Series

Book series: The Excellent Wife – A Wife’s Understanding of God

February 21, 2017 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

This chapter’s focus on on what a wife understands about God, talking about who God is, and what God wants for them in their lives and work.

First off, What wives need to know about God.
1. God has planned a ministry for you.
2. God is gracious, righteous and compassionate.
3. God’s strength and understanding are unlimited.
4. God is purposefully working in your life.
5. God wants you to be a joyful and fulfilled wife.

Second,
What wives need to know about their works and themselves.
1. God has prepared good works for the Christian wife to do.
2. The Christian wife’s good works have eternal worth.
3. The Christian wife does not have to be afraid.
4. The focus of the Christian wife is to be on God rather than herself.
5. A Christian wife does not have to sin… which means we are putting ourselves under God’s protective authority.

Why does the wife need protection?
1. The influence the world has on her.
2. The Devil
3. Women are often more easily deceived.

The study guide questions:
I won’t go through them all as some are true/false questions or just asking to rehash the lessons of the chapter.

5. Does the husband ever have absolute authority over his wife?
… you know.. before reading this chapter the answer could easily have been yes…but really he doesn’t. God does give him authority over his household, but this doesn’t mean he can ask us to do something that is against God or God’s ways (aka to sin).

6. Why does a wife need protection from the influence of the world? Examples?
….one of the things that I am grateful to is my husbands ability to figure out what it is about something that I am uncertain about. I can say.. something about this feels wrong but I can’t figure out why… and he’ll be able to put his finger on it, if not immediately (though often that’s the case), then quickly. It gives me a sense of security to know that my radar is working even if it’s not always correct. 🙂

Alphabet Blogging: F is for Frogs

February 21, 2017 By Annette1 20 Comments

My son has a love affair with frogs and toads for as far back as I can remember. He is particularly fond of toads, but is totally loving it that our small pond out back is host to 4 different frogs. Ergo when I was contemplating what to do for the letter f…I automatically thought about frogs.

I thought about talking about the common frogs we have in the backyard… and was fully intending to research the life out of them…until I ran into this one small fact…

Frogs, frogs, frogs, Canada has frogs. LOTS AND LOTS OF FROGS.

Including this funny fact. We are host to two small populations of TAILED frogs. Can you believe it? A frog that has a tail.. and CANADA has TWO populations of slightly different types of them.

I was stoked!! I just LOVE learning new things… don’t you?

Anyways, on to this amazing little critter.

The Tailed Frog is a remarkable little frog, unique to B.C. in Canada. It is a
small frog, 2.5 to 3 centimetres from nose to rump…..Tailed Frogs have vertical pupils, no external
tympanum (the round “ear” visible on other frogs), and are voiceless. (source)

Originally this little frog was simple called the tailed frog, but in the year 2000, it was split into two species. The first, the coastal species
is called the Pacific Tailed Frog(Ascaphus truei). The second is called the Rocky Mountain Tailed Frog (Ascaphus montanus).

Both of these frogs live in very small areas of British Columbia, as well as in select area of the United States. They live in fast flowing streams. Their population densities are low and believed to be declining since so few of the rivers in the areas they reside are suitable for reproduction.

These two frogs are very close in colouration and needs, they can’t handle temperatures above 20 Celsius. Cold fast flowing, small streaming with an abundance of small micro-climates are just what these frogs need.

They are a long lived frog, juveniles staying close to home but 4-7 year old frogs dispersing widely from their point of birth. A long incubation period for the eggs, combined with reproducing every other year, and the loss of old growth forests is contributing to their decline.

Both sub-species are protected under the British Columbia Wildlife act, making it illegal to own, trap or kill any member of the species.

Where did I find my information?
Frogwatch.
Canadian BioDiversity.
Image.
Sararegistry for Rocky tailed.
Sararegistry for coastal.
Wikipedia.
British Columbia Frogwatch.

Now just so you know.. Canada has a WHOLE whack of other frogs. From Spadefoots, spring peepers, tree frogs, bullfrogs, leopard and green frogs, pickerel frogs, cricket and chorus frogs, and so many more. Check them out eh? It’s a fascinating wet world to explore. 🙂

You can find out more here.

____

Book Series: Parenting – be an ambassador parent

February 14, 2017 By Annette1 2 Comments

Paul David Tripp wrote an interesting parenting book called Parenting: 14 Gospel Principals. I thought it might be interesting to read through this book. Join in if you would like.

I decided to start with the introduction rather than digging into the first of 14 chapters.

In the introduction Mr. Tripp talks about how as he has travelled the world helping parents learn to do this job better, he has discovered that what they need help with is “big picture parenting worldview”. Having this worldview will give us grounding in what God calls to do as parents.. it explains, guides and motivates all that we do. Ergo as he writes this book he wants parents to understand the gospel behind good parenting practices.

To start with, we have to know who we are in relation to God, to what life is all about and to who your children are. This knowledge is of paramount importance.

Mr. Tripp wants us to move away from the ownership idea of parenting to the idea that we are ambassadors. We need to remember, these children aren’t ours. They belong to God and we need to parent them with that idea in the forefront of our minds.

As we parent, we need to be aware of something. As much as we desire to be ambassadorial parents….. we will fail. We will want to do things our way, to meet our needs, to just want the short run satisfaction. We’ll fail. But that’s not the point. The point is to keep striving to do God’s will.

Questions we could ask ourselves.
1. Identity – where do we get our identity from.
2. Work – working to turn your children into something? or helping them develop into something more?
3. Success – which is more important the end product or what you are doing?
4. Reputation – Living with the craziness that children can bring… does it affect who you are or does it reflect your children?

An ambassador is called to represent the message, methods, and character of the Owner to their children. (p.20)

The next 14 chapters will introduce different principles to reflect upon to help us do the job of ambassador of God to your children effectively.

….

I read the thought of “you will fail” and it made me smile. I so often feel like I am failing in what I am doing as a parent. But it strikes me that seeing oneself as an ambassador of God before the eyes of my son… strikes me as a grave responsibility, as well as taking a load off. It’s not my job to make my son into anything…it’s God’s job. Mine is simply to show God to him. That’s it.

Book Series: The Prayer Saturated Family, Becoming Prayer Saturated

February 7, 2017 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

The Prayer Saturated Family was written by Cheryl Sacks, it’s a 12 chapter book. Every three weeks or so I plan to do another chapter in it. 🙂

This first chapter is called Becoming Prayer Saturated.

The central theme is this: Praying together as a family is one of the best investments you will ever make. She gives four reasons why this is so:

1. Praying together strengthens and heals.
2. Praying together impacts future generations.
3. Praying together ignites nationwide revival.
4. Praying together shapes young lives.

So I piecing together what I think about some of these thoughts.

I am fully on board with point 1, 2 and 4. I can easily see the truth of these statements. I query number 3. If the point is to have a prayer saturated family I don’t understand how that will lead to nationwide revival. How can one family praying spark a nationwide revival? I know that families praying together can change neighbourhoods. I know this. I read about it. I have seen how the prayer of one family for another makes a difference…in the lives of both families. I just have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of one family prayers being able to influence the trend of a nation.

So perhaps that means that my mind is too small to conceive the idea… or that my belief in God is too small… or perhaps that I don’t really see the strength of prayer… or that it just isn’t possible.

But yet I know that with God all things are possible … if one has the faith and if it be the Lord’s will.
So who I am to say that the faithful prayer of one family isn’t just what God is requiring in order to start a revival in our land?

Thinking that makes me see just how small I sometimes make God.
How small and unimportant I make talking with him.
When prayer, it can change the world.

Not Good.

Prayer isn’t small.
And the God we talk to…he isn’t small either.
He changes the world.
Query is this: Am I prepared to help him? To do my part? Despite my lack of seeing the big picture? Can I believe that my prayers can help to change the world?

D is for DogSledding in Canada!

February 7, 2017 By Annette1 19 Comments

You know… I was all set to talk about different Canadian river beginning with “D” and as I was browsing through books at Costco a kids Canada alphabet book had D is for DogSled…and that was WAY more interesting than talking about the Dubwant and Don Rivers! LIKE WAY more interesting.

One of my dreams, oh… for such a very long time has been to go on a dogsled ride. In fact, I had a dog when my lad was young who needed a job to do so I got her a harness so she could pull the lad around. 🙂 My goal was to help her become more accepting of the lad by giving her something she liked to do…work and feel useful! (we didn’t succeed but at least had fun trying). When the lad was I think 8 we went to an Archaelogy day and he got to go on a dogsled ride…man… I was jealous!!! But they didn’t allow adults to go….ah well…

The world’s biggest Dog Sled race, as far as I know, is the 1000 mile race called the Iditarod. There is also the 1,000 mile Yukon Quest which runs between
Whitehorse, Yukon and Fairbanks, Alaska. There is also the 211 mile long Hudson Bay Quest and the 200 mile Canadian Dog Sled Races which are among the biggest races just in Canada.

There are two main styles of dog sled hitches. Fan hitch and gangline. Gangline tends to be the more popular of the two for dog sled races. They each have their own advantage.

The fan hitch allows dogs to spread out their weight over a larger surface area, helpful on rough surfaces, treeless areas or on ice. The Innuk often use this method to travel.

The gangline has the dogs held closer together which is excellent for running in forested areas or on narrow trails. Numbers of dogs can vary in this type of hitch.

Travel by dog sled used to be one of the major forms of transportation in Canadian winters, particularly among the more northern peoples. In fact, the International Federation of Sled Dog Sports states that
archaeological evidence shows dog sledding in Canada, North America, and
Siberia originated 4000 years ago. (source)

Did you know the word mush came from a poorly understand early French Canadian word where the drivers of the dog team would say “Marche!” in encourage their teams to run well. English explorers misunderstood the term and henceforth dog sled drivers were called Mushers.(source)

A famous sled dog is Balto…who was the lead dog in a dog sled
relay of 1000 miles, in January 1925, when a deadly diphtheria epidemic
threatened the children of
Nome. Medicine to stop the outbreak was in Anchorage. Balto’s team
covered the last 53 miles. (source) A statue of Balto can be found in Central Park, New York.

So there you have it, information about dog sledding and Canada.

Are you interested in linking up? Great.

Follow the abc blogging format. This week we are using the letter D.
Family Friendly posts only
Comment on the blogs of others, please.
Post a back link to this blog or this post.
Make sure you stop in to visit Amanda my lovely co-host.
#abcblogging for the hashtag.

An InLinkz Link-up

Hymn Study: For The Beauty of the Earth

February 6, 2017 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Hebrews 13:15-16 – “Through Him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge His name.”

Written by Folliot S. Pierpoint, this is a hymn of praise and thanksgiving and was originally written as a song for the Eucharist (The Lord’s Supper).

Pierpoint was the author of several poetry collections, including The Chalice of Nature and Other Poems (1855), Songs of Love, the Chalice of Nature, and Lyra Jesu (2nd Edition, 1858). The words of this hymn appeared in Lyrica Eucharistica, The Hymnal Noted (second edition, 1864). (source)

Pierpoint was born in Bath, England in 1835. He was educated at Queens College in Cambridge, and later taught at Somersetshire College, where he was a teacher of classics.

He wrote numerous poems, but For the Beauty of the Earth is the only one he is remembered for today. Not only did he write books of poetry, but also produced two hymnals. He was 29 years old when he wrote this particular hymn.

The song was inspired by the beauty of the countryside that surrounded
him. Pierpoint wrote praises of God for the beauties all around him
into the lyrics. Take for instance beauty of the earth and sky, beauty
of each hour, and the joy of human love that he incorporates into the
lyrics. (source)

The words to the original text can be found here. The tune Dix was written by Conrad Kocher in 1838, also the tune used for As with Gladness Men of Old.

Pierpoint died at age 82 having written 7 volumes of poetry.

Originally the last two lines of each verse read:

Christ our God, to thee we raise
This our sacrifice of praise.

(source)

Lyrics

(1) For the beauty of the earth,

For the glory of the skies;

For the love which from our birth,

Over and around us lies;

Lord of all, to Thee we raise