The Alligator in the Ditch - A Dose of Encouragement

You know when you are going somewhere different and you really know nothing about the place.

Then suddenly shortly before you travel you see a programme on television, or you read something in a book, or a friend says "did you know..." or you see something on the internet and it's about the place you are going to travel to.

Well that is what happened to me when I knew that I would be flying from Northern Ireland to the US to meet up with my husband after a work conference he was at in Hilton Head.

Way back nearly 30 years ago.

I was to meet Fred in Jacksonville, Florida and we were going to visit a few places in that well-known state.

Now getting to meet Fred was not the straightforward task it should have been but that might be written about another time.

Even our first night in Florida was not at all what we expected so that might be in another story too.

But for this blog post I'm thinking about the alligator.

So back to what I was saying previously.
Shortly before the trip I saw a programme on the television about alligators in Florida and thought I would watch a little bit of it because we were going to Florida and we were going to go to the Alligator Farm in St. Augustine.

This programme was not about alligators that are kept on farms or even in the swamps, instead this was about the fact that alligators can be found in other strange (for wild animal sightings) places like back gardens and roadside ditches.

Fred had not seen this so when we set off in the hire car the day after we arrived in Jacksonville I started to tell him all about it and I said we needed to watch out for these large drainage ditches at the side of the road and we might see an alligator.

Well one of the first places we visited was that Alligator Farm in St. Augustine and that was nearly too close to alligators for me and I really did not like the thought of being near one when I did not have a large, strong fence between us.

Well a live one that is because I do love the sculpted alligators in the Musical Animal Fountain in Tervuren.

Having spent almost a week in Florida I was still always keeping an eye on these ditches as we drove along but never really expected to see anything.  Then as we were driving towards the Kennedy Space Centre we saw a car stopped at the side of the road and two people out standing with a camera pointed towards a ditch.


Well we slowed down to see and

YES!  An alligator was in the ditch!

We pulled over for a minute had a quick look and then drove off again wondering why that couple were standing there with a camera.

The simple answer is - they wanted to take a picture of the alligator at the side of the road but obviously they had never seen the programme I had seen because if they had they would have known how fast an alligator can move and if that alligator darted towards them suddenly they may not make it back to the car in time.

Now I was thinking that even if I had not seen that programme I still would have had enough respect for the animal (insert - enough fear!) not to get so close and certainly not to stand focusing to get a good picture.

 Well except if it was a baby alligator being held by a keeper at the farm.

But I certainly would have no intention of putting myself in the position where I might have been chased or attacked by an alligator because I could not have wrestled one and overcome it.

As Christians we should know to treat sin in the same way as we should treat an alligator:

stay away from it.

Let's treat sin like we would treat an alligator!

Even if we have not been specifically told exactly how quickly sin can grab a hold of us and conquer us, regardless of how long or strongly we may try to wrestle with it; we should by instinct know that it is wrong to stop and have a look at the sin or spend a little time trying to capture what that sin is really like.  

We should curb our curiosity.

Sin is our enemy, sin is something that Jesus has died to release us from and we must not be tempted to even have a look toward it because we don't want to be back in the grasp we have been freed from.

It is our choice.

Is there an Alligator lurking in the Ditch?

We can remember and be encouraged that even though we cannot overcome sin by ourselves; 

we can do so with God's help.

We need to hold unto the fact that Jesus set us free from that grip sin had of us and He wants to help us stay free.

Jesus says He will be with us forever and while He is with us He is going to help us against sin.

Let's allow Christ to help us, to give us His strength to turn away from sin as soon as we recognize it.

So just as we were sensible enough to stay in the car when we were near that alligator we all know that we can stay in the safety of Jesus when we see that sin lurking nearby.

Pondering the Psalms - Psalm 34

Each Sunday I am going to choose a Psalm and write down some brief thoughts on  it.


Today I'm looking at Psalm 34 


Another one of my favourites from when I was a teenager.

This Psalm falls into six parts:


V. 1-3
Exaltation of the Lord

V. 4-7
Testimony of Deliverance from fear & the enemy

V. 8-10
Encouraging people to seek the Lord for themselves

V. 11-14
Advice on how to come before God



V. 15-18
The Reaction of God towards the Righteous & the Unrighteous

V. 19-22
The Results of the Righteous & Unrighteous Life


To me the whole psalm is written because of the knowledge found in these verses 19 - 22

Many are the afflictions of the righteous,
But the Lord delivers him out of them all.
20 He guards all his bones;
Not one of them is broken.
21 Evil shall slay the wicked,
And those who hate the righteous shall be condemned.
22 The Lord redeems the soul of His servants,
And none of those who trust in Him shall be condemned.

Exaltation
The Psalmist desires that everyone would worship the True God.
He starts by giving His Adoration but then comes to wanting everyone to experience what he has.


Testimony & Encouragement
He tells what God has done & encourages people to turn to God.


Advice
He gives basic advice on how to have the proper awe and reverence towards God.

God's Reaction
How God treats us as righteous in His sight when we have truly turned to trust Him, compared with how He must treat us if we do not.


Results
The hand of comfort, healing & protection is on us.
God will bring us through all the tribulation others will put on us.

Basic Good Advice to Start your Christian Life

Surely when all of this Psalm is understood and acknowledged then you and I can truly say with the Psalmist:

Christian Songs for Kids - No Never Alone

Do you find it hard to get visuals and recordings for different kids songs?

I have always found this a problem so I am now sharing songs that I have used with children providing you with

Visuals 
(Powerpoint or Picture or details of how you can make one) 


Words   
(chords also available)


Recording  
(mp3 or video to learn the song) 


Then if you would like to download the visual of the song there will be a link provided to my creation, or I will direct you to where else you can find it.   

This month I am taking the theme of

The Promises of God

The song I have chosen is 

No Never Alone

This is another song that is so very simple but so full of the truth and tells of the comfort God
promised us.

I like to use this song when teaching on Joshua as it ties is well with Joshua 1 v 9 and can be used to to reinforce that as a Memory Verse.

It is also one I would use when teaching on How much God cares for us or not being afraid because God will never leave us.

This is actually the chorus of a hymn and is based on
Matthew 28:20 and Hebrews 13:5

POWERPOINT  (for Projection)

POWERPOINT  (for Printing A4)

To Download a copy of this visual for printing on A4 Card  or  Letter size  
CLICK HERE




WORDS


No Never Alone

No never alone
No never alone
He promised never to leave me
Never to leave me alone.
No never alone
No never alone
He promised never to leave me
Never to leave me alone.


To Download a copy of these words with chords for guitar and piano 
CLICK HERE

ACTIONS

Waving your forefinger in front of your face in time to the music
for first two lines
Pointing & looking upwards, then pointing to self
third & fourth line

THEN REPEAT

RECORDING  ???????????????????????

Notes:

I believe the Words are the chorus of a hymn whose first verse begins with
"I've seen the lightning flashing"   
Author is  Ludie D. Pickett.
More information can be found HERE

I Hope you enjoy the song and this is a help to you.

DON'T FORGET
If you are interested in finding out about more 

Christian Songs for Kids 

SIGN UP HERE for an email reminder of my posts & you won't miss any I feature on the Blog


OR

See Our Other Kids Songs:   

Creation  -    Who Made?
Easter  -    He's Alive
Bible  -    I will Make you Fishers of Men
Love of Jesus  -    Jesus Loves the Little Children
Love of Jesus  -    Jesus' Love is very Wonderful
The Attributes of God  -    God is So Good 


(Click on the names of the songs above to view them)

Free Printables for Kid's Song "No Never Alone"

The Seagull in Jersey - A Dose of Encouragement

While Fred has been travelling a lot these months
I had pulled out my box set of Bergerac Dvds which I had never found time to watch and settled in most evenings to watch an episode or two from this old Detective Series from the 1980s before going to bed.

First thing I had noticed was how much the young John Nettles who played the character Bergerac (he also played Chief Inspector Barnaby in Midsomer Murders in more recent years) looked like my middle son. So I had some fun teasing Daniel about that.


Then I got to thinking about the Island of Jersey where the series had been set (and filmed) realizing that even though we had once had a holiday there I didn't remember any of the sites of the island.  Of course that holiday was a long long time ago, maybe around 20 years ago.

There is one thing about that holiday that none of us will ever forget.

It has nothing to do with the sights of Jersey.

It has nothing to do with any activities that we had great fun in doing on Jersey.

My only real memory of Jersey was 

the 

Seagull.

Photo credit - Pixabay

This is how I picture that seagull to always be.

I never think of it as one of those almost comical trotting birds you see as they hobble along over the sand or rocks.

I will not even imagine it in a group of seagulls like we often see hovering down ready to catch a fish in the sea.

Photo credit - Pixabay

Yes I always remember it to be

an angry bird,

who saw something,

wanted it

and 

took it!

We were each enjoying a large ice-cream 

when this seagull swooped down out of no-where 

and stole my brother-in-law's ice-cream from his hand.

It was so sudden, so quick, it was almost unbelieveable except that we had seen it with our own eyes.

It must have been such a startling, frightening surprise for Victor as he was holding the ice-cream close to his face when it happened.


Now I can hardly see a seagull without thinking of that event.

I always view seagulls as untrustworthy, callous creatures because of that single event.

Will my impression of them ever change?

Not very likely.


Does my impression of the people I meet ever change?
Does that bad impression stay with me forever?

or

Does another person's impressions of me ever change?
Does that bad impression stay with them forever?


I hope not.


Sometimes it may be difficult to shrug off those impressions because of further meetings or time spent with a person if there is more evidence of their behaviour being similar to the first time.

Sometimes it may be easy to change our minds and see someone in a better light because of getting to know them better and seeing different facets of their behaviour.

But for most of us most of the time those bad impressions are hard to forget.


So do I want to be remembered like

Do I want to be seen as the one who saw something, wanted it, and stole it away?

Did I steal someone's ice-cream?

Do I want to be seen as the one who had to be better than others?

Do I want to be seen as the one who knew more than others?

Do I want to be seen as the one who is more important than others?

Do I want to be seen as the one who stole the attention from others?

Do I want to be seen as the one who was jealous of others?

Because that's what it may boil down to - us simply being jealous.

So we feel the need

• to say something to show we know more than others
• to do something that makes us appear better than others
• to do something to draw the attention away from others
• to speak of someone to make them appear less worthy than us 

We need to steal away, from them, the favour we want for ourselves.

Do we want all the favour for ourselves?

Truthfully, within us, we can all be jealous of others 

but if we recognise this human failing in ourselves

and then determinedly step away from it 
and do not act on it in any way; 

we can defeat that jealousy, 

conquer that jealousy 

and 

be more like the person God has created us to be.

Pondering the Psalms - Psalm 2

Each Sunday I am going to choose a Psalm and write down some brief thoughts on it.


Today I'm looking at Psalm 2

This Psalm falls into three parts:

V. 1-3
People and Nations in Opposition to God.


V. 4-9
God sees all.
The Lord is on the Throne, He is in control.


V. 10-11
Warning to the rulers that if they do not serve God they will perish.

Overall Theme

No matter who thinks he is better than the Lord and God's people, he has to remember that Jesus is Lord and will do with them as He wills.

This Psalm encourages us to know that God is in supreme control.


People & nations may seem to be making the world a horrible place to live in 
but there will be an end to this.

The end will be GOOD for those who have trusted in God.

The Spider in the Hall! - A Dose of Encouragement

If you have read other posts on this blog you will know that my husband travels often on business.

Although some people think this has perks - it rarely does.  In fact there are so many other things that are downsides of this fact.


The Spider in the hall being just one of those.

When we moved into this house in December 2010 we noticed a lot of spiders appearing in the first 6 months here.

Suddenly we would be sitting quietly watching a dvd in the lounge when something would run along the floor past us and Fred would have to jump up to get it and kill it before it disappeared again.  Slippers were even known to have been thrown across the room in some cases.

These spiders were not wee tiny things but quite big and therefore noticeable when they tried to sprint the length of our room.


The 2 good things about that time was that

• Fred was not travelling much so he was there to do the killing (please don't judge us for killing them).
• It came to an end, we presumed the spiders had been hiding somewhere after being free to roam the house while it was empty before we bought it and now they had all ventured out and been GOT.

I'm not saying we didn't get any spiders since then but to be honest we got more outside on the patio than we did in the house and the ones in the house were not big.

Until September last year that was.

It was enormous!
I mean really enormous!

But worse than that - Fred was away on business!

I was on my own in the house!

It was 1.15 in the morning when I should have been in bed fast asleep but well.....

All I could think of was

That thing could make it to our bedroom 

and the door of our bedroom doesn't close properly 

and this thing could be crawling all over me in bed. 

 I would never be able to sleep.

It has to go!

But there was no Fred to get it for me.

Now just to prove that I did not zoom in on this spider to make it look BIG you can see it compared to the mirror which is about 4.5 feet long and 2 feet deep.  The spider was just approaching the corner and was about 1.5 feet from the mirror.

Before I decided how to kill it I had to take a picture because otherwise Fred would never have believed me about the size of it.

My biggest problem was I did not want to squash it on the wall because I did not want to mark the paintwork - too lazy to have to clean it!

I would have to act quickly before this thing ran off.

But I didn't because the spider seemed content to just sit there while I took the picture and stared at it considering my options.

No way was I going to try to scoop it onto a piece of paper and try to take it outside - it would have been far too close to my hands.

It had to be the flick it off the wall and stamp on it method!

But I was in my slippers and my feet are small so I had to go get a newspaper and would you believe that brute just sat there on the wall and waited for me to come back.  I think he thought I would be no match for him.

Then with a swift flick off the wall (making no mark), I threw the newspaper on top of it on the floor and jumped on top of the newspaper.  

GOT IT!

I actually think it was so big it couldn't move as fast as smaller spiders.

After what probably would have looked to others like a little flamenco dancing on the newspaper it was definitely dead.

Well I felt so good (not because I had killed a spider) but because I had managed something I usually relied on Fred to do and I would be able to sleep unworried about the spider.

But then the thought struck me

What if there was a spider's mate somewhere in the house?

How quickly I could go from one feeling to another!

How quickly my mood could be changed by one little thought!

But the devil sure knows which little thought to put into our minds - that one little thought that will be the one to do his evil work.

He knows just when to slip it in to rob us of any joy we have.

He tries it all the time.
He is an expert at it.
He thinks he knows us so well.

And let's face it he does know us well.

He knows all those thoughts, feelings, fears, reactions, worries that he can attack us with.

But

God knows us better than anyone.

God does not attack us.

God does not rob us of joy.

God does not throw discouraging thoughts at us.

God does not plant niggling fears in our minds.

God is the one who gives us joy.

God is the one who helps us overcome all that the devil wants to pull us down with.

So next time you feel your joy being sucked away by the devil and his whisperings in your ear think about this story of the spider and 

imagine you are flamenco dancing on the devil 

because 

Jesus has the victory over the devil and so do we.

Don't let the devil hold you back!

Segway Titanic Tour - Xtra Special Day

Okay so I never learned to ride a bike when I was young.

I know you are all thinking

                    "Who can't ride a bike?"

Well I can't.

But I can definitely ride a Segway!

Over the last several years I have occasionally seen people on segways and I always thought I would love to have a go but even though I am attracted to trying more unusual things I do not like making a fool of myself in front of others.

Then I read that they were very easy to ride/drive so I probably would not fall over and make a fool of myself and I also found out that a company in Northern Ireland were running "Titanic" Segway Tours which were obviously tours around the "Titanic Quarter" of Belfast on Segways.

I kept thinking how I would love to do it and hinted to my husband several times but Fred is not one to really take a hint - well not quickly anyway..

Then last year I decided we were going to go on the Titanic Segway Tour when all of the family would be together in Northern Ireland - not something that often happens now that our oldest son is living in Leeds and our daughter is living in South Korea.

To make a full day out of it we were going to go to the Titanic Exhibition first and then do the Segway tour and then go for dinner.

So we went online and booked 6 places on the tour one day in August, yes 6 because of course our middle son got married so we have a daughter-in-law as well.

Unfortunately Jonathan (the one from Leeds) took ill that morning and had to stay in bed all day so there were only the five of us in the end.

You can see the Titanic Building in the background - a rather impressive sight as you drive across the M3 over Belfast - designed to make you think of a ship.


I was so looking forward to this and as soon as the guy said we could get on the segways I didn't wait for the others.

It was so easy to do and very enjoyable.

We were told to go in single file and follow the tour guide so Linda led us off after him.


We were like ducks in a row and Linda enjoyed taking these selfies trying to get us all in as we rode along.

I laughed and laughed as we segwayed all around the Titanic quarter even though everyone we passed stared at us.  In fact I think that made me laugh even more.

The guide took us to different parts of the Titanic Quarter and we did listen as he explained what had happened at each part.

You can see me concentrating in the picture below when we were beside the dock.

Well shortly before that shot I had been giggling and not long after it I was giggling again but I did stop to listen in between.


When we had been all round the Titanic quarter and heard all about it we stopped for a ...

It seemed very strange parking the segways alongside the water and sitting in the coffee shop looking out at them.


Then after coffee we segwayed back toward the Odyssey Arena where the guide then let us have about 15 mins of free time on the large flat area riding round just as we pleased.

It was hilarious!



Daniel took this video.

No-one fell off, no-one collided with anyone else (although Daniel and Suzie almost did) or with the posts or the benches in the area.


Linda took this one.





Can't remember who took this one.  All I know is I was too busy enjoying the play time that I didn't take any videos or pictures at all.






But all good things have to come to an end and when Jonathan - the guide, said it was time to go back to the tour Office we were all disappointed but we had to go.

Well the chat was great after this event as we had all thoroughly enjoyed it and felt the time had gone too quick and I was already wondering when I could do it again.

However it is not a cheap day out, but it was a Special Day for us.

They do claim to be the only Segway Tours in the UK you see.

And I have been scheming & planning and hopefully there will be another Xtra Special Day !!!