Our journal of what we pray is our sojourn of life along the narrow way, even the old paths, submitting to the Bible as a light unto both.
After our previous update, we thought we’d give what we expect is a final update this 2023 of the new turkeys the Lord has graciously granted.
Sadly, a few have died or gone missing, but there are still quite a few of them here.
And here’s their video:
Again, we are grateful to God for His provisions, and we pray for continued health and safety of them, and guidance in their use!
— David
After the Lord graciously granted an abundance of zucchini a few years ago, I thought maybe from now on we’d focus on just one type of vegetable a year that we know works well around here. I thought this year we’d try okra.
And then, with the doggies we found by a local creek still with us and spending some of their day time in our Garden 2, which they’ve sort of just torn apart (although they are keeping the weeds down! 🙂 ), we planted okra in Garden 1.
I dug out the mulch in the garden to make trenches, pushed the okra seeds into the soil (you have to do that or they won’t germinate, at least that’s what I’ve found) a few inches from the last seed, and then I covered them with compost.
And by God’s graciousness, here they are early August. We had a bad drought again this year (although not as long as last year), but very high temperatures, so there was a lot of hand watering done:
And here are our first okra gathered. One thing I’ve learned as I’ve watered and cut okra is to wear gloves, because the okra oil or something makes the skin severely itch (wow, it’s itchy!):
And then here they are now:
Sue’s been preserving them in cheap apple cider vinegar in quart jars, and here’s where that stands with jar count. I have to harvest twice a day or they have the potential to get too big, and then they’re too fibrous and un-eatable:
We are thankful to the Lord for what He has granted so far — true miracles of Providence!
— David
Continuing on from our last blog post, the Lord has continued to grant more turkey chicks this 2023, and we’re very thankful! He has, however, decided to reclaim quite a few of the young ones, which we document in the video. I don’t know what was going on…maybe being stepped on by bigger ones, which is maybe the most likely scenario…I don’t think it was sickness, but could have been.
Anyway, here’s the video of the next part of this 2023 turkey chick journey…
Again, we are indeed grateful to God for His continued provisions of the new turkey chicks!
— David
…Or in other words, The “Story” after “20 Years” 😀
20 years ago, God granted me to be able to have Sue as my wife. I mentioned it at 15 years, and it’s been even more confirmed over the last 5, but besides having been given God-fearing parents, she is the best temporal gift I’ve received from Him. I am blessed to have been given a godly, God-fearing wife.
And since this is my blog post, I get to highlight her, even though she’ll be embarrassed. 😀
Why do I say she’s godly? Because the Bible describes her:
Ephesians 5:22 – “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.“
1 Peter 3:1-6:
1 Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives;
2 While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear.
3 Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel;
4 But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.
5 For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands:
6 Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.
(No, she doesn’t call me “lord”, but she does sometimes reply “Yes sir” when I ask her to do something, something I have not asked her to do. )
1 Timothy 2:9-10:
9 In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array;
10 But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.
1 Corinthians 11:5 – “But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven.“
Exodus 20:8 – “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.“
— and she endeavors to keep the whole day, as it states —
…all which show obedience to God, and God says:
1 John 2:3-5:
3 And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.
4 He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
5 But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.and
1 John 5:3: “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.“
and
John 14:21 – “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.“
And then there is this:
James 1:27 – “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.“
Sue has been literally fulfilling this on and off for a year and a half or more with an elderly lady who has had no one else, who lives quite a few miles outside of town the opposite direction from us. May the Lord reward her for her faithfulness and service to Him in helping her.
Also, this is Sue:
And after all those characteristics, Sue would be the first to attribute them all only to God’s gift of graces to her.
While not absolutely perfect yet, she’s perfect for me — a help meet made for me (Gen 2:18). I try to make sure to thank the Lord for her every day. She is truly a “good gift” and “perfect gift” “from above” that has come “down from the Father of lights”.
And I try to make sure to pray for her every day. I’ve asked God if I could have one request, beyond that He glorify Himself through us, it would be that He would grant Sue His eternal presence one day and that He would guide me to guide her to that end. I believe this is the best thing I could ever hope for her and the best thing to be used for with her.
God has also granted we be of like mind, especially in the things of Him, including endeavoring to make Him the center of our household.
Even on our wedding day, we tried to focus much on Him. Our theme verse was that James 1:17 verse in the image above, and the following picture is from the video, so it’s a little grainy, but this is the “gift” table, where we had gifts of Bibles and AW Pink’s “The Attributes of God” for our guests to take. Most of all of them were gone by the end. We pray the Lord used or would even today use them to the benefit of those who took them:
The Lord in His wisdom never granted us children. We don’t know why for sure (we can certainly imagine and understand as chastisements for sins past), but interestingly, we were asked on our wedding day after the ceremony what we would say to them. Here’s our answer, which I believe we would still say today:
Finally, I thought we’d share with you a few moments from the ceremony: Besides the Bibles and books, we wanted to try to make sure to share the gospel message with our guests. The following is a video of that part, and the text is included here, below the video. I’d probably say a few things a little differently now, but it still seems to bring forth the gospel message.
We pray even now that maybe God has or would water that seed planted 20 years ago to bring someone to Him, or that He might do so now to a reader or watcher/listener:
Before we begin the actual joining of these two in holy matrimony, Sue and Dave asked if I would share some things that they would like said from them to you ….. which is this:
It really is beautiful here – the flowers and all of their colors and aromas, the trees and their shade – the beauty of creation. Or the stars at night – the infinite number of shimmering lights in the sky. Such beauty; such magnitude; such magnificence. One could wonder how all of this could have happened; perhaps that even God does exist to have all of this and the universe about us. Well, Sue and Dave would like to suggest that indeed God did create these wonders – a gracious, loving, perfect and holy God. How great are the works of His creation!
But amidst all of this beauty and splendor, there is a problem. Back a long time ago imperfection entered the creation through the rebellion of His creation, namely man. And unfortunately, this rebellion has carried through to man today. No doubt we can all imagine that somewhere along our lives we have done something wrong – a little lie, some unnecessary anger. We all have sinned at some point, which is disobedience to God. But, you see, God is a holy and perfect God of whom there could be no disobedience allowed because of His perfection and holiness. And sadly, disobedience demands judgment and condemnation from a perfect God. And someday, there will be an eternal judgment.
And possibly about now you might be asking, Sue and Dave, why on this joyous occasion are you talking about eternal judgment and condemnation? Ah, but, you see, that’s not the end of the story. It doesn’t have to end there. And this is where there is great joy and great hope! God sent His Son Jesus, who was and is also perfect, to take the punishment that is due us – He died on a Roman cross as that punishment! We don’t have to face God one day because of our sin! We can be free from that judgment forever — truly an eternal joy! But only Jesus, being perfect where we are not, is the one who takes that place for us in front of God — we must realize that He is the only One who can do that. And why it’s appropriate today is that, while what we have around us here today in nature is only temporary, the Bible likens eternity with God free from judgment as a great wedding feast, where Jesus is the groom and those saved are His bride! Certainly a joyous and wonderful occasion!
So, Sue and Dave would like to call you to that – that you ask Jesus to give you an understanding of these things and the desire to turn from sin. That as you celebrate with them today, and experience the beauty of this place, that you would also ponder on these eternal things as well.
Let’s pray for a moment, if you would please. Father, we ask that you would speak to each of our hearts today as we celebrate something here in the temporal world that foreshadows the great eternal celebration with you. We ask that you would reveal who you are to each of us, that we all would see you in your creation, that you would give us the gifts of belief, faith and repentance. We thank you for your graces and mercies, and we ask those for each of us here as well. We thank you again, and pray these things for the glory of your name. Amen.
May we always be thankful, and may God always glorify Himself through us in some way. We’re thankful for the time He has graciously granted us together so far! 😀
— David
This one hurts a little more because he’s been part of our lives for so long…13 years…
We had to say goodbye to William, our first cat. He’d been having some health issues for some time, some of it respiratory, although we found it appeared he had a food allergy to rice that is in most cat food — the Lord graciously granted Sue think of this…feeding him only food with no rice (and we tried to keep wheat away too) seemed to really help him not have any more sinus problems.
Recently though, he started losing weight. But, he was eating fairly normally, and drinking and excreting nicely. With the extreme heat here, we both figured it was related to that, and never really thought to research it. He also seemed very sensitive to the heat but figured it was his age (he was probably around 14 years old), and just kept him laying on ice under dish towels with blue ice bags around, which seemed to help. Well, for whatever reason, I did research last week, and it appears he had all the classic signs of hyperthyroidism — weight loss even with appetite, drinking a lot and peeing a lot, sensitive to heat, panting, etc. Upon further research, there were various things to try naturally, and so we had shipped to us some L-Carnitine, which is one thing that is potentially lacking in this type of situation. But the day it arrived, even though he seemed not that bad in the morning, by late evening, he was gone. 🙁 Thankfully, we were with him as he was going, and Sue was able to be there right at the end.
William, who was named after William III, also known as William of Orange, Protestant king of England, and because our William was the color…wait for it…orange :D, had been rummaging around our neighbor’s garbage, and they were going to permanently “remove” him, but offered him to us in case we wanted him. We had never had a cat before, I used to be allergic to them, but I went there, and the neighbor girl was holding him, and I looked at him, and said we’d take him. There’s more detail in the original post we did on him.
One thing he will be remembered for is how he would almost always join Sue and me for Psalm singing time during our little family worship time. Here’s a little more detail, but I am including the video here again of him doing that:
He was also the inspiration for the first lullaby I wrote, “Hey You Sleepy Head” (I didn’t write it for or to him…it was meant for humans 🙂 )
One time William was chasing around a stray cat, and had it cornered around our camper, but to keep William from the other cat in case it had diseases, I reached down to grab William to take him away. Note, do not do that when a cat is in that mode. William turned and bit the back of my hand. Well, if you know anything about cat bites, it swelled really badly, I had to do I think at least a couple rounds of antibiotics plus soaking my hand in Epsom salts before it went away. But, now I also have a permanent reminder of William as the ring finger on that hand will not straighten as high as the other fingers:
Anyway, we’ll miss him a lot.
Finally, here’s his little grave site in the tree grove which is our little pet cemetery:
Goodbye William…we thank the Lord for the time He granted us to have you.
— David
Leaving off some time after our first 2023 turkey chicks blog post, we thought we’d catch you up with the next update. The Lord has continued to be gracious in granting quite a few more turkey chicks, having them hatch them out in the barn so we can collect them and get them into the summer kitchen/brooder barn.
And here’s a video of those adventures!
As always, we are grateful to God for His provisions, and pray for the continued health of the turkeys and all our animals, as He might grant!
— David
With moving our billies and nannies together this last autumn, it was kidding time! Interestingly, only one buck’s two females actually got bred this year, and the other four goats with the other buck didn’t get pregnant. Two are old, so we figure that might be expected, but not with the other two young ones, so we don’t really know what happened. Perhaps we didn’t leave them together long enough, or perhaps something’s going on with the male, and so Lord willing we’ll hopefully see what happens next season.
But, the Lord did graciously grant four bucklings! Besides the picture above, here is his brother:
And then, here’s their video. If you’re tired of hearing me on the videos most of the time, you get the full narrative from Sue on this one! 😀
Even though it didn’t turn out as anticipated, we thank God that He graciously granted the ones He did, and we pray they will maybe be a blessing to someone else!
— David
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