Goodbye 2013

Things have been insane the last four months so I am just getting around to posting. Plus, the Internet is iffy and will not always let us post pics. I don’t think I can blog without pics.   :)

I traveled to the USA from May to August 2013 to visit my family.  (See previous blog entries.)    I returned to the bush in August ……greeting the Tidwells in passing at the Lusaka Airport.  :(   My visit in the states was great. I ate a LOT of ice cream and enjoyed seeing my family and friends, but I was glad to be back to work.

We planted tomatoes, cabbage, sweet corn, peppers, egg plant and sugar loaf right after I returned. They were growing nicely when the pigs came. They broke through the garden fence and ate most of the cabbage and all of the corn. We had a fair harvest of tomatoes and a lot of  bell peppers and egg plant. I introduced the Zambians to southern chow-chow, but I don’t think they were impressed.


The pens for the animals were falling down so we spent a lot of time trying to repair them and built a shelter/prison for Sir Billy. He is a little on the ornery side.  As we were working on the pens my daily Bible study was in Nehemiah. I started thinking about rebuilding the walls in our lives. In the bible, each person was responsible for the part of the wall by his own house. The wall didn’t belong to the people per say but it did protect them.  If we follow this example we will be ever watchful at our part of the wall (i.e., our families, church, yes even work) We do not have ownership of the wall, but it does protect us. What part of the wall by your house needs repair? Repair is constant. Put it up today and it will be down tomorrow. So what do we do? Quit and let it crumble because we are too busy? Nope…keep rebuilding in the power of Jesus.

God's timing is so perfect. After the study of Nehemiah the next lessons were on Job. It was during this time Precious became ill. The coming months would prove to be very difficult. I marveled at the soft, warm blanket of peace, strength and comfort God covered us with daily. The days were filled with plenty of work, which was a welcome distraction. The nights were spent praying and just lying close to the heart of Jesus. I read about Job being a righteous man to the point God told Satan, “Check out my man Job.”(Paraphrased a bit ;) I read about Job taking both good and bad from the hand of God equally. I read about Job’s friends asking him about the sin in his life and blaming him for his misfortune. I continued reading and saw Job finally begin to question God. As he sat in a pile of ashes scraping his boil laden skin, he had enough.  Job 30:20-22  "I cry out to you oh God but you do not answer; I stand up but you merely look at me. You turn on me ruthlessly; with the might of your hand you attack me. You snatch me up and drive me before the wind; you toss me about in the storm.” Then I entered my favorite part of the book.  Did I tell you my favorite book in the Bible is Job? Well, it is. Strange I know. These verses have been underlined in my Bible for a long time and I cannot read them without weeping. Kind of puts everything in perspective. Let's read it together. 

 

Chapter 38

 

¹ Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said: ² “Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge?  ³ Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. ⁴ “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?   Tell me, if you understand. ⁵ Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!  Who stretched a measuring line across it? ⁶ On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone—⁷ while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? ⁸ “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, ⁹ when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, ¹⁰ when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, ¹¹ when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; and wrapped it in thick darkness, ¹⁰ when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, ¹¹ when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’? ¹² “Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, ¹³ that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it?
¹⁴ The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its features stand out like those of a garment.
¹⁵ The wicked are denied their light, and their upraised arm is broken. ¹⁶ “Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? ¹⁷ Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness? ¹⁸ Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this.”

God was basically asking Job who he thought he was anyway. In chapter 42 Job repents and God restores everything that was taken, times two.



So what is the point? A note in my bible reads  "The place God wants me is humble and totally dependent on him."  The week before Christmas I read a post on FB that said sometimes God will give us more than we can handle so we will run to him.


Hey! I posted a blog without pics.


P/S  Time to confess. I have never read through the entire bible so decided to start a chronological bible reading program. Guess where we started?  Yep. Job.     Gotta  *smile*