The Feast of Trumpets was September 9 on the Roman calendar this year. It was nice to have an extra day of rest this week. The holy day started on the evening of the 8th, and we had brisket and sides for dinner, and Will and I made trumpet-shaped sugar cookies for dessert.
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| Will cutting out dough with cookie cutter |
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| He had fun helping me make the cookies |
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| The first batch of trumpet cookies |
Trumpets is the fourth annual feast and holy day of God, which symbolizes the fourth step in the true plan of salvation. Passover is about the sacrificial death of the sinless Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. Feast or Days of Unleavened Bread is about repentance, turning from sin and toward God's law of love. Pentecost teaches that we need the begettal of God's sperm/seed/spirit in order to be a son of God and for help in keeping his commandments. Trumpets foreshadows the time in the future when the seventh and last trumpet of Revelation's trumpet plagues sounds and Christ returns and the saints rise from the dead and are changed, followed by those alive at his coming, and they shall all meet him in the air and receive their rewards, and then they shall descend with him and reign for a thousand years, bringing in a new age--the Kingdom of God. I look forward to the fulfillment of this holy day.
I went over the feasts with the boys and read them scriptures dealing with the feast of trumpets and what shall take place in the future. I also read them their this year's letters for their Feast of Trumpets reward journals.
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| Rewards Journals |
I mourned for days prior to this feast of trumpets, because I knew the boys could not be rewarded. Their behavior and works fell far too short of reaping any rewards, and if it wasn't for poor Trusten's lacking a better example (namely Jaden William), he really deserved a punishment for being naughty over this past year. It could be argued, then, that Will needed the punishment, but then it could be said he is lacking a better example. The boys have really just needed more loving and patient Daddy time, and he's worked so much. He may soon be selling his business, though, and if so we can pay off everything (our mortgage and vehicles, as we have no other debt), and he can do something that has a schedule and way less hours away. I know all the boys in this home (including my beloved husband) truly have a good heart, but without God as the top authority, things just do not work well.
So, I read the sad letters to my boys. I believe I am sadder than they, because I missed out on giving them something. I want to teach them justice/judgment, though, and if I reward them after poor behavior, it is no encouragement for better behavior the following year. After I got past my sadness, I realized I would have a biblical lesson to teach. Those who are called but reject the calling, or are chosen but do not stay faithful, will not even be in the first resurrection, but there may be others who are in the resurrection but will not receive rewards but "he himself shall be saved..." (I Cor. 3:15). Now, I know my boys are not the type who just do not care. They go back and forth between trying really hard to do what is right and then do works on top of that, and then deliberately doing evil deeds. Just as the wicked will see what they would have received if they had done righteously, before they are destroyed forever, I wanted my boys to see what I really wanted for them to have but they didn't get. If they were both deserving, I wanted for them to have a swing set, and Nathan okayed it. If, of course, one was undeserving of something and another not, other things would have been worked out, but that was the TOP prize, and I wanted so badly for them to get it, but to be just, we could not do it. Will was disappointed, but I know he knows I deal justly with him. He had told me before that I'm "unfair," but he knows that he is the only one unfair when he's doing wrongly. It's no different than what God told Israel, as recorded in Ezekiel chapter 18, when they accused him of being unfair, and he says that they are the ones who are unfair. Will has had superstar behavior today. I hope it continues. As I keep reminding him, judgment is a process that takes time. Super good behavior for a short time to try to reap a reward and then going back to do evil afterward is not true, nor lasting, repentance.
September 10: Today Will excitedly showed me a huge red caterpillar. I believe it is a larvae of an Imperial Moth, though most of those are green. He has it in a large yogurt container that has holes in the lid, and he also collected some other things and put them in his science containers we got for him. He's apparently using them today as kill jars. He has a spider, some unidentified insect, and then a moth that Trust killed. The two former are alive in there, awaiting the oxygen to run out, I guess. He said he wants to study all of them under the microscope. Check out the caterpillar:
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| What I believe to be a red Imperial Moth larvae |
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| Note the size of this caterpillar |
Well, that's it! I have to finish preparing for the sabbath.
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