Skidaway Island State Park, Savannah, Georgia
And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of His return is drawing near. ~ Hebrews 10:25
We are still recuperating.
Blaine worked on our water filtration system this morning, while I walked and blogged. We listened to Pastor Mike teach on Revelation Chapter 8 because no one in church would want to listen to us coughing the entire time. We really miss corporate worship. The last time we were in a sanctuary was December 23rd. I don’t know how people manage to skip it on a regular basis. It always replenishes us.
I’m still not feeling up to doing much thinking or moving, which means I’m still not capable of even contemplating a teachable moment. Instead, let’s look at another excerpt from my God Moments Journal.
It seems like after that, I had many encounters with my children where the Holy Spirit spoke for me as I dealt with them. So this seems like a good place to just list as many as I can remember.
I feel it’s important to mention here that when Chris and Kyle were born, Blaine and I gave each of them back to God. We privately promised to do our best as the parents God chose for them, but ultimately, our children belonged to Him and it was His responsibility to guide and protect them for His service.
Chris always liked to talk about spiritual things at bedtime. One night when he was probably about 5 or 6, he asked, “If I die tonight, will I go to heaven?” WOW! What a tough question from a small child! I was glad to have the Holy Spirit intervene! I told him if Jesus had ever asked to come in to his heart and he said yes, then he would go to heaven. If Jesus had never asked, he would go to heaven. If Jesus asked and he said no, then he wouldn’t. Had he been asked? Chris said no. Chris became a Christian when he was about 7 or 8 at Springfield Baptist Church when he prayed, along with several other boys, with Cherie Dukes. He was baptized shortly thereafter.
When he was young, Chris was always very spiritual. During church, he would sit quietly and listen and draw pictures of the people who came to the pulpit. (all the other boys drew violent pictures of one sort or another) Once, Pastor Hixson was asked by the elders to shorten his prayer time and Chris missed it. So we went to the pastor so Chris could ask him why he quit praying. I don’t know what transpired after that, but within a week or two, Ted was back to praying again! He taught us all how to pray by example.
The first time we left Chris home alone for a few minutes, we came home to find him sitting on the sofa reading his Bible. He said he was a little scared so he decided to read his Bible and it helped.
Another time, we were in Chimney Rock, NC and he was afraid to go up to the viewing spot. He prayed for courage and he wasn’t afraid anymore.
At one time, when he was about 9 or 10 years old, Chris made the statement that he’d like to be a pastor or a counselor so he could help people with their problems. I don’t know if that was an actual calling that Chris ignored or not, but as of this writing (April 2008), he’s an electrician like his father.
(Well, it’s 2019 and he’s still an electrician like his father. 😊)
Kyle was a handful from conception! Complete opposite of his brother – physically, spiritually, & emotionally. Kyle was all about fun and couldn’t be serious for more than a minute. I’ve always said that Kyle “lives for the moment and pays consequences later” and “God made him cute to keep us from killing him!” He’s finally growing thru most of that, now that he’s 21, but it was definitely not easy raising him. He’s only motivated one week a year – when he goes on his mission trip with Springfield Baptist. I couldn’t have made it thru raising him without the guidance and wisdom of the Holy Spirit.
Besides the obvious, “Get me thru this day, Lord!”, the first time I remember gaining specific wisdom regarding Kyle was when, at the age of 5 as he was waiting on the bus at the neighbor’s, he decided that it would be fun to go out into the street and make the cars stop for him! I knew Kyle. And I knew that talking to him or trying to punish him wouldn’t work. So I said nothing to Kyle, but I asked the church to pray for wisdom for me (everyone thought I was nuts, except his two Sunday School teachers!) Two days later, God answered in a way only Kyle would understand. He used a bicycle accident. That night, when Kyle went to bed, he was complaining that his stomach still hurt where he had fallen onto the end of the handlebar. That’s when the Holy Spirit spoke thru me and said, “I’m sorry. But just think. If a bicycle handlebar hurt this much, imagine how it would feel if a car hit you.” That was it. He never did it again.
Being a “fun” kid, Kyle never wanted to work on anything (still doesn’t – except his annual mission trip). But at the age of 8, he verbalized what he had always known, “You can’t make me!” I was livid! I sat down and said a prayer – well, actually it was more of a statement, “If you don’t tell me what to do, I’m gonna kill him!” I guess God knew I meant it and He wasn‘t ready for Kyle in Heaven yet, because immediately it came to me – “Use food”. So from that moment on, every job Kyle was given had a deadline of a mealtime. It worked. Until he hit 7th grade.
That year was the worst – – at least so far – – in my entire life! And to tell the truth, I think I was more miserable than he was! He had decided that he wasn’t going to do his schoolwork, and even when he did it, sometimes he would throw it away instead of turning it in! For the entire school year, we fought, prayed and grounded him more and more and more. There literally was nothing left to do. Until God, yet again provided an unusual solution. I’ll not mention it out of respect for Kyle because he asked me not to tell anyone at the time, but let’s just say it worked, OK?
As far as his salvation goes, once again God worked with Kyle in an unconventional way. The Holy Spirit used Kyle’s propensity for one-word, one-syllable conversation. He was around 10. It took place following a performance we attended at the Springfield Assembly of God church. The performance was called “Heaven’s Gates and Hell’s Fury”. Great performance! Anyway, month’s later, according to Kyle, at the time, it went something like this – “You need Jesus”, “No I don’t”, “Yes you do”, “I don’t want to”, “Yes. You should”, “OK”. That was it. And so uniquely Kyle, I can’t help but believe it.
As he got older, I’m grateful for the answered prayer for a hedge of protection around Kyle. He never got into the serious trouble we were anticipating. As he was growing up, Kyle was always commenting on how his friends’ parents gave them so many things and we didn’t do that. He always seemed to want to fit in and be popular. Most of his friends, at least for awhile were from very liberal families and we were constantly vigilant that he not be sucked into that lifestyle.
Kyle is still very liberal thinking. He doesn’t necessarily believe in black and white, but often goes into the gray areas, or down-right wrong thinking. Like the time he was asked to provide a couple of 2 liters of pop for a family function and rather than buying them, he took them from work!
Today, I’m thrilled to report that both our sons are attempting (just like the rest of us believers) to live a life of faith and injecting that into the lives of their children. God is good!
After lunch, we rode our bikes around “town”.
There we are!
This afternoon, there’s barely anyone in the campground!
This is the Methodist Church
Riding by one of the new construction projects that we believe will eventually be another “golf community”.
This is the Episcopal church.
I didn’t take a picture, but the sign said the rector’s last name was Priest. Ha!!
Around here, you have to be on the lookout for golf carts, rather than cars. They ride around to the stores and churches, and have special parking areas just for them. It’s pretty funny.
There are at least three ‘golf communities’ and extra wide sidewalks for the carts to drive on, instead of the streets. These communities are exclusive. If you don’t live there, you don’t get in. Not even on a bike. Not even walking. So we had to turn around several times. 😊
See!
You thought I was kidding, didn’t you?
You thought I was kidding about this too, didn’t you?
We also learned a couple of things while we were out and about today.
Everything except the Bar and Grill and the Publix grocery store is closed on Sundays. That’s not a bad thing, just unusual. I can only imagine the amount of golf carts around if it was a week day!
And most amazing? We learned that there are actually lizards that look for all the world like snakes! How do we know this? The Nature Center was open today, so we stopped to take a peek at the Giant Sloth again. Remember him from last year?
Anyway, there was this taxidermied owl that was labeled as having captured a Glass Lizard. Well, it sure looked like a snake to us! So we went back to another room that had a poster showing all the lizards in Georgia, and lo and behold, there were several lizards that certainly looked like snakes to us. This guy came by (volunteer?) and we asked him about it, but he didn’t know anything. However, he knew about a resource book, which he promptly got out and looked up. Sure enough, they are considered lizards because they have eyelids and ears – of which snakes have neither. So next time you’re out and about and run across a “snake”, look real close at it’s head to see if it has eyelids and tiny little holes on the side of it’s head.
I dare you.
Ok. So here’s a picture of a glass lizard.
Lizard. Not snake.
I’m not seeing ears or eyelids here.
Whadayathink?
Blaine took this picture of the snakes in Georgia.
In retrospect, we should’ve gotten the lizard one too. : )
This tiny turtle was in this huge outdoor enclosure.
We thought maybe it was moved outside for some fresh air, because one of the aquarium tanks was empty.
What in the world is that?!?!?!
It was on our RV windshield!
Seems harmless, but it’s about 3″ long!
Pizza Hut for dinner. Good, but my taste buds still aren’t up to snuff so I didn’t enjoy it as much as I normally would have. ☹ But it’s good to be on the mend!