April 9nd, 2022

Weather/Nature

A steady, gentle rain all day Tuesday really brought on more spring change. The forest floor that was previously bare is all of a sudden carpeted in green. We only needed one fire for warmth this week and on a few nice days we had the windows open.

Down On The Farm

I got word of an annual Amish auction not too far from us where small livestock would be auctioned, and along with horse drawn equipment, antiques, etc.

Since we were in need of a new flock of laying hens, we decided to load up and see what we could find. Boy were we in for a treat!

It was a huge event with over 7,000 people and 10 separate auction rings operating all day, lots of other vendors, and wonderful Amish food for sale. They loved to see my English dollars coming!

After a while of standing at one of the auction rings and not doing much, I decided to go get an Amish fried fruit pie, and left Erica with our bidding number and in charge of our bidding, should she see something worth while. Best decision I could have made.

Apprehensive at first, Erica soon got a look in her eye which would have intimidated even the most intrepid bidders competing with her. She wisely set herself up where she could see what the upcoming lots would be, and deftly managed to purchase for us 10 laying hens and two roosters, at good prices.

Best Thing We Ate

Easy winner – Amish Fry Pies!

From Family Worship

Martin Luther said about justification that it is the doctrine by which the church stands or falls. Some say that “doctrine divides” and should be avoided, but that is nonsense. Yes, a person can wield doctrine foolishly, but we ought to have a zeal for understanding God’s revealed word, the Bible. And knowing that eternity hangs in the balance, we ought to pursue right thinking with hearty effort.

Justification is the act of God to pardon the sinner, and account and accept them as righteous by imputing (crediting) the obedience and satisfaction of Christ to them. We cannot recommend ourselves to God for salvation on account of our good works or obedience, for when we understand ourselves rightly, we know we have nothing in ourselves to commend us to a Holy God.

As we discussed this week as a family, we must look outside of ourselves to another, namely, Jesus Christ, whose perfect obedience is ours by faith, not by works. That is, a faith that receives and rests on the finished and perfect work of Christ to save us.

Other Happenings

Major League Baseball opening day was this week, and on Thursday night we listened on the radio as the Braves hosted the Reds. We are sad that Freddie Freeman is gone, what a great guy and face of the franchise. Interesting fact – Freeman is from California and has been the face of the Braves, but is now a Dodger. His replacement, Matt Olson, has been the face of the Oakland A’s, but was born and raised in Georgia. Since we are only a few hours away, I wonder if we might go see a Braves home game sometime.

Our church hosted a fun little talent show Friday night, and we had a few participants from our family. Riley recited a poem, Sam and Quinn played piano pieces, Paige helped John recite a Bible verse, and I got to MC and tell some bad jokes, along with providing a short devotional on 1 Cor 12:18 which was hopefully fruitful.