Friday, July 28, 2023
18 Family Garage Sale New Stuff Each Day
Saturday, July 22, 2023
Fishing Stories
Fishing Stories
My husband and I like to go fishing almost every week. Sometimes we have interesting things happen
when we go fishing. Around two weeks ago
we caught a total of three fish. George
caught two and I caught one. You would have
thought I was pulling in the biggest catch of the day. It was hard to pull in,
it was pulling my poll over but it was only an 16-inch-long catfish. It was a lot heavier than it looked. I commented to my husband, "It must have cold
coins in it." We threw it back in and I thought
to myself we should have checked to see what made that fish so heavy. I got to thinking about a story I heard on
the news about champion fishermen. They were putting some kind of weight inside
the fish at the time of catching them.
They always seemed to win, but they cheated.
There is a story in the bible about the disciples needing to
pay their taxes, so they went fishing.
Jesus told them to go fishing. A
miracle, money was inside the fish they caught and God provided a way for them
to pay their taxes.
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While we were fishing the anchor slipped from the pontoon so
we were drifting along with the wind. We
suddenly noticed the anchor was gone. We
were kind of wondering what we were going to do without an anchor. We would
have to leave to go buy another anchor.
We were kind of upset because we lost our anchor. It was a gloomy morning with an overcast of
dark clouds. We could not see the rope
that was attached to our anchor. We
prayed to God that we could find our anchor so that we would not have to leave. We remembered then that we had our old anchor
and searched until we found it. We were
happy we didn’t have to leave. We got
settled again and we started fishing. We
turned and we both noticed an opening in the clouds with a beam of sunshine proceeding
from the overcast sky. It was shining directly
onto the rope that held our anchor and it was sparkling. We both reacted and laughed rejoicing because
it was like God said. Here it is and he
lit it all up with sparkles.
God knows how to make someone smile on a gloomy day. He puts a little sparkle in it.
Susan Y. Nikitenko July 2023
Saturday, July 1, 2023
Jesus Took Our Punishment
Jesus Willingly Took Our Punishment
Our family watched a
little boy named Jackson; we watched him from six months to almost four years old.
My daughter was hired as his babysitter, but we all spent time with him.
I only spanked
Jackson one time the entire time we watched him. He kicked me in the shin and boy did it hurt. There was another time Jackson did something
I don’t even remember what it was. I
decided to teach him something and I asked my husband to help me. I asked my husband to let me spank him to teach
Jackson about Jesus. My husband did as I
requested and he willingly let me spank him. I want to make it very clear that I never hurt
Pastor George. We did the same thing when our girls were little. Pastor George and I worked as a team to teach
Jackson that Jesus took our punishment for us.
Jackson did something worthy of a spanking, we told him he should be spanked. We put on a little skit for Jackson. We explained to him, “Pastor George is going
to willingly take your punishment today, you did something wrong, but he’s
getting spanked for it.” Pastor George even
pretended to cry.
I did spank Pastor
George but it was not hard enough to hurt him.
See, Jesus took our place of punishment for us. He didn’t have to die for us, He willingly
laid down his life for us. God loved us
so much that He sent his only Son Jesus, to take our place. We didn’t deserve forgiveness;
Jesus didn’t deserve our punishment. What
Jesus did for us was not pretend, it was real.
He was crucified upon
a cross and shed his blood for our sins.
Jesus took our place. He provided a way for forgiveness; He
provided the way of Salvation.
He provided a way for us to become adopted into God's family.
He provided the way
to heaven.
Susan Y Nikitenko ©2023
John 3:16
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.