Page 27 of 93

Marriage Marker – 15 Years

August 23, 2018 / David & Susan Sifford / 6 Comments

Fifteen years ago today, the Lord granted Sue and I be married. Our fathers performed the ceremony, we appreciated our family and friends participating with us, and it was a joyous day!

For me, our marriage has been joyous, and Sue has made that possible. She is a godly woman. She is the most considerate person I know. She evidences God’s graces in her all the time, and she would be the first to acknowledge those are none of herself, and loathes her own sin.

I marvel at her cheerful and uncomplaining willingness to serve others and me, especially in bringing her out from a life of comfort to something of a wilderness, with mud and poo everywhere, often on us. 🙂 She never complains when hauling a heavy 5-gallon bucket of feed up to the goats to go milk them; she never complains when having to haul four 6-gallon water containers up to them in a wheelbarrow; she never complains when she has to carry two of them by hand from the cistern to the house to fill the Berkey and indoor elevated dishwater tank.

We have a ton in common, in beliefs and principles, and even had similar life paths growing up. For instance, we both had sung in barbershop quartets before. What are the “odds” of that happening? (100% when it’s part of God’s plan! 😀 ). We even grew up in the same general area, and attended the same church but at different times. We often wonder if we had ever crossed paths at any time. And then God brought us together in His perfect timing. By God’s graces, we get along extraordinarily well, and she makes our relationship easy.

She has forebeared much with me, and has been a great help. I am ever thankful to God for her, and other than having been given God-fearing parents, she is the best temporal gift I have received in my entire life. If God could have designed a wife/help-meet in perfection for me, she was it!

We have always viewed each other as gifts from the Lord to each other, and in fact, this was the theme of our wedding:

Jam 1:17 – “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.“

It is how I felt when I asked her to marry me, and still do today.

I considered it so much so in late 2002, with anticipation of asking her for her hand in marriage (after graciously receiving permission from her parents), that I wrote for her a song to God about her as that — a great gift from Him!

After the one time of singing it to her, the song has just been in my head all of these years, with a little help from some handwritten notes and the lyrics saved on the computer, and so for this fifteen year anniversary, I wanted to surprise her with having recorded it and putting it out in a blog post with my thoughts about her.

But, then I thought, you know, she’s the only person who has ever heard this song before, and perhaps she would like to keep it as special only to her. And so, I surprised her with it the other day, and asked what her thoughts were about sharing it as part of our fifteenth anniversary blog post, and she agreed.

To get to that point though, we thought we’d share a little about the engagement day on February 8, 2003…

We spent the day in Carmel, CA, visiting the shops and then planning to end up at the beach later. Little did she know that two of my best friends at the time, Bob and Jeff, were running around purchasing dinner, and getting a table and chairs and table cloths and flowers and a cooler of food and a piano-type keyboard set up on the beach for us…

A couple of funny anecdotes:

At one point, Sue and I went into a shop that had mood rings. She’s like, let’s try them on. Well, hers was all blue, which means relaxed and emotional, and mine was black, which mean nervous and anxious. I thought, ahhh, this stupid ring is going to blow the whole surprise! 😀 Sue did wonder why I wasn’t relaxed and romantic like she was. 🙂

And then, it was time to get down to the beach. Once there, Sue went into the restroom, and right then my friends came out of their restroom and said “It’s not set up…we need more time!” I was like, ok, I’ll try to stall her, and they disappeared before Sue came out. Whew!

And so, Sue and I walked down the beach the “wrong” way for a bit, and then started moseying back the “correct” direction, slowly as much as I could.

Well, as we got closer to the spot, I spied that my friends had completed their covert operations, and we headed toward the dinner table.

My friends video-recorded basically the whole event, and we took a few stills from the video:

Dinner time:

Song time:

Proposal time:

Putting the ring on her finger after her saying “yes”:

And right about then, we turned around to face the sun, and this is what it looked like, setting over the ocean! Wow wow wow! What a gift of timing from God!

Then, Sue and I hung out on the beach for a while drinking sparkling cider, and left when it was darker, and my gracious friends, besides setting up everything and filming it, sat there until we were done and cleaned up everything. It was a wonderful time, and we thank the Lord for it!

To Bob and Jeff: I will forever have a debt of gratitude to you both for what you did that day, handling all of that, filming it, and just waiting there until we left, and cleaning up everything. A guy couldn’t have asked for better friends!

What follows is the song I believe God specially granted me to write (besides that we can do nothing without Christ, I have never written a song with those kinds of chord progressions before). In it, I wanted to acknowledge God as God, thank Him for His many gifts, and then for the gift of Sue (my Love) specifically, my prayer for myself toward her, specific ways He used her to help me in bringing her to me, my prayer for us as a couple, and then bringing all to God’s glory in the end.

These are our continued prayers. May God glorify Himself through us, and may we be godly servants of His and others! I am forever grateful to the Lord for granting me the gift of my Love, Sue!

(Click the play button on the inline player right below the title to listen to it. It was only recorded using the laptop sitting on a pillow on the piano, and I have a slight verbal fumble at the end which I wasn’t going to re-do the whole song over after many takes, but you should still get the idea. 🙂 If you don’t see the inline audio player, you can listed to it by clicking this link.)

The Gift of My Love

Verse 1
Father, may You be praised
Here and now and in the heavens
Father, exalt Your name
Here and now and forever

We bow before You, holy Lord
Singing praise and worship at Your throne
Be magnified, oh Holy Lord
Praying humbly before Your throne

Verse 2
Father, I want to thank You
For Your many blessings to me
Father, Your endless love
Is shown each day to me

You give so generously
Beyond any of my dreams
You give so ever freely
Above all of our dreams

Chorus
And so I thank You, Lord, for the gift of my Love
I thank You, Lord, for her
I thank You, Lord, for the gift of my love
Please bind our hearts together

She’s beautiful, gentle, wonderful, so special
A blessed gift of grace from You

Verse 3
Father, You gave a love,
A gift who sets my heart afire
Father, she’s far beyond
My deepest hope and desires

Her beauty’s endless as the sky
I melt when I gaze into her eyes
Her smile’s as bright as the sun
She’s come to me from above

Chorus

Break
May I cherish her, this Love of mine
May I honor her through the end of time
May I love her as You love your own
Thank You for this Love, from love You have shown
She’s my Love, thank You for my Love

Who’s helped break through the pain
Of hurt and sorrow, a broken heart
You’ve mended me back together
With her You have restored me

And set me free
To love again
Thank You for this love
May it never, ever, ever, ever end

Verse 4
Father, be glorified
By us, the two of us together
Father, our lives are Yours
May we worship You forever

We bow before You, holy Lord
Be magnified, oh Lord
Singing praise and worship at Your throne
Our love eternally before Your throne

Chorus

Chorus

Fine
For Your glory forever
Be glorified forever
Through us be glorified forever
Praise your holy name forever

Amen
© 2003

Amen!

— David

Garden – Spring & Summer 2018

August 8, 2018 / David & Susan Sifford / 0 Comments

I meant to post a blog post about our garden goings-on earlier in the year, but didn’t get to it, so here is a catchup blog post about the Lord’s provisions from the gardens from Spring and Summer so far this 2018!

Spring

In our last garden blog post, we mentioned we planted garlic last year:

Well, back in May it was harvest time! Thanks to the Stonger boys for the help!

Time to dry them out for a couple of days, and then I hung them in the meat dryer to cure:

And here are the final results, with those ready for next year, Lord willing, on the left, and the ones for use this year on the right!

Then, it was to time for the main spring garden. It needed some weeding first, and thanks again to the Stonger boys:

And then we planted beans, squash, and spaghetti squash:

And here they are about a month later:

And here are some of the results!

Squash chips! Yum! (see recipe here):

Here’s a freebee turnip plant from seed thrown down in previous years (more on this in the Summer part):

And then it was time to plant okra, which usually works very well around here:

Here I tried throwing a bunch in rows, just to see how it worked:

We also wanted to do sweet potatoes again this year after good success, thanks to God, from last year (see last garden update in the link above).

In fact, here’s a freebee from last year’s planting!

We tried to start our own slips, but they sadly just never grew:

And so we purchased some:

And here’s the area we cleared and where they have gone:

Summer

Sue got to processing the spaghetti squash by this time, and here are the results! Yum again!

She roasted some:

Spaghetti Squash Fruit Prepared for Roasting

And made “pasta” from the “spaghetti”:

And here’s part of the squash haul, and them cut and preserved in apple cider vinegar:

Here’s the freebee turnip — nice!

Thanks to inspector Mimi for allowing it to pass inspection! 😉

Finally, here we are catching up to today. We’ve had a very hot spring and summer, and drought conditions, so some things are barely hanging on, although we do have rain percentages this week, during which we pray the Lord grants rain. But, here are the beans:

Separated okra plant (many which got razed by something early on):

And in rows:

And okra fruit:

Here’s the freebee sweet potato from above:

And another one that grew by itself:

And the sweet potato bed:

We are extremely grateful to the Lord for Him granting the provisions from the gardens this year so far, and we ask for those continued as He might will. We thank Him for the spots of rain He has provided to keep things going, and we always pray He grant spiritual rains of nourishment in our hearts so that we may thrive and grow spiritually for His glory in obedience to and more like Christ Jesus!

— David

A House – Update LI – Lower Siding, Update II

July 25, 2018 / David & Susan Sifford / 2 Comments

With the lower siding of the west side of the house installed, I started on the south side…

Here, the tar paper is up. Thanks again to Sue for the help!

And then all of the siding on:

And from the other side:

Another View of House South Side Lower Siding

Since I was able to get a couple of extra panels with that month’s budget, I was able to start on the east — and final! — side:

And here we are continuing with the east side:

I forgot that I was not supposed to grab a moving circular saw blade…oops. I am very thankful it wasn’t worse:

Fingers After Grabbing Moving Circular Saw Blade

And here is the east side complete! Wow, all done with the lower siding! Thanks to the Lord for His provisions!

Once again, we are very thankful to God for granting the materials and physical strength to continue, and we again thank those who are making the house possible!

We always pray this house will be a place of worship to the Lord!

— David

David’s Digest: Living to Please God

July 11, 2018 / David & Susan Sifford / 0 Comments

A Christian is a ransomed soul:

Is 35:10 – “And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.“

And therefore, a Christian is owned by Christ as His servant.

A good servant will do his master’s will, otherwise he is a rebellious servant. Also, a Christian will not only do God’s will, but do it out of love for Him (both the matter and the manner will be correct).

A servant’s life is not his own, and there is never a time where the servant isn’t a servant of his master.

A good servant will live to please his master. There are many verses in the Bible that talk about this. And living pleasing to God can take the form of doing things that are pleasing to Him and not doing things that are displeasing. A loving servant will not have to “give up” anything for his master, because the servant’s desire is truly toward his master and not those things he would “give up” (ie. those things have no meaning to the servant in light of love to his master — they will naturally fade because they are not of his master, so there’s nothing really to “give up”).

How is the time of our lives spent? Does the idea of pleasing God as His servants come across our minds during, or provide the motivation for, our daily activities?

Puritan Thomas Manton explains this excellently in his sermons on 1 John 3, which you can find here:

1 John 3:22 – “And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.”

Secondly, The next notion whereby the good conscience is expressed is this, ‘And do those things which are pleasing in his sight.’ This implieth many things.

1. That it be our design and scope to approve ourselves to God: 2 Cor. V. 9, ‘Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him.’ This is the end that we propound to ourselves, what is your mind principally set upon? The end which you design and endeavour, the pleasing and glorifying of God, and the everlasting fruition of him, or the pleasing of your fleshly minds in the fruition of any inferior things? That is your end [goal] which you love most, which pleases you best, and would do most for, and can least want [lack, not have]. The people of God are described to be those that ‘choose the things which please him, and take hold of his covenant,’ Isa. Ivi. 4. They do not live at random without an aim, nor do good by chance, but by choice. He that is false at first setting out can never hold out with God.

2. This is not only their choice, but the tenor and course of their lives. Enoch, that walked with God, is said to have this testimony, that he pleased God, Heb. xi. 5, with Gen. v. 24. The Septuagint read it, they are sincere and uniform in their obedience to him. Every day you must reckon with yourselves. Have you complied with your great end? What have I done, or what have I been doing? have I pleased or displeased God?

3. It is not in a few things, but in all: Col. i. 10, ‘Walk worthy of the Lord to all pleasing;’ not in with one duty and out with another, for that is to please ourselves, not to please God; or to please men, not to obey our rule.

4. We must every day be more exact in our walking and care to please God, and that no offence or breach may arise between him and us: 1 Thes. iv. 1, ‘As you have received of us how to walk and to please God, so you would abound therein more and more.’ You never please God so much but you may please him better, and he expecteth more from you the more you are acquainted with him. One that is newly put to service is raw at first, but afterwards he groweth more handy and fit for his work; so you must first outgrow your weaknesses if you think to please God, and grow more exact in the spiritual life.

5. If there be anything more pleasing to God than another, your main care must be about those things; as, for instance, it is mighty pleasing to God that you should seek grace rather than greatness, and direction in your duty rather than worldly honour: 1 Kings iii. 10, the speech ‘pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing.’ Surely it is more pleasing to God that we should pray from the spirit than from the flesh, not seeking great things for ourselves, but that we may have grace to discharge our duties to God.

So that in our duty we should mind the substantials of religion rather than rituals: Rom. xiv. 17, 18, ‘For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost; for he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God and approved of men.’

That in the substantials of religion we should not leave out the duties of the second table, as faithfulness in our relations. The scripture instanceth in the duties of parents and children; of children’s duty to parents: Col. iii. 20, ‘For this is well-pleasing unto God.’ Duties of liberality and mercy to all men : Heb. xiii. 16, ‘For to do good and to communicate forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.’ Not only careful of justice, but also of mercy.

Now it is a shame that, when christians hear these things are so pleasing to God, they should not set about them. Esau took his bow to seek savoury meat for his father when he desired it.

May we consider these things daily in all of our actions and activities, and may the Lord grant us the desire and ability to serve Him with all our heart, soul, body, mind and strength!

— David

Book Review: The Doable Off-Grid Homestead

July 3, 2018 / David & Susan Sifford / 2 Comments

A family in our fellowship, the Stongers, has a new book coming out today, called The Doable Off-Grid Homestead.

We hear at times from people who really would like to get away from the rat-race and live in the country, homestead, raise animals, grow food, etc., but they lament just how daunting that whole idea is, especially if they are a little older. And that is sure understandable.

But it is doable! And the Stongers take you on their journey as they have worked on building a homestead, creatively, with reduced means, and in the unfriendly (sometimes hostile!) land and weather environments of central Texas.

Homesteading with few resources does take creativity, and God blessed the Stongers with that as He has guided them in the development of a homestead, with goats, a milk cow, chickens, gardens, orchard trees, solar power, catch-water systems, etc.

And now, their adventures, progressions, successes and missteps are documented in their new book. In it, they provide information about all sorts of off-grid homesteading topics, like rain harvesting, solar, land/soil, etc., and then provide practical and inexpensive ways to accomplish all of these various things, based on their own experiences, including materials lists and costs.

For example, they initially put up a fence around their main homestead environment made out of palettes, I think at least most of them being free, until such time they could put up something more permanent.

They are also planning on adding how-to video examples of these various homesteading subjects at their YouTube channel Doable Offgrid.

And even if you aren’t interested in homesteading, but, say, gardening, there is a wealth of information that could be beneficial to you too.

So, I would encourage everyone to consider getting a copy of The Doable Off-Grid Homestead and adding it to your collection!

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: 2018’s 2nd, 3rd & 4th Round of Chicks

June 28, 2018 / David & Susan Sifford / 0 Comments

We are very thankful for the continued perpetuation of the chickens God has graciously granted us, with 3 more hatchings this 2018!

This is group 2 — 11 of them she hatched out! I thought it was 10 originally, but when I moved them into the summer kitchen later, to give them more room, there was a bonus one! 😀

And here they are at night all tucked in with their mommy (I have this in the video as well below):

2nd Hatching of Chicks 2018 Tucked in for the Night

And here is group 3 — 6 for this hen!

Two sad notes though…

These groups are about the same age, and now about 1/3 the size of the normal chickens. I had somewhat recently moved both groups out into our pen area under some oak trees, and one morning as I lifted the lid on the coup, there were 2 dead ones, 1 with its head and neck slicked down. Arg…that usually means a snake tried to swallow it but couldn’t get it down so quit. I figure the other one just got trampled in the the commotion. So, we’re down 2 from these 2 groups.

And then just last night, I found what I’m pretty sure is one of the blonde mommies from one of these groups basically dead (body completely limp but just hadn’t finished dying, which it did not long after) in the main chicken tractor. Sigh. But, we are thankful to the Lord for any eggs and the hatched chicks He granted from her.

Finally, this is group 4. This one has a sad story too. She originally hatched out 9, but one died within 24 hours. Then one morning I walked in, and one was laying there dead, and one was missing. Arg…snake! Sure enough, I found it in the corner of the room with a lump in its midsection. So, I dispatched it to the compost pile. But the next morning, I walked in, and now 2 were dead, with one having its head and neck slicked down…sigh. I think they were getting in from the corner of the room as the outside siding of the summer kitchen is not complete. So, I put a cinder block inside against the corner, and that has seemed to stop the “bleeding”.

Still, we are thankful for the little 4-pack of chicks God has graciously allowed us to continue to have!

And here is a video of all 3 groups:

Again, we are grateful to the Lord for the provisions of these new chicks! We always pray for the right attitude toward them, that they are not ours but His, to dispense with as He pleases, just as I believe we ourselves are. May we trust His perfect will and give thanks in all things!

— David

The Orchard – Spring 2018

June 20, 2018 / David & Susan Sifford / 2 Comments

With the previous two Winters being somewhat mild weather-wise, there wasn’t much activity with our fruit trees. However, this past Winter had quite a few more cold days, and I’m thinking that really made a difference, because by God’s graces we’ve had a very nice fruit bounty this Spring!

Here’s a current picture of the orchard, for which we are very thankful to the Lord:

So far, God has granted plums and the first apricots produced from a couple of our apricot trees. We’ve been extra diligent this year in getting to the fruit before the birds do as we’ve had trouble with that in the past. Thanks to Sue for going out there 3 times a day! Here they are ripening:

Here’s Mimi keeping guard over them….sort of. She’s really just keeping cool on a hot day! 🙂

2018 Plums Ripening on Woodburning Stove

And here are more plums with apricots ripening:

The easiest way for us to preserve the fruit is to dry them on our solar food dehydrator. It works very well, and we are thankful for it! In the past, we have ended up leaving the plums on too long, maybe to make sure they were dry, but they end up very stiff; and so, this year with them, we’ve made slices in the sides, to help hopefully dry them out thoroughly without going too far. It’s closer to what we do with fruit out of which we can remove the pit, like peaches:

And here is basically all of the dried fruit so far. We are very thankful to God for granting these provisions!

Finally, and sadly, earlier in the year, a storm knocked over one of our bigger trees:

You can see the size of it:

The inside of the trunk was almost like paper. I assume some sort of disease got to it. But, not much around here goes to waste typically, so it has become firewood for Winter time. We are thankful to the Lord for all of the fruit He has granted from this tree over time!

The peaches and nectarine trees have many fruit on them, and so we pray God keeps them and allows us to harvest them in due time. Interestingly, one of our newer trees has had probably 100 peaches on it, but I believe in keeping Lev 19:23-25, which says:

23 And when ye shall come into the land, and shall have planted all manner of trees for food, then ye shall count the fruit thereof as uncircumcised: three years shall it be as uncircumcised unto you: it shall not be eaten of.

24 But in the fourth year all the fruit thereof shall be holy to praise the Lord withal.

25 And in the fifth year shall ye eat of the fruit thereof, that it may yield unto you the increase thereof: I am the Lord your God.

And, besides this being in the Bible, Puritan commentator John Gill, on the end of vs 23, says:

which was a provision partly for the benefit of fruit trees newly planted, whose fruit, when they first bear, gardeners frequently take off immediately, and do not suffer them to grow to any perfection, by which means a tree will grow stronger, and will bear more and better fruit another year; and partly for the health of man, which physical reason is given by Aben Ezra, who observes that the fruit that comes unto the third year there is no profit by it, but is hurtful; and chiefly because, as it is proper that the first fruits should be given to the Lord before any is eaten, so it is right that it should be given seasonably, and when it is brought to its perfection: three years were to be reckoned, as Jarchi and Ben Gersom say, from the time the tree was planted.

And Matthew Henry says:

3. We are hereby taught not to be over-hasty in catching at any comfort, but to be willing with patience to wait the time for the enjoyment of it, and particularly to acknowledge ourselves unworthy of the increase of the earth, our right to the fruits of which was forfeited by our first parents eating forbidden fruit, and we are restored to it only by the word of God and prayer, 1 Tim. 4:5

Now, since the priesthood is no more, some might argue the whole command has gone away, but for me, I look at it as the 4th year going away, and we still wait for after 3 years to harvest from a tree, discarding any fruit during those 3 years. Needless to say, it has been a little difficult to toss down so many, but we pray God glorifies Himself through these things.

Again, we are very thankful to the Lord for granting these provisions! May we bear much fruit, the fruit of His Spirit, by the graces He supplies to us!

— David

The Sifford Sojournal

Page 27 of 93

Marriage Marker – 15 Years

The Gift of My Love

Garden – Spring & Summer 2018

A House – Update LI – Lower Siding, Update II

David’s Digest: Living to Please God

Book Review: The Doable Off-Grid Homestead

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: 2018’s 2nd, 3rd & 4th Round of Chicks

The Orchard – Spring 2018

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