"Yet Amid All These Things We Are More Than Conquerors..."

"Do not let your heart be troubled. You believe in

and adhere to and trust in and rely on God; believe in

and adhere to and trust in and rely also on Me."

John 14:1

"What then shall we say to all this? If God is for us,

who can be against us? Who can be our foe if

God is on our side?"

Romans 8:31

"United we stand secure. Let us then move forward together

in discharge of our mission and our duty, 

fearing God and nothing else.

-Sir Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill

November 30, 1874-January 24, 1965

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

1940-1945  -  1951-1955

On his recent trip to Europe, President Donald Trump paid

tribute to Britain's famous war-time leader and had his picture

taken sitting in Winston Churchill's chair at Chequers,

the 16th century country home used by English

prime ministers since the 1920's.

President Trump has long been an admirer of Winston Churchill.

Of course, the mainstream British media were quick to express "outrage" 

 at Mr. Trump's action.  One headline from The Daily Mirror read:

 "Donald Trump Sparks Fury Posing Arrogantly in Winston Churchill's Chair".

Personally, I do not think Winston Churchill would mind at all that

 President Trump sat in his chair.  I think he would have actually been 
 flattered by this sincere homage paid to him by the leader of America!
  
Oh, and by the way, British media, where was the equal self-righteous indignation

 at President Obama, when he arrogantly returned back to Britain the bust of 

Winston Churchill on display in the White House, which was a gift

  from the people of Great Britain to the people of America

  after the September 11th terror attacks?

Furthermore, how many British prime ministers have been

inspired in recent years to sit in this suddenly 'revered' chair let alone

follow the example of courageous leadership set by Churchill?

Not many, I can tell you that!

If Winston Churchill was alive today, he would be shocked

and undoubtedly very sad at the state of his beloved England in 2018. 

 Furthermore,  he would "never, never give up" his nation's independence 

by willingly handing over the reign of the power to the dictates of

the European Union, nor bow his knee to the machinations of

the One World Government puppet masters pulling the

strings behind-the-scenes of  international politics today.

In this regard, President Trump truly emulates his hero Winston Churchill.

Our leader is like a mill stone around the necks of those who are recklessly

 determine to erase our national sovereignty, and to endanger the freedoms
granted to all Americans, as put forth through the glorious document
of liberty that We the People call the United States Constitution.

Sir Winston Churchill, like President Donald Trump, had his enemies too.
This is why it is so important for all Americans, who are truly concerned  
about securing the freedom of future generations, to keep our leader in
their daily prayers, and, that like Winston Churchill, who also faced a
 rising tide of both human and spiritual evil in his generation, 
 President Trump will be responsive to the unmatched wisdom of the
Holy Spirit when making decisions for our nation in these uncertain times.

Some of my favorite Churchill quotes:

"If you're going through hell, keep going."

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal;

It is the courage to continue that counts."

"We make a living by what we get, but we make

a life by what we give."

And for President Donald Trump, who is

under constant attack by the duplicitous news media and 

forces of the political Left, may these words of Winston definitely inspire:

"You have enemies?  Good.  That means You've stood up

for something, sometime in your life."

Fifth Sunday Meditation: Teach Your Children Well

PSALM 78

A reflective poem of Asaph

Give ear, O my people, to my teaching;

incline your ears to the words of my mouth.

I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings

of old that hide important truth; Which we have heard and 

 known and our fathers have told us.

We will not hide them from their children, but we will tell

to the generation to come the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord,

and His might, and the wonderful works He has performed.

Dance of Grace
Mark Keathley

For He established a testimony, an express precept in Jacob and

appointed law in Israel, commanding our fathers that they should

make the great facts of God's dealing with Israel known to their children.

That the generation to come might know them, that the children still

to be born might arise and recount them to their children.

That they might set their hope in God and not forget the works

of God, but might keep His commandments.

And not be of their fathers-a stubborn and rebellious generation, a

generation that set not their hearts aright nor prepared their hearts to

know God, and whose spirits were not steadfast and faithful to God.

The children of Ephraim were armed and carrying bows, yet they

turned back in the day of battle. They kept not the covenant of God

and refused to walk according to His law; And forgot His works

and His wonders that He had shown them.

Marvelous things did He in the sight of their fathers in the land of Egypt,

in the field of Zoan where Pharaoh resided. He divided the Red Sea

and caused them to pass through it, and He made the waters stand like a heap.

In the daytime also He led them with a pillar of cloud and all the night

with a light of fire. He split rocks in the wilderness and gave them

drink abundantly as out of the deep.  He brought streams also out

of the rock at Rephidim and Kadesh and caused the waters to run

down like rivers. Yet they still went on to sin against Him by provoking

and rebelling against the Most High in the wilderness.

And they tempted God in their hearts by asking for food according

to their selfish desire and appetite. Yes, they spoke against God;

they said, Can God furnish the food for a table in the wilderness?

Behold, He did smite the rock so that waters gushed out and the

streams overflowed; but can He give bread also?

 Can He provide flesh for His people?

Therefore, when the Lord heard, He was full of wrath; a fire

was kindled against Jacob, His anger mounted up against Israel.

Because in God they believed not, they relied not on Him,

they adhered not to Him, and they trusted not in His salvation,

His power to save.

Yet He commanded the clouds above and opened the doors of heaven;

And He rained down upon them manna to eat and gave them heaven's grain.

Everyone ate the bread of the mighty man, man ate angels' food;

God sent them meat in abundance.

He let forth the east wind to blow in the heavens, and by His power

He guided the south wind. He rained flesh also upon them like the dust,

and winged birds, quails, like the sands of the seas. And He let the

birds fall in the midst of the camp, round about their tents.

So they ate and were well filled; He gave them what they craved

and lusted after. But scarce had they stilled their craving, and while

their meat was yet in their mouths, The wrath of God came upon

them and slew the strongest and sturdiest of them and smote

down Israel's chosen youth. 

In spite of all this, they sinned still more, for they believed not in

His wondrous works. Therefore their days He consumed like a breath,

in emptiness, falsity, and futility, and their years in terror and sudden haste.

When He slew some of them, the remainder inquired after Him diligently,

and they repented and sincerely sought God for a time.

And they earnestly remembered that God was their Rock, and the

Most High God their Redeemer.

Nevertheless they flattered Him with their mouths and lied to

Him with their tongues. For their hearts were not right or sincere with Him,

neither were they faithful and steadfast to His covenant.

But He, full of merciful compassion, forgave their iniquity and

destroyed them not; yes, many a time He turned His anger away and

did not stir up all His wrath and indignation.

For He earnestly remembered that they were but flesh, a wind

that goes and does not return. How often they defied and rebelled 

 against Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert!

And time and again they turned back and tempted God,

provoking and incensing the Holy One of Israel.

They remembered not seriously the miracles of the working

of His hand, nor the day when He delivered them from the enemy.

How He wrought His miracles in Egypt and His wonders in

the field of Zoan where Pharaoh resided. 

And turned their rivers into blood, and their streams, so that

they could not drink from them. He sent swarms of venomous flies

among them which devoured them and frogs which destroyed them.

He gave also their crops to the caterpillar and the fruit of their

labor to the locust. He destroyed their vines with hail, and their

sycamore trees with frost and great chunks of ice.

He caused them to shut up their cattle or gave them up also

to the hail and their flocks to hot thunderbolts.

He let loose upon them the fierceness of His anger, His wrath,

and indignation and distress, by sending a mission of angels

of calamity and woe among them.

He leveled and made a straight path for His anger, to give it

free course; He did not spare the Egyptian families from death

but gave their beasts over to the pestilence and the life of their

eldest over to the plague.  He smote all the firstborn in Egypt,

the chief of their strength in the tents of the land of the sons of Ham.

But God led His own people forth like sheep and guided them

with a shepherd's care, like a flock in the wilderness.

And He led them on safely and in confident trust, so that they

feared not; but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.

And He brought them to His holy border, the border of Canaan,

His sanctuary, even to this mountain, Zion, which His right

hand had acquired. He drove out the nations also before Israel

and allotted their land as a heritage, measured out and partitioned;

and He made the tribes of Israel to dwell in tents of those dispossessed.

Yet they tempted and provoked and rebelled against the Most High God

and kept not His testimonies.

But they turned back and dealt unfaithfully and treacherously like

their fathers; they were twisted like a warped and deceitful blow

that will not respond to the archer's aim.

For they provoked Him to righteous anger with their high places

for idol worship and moved Him to jealousy with their graven images.

When God heard this, He was full of holy wrath; and He utterly

rejected Israel, greatly abhorring and loathing her ways.

So that He forsook the tabernacle at Shiloh, the tent in

which He had dwelt among men and never returned to it again.

And delivered His strength and power, the ark of the covenant,

into captivity, and His glory into the hands of the Philistines.

He gave His people over also to the sword and was wroth

with His heritage, Israel. The fire of war devoured their

 their young men, and their bereaved virgins were

 not praised in a wedding song.

Their priests, Hophni and Phinehas fell by the sword, and their

widows made no lamentation, for the bodies came back not 

from the scene of battle, and the widow of Phinehas also died that day.

Then the Lord awakened as from sleep, as a strong man whose

consciousness of power is heightened by wine. And He smote His

adversaries in the back as they fled; He put them to lasting shame

and reproach. Moreover, He rejected the tent of Joseph and chose

not the tribe of Ephraim, in which the tabernacle had been

accustomed to stand. But He chose the tribe of Judah as

Israel's leader, Mount Zion, which He loved, 

 to replace Shiloh as His capital.

And He built His sanctuary exalted, like the heights of

 the heavens, and like the earth which He established forever.

He chose David His servant and took him from the sheepfolds.

From tending the ewes that had their young He brought him

to be the shepherd of Jacob His people, of Israel His inheritance.

So David was their shepherd with an upright heart; he guided

them by the discernment and skillfulness which controlled his hands.

"Train up a child in the way he or she should go

and in keeping with their individual gift or bent,

and when they are old they will not depart from it."

Proverbs 22:6

Parable Of The Wild Fruit

Out in the berry patch, the bluejays scolded me for trespassing.

They talked of a food shortage and threatened terrible things to profiteers

who took more than their share of the necessaries of life.

But I was used to their clamor and not alarmed even when one

swooped down and struck my bonnet.

I knew they would not harm me and kept right on picking berries.

This is a parable. I give it to you for what it is worth, trusting you

to draw your own comparisons.

 Huckleberries

When the Man of the Place and I, with the small daughter, came to

Missouri some years ago, we tried to save all the wild fruit in the woods.

Coming from the plains of Dakota where the only wild fruit was the few

chokecherries growing on the banks of small lakes, we could not bear to see

go to waste the perfectly delicious wild huckleberries, strawberries, and

blackberries which grew so abundantly everywhere on the hills.

By the way, did you ever eat chokecherries?  At first taste they are very

good, and the first time I tried them I ate quite a few before my throat began

to tighten with a fuzzy, choking feeling.  A green persimmon has nothing on 

a ripe chokecherry, as I know. I have tried both.

So when we came to the Ozarks, we reveled in the wild fruit, for as of

yet there was no tame fruit on the place.

Huckleberries came first, and we were impatiently waiting for them

to ripen when somebody told me that the green ones made good pies.

Immediately, I went out into the little cleared space in the woods where

the low huckleberry bushes grew and gathered a bucket of berries.

Company was coming to dinner next day, and I took special pains to

make a good pie of the berries; for I did want my new neighbors

to enjoy the visit. And the crust of the pie was deliciously crisp

and flaky, but after one taste, the visitors seemed to hesitate.

I took a mouthful of my piece and found it bitter as gall.

I never tasted gall, but that is the bitterest expression I know

and nothing could be more bitter than that pie.

"Oh!" I exclaimed. "They told me green huckleberries were good!"

"These can't be huckleberries," said Mrs. X, "for green huckleberries

do make good pies."

Mr. X was examining the berries in his portion.

"These are buckberries," he said. "They grow on a bush about the

size of a huckleberry bush, and you must have made a mistake 

when you gathered them."

And so I added to my knowledge the difference between huckleberries

and buckberries, and we have enjoyed many a green huckleberry pie since then.

Used when quite small, the berries not only taste delicious but give a

bouquet of perfume to the pie that adds wonderfully to the pleasure of eating it.

When blackberries came on, chiggers were ripe also, and there is nothing

a chigger enjoys so much as feasting on a "foreigner".

The blackberry patches are their home, and we made many a chigger

happy that season. We gathered the berries by bucketsful; we filled pans

and pots and all the available dishes in the house, then hastily we bathed in

strong soapsuds and applied remedies to the worse bitten spots.

Then I put up the berries and cleared the decks for the next day's

picking, for gather them we would, no matter how the chigger bit.

I was thinking of these experiences while the bluejays screamed at

me in the berry patch-tame berries now. We never pick the wild ones these

days because there are large tame ones in the plenty.

The apple trees that were little switches when we picked the wild

fruit have supplied us with carloads of apples. 
 Even the chiggers never bother us anymore.

We are so accustomed to an abundance of fruit that we do not

appreciate the fine cultivated sorts as we did the wild kinds that we

gathered at the cost of so much labor and discomfort.

There is a moral here somewhere, too, I am sure, and again

I will leave it for you to discover.

Old-Fashioned Blackberry Pie

"Parable Of Wild Fruit"

(July 1920)

 Laura Ingalls Wilder

(1867-1957)

Prolific American writer

From the book, "Little House In The Ozarks"

A Laura Ingalls Wilder Sampler

The Rediscovered Writings

Edited by Stephen W. Hines

 Guideposts Edition

(1991)

The Song Of The Marigold Fairy

Great Sun above me in the sky,

So golden, glorious, and high,

My petals, see, are golden too;

They shine, but cannot shine like you.

Summer Marigold

I scatter many seeds around;

And where they fall upon the ground,

More marigolds will spring, more flowers

To open wide in sunny hours.

It is because I love you so,

I turn to watch you as you go;

Without your light, no joy could be,

Look down, great Sun, and shine on me!

Cecily Mary Barker

"The Song Of The Marigold Fairy"

Cecily Mary Barker

(1895-1973)

English illustrator and poetess

Man, Freedom, and Government 1968-2018

This year marks the 50th anniversary of 

 this film classic from Ezra Taft Benson,

an American farmer and religious leader

who served as the 15th U.S. Secretary of Agriculture

under President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Ezra Taft Benson

(1899-1994)

Presented by The John Birch Society,

"Man, Freedom, and Government" is a road map

for restoring our freedom and rights as Americans.

 The message of this film is as relevant for today

as it was back in 1968.

Man, Freedom, and Government

(2005)

The Untold Story Of " Ruthless Ruth "

I decided to write this response to "The Ballad of Yukon Jake"
after researching the stories of countless young women who were
lured West to live on the American frontier, deceived by offers of
employment and dreams of independence, only to be sold into
the nightmare of sexual slavery.  These "soiled doves" often
suffered from much abuse and humiliation and many ended
up taking their own lives.

After reading about the unfortunate Ruth in Edward A. Paramore Jr.'s
poem, I decided to rescue her from her unseemly fate and have her
become a woman whose future choices emulate her namesake,
the biblical Ruth, whose name in the Hebrew language means, "friend".

Beautiful Edwardian Woman

Could This Be Ruth?

Yukon Jake, that nasty, bearded snake,

The hermit of the Shark-Tooth Shoal,

Thought he was slick when he pulled his nasty trick

And broke Ruth's heart and soul...

 Although Jake sold her to the notorious Dan Mcgrew,

  Ruth was able to escape, as a stowaway on a cargo ship heading south,

With the help of Dan's jealous lady friend, the lady known as Lou.

Afterwards Ruth, her blushing cheeks frozen in the chilly air

Stormed the streets of Nome uncouth, with fiery temperance flair.

 And not one of the piteous drunks she met would dare try to steal a kiss,

From the soft pink lips of this fearless, bottle-smashing miss.

Collecting sleek seal furs and sable, as much as she could take,

She sold off all her collected wares for much needed charity's sake.

With her earnings she bought some land for the Sisters of Nome

And built a school for the orphaned street children, to give them all a home.

"Mother Ruth" would  gain the respect of the residents of Nome,

Showing Christ's love and mercy to all who came to her home.

One night during a raging snow storm she answered a knock on her front door,

And admitted a shivering, cloaked woman about frozen to her core.

Ruth brought her to the fire and sat the stranger down by the hearth

While a sister from the kitchen quickly brought a bowl of chicken broth.

As the woman began to thaw she removed her hood, and speaking to Ruth 

 she said, "You do not recognize me, do you?"

To which Ruth replied, "But of course I surely do!  Why, I could never

 forget you! You are the woman who helped me escape from the 

 evil plan of Yukon Jake and Dan Mcgrew.

You're the lady known as  Lou."

Lou nodded her head and replied, "Yes, I am she.  I helped you

escape from Dan and now I hope you will help me. I am old and alone

and have no longer a place to call home.  This is why I came to your door."

Ruth smiled at the woman and said, " You saved my life and

   I owe you so much.  You are welcome to stay here.  We can always use 

 an extra pair of hands to help with the children and cooking and such."

As tears of gratitude spilled down Lou's wrinkled cheeks,

Ruth smiled at her tenderly and knew God's peace.

"The Untold Story Of "Ruthless Ruth"

(Begging Edward E. Paramore Jr.'s pardon)

(July 2018)

 By Pamela Denise Brida

American blogger and aspiring writer

The Ballad Of Yukon Jake (Begging Robert W. Service's Pardon)

Oh the North Countree is a hard countree

That mothers a bloody brood;

And its icy arms hold hidden charms

For the greedy, the sinful, and lewd.

And strong men rust, from the gold and the lust

That sears the Northland soul,

But the wickedest born, from the Pole to the Horn,

Is the Hermit of Shark-Tooth shoal.

Now Jacob Kaime was the Hermit's name

In the days of his pious youth,

Ere he cast a smirch on the Baptist Church

By betraying a girl named Ruth.

But now men quake at "Yukon Jake"

The Hermit of Shark-Tooth Shoal,

For that is the name that Jacob Kaime

Is known by from Nome to the Pole.

Map of the Alaskan Gold Fields

(1897)

He was just a boy and the parson's joy

(Ere he fell for the gold and the muck)

And he learned to pray, with the hogs and the hay

On a farm near Keokuk.

But a Service tale of illicit kale,

And whisky and women wild,

Drained the morals clean as a soup tureen

From this poor but honest child.

He longed for a bite of a Yukon night

And the Northern Light's weird flicker,

Or a game of stud in the frozen mud,

And the taste of raw red licker.

He wanted to mush along in the slush,

With a team of husky hounds,

And to fire his gat at a beaver hat

And knock it out of bounds.

Front Street in Nome, Alaska 
(1900)

So he left his home for the hell-town Nome,

On Alaska's ice-ribbed shores,

And he learned to curse and to drink, and worse.

Till the rum dripped from his pores,

When the boys on a spree were drinking it free

In a Malamute saloon

And Dan Megrew and his dangerous crew

Shot craps with the piebald coon;

When the Kid on his stool banged away like a fool

At a jag-time melody,

And the barkeep vowed, to the hard-boiled crowd,

That he'd cree-mate Sam McGee-

Then Jacob Kaime, who had taken the name

Of Yukon Jake, the Killer,

Would rake the dive with his forty-five

Till the atmosphere grew chiller.

With a sharp command he'd make'em stand

And deliver their hard-earned dust,

Then drink the bar dry of rum and rye,

As a Klondike bully must.

Without coming to blows he would tweak the nose

Of Dangerous Dan Megrew,

And, becoming bolder, throw over his shoulder

The lady that's known as Lou.

Oh, tough as steak was Yukon Jake-

Hard-boiled as a picnic egg.

He washed his shirt in the Klondike dirt,

And drank his rum by the keg.

In fear of their lives (or because of their wives)

He was shunned by the best of his pals,

An outcast he, from the comradery

Of all but wild animals.

So he bought him the whole of Shark-Tooth Shoal,

A reef in the Bering Sea,

And he lived by himself on a sea lion's shelf

In lonely iniquity.

The Bering Strait is the only marine connection between the Chukchi Sea and the Arctic Ocean to the north,
and the Bering Sea and the Pacific Ocean to the south.

But, miles away, in Keokuk, Ia.,

Did a ruined maiden fight

To remove the smirch from the Baptist Church

By bringing the heathen Light;

And the Elders declared that all would be spared

If she carried the holy words

From her Keokuk home to the hell-town Nome

To save those sinful birds.

So two weeks later, she took a freighter,

For the gold-cursed land near the Pole,

But Heaven ain't made for a lass that's betrayed-

She was wrecked on Shark-Tooth Shoal!

All hands were tossed in the Sea and lost-

All but the maiden Ruth,

Who swam to the edge of the Sea Lion's ledge

Where abode the love of her youth.

The Bering Sea,  Alaska
Tom Siebert

He was hunting a seal for his evening meal

(He handled a mean harpoon)

When he saw at his feet, not something to eat,

But a girl in a frozen swoon.

Whom he dragged to his lair by her dripping hair,

And he rubbed her knees with gin.

To his great surprise, she opened her eyes

And revealed-his Original Sin!

His eight month beard grew stiff and weird,

And it felt like a chestnut burr,

And he swore by his gizzard, and the Arctic blizzard

That he'd do right by her.

But the cold sweat froze on the end of her nose

Till it gleamed like a Tecla pearl,

While her bright hair fell, like a flame from hell;

Down the back of the grateful girl.

But a hopeless rake was Yukon Jake,

The Hermit of Shark-Tooth Shoal!

And the dizzy maid he betrayed

And wrecked her immortal soul!...

Then he rowed her ashore, with a broken oar,

And he sold her to Dan Megrew

For a husky dog and some hot eggnog,

As rascals are wont to do.

Now ruthless Ruth is a maid uncouth

With scarlet cheeks and lips

And she sings rough songs to the drunken throngs

That come from the sealing ships.

For a rouge-stained kiss from this infamous miss

They will give a seal's sleek fur,

Or perhaps a sable, if they are able;

It's much the same to her.

Oh, the North Countree is a rough countree

That mothers a bloody brood;

And its icy arms hold hidden charms

For the greedy, the sinful, and lewd.

And strong men rust, from the gold and the lust

That sears the Northland soul,

But the wickedest born from the Pole to the Horn

Was the Hermit of Shark-Tooth Shoal!

"The Ballad Of Yukon Jake"

Edward E. Paramore Jr.

(1895-1956)

American screenwriter and poet