Cedar Pass Campground, Interior, South Dakota
When Rachel saw that she was not bearing Jacob any children, she became jealous of her sister. So she said to Jacob, “Give me children, or I’ll die!” Jacob because angry with her and said, “Am I in the place of God, who has kept you from having children?” Then she said “Here is Bilhah, my maidservant. Sleep with her so that she can bear children for me and that through her, I too can build a family.” . . . and she bore him . . .Dan. . . and she bore a second son . . . Naphtali . . . and Leah gave her maidservant, Zilpah . . . and she bore . . Gad . . . and she bore a second son . . . Asher. ~ Genesis 30:1-13 Oh the depths of sin we get ourselves involved in because of pride and jealousy! And what about Jacob’s part in all this? I have lots of questions, don’t you? Do you think this was God’s plan? After all, these baby boys would go on to become the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Did there need to be twelve? If Jacob would’ve stuck with God’s plan for marriage (one man/one woman), would it have stopped with Judah? But then, what would’ve happened to the world without Joseph? I think, as with us, God can take something ugly and sinful and make something beautiful of it. And I know that He knew since before the beginning of time what would transpire in this family. And our lives. And our families’ lives. And for generations to come. And yet, He forgives. And He uses even the least of us. And He loves. Always Love.
Not much to share today, except that it rained this morning. A nice steady rain, for a few hours. I’m pretty sure we could hear the parched earth breathing a sigh of relief. And even after the skies dried up, the heavy clouds did not, giving everything a chance to really soak up the moisture.
That guy over there was practicing his roping skills by lassoing the posts. : )
The other notable thing about this morning? The temperature. It’s quite a bit cooler today – only 62⁰ at 9:00am! I think we’ve gotten used to it being 90⁰ +, because we turned the heat on, and kept turning the thermostat up – all the way to 76⁰! And we’re still wearing sweats and socks! Crazy!
About 2pm, the skies cleared up, the sun came out and dried up all the rain, and we’d decided we’d had enough of looking at the gorgeous scenery from the confines of our coach; so we walked up to the Visitor Center. There’s some hills people have climbed on beside it, and an unnamed trail across the street, so we checked those out.
Sort of like if you stepped on someone’s wet clay project.
We still haven’t made it yet.
It starts at 9pm, and that’s our wind-down time – especially after a long day of hiking.
Did you find us?
Did you notice the clouds moved back in?
In the course of an hour, we had no clouds, a few clouds, lots of clouds, and back to few clouds again.
Crazy!
Makes them all the more beautiful and special when you do!
We had a grand time exploring!
And later this evening, we received a picture of baby Matthew with his daddy, and our oldest son, Chris. Soooo sweet!!!!
