My prayers are always very simple.  Every morning when I go down to the curb to get the paper, I look up and tell God, "Good job.  Awesome. That's a really pretty sky this morning."  Or if it is raining, "Thank's for the rain.  My plants and yard need it.  I appreciate your rain."  I don't have long prayers.  I just try to keep in contact with the Father.

Think of all the people all over the world that are speaking to Him at the same time.  It is a wonder that he listens to me at all.  But then, He is God.  He loves us every one.  Why?  I don't know.  

He is easy to love.  I don't think that we are.  He must be immensely patient.

In the Psalms, David had those same feelings of smallness.  He said to God:  "What is man that you are mindful of him? And the son of man that you visit him?"  Psalms 8:4

The writer of Hebrews felt exactly the same way because he quoted David in Hebrews 2:6  "But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man that you are mindful of him? or the son of man, that you visit him?"

I cannot imagine the bigness of God.  My mind is too small to comprehend that.  I end up reducing him to a throne and apologizing to Him for my inadequate imagination.

He is God.  He is huge.  Imagine that.

I am glad God has a sense of humor.  I have been quoting scripture to Him for weeks.  "Do you remember that you wrote....",  and, "Dear God, I think I need to remind you..."  All over selling a house.  I have looked up every "ask and you shall receive..." scripture in the Bible (Of which there are dozens) and brought them to God's attention over my house in Pryor.  It should have sold months ago.  My asking price is under the appraised value by a considerable amount because I just can't keep up with the long distance maintenance.

I can close my eyes and imagine God smiling at me.  "You have so little faith," He must be thinking.  Which is true.  I have short-term faith.  When I don't get what I ask Him for--now--I think I must be doing it wrong.  Saying the wrong words.  Praying amiss.  I start checking myself.

When all I need to do is wait.  I am a terrible waiter.  My patience factor is almost zero.

It's a good thing that God loves us or he would give up on us.  Even though we are His children, we are so imperfect.  Flawed.  When I pray, I almost always ask, "Lord, show me where I can do better, and then help me be better."   It is really easy to see where others can do better.  It is really hard to see that in yourself.

After I got home from Pryor yesterday, I got a call that the realtor had a signed contract for my asking price.  It will arrive today.  I will sign it.  The relief is unimaginable.  It is not the money, it is the effort involved in keeping two houses running.  Mowing, weeding, cleaning, mulching, etc.  When you are two and a half hours away, you just can't keep up with it--so you depend on others.  Who may or may not do their job.

Thank you God.  Sorry I questioned you.  I'll try not to do that again.

My grandson, Sam Jacks (early twenties) did something last month that we are all kinda proud of.  He had two 69 back to back golf rounds in a PGA qualifying event that now classifies him as a pro.    "I asked him, "What does this mean?"  He told me that now he can now get a job as a pro on a golf course.  "But, can't you go on with PGA and play tournaments?" I asked.  "And where am I going to get that kind of money?" he replied.

So I don't guess I am going to get to be the grandmother of a famous golfer.  But I am the grandmother of a super grandson.  He has a good heart.  But I think he will have to find a second job to have enough money to buy a bean or two.  (He has asked Tiffany to marry him.  She said yes!!)

His dad, Scott, got to OU on a baseball scholarship, but tore his shoulder and knee up and squashed his pro-dreams.  He should probably have gone on to the minor leagues when they drafted him.   But, I'm glad he didn't.  It isn't much of a life.  He went to the Marines (like his father) after he graduated from college.  Some of you probably think that that isn't much of a life either.  But I love the Marines. They are some of the finest young men I have ever known.  I would marry one all over again.

My house in Pryor still hasn't sold.  I am totally befuddled.  So are the realtors.  Tomorrow, I am going to go there and take a look.  I've hired a woman to keep it clean.  I've hired a man to mow.  Scott checks on it.  God must have someone in mind to buy it that doesn't have the money yet??

My grand-daughter-in-law is in the middle east for three months in a God forsaken place where she has to wear a burka.  She has a fabulous job--but.  And of course, Becky--my traveler--is going to see her. That will give me something to worry about.

Ken and I never thought about all the people that would be involved in our lives back in 1956 when we got married.  Children, grand-children, great-grandchildren, in-laws, out laws and whatever else. They certainly enliven my life.  I never know what they will do next.

I ate something last Saturday that tore me up.  I was so sick I thought dying might be preferable.  And just when I thought I might be getting better, I came down with a fever, aching joints, headache, etc., etc.  For the first time in my life, I was having a reaction to a flu shot.  It is still better than getting full blown flu.  I am starting to think I am going to live.  Not up to par yet, but a little better.

Being sick is such a waste of time.  I had a lot of things that I had planned to do today.  Instead, I spent the day in bed.  Stupid, stupid waste of time.

Friday, when I went to Red Rock Canyon, I climbed up an escarpment of rocks to get to the top of one of the cliffs where a maple was in full "orange and red."  And pick some leaves.  They were so very pretty.  Pat called the next day and said, "Mom, I am so proud of you.  You didn't let those rocks stop you."  It was probably stupid at my age, but she held onto me and up we went.  With Pat pushing and pulling and me saying, "This is stupid."  And Tom, who is still recovering from ten broken bones from his bicycle accident saying, "We can do it."  But I am glad I did it.  It was fun.  Pat is the one that took me down into the back ten acres of her farm to pick morel mushrooms.  In a dry gulley with trees rotting and lying on the ground everywhere.  And ticks and chiggers.  She keeps me young.

I love the world that God created.  There are so many interesting, and beautiful things to see.  You need to go see them when you are young.  God's world will make more of an lasting impact on your children than DisneyWorld.  I would love to see the Sequoias again.  And the Grand canyon, the Maine Coast and Yellowstone.  I would love to stick my toes in the Pensacola white sand.  I would like to drive through the painted desert again.  America has so many wonderful natural wonders.  One of the perks of military life is that you are always going across the land to somewhere else.

"He has made everything beautiful in his time: also he has set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God made from the beginning to the end."  Ecclesiastes 3:11.  You may not be able to find it all out, but you can try to see some of it.

Friday I went on an adventure.  Pat (and hubby Tom) wanted to take me to Red Rock Canyon to see the maples.  They are unique in this canyon in Oklahoma because this is the only place that they are indigenous.   I had a great time.  You are riding along west of Oklahoma City for an hour and a half on flat land.  Then you turn south at Hinton and suddenly the ground falls down into a Canyon.  Totally unexpected.  And very beautiful.

Wagons came this way on the southern trail to Oregon--and the ruts of the wheels are impressed in the rocks where they came down into the canyon looking for water.  I couldn't help but thank God that I was born in 1938 instead of 1838.  Those women had it so hard.  There were so many people that died on their way west.  I can't even imagine the hardships that they faced.

I sit in my house and watch TV, go to the fridge and get ice, turn on the stove and fry chicken, and draw water from a tap.  I turn on the lights with a switch and sleep on a mattress at night.  I take a shower in hot water and drive my car to the store for milk.  We take all of this for granted, but much of the world even in this century can't even imagine these luxuries.

I thank God that he decided to put my soul in a body born in America.  In a Christian family.  In a little town.  And yes, in Oklahoma.  I've lived all over the US and Oklahoma is home.  The people here are for the most part good to each other.  And they still go to church, feed the poor, tithe their incomes and mow their lawns.  (Most of them)

I could have been born in a war torn place in the middle of Africa and be holding a dying, starving baby in my arms.  Wondering where our next meal will come from.  How I will get water.

"Every good and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights in whom there is no variableness neither shadow of turning."  James 1:17

How in the world did I miss the fact that archeologists who were looking for ancient ships and artifacts from the stone age in the Red Sea found stacks of human bones--and identified them as an army from the period during which Moses and the Israelites were escaping Egypt and the Pharaoh.  Armor, chariots and hundreds of bodies.

I try to keep current with this kind of stuff.  I love it when archeologists corroborate the truth of the Bible.  I love it that many of them keep an Old testament in their hip pockets.  The record of the Jews is the most comprehensive historical record of a people that the world has.

I have never understood why the community of non-believers are so eager to say that the cities and kings and wars recorded in the Old Testament aren't true.  Over and over again every year, archaeologists have dug up validating evidence of the events recorded in the Bible.  You would think that the events of the Bible would eventually get through to non-believers that the writers from the Old Testament did not scheme to write lies and to do it consistently over thousands of years.  There was no conspiracy.  What would have been the point?  They wrote what they knew.  They wrote about their God.  They wrote as God told them to write.

"God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Has in these last days spoken unto us by his Son..."  Hebrews 1: 1-2a

The Old Testament is the story of God creating man with whom He could fellowship.  And God's plan to restore his creation by sending his Son as the ultimate sacrifice for sin.  Every Old Testament book looks forward to a day when the Messiah would come.  All the prophecies in those books point to Jesus as the Christ.  Those writers could never have come up with over seventy prophecies that ultimately became the truth in one man.  It is statistically impossible

Validating the truth of the Bible is critical.  That is why we must always defend it with truth.

Last night when I went to bed, I lay there and apologized to God for being such a poor "prayer."  I can't think of what to pray about after asking for mercy for four of my friends who are having problems.  I always mention someone in my immediate family, but there are twenty-nine of them if I don't count nieces, nephews, aunts, and cousins.  There is no way I can concentrate for that long.

I am sure God understands my lack of focus.  But I wish I was a better "Prayer".  Someone suggested that I use the acronym "ACTS".  That way you can remember what you are trying to communicate without drifting off.
A:  Adoration.   I don't have any problem with this part of prayer.  The commandment to love the Lord your God with all your heart is a part of my being.
C: Confession.  I try to stay caught up on this.  I concentrate for the most part on having nothing to confess.  My desire is not to do anything wrong.  I work at it.  I don't want to embarrass God.
T:  Thanksgiving.  This usually takes awhile.  I have so much to be thankful for that I never get through my list.
S:  Supplication.  Asking for what I want him to do.  I usually get this part of the acronym out of order because--being human--it's all about me most of the time.  But when I find I am doing this, I go back to the other steps.

The part of prayer that I have never understood is that God tells us to ask for what we want.  But then he says we are to desire His will.  Sometimes God's will and my will aren't on the same page.  I want what I want.  And He is the only one with the power to give me what I want.

So I keep asking.  Maybe I will wear God down.  Jesus said:  "And all things, whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive."  Matthew 21:22

"...whatsoever you shall ask in my name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If you shall ask anything in my name, I will do it."  John 14:13-14

Three conditions:  1.  In His will,  2.  Believing He will do it, and  3.  In Jesus name.   Getting all three of those things going at the same time is difficult.

I am in my late seventies.  Thank God I still have my mental faculties.  (Or at least I think that I do.)  Given pain, or a clear mind, I'd choose the pain--if I had to choose.  One thing that is interesting is that my hair is still brown.   I have never treated or colored it in all those years.  My daughter Pat, on the other hand turned silver in her twenties.  Our genes determine those kinds of things.  My dad had black hair into his nineties.  Many of the Danish and Norwegians have a white streak in the middle of their hair.  Some people are black, some white.  Some have slanted eyes, some don't.  But we are all of the same species, and easily identifiable as such.

Brown eyes are more common than blue eyes because the gene for brown eyes is dominant.  Given that Ken was blue eyed, he had to have had two genes for blue eyes.  (If he had one blue and one brown gene, he would have been brown eyed since brown is dominant).  I must have one brown and one blue gene because even though I am brown eyed, one of our children is blue eyed.  Which means that between Ken and I there was a one in four chance for a blue eyed child.

Regardless of our physical differences, we are all identifiable as human beings.  We aren't frogs.  We aren't chickens.  We are people.  The word "evolution"--which simply means "change"--has taken a bad rap among Christians who are Creationists.   What they should be objecting to is "Evolution Theory."  That concept takes more faith than is scientifically even reasonable.  You have to believe first of all that something can come from nothing.  Then you have to believe that things get better and better--which violates all scientific facts.  Especially the two laws of Thermodynamics.

 "The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made...they are without excuse...professing themselves to be wise, they became fools."  Romans 1: 20-22.  This verse is followed by the most terrible verse in the Bible--in my opinion.  "Wherefore, God...gave them up...they changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator...".  God gave up on them.

I went out to get the paper this morning and looked up into the dark sky at the stars.  God's stars.

I have been going to Physical Therapy.  They torture you for an hour and when you leave you think you are going to die.  I'm not sure how causing you severe pain is the cure for the pain you started with.  The general consensus is that I am not moving enough, and not stretching my I-T band.  Whatever that is.  I think they are probably right.  Once the planting and gardening season is over, I tend to sit and read.  I think of September to March as the "reading" season.

The big problem with the entire PT scene is that they send you home with exercises to do.  I detest doing exercises.  So...they torture me, I end up hurting worse than when I did when I went to PT, and then I have to do stuff I don't want to do.

Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do to accomplish a greater good.  I don't think any of us like to do that.  That is why some people never make any progress in their lives.   They never grow.  Think of all the time you spent learning to add, subtract, etc.  Boring.  But the end result is that you can function with numbers for the rest of your life.

I learned to type in the tenth grade.  Horrible.  Hour after hour of tedious exercises to trick the brain into using a particular finger to type a particular letter.  But now, I can type 65+ words a minute without ever looking at my fingers.  And all that piano practice for an hour a day for years.  You get my drift.

The reward of practice is perfection.  Read your Bible.  It is a practice that leads you into the perfection that God intended for you.  No, you won't ever be perfect, but you will be better.  Our goal is to be pleasing to God.  It is the effort, not the result that he blesses.

Joy is a funny thing.  A dear friend of mine just received a great, wonderful "Joy."  She only had one child, a son, and years later, he and his wife had no children.

A few months ago, DHS called to tell him that they had removed a child from a woman's home and were tracing the relatives to see if they could find someone to give him a home.  They said that the woman had a son, and that she had told them that he was the father of a nine year old little boy.  DNA confirmed the connection, and would his father take him?

Why the woman never told him is a mystery.  He is a good man and immediately assured DHS that of course he wanted the boy!!!  A son.  After all those years.

A son.  A grandson.  What joy they are all feeling.  The process of getting him is extensive, but it is almost over.  Soon my friend will have a grandson.  She is ecstatic.  Her son is ecstatic.  And the little boy can't wait to join his father.  They are all filled with great joy.

I told you that joy is not happiness.  There is a lot of sadness in this situation.  Nine years were lost.  A little boy didn't have a father for all that time.  There is a lot of healing for him to go through--the home he is leaving is not good.  He has a lot to learn.  But joy--there is such joy.

The DHS case worker said, "This little boy won the lottery.  Most children in cases like this end up in foster care.  Their dads don't want them."

God has made you and me joint heirs with Christ.  Our "Dad" wants us!!!  God wanted us so bad that he sent his only Son to die for our sins so that we could be reunited with Him.  They call us Christians "The Family of God." What joy we have to be called the children of God.

In the morning, (I am writing this on Thurs. night) I will get up and do the garage sale.  I haven't had one in ten years.  I dread it.  But when it is over, I have a cousin that just moved here that will come get all the things that don't sell for his garage sale.  So I don't have to get it all to Goodwill.  Super!!!  He came over tonight and helped me move a sofa to the garage.  I have a wonderful family.  They all help me.

Everyone has a gift.  There is a young woman in Pryor that sends me a handwritten letter every other week or so--to tell me she is praying for me.  Amy Smith.  I'm no good with that kind of stuff, so it is good that God made us all different.

And Carolyn, (my best friend from the ninth grade) called today to tell me something very complimentary that someone told her about me.  I love compliments.  We all love them.  They are an instant upper.  My mom tried to teach my brother and me to listen for when someone said something nice about someone else.  "Pay attention," she said.

Mom called them TL's.  Tell Lasts.  And at the supper table each night, we would tell the compliment we had heard about them--last.  They had to give us one first.  Bribery--but it certainly caused us to sit up and listen to the nice things we heard about people.  So now, I call my own children and grandchildren and say, "I have a TL for you."  I usually have to give it to them on credit.   All four of my children are deep in "Compliment debt."

Just today, I called my son Scott and told him something nice that Amy wrote to me about him.   He was thrilled.  And then he told me how wonderful Amy was.  So there is another TL I have accumulated.  "Amy, you read this every day so remember, you owe me a TL!!!

"Be kind one to another, tenderhearted..."  Ephesians 4:32

There are things I like to eat, and things I don't.  I've never liked ice cream, or milk, or yogurt.  I'm not much a beef eater--unless it is disguised.  Like spaghetti sauce, or stroganoff.  So I guess I would have made it ok in the garden of Eden where they ate no meat.  But pork.  Now there is a meat that is delicious.  I never met a slice of bacon that I couldn't deal with. I can't think of any part of a ham that isn't delicious.  So why in the world would God forbid the Jews to eat pork.  I don't get it.  I am glad that I am not a Jew because I love pork.

But then, there are things in the Bible that I don't get.  (Yet)  But the parts that I do get, have altered my life.  Passages that come back to me from my memory and comfort me.  Such as  the third chapter of Ecclesiastes:  "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
A time of war and a time of peace."

The Bible speaks to us in the events of life.  Next to the words, "A time of war," I have written in the margin:  Chu Lai, Vietnam.  100-plus missions in A4s and F8s.  The comforting part was: "...and a time of peace."  We have to remember that each of the statements has two parts.  Like life.

I had the lawn man seed my yard with grass, and as it came up and was looking really good, the moles moved in.  Someone told me that they come to eat grubs and if you get rid of the grubs, the moles will move out.  There is always something to do when you own a house.

Keeping the Koi pond clean is an everyday job.  I wish the pond was in my neighbor's yard instead of mine.  But the pond was there when I bought the house--so I am stuck with it.  The waterfall is beautiful, but I am to a point in my life that I don't want to be responsible for fish.  Or anything else for that matter.  Getting up in the morning and feeding Squig is enough.  He at least gives something back.  The fish just swim in circles.

Some of the work that I did in May is taking hold.  The plants that I transplanted are doing really well.  I cut the lacebark elm down, so I won't have to dig up a million seedling elm trees again.  That tree was prolific.  But once it started making seeds last month, its days were numbered.  There is a great big oak left in the front yard that makes a million acorns, but the squirrels take care of that.  I wouldn't say that I was lazy, but I don't have much reserve strength so I am eliminating problems.

I hope all the stuff in the garage goes out the door this Friday at the garage sale.  I'm tempted to put a big sign out front that says:  "Free stuff.  Come and get it.

"For we hear that there are some which walk among you...working not at all, but are busybodies.  Now command them that are such, and exhort with quietness that they work and eat their own bread.  For when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat."  2 Thessalonians 3: 11-12, 10

 I like to eat, so I guess I had better get to work on pricing that stuff in the garage.  When I was young, I played the marimba for the men's group at the Methodist church.  They always sang the hymn "To the work, to the work."  Methodists take community service seriously.

Becky or Ann (or both) take me to the garage sales every Friday or Saturday.  I haven't bought anything, but it is fun to look.  I just like to be with them.  It is amazing all the stuff people accumulate.  When I was packing to move, I couldn't seem to make a decision about what I would need and what needed to go to Goodwill.  So I just packed it all.  And as I have unpacked it on this end,  the decisions have been easier.  I have put things that don't fit, or that I don't need, in the garage.  And this Friday, God willing and it doesn't rain, I am going to have a garage sale of my own.

I hope it all goes out the door.  I think it is great that people will carry it off with them and I don't have to figure out what to do with it.  It saves me a trip to Goodwill.

Two weeks ago, I went to an estate sale that Pam (Edmond Antiques) was having and I did buy something.  A bedspread for my kingsize, and drapes that went with it.  I haven't made my bed since I moved because I didn't have a spread.  Now I have no excuse.

I am starting to feel like I live here.  But I still don't have drapes up.  Craig (Becky's husband) is going to put up the rods as soon as he finishes work on a fixer-upper he bought.

I have made friends.  It was easier than I thought.  Church is a perfect place to find people that you like to be around.  They have "Game Day" once a month and I learned to play Mexican Train. (Dominoes)  Mindless, but fun.  They have sewing classes, etc. and lots of activities.   Every Wednesday night they have supper.  And twice a month there is a covered dish luncheon.

But nobody can take the place of the people that I left in Pryor.  They are lifetime friends.  I miss them, but I talk to Carolyn almost every day.  (We go back to the ninth grade.)

"A man that has friends must show himself friendly...and there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother." Proverbs 18:24  I took that friend with me when I moved.  Jesus.

I find Genesis so very interesting.  I could write dozens of more things about it, but some of you are probably already bored from all the details that I have written.   So I will move on.  I'll come back and do the second chapter later.

I watched "The Shawshank Redemption" again yesterday.  That makes the eighth or ninth time I have watched it--and I will watch it again.  It is definitely about redemption.  And I end up crying every time I watch it.  You and I have been redeemed as well.

I also watched "Apollo 13."  I was in a movie mood, and I had never seen it.  However, the words "Houston, we have a problem," are so familiar.  I remember the event from April 1970,  but had never seen the movie.  The real thing was nerve-jangling enough.  Military pilots hold the softest place in my heart.   You have to be certifiably insane to land on a carrier or go up in space.

And I ended the day by watching "The Help."   I lived through that time.   I was driving from Beaufort S.C. to Oklahoma the day of the march through Montgomery.  I stayed there all night with a friend and left the next morning and drove us on to Pryor.  Ken, of course, was in Spain, or Cuba, or somewhere.  I just decided to go see my folks--so I took off with my three little ones, without any awareness of the history that was being made that day in Montgomery.  You would have to be old enough to remember how horrible black people were treated to fully appreciate the bravery they exhibited at that time.  It was truly historic.  I'm glad I was there.

Jesus loves the little children, All the children of the world.  (Remember this song from our childhood Sunday School class?)  Red and Yellow, Black and White, they are precious in His sight.  Jesus loves the little children of the World.

I didn't really know what that song meant when I was growing up.  We didn't have a single black family in Pryor, so I didn't know how they were treated.  But when I moved to Beaufort, I found out.  The county was 72% black, and they couldn't get decent jobs to support their families.  It was so sad.

So God, in his eternal wisdom, planned for us to live forever.  With him.  In peace.  But of course we fouled it up.  You can blame it on Adam and Eve, but given a choice, you will still sin.  The only thing that is our salvation is the Holy Spirit--God Himself--within us.

Paul said, "If you continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which you have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven...Even the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but is now made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery...which is; Christ in you, the hope of glory."  Colossians 1:23, 26-27

Paul calls it a mystery.  How can Christ be in us?  He just is.  Because God designed us to hold His Spirit back in the beginning when he created us.  There is an empty place within man that looks for something to fill it.   We just have to ask Him to come in and clean us up.

Hundreds of years have past since we first began to discover clans and tribes that were hidden in Africa, S. America, and islands.  But as each clan was discovered, they exhibited one common characteristic.  They had all found something to worship.  They instinctively knew that there was something beyond themselves.  A higher being.  Animals don't do this.

"For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:  Because that, when they knew God...they changed the glory of...God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four footed beasts, and creeping things."  Romans 1: 20-22

In other words, idols.  God's glory cannot be contained or exemplified by an image or icon.  He is a Spirit.  That is why most churches have crosses that are empty.  He is risen.

Gen. 1:29  "And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of the earth and every tree in...which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat."

God continues in verse 30:  "And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creeps upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so."

We were vegetarians.  Meat was not eaten because in Eden, nothing had to die.  That was God's original intent.   Killing things was not in his plan.

The prophet Isaiah foretold a day that we will live in a land like that again.  In heaven, "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them."  Isaiah 11:6

Death is the enemy.  God never intended for us to die.  But when Adam and Eve sinned, God covered their nudity, that part of man that God had blessed when he said, "Be fruitful and multiply."  He covered them with a skin of an animal--and this was the first sacrifice for sin.

And then he cast them out of the garden.

Thank God for his unspeakable gift of his son who died for our sin.  We will live in eternity where there will be no more death.

"O death, where is your sting?  O grave, where is your victory?" 1 Corinthians 15:15

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Gen. 1:26-27  "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."

Some people think that Adam was the name of a race because of the word "them" that is used twice in those verses.  I don't think so, because in Chapter two, the words concerning the creation of Adam and Eve are singular.  The important phrase in these verses is "in our image, after our likeness."  He says those words two more times in verse 27.  We are made like God in some way.  Again I think, to hold his Spirit.

Then God makes man responsible for the earth and all that is in it.  We've messed this up big time.

1.  The fish, and the water
2.  The birds, and the air
3.  Beasts of burden--cattle, and the earth.  The soil.
4.  Creeping things, insects and such.  The entire habitat's clean-up crew.

We have disobeyed God.  We have polluted the water, the air, and the soil.  And with pesticides we have killed important insects.  Bees are vanishing as well.

Another important thought:  he speaks for the second time and gives man the same instructions that he gave for the animals.  Vs. 28 "And God blessed them, and said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth."  He uses the word replenish.  This is a word that validates what I believe about the distruction of the earth between the first two verses of Genesis.  If there hadn't been living animals before all of this, there would be no need to Re-plenish the earth.  God would have simply said, "Plenish the earth."

I am finished with the analysis of Creation as far as animals are concerned.  I hope you can now explain to your children and grandchildren where the dinosauric ages fit into the Biblical account.  They need the confidence of knowing that the Bible has no error.  None.

I am going to give you an opinion now.  Concerning human creation.  I think there were probably humans before Adam and Eve.   Because when Cain killed Able, Cain begged for God to protect him from people (what people?) who would try to kill him.  Gen. 4: 14b-16 "...I shall be a fugitive...that everyone (who are these everyones?)  that finds me shall slay me.  And the Lord...set a mark upon Cain lest any (Who?)  finding him should kill him.  And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod..."

The home of Adam and Eve had been Eden.  Cain went to the land of Nod.  Where was this?

Another verse that makes me think that there were other people at the time, is found in the Noah account.  Gen. 6:4 "There were giants in the earth in those days; and...when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men and they bare children to them...it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart."

These are two classifications of people.  1.  The sons of God, and  2.  The daughters of men.  Here again I give you an opinion.  I think that the sons of God were of the linage of Seth (Adam's third son)  and the daughters of men were of the linage of Cain.  Gen. 4: 25 "And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God...has appointed me another seed (linage) instead of Abel whom Cain slew."

So why is the story of Adam and Eve so important?  Opinion:  Because Adam was created different than any other man (if there were other men) who came before him.  He was created to hold the Holy Spirit.  God breathed into him the "Breath of life" and he became a living soul.  Those of the lineage of Adam and Seth were God's children.  Capable of holding his Spirit.

The word "Create" is now going to be used for the second time in the Bible.   It is the fifth day.

 Gen. 1:21 And God created great whales, (lactating mammals) and every living creature that moves which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God blessed them saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas and let fowl multiply in the earth."  Notice that there are "kinds".  Species.

This is the first time that God has blessed his work.  You have to admit that mammals are far more interactive with man than fish or birds.  You can hold a cat, a dog and love it.  Many other mammals as well.  These kinds of animals have the blessing of God.   You don't cuddle fish or birds.  You eat them.

The first time God speaks, he blesses reproduction.  "Be fruitful, and multiply."  Interesting that those are God's first words.  The world would pervert the blessing that God gave with  sexual behaviors that do not come under what God intended--and do not have his blessing.

Gen. 1:24-25a "And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.  And God made the beast of the earth after his kind..."  Different species.

The stage is set.  Everything that man needs is in place.  All creation will end when man comes aboard and at that point, "Entropy" will take over and nothing will ever be created again.  Every process will lose energy in the form of heat from then on.  I find it amazing that people can say that the two laws of thermodynamics work without exception--except in evolution.  They give two models:  Natural selection, and mutation.  And they say that things got better and better instead of worse and worse.  Mutation is always against the good of the species.  And Natural selection does not create a new species.  Creation is finished.  The world is decaying.  Everything dies.  And only Christ himself will change this and give us eternal life.  Praise His Holy name.

We have water.  We have land.  We have the sun.  And we have multitudes of plants.  The earth is ready for mammals and humans.

The next part of the chapter concerns rotation.  Some of it is repetition of what has already happened. Gen.1:14-18, "And God said, let there be lights in the heaven to divide (this is why I think things started rotating in a regular way) the day from the night...and God made two great lights; the greater...to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night...to divide the light from the darkness...and the evening and the morning were the fourth day.  (Scientists believe that the moon is a spin-off of the earth.)  Making: using one thing to make another.

With the moon, we get tide life.  Critters that live in the bullrushes and on the shores.  The tide comes in, the tide goes out.  Day five begins with everything now set up for the birds.  Most birds live near oceans, lakes, and ponds.  Where there is water.  They are closely connected to sea life for food.

This next verse is where there could be some connection between fish and fowl.  When you dissect, the fish fin and the bird wing are very similar.  The tail as well.  They both have a different way from humans and mammals of getting oxygen.  Could they be in the same family?  Maybe.

Gen. 1:20 "And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that has life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the sky..."  Did the water bring forth two creatures?  Fish and fowl?  There are flying fish.  There are deep diving, swimming birds.  Like I said, I don't believe in "evolution theory."  But if fish and fowl are in the same family, I don't have a problem with that.

However, mammals are an entirely different category from fish and birds.  So are human beings.  And God is getting ready to RE-plenish the earth.  Like I said earlier, I believe in words.  If this was the first creation, I think the word would be "Plenish."  Not "Replenish."  Were there men in the first creation?  Probably.  God doesn't say.  We know there were animals.  We really know very little for sure.  Only what God tells us.  In his Word.  In his Words.  They are always true.