Growing Pains

One of our apple trees, two springs into its life, is covered in apple blossoms. I have every expectation that the apples, which were small last year, will grow bigger as the years and tree progress. Our God thought of everything when he gave us color and taste and sight and sound and touch and smell and wonder. He gives the best gifts.

God continues to work on our family, directing Matt and I separately toward the same verses, growing our family. We're learning that our opinions, our friends' opinions, our families' opinions, our church's opinions, and our culture's opinions are irrelevant. Satan has spent his long life convincing God's children that God doesn't mean what He says, and we have to measure our choices, and thus our lives, against God's actual words.

Genesis 3:1-4 Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field with the LORD God has made. And he said unto the woman, "Yeah, hath God said, 'Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?'" And the woman said unto the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, 'Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.'." And the serpent said unto the woman, "Ye shall not surely die:..."

Jeremiah 23:16-17 & 22 Thus saith the Lord of hosts, "Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they make you vain: they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the Lord. They say still unto them that despise me, 'The LORD hath said, 'Ye shall have peace'.'and they say unto every one that walketh after the imagination of their own heart, 'No evil shall come upon you.' ... But if they had stood in my counsel, and had caused my people to hear my words,  then they should have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings.