housing crisis again. I will be so glad when we have our own house and land and don’t have to rent any more. But I’m thankful for the houses that we have been able to rent – especially this house.
It has been just about perfect for us. I really like the floor plan. It’s open and big. We are able to have a computer lab in the dining room. Our kitchen and living room are in the same big space, so I can do things in the kitchen and still see and hear what everybody’s doing in the living room.

I can cook and clean while Shawn’s leading in prayer and armor. When he gets done, and I start reading, he can eat and the others can do some of their chores and still hear me. We have enough room in the space for a dining room table for our big table that seats 8 with both leaves in, which we leave in all the time. That’s still not enough places, but we often eat in shifts, so it works.

But we are in a time of transition again. The place where Gary works has had lay-off after lay-off, and there are rumors that they’re going to have another big one in September. God has been faithful to keep him working there, but Gary is feeling like his time there is about over.  Our lease is up in a couple of days. We don’t feel that we should sign a lease for another year or 6 months because we probably won’t be here that long. Gary has had some good leads on other jobs in other states but none of them have panned out yet.

So we asked to pay rent from month to month. At first the owner agreed to that, but he said he was going to show the house to other potential renters, so we would have to let people come through and look at it. Then he decided that he wanted to give potential renters a definite availability date, so he wants us to leave the house by Sept. 30. So now we have to get another job and get moved out of here by the end of next month.  We are having to trust God once again to move for us and put us in the right place at the right time. He spoke those words to me a couple months ago, so I feel certain that He has a plan to do it.

We prayed about signing the 6 month lease, but we felt like the Lord said “no”. I prayed about it and the Lord gave me

Phil. 4:6. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

I read that, and meditated on it. I realized that He was telling me not to worry, but just to make my request to Him. I thanked Him for what He has already done, and for what He’s going to do. Then I asked Him to get us a new job and a new house before Sept. 30.

I read the next verse after that:

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

And that has been true. I have had peace about the whole situation. I’m not panicking like I was last year about this time. We took it to the Lord and prayed specifically about what we’re supposed to do, and the Lord answered me personally. So I feel really good and full of faith that He will do great things for us.

We have a friend in India who is an evangelist, and he ministers to the poor there. His name is Rajendra Kumar. We met him on Facebook. He has been speaking words of wisdom and prophetic words to me that have been so encouraging during this time. God has used him to build up my faith.

He has a wonderful ministry to the poor. He ministers to their physical needs and their spiritual needs. Please look him up on Facebook, Evan. Rajendra Kumar.  He always has good words from the Lord in his status updates.  Follow him there.  You’ll be glad you did.