My school only offered French and Spanish. French just sounded better to me. In reality, living in Florida, Spanish probably would've been more useful, but I liked French.

There are definitely some words and phrases that I internalized and don't have to translate. I used to have great French grammar (according to the French exchange student that stayed with us one summer), but that is entirely gone.

I'm about to go out and get some sun.

But John is experiencing the blessings of heaven now.

I'm shocked, but I was able to read most of the French. I studied French for 5 years, but haven't used it for 30+. I don't think I can write or speak it very well anymore and I doubt I can understand the spoken very well (at least not if they don't talk super slowly), but I can mostly follow the written word. That is exciting.

That looks like an accident waiting to happen.

It is kind of cool, but I think I'll pass.

I prefer the NASB for my personal study, but my special needs son uses the NLT because it is much easier for him to understand and still a very good translation. I might have to check out that NLT audio Bible for when we are riding in the car together.

When we last flew, they charged extra if you didn't check-in on the app or online.

I’ve heard a lot of people question how they can be happy in heaven knowing that friends and loved ones are experiencing eternal torment in Hell. I’ve not had a good answer, but was leaning to believing that when we experience God’s absolute majesty and holiness, we will agree 100% with His judgment and the feeling of righteousness will overwhelm the feeling of sadness.

Although I think there is some truth to that thought, this verse has made me think that isn’t the whole story.

“For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; And the former things will not be remembered or come to mind.” (Isaiah 65:17)

Scripture says that “he former things will not be remembered or come to mind.” It looks like one reason we will not be sad is because we won’t remember our sin, hardship, loss, and those who are not with us in heaven.

Keep reading the Bible. There is always more to learn

#grownostr #biblestr #Bible #Jesus #jesus #christian #christianity #heaven #EndTimes

I've been reading through the Bible in a year (in addition to other miscellaneous study) for between 20-30 years and reading daily for about 40 years. This year I'm reading a chronological Bible (for the 2nd time) and using an app on my phone that has a morning reading and an evening reading that includes mostly chronological text from the Old Testament and related text from Psalms and/or the New Testament. I generally prefer a print Bible and have started making notes (which causes me to get deeper and to note related texts), but the app is also working for me. It will allow me to read through twice, but mix it up more every day.

It is funny, most things you read, you lose interest when you read it again and again, but with the Bible the interest grows and grows especially as you start to really see the big picture and how all of the parts relate and clarify each other.

I just ordered a proof book for my second book "Joy in the Storm: Growing my faith in a very good God."

I've had the book written for a year, but editing and formatting took a long time since my editors are working for free and I've been too busy, for the past 6 months, to do the formatting. When I finally did, I had some major problems. There must have been some ghost character that was locking up my book editor.

It feels really good to be at this point. I'll let everyone know when the paperback and when the ebooks are available.

If anyone DMs me their email and zaps 100 sats, I can email the .mobi or .epub version to you. Offer good July 2025. (at least good for the first 10+ requests. I don't want to get a massive quantity and cause myself too much work, individually emailing everyone.)

#biblestr #Bible #Jesus #Christian #christianity

Too often we are given the false dichotomy of faith or logic. Faith in our Creator is logical and factual. It doesn’t require blind faith. It can be rightly defended logically, factually, and even scientifically.

“And he entered the synagogue and continued speaking out boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God.” (Acts 19:8)

Science and logic can’t conclusively prove God, but they do actually agree with and support the Bible. Those that say otherwise are either working hard to disprove the God they don’t want to submit to or they are starting with false assumptions and therefore coming to false conclusions.

#grownostr #biblestr #Bible #christian #christianity

Like many things in our Christian life, we can error to multiple extremes. Most people seem to be worried about arguments between Christians. I’ll admit some of them get ugly and that should never happen. On the other hand, we aren’t supposed to just let error continue, but should correct lovingly using Scripture (not our opinions).

“25This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he was speaking and teaching accurately the things concerning Jesus, being acquainted only with the baptism of John; 26and he began to speak out boldly in the synagogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.” (Hebrews 18":25-26).

When a Jew named Apollos was speaking using the Jewish Scriptures, two godly Christians, Aquila & Priscilla, pulled him aside to explain Jesus to him more accurately. They didn’t try to embarrass him in front of people. They didn’t try to beat him at an argument. They gently pulled him aside and explained the truth to him. By correctly him privately and in a loving manner, he became an amazing preacher that defended the faith boldly and correctly and brought people to Christ.

Ignoring error is as bad as browbeating the mistaken. All believers should be searching for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. We shouldn’t be trying to look more righteous or to embarrass those who may be less mature or misled.

#grownostr #biblestr #Bible #christian #christianity #apologetics

My kids are 18 and 20 and neither has ever been on social media, but especially not things like tiktok.

Without knowing exactly what is in it, the moment I heard the name "big beautiful bill" I knew I wouldn't want it. It may have some good things in it, but nothing with that name isn't full of bloat and waste and tyranny.

birds, raccoons, dog, or some kind of critter?

We had something eat all of our apples last year or the year before and it was raccoons. We figured it out when our dog treed one and was barking at it. We went out and shot it, grabbed a shovel to pick it up, and my husband looked up to find its sibling in the tree about 2 feet from his face. We had to get the .22 again, shoot the 2nd one, check the whole tree, and haul them off. Some of their relatives may be back.

My little cherry trees produced cherries for the first time this year. They were getting close to ripe. I checked on them when I got home from church today and they were 100% gone.

I don't believe there are any creatures from space visiting our planet, but there is something going on. I'm sure some are hoaxes, some are governments doing things they haven't admitted, but some are demons (effectively extra dimensional beings). I think we are seeing more activity because we are approaching the end times and alien abductions will be used to explain away the rapture of the church.

They also often coat the copper with shellac or another coating so it won't oxidize and turn green. That ruins any benefits.

Who counted?

Too often people assume knowledge and education equate to wisdom, but they don’t necessarily have much correlation.

A rough definition of wisdom (or at least how to attain it) is:

Wisdom = God + knowledge

If a person has only knowledge, but rejects God, He is the greatest of fools. If he has God without knowledge (especially knowledge of God and the Bible), then does he actually have faith in the God of the Bible or is it only faith in a god of his own creation and likeness?

We all need God and knowledge. Reading the Bible is one of the best ways to gain both.

#grownostr #biblestr #Bible #Christian #christianity #God

I'm shocked that here in Wyoming it is still green in July. It isn't as vibrant green as May, but most of the grass is still green. This is good, but not normal.

When I was reading Hebrew 7 last night I noticed that Moses spent 40 years in the Egyptian Palace, 40 years as a shepherd in Midian, and 40 years leading the Israelites through the wilderness.

We all go through stages in life that prepare us for the next. Sometimes those stages last a lot longer than we think they should and others don’t last as long as we’d wish.

I can also see the hand of God in 3 forty year periods.

#biblestr, #christian, #christianity, #Bible, #grownostr

Just under 10 years ago, we lost our house in a 60+ mph wind fueled grass fire. My two biggest losses from the fire were the Bible & letter my husband gave me when he proposed and my great grandmother's chemistry thesis paper and graduation announcement for her masters in chemistry in 1913.

I was talking to my parents today and my Dad told me about cleaning out some old pictures and stuff. Him and my niece threw out my great grandmother's masters in chemistry diploma this summer. If I'd only known they had it, I could've rescued it and hung it on my wall. I'm super bummed.

I was just reading in my chronological Bible about the crucifixion and saw something I’d never noticed before that started me thinking. John 19:25 says, “ … standing by the cross of Jesus were His mother, and His mother’s sister, …” Jesus’s aunt was at His crucifixion. The Bible talks about Mary, Joseph, and Jesus’s brothers. It talks about Elizabeth, a more distant relative. I think this is the only mention of anyone from Mary’s home growing up.

Did Mary tell her parents or sister about being visited by and angel and told she would mother the Messiah by the Holy Spirit or did she remain silent because it was so unbelievable? When she became pregnant, did she then try to explain to her family, but get rejected? Was Jesus’s aunt ever around when Jesus was growing up, or was her first appearance due to her feeling bad for her sister who had previously lost her husband and now was loosing her eldest son in the most horrific way?

In the whole scheme of things, these aren’t critical questions, but it still tells us something about what Mary went through having a child out of wedlock, seemingly through sin.

#grownostr #biblestr #Christian #christianity #Bible #Jesus

I know lots of people like revolvers and maybe my problem is the particular ones I've tried, but the few times I've shot a revolver, I haven't enjoyed it. It is also almost impossible for most women to concealed carry a revolver or large automatic, so it limits the guns for us.

I love the idea of this, but its always at a bad time (8 pm eastern is dinner time for us) or I'm just so overwhelmed, I don't have an hour to spare.

Personally, I've liked SimpleX and have it on my phone, but since I'm not super available, you don't have to change things for me.

I haven't participated ever. I don't know if it is audio or text. If it is text, you could just have a passage, question, or subject for the day and let people chime in throughout the day when they have time.

My son helps me unload the dishwasher and put everything away. When he was younger he would "help" put things away whether they were clean or dirty and no amount of explaining would stop him.

I hope so, avoiding cow dairy, eggs, and paprika is killing me.

I am at least mostly cured. I increased my carbs and fiber. I took some supplements to heal my gut. I avoided the food I had become sensitive to. I fermented my own goat's milk "yoghurt" with special strains that help heal (from the book "Super Gut"). My gut is much better (less gas, more consolidated poop, more comfortable, less bloating). I am about to do a new fecal test and blood test (for the sensitivities) to hopefully verify that I am fully healed. My food sensitivities were hard to find. They weren't an instantly obvious allergic reaction. It was more like the food would cause some inflammation that would cause my joints to ache so I would toss and turn at night and not sleep well. It was very difficult figuring out which foods I had the sensitivities to, which is why I did the blood test, even though it can give some false positives.

Anyone with leaky gut also needs to avoid Glyphosate which leads to leaky gut. Especially avoid all non-organic soy, wheat, and oats (which obviously means avoid most restaurant and most processed food).

Be careful with the really low carb diets, especially when they don't include fiber. I was on one for 4-5 years and loving it until it messed up my gut, I got leaky gut, and started having food sensitivities. I also was being awakened in the morning feeling really hot and with a racing heart and mind. I found out it was high cortisol as my body produced glucose to keep things running. The high cortisol was messing me up in addition to waking me up.

I have had a lot of interesting animals get in my yard or near my yard: turkeys, pheasants, bald eagles, deer, antelope, fox, mink, etc. All of these make sense since I live in Wyoming, but I just found a peacock in my yard.

What in the world is a peacock doing in my yard? They don't normally live in Wyoming. I doubt one could survive a Wyoming winter. He didn't flare, so I'm not certain, but I think his tail feathers were partially stripped, maybe something got after him.

I'm sorry I was so unclear. When I say there will be some I don't expect, they won't be believers in other religions. There is only one way to heaven -- faith in Jesus.

"Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me." (John 14:6)

What I am talking about is we can't always rightly judge the fruits of salvation. One person might look like a Christian because they are trying so hard to earn their way to heaven by their own power that they do lots of "good", "Christian" things. Another person may not seem to do much but may be a quiet prayer warrior with deep faith that hates doing anything in public. God knows the heart.

It is not what we do, but what Jesus has done in us.

"If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing." (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)

"“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’" (Matthew 7:21-23)

Hopefully that clarifies things more. I didn't sleep well last night, so I'm not communicating very well this morning.

Doing good things doesn't get you saved. There is no amount of good works we can do to get right with God. One bad motive or bad action destroys all of the good we've ever done. Our only good is what Jesus has given us when we trust in Him. Doing good things is what should be the result of salvation. We should be so grateful for what Jesus did for us that we give our all to Him.

It is true that only God knows the heart and who is really His. I suspect there will be some people in heaven that we didn't expect to see and some who aren't there that we expected to be there.

I've never heard of a machine for outdoors, but they do sell water machines for making drinking water from humid air. I've also heard of some makeshift things using tarps or metal sheeting, at an angle to condense water from the air and direct it to plants or to catch dew in the morning to direct to plants. Because I live in a very dry climate, I haven't watched it closely.

It looks like it worked. Thanks.

In my Strike app, the lightning wallet is supposedly setup. I setup my nostr app with the strike.me lightning wallet. I don't know what else I need to do.

I don't know. I never finished setting up my alby hub, so I supposedly connected a strike lightning wallet, but never tested it to see if it actually worked.

Most people today don't care about excellence and don't care about others. That leads to poor customer service because the staff don't care if things aren't done right and don't care about other people. They only care about doing the minimum to keep their job.

I watched a movie about that recently. I wonder if they got the idea from the movie or the movie idea came from seeing something like that in a book store.

The US used to be very close to a true capitalistic society, that is why the US became so successful. Then those in power started putting in regulations, making the system less and less capitalistic, which reduced the wealth, prosperity, and freedom in the US. Now there is almost no resemblance with capitalism.

One thing people don't like about capitalism is that although everyone has equal opportunity, some people will make more of that opportunity, so people don't have equal outcomes. Some people work harder. Some people have more game changing ideas. Some people have better skills or intelligence. At the same time, people in general do so much better than all other economic systems.

Because capitalism is the most prosperous system, it allows those who are successful to help those who are hurting, especially those who are hurting through no fault of their own, i.e. health problems, learning disabilities, disaster, etc. When a person gives out of their own personal generosity, they feel good about helping. When a person is helped by another out care, the receiver is grateful for what they received. Everyone benefits. When government forcefully takes from those who worked for it those people resent the theft and when they give it to those in need the recipients feel entitled and have no gratefulness that someone worked to support them. Everyone resents the other and there is division. All of this also doesn't count the massive waste caused by the bureaucracy that maintains the taxing and the disbursement. Therefore the government ends up taking much of what could benefit the other two parties.

My husband recently commented about big shrimp. When I was grocery shopping, I found these Argentinian Red Shrimp for sale. They were a bit expensive, but decided to buy them once, so I could give my husband some big shrimp.

We ate them last night. Oh my! These were the best shrimp I have ever tasted. Regular shrimp are nothing compared to Argentinian Reds. I think they may be worth the extra expense. The package said they taste a bit like lobster. In reality, they have their own taste, but they are truly fantastic. If you have a chance to try them, they are worth the price because they are so much better than normal shrimp. We got out cocktail sauce, but nobody used it because they tasted so good on their own.

#grownostr #foodstr

Can some of my Catholic friends explain something to me? Why does the Pope change his name? What is the purpose? What is the current Pope communicating by his name choice?

The new Pope choosing Leo as his name doesn't sound like a man who plans to be humble.

When Jesus died on the cross, the curtain before the Holy of Holies was torn in two, from the top to bottom, by God. He removed the separation between the common people and Himself. He said it was no longer necessary to go through a priest to approach God. We have direct access. Sadly the Catholic church leadership has slowly been rebuilding that separation from God.

Like so many human organizations, the people who seek leadership tend to not be those who believe in the mission of the organization, but those who seek power. Slowly, over time, the Bishop of Rome took onto himself the authority of Pope,. and relatively recently (forget the dates because I'm terrible with dates) took on ultimate authority for himself. The corruption in Rome is massive and many (most?) of the leaders push unbiblical principles and even focus more on cultural/political subjects than on biblical ones.

I do know lots of wonderful Catholic Christians who believe the Bible and worship Jesus/God/Spirit faithfully, but based on their actions, I truly do not believe that many of the leaders of the Catholic Church are Christians at all. For their sake, I hope I am wrong.

I don't think we are going to ever get good money. I think our current bad money is going to soon be converted into the tyrannical beast system money. We have all of the technology necessary (at least in preliminary form) to implement the beast system predicted in Revelation 13.