The Most Important Winter Prep

You don't have to know me very long before you realize that winter and I are not the best of friends.  I am solar-powered and grey, nasty days with no green in sight just about put me under.  But as they say, necessity is the mother of invention and so here is Shell's winter survival tip #387...

This time of year all the stores are teeming with Spring flowering bulbs.  My favorite is the Hyacinth but you can choose from any of them.  I am so excited because this year I found coral hyacinths at amazon!   queue the music and be still my heart.  *big beautiful sigh*

I love hyacinths because they smell amazing and are stubby enough that they don't tip your pots over with their height, I try to plant enough for each room in the house.  Especially bedrooms.

After you have your bulbs it's an easy process. Get yourself a bucket of compost and a few used pots and stick those critters in.

 as you can see I am breaking a sweat over this...

and once you have them planted just bury them in a flower bed or corner of your garden that will not be tilled.... this step is probably the most important step of the whole process.  Because if you have menfolk and a tiller hitched to your tractor these lil ones are in grave danger... it's like they can smell them and once in that tractor seat they head directly for the spot you sunk the pots and they just start tilling uncontrollably... The same thing happens in cornfields around here.  The first summer Andrew had a job he tilled the cornfield one night and the next morning I went out and planted the entire thing while he was at work and then I had to go work in a different spot on the farm.  I get back to see Drew out in the same dang field... tilling!  Little corn bodies were flying everywhere. 

I said (okay, it was closer to a yell)  "What you doin'??" 

he says "The dirt still looked compacted so I was tilling it again."

I say "Well, yeah, it looks compacted I just drove over it five hundred times while PLANTING IT!"

and the dude says "oh..."

People, corn will not come up after being tilled twelve inches under.. no matter how long you stand in that field and beg it to... So I ordered more seed and we had to start over.... and then miracle of miracles when we tilled for the second planting some of the first planting made it up but not in the rows, they came in all zig zaggy like a crazy person had tossed their bodies all over the place... on acounta he did...it messed with my OCD all summer... Just do yourself a favor... once you've planted unhitch the tiller. 

At any rate, here are my kids tucked safely where there is no tiller.  I am blessed to live in Missouri and in about two weeks Miss Missouri is going to dump about three feet of leaves on these little guys but if you live where leaves don't threaten to drown you every Autumn it would be best to plant them slightly deeper or cover them with a little woodchip mulch.

Then write yourself a note on your December or January calendar.  Mine reads "go get 'em"   Bring them in and in a few weeks, you will have enough Spring in your house to carry you through to better days. 

In the Spring you can plant the bulbs in your yard or plant the whole pots again for the next year. However,  if you leave them in pots be sure to divide them every few years so that you don't crowd your bulbs.

And that's it, Ladies, adding beauty to our homes by looking toward the future.  Wishing you a blessed Autumn! <3

Animals in Heaven..

The debate over animals and heaven is a minor issue.  Meaning if someone believes that animals are or are not in heaven it will have no bearing on that persons salvation.  I am a firm believer that we should never major on the minors.  However, to make sure that my children know where their mother stands I am writing this post, to clear some water that has been muddied over the past few years...

I believe animals go to heaven.  To be honest that belief had never been questioned until we moved to Missouri.  We believed it, our church believed it and the culture around us believed animals went to heaven.  But they don't call this place the show me state for nothing... it's a debate.

and that debate always seems to run around ..souls.. The bible does not say that God breathed into the nostrils of creatures "the breath of life" so therefore animals cannot have souls and cannot go to heaven.  I beg to differ.  First off I don't know if they do or do not have souls... I don't care.  I do know the bible clearly states there are animals in heaven.  I know that their Creator is clearly concerned about their welfare and care. He spends a great deal of time instructing us on our conduct towards them.  But that's not all that will be in heaven... I'll go even one step further and say there are trees or at least one tree that lived on earth and is now in heaven and I'm pretty sure it wasn't contingent on a soul either.  Now before you join my critics in accusing me of being from a mystic creation worshipping cult... stick with me.

I'm going to start by saying that God deals with all of His creation differently.  We have no right to try to fit Him into our simple, finite minds.  

Take for example ~Angels.  We know that angels can sin, choose wrong and fall from grace.  If they couldn't we would not have Lucifer and his crew.  Yet, salvation is not offered to a fallen angel like it is a fallen human. Angels are either in God's kingdom or on their way to hell. God does not deal with His creation the same.  

Look at Elijah and Enoch... they both had physical bodies that they were not required to leave behind on this earth.  And yet year after year, decade after decade, century after century so many people are forced to leave their bodies here to become dust... God does not deal with His creation the same.

Saying that God did not breathe into their nostrils the breath of life is not justification enough to say animals cannot go to heaven any more than you are justified in saying Elijah better get his body back down here cuz, God, that's just not fair.  Again... God does not deal with His creation the same.

And that is His right.

Let's look at Romans 8 and we will start in verse 14

"For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:"

here, we are being told that born again Christians are adopted into the family of God.. we become the sons of God

let's continue...

"And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." 

again. we are called the sons of God and we are waiting for our glory to be revealed... now pay attention.

"For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God."

There are two subjects in the above passage... the sons of God who we have established from the previous verses is us and ... the creature and the creature is doing what? waiting...for what?...our manifestation.... why would the creature care about our manifestation? Good question, read on. 

"For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,"

They were put under the same bondage as us.. not willingly or because they had done anything wrong but because of us.  They fight death, cold, heat, hunger, birth, separation by lack of communication.. they are subjected to the consequences of Adam's sin.  read on because here it is...

"Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God."

Oh my, the creature gets to do what? be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God ( where will you find glorious liberty? Heaven, correct? and the creature itself also shall be delivered. correct?) 

"For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now."

"And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body."

And there we are ~ all of creation travailing in pain and groaning together waiting for the redemption of our bodies.  

Now let me tell you something one last time.  God does not deal with his creation the same...I don't believe animals are to be worshipped. 

Animals and insects since the flood have been food.   In my freezer, there is a beef who when he walked this earth was tagged number "11".  When I get to heaven and run into 11 I want to run up and scratch that soft spot right behind his ears just like before.  

I will look him in the eye and rub my forehead against his (that's the best way to hug a cow) 

and, to be honest, since there will no longer be a language barrier from the fall, I will probably rib him a little asking why he turned into a carnivore and bit Grace while she was stealing his cud trying to save our milk cows life... 

there will be no sorrow or guilt from me being the cause of his death.  While 11 was here on our farm he was treated with kindness and love.  He was put to death as humanely as I could provide and he feeds my family... His Creator, my Creator established this order, neither he nor I will question it. People eat meat. Animals die.  The only responsibility we have is how they are treated when they are alive on this earth.  The rest of that responsibility is Gods and He's big enough to bear it.  Animals were only given a short time on this earth and while our flesh often grieves over this knowledge..... I know in my heart they got the better end of the deal.

well, there you have it.  no mystics.  no creation worship.  Just God said: 

"Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God."

and I believe Him.

Oh, and trees?  Well, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth... And God planted a garden eastward in Eden..... in that garden God planted trees that had names like peach, walnut, redbud, knowledge of good and evil, life, etc....  Then Adam sins and is kicked from the garden, as man walks away from the garden he turns to look over his shoulder one last time. He sees God placing armed angels around the tree called life to gaurd it because God doesn't want man to reach forth his hand and eat from it.... it was physically on earth. touchable there.. but travel through time to Revelation 22  where we find the tree of life, now in heaven beside the river.  God does not feel the need to explain to us the when, how or why and guess what?  He doesn't have to.   Does that mean all trees go to heaven?  Prolly not but who am I to answer that?  Personally, I don't think grasshoppers, Japanese beetles or coyotes should be in heaven they cause me way too much stress but that choice is not mine to make.  

My ways are not your ways saith the Lord, and that fact right there is something worth praising Him for... 


~Shell
Jeremiah 32:27