Guadalupe River State Park, Spring Branch, Texas
Before the years of famine came, two sons were born to Joseph…Manasseh…“It is because God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father’s household.” The second son he named Ephraim…“It is because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering.” ~ Genesis 41:50-52 My Bible notes say that Manasseh sounds like the Hebrew word for ‘forget’, and Ephraim sounds like the Hebrew for ‘twice fruitful’. You know, I’ve read Joseph’s story many times over the years, but usually in selected bits and pieces. When I read these verses, I couldn’t help but feel sad at first. Sad that he believes God has made him forget all his father’s household – meaning his father and brothers for certain, but maybe others too. Here’s the way The Message Bible translates it: …the firstborn Manasseh (Forget), saying, “God made me forget all my hardships and my parental home.” He named his second son Ephraim (Double Prosperity) saying, “God has prospered me in the land of my sorrow.” It still sounded sad. However, after meditating on it, I believe Joseph looks at this forgetfulness as a blessing, and that despite being taken from his homeland and family, and being falsely accused and imprisoned, he has prospered because God has walked with him all these years. I think God used all those years of running Potiphar’s affairs, and then the prison’s, to help prepare him to run a country. Do you choose to look at life’s hardships as a blessing? Or do you blame God for them?
We haven’t gotten there in the story yet,
but I liked the picture.
And by the time we do get there, probably none of us will remember that I already used it. : )
Monday was a rain & rest day, so I have absolutely nothing to report. Except to say that the area we’re headed to tomorrow was hit by severe weather, including tornados today.
We knew we might be in for some bad weather today when on TV this morning Reynolds Wolf from the weather channel was only 25 miles away.
Fortunately, all the bad weather missed us and we only had some wind and rain.
Tuesday, we packed up a bit early and headed 252 miles towards the Dallas area, via Austin (which happens to also be the State Capitol). It was not an easy drive today. Lots of traffic, coupled with high winds. I swear, Texas must be the windiest state in the union. At least east Texas. In the first quarter of the year. . . . Oh! And we can’t forget about the massive amounts of road construction going on in this part of the country.
I didn’t take many pictures of our trip today because I was busy talking on the phone and composing Easter poetry for my grandchildren.
Highview Campground COE, Ennis, Texas
When we checked in, the guy at the booth told us we’d never fit into the site Blaine had chosen because it sat at a steep angle from the road to the water, so he gave us another site. We drove by the new one, but didn’t care much for it, so Blaine decided to see if we could manipulate things to fit in the original site.
He backed in with no problem; which I didn’t like because we’d be facing away from all that beauty! and we sorta-kinda did our set up thing. It didn’t work. The angle was just too much. ☹
But we so disliked the idea of passing up this lovely site, Blaine put on his problem-solving hat and decided we should try pulling straight in (Yippeeee!!!). Something about it being different because of the wheel base. Anyway, I don’t really have to understand it to know that it worked! And now we have views of this gorgeous Bardwell Lake on two sides of us! Spectacular!
I was planning on showing you in the post what we had to give up when we moved to a new site.
But then we didn’t move, just turned around!