I'm back from visiting my mom! It has been too long since we've been able to visit with each other! I hope I don't have to go that long again! I am planning on going again next Sunday and Monday just because there are lots of things I can do for her since I've been away so long! That means this Bible study won't be updated until Tuesday again.

Good news! Casey's science project was good enough to go on to district competition! He's still giving it a little more effort in order to make it better. Perhaps it will do well enough to make it to district competition! We'll see!

More good news! I was asked by the praise team at our new church if I'd be interested in joining them! The interesting thing about it is that they don't know how I sound when I sing. They didn't know that I'd been in a praise team before. I believe the only reason they asked is because they liked the way I praise the Lord! God is soooooooo good! He knew I desired to be in the praise group! Thank you, Lord!

God cares about everything that you care about. He is your loving Father. He wants you to be happy. He wants you to succeed. He even cares about something so small as what your favorite color is! He cares about you and wants you to find out more about Him. He is waiting patiently for you to turn your eyes toward Him so He can immerse you in His tremendous love!

See you next week?

Link to the 3/2/99 Bible study.

Sunday, in church, the Lord reminded me that He loves me even when I am deliberately messing up! What a wonderful, wonderful feeling to know that I have a Father (Abba--Daddy) that loves me with a love so HUGE that there are no words to describe it! Oh, by the way, He loves you that much, too! Really! Right this very minute He is loving you just as much as He did yesterday, last week, two years ago, and the day you were born, and even the day you were born again! Doesn't that feel wonderful?

I'm just sitting here at my little computer desk thinking about how awesome God is! I just want to weep thinking about how much He loves me! I also want to weep for all the opportunities I have missed to get closer to Him.

So many times I've totally ignored Him. So many times I've felt the urge to talk with Him or read my Bible and I've continued on in whatever other activity I was in. I feel so stupid! Why don't I spend more time with the One who created me, the One who created the entire universe for me?

I could blame satan and I wouldn't be wrong. After all, satan has placed most television shows on the air to keep people from communing with God. Satan continues to throw problems my way that take my mind away from God. Satan tries to convince me that other things are more important and won't keep me away from God very long. He helps me to get my priorities in the wrong order. He helps me to see the faults in people. So, it is satan 's fault and I shouldn't feel guilty.

No, no escape there! Who has the choice to watch TV? Who has the choice to pray first, then take care of problems, laundry, the garden, feeding the animals, etc? Who has the choice to verbalize the faults people have? Ummmmm, that would be me! Satan is tossing me the tasty tidbits, but I am the one picking them up and eating them!

I am going to go put this online and spend some time with the One who loves me! Everything else can wait! Well, there is one thing that can't wait. I have to go potty first! ;-)

Thanks for coming to visit me! A big thank you to those of you that have written to me or signed my guestbook! You bless me! I love to hear when someone enjoys what they read here. Remember, I also want to know if there is anything else that you feel I could add here. Have a wonderful week! Love, Kay

Link to the 3/9/99 Bible study.

Yesterday I was sitting outside by our waterfall and reading my Bible. My husband made a stand on which we placed four halves of whiskey barrels. (Boy, was that a lot of whisky, hic!) He put a pump in them and I put water, rocks, plants, and fish in the barrels. I planted some plants on the ground around them and covered the rest of the dirt with redwood bark chips. (Oh, I was just kidding about drinking the whisky--but they WERE actual whisky barrels. I could smell the whisky in the wood!)

Anyway, I was noticing how bad the redwood chips looked. There was dog hair, pine needles, and leaves caught in them. My husband removed our last scroungy pine tree Saturday that was contributing to the mess. Since we are on a tight budget I decided to recycle. I scraped as many chips as I could into a pile and began to throw them back one by one.

I could find no easier way to separate the chips from the undesirable things. As I was sitting there tossing chips I thought about how our lives end up messed up just like those chips. When we participate in things that are spiritually bad for us then our minds retain a residue of those activities. Just like the pine needles grab hold of the chips and settle in with them, so do the things we think about settle in with all the other things in our minds.

An example would be if we continuously fellowship with non-believers. Many non-believers discuss luck, wishes, and/or horoscopes. They discuss worldly opinions about the creation, about how things happen, and about God. They do not understand the things you know about God and probably will not listen. It is often easiest to join in on their conversation on their level. Then our minds begin to believe in and retain things that they shouldn't. We find ourselves wishing people "good luck," even though there is no such thing. We might find ourselves using language that is not pleasing to the Lord. We will probably find ourselves occupying our mind with worldly things and excluding God.

Television is another example of how undesirable things enter our minds. That stuff sticks in there just like the junk stuck in with my redwood chips. It isn't easy to separate it and get rid of it once it is there. The easiest thing to do is to be more selective on what we allow our eyes to see and our ears to hear. We can decide not to go with the crowd and speak up on what we believe when we are in a group of non-believers. Who knows? Maybe some of what we say will stick in their minds! Then when they compare that with the other things in their minds they will discover they've been throwing out the good and retaining the garbage!

That's just something to ponder.

I have to confess that I wasn't thinking about the relationship between redwood chips and brains the entire time I was working outside. I was also enjoying God and spending time in good memories.

The birds were singing and playing and feeding at the bird feeders.

The frogs were singing to each other. Try as I could, I couldn't see them even though I was only a few feet away from them. When I would move to get a closer look they would stop.

The bamboo wind chime my husband and I bought on our last romantic getaway was reminding me of our nice weekend together.

The only really bad thing was the splinters I was getting.

I think I'm going to go out and finish the job this morning before I finish this. It is supposed to rain pretty hard today and I have left a mess outside. I'm going to take a cushion to sit on this morning, however. ;-)

There, it's done and just in time! I was washing the dirt off the patio when it began to sprinkle! Thank you, Lord, for watching over me!

Link to the 3/15/99 Bible study.

My brain has been in a bit of a turmoil lately. I have quite a few things that have been bombarding it. These things are not settling down into manageable thoughts. I have some projects that are nearing completion, but there are pieces of information missing that keep me from finishing them. As a result I've been dreaming about them because I haven't been able to finalize them in my mind.

Satan is trying to use these things to distract me from the most important thing of all, my relationship with the Lord. Satanknows I like to be organized and have some control over my situation. He has been stealing pieces from my puzzles so they can't be finished. (I speak of puzzles figuratively--I'm not spending all day putting together actual puzzles! I might be crazy and I might be silly, but I'm definitely not a puzzle-nut!)

HA! Satan! Beelzebub! You lose! I have the Holy Spirit it me and He is greater than you! Ha ha ha! I am not going to allow you to steal my joy! God is in control and He will help me finish these things.

Want to hear something funny? If not, then plug your ears! Beelzebub means LORD OF THE FLIES! I thought that was great! We know about flies around here. We are not too far away from bunches of dairies. The closer you get to the dairies, the thicker the flies. There are a few humid summer days flies come through the door every time the door opens. I imagine it is like that every day even closer to the dairies. Flies are dirty, flies poop on the windows and on anything else they land on, and they are annoying! What an honor to be Lord of the Flies! NOT!!

Oh, God is GOOD! He made this entire universe just for us to live in! He made the birds for our pleasure! He made the flowers for our pleasure! He cares about every single thing that is on our minds. He loves to see us smile! Praise His holy name!!

A couple times in the past month I've had a song pop into my head. It actually was only the thought of the song because I couldn't remember the words or the tune. I just remembered how much I enjoyed listening to it. I had remembered reading the words and singing along with the music. I knew it was on one of my Christian tapes or CD's, but couldn't find the one it was on.

The last time I went looking for it I gave up thinking maybe the song had been on a CD that belonged to someone else. I turned on my radio and looked for a Christian station. I don't listen to the radio at home much. We live in a depression that prevents good reception. Plus, I am usually jumping up and down and moving around the house and never am able to listen to any talk shows on Christian stations as I miss too much. Also, every time the power goes out (which it does fairly often) I lose all my pre-set stations and have to reset the radio. I quit resetting it as it took too long.

Anyway, I found a station and a song was ending. As I walked away from the radio I heard the new song starting and recognized it (static and all) as the song that had been on my mind!! I had never heard it on the radio before, and it had been announced as an older song that they didn't play any more. Rather than announce the name of the group at the end of the song (which I would not have recognized) they announced the name of the album (which I did recognize as being one of mine!) God played that song for me!! What a wonderful Daddy I have!!

He does care about the little things! He does know what we want! He does want us to be happy! He is WONDERFUL!!

Link to the 3/22/99 Bible study.

Oh my! Has another week flown by already? I guess I've been very busy! They say time flies when you are having fun, but it also flies when you are just plain busy. (Question: Is the "they" in "they say" always the same "they?" I mean, like the "they" who say it's going to rain next weekend, or the "they" that say the stock market is going up, or the "they" that say you can eat all the eggs you want? Hmmm???)

Actually, I've been working on a lot of the things I've been pushing aside for a long time. I've been pulling out my "procrastination piles" and tackling them one by one. It's a nasty job, but someone has to do it! It sure feels good when I can look at the finished product, though! Let's see, by the end of this week I should have most of them done. I know I won't have all of them done! I've got a few major ones that will just have to wait until I have large chunks of time.

I am truly blessed! I have a God that loves me even when I don't do the things I should. I have a wonderful family. I have a sense of humor (which helps me to say I have a wonderful family) (JUST KIDDING!). I have some good friends. God has sent me some new friends over the Internet. I have you coming to visit me. God has given me a new understanding of who He is and who I am in Him. I could go on and on.... God is soooooooooooooooo GOOD!

Link to the 3/29/99 Bible study.