Sermon Notes/Sun. Devotional

We went to Lynnwood OPC this morning. Pastor Swinburson has been teaching a series of sermons on 1 Kings. Today's sermon was about Elijah, our script was I Kings 17:1-24.
Elijah shows Ahab that he is a man of God. He conveys the Lord's message to Ahab, 'As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, except by my word' (AKJV translation, I Kings 17:1) God is reminding Israel that only by God's Word can they survive.
 Ahab and Jezebel were trying to kill off all the prophets, and Obadiah had hidden some who were faithful to God in the mountains. God told Elijah to go to the brook Cherith before Jordan- 'Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan' (AKJV I Kings 17:3)- God is going to preserve Elijah, he is going to protect him. Now, as we learned at the beginning, there is a famine in the land, and the prophets are being killed off, and Elijah is to go to a desolate area, so he must be wondering "How am I going to survive? What will I eat?" God wants to test Elijah's faith. So God tells Elijah that the brook shall give him water and the ravens carry him bread and meat- 'That thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there' (AKJV I Kings 17:4)- the ravens would feed him, the brook give him water, even in the midst of the famine, God is going to provide for him, of course he is, God always provides for his people.
But after a while the brook dried up. Elijah must have been thirsty then, he must have fallen on his knees and prayed to God to save him. And God did. He told Elijah to go to Zarephath, which is in Sidon- Jezebel's native land- and that a widow would feed him. And God's word went to that wicked land and he commanded the widow to feed him. 'Behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.' This was a test of faith for the woman, she had limited resources with the famine everywhere, would she trust God to provide and share what little she had with Elijah?
When Elijah reached the gates of the city the woman was gathering sticks. And Elijah asked the woman to get him a glass of water -this is part of the test- and as she turned to go he asked for food, too. The woman got a little upset then, and said, "I only have a bowl of flour and a jug of oil, I am going into my house with these sticks to make us some bread so that we can die." Elijah said in reply "Make one for me first and bring it to me, then make one for yourself, and one for your son. For the bowl of flour and the jug of oil will not run out." And the woman did so. And the flour did not run out during all the time Elijah was there.
But tragedy fell, the woman's son died of a disease. "Did you bring me up just to crash me down?!" she cried out to Elijah, "Give me your son," Elijah replied, and he carried the dead boy to an upper room. And Elijah cried out to the Lord to bring the widow's son back to life. He stretched himself over the boy three times and said, "Lord, please bring this boy's soul back to him." Then the Lord heard Elijah and he brought the child back to life. Elijah took the boy, alive and well, to his mother, "Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth." (AKJV I Kings 17:24)
In God's word there is life. Some people believe that there is not enough proof that to say Jesus is Messiah. If you reject God's word there is death and idolatry, but if you believe, there is life to the full.
I ask myself, where did the boy's soul go when he was dead and before he was brought back to life? For when you die the soul leaves your body. And what about Lazarus, who was dead a full 4 days before Jesus raised him? These, I think I will never know the answers to, on earth.  
Trixie

Things I Like To Do All Day

I know this post is like my hobbies one, but to be honest, my hobbies change plenty. 
Right now I'm really enjoying drawing. I don't normally draw a lot but I found a good way to draw head shapes. That was the real thing that stumped me on drawing (besides the noses, of course, I mean, who doesn't have that nose problem?). I just draw the hair first, then the face, then the bottom of the head. I found this a really easy way to get an ok head shape. 
I also love to read, but right now I'm having trouble finding a really drawing-in sort of book, that seems to be happening more and more lately, I wonder if I'm reading all the really good books all at once and then the other not-so-good ones seem even less good.
 I like cooking and that's good because I make dinner nowadays, and get lots of time to do something that I really like.
 And, of course, just plain doodling is getting very appealing right now. So is blogging!! :-)

Trixie  

Books, Blogs And Movies I Like

I decided to make a list of movies, blogs and books that I like, some of the movies are PG, fyi.

• Books

1. Cranford, by Elizabeth Gaskell
2. Howl's Moving Castle, by Dianne Wynne Jones
3. House of Many Ways, by Dianne Wynne Jones
4. The Black Stallion, by Walter Farley 
5. The Green Ember, by S.D. Smith
6. Blackstar of Kingston, by S.D. Smith
7. The Biggest Story, by Kevin DeYoung
8. The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
9. All-Of-A-Kind Family, by Sydney Taylor
10. The High King, by Lloyd Alexander

• Blogs

1. http://theedaguy.blogspot.com
2. http://thecakerguy.blogspot.com
3. http://thebookerguy.blogspot.com
4. http://thegigglinggull.blogspot.com

• Movies

1. Star Wars (only episodes 3-5)
2. Cranford (the BBC and Masterpiece collection one)
3. The Hunt For Red October
4. Pride and Prejudice
5. The Black Stallion

I hope you try some of these!

:-) Trixie

Movie Making

I have recently started to make short movies, just getting my siblings to act out little stories and film them with my camera. We would start by making up a story, then makeuping the actors, then the filming begins! 
We would take markers and drawing eyebrows, eyeliner, eyeshadow, lipstick, blush, etc. (we need special permission to makeup now that Mommy has seen the results!) and it is extremely fun to see the little movie being made, sometimes even to film it, and to be able to doodle on your siblings to your heart's content (my siblings love it, especially my sister Libby, a princessy girl).
 Libby is always the star, the heroine, and the princess, Carly either the dashing hero or the dashing bad guy, Gus being the king, policeman, fireman, or in some other way a good guy and a big man. 
The movies are exiting to make, fun to prepare, and fun to act in, fyi. Riki is a looker-on or a makeuper. I am mostly producer, designer, makeuper, director, stage prop designer, etc.

Trixie

Picture Post

I finally learned how to put on pictures! So I decided to make this post one with pics.

                                                    This is me. I'm 11.

Miles eating my brush. He's 1

August making a funny face. He is 4.

My sister Marika of the giggling gull. 12

August and I.

Carly, 9.

Libby, 6.

Miles in his PJs.

Mommy and Miles at a ball game.

Marika, Carly and I took Mommy out to eat for her b-day.

My parents.

Miles and Libby.

First time in a shopping cart!

Army man August.

He's so cute!!!!!!

I wish I could have got a picture of my sister Abigail who's 14, but she hates having pictures taken of her. So this was just me celebrating learning how to put pictures on my blog. These are all recent pictures, except for the one of Miles in the shopping cart. Most of my pictures are of Miles and August (no surprise there!!) :-) I'm including a link to The Giggling Gull. http://thegigglinggull.blogspot.com

Happy Birthday, Mommy!

Mommy's birthday is coming up Thursday next week. My mother has patiently raised me, even though a can be quite the pain ;-). She gives me so many things I don't deserve, I feel like a princess.
Dear Mommy,
You are the very best mommy ever! Happy Birthday!
Trixie

Failed Stories

Have you ever started a story and given up on it because it sounds stupid?? That happens to me all the time. All my stories seem to start with a happy family of two or sometimes, but not often, more than two teenage girls and their parents (the girls all have jewel names such as Opal, Diamond, and Ruby) who are all happy, happy until some tragedy strikes. I don't know why, but, after the first 5 paragraph chapter my story just seems so lame and stupid. If you have this problem too, I feel for you. I love to write and make up stories but I just can't get it right and it turns so sour on me. To tell you the truth, one of my stories was about a civil-war-time girl who is sucked into a Venusians (as in Venus alien) flying saucer and is set down on Venus to be a slave. Just how dumb are my stories liable to get??? I wrote, and I quote 'I saw purple, (are those men?) in the ship.'  It is a first-person-narrative and this is the 'heroine' first sighting the Venusians on their ship.
Trixie

It's Autumn!

So I wrote a little poem on a sudden whim, and I thought to share it.

It's Autumn!

Watch as the leaves,

Fall from the trees,

Turning brown,

They drift to the ground,

The birds are leaving,

The bears are sleeping.

That was just something small I made up. I thought you might want to edit it for me. And by the by, Autumn is my favorite season of the year (though that might just be 'cause my b-day is in Autumn).
I like the name 'Autumn' better than 'Fall', it just sounds more poetic.
;-) Trixie

Circus!!!!

Hi! Sorry; I know its been a while; we've been starting school. For my birthday, which was Wed. last week, Daddy took me to the circus. It was so fun! It was the Wringly Bros. Barnum and Bailey. Instead of being in a tent, it was in a big hockey stadium.
They had two elephants, horses, dogs, acrobats, and all sorts of interesting things. I really liked the part when they had two men on stilts who were throwing some women across to each other, and the part about Electron the women on a trapeze/swing.
It was the best birthday outing EVER!!!!!
Trixie