QUOTE

While on his death bed John Owen was reported to have said, "Oh, Brother Payne, the long-looked for day is come at last, in which I shall see the glory in another manner than I have ever yet done or been capable of doing."

From The Pastor in the Sick Room -- Ministering the Gospel to Those on the Brink of Eternity by John D. Wells 1892, Solid Ground Christian Books, Birmingham Alabama

Tollhaven Trials and Tribulations

Yesterday, May 20, 2006 Sassy and I were at the Tollhaven trial run by Gloria Mitchell.

We had a good day. We ran in three events.
Advanced standard - came in second with no "q". It was a good run with a refusal for a bar that I just didn't indicate clearly enough for her. BAD HANDLER!!!! Good lessons learned though! :)

Advanced team - Sassy ran her side clear but her partner....well let's just say both her and her handler had issues that day! No "q" for that! I was VERY pleased with the effort that Sassy put in.

Advanced Jumpers - Sassy got a case of the nerves due to an equipment change (which caused her to have to wait too long to run) and just wanted her treats and to go home.... So she ended up wasting time on course TRYING HARD to convince me that would be the right course of action. I tried to make up some of that lost time and made her rush a bit so...we had a knocked bar and a run by another jump. So...no "q" there either BUT she still managed to come in fourth overall. This course was more challenging than I thought it would be ... only one team out of 18 ran it clear...and that was a jack russel who hadn't trialed in 1.5 years due to some issues that he had. We were VERY happy that he had a VERY successful day. YEAH ERNIE!

Ah well...life goes on.

It was a good day though rather cold in the wind. We had a bit of rain, with a lot of overcast, the sky started clearing by early afternoon. Sassy was a well-behaved girl who was VERY sucky...not quite acting like herself...very clingy and not observant of things other than cookies and where we were positioned. So we did okay in spite of it all.

GLOWING SQUIRRELS

LOOK OUT! ���

Vellenga Views is a radioactive squirrel!!

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From Go-Quiz.com

Mom's Day

Yesterday was Mother's Day.

Now I can't say I'm a huge "make a day for people" type of person. But I did enjoy mother's day yesterday.

My mom-in-law Eva came over for the day. She's a real nice Christian woman for those of you who have never met her.

Justin and his dad-dad even got me a mom's day present. A fun card (yes, I love a well chosen card). This one was fun!

Here's the front. A good card can make my heart just smile.

Justin thought the middle was just so much fun. I should have taken a picture of him with it in the afternoon when I let him give it a good looking over. He was being so careful and so very serious with it. See...it's a pop up! He just thought it was so neat with the bears popping up at him everytime he opened the card! :)

This is the present I received. Isn't it just the coolest photo frame? :) Now I need to find pictures that will fit into these tiny frames. :) Boy...that will be fun (or perhaps frustrating). We may need to print our own I'm wondering....or send them to my mom's since she has a photo capable printer and then size them to what we need. Hmm...fun...a chance to visit my mom!

I've been richly blessed with these two men in my lives.
With an extended family that cares for me and my fellows.
For technology that I can do fun things with.

Ah...God has indeed blessed this household.

THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION

My reading has taken a definite serious turn. From fiction novels to good solid theology. So, I have turned my mind to study the doctrine on which the church hinges, Justification. To do so I decided to re-start reading a book I started to read a while back, but got too busy with other things to complete. Now I try to read a chapter or so a day, and that seems to be working well. The book is The Doctrine of Justification by James Buchanan--subtitled An Outline of its History in the Church and of its Exposition from Scripture

J.I. Packer had this to say about this book, "The doctrine of justification by faith is like Atlas: it bears a world on its shoulders, the entire evangelical knowledge of saving grace. The doctrines of election, of effectual calling, regeneration, and repentance, of adoption, of prayer, of the church, the ministry, and the sacraments, have all to be interpreted and understood in the light of justification by faith. When justification falls, all true knowledge of the grace of God in human life falls with it, and then as Luther said, the church itself falls. The value of Buchanan's book today is that it will help us to understand this message better, and so to preach it in the full and comprehensive way in which the modern world need to hear it. This is still the best textbook on this subject, from the standpoint of the classic covenant theology."

There were two things that I found fascinating in the introduction. Remember that this book was originally published in 1867. Buchanan states, "looking at the character of our current literature, may it not be said that, to a large class of minds in the present age, nothing could well be more new than the old Theology of the Reformation?"

What caught my eye here is how true that was not just then, but still is today. The doctrines of the Reformation seem to have been lost even in many Reformed denominations.

Second, what caught my eye is his guiding principle, "that the only effective refutation of error is the establishment of truth. Truth is one, error is multiform; and truth, once firmly established, overthrows all the errors that either have been, or may yet be, opposed to it. He who exposes and expels an error, does well; but it will only return in another form, unless the truth has been so lodged in the heart as to shut it out for ever."

This serves as a good reminder that as a pastor my task is not merely to reveal and correct error, but much more importantly to proclaim the truth in such a way that believers are filled with it and error is cast out.

So far this book has been fascinating. I am looking forward to the rest of it.

WHAT A NEAT EATER

I thought that since Annette was putting up pictures of Justin, I thought I would add one of my favorite recent pictures of him. Here he is as he works his way through strawberry jam on bread. As you can see, he keeps himself very clean while eating ;)

LOVE OF GOD

I just finished reading this wonderful little book by D.A. Carson. Although it neither claims to nor does deal with this topic exhaustively, it certainly does give a good overview of why the doctrine of the love of God is not as easy for us to either understand or proclaim today. I would highly recommend it as a very good starting point for the study of this important doctrine.

Our boy Justin

So our son, our boyo is a little over 10 months old.

He has been finding life hard this week.

Being told no, Being put into playpens so mom-mom can work, Being bitten by his favourite fish when he sticks his hands in the water, thistles hurt when you step on them, and why can't I just have fruit for breakfast????? Getting pointy teeth is a bit painful. Napping is hard! Having a long cold is miserable. Life is hard being 10 months old.

Mind you...life is also exciting sometimes. Tulips are fun! Even if mom-mom says...Gentle. Dirt is fun! To roll around on, to eat, to examine ever so carefully. Collie is becoming more important to him (stuffed collie dog that he found at the hospital rummage sale). Walks are good. Crawling under dad-dad's legs is just a hoot! Roast beef is new, fun to eat. Swimming is interesting and the little babies should be STARED at.

The cat still won't let Justin catch him. Riley has learned that tails do get pulled with little boys around so moving away is good. Sassy occasionally offers kisses and doesn't growl at him anymore! YEAH FOR THAT!!!

His favourite toys right now are his big stuffed dog, "collie", chairs that he can push around, pots and pans that make noise and a squirty toy in the bathtub.

He is into everything and LOVES to help his mom-mom clean out the fridge, boy how much fun that can be! BUT helping mom-mom do the sprinkler...that's he's not so fond of, especially if the sprinkler catches us! :)

Anyways, that's an update on the youngest member of our family.

The following picture is when he was a little younger.

Where Am I From?

I've come across these poems? blogs? I don't know what to call them and I think they are a neat way of saying things about a person.

I got the basic template from here which also links to a variety of "froms" that other people have done. I think they are interesting to read. :) I thought I would give it a shot, and found it harder than I thought it would be. :)


WHERE I AM FROM

I am from farmyard, from chickens, rabbits, guinea pigs, geese and cattle. I am from farm dogs (collies of sorts) and dogs of my own.

I am from the the purple bedroom, the off-limits family room, big gardens, long lanes and the bush!

I am from the peonies, lilac bushes, picking marsh marigolds and irises to bring home to mom, the bush with the fish pond that we would swim and fish in.

I am from "would rather be in the barn" and "hard work never killed anyone", from siblings, Dutch roots and large families.

I am from the twice yearly large family gathering at Christmas and in summer, sledding, pot luck meals, and baseball.

From "you are so much like your grandmother" and "do you have to tie everything up?"

I am from conservative, calvinistic beliefs, a family that believed that God was God and worthy of our consideration and all that we do is for HIM!

I'm from Bill and Wilma, small town Ontario, "stumpot", crusts from the bread that Dad insisted we eat, three good meals a day and lots of love.

From fishing on vacation with my Dad while others went elsewhere, tying a brother up on the picnic table with brothers and sisters helping, the barn wall falling in on the calves when blowing up the old silo, and the brucellosis hitting the herd hard and having to start over.

I am from family albums filled with pictures from days gone past.

Success Granted

Near where we live there is a really nice trail for walking. It used to just be a foot path, not used often, really nice to just let the dogs run. The town council thought it would be a good idea to make it more user-friendly so added a crushed gravel path, some boardwalk, and extended the trail. That made it a really easy path to walk. It is used frequently by all sorts of people.

Even though it is used more often than I like (I prefer solitude when walking the pups), I still often use it.

Last year I picked some plants to see if I could get them started at home.

Bloodroot From Wikepedia "Bloodroot is also known as Bloodwort, Red Puccoon Root, and sometimes Pauson......The plant was used as a dye and for an herbal remedy by the native population. A break in the surface of the plant, especially the roots, reveals a reddish sap."




I picked three Trillium. Two white and one red. From Wikepedia "While trillium flowers are very attractive, some believe they should never be picked, since the three leaves below the flower are the plant's only food source and a picked trillium may die or take many years to recover. For this reason in many areas, e.g. British Columbia, Michigan, New York, Oregon, and Washington, it is illegal to pick trilliums. While popular belief exists that it is illegal to pick trilliums in Ontario, no such law actually exists......A white trillium serves as the emblem and official flower of the Canadian province of Ontario. It features prominently on the Franco-Ontarian flag." Only one of the white ones survived.


I also picked some DogTooth Violets. Boy..were they ever hard to dig up! The roots go way down. The bulbs are buried quite deep. I was very pleased to discover that one of the five that I dug up actually made it through! From Thompson and Morgan: "Dog Tooth Violets may not be well-known, but they're definitely worth including in your spring garden. The bulbous perennials form clumps of glossy foliage, with attractive bronze mottling for extra appeal. It's marvellous for naturalising in thin grass. Tooth-shaped bulbs"

These plants, as near as I can tell are native to Ontario. It's really nice having them come up in our backyard. I planted them under our tree in the backyard.

Yesterday I visited

Yesterday Jim, Justin and I headed up to visit my parents. Jim had a sore throat so didn't talk much. Justin had a good nap in the afternoon, he slept there and back. This morning he is such a happy boy. :) Has a bad cough, but looking good.

Anyways, back to my parents.

When we arrived, just before lunch, Roel and Annie were there for a visit. They stayed for lunch.

Mom and Dad were looking pretty good. Mom's been struggling a bit with caring for Dad and trying to get the gardens in order for the season. I helped mom with some weeding of her flower beds and getting the potatoes into the ground. They had LOTS of potatoes. We wanted to get rid of them so we planted LOTS of potatoes in one whole where normally we would only put in one. :) The rest of them we put out to compost.

Big job done. Dad's heart more at ease because the potatoes are out, Mom's heart more at ease because her hubby is more at ease. We also had a nice visit. Justin played and helped them both to smile.

How is Dad? He still struggles a lot with bad muscle spasms. I asked what type of exercises they did, sounds like a good mix between strengthening and stretching. It's hard some days for Dad to do them because it hurts. His blood remains at a good level which is one less concern. And he is off the antibiotics which a blessing as well. The pain levels make it hard for Dad to get a proper sleep which in turn creates it's own problems.

According to Dr. Hupel the hip surgery was a complete success, now we just need to wait for his muscles to catch up to his activity level. It's a struggle.

Your continued prayers are appreciated.