P.S. on 'D' is FOR...

Yes, I really should have noted on yesterday's blog that the drawings and designs are copyrighted.

 The last two need a word of explanation.  The one of the door is taken from Claude's blog.  It is based on the photo she took of  The Prison Door at the Chateau du Loire, France.  Claude's blog is an inspiration containing many wonderful recipes, photos of flowers, birds and needlework.  Although it is written in French, Google will translate for you (though, at times, not very well, I'm sorry to say.) But it's well worth visiting.
 The picture of the fishing boat is based on a postcard from Yorkshire which I adapted somewhat, but the feeding frenzy and the boat are copied from the card.  I do not intend to sell it because the original picture belongs to someone else.  I posted it here to show how my art work has developed.

And here is a leftover  'D':


I was standing outside the church waiting for my husband to pick me up, when a little Oriental lady passed by.  She was pushing a stroller all zipped up to protect the baby from the cool wind -- or so I thought.  I smiled at her and she had only gone a few steps when  a loud yapping broke out.  Across the street there was another lady taking her dog for a walk but he was very obediently and quietly walking by her side.  I looked all around and saw that the Oriental lady had stopped pushing the stroller and was unzipping the cover and this is what I saw!

She then told the story. of how her husband had accidentally run over their dog in the driveway.  Now ten thousand dollars later, at a wonderful animal hospital, the little dog was put back together.  She lifted him out so I could see him and he looked quite normal but he could only walk a few steps. So they'd had this custom  stroller made just for him and she can still take him out for walks.  I'm so glad I had my camera with me!


WEDNESDAY'S WORD ON THURSDAY

"See I have set before you today life and death , blessing and cursing; 

THEREFORE CHOOSE LIFE."

Deuteronomy 30:19 and verses 11 - 20

 I have met many people who think about becoming a Christian, but they have so many questions about God and the Bible that they get lost in the details.  They want every question answered and then they say they will be come a Christian.  But that is like looking through the wrong end of the binoculars.  If we study the Bible our whole lives we will never have the answers to everything.  That is not to say that there aren't any answers. There are many answers to many, many questions about God, Jesus Christ and the Bible but whether we accept these answers depends upon our perspective and focus -- just like the binoculars.  But some people never get past the questions.  They are stuck in the entanglements of which authority, which book, which opinion, which scholar...etc.  to believe. God has said it is really so easy, make the right choices and your questions will be resolved.

 I had a rule in my classroom at school ( in the Bible classes).  The students could ask me any question they liked about the Bible and God as long as they did it with respect, and I would answer it to the best of my ability.  If a student asked "Why did God do that?" with disgust and scorn in his voice,  he had to change the attitude of the question.  He could ask "Why did God do that?" out of a genuine desire to know the answer and I would try to answer his question.

It is all a matter of the heart attitude. If we come to Him in scepticism, pride or even anger, no answer is going to be sufficient. The mind is already made up.  But if we come to Him with a genuine desire to know if He is God, then God will answer us.

 I don't have the answers to all the questions about being a Christian.  But I do have a lot of answers for some people who have never bothered to ask the questions. Most questions cannot be answered with nice, neat little packet-answers made up of only a few words.  Many answers will only come as we study God's Word, compare our faith and questions with other Christians and ask God to reveal answers to us. Being a Christian is a life-time task that involves growing in the knowledge of God.  For some people growing in the knowledge of God is just more than they want to do. Yet all of us would probably say that given the choice, we would choose LIFE and BLESSING rather than death and cursing.

If God be God, then only He knows the answer to everything.  That is not a cop-out to say that there are no accessible answers out there.  There are many. It's all a matter of which end of the binoculars we are looking through and  which heart attitude we have.  God wants us to have the right answers more than we want them for ourselves.

"THEREFORE," SAYS GOD, "CHOOSE LIFE!"