I've talked with some hurting people this past week. This song is a good one for the Sabbath, especially if you're going through hard times. I pray you'll take his special day to meditate on the Scripture in the graphic above and on the words of this song:
The song I have for you today is so worship-full. The artist is Keith Green and he wrote the song. I hope you enjoy it. Remember -- Adonai inhabits our praises, so lift your hands and worship Him. If you're burdened today, you will feel that heavy load lift from your shoulders.
As you listen, tell Him how much you love Him. Thank Him for the abundant blessings He pours out on you every morning. Thank Him that you can see, and hear, and walk, and talk and that you have strength and health. Thank Him for food on the table, a roof over your head, a car to drive . . . I could go on and on.
Enjoy your Sabbath and rest in Him, Gail-Friends.
Shabbat Shalom.
graphic used by permission - Garden of Bright Images on Facebook
Yes, I'm very, very thankful for cheeseburgers. Why? Because a cheeseburger brought Jem and me together. If not for a cheeseburger, we might not be married today. Let me explain . . .
In 1967, I was a sixteen-year-old high school student and he was a twenty-year-old U.S. Navy sailor. His friend and fellow sailor, Okie, wanted Jem to go roller skating with him one weekend. Jem didn't want to go. He said, "I'm going into town and get a cheeseburger, fries and a Coke."
Okie said, "Look, buddy, I really need your help. There's this girl at the skating rink I want to talk to, but her friend is always with her. I need you to keep the friend busy so we can get together."
Jem said, "Ok. I'll do it, but you have to buy me a cheeseburger, fries, and a Coke."
My friend, Glenda, was Okie's love interest, and I was the friend Jem kept busy that night. So, you see, our great love story began with a cheeseburger!
I was thinking about that on Monday, which was our thirteenth wedding anniversary. I got the romantic idea to buy Jem a cheeseburger, fries, and a Coke and take it to him at work. So, I went by Wendy's, bought him a double combo, and attached this card to the bag:
He loved it, being the romantic guy that he is. His co-workers loved it, too, and enjoyed hearing our love story. I've been working on writing that story, and decided I've found the perfect title -- It All Started With a Cheeseburger. God told me TWICE that day (VERY CLEARLY) that the time has come to finish that book. So, Gail-Friends, you'll be hearing about it here.
We started celebrating our anniversary on Friday. I mentioned to Jem, who always gives me fresh flowers, that I'd like a plant instead. He had just given me this beautiful fresh flower bouquet for Mother's Day:
So, I told him about a plant I'd seen at Walmart that was a great deal for just $17.99. Later in the day, he went there and bought it for me.
I was so excited to get it -- until he said I'd made a mistake about the price. It wasn't $17.99. It was $55.00. Being an extremely frugal girl, I almost choked. He assured me that I was worth it . . . and much more. Don't I have the BEST husband in the whole wide world? You'd have to know what my life was like to understand why I'm so thankful for him. That will be explained in the book.
For our anniversary dinner, we went to a Japanese steak house. It was delicious and we enjoyed the hibachi chef's antics and banter We left there happy and stuffed! I took pictures of us looking stuffed, with puffed out cheeks and all, but he made me promise not to let anybody see them. I agree with him. They're funny, but . . . not something you want "out there."
Another thing I'm thankful for this week is hair color. As you can see in the photo above, I have a different color now. Aren't we blessed to be able to do this? I've been grey for a few years and decided I wanted to make a change. My natural hair color (before it began to grey) was a dark brown, but I thought I'd give warm brown a try. Next time, I think I'll go red! I found some great temporary highlighting color at the Dollar Tree and added some bronze streaks. I love it!
I had a ball looking through all of the hair color products at Walmart. There are so many temporary colors to try. I doubt I'll do green or purple . . . but ya never know!
Blessings to you all, Gail-Friends, and I'd love to hear what you're thankful for this week.
I recently had a brief conversation with a liberal about Margaret Sanger. She was an activist for birth control and lauded as the visionary of the present day Planned Parenthood. I mentioned that Sanger was also a proponent of eugenics. My liberal acquaintance poo-pooed that.
An informative article passed my desk this week, and I think it's valuable for anyone who interacts with liberals. The Word of God says, "The truth will set you free." I pray that these quotes will help people understand the mindset of Margaret Sanger and set them free from lauding her as a model for women.
21 Quotes by Margaret Sanger that Will Probably Make You Sick
These quotes by Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood,
reveal the wicked roots of the abortion movement and expose the twisted
mindset behind the present-day Culture of Death. In her own words,
Sanger peddles racism, eugenics, contraception, abortion, while
demonstrating a visceral hatred for children, parenthood, marriage and
the Catholic Church.
If you want to open more eyes to the truth, please share these quotes
far and wide. Only when the abortion agenda is fully rejected in our
culture will America be ready to turn back to God.
These
quotes by Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, reveal the
wicked roots of the abortion movement and expose the twisted mindset
behind the present-day Culture of Death. In her own words, Sanger
peddles racism, eugenics, contraception, abortion, while demonstrating a
visceral hatred for children, parenthood, marriage and the Catholic
Church.
If you want to open more eyes to the truth, please share these quotes
far and wide. Only when the abortion agenda is fully rejected in our
culture will America be ready to turn back to God.
[Sign petition to de-FUND Planned Parenthood Forever] 1. "But for my view, I believe that there should be no more babies." -- Interview with John Parsons, 1947 2. "The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it." -- Woman and the New Race, Chapter 5, "The Wickedness of Creating Large Families." (1920) http://www.bartleby.com/1013/ 3. "We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population..." -- Letter to Dr. Clarence J. Gamble, December 10, 1939, p. 2 https://libex.smith.edu/omeka/...
4. “I accepted an invitation to talk to the women's branch of the Ku
Klux Klan... I was escorted to the platform, was introduced, and began
to speak...In the end, through simple illustrations I believed I had
accomplished my purpose. A dozen invitations to speak to similar groups
were proffered.” -- Margaret Sanger, An Autobiography, published in 1938, p. 366
5. “I think the greatest sin in the world is bringing children into
the world, that have disease from their parents, that have no chance in
the world to be a human being practically... Delinquents, prisoners, all
sorts of things just marked when they’re born. That to me is the
greatest sin—that people can—can commit.” -- Interview with journalist Mike Wallace, 1957
6. “The most serious evil of our times is that of encouraging the
bringing into the world of large families. The most immoral practice of
the day is breeding too many children..." -- Sanger, Margaret. Woman and the New Race (1920). Chapter 5: The Wickedness of Creating Large Families. http://www.bartleby.com/1013/5...
7. “Eugenics without birth control seems to us a house builded [sic]
upon the sands. It is at the mercy of the rising stream of the unfit.” -- Sanger, Margaret. (1919) Birth Control and Racial Betterment. The Birth Control Review.
8. “As an advocate of birth control, I wish to take advantage of the
present opportunity to point out that the unbalance between the birth
rate of the ‘unfit’ and the ‘fit,’ admittedly the greatest present
menace to civilization, can never be rectified by the inauguration of a
cradle competition between these two classes.” -- Sanger, Margaret. (1921) The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda. The Birth Control Review, p. 5. http://birthcontrolreview.net/...
9. “The most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective.” -- Sanger, Margaret. (1921) The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda, Birth Control Review, p. 5 https://www.nyu.edu/projects/s...
10. "No more children should be born when the parents, though healthy
themselves, find that their children are physically or mentally
defective.” -- Sanger, Margaret. (1918) When Should A Woman Avoid Having Children? Birth Control Review, Nov. 1918, 6-7, Margaret Sanger Microfilm, S70:807. https://www.nyu.edu/projects/s...
11. “A marriage license shall in itself give husband and wife only
the right to a common household and not the right to parenthood." -- Margaret Sanger, "America Needs a Code for Babies," Article 3, 27 Mar 1934. https://www.nyu.edu/projects/s...
12. "No woman shall have the legal right to bear a child, and no man
shall have the right to become a father, without a permit for
parenthood." -- Margaret Sanger, "America Needs a Code for Babies," Article 4, March 27, 1934.
13. "Permits for parenthood shall be issued upon application by
city, county, or state authorities to married couples, providing they
are financially able to support the expected child, have the
qualifications needed for proper rearing of the child, have no
transmissible diseases, and, on the woman’s part, no medical indication
that maternity is likely to result in death or permanent injury to
health." -- Margaret Sanger, "America Needs a Code for Babies," Article 5, March 27, 1934.
14. "No permit for parenthood shall be valid for more than one birth..." -- Margaret Sanger, "America Needs a Code for Babies," Article 6, March 27, 1934.
15. "Apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation
to that grade of population whose progeny is tainted, or whose
inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to
offspring." -- Sanger, Margaret. “My Way to Peace,” Jan. 17, 1932. Margaret Sanger Papers, Library of Congress 130:198. https://www.nyu.edu/projects/s...
16. "... these two words [birth control] sum up our whole
philosophy... It means the release and cultivation of the better
elements in our society, and the gradual suppression, elimination and
eventual extinction, of defective stocks -- those human weeds which
threaten the blooming of the finest flowers of American civilization." -- Margaret Sanger, "High Lights in the History of Birth Control," Oct 1923. https://www.nyu.edu/projects/s...
17. "Organized charity itself is the symptom of a malignant social disease..." -- Sanger, Margaret (1922). The Pivot of Civilization.
18. "My own position is that the Catholic doctrine is illogical, not
in accord with science, and definitely against social welfare and race
improvement." -- Margaret Sanger, "The Pope's Position on Birth Control," Jan. 27, 1932. https://www.nyu.edu/projects/s...
19. “All of our problems are the result of overbreeding among the
working class... Knowledge of birth control is essentially moral. Its
general, though prudent, practice must lead to a higher individuality
and ultimately to a cleaner race.” -- Margaret Sanger, "Morality and Birth Control," Feb-Mar 1918. http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sa...
20. “Feeble-mindedness perpetuates itself from the ranks of those
who are blandly indifferent to their racial responsibilities. And it is
largely this type of humanity we are now drawing upon to populate our
world for the generations to come. In this orgy of multiplying and
replenishing the earth, this type is pari passu multiplying and
perpetuating those direst evils in which we must, if civilization is to
survive, extirpate by the very roots.” -- Margaret Sanger, The Pivot of Civilization, 1922 https://www.scribd.com/documen...
21. “Birth control itself, often denounced as a violation of natural
law, is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of
weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or of those
who will become defectives… If we are to make racial progress, this
development of womanhood must precede motherhood in every individual
woman.” -- “Woman and the New Race,” 1920
[Sign petition to de-FUND Planned Parenthood Forever]
Please contact your U.S. legislators (both House and Senate) and tell them to vote NO on this bill. The following article excerpt is important to read and pass on to others.
4 Things Christians Should Know about the Equality Act by Kayla KosloskyChristianHeadlines.com Editor
1. It Endangers the Church
Among the many things the Equality Act endangers, the church is one of them. If the Equality Act passes, Churches will no longer be able to hire someone based on their beliefs. What this means is that a church could not deny hiring someone because they are an Atheist or because they live a life contradictory to the church’s beliefs.
This also means that churches, like all other institutions, will not be allowed to segregate restrooms or locker rooms based on sex, a move that could increase the risk to young girls and women in public or shared restrooms in all venues.
According to Greg Baylor of Alliance Defending Freedom, the Equality Act is also set to repeal the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, a bill that was signed into law by Democratic President Bill Clinton. This means that people will no longer be able to use religious free exercise as a defense for their actions. For example, if a church declines to allow a gay couple from holding their wedding in their church because it goes against your religious beliefs, the church could be subjected to legal action. According to Focus on the Family, if the Equality Act passes, the same will be true for other organizations as well, including, adoption agencies, wedding venues, florists, bakers and photographers.
Shabbat blessings to you all, Gail-Friends. I pray your Shabbat is full of worship, rest, and the joy of rejuvination of being out in God's beautiful creation. How long has it been since you lay in the grass and looked up at the clouds? It's been a long time for me, but this graphic** (above) inspires me to do just that.
There is so much beauty in the earth. Go out and enjoy it. Let's worship Him and thank Him for that beauty and that we're alive to see it.
If you can't be outside tomorrow, you can see His beautiful creations in this video:
I'll try to catch up on what's been happening 'round here lately. I haven't been posting a lot due to still struggling with my injured wrist. It's doing much better now that I've seen an orthopedic doctor and started occupational therapy. The brace he put me in helps tremendously. But typing is impossible with it on, so I've been limiting my typing time.
In March, we celebrated my youngest daughter's birthday. She's got her "love" glasses on. I won't tell you how old she is 'cause she can get away with a whole lot less. Isn't she beautiful?
Early April, we went to the Barberville Spring Frolic. I attended the mountain dulcimer workshop taught by Laurie Allsbrook . I met her at the Florida Folk Festival and she's a great teacher.
While visiting one of the vendor booths, Jem fell in love with this instrument. It's called a bowed psaltery. He doesn't read music, but it's made with numbers and song sheets with tabbed music. He has diligently practiced and is getting really good . He even played for our Passover seder last month.
I love visiting with the peacocks at Barberville. Here's the female:
And here's the male. Isn't he gorgeous?
I helped my friend and writing critique partner, Peggy, with an author event in April, too. It was a smashing success and well attended. She's a very funny and entertaining speaker.
This book event was a tea party, and every person had a unique teacup. This one is the pattern of my grannie's dime-store dishes which I wrote about in the book Christmas Moments.
Betty, the lovely lady in the peach blouse above is one of my writing critique partners, too. Betty, Peggy, Fay and I meet once a month to critique each other's writing. It's such a loving group and so helpful. God sure blessed me when he put us together. I prayed for writing partners who were believers and good editors. Both Peggy and Betty are former English teachers, and Fay is an editor. Isn't God good???
We took a couple of bird rides over the last few months and here are some good shots:
The big bird is a great blue heron, and the other is a roseate spoonbill.
This is a young rosey because its pink feathers are not fully developed.
In this photo you can see why they're called spoonbills. They run their bills along the bottom of the lagoon and scoop up their food. I love seeing and photographing them.
I got some good shots in Golden Cottage Garden, too. I love this one of a daddy feeding his baby.
We feed the adopted cats outside my office window, and discovered that the birds love cat food, too.
Like blue jays . . .
and woodpeckers.
My friend, Barbara, told me about a new squirrel-proof bird feeder. Well, this guy figured it out pretty quick. He hangs upside down and sticks his hand in for the seed.
Those fluffy-tailed rats are wiley. Look at this guy caught in the act. Doesn't he look guilty?
Here are a couple of things that amused me.
I agree, especially when my loving Jem makes it for me in the morning. I'm so thankful for him . . . his love . . . AND coffee. Oh, and CHOCOLATE . . . I'm SO, SO, SO thankful for chocolate. Next week I'll share my recipe for sugar-free chocolate candy. It's yummy and healthy, too.
Well, that catches me up, and I leave you with a pic of a golden sunset at Golden Cottage Garden.
This graphic expresses my heart. I just have to praise Him for all He's brought me through and hope I can encourage others that He will use every hard experience for good. Sometimes it takes a long time to see that good and the purpose. I promise -- one day you'll see it if you stay faithful to Him. He will see you through.
I love this song - Enter His Gates by Steve McConnell. It's so perfect for the Sabbath. We have our service on Friday nights, and many are tired from a long day. My prayer is always that the songs I choose will encourage, lift up, and renew strength for those who attend. This one always does that for me, and I hope it will bless you today.
Greetings, Gail-Friends! It's been a while since I did this weekly post, but I'm still thankful. I'll try to catch up on what's been happening at Golden Cottage.
Passover has come and gone and we had a wonder-full and fun celebration.
I always enjoy watching the children when they search for the afikomen and go to the door to look for Elijah!
Our grandson was hilarious as he bargained with Rabbi Jem to redeem the afikomen. He wound up with $5.00.
We had a special guest duo for music this year. Rabbi Jem and our daughter, Amanda, played Amazing Grace together toward the end of the seder, and the congregation sang along. You can watch it at this LINK
Amanda also led us in singing Pharoah, Pharoah. We always have a good time singing about the children of Israel escaping from the pharaoh. Here's the LINK for that song.
Our son-in-love, William, took some beautiful photos. I love this one of the Torah. He's so talented.
This is the seder plate for the head table, which has the lamb shank bone, the bitter herbs, and the charoset. You can learn more about the significance of each item at this LINK.
This is the seder plate for each member of the congregation.
After the seder, we sang and danced in JOY for our Passover Lamb, Yeshua our Messiah. Then we took photos with this great frame made by one of our members. I'm so thankful for her and many others worked who worked very hard to make this event a big success. It's a lot of work, Gail-Friends, but so worth it.
Tashunda
Tie and Dye - who always wear tie-dyed shirts!
Such a lovely family!
This post is getting long, so I'll tell you more about Golden Cottage happenings next week. Blessings to you, Gail-Friends, and I'd love to hear about your seder or any good news you've had this week.
To learn more about Passover, see our past celebrations, and get some good recipes for next year, click on the Passover link on the right side of this blog.
Shabbat Shalom and blessings to you all, dear Gail-Friends. I hope your Passover celebration was worship-full and full of blessings. Ours was. The only bad part was that my phone camera decided to die that day, so I got no photos. Others did, however, so I'll be sharing those next week.
We were blessed to have my daughter, Amanda, sing for us. She did a medley of songs about the blood of Yeshua. This song was on my mind, so I asked her to include it. I remember this song from the 1970's, and I hope you enjoy Clean Before My Lord by Honeytree. She was a popular Christian artist during the 70's Jesus Movement, and is still recording. I enjoyed listening to other videos by her on YouTube this week.
