To Ponder and Share.

Recently I studied Blaise Pascal in history and there were a few thing he said that I thought were good. I've listed them here for you to also ponder and reflect on. Feel free to share this with others!

– If I wager that there is a God, and I'm right, then I gain eternity for having believed in Him.

– If I wager that there is a God, and I'm wrong, then I lose nothing for having believed in Him.

– If I wager that there is no God, and I'm right, then I lose nothing for having not believed in Him.

– If I wager that there is no God, and I'm wrong, then I lose eternity for having not believed in Him.

Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear what you think about these in the comments! God bless!

Bethany

Are you a writer. . .?

Here's a fun quiz that I used with permission. Have fun!

You know you're a writer when...

1You see someone on TV who you think looks just like one of your characters.
2 You read a book and are certain that writer ripped you off, somehow.
3 You think of your characters as your friends.
4 You reenact a scene from your story and do the dialogue for all the characters.
5 You watch a movie with your friends and you can't stop saying, "I'm totally using that line in my book."
6 Your mood depends on what's going on in your book.
7 You'd rather write than watch TV.
8You cry while you write a sad scene in your story.
9 You get mad when someone says they think you should make your favorite character die.
10 You get so excited when you're assigned a two week research paper.
11 You dream about your story/stories.
12 You dream about your bad guy character trying to kill you.
13 The kids of your mom's friend go home and ask their mom to rent the movie you were telling them about, when in reality you were just telling them a story.
14 You do hands-on research to figure out how it would feel to be your character in whatever situation you're researching.
15 You model your child character after the kid you babysit.
16 You get mad when your character makes the wrong decision.
17 You can't stand the naughty kids in the books you read, but you love writing those kids to torment your characters.
18 You play your stories.
19You wish you could live in the imaginary world sometimes.
20 When people ask you what your favorite book character is you tell them the one from your own book.
21 You have actually emailed the FBI to ask them questions for your story.
22 You get really excited about research.
23 You borrow tons of books from the library to get inspiration or ideas for scenes in your stories.
24 You rewrite movies/books/TV shows to the way you like them.
25 You sometimes wonder if your characters are controlling the stories, not you. 
26 You own an outfit just like the one your character wears.
27 You write your own commercials for your stories.
28 You find that you can't remember what was from your stories and what was real when you're recalling life events.
29 You actually can't stand to let your favorite bad guy die and you bring him back again...and again and again and again formany sequels.
30 Your friends think you're talking about real people when you're actually talking about your characters.
Grade yourself!
1-5: You like to make up stories a lot but find that it's hard to actually finish something and often you find yourself having to push yourself to sit down and write.
5-10: You enjoy writing and do it in your spare time, though during school you don't usually find the inspiration to write and would rather be doing something else.

10-15: You love to write and try to do it as much as you can, though many times you take several week breaks. When Writer's Block hits you're really stuck.

15-20: You love to write and often start many, many stories that you can't possibly finish, thus frustrating yourself and never actually getting things done except those stories you really put a lot of effort into.

 20-25: You really love writing and just can't get enough of it- you write something every single day and eighty percent of the time finish what you write, though you do have a lot of abandoned stories or just ideas that someday you may or may not write. You rarely get Writer's Block and have over ten stories finished.
25-29: You LOVE writing so much and are constantly typing up a new idea or story or something and can't stop creating new things. You finish most of what you write and then start something new, often tackling three part series in a matter of weeks. Your biggest problem is jumping from story to story to story, though you do finish most of what you write you often reread what you wrote a month before and then rewrite the whole story.
All 30: You're hooked. You think, breathe and live your stories. Often you have to take a break from writing so you don't mix reality with the imaginary, but your mind is always returning to that one scene or story you were going to write. You are constantly seeing people in stores that look like your characters and suspiciously considering that perhaps they escaped your book.

Comment in the comments and let me know what category you fall into.

P.S.

Jesseca Dawn and Susan Marlow, thanks for allowing me to use this.

Fool or Wise?

Thursday evenings my dad teaches youth group at my church. At the last youth group Dad gave out a questionnaire worksheet with five questions:

1. If someone asked you what a fool was (what makes someone a fool) what would you answer?
2. If someone asked you what makes a person wise what would you answer?
3. Is it possible for someone to be very smart but not very wise? Explain.
4. Who is wise— the one who is wise in the world's eyes and a fool in God's eyes, or the one who is a fool in the world's eyes and wise in God's eyes?
5. Which are you?

I challenge you to answer these questions. Only share the answers in a comment if you want to. Get out a piece of paper and answer them on there or copy the questions into a document and answer them there. Write them out, reflect on them. Do you want to be a fool in the world's eyes and wise in God's eyes or wise in the world's eyes and a fool in God's eyes?

Also I want to encourage my readers to see a movie that came out in theaters not that long ago called God's Not Dead. It is a wonderful movie. I would personally see it in theaters so that the entertainment industry will continue to make faith-based Christian movies as the movies that do the best in theaters will continue to be made.

A Magical Moment

Our cow Freckles touching noses with Dream.

A few weeks ago I enjoyed a small adventure on our property. Since I live on 40 acres, own two cows, one sheep, four chickens, four cats, and a horse, with practically no neighbors on our street, I get the full country life. So anyway, I saddled up Dream with my sister and parents and we rode Dream in our lower 20 acres. It was really fun as this was her first time in the “lowland” as we refer to it. She had only met our cows over the fence so she was as excited as could be to meet the cows face to face. As I rode her toward the cows and sheep, her whole body began to vibrate violently. At the time I thought it meant that she was scared but have since learned that that means that they are excited. I turned her around and began to walk away and as I did the cows and sheep began to come toward us. I have to admit that I was pretty nervous as I was on her and didn't know how she would respond and also, there are a lot of gopher holes in the lowland that I was afraid if she started to run she might step in and break a leg. However, after the cows and sheep followed us, I decided to let them meet. I once again turned her around and after a while, our youngest cow stepped forward and reached out her neck as far as she could. It was sort of like, “Hey! I want to meet you but am just a bit afraid. But my curiosity is getting the better of me. I'll just keep my distance.” I can understand why the cows would be a bit afraid because I'd never realized just the size of the cows until I was up on Dream's back. Even though Dream is considered a “pony” she is still a good size. I was looking down on the cows instead of up to them. It was practically magical to watch as they touched noses. I can tell you that I let out a sigh of relief as I realized just how relaxed Dream was since she was eating grass as she approached the cows!!! :P

A girl and her horse. . . and two cows and a sheep.

I just wanted to share this special part of my life with you all. Thanks for reading!

Winter Camp!

Sorry I haven 't posted in a while. I've been super busy. Enjoy this post!

Thanks for reading!

Ice skating with two of my buddies.

Broom Hockey. (I'm in green)

From January 31 to February 2 I went on a trip to a winter camp with my church's youth group. Hume Lake Christian Camps, is located in the southern area of the Sierrra Nevada Range. This was my second time going with the youth group. About 17 middle schoolers went and of those two accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Your prayers would be coveted for all the youth, that they would not stray from the Lord due to their home life, pressure at school, etc.

Among my favorite activities at Hume were ice skating, tubing, broom-hockey, and the “Boxsled Blitz”. The “Boxsled Blitz” is a competition between the churches that go up there. The rules are that you have to make a sled out of ONLY cardboard and duct tape. Then, when the tube run is iced over at about ten at night, two to ten people get in the sled and go down the hill and over a jump directly in front of the judges. This year our youth group made by far the most beautiful sled; it was a red and black locomotive complete with a bell and smokestack. We probably won creativity wise but, being the first sled down the hill, we only hit about eighteen mph and I think that judges were giving out lower scores at first, saving the better scores for if there was a better sled. :( Also, Hume has another tournament called broom-hockey, which is very similar to hockey. That was a lot of fun to participate in although we didn't win. I went ice skating twice and taught two people to ice skate. For not being on the ice in almost a year I feel I did fairly well. :P

The speaker was very funny.

Another of my favorite parts was chapel. There are two chapel sessions every day where there is a live band and speaker. This year the band was “For All Seasons,” formerly “Reveal”. The speaker was very funny. At one point he duct-taped a kid to his back to demonstrate carrying unnecessary burdens. He also told a lot of stories. The theme this year was “bear” fruit. If you're not bearing fruit then maybe you aren't connected to Jesus, the vine. They talked a lot about being grafted into the vine and such.

The band leader, Emily.

Even with all the awesome activities, chapel was my favorite part. I love the worship and the atmosphere where you don't feel ashamed to lift your hands in worship. I can't wait for next year's trip!!!

An Update . . .

I just wanted to do a quick post to let all my readers in on an update about Dream's leg. Sorry I didn't earlier. It is healing up well and she is at the point where we could start to ride again. (Yeah!!!) She is really feeling her oats. We have been working her more to get her ready for us to ride again. We took her for a walk (I know that sounds crazy but. . . ) on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and that was great except that it was a windy day and she spooked a bit. So I hope that fills you all in!!! By the way, if you are a horse owner, could you let me know in a comment so I know who to ask for tips? I hope to post new pictures soon! God bless you all! Thanks for all you prayers and concern!

It Is More Blessed to Give than Receive

On a Sunday in mid November and the following Monday my family and I were so blessed to participate in packing shoe boxes. This may sound a little strange to some of you but there is a program through Samaritan's Purse called “Operation Christmas Child” that takes shoe boxes packed with some items like candy, toothbrushes, washcloths, school supplies, toys, etc., and sends them across seas to children who don't even know what Christmas is!

My family and I drove an hour to participate in a church potluck (the church was called Brush Fire Ministries) where they were packing shoe boxes. This church was located in Bitterwater near King City. We, with a few other families in our fellowship, caravanned to this church for a “party packing” day. Their goal was 1000 shoe boxes (last year they did 800) and they did approximately 1200 shoe boxes this year! It was truly amazing to participate in this way of blessing others.

On Monday our family packed our own boxes too. As a family we did 6 boxes, 3 for boys, 3 for girls. I felt so wonderful knowing that I had helped bless children in other countries who, some of them didn't even know what love felt like. Some of these kids live in war-torn countries where their parents have possibly been killed in front of these children. The stories of what these kids face or faced is so amazing and touching. As a family we donated online and printed out labels for our boxes that enable us to get an email saying which country our boxes went to. This Christmas season “Christmas” has truly come alive for me. I've realized what Christmas is all about, giving and not receiving.

The Ups and Downs

Her leg was really swollen.

It was open just below the knee and bleeding.

Since receiving Dream we have lived through some ups and downs with her. To start with the ups, it is a wonderful blessing to have her on our property and to ride her freely. I so enjoy working with her, grooming her, spoiling her, and riding. For the downs, we came home one day about two weeks ago to find that she was just standing, which is extremely unusual for her, not even taking a few steps to come to the fence to greet us. I crouched down to look at her legs all the while coaxing her to come to me. I noticed that her left-front leg was open just below the knee. Being a first-time owner, I freaked out and called mom and dad. I jumped through the fence and was with her in a jiffy asking my sister to get water because I didn't know how long it had been since she had drunk since the water trough was on the other side of a hill. When I saw that her food wasn't even finished I became even more worried because Dream loves to eat. :D After we finally led her into a much smaller “pen” we called the man we got Dream from and the vet. The man we got Dream from came to our place to look at her wound and said that it was bad but not life-threatening. (THANKFULLY!) Two days later the vet came out and basically said the same thing. We got some medications for her from the vet too.

We gave her the medications twice a day for about a week and cleaned her wound daily in addition to putting in some stuff that's supposed to heal it up and some stuff to keep the flies away. It's been a lot of work and I hope it heals real quickly! Please pray because it isn't appearing to improve!

A Dream Come True

What ya doing?

Dream's feeder and OUR boardwalk to keep out of all the dust.

LET THE VIDEO LOAD ALL THE WAY FOR BEST VIEWING!!! ENJOY!

Ah, Sunday, October 13, 2013, a day to remember indeed. For on this memorable day my family and I picked up our horse that we have been given. Although it was extremely difficult for me not to share this with you all before, I was determined not to until after she was on our property. Going back now to August, I had a horse and didn't even know it! My dream come true at last! Back when we left for camp, that Wednesday, my mom and dad had been offered a horse and decided to take her. On the Saturday my sister and I came home they told us. So from Wednesday to Saturday, basically four days, I didn't even know that I was a horse owner! Can you imagine! I was so excited! (And still am:-)) We decided to name our mare “Dream” because she was a “dream come true”! Dream is an eight-year-old pony appaloosa. This does not mean that she is a very tiny horse but rather she is not quite full sized. She is the perfect size for my sister and me. She is also considered a “pony of the America's” aka: POA. We have free-ridden once so far and we do “ground games” a lot with her. She is a great horse for us. She's quiet—not like a high-spirited Arabian or something. : ) She was actually used with handicapped kids if that helps you picture her! Another good thing about her is that as we learn our training method, Parelli Natural Horsemanship, she is learning too because she was never trained with this method so she does not get frustrated as easily. (Notice I said “as easily”! LOL) Our friends who gave her to us also taught us how to ride, but most importantly, to build a relationship with her.

Now she even trots to us when she sees us or we call.

 

Neighing at me."Well, howdy yourself Dream"!

I am queen of this hill!

We are converting our playhouse to a tack shed for her. We made her a nice feeder too out of a tractor tire. We have been so blessed by friends offering advice, loaning us equipment, giving us tools, and offering physical help. Thank you if you are any of the above mentioned. Since we are first-time owners, we need all the help we can get! So far we have had a good experience except for a few minor mishaps. :-) Expect that I will be posting a lot more with her included!!!

Creation Trip

Posing in front of the Grand Tetons.

Bull elk in Grand Tetons.

A few days ago our family returned from a nice, long, relaxing trip. We dubbed it our “Creation Trip” because we studied the evidence for creation, the flood, and the Ice Age. My sister and I did school work in the car during our long driving days. We visited Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Tetons. We had a lot of adventures including camping in Yellowstone for five nights with snow on our tent two nights and 60 mph gusts the last night. Imagine how thrilled I was when I saw all the magnificent wildlife including three grizzlies, two black bears, a moose, lots of elk, pronghorn, mule deer, mountain goats, Canadian geese, trumpeter swans, and the crows relative, the raven, that is much larger than I thought. We traveled along the outskirts of Glacier National Park since the National Park shutdown forced us to change our plans. We got to be only 22 miles away from the Canadian border which was exciting for me to think that I was so close to a whole other country! Near the John Day fossil area in Oregon our family got to go fossil hunting. During our three hour excavation on a hillside we discovered multiple leaf fossils and petrified wood. Throughout our trip our family was blessed by the hospitality of old friends and new ones.

Mama Grizzly with cub that we saw when leaving Yellowstone.

​We went through Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Oregon, and of course, California. This was the longest trip that I have ever been on. We drove into more states than I have ever before. Our whole trip was full of excitement, but my favorite part was seeing all this together as a family.

This is just the beginning of the highlights of our two and a half week trip. I hope to post a lot more about this incredible trip but just to start, I wanted to share my introduction to our Creation Trip; however, my next post will be about one of the most memorable days of my life.