Newton Hills State Park, Canton, South Dakota
We’re backing up just a bit in the timeline from what we learned yesterday. When Laban had gone to shear his sheep, Rachel stole her father’s household gods. Moreover, Jacob deceived Laban the Aramean by not telling him he was running away. So he fled with all he had, and crossing the River, he headed for the hill country of Gilead. ~ Genesis 31:19-21 What do we do with the fact that Rachel stole her father’s gods? First, it’s obvious that Laban’s an idolater – something God hates. In fact, although we don’t bow down to worship wood or gold or silver images, the definition of an idol is anything we put before God. Any thing. Or Any one. What are the idols in your life? For me personally, I struggle at times with making this blog my idol. When I skip my time with God because “I’m too busy and have too much blogging to do”, that’s making the blog my idol, and it’s sin. So what do we do with Rachel? Either she did it to spite her father, knowing how important they were to him, or she took them because she believed they would help and protect her family. Either way, she sinned. She’s either a spiteful person and a thief, or she’s an idolater. In addition, some scholars say we learn that Jacob is still a deceiver. That it was a sin for Jacob to leave without telling Laban, or Scripture wouldn’t say that he “deceived Laban by not telling him”. However, Matthew Henry (a well-respected commentator from the 1600s) says otherwise. “It is certain that it was lawful for Jacob to leave his service suddenly, without giving a quarter’s warning. It was not only justified by the particular instructions God gave him, but warranted by the fundamental law of self-preservation, which directs us, when we are in danger, to shift for our own safety, as far as we can do it without wronging our consciences.” In this case, as with most times, I side with Matthew Henry.
Today would’ve been a good day for Blaine to adhere to the Weather Channel mantra – ‘When thunder roars, stay indoors’. And for once, he did not. We had abundant sunshine this morning, with a few pretty little white clouds, and then, all of a sudden, it began raining – – right over our tiny slice of campground! Talk about being under a black cloud! That was us! It was really weird.
We continued preparing for a 4 ½ mile hike within this State Park, and as we set out, we heard thunder. But we kept going. Nothing ever became of it. It wasn’t long before I was wishing he’d called it off and took us home. But he didn’t, and I kept going.
I was hiking for the Thomas’s English Muffin with real butter and Peter Pan creamy peanut butter I had for breakfast. I was hiking for the Aldi chicken salad I was anticipating for lunch. I was hiking for the homemade Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee pizza loaded with goodies, and Coke (not diet) I was making for dinner. Those miles are very important if you intend to eat like that. My intentions were very good. I would even say, under the circumstances, my intentions were great. Very great. 😊
So what was the problem?
The problem was, the temperature was in the mid-eighties. The humidity was too. And most of the trail was very muddy. Not only did we have to drag our heavy boots along, they were made twice as heavy by the mud clinging to them. The mud even found its way inside, because as we walked, some of the mud balls flipped up off the bottoms of our boots, hit our calves and dropped down into the tops. Joy. By the time we were done, our clothes – all our clothes – had been transformed into wet swimsuits, and I’m confident that these particular pairs of socks will never, ever be the same. They will forever sport a sepia ring around the ankle. Hey! Maybe we’ll create a new fashion statement!
We found this one worth sharing.
but it does show how dirty I got, despite trying my best to keep my nice-looking boots clean.
It sure is pretty!
No WiFi, no functioning app. : (
And the mud left, is after scraping on the edges of trees and wiping in the damp grass.
Reasons to feel like praising the Lord were few this morning. Shame on me!! Let’s see what I can come up with . . . there were trees – lots of trees, which shaded us from the sun. There were a few fluffy clouds to help with the sun during the few moments there weren’t any trees. Sweating so much keeps you from needing to wander into the woods to remove ingested water from your body in other ways. We saw horses, with people astride, and wished we were them. Then there’s the aforementioned food stuffs. And . . . let’s see . . . Oh! Blaine was suffering right alongside me. You know the adage – misery loves company. 😊
When we returned home, the first thing I did was spray lots of Shout on our socks. Not that I believe it’ll do any good, but I guess it’s better than doing nothing. And then I took a shower. Even before lunch. Yes. I was that gross.
I ate my chicken salad (which was super yummy!), played around on the computer some, made and ate the pizza for dinner, adoring every minute and morsel!
And then the sirens started going off.
Weather sirens. As I’ve mentioned before, we’re not privy to much WiFi in this place, so there wasn’t a lot of information to be had, but Blaine got enough that we could see major storms grazing us to the north and south. Storms that held hurricane force winds, tennis ball-sized hail, and lots and lots of lightening and thunder. For no less than five hours, we heard a constant rumble of thunder. And I do mean constant. It kinda sounded like the longest train ever, running on the tracks. And the lightening, once it got to us, was crazy! Like being under a strobe light for hours! We also had some periods of heavy rain, but all in all, we got off really easy. Thank You for Your protection, Father!
Shows a little bit of how bright it was, but trust me, it was much, much brighter!
And poor Blaine. He was watching a Daytona race with five laps to go, and the local station cut in with a weather announcement! He got to see the last lap, but that’s it. I was in the back listening to Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson go at in the courtroom – “You can’t handle the truth!”. Yeah, that part. But I could still hear Blaine yelling at the TV over Jack and Tom and the rolling thunder and pounding rain. I thought someone was playing dirty on the racetrack, but no. Turned out, he was yelling at the weatherman.
It was time for bed.