Rebekah

Rebekah was the chosen bride of Isaac. Abraham sent his servant to his homeland to find a wife for his son, Isaac. Abraham didn’t want his son to marry a Canaanite woman, and since he was quite elderly he couldn’t travel to find a wife for a son on his own. Abraham made the servant promise that he would follow through with the guidelines that were set before him. Abraham was sure of his plan and where to find a wife for Isaac. He told his servant, “he will send his (God’s) angel before you so that you can get a wife for my son from there” (Genesis 24:7b.) Abraham knew that is was just more than his plan though, it was God’s plan.

When the servant arrived at his destination, he prayed. He knew that to pick the right girl to be the bride of Isaac he would need God’s guidance. Abraham had told him that an angel would go before him.

Then he prayed. “O Lord, God of my master Abraham, give me success today, and show kindness to my master Abraham. See, I am standing beside this spring, and the daughters of the townspeople are coming out to draw water. May it be that when I say to a girl, ‘Please let down your jar that I may have a drink,’ and she says, ‘Drink, and I’ll water your camels too’- let her be the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac. By this I will know that you have shown kindness to my master.” Before he had finished praying, Rebekah came out with her jar on her shoulder. Genesis 24:12-15a

The servant sent out a plea with directions to God, so that he could clearly know who the right girl was, if she was “the one.” Now when I was in Bible college, or as it is also known Bridal College, it wasn’t uncommon to hear someone use the phrase, “the one” in regard to their own life. In fact you heard people say it so often that we would joke about it. Now, off that bunny trail and back to the main point.

As it states, “Before he had finished praying,” Rebekah appeared and fulfilled the requirements the servant was looking for to know if she was “the one.” Wow! Don’t we all want to have prayers answered like that! Who wouldn’t want God to answer their prayer before they were even finished praying. Abraham had said that God would send His angel before him to prepare the way. The servant’s prayer was already in line with what God had planned. When our prayers and God’s will align, prayers can be answered with haste. Not that it always happens this way, but it can.

After the servant recounted the story or how everything took place to Rebekah’s family, they agreed that she could leave them to be the wife of Isaac.

Laban and Bethuel answered, “This is from the LORD; we can say nothing to you one way or the other. Here is Rebekah; take her and go, and let her become the wife of your master’s son, as the LORD has directed.” Genesis 24:50,51

The servant took Rebekah back to Isaac. Isaac and Rebekah were married and he loved her. The leading of God brought them together.

Rebekah was barren and Isaac prayed to God that they would have a child. God answered his prayer and Rebekah gave birth to twin boys, Jacob and Esau. While Rebekah was pregnant God told her that two nations were in her womb and that the older would serve the younger. This came to pass when the boys were grown and Rebekah had a part in the deception.

Rebekah loved Jacob, he was a mama’s boy. Isaac though, loved Esau. Jacob and Esau were two very different men. Esau was a hunter and a man of the wild, he was also a harry man. Jacob was quiet and hung out around home. Esau was the older, and therefore was given a birthright as the oldest son. One day, Jacob schemed Esau out of his birthright. When Isaac was about to die the deception continued. Jacob, with the help of his mother, tricked his father into blessing him instead of Esau. In fact, the whole plan of how to trick Isaac was Rebekah’s idea. Esau was furious at what his brother had done and wanted to kill him. Rebekah then devised a plan for Jacob to escape his brother’s wrath.

How did Rebekah go from the chosen bride for Isaac to a woman who helped her son deceive his father? The Bible doesn’t give much insight between these two things, so I guess we will just have to wonder about that. The last that is mentioned of Rebekah is where she is buried.  

Indoor Water Feature

Being a home owner is great...........until something breaks or you have something go wrong. Then it is your problem and you get to fix it. Not fun! With all of the snow and extreme cold we have had it has caused there to be ice build up in the gutters and on the roof. This is not good when you already need to replace your roof. See these beautiful icicles?

The ice that is above them is now causing a problem. An indoor water feature that we don't want. 

I came home from work on Monday only to discover that the carpet, chairs, blinds, lamp, windows, and anything else that was by these windows was wet. Initially I though the roof was leaking, but nope the ceiling was dry. Then I thought maybe a window was slightly open, nope. Then I solves the mystery of the tiny waterfall on the porch. There is a small crack above the windows on one side of the porch that water was now coming through. Now we never knew this crack was there because it was covered with rooster wallpaper border. My dislike for anything wallpaper only grows! Come spring those roosters are being evicted. 

At least the water has already started to free the wallpaper from the wall so it will be easier to remove. For now though we must live with towel lined window sills. 

Also note the streams of ice that are running down the one window. Thankfully or not thankfully, I don't know which yet. That is an older window that has a sheet of glass that has been inserted in front of it. So, the ice is between the two layers and not inside the house. 

We are hoping the ice will melt and drain out to the outside and everything will dry out. Or we may have a science experiment growing in that window come spring, which will be a whole new issue.

Now, isn't have water near your home suppose to add value? Pretty sure the addition of an unplanned indoor water feature wasn't what they were talking about.  

Snowmagedon, Snowapocolypse, Winter, Whatever.......

Welcome to Indiana, where it snows every weekend. Welcome to Indiana, the new Alaska. Snow, wind, cold, snow, wind, cold, and repeat all winter. Just a few pictures of the amount of snow we have received so far. Here is the house partially buried.

Most places in the yard are up to my knees. It varies cause of all the drifting though. 

We just walk single file on the shoveled paths. 

Every house has icicles and ours is no exception. Both porches have double layers of icicles.

The library has the best icicle display though! 

The snow might all melt by Easter at this rate. There is a huge mountain of snow between us and our neighbor, the grocery store, that I am afraid is going to turn into a pond. 

Someday spring will arrive, but until then we live to freeze another day. 

Lot's Wife & Daughters

Let’s begin by admitting that I have never really gotten why Lot’s wife turned into a pillar of salt. I know the “why,” as in why it happened. She disobeyed God when He told them to flee Sodom and Gomorra and to not look back. So, what did she do, she looks back, thus being turned into a pillar of salt. The part I have never gotten is, why salt? Why didn’t God just strike her dead or bring some other sort of consequence on her. Being turned into a pillar of salt just seems weird to me. Maybe to figure this one out I should go back to the “what happened.”

Lot and his family were living in the city of Sodom. Now, Sodom was a very wicked and sinful city. It was so corrupt that God had said He was going to destroy the city. Lot was not like the other men in the city, so God chose to spare him and his family. Lot tried to warn the men who were to be married to his daughters of what was to come, but they didn’t believe him and were destroyed with everyone else in the city. God had sent angels to deliver this message to Lot and to get them out of the city.

With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.” When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the Lord was merciful to them. As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains of you will be swept away!” Genesis 19:15-17

Lot and his family didn’t want to go to the mountains though because they thought they couldn’t survive there, so they made a deal to go to a different city instead. The angel said to go to this town quickly because he couldn’t do anything until they reached it.

They were clearly told to flee and not look back. God was sparing their lives and saving them from total destruction. Why would they want to look back at what was a terrible place? For some reason we tend to do the same thing, looking back at the bad places that God has rescued us from. Maybe it is the sin nature in us, or the fact that we tend to want to hold on to things, or not wanting to change even when we know we need to, whatever the reason is, we do it, we look back. We don’t have to do it though; we have a choice to look back or not.  

Lot’s wife did it too, she looked back. God had safely brought them to a place of safety and told them not to look back. She did it though and suffered the consequence of being entrapped in the same destruction that was happening to the place she had fled from. As God was raining down burning sulfur on the cities, Lot’s wife looked back, saw what was happening, and was consumed in the same fate.    

To answer the “Why salt?” question I had to do some research. From what I found, it often associated salt with brimstone. It says that the cities were destroyed by burning brimstone. Also, in that area it is common to see salt mounds that sort of look like stalagmites. So, if it was raining brimstone and if she was consumed by this then she could turn to a pillar of salt. Now I will admit that I still don’t fully get this. I may need someone way more intelligent to explain it to me, or it will be a question to ask when I get to heaven.

Well, Lot’s daughters were not much better than their mom. After they had fled to Zoar, and Lot’s wife was turned to a pillar of salt, they moved on to living in the mountains. The daughters, felling isolated and hopeless about not being able to produce heirs to continue on the family line, devised a plan to get their father drunk and then sleep with him. Poor Lot, like he hadn’t been through enough already, now he is being raped by his daughters. Both daughters became pregnant and gave birth to sons. Their son’s were the fathers of the Moabites and Ammonites, two groups of people who would later cause problems. Like their mom, Lot’s daughters made some very bad decisions. They disobeyed God and it came with consequences.