Defending Your Faith

The last time I defended my faith was...stick with it, read all of it...

 

Mathew 26:57 – 27:31 (NLT)

 

Then the people who had arrested Jesus led him to the home of Caiaphas, the high priest, where the teachers of religious law and the elders had gathered. Meanwhile, Peter followed him at a distance and came to the high priest’s courtyard. He went in and sat with the guards and waited to see how it would all end. 

Inside, the leading priests and the entire high council were trying to find witnesses who would lie about Jesus, so they could put him to death. But even though they found many who agreed to give false witness, they could not use anyone’s testimony. Finally, two men came forward who declared, “This man said, ‘I am able to destroy the Temple of God and rebuild it in three days.’”

Then the high priest stood up and said to Jesus, “Well, aren’t you going to answer these charges? What do you have to say for yourself?” But Jesus remained silent. Then the high priest said to him, “I demand in the name of the living God—tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.”

Jesus replied, “You have said it. And in the future you will see the Son of Man seated in the place of power at God’s right hand and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

Then the high priest tore his clothing to show his horror and said, “Blasphemy! Why do we need other witnesses? You have all heard his blasphemy.  What is your verdict?”

“Guilty!” they shouted. “He deserves to die!”

Then they began to spit in Jesus’ face and beat him with their fists. And some slapped him, jeering, “Prophesy to us, you Messiah! Who hit you that time?”

Meanwhile, Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. A servant girl came over and said to him, “You were one of those with Jesus the Galilean.”  But Peter denied it in front of everyone. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.  Later, out by the gate, another servant girl noticed him and said to those standing around, “This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.”  Again Peter denied it, this time with an oath. “I don’t even know the man,” he said.  A little later some of the other bystanders came over to Peter and said, “You must be one of them; we can tell by your Galilean accent.”  Peter swore, “A curse on me if I’m lying—I don’t know the man!” And immediately the rooster crowed.

Suddenly, Jesus’ words flashed through Peter’s mind: “Before the rooster crows, you will deny three times that you even know me.” And he went away, weeping bitterly.

Very early in the morning the leading priests and the elders of the people met again to lay plans for putting Jesus to death. Then they bound him, led him away, and took him to Pilate, the Roman governor.

When Judas, who had betrayed him, realized that Jesus had been condemned to die, he was filled with remorse. So he took the thirty pieces of silver back to the leading priests and the elders. “I have sinned,” he declared, “for I have betrayed an innocent man.”

“What do we care?” they retorted. “That’s your problem.”

Then Judas threw the silver coins down in the Temple and went out and hanged himself.

The leading priests picked up the coins. “It wouldn’t be right to put this money in the Temple treasury,” they said, “since it was payment for murder.”  After some discussion they finally decided to buy the potter’s field, and they made it into a cemetery for foreigners. That is why the field is still called the Field of Blood. This fulfilled the prophecy of Jeremiah that says,

“They took the thirty pieces of silver—the price at which he was valued by the people of Israel, and purchased the potter’s field, as the Lord directed.”

Now Jesus was standing before Pilate, the Roman governor. “Are you the king of the Jews?” the governor asked him.

Jesus replied, “You have said it.”

But when the leading priests and the elders made their accusations against him, Jesus remained silent. “Don’t you hear all these charges they are bringing against you?” Pilate demanded. But Jesus made no response to any of the charges, much to the governor’s surprise.

Now it was the governor’s custom each year during the Passover celebration to release one prisoner to the crowd—anyone they wanted. This year there was a notorious prisoner, a man named Barabbas.  As the crowds gathered before Pilate’s house that morning, he asked them, “Which one do you want me to release to you—Barabbas, or Jesus who is called the Messiah?” (He knew very well that the religious leaders had arrested Jesus out of envy.)

Just then, as Pilate was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent him this message: “Leave that innocent man alone. I suffered through a terrible nightmare about him last night.”

Meanwhile, the leading priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas to be released and for Jesus to be put to death. So the governor asked again, “Which of these two do you want me to release to you?”

The crowd shouted back, “Barabbas!”

Pilate responded, “Then what should I do with Jesus who is called the Messiah?”

They shouted back, “Crucify him!”

“Why?” Pilate demanded. “What crime has he committed?”

But the mob roared even louder, “Crucify him!”

Pilate saw that he wasn’t getting anywhere and that a riot was developing. So he sent for a bowl of water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood. The responsibility is yours!”

And all the people yelled back, “We will take responsibility for his death—we and our children!”

So Pilate released Barabbas to them. He ordered Jesus flogged with a lead-tipped whip, then turned him over to the Roman soldiers to be crucified.

Some of the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into their headquarters and called out the entire regiment. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him. They wove thorn branches into a crown and put it on his head, and they placed a reed stick in his right hand as a scepter. Then they knelt before him in mockery and taunted, “Hail! King of the Jews!” And they spit on him and grabbed the stick and struck him on the head with it. When they were finally tired of mocking him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him again. Then they led him away to be crucified.

 

John 18:12-19:16 (NLT)

So the soldiers, their commanding officer, and the Temple guards arrested Jesus and tied him up. First they took him to Annas, the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the high priest at that time. Caiaphas was the one who had told the other Jewish leaders, “It’s better that one man should die for the people.”

Simon Peter followed Jesus, as did another of the disciples. That other disciple was acquainted with the high priest, so he was allowed to enter the high priest’s courtyard with Jesus. Peter had to stay outside the gate. Then the disciple who knew the high priest spoke to the woman watching at the gate, and she let Peter in. The woman asked Peter, “You’re not one of that man’s disciples, are you?”

“No,” he said, “I am not.”

Because it was cold, the household servants and the guards had made a charcoal fire. They stood around it, warming themselves, and Peter stood with them, warming himself.

Inside, the high priest began asking Jesus about his followers and what he had been teaching them. Jesus replied, “Everyone knows what I teach. I have preached regularly in the synagogues and the Temple, where the people gather. I have not spoken in secret. Why are you asking me this question? Ask those who heard me. They know what I said.”

Then one of the Temple guards standing nearby slapped Jesus across the face. “Is that the way to answer the high priest?” he demanded.

Jesus replied, “If I said anything wrong, you must prove it. But if I’m speaking the truth, why are you beating me?”

Then Annas bound Jesus and sent him to Caiaphas, the high priest.

Meanwhile, as Simon Peter was standing by the fire warming himself, they asked him again, “You’re not one of his disciples, are you?”

He denied it, saying, “No, I am not.”

But one of the household slaves of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, “Didn’t I see you out there in the olive grove with Jesus?” Again Peter denied it. And immediately a rooster crowed.

Jesus’ trial before Caiaphas ended in the early hours of the morning. Then he was taken to the headquarters of the Roman governor. His accusers didn’t go inside because it would defile them, and they wouldn’t be allowed to celebrate the Passover. So Pilate, the governor, went out to them and asked, “What is your charge against this man?”

“We wouldn’t have handed him over to you if he weren’t a criminal!” they retorted.

“Then take him away and judge him by your own law,” Pilate told them.

“Only the Romans are permitted to execute someone,” the Jewish leaders replied. (This fulfilled Jesus’ prediction about the way he would die.)

Then Pilate went back into his headquarters and called for Jesus to be brought to him. “Are you the king of the Jews?” he asked him.

Jesus replied, “Is this your own question, or did others tell you about me?”

“Am I a Jew?” Pilate retorted. “Your own people and their leading priests brought you to me for trial. Why? What have you done?”

Jesus answered, “My Kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. If it were, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders. But my Kingdom is not of this world.”

Pilate said, “So you are a king?”

Jesus responded, “You say I am a king. Actually, I was born and came into the world to testify to the truth. All who love the truth recognize that what I say is true.”

 “What is truth?” Pilate asked. Then he went out again to the people and told them, “He is not guilty of any crime. But you have a custom of asking me to release one prisoner each year at Passover. Would you like me to release this ‘King of the Jews’?”

But they shouted back, “No! Not this man. We want Barabbas!” (Barabbas was a revolutionary.)

Then Pilate had Jesus flogged with a lead-tipped whip. The soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they put a purple robe on him. “Hail! King of the Jews!” they mocked, as they slapped him across the face.

Pilate went outside again and said to the people, “I am going to bring him out to you now, but understand clearly that I find him not guilty.” Then Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And Pilate said, “Look, here is the man!”

When they saw him, the leading priests and Temple guards began shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

“Take him yourselves and crucify him,” Pilate said. “I find him not guilty.”

The Jewish leaders replied, “By our law he ought to die because he called himself the Son of God.”

When Pilate heard this, he was more frightened than ever. He took Jesus back into the headquarters again and asked him, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave no answer. “Why don’t you talk to me?” Pilate demanded. “Don’t you realize that I have the power to release you or crucify you?”

Then Jesus said, “You would have no power over me at all unless it were given to you from above. So the one who handed me over to you has the greater sin.”

Then Pilate tried to release him, but the Jewish leaders shouted, “If you release this man, you are no ‘friend of Caesar.’ Anyone who declares himself a king is a rebel against Caesar.”

When they said this, Pilate brought Jesus out to them again. Then Pilate sat down on the judgment seat on the platform that is called the Stone Pavement (in Hebrew, Gabbatha). It was now about noon on the day of preparation for the Passover. And Pilate said to the people, “Look, here is your king!”

 “Away with him,” they yelled. “Away with him! Crucify him!”

“What? Crucify your king?” Pilate asked.

“We have no king but Caesar,” the leading priests shouted back.

Then Pilate turned Jesus over to them to be crucified.

 

I have never had to defend my faith is the sense that I was not threatened by anyone.  I think this is a misconception that most American Christians have, that to defend your faith means that you should be in dire straits and under threat of death.  By all means, the saints that do live in areas where they do get their lives threatened, are certainly defending their faith; in a big, bold way.  Praise God for them!

But, we can defend our faith here too.  We don’t face the persecution that Christians in muslim countries face, but we have some choices to make that will defend our faith.  Choices that I believe speak to who we are as Christians.  Choices like, will I laugh at that off color joke?  Will I give to the homeless person on the corner, even though I think I know what they are going to do with the gift?  Will I love that person that is openly living is sin?  These seem like obvious things, but I can tell from personal experience, I have not always been faithful.

Life as a Christian is not easy, there are challenges everyday because we live in the world.  The world where satan holds sway.  And to be honest, satan works hardest on believers in Christ.  He has no need to work on those that don’t believe, he already has them.  Sometimes though, our greatest enemy is not satan; but our own sinful selves.  We don’t accidently sin, it’s usually a conscious to proceed with our sin.  If we are to defend our faith to our enemies, should we start with our own hearts?

For me to defend my faith to myself would seem to be an oxymoron, how do you stand up for what you believe in...to yourself?  I said earlier that our sin is a choice that we make, so let start there.  Let’s make good conscious choices, choices that reflect our love of Christ.  These choices start from where our hearts and minds are.  If we allow the world to mold our thoughts by what we read and watch, then the world (satan) will also mold our hearts.  But, if we spend time communing with God; spending time in prayer, studying and acting on what we are studying...then we are defending our faith against our natural selves.

I encourage you to defend your faith today, defend it against your closest enemy...yourself.

 

cej

Abortion - Alicia Johnson

It has been a while since I have posted, life is busy and so am I.  At some point I will get back to this, got some good stuff coming!  But, for now I have a guest blogger.  My daughters are pretty smart (smarter than me, most of the time), so here is a paper my daughter actually wrote last year, I am just now getting around to posting it (procrastinate much, Cory?).  Needless to say, I am proud of my kids!  Without further adoo, here's Alicia:






Abortion

 The Noah Webster Dictionary defines abortion as “the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus.” There are a few different types of abortions but the one that is most common is saline abortion, where they basically pump a chemical solution into the womb.


Abortion is easily one of the most controversial issues in today’s world, but is it right or wrong? Abortions wrong because it violates the principle of the importance of human life and the principle of choice.


Whether people choose to believe it or not when they choose to have an abortion they are choosing to “play God” and end someone’s life. In more than half of America a mother can get an abortion at up to 24 weeks (taken from The New York Times) into the pregnancy, that baby’s heartbeat started at 6 weeks (from What to Expect). Many clinics and pro-choicers try to numb this thought by saying that it is just a fetus nothing more, but doctors have said that the baby is alive! When a mother decides to get an abortion she is deciding that that baby isn't worth anything and that it doesn't mean anything for it to die.


The biggest push that people for abortion have is that woman should be able to have control over their own bodies and that they should have a choice; well those same woman also had the choice not to have sex, and what about that baby’s choice to live? These women can't comprehend the fact that they are destroying a whole life and that they are going to have to live with that choice for their whole lives.


Abortion also comes with its consequences, such as living with the guilt of having taken someone’s life and even the chance that the abortion did not work.


Abortion leaves scars on people’s lives forever. Four out of six women interviewed by DailyMail said that they are now suffering from depression and even panic attacks. These woman are now suffering from an action that they did years ago and it's still affecting them in today’s world.


Another thing people don't realize about abortions are that they aren't guaranteed to work. There are many babies who are born alive with damage to their brain and body due to failed abortions. One woman who this happened to is Gianna Jessen. Gianna’s mother was seven and a half months into her pregnancy when she had a saline abortion. Gianna stayed in the saline for eighteen hours before she ended up being birthed alive, but she was just thrown in a dumpster outside. One of the nurses found her and saved her, now Gianna spends her time trying to make abortion illegal and working towards not just giving the mothers their rights but also the babies theirs. If Gianna Jessen could be such voice for change, then what else could we be keeping from the world.


There were roughly 1.2 million recorded abortions in the United States in 2008 (statistic from Guttmacher) how many of these lives could have been brilliant minds that the world was unable to see because their lives where selfishly ended before they could even begin. In 2012 there were 20 children killed by a mentally disturbed man at Sandy Hook Elementary and the outcry for gun-control and the angry towards the man that killed these kids was massive. How then have we as people become so cold as to think 1.2 million deaths is ok as long as they weren't out of the womb yet. Did these children’s life not count as much as the 20 that were killed at Sandy Hook just because of the weapon of their death?


In Jeremiah 1:5 of the NET Bible it says “Before I formed you in your mother’s womb I chose you. Before you were born I set you apart. I appointed you to be a prophet to the nations.” A prophet is nothing more than one who speaks the truth, whether it in a biblical standpoint, a medical field, or just your “everyday-joe,” life is important. We all have a choice and our choices have consequences whither good or bad, and some of these choices have major consequences on other people’s lives too.


I choose to give someone the chance to make their own impact on this world.


I choose to give someone a chance at living.


I choose life.

The Flaming Mask of Peppermint

My wife uses oils, I have used oils…not a lot, but I’ve used them.  I have mostly made fun of people who use oils.  Rest assured I believe some of them work.  I just like to pick at the folks who are full on voodoo believers.  It’s one of my small pleasures in life.  Sometimes this comes back to bite me on the behind.
 

A couple of days ago, I got to bed with a pounding headache.  My normal procedure is to get up , get a couple aspirin, slime up a little in my mouth, swaller’ em and go back to bed.  But that night my Bride was putting some oils on her knees.  I don’t recall what it was she was using, but I mentioned that I had a headache.  She said, “No problem, do you want me to put some peppermint on your temples?”  I initially thought she said something else, but I won’t go into that.  I thought to myself I don’t want to get out of bed, so “yeah, put some on me”.

She put a little dab on her finger and rubbed it on the sides of my head.  I couldn’t tell she’d put any on me.  I couldn’t yet smell it and must have had the look on my face that said that, because my Bride asked if I wanted more.  Being from the school of “if one nail is good, 10 is better”, I told her to slather some more on there.  I could immediately tell I now had some on me, because I could smell it.  It kinda made my eyes water a little.  Ok truth be told…my sinus’ cleared out and my eyes started watering like Niagara Falls.  But I am a tough guy, so I said thanks and lay back down.

I lay there with liquid running out of my eyes, streaming down either side of my head like the Columbia River in the spring time.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind my eyes watering.  What bothered me was that somehow that peppermint had caught on fire.  I now had flaming streams of liquid fire on either side of my head.  I was pretty confident that somehow my Bride had snuck up on me with a match and lit me up in some kind of morbid game of “let’s see what this’ll do”.  I could even have dealt with this, if it weren’t for the fact that my eyes were also on fire.  It was a little like having welder burnt eyes.  If you never had welder burnt eyes, and want to experience it without the benefit of the welder arc, I highly recommend the peppermint oils.  It will give you that just right burned out eyeballs feeling you’ve been looking for.

The flaming liquid trails on either side of my head or the burned out fiery holes that once had been my eyes would have been tough to deal with by themselves, but together…oh, together…together they were more fun than being whipped with a rattlesnake.  I swear at one point I thought I smelled steak, but I knew that couldn’t be right.  I figured it must have been the meat on the sides of my head cookin’.  All I could hear was this weird screaming sound, I thought it might have been my Bride screaming in horror…but then I realized it was me.

I noticed through the pain glazed fire that was now my eyesight that my Bride, during all of this, was double over shaking.  I thought she might have been crying, seeing all of the pain that I was in.  But to my horror, I realized she thought this was funny!   She just kept saying, “I told you it doesn’t take much”, and then falling into fits of laughter again.  I don’t know why she thought it was funny; after all it was her sheets that were getting burnt up.  I decided that once this burning, screaming, fiery hell that was burning the flesh off my head and my eyes out of their sockets was over; we needed to discuss our empathy/sympathy feelings. 

This liquid fire burned for most of the night, I imagined I lay there looking like some macabre flaming head thing that haunts children’s nightmares.  But at some point I passed out from the pain, or as my Bride says “I fell asleep”.  I awoke to no pain, but figured I was still in shock.  I hurried to the mirror expecting to see my burnt out head, BUT…there was nothing.  Nothing I tell you!  Could this have been that same nightmare that haunted children’s dreams?  Could I have dreamt the whole thing?  I immediately knew this wasn’t true when my Bride started giggling as soon as she was awake enough.

This was a horrible traumatic experience that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, and I won’t be making fun of those folks who use oils.   Ok, that last part isn’t true, I will still be making fun of those who use oils…it is one of the small pleasures in life.  But I have learned a  new found respect for peppermint oils.

I Believe

So many people in today's society try to look at worldly things to get "pumped up". Some things can't come from the world; including having trouble with your self-esteem, feeling unforgivable, or even having fear. Sometimes you need something stronger than what the world can give you; I believe that the stronger cure is connecting with God by reading the Bible.

So many women nowadays have self-esteem issues. Girls see people in magazines, and girls want to look exactly like those women; when they don't they feel ugly or not worth other people's attention. Well this is simply not how God wanted us to feel. One day Cynthia was looking in magazine and she felt this way exactly, but she opened her Bible. The first thing she saw was Proverbs 31:25, it says, "She is clothed and strength and dignity and laughs without fear the future." This verse gave her a strength to see who God wanted her to be. This was God's point of the verse, to show us how He wants us to act. She also saw that through Him she could have pride in herself and in God. God gives us these type of verses to bring us a peacefulness and show us that we can become new in Him. We can also realize that we are worthy of people’s attention and that we are beautiful. I believe that reading the Bible can better yourself esteem and give you the self confidence that you could not have had without God.

It is in human nature to do bad things, but that does not mean that you are unforgivable. God can forgive you! One day Daniel knew he had done something horrible, he had lied, he also thought that if people knew the truth they would never forgive him. He talked to his youth leader about it and his youth leader told him to read the story of David. He found out that David was a murder, a liar, a cheat, and even adulterer, yet he was still considered a man after God's own heart. Daniel was overjoyed he knew what he had to do, tell the truth and know that God would forgive him- and that was all that mattered. If you read the story of David you'll see many, many times he messed up, but he always turned back to God and every time God forgave him. This was amazing news for Daniel, and it can be amazing news for you too. I believe that reading the Bible can make you see that you are forgivable!

Today so many people are afraid of war and what other people can do to them. This is not how God wants us to live. Pastor Saeed is a man being held for his faith, he is now going on his third year in one of the world’s toughest prisons. He is beaten daily, among other horrible things, yet he doesn't ask to be rescued. What does he ask? He asks for the guards in charge of him to become Christians, that's all he wants, to be a witness. Psalm 118:6  says, "God is on my side. I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?" This is why Pastor Saeed doesn't ask to be saved, he knows that no matter what they do to him in prison, in the end he will be in the throne room of God and all the anguish he is in now won't even matter.  Man can do so many things to us, but how many of them are eternal? Nothing that man can do to us is eternal, that is what God is trying to tell us here. That no matter what the world does, God can always forgive us, and we will always be His. If we are Christians we are God’s children and He will take care of us no matter what. So I believe that reading the Bible can give you peace about what is going to happen, because no matter what happens God will always have our back.

So why try getting peace from the world? Somethings only God can help us with the most important things, that's why he gave us the Bible, to learn that God is an all powerful God and that He always has our best interest in mind. So go home and read your Bible you will be amazed at how much it can do.

 

Alicia Johnson

Scamper the Wonder Horse

Scamper the Wonder Horse was my first horse; well to say she was a horse was stretch.  Scamper was a pony, my Dad bought her for me and she was mine; but a horse?  I think not.  I think he paid maybe twenty-five dollars for her…or maybe he traded nine chickens for her.  I’m not really sure, but she was mine and I was as proud as any five year old could be.  She was the beginning of my cowboy career and I had plans to be the next Jim Shoulders and Phil Lyne all rolled into one.

But before my cowboy career could begin, Scamper had a few kinks that needed ironing out.  Not huge issues, just things like laying down when she didn’t want to go and running off when she did want to go.  There wasn’t a whole lot of in between with Scamper.  But it wasn’t a big deal for a top hand like I was going to be.  It was just a chance to show the world a what a wolf of the world looked like.

The first thing we dealt with was the running off, and really the running off wasn’t that huge a deal.  Heck, I could ride her as fast as she could run.  It was all the things she would brush me against the concerned me!  She would run off (which consisted of a combination of her bone jarring trot and her ground hammering lope) with me pulling on both reins for all I was worth and Dad would start hollering, “Just pull one rein, just pull one rein”

That was easy for him to say, he wasn’t riding this wild mustang that I was riding.  I couldn’t hear him anyway; I was way more concerned with dying.  We would bolt around the arena, or around the barn, with her brushing up against things trying to knock me off and me pulling for all I was worth to get her to stop.  Once Dad had several young horses tied to the fence when Scamper ran off.  She ran up between the fence and those young horses.  You would have thought it would have caused a big wreck, but other than undoing all of Dad’s training, breaking a few lead ropes and catching those lead ropes under my chin as I laid back in the saddle….it went surprisingly well.

The laying down was the other issue that I needed to work out with her.  When she didn’t want to go anymore, she would just lay down.  Didn’t matter where you were or what you were doing.  She’d just quit.  I spent many a day jumping up and down on her sides trying to get her to get back up.  All she would do was just lay out on her side like she was just waiting to die.  And I can tell you, there were many time I wished she would have died…or that I could have killed her!

We got most of these kinks worked out in the arena and Dad finally felt comfortable enough to take me with him to check cows.  I was some kinda excited.  I left the house in all my cowboy gear ready to show my Dad what a hand I had become.  I had my best hat, my boots, my rope  and my chaps.  I also had what no self-respecting cowboy would be without; I had my pistol in the holster on my hip.  I, not only was ready to do cowboy work, I was dressed properly to perform these important actions. 

 

Dad was riding a big gelding we called Festus. 

Now Festus, it seemed to me, was nineteen feet tall with a head that was almost that long too.  So, Scamper and I did have somewhat of a hard time keeping up.  The best we could manage was to travel a little ways back of them, in her spine battering trot.  At one point, I started to wonder if I would ever have kids (just kidding, what five year old thinks about having kids?).  I couldn’t have been prouder though.  I was going to do real live cowboy work on my own horse, with my Dad.  Whoo Hoo!

As we traveled along, suddenly Dad kicked Festus into a lope and they soared over this irrigation ditch.  It probably wasn’t a huge ditch, at least not for Festus.  They cleared it rather easily and Dad pulled up on the other side to check on me.  I pulled ol’ Scamper to a stop at the edge of the ditch and it might as well have been the Atlantic Ocean.  I felt like, not only was I riding the smallest horse in the world, but that I was the littlest kid too.

But, my Dad was there to encourage me.  He didn’t say too much, no long speeches for him that day.  He just said, “You can make it”.  If it was one thing I believed, it was whatever my Dad told me.  Heck I was the kid he could get to jump off the top of the garage into his arms…man, after writing that down…I wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer was I?  But I digress…back to the ditch.

I turned Scamper around and rode back toward the house, when I was about twenty yards away I turned around and lined her up on the ditch.  I took the end of my reins and started whipping her over and under, I knew that we needed a lot of speed to cross that Grand Canyon of an irrigation ditch.  I would like to say that she took off with all of the speed of a thouroghbred racehorse, but we were pretty much in that same spleen splattering trot/lope thing.  But she was going somewhat faster.  As we neared the ditch, I started having visions of us flying over that ditch somewhat like Pegasus.  That we would clear it and I would come to a sliding stop like the top professionals that we were.  I could just picture my Dad’s chest swelling up with pride, knowing that his legacy was going to continue in a grand fashion.  There would be dancehall gals singing and everyone would be beating me on the back in congratulations and buying me drinks……of milk.

As we raced toward the edge of the ditch, with all of the brain rattling, kidney collapsing speed that could be mustered by a short legged pony; Scamper must have been feeling all of the confidence that I was oozing, because at about ten feet from the ditch, she jumped. She surely must have thought that she grew wings.

To say we missed would be an understatement.  We landed smack dab in the middle of the ditch and sunk to the bottom.  Obviously not a wide ditch, but it was deep.  Both of us went under and came back up spraying water like a couple of Beluga whales.  As we scrambled out, to my horror…I could hear my Dad laughing.  I was cold and wet, not the least bit happy about the situation and I had a new found hate in my heart for this worthless, early jumping, nine chicken pony.  But my Dad…he just couldn’t stop laughing.  I just knew that I could no longer call myself a cowboy, I mean, come on…any hand worth his salt could have made that jump, right?

Dad finally got himself under control and shared with me some of the wrecks he had growing.  He let me know part of being a cowboy was celebrating the wrecks that you have.  Laughter is contagious and eventually I laughed a little too.  It wasn’t until much later that I realized that this was part of the initiation that goes along with being a cowboy.  If you haven’t been a wreck or two, then you probably have done much.

You know, I don’t really recall what happened to Scamper.  I just remember I started riding real horses at some point.  I supposed Dad traded her off to the next growing cowboy, or maybe he sold her for twelve chickens.  I don’t know.

Jake, Wanda and the Weather

This is the story of Jake and Wanda, Jake and Wanda are not their real names.  I have changed the names to protect someone from being beaten severely about the head and shoulders.  I like Jake and would not want to see harm come to him.

Jake and Wanda had gone to college together and at some point had fallen in love.  It was in Jakes mind to ask Wanda to marry him, but fear and lack of a clear cut goal had caused him to hesitate.  So he just vacillated hoping that things would just work out.  As is the case most of the time, Jake was wrong.  But that is not what this story is about.

 

Jake had plans to continue his education after college as a cowboy and horse trainer.  He was already a pretty fair hand, and had grand plans to have his own place in less than five years.  He had not thought of what it might mean to bring Wanda into this plan that was in his mind.  Wanda came from a different world, one of stability and steady paying careers.  In retrospect, Jake was going to be asking a lot.  He was going to be asking her to join him in the low paying, sometimes no paying world of the start-up professional horse trainer.  Obviously Jake had not thought things through, but that’s not what this story is about either.  This story is about Wanda’s Daddy’s truck.

Wanda’s Daddy had given her his truck to drive to college after spring break, and oh how her Daddy loved that blue Chevy half ton truck.  Instructions were given that no one, and he meant NO ONE but she was to drive this truck.  Wanda was true to her commitment until the weekend she was going to bring Jake home to meet her parents.  It had hurt Jakes manly pride to be driven around and after considerable begging he managed to convince her to let him drive that blue truck.  I suppose the begging did not bother his pride as much as being driven around, I don’t know…sometimes the workings of Jakes mind were hard to fathom.

 

The plan was to leave early in the morning and head south toward her home, but nature threw a wrench into the plans.  When they arose that morning, there was about a foot of snow on the ground and most of the roads were iced over.  But Wanda was going home to see her Momma and Daddy and Jake could not convince her otherwise.  On the upside for him, she was a little fearful to drive on the ice.  So Jake got to drive!

They headed out, going south and Jake drove as appropriately as the ice would allow.  After they had been on the road for about an hour the sun had come up enough that the ice melted off of the black top.  Of course Jake put his foot into the carburetor and they skedaddle down the road.  They were making good time and Jake had the idea they would arrive well before the timeline established by her Daddy.  This, in his narrow mind, was a good thing.

The country was starting to get just a little bit hilly, so a person just didn’t know what the road looked like until you topped the next rise.  Wanda, since she was in love with Jake, was sitting beside Jake in the courting seat and Jake, since he was in love with Wanda, had his arm around her.  They were discussing their plans for the near and far future.  Jake was hammering on that blue truck and they were scooting right along and the next rise revealed a horrific site.  They topped over that rise and there was nothing but snow pack on the road as far as they could see.  Being the prolific driver that he was, Jake immediately got off the gas.  But they were still going much too fast and the truck started to fishtail.

Jake never moved his arm from around Wanda and started to work that steering wheel back and forth to keep the truck on the road.  And in true cowboy fashion, Jake never lost his cool or removed his arm from around Wanda.  If fact, he wasn’t really concerned even when the truck started spinning around.  He said, “as long as we were on the blacktop I knew we would just slide, I didn’t get scared until we went off the road and hit the dirt”. 

Wanda, on the other hand, seemed to have lost the ability to speak but one word.  As the truck started fishtailing and spinning around like a kid’s toy, she repeated it over and over “jus... jus… jus…jus… jus…jus…”  It seemed, to her, like they spun for hours before the truck stopped.  In true Daddy’s girl fashion, the first thing she thought of was her Daddy’s truck.  She just knew they had hit the fence and there were dents.  But the Lord seemed to be looking out for them that day, because not only did they live, but the truck had come to rest about one inch from a fence post.  Not a scratch one!

Needless to say, they slowed down.  But they hadn’t driven much further when Jake realized they had a tire going flat.  It seems all that spinning had broken the seal on the sidewall of the tire.  So, Jake went out in the slush and cold and started working on the tire.  At this point, Jake had lost his sense of humor or maybe it had warped a little.  At one point, due to the design of Chevy trucks, he was on his belly (in the slush and cold) removing the tire from underneath the truck.  It was at the point a helpful trucker stopped to see if he could offer a hand.  You wouldn’t think he would state the obvious, but his first words were “did you have a flat tire?”

Jake, being just a tad cranky and somewhat of a smart alec, said “no sir, I rotate my tires when they are due no matter where I’m at!”  Needless to say, the trucker laughed got back in his truck and drove off.  Seems he did not appreciate Jakes humor and figured this dumb cowboy could change the tire by himself.

Jake finished changing the tire and they drove to the next town and got it fixed.  Jake called the Highway Patrol and was told the road was icy all the way to Wanda’s.  So they made the executive decision to turn back around and go back to the college.

There are more stories about Jake and Wanda, but this one is my favorite.  As I said before, this is not their real names and I won’t tell who they are.  If you recognize them, I hope you don’t tell either.

Flying Cats and Ranch Security

It has been a looong while since I wrote anything.  So I thought I would write something and start this thing back up.

My Dad was a feedlot cowboy, which means we always had horses.  They were not push button, can only do one job horses.  They were the tools of his trade.  The same ones that us kids rodeo’d on, where they same ones he used in the feedlot.  We always had a couple of colts, or in some cases five or six year olds, that we were starting at the house.  After about 30 rides, Dad would then take them to the feedlot and ride them for 90 days.  Ninety days of pushing cattle around, dragging roped ones and opening gates made for some pretty broke ponies.  My brother and I were usually the ones that started these “colts”, me probably more than him.  I think that had something to do with my level of brains….

At one time we had this little T-Cross mare, she was pretty sharp looking…kinda that old timey quarter horse type: square, blocky and solid.  For whatever reason we never really started riding her, we would pull her up and mess around with her for a day or two and then turn her back out.  I suppose because she was ours and any customer horses took precedence over her.  After all they were paying.  We called her Misty and Misty didn’t really get started good until she was about six.  Now Misty wasn’t a  big wild bronc by any means.  In fact, once we started riding her, you had to pedal for all you were worth to keep her moving.  I always said that she wore me out faster than walkin’.  Except for one time…

I had ridden her about 15-20 times, so I thought she was really going well.  With a little work you could lope her all over the pasture and even come in for a somewhat bouncy, jilted stop.  I’m sure I was a shadowridin’ son-of-a-gun!  I thought I was a he-wolf of a hand and the world had better get ready.

We always had four or five dogs and about the same amount of barn cats, so at some point every evening there was a commotion.  The cats seemed to be a little smarter (gulp, am I going to say this?) than the dogs because they never let themselves be caught out in the open.  Except once….

I was ridin’ ol’ Misty up close to the barn, admirin’ my shadow and how good things looked.  Why, I had the world by the tail.  There wasn’t a better hand than me, most anywhere.  As I rode along I heard the usual ruckus raised when they had gotten a cat on the run.  I was working on stopping and backing so we weren’t moving much.  I kept noticing that the ruckus with the dogs kept getting closer.  I finally looked up and all five dogs had a big orange tom cat on the run.  Now Tom had let himself get caught out in the open and was runnin’ like his tail was on fire as fast as he could for high ground.  And since there were no trees in the pasture, I noticed to my horror that Tom was headed straight for Misty and me, with the dogs in joyous pursuit about five feet behind him.  At about eight feet Tom jumped into the air and flew toward us. 

At that point, Misty noticed the ruckus.  Her head flew around toward the commotion, but even she was too slow for the blazing orange streak that was now airborne.  Tom landed with all claws out, one front and one back leg hooked into my fine Navajo saddle blanket, while the other front and back leg were desperately clawing to get a grip in what now appears to have been tender horse flesh.  Add in the fact the dogs were still in hot pursuit barking and howling like a pack of wild beasts, this was now too much for Misty to handle.

To put it mildly, we left the country.  We left the country like Satan was riding one of the hounds of hell and was swinging a lariat trying to drop a loop on us to brand and ear tag us.  She ran faster that I had ever experienced with her before, I really had no idea she was that fast.  Of course my friend was still attached to the saddle blanket, as cats sometimes get attached to things when their claws are out.  Tom was probably looking somewhat like a kite on a short string, squalling like a banshee; wanting nothing more than to be loose from the whole situation.  Also added to the mix was the wolf pack that was now very excited to be chasing not only a cat, but also a horse.  They were probably grinning like crazy thinking, “can this day get any better?!?!  What a great and wondrous day!” 

As we got toward the end of the pasture, Tom finally loosed himself from the saddle blanket.  I’m sure he had somewhat of a spill, but his welfare had ceased to be at the top of my priority list. The good news was that this distracted the wolf pack somewhat.  They immediately lit into the cat, he of course had landed on all fours (how do cats do that?) and immediately skedaddled up an electric pole.  The dogs appeared somewhat disappointed, but were glad to take up the chase again with the horse and I.  Misty and I were working on our second lap around the pasture and as we passed them, they heard the siren call of a running horse. They leaped into action to help slow us down, jumping in front of Misty right before we got the electric pole.

Technically, they did their job.  She jammed on the brakes and I did a pretty fair impression of Superman and yard darted into the midst of the wolf pack, which seemed to create a large amount of excitement in itself.  Looking at it from the dogs’ point of view, their master had dismounted to play with his faithful and brave ranch security team.  They were wagging, slobbering and licking all over, just excited that I would venture from my lofty position to mingle with them.  From my point of view, I wanted to kill all of them!

The mare trotted back to the barn and was waiting for me, only a little jittery.  She turned into a nice little mare and some people from Oklahoma bought her for their grandkids later on.  They were as happy as they could be, I’m just glad they did see the flying cat and ranch security episode.

Grace

This morning we got up to below freezing temperatures and icicles hanging everywhere.  I went down to feed the lambs and the horses.  When I fed the lambs, I got mad.  One of my pet peeves is people who don’t take care of their animals.  They are a responsibility; if you own them…they are YOUR responsibility.  Especially if you’re like me and have just a couple of small traps for the horses, we have a responsibility to make sure they are fed and watered.  Same goes for my daughter’s lambs, they are locked up in a stall so they have to be fed and watered.  Especially the lambs, they’re not the smartest of Gods creations.  But when I fed this morning, they had little to no water.  I knew that she did not fill the buckets last night.

This posed a problem for me, since everything was frozen; my hoses were all frozen too.  So off I go with a bucket to fill, at the house.  All the way there I was thinking about all of the things I was going to do to punish her.  I went from a spanking, to grounding, to extra chores and back again.  Like I said, I was mad.  I got to the house and luckily my beautiful bride was there to rein me in a little.  We decided I would not talk to her while I was mad.  I headed back to the barn muttering about how we were going to get rid of those lambs and not have them again.  I how big and bad her punishment was going to be.

Thankfully, I did get convicted by the Spirit to talk to God too.  I was praying for a calmed mind, still hanging on to the fact that I was mad at her.  Still wanting to punish her for her wrongdoing, this wasn’t the first time and she was now out of second chances…

Then God grabbed a hold of me.

He said, “what about you, do you deserve a second chance?” 

I was convicted of my hypocrisy.  Here I was passing judgment; not offering to my daughter what was so easily given to me…grace.  How could I be mad her for a mistake that she made, when Christ never even hesitated when He went to the cross for my self-righteous anger?  I was, and am, ashamed of myself for that.  I have made the same mistakes over and over and over again, but God…still loves me.

I went back to the house and talked with her about the importance taking care of these animals that God has given us.  We also talked about grace and what it means.  I think she already understood it, but I think we all need a reminder.  Grace is more than mercy, grace is more than forgiveness.  Grace is a divine love that brought Christ down here to pay for my sins.  If Jesus loved me enough to forgive what I have done…then shouldn’t I be able to offer the same to my daughter?  I love my daughters like no other, so we will talk again about our responsibilities...but this morning was a lesson in grace.  For me and I hope for her.

Eleven Year Old Brilliance

I don’t like winter; I think anything below 65 is freezing.   I have often contemplated moving further south, like to Mexico.  But my language skills have always been a barrier.  I know a few Spanish cuss words, but the balance of my espanol is pretty slim.  I suspect that I would probably get beat up if I moved down there and not even know why.  So I will stick to the gulf coast of Texas, where winters are a total of 20-30 cold days and the rest are pretty good.  Of course this is just my opinion, but then I’m doing the writing...so mine’s the only one that counts right now!

Now when I was a kid, growing up in southeastern Colorado, there was plenty of winter to go around.  There were weeks that we would be snowed in and could not get out of our driveway.  And being in the “kid” stage, snow was still fun.  Of course fun was defined as when we could do what we wanted to do and not what Dad wanted us to do.  So “fun” varied from day to day when there was snow on the ground.  Snow was fun when you sliding down a hill and not so much fun when you were holding wood for the chainsaw.  Of course, when you have snow you also have ice.  Ice is fun when you are sticking it down your sister’s neck.  It’s not much fun when you have to chop it out of a stock tank and therein lays the story…

My Dad was, as still is, full of good advice.  One of these pearls of wisdom was on the skill of chopping ice.  Whether you are chopping a hole in a pond or a stock tank, you always chop a bigger hole than you need and scoop the ice out.  The hole will freeze up smaller, so if it is bigger…it will stay open longer.  If you don’t fork out the chopped ice, it will freeze faster…thus your animals will not have anything to drink.  Looking back, this makes perfect sense.  As a young hon-yak, I tended to only do enough to keep me out of trouble and would take the least amount of time.  So I was always chopping a small hole in the ice.  After all the cows and horses noses weren’t more than eight, or so, inches around…right?  I never forked the broken ice out, any animal worth its salt, could push right through that ice…right?  I was a dumb little nut.

One day my brother and I were riding the scoop shovel down the hill by the hay meadow (isn’t that what any kid worth a flip would be doing?) and had been happily doing this for most of the day.  It had been my turn to chop the ice and I, being the unreliable little degenerate that I was, had only chopped a small hole in the ice.  I knew this would probably come back to bite me later, but there was sledding to be done and I wanted to do my fair share.  I always figured I could chop it out later in the day.  Ain’t that like a young cowboy…just living for the moment!

That particular day it had been way below freezing all day and Dad happened to check the tanks.  Wouldn’t you know it; there was no longer any hole in the ice.  He, being the stockman that he is, went ahead and fixed the problem.  Then he came looking for my brother and me.  I sure he was mad at us, me for not doing a complete job and Cully just for being associated with me.  When he found us we got a lecture and a job.  The lecture was on our responsibility as owners of animals and the job was because Dad wasn’t a big spanker.  I would have rather had the spanking because it over in a minute.  Dad punishments tended to last all day.  I think that day he had us start shoveling the driveway instead of waiting for the county to snow plow it open.  Of course, Cully “Guilt by Association” Johnson (my brother) was a little peeved at me.  The next day, Cully let me know pretty quickly that I was going to be the guy chopping ice since I threw him under the bull (so to speak). 

So, a little sullenly, I headed down to chop ice.  I knew that today, I had better do this right…I was pretty sure Dad would check up on me later.  Needless to say the ice was considerably thicker than yesterday.  But I had an ax, so I went to choppin’ with gusto.  After about two minutes I had a little tiny hole chopped out, not much bigger than the ax head.  I raised the ax up for what I know was going to be a mighty ice shattering swing.  As my downward swing started I noticed something was drastically wrong.  As I watched in horrified slow motion, that ax head slid off the end of the ax close to the bottom of the swing and slipped ever so gently into that miniscule hole in the ice.  Never to be seen again.  The next words out of my mouth were of the variety my uncle George had taught me and I won’t repeat them here.  I knew I was going to be in a mess of trouble and what happened next was right of the bible.  Some would say that I had a temper tantrum.  I prefer to think that, at that moment I was possessed by a demon.  I commence to hollering and cussing and flayin’ around shovels and buckets. 

Once the possession was over and I was somewhat returned to normal, I started trying to think my way out of the situation.  I knew that I was supposed to be paying attention to what I was doing, and I am now pretty sure that Dad would have understood what had happened, but then I wasn’t so sure about it.  At the time, I just understood that I was in a mess of trouble.  Part of any thinking process is thinking outside the box.  In a flash, I came up with a way to break the ice.  It was still pretty thick, so I figured I could just jump up and down until I heard it crack.  Then I could take the pitchfork, break it and fork the ice out.  Genius, huh?

So there I was, jumping up and down…on a frozen over stock tank.  I was carefully listening for that telltale crack.  But after five minutes, my patience had worn out.  I was just jumping.  I finally said enough is enough.  One final time I gave a mighty leap and with all of the weight a 60 pound boy can muster, slammed my feet into the ice.  The next moment I found myself up to my chest in icy cold water, standing in a hole that was just barely bigger around than my body.  I again was possessed by that demon, because not only my was my body standing in what amounted to a great big cup of ice, but my new high top boots (that I’d got for Christmas) were also in the water.  I started flailing around trying to get out, which didn’t amount to much more than waving my arms and hollering!  I couldn’t do much more than that because those little tiny holes I had been chopping were the only weak spot in the ice, and that was all that broke.  I could get no leverage to pull myself out, I was for all intent and purposes…trapped.  I knew eventually Dad would come down to check on me when I didn’t show up at the house by nightfall, but I figured by then I would be a Corysicle.  I was just hoping that I was yelling loud enough that someone would hear me.

Cully happened to be close enough to hear and came to see what had happened, and being the good big brother that he was….he fell to his knees laughing at me.  After the proper amount of brotherly laughter and teasing, which in my mind seemed about ten hours, I started to think that everything below my chest was about froze off.  Cully finally got enough composure to pull me out and let me tell you, I was dang cold!  My teeth were chattering like a machine gun and I couldn’t feel any of my lower regions, but then at that point I wasn’t even sure I still had lower regions.  Being the good big brother that he was, Cully was not about to get in trouble again.  He made sure we chopped and forked the ice out of the hole, he even insisted that we make the hole bigger.  Of course, when I say we…I mean he made me do it while he supervised.  I could only think about two things:

1.       It was cold and I was cold.  If you’ve ever wondered how cold a well diggers butt was, I probably could have told you that day.

2.      My new tall top boots were soaking wet and still full of water, I just knew they were ruint!

After he made me finish, I hot footed it up to the house (there’s an oxymoron, my feet were anything but hot).  I got to the house and realized I had a new problem.  The water in my brand new tall top boots had created suction and I could not get them off my feet.  I had all of my brother’s help I wanted for the day, so I was not about to ask him.  But I figured that if I could get the water out of the boots they would eventually come off.  I had remembered reading a John Erickson book where he had a similar problem, so in my eleven year old brilliance…I thought I would try that process.

I laid down on my back and put my feet in the air, thinking that the water would drain out and I could get my boots off to change clothes.  There is not an eleven year old in the world yet that understands the law of gravity and water flow.  I was no exception.  As I raised my legs that water came cascading down my legs and too late I realized where that water was headed.  I had just thought I was numb from standing in that stock tank, it turns out that I wasn’t all that frozen after all.  Now I won’t go into detail about where that ice water hit and the results of said ice water bath, but I think it goes unspoken (by most men anyway) that I had a reason to commence yelling again.  Mom came running out to see what had happened, and all she could do was laugh, what is it with my family?  Here I was I dire straits, with frozen nether regions and all they can do is laugh? 

On the plus side, she did help take my boots off and they were not ruined.  Once they had dried and I had warmed up a little, I headed back outside.  After all, wasn’t there some sledding to be done?  And what kid worth his salt wouldn’t be doing that on a snow day?