Pet Cemetery "DEAD BUNNY"

It all started late yesterday afternoon as Madison was feeding her puppy. I was in the house watching some TV show and Madison busts through the door and yells "guess what I just caught!" I figured it was the lizard that lives by the A/C unit that Grant is dying to catch so I asked and she said she had caught a baby rabbit.

Well, actually our 2 dogs had caught the rabbit and had already done the damage but it was still alive. She was on her way to feed the puppy when she saw that Molly and Skip had something and it was squelling, so she went to see. She kicked the dogs off and rescued the bunny from the torture of 2 dogs ripping it apart. So she scoops it up and brings it to show us.

By this time she could tell that it was hurt, she wasn't too upset because she has lost 2 bunnies that I caught for her last year after they died. She had been whining about wanting a bunny and I was able to catch one in the yard last year. We were told by several that it would never live but we were going to try. A couple days later I caught another one, most likely the sibling to this one and had hopes that together they might live. Madison cared for them with everything she had, each day she would sit and hold them, feed them and actually took them out in the yard to play after a week or so. Well.....they didn't last long, about 4 weeks tops when the first one died and a few days later the second one died. Madison and Grant were heart broken.

So this time they were at least prepared with the knowledge that the bunny would not live, especially knowing that it was hurt. Well it lived for approx 1/2 hour or so, just long enough for them to comfort it, as it was dying Madison worked to keep it alive but alas it died anyway. Nothing really new to them, we have lost several pets over the years and in the wake have created a small pet cemetery.

So off to bury the bunny, I went and got a shovel and Madison and Grant picked out a spot under a large walnut tree in the back yard. We had a short grave side service, a bit of silence, as the kids covered the bunny back up and Kelli sang a hymn. The ground was a bit hard and I could not get it very deep, I just hope I don't come home this afternoon and find it dug up and fur all over the yard.

In a way I am glad that my kids have been able to experience death of something that they have cared for at a young age. I never experienced it until later in life, first was my Grandfather, I didn't know him that well, he and my Grandmother had separated before I was born and he lived in Memphis. I only saw him once a year so I really was never close to him. My first real experience with grief was when my dog Brandy died. My dad got her for me when I was 1, she was my best friend before anyone else. She was there for me when I needed someone; she saved my life when I was very small, my dad was burning some stuff and I wandered a little close to the fire, she knocked me down and held me down until my dad came to get me; she comforted me, she had a nice big dog house that I ran away from home to a few times and stayed in with her. She died when I was 16, and I cried like a baby for weeks over her, she was my first real loss. I did not understand death at that time and I had always just thought that she would always be there. I have only lost 3 other family members, my cousin Rebecca, my Grandmother and my other Grandfather.

Over the 9 years that Madison has been around we have buried at least 1 dog every 2 years.
1st Jack, a Jack Russell Terrier "he was like a son"
2nd Glitter, a Westie "she was like my daughter"
3rd Skipper, a Shipperke
4th one of Molly's pups
Additionally there have been 2 bunnies and now a third, and another Jack Russell "Brownie" that just wandered away.
So she has had her fair share of loosing animals, each time a dog died we would take it together to the back of my lot and bury it in the fence row, say a few words over it and have a prayer together. I believe this has helped her at least to understand that things don't live forever. She is able to deal with it, even though she still gets a bit upset, she gets over it quickly and moves on with life. Grant on the other hand is very soft about it, he balled over this dead rabbit, he only saw it less than a half hour and all he could get out between the tears and anguish was "I sure miss that rabbit".

I hope that bringing them up in Church and them knowing God will help them as well to cope with deaths in the future. My wife's grandparents are getting old and I don't think they have many more years left, I am thankful that they have had as many with them as they have and are as close to them as they are. It is hard to explain how close knit the family is, the entire family is only about 3 miles from each other and typically see each other on a daily basis so we are very close. I dread the day that they pass on, it will be hard not only for them, but for me as well since they are as close or even closer to me than my own family. I know God and I am thankful to know that most others I love so dearly know him as well. Just another reason to bring those around us to know Him.

Message from God

My mother in law sent this to me in e-mail, I have seen these signs on the side of the road before, some of them are a bit crude but some are really good.

I know that I often need to be reminded of God myself.

To be a Child

Being a parent has its challenges, they will try you and your patience in ways it has never been tried; they will push you to your limit; they are walking, talking tape recorders that will repeat every word you say and are usually very selective in the parts they share and tend to leave out the remainder of the context as they blurt it out to the last person you want to hear what you said.

But at the same time they are such a blessing, the cute things they say (too many to list), the innocence in them, the amazement they have with the most simple things in life, the way the can bring you to their level to just enjoy life if only for a moment to be a kid with them again.

Sometimes I wish I had a video recorder taping everything they do, to just see what all I miss out on in their lives. I often feel that I am missing out on what is important to them because I am busy doing daddy things, that have no importance at all to them.

I also feel that I don’t always hear what they are saying because I am the kind of person who remains silent most of the time and really don’t chit chat or care for gossip and such, and I am one who just wants to get to the point without all the “non essential details”. My wife and kids love to talk and my girl will talk your head off. Just last night my daughter rode home with my wife from Church and when they got home Kelli said she had started talking from the moment she got in the truck to the moment they got home. I am sure that every word she spoke was important to her and just wanted to let it out.

I thing when Christ said what he said in Matthew 18 he meant it.
3And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

What is it to become like a child? Is it to act childish? I think not. I believe that it is just what I wrote about and the simple traits that a child has;
*The innocence of a child
*The ability to believe in something that you have never seen nor touched (ex. Santa, Easter Bunny)
*The honesty of a child
*The ability to talk to the Father and let him know what you need and are thinking
*The way a child is dependant on the parents
*The way a child looks to the parents for guidance
*The trust a child has in a parent to protect them from anything (especially the things live under the bed e.g. boogeyman)
*The way a child typically listens to a parent as the authority

God has the video recorder and is there with us every minute of every day, He listens to our every word, He will protect us, and He will provide for us what we need. Also just like children I am sure we test God with the stupid things we do.

I hope as a Christian I can do just this, while I try to grow the fruit of the spirit “self control” and do my best to not try God. I hope that I can be more like God in the way I treat my children.

I look forward to our vacation and being able to have the time to be a kid with them again and give them my full and undivided attention. I can't wait to build sandcastles on the beach with them, bury them in the sand, and just have a BIG TIME!

But I am sure I will be tested during the long drive there with 6 or us in the same vehicle, the constant "are we there yet" "how much longer" "I got to go again" "I'm hungry" "I'm thirsty" "She's touching me" "He's touching me" "She's looking at me" "He mad a face at me" "I'm hot" "I'm cold". GOD HELP ME!!!!!! and thank you God for technology and portable DVD players!






I found this in my e-mail archive and just had to share it. So true!

Spooky!

I had never heard of these things before and saw these on some peoples blog profiles so I got curious to see what it was all about. I am not much on Horoscopes but find it funny that most fit me to a "T" especially this Asian one. Looks like I was born in the Year of the DOG. Now when I read this it makes allot of sense and explains my personality. Now I understand why I do the things I do. So I guess this helps explain the dirt pile a little better "when they take up a cause they are determined to see it through to the end".

So I started comparing and combining this with my Birth Sign "Taurus" and it is really creepy how well it hits me on the head. I am usually very skeptical of these things and tend to give this junk little thought. Maybe there is something to it? I don't know.

But let me tell you what happened to me this weekend and you can see for yourself if you believe in magic, voodoo, esp., fortune telling, psychics and all the rest of the garb:

Me and my wife went out to eat the other night at Chaffins in Nashville, we had a great night out and on the way home I stopped at a quick mart for a bottle of water for the drive home. I only had 1 dollar in my wallet and new this because I had emptied it out of receipts from my trip to Texas last week. I asked her for a dollar and went inside to get my water. Well I got it and took it to the counter to pay for it. The clerk rang it up and said "that will be $1.61. I handed her the 2 dollars I had and she handed one back as said "Don't you have $.61?” I said I didn't think so I checked my pockets anyway and then checked my wallet. When I looked in my wallet there I found $.51. I told this to the clerk and looked at me strangely and she said "I know you have $.61 in your wallet but if that is all you have I will make up the rest". So out of curiosity I checked again and guess what I found? A DIME! I did have exactly $.61 in my wallet, I even checked again to see if there was more but NO MORE!


By the way, she sort of talked and looked like Miss Cleo, the psychic on TV.







My wife was sitting in the car and could see me at the checkout and saw all what went on so she asked me what I was doing when I came out. I told her the story and I'm not even sure she believed it.......but it was SPOOKY! I don't know how she knew that or if it was just coincidence.

All this to make a point, maybe there is more out there than we know or can even understand.

The Dirt on My Loving Wife

There is never enough time to get everything done. Since I have been back I have done nothing but work on moving this huge dirt pile of my neighbors and filling in a huge hole in my yard. To give you an idea of how big the pile was....it would have taken 10 dumptruck to move it all!!!! I never thought it would take as long as it has but I finally got it moved this morning after working on it for 3 hours Saturday, 3 hours Sunday, 7 hours Monday and 3 hours this morning for a grand total of 16 hours!!!!

Now to put this into perspective I was in Texas pretty much all last week and did not get home Friday night until almost midnight. Our wedding anniversary was Sunday so we went to Chaffins for dinner Saturday night, Church for 4 hours Sunday, work Monday ect. So I have been busy.

Now in the meantime my wife has really been suffering from all this. She had the kids all last week by herself, enough said. She is also a house clean freak (I love this about her) so she has worked herself to death trying to keep up the house and take care of the kids and do all the daddy things while I was away. She also went to the trouble to mow the yard and bless her heart the lawnmower blew up on her.

So...I am sure she was expecting me to come home and give her a break, a break that she deserves soo much. But alas I did other things the past few days and neglected to give her this break and the time we needed together and give her some deserved peace and quiet away from the kids. So looks like the rest of my week is planned....planning on pampering my loving wife!!!

Now back to the dirt. So this dirt pile needed to be moved this week and I had a limited window to get it done in. My father in law needed the tractor back by today to mow hay and my neighbor needed the dirt moved so he could work on his yard while he is off during the week of the 4th. We are going on vacation next week so I only had this week to get it done. Not being one that likes to procrastinate I started as soon as I could and pretty much worked solid on it until it was done. While I was doing it I never realized the effect it was having on my wife and kids, all I could think about was getting that stupid pile of dirt moved.

Stopping and looking back I should have told my neighbor to move the dirt himself and spent that time with my family. I am soo bad about doing this, call it a flaw, call it whatever it may be but I often over commit to doing things for others when I should commit that time to my wife and children.

I often feel like I let her and the kids down, I am not the best at managing my time and often make poor choices of how I spend it and I feel that I don't always give her all the support she needs to keep things the way she likes them. My kids got upset because I was not with them, my son even asked me this morning if I came home last night and my girl stood and watched me work this morning with a bad look on her face and just kept asking "when are you going to be done?". Something more to work on I guess.

I wish I could call for a redo, because there are so many times that I wish I had made different choices or done things differently. Thank God my wife still loves me after all I put her through and after all the dumb things I have done. I just hope she continues to bare with me.

She is truly a good woman and I thank God that she is mine!!!!

The Fruit of the Spirit

Thought this was a fitting picture for this entry.

The other night we were discussing the fruit of the Spirit. Specifically we were discussing gentleness and had some really good discussions.


But neither Jesus nor God was always gentle, take a look back at the Old Testament and how God often treated those that were disobedient, well I can't say that he was always gentle in his actions. Look at Jonah, the Israelites, the Egyptians, Sodom and Gomorrah

Also when Jesus threw the money changers out of the temple, he was not very gentle.
Matthew 12:12 Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves.

Are we to always turn the other cheek as Jesus taught?
Matthew 5:39v But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

Or should we be as taught in the Old Testament?
Deuteronomy 19:21 Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

I believe the fruit of Gentleness is simply being soft in our approach to others, being gentle as we show them the love of Christ, having compassion and mercy for those around us. I do not believe that this is meant to say that you should just let others run over you or that you should not stand up for the truth, or that a man should not defend himself.

With everything there is balance, which is the most difficult part to obtain. It is easy to be one extreme or the other but to obtain balance is the key and that is what I believe Christ taught; never to instigate but do not retreat either, never to condemn but that does not mean you condone.

This spurred me to think about why the example of a fruit was used. For anyone that has ever grown a fruit tree they will most likely understand. Fruit trees require allot of work and allot of pruning. If you just let a fruit tree grow wild they will usually kill themselves because the weight of the un-pruned fruit will tear out the branches. Just like the fruit tree we alone, without God, are self destructive. The pruning is the balance we need to be healthy Christians and we must allow God to prune us as He so often does through everyday life events and by His word.

Now….another reason I used the banana and the monkey in the pic above is because my Mom just gave me a couple of banana trees. She called me up and asked if I wanted a couple and before I even looked up any info on them and to see what type of care they needed I said “sure, bring them on”. Well….come to find out….they are not the easiest things to grow and need allot of water and some really specific soil conditions in order to produce fruit. So I guess I will just get to see how green my thumb is….up until now it hasn’t been very good….usually turns everything else brown! It will be just like the picture above; a MONKEY growing a banana tree!

I guess this one ties me back to faithfulness and commitment that I talked about last week. I am committed to make these banana trees grow but I have little faith that I can really do it!


So..........

God help me and the banana tree!

May God also help each of us to prune each other and our children with gentleness!

Why Women live longer than Men

Some people got seriously short changed when God handed out brains.

Santa is Watching

I was just looking at my site meter and saw the following address hit:

thenorthpole.co.za

So just giving a big WAAZZUUUPP to Santa and the Elves!!!!!!!!!!

BTW, I have been a good boy this years.....so;

I want a red rider bb gun, with a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time









and my 2 front TEEF!

Why God Rested

The other night on our way home from Church we got into a discussion on why God rested, it started very innocent with a simple 3rd grade bible question: "On what day did God finish working?" Quickly my wife and daughter jumped and said on the 6th, and just to be stubborn I said the 7th because I knew that he was still working on the 6th day so technically he was not finished on that day.

Genesis 2
By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested [a] from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

Anyway this led into a discussion at the end of verse 2: "He rested". Now why did God need to rest? First off rest can also be translated as ceased or stopped. I think there is good reason for God needing a rest and this one verse really enlightened me to allot of things as well.

Let me explain..... Notice this....what did God do on the 6th day? He created man and woman.....but notice.....what was the last thing that God created? WOMAN.

So let me lay out the scenario and see what you think.

Scenario 1.....The reason he rested was because of a WOMAN. I am sure the woman arose with a great fury, knowing that she wasn't included in planning the creation so she most likely found fault with everything God had created...."Those are just too big" hence the extinction of the dinosaurs; "Those flowers are the wrong color" hence the wide range of colors of flower because she could never make up her mind and the Honey Do list was begun. The list quickly grew to the point that God just threw up his hands and said forget this! I am done and stomped off (leaving poor Adam to deal with the woman) and created the Sabbath day and proclaimed it to be HOLY and that no work was to be done on this day.
So God had to create a day that he could rest from woman, to just get some peace and quiet and enjoy what he had created. So when your man tunes into the football game on Sunday afternoon or just goes off to himself to be alone or goes fishing or whatever else he does; he is not being mean or ignoring you…..he is just trying to be more God like and HOLY.

Scenario 2….The other reason could have been because he realized what he had done when he gave MAN free will. He probably saw what was about to happen and knew that he would have years of work ahead of him…..so He rested up knowing full well that MAN would drive Him crazy because we just can’t seem to follow the directions and can never just do it like the Book says; and we are just too stubborn to ask for directions when we are lost! “Oh….I know where I am, I’m not stopping to ask……I don’t need that map…..I know were I am going”

OK ladies…..you can stop throwing shoes at me now….Just a little humor here!
We men love you and do all the crazy things we do just because of you.

Funny how we tend to mess up the most simple plans that God has laid out for us to follow…

Matthew 22
36"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'[b] 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'[c] 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

Faithfulness

Well.....on to better things. John's class was great last night, I really enjoy John's classes and his teaching methods.

The topic was on faithfulness......a hard word for most of us to fully understand. To me faithfulness is commitment. Commitment is so misused today, commitment has a cost, allot of people commit themselves to things in which they do not have an understanding of what that commitment will cost.

It is easy to commit to something when all is well, commitment doesn't kick in until the bad comes along, or until that commitment is tested.Over my lifetime I have committed myself to allot of things, we often commit ourselves to doing things and when the time comes to get it done something that interests us more or is more pressing at that time may over rule that previous commitment. I am sure everyone has broken a commitment at some point.

The point is this, with true commitment there is cost, the cost may be financial, the cost may be emotional, the cost my be physical, the cost my even be your life. We make commitments to friends, family, our spouse, our kids, our work, to God. These commitments should be held sacred and we should do everything we can to ensure we hold up our end of the bargain, to keep the trust that others have placed on us to be there for them in good times and even more when storms arise.

So before you commit to something, just make sure you understand the cost of that commitment and when and if you do commit; have the endurance and will power to see it through.

I have often prayed to God for that endurance and he has helped me to stay focused on the future and has helped me through those times that my commitment was tested. God has made the commitment to us, and he will always be there for us. Just as the prodigal son we often disregard our commitments at let people down, especially those we love most, but the Father is always there waiting for the return of the beloved son. He is trustworthy and as Christians we should reflect these qualities of God.

Picture Removed

So for anyone who is coming here from Amy's Blog to see the picture.....well I took it down (Just for Amy) but here it is for all to see for a while. This was where the globe is now.





















It is a cool party trick though and would be a good way to get you kids to quit picking their nose!

"KIDS.....SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU PICK YOUR NOSE TOO MUCH"

Reminds me of what my doctor used to say to me about picking my ears as a kid;
"THE ONLY THING YOU CAN STICK IN YOUR EAR IS YOUR ELBOW"
Try it sometime....I never could get it to fit in mine, maybe I just have large elbows.