Beech Tree News Network

We are in the Vacation Bible School (VBS) season. As a child, I loved going to the classes in our cool, church basement classrooms. I enjoyed the traditional cookies and Kool-Aid (any flavor!) snacks and the games we played during our time outside. The games were simple (Red Rover, Drop the Handkerchief, etc.), but fun.

One of the stories I’ve been told about the farm on which we live is that at one time it was covered with copperheads, until the farmer who lived here brought in a herd of pigs to root them out and kill them.  However he rid the farm of them, I’m grateful.
    Our friend, Bobby Hampton, told us when he lived on the land across the road from us, he had a little Dachshund that would hunt down the poisonous snakes and shake them till their scales rattled—God bless the little thing. 

NOT PERMITTED:  Oh boy, time, there is never enough of it is it? How does it sneak past us, so quickly and easily? At the Kinkade household our eldest has been buying towels, welcome mats, bedroom furniture and the like, in preparation for moving into a place other than the family home she has known all her life and the youngest member of our clan, just reached the milestone of receiving a permit, which lets him legally operate a motor vehicle, with some restrictions.

"The living know that they shall die ….” So says Solomon in Ecclesiastes 9:5. I would add that while this is true, many of the “living” are living in denial! I have seen many die through the years, and it just emphasizes the fact that we need to be prepared for when our life ends. Solomon wrote, “It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart” (Ecc. 7:2). It is time we lay some things to our hearts.

There are 120 counties in the state of Kentucky.  Starting this week, I will review the origins of each county, in alphabetical order.  First up is Adair County.  Formed out of Green County in 1801, the county is named after General John Adair, commander of Kentucky troops in the Battle of New Orleans and Governor of Kentucky from 1820-1824. The county seat is Colombia, Kentucky.

Each summer I have one day a week with my granddaughters. They’re old enough that I don’t consider our time together as baby sitting – it’s more about enjoying the day together. Like most grandparents, I want them to have a good time.

Buckets-Broomsticks- and Bottle Caps:
    When baseball great, Hank Aron was a poor kid in Alabama, he wanted to play major league baseball someday.  He aspired to be a great hitter, but how? He owned neither a baseball nor bat. 

Sunday morning, on the way to church, our granddaughter, Sabria, rolled down her back window a bit in order to make the small “America flag” (that’s what she calls it) she was holding flutter in the breeze.  As the flag rippled, she instructed Garey and me to sing “America the Beautiful.”  We did, at the top of our voices, many times before pulling into the church parking lot.

Many today think that God’s silence within the Scripture grants permission to act. In contrast, there are others today who say that if God is silent on a subject, this means we cannot do it! Which viewpoint is the Scriptural viewpoint? What does the Scripture say? Let us see what the truth is concerning the silence of the Scripture.

WONDERING ABOUT WONDER - Have you ever had instances where similar thoughts or circumstances keep recurring on a frequent basis? It happens to me on a pretty frequent basis and I take it as a clue that something, or someone, wants me to take pause and pay attention for a bit; it just might be I need to learn something. Just such an occurrence has been popping up lately, enough for me to believe it is something more than just circumstance and that is with the concept of "wonder."