FUN UNDER THE SUN ENJOYING THE OUTDOOR MARKET OF MT. LAUREL

(Writing and Photography by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

Mt. Laurel is a lovely place, even if you aren’t there on Market Day, but Market Day is very special. 

The day I was there it felt like God had put up His bluest sky just for me!  It seemed He had intensified the landscape with bright blazing colors. The delicious scents of fresh cut flowers and the heavenly aroma of the amazing foods being sold at the market were so inviting. 

The moment I drove into the community, I felt completely surrounded by beauty.  This new urban-type community conforms to the land, and serves it’s inhabitants well by keeping everything needed for a rich daily life within walking distance of their homes.  There are beautiful churches, a school, shops, restaurants, a library, a grocery store and a hardware store, as well as other business establishments.  The architecture was lovely, quaint and well planned. 

Each front door of the homes seemed to say "Welcome!  Come visit me today."  I passed rocking chairs on porches that whispered, “Come sit a spell.”  There were comfortable benches scattered in shaded nooks.  I resisted the temptation to stop at a few of the open houses, just to peek into their lovely rooms, and to wonder through the streets and step inside the very interesting and unusual shops and restaurants.  Every little area looked like a place where I would enjoy sitting down with coffee and a good book.   

I had no time for that today though, after all, I was here for the out-door market which is held every Saturday starting in the spring and lasts through the summer.  The day can get away before you know it, and those marketers like to start early in the cool morning air.  I’m told that most of what is sold here is grown on the property locally and organically.  The growers host various educational classes to teach people the science of maintaining and growing your own food and eating and living nutritionally.   I didn’t need anyone to teach me that I had stumbled upon a good thing. 

Who could resist the smell of freshly baked bread?
I certainly could not pass it by.  The samples get you every time too, especially when they have all those jars of fresh jam and honey to add to the already perfect backed goods.

If you can "can" it, you can find it here.  Amazing how many flavors, just waiting to be tasted.

Veggies and flowers make a perfect combination on any table.  Forget planning out the tablescapes, this is a natural tablescape; designed by the greatest of all designers.

Just look at the beautiful sunflowers!  You know, I'm sure I passed the field they came from on the way in.

Do you have a little girl in need of a dance costume?  You've come to the right place.

Or maybe she only needs a hair bow.  You can find it here.  There is even a tea party going on for Moms and daughters around the corner after the market.   

Maybe you would like some cheerful glassware for your spring table.  Aren't these wonderful?

If you don't want to prepare your own veggies for cooking, someone here has done it for you!

This is truly a fruitful place.  The peaches were to die for
.

Soon my tummy and my shopping bag were full of fresh foods and crafts for the home.

I passed the people walking their dogs and the moms pushing their babies in strollers and made my way back to my car.  A beautiful window box caught my eyes as I was leaving.  It looked "just perfect."  It said in flowers how I felt about this beautiful day.  I gave thanks to God for the experience and headed for home to try some of the goodies I had found.

 

COME AS A CHILD LESSON 73 ISAAC AND THE SEVEN WELLS

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

Time was passing on in the life of Isaac and Rebekah.  They stayed very busy looking after their household.  

Isaac did some farming in the land.  He planted many crops in that same year that he and Rebekah lived in Gerar under the protection of King Abimelech.  His crops were blessed by the LORD and the harvest that year was abundant.  This made Isaac a very rich man.  As a matter of fact his wealth grew so much that he became extremely wealthy and was probably among the richest men in the land.  He wisely invested in more flocks and herds and these became so numerous that all of his neighbors, the Philistines, greatly envied him.  Thus began the ancient struggle over the land.  It existed even in the days of Abraham and Isaac, and it continues today. 

The Philistines had been warned by King Abimelech not to harm Rebekah and Isaac, but that did not keep them from getting revenge on Isaac for coming into their area and growing stronger and better and richer than they were.  Those crafty old Philistines went to the wells that Isaac’s Father, Abraham had dug and started filling them up with trash and dirt which stopped them from producing water. 

When Isaac went to King Abimelech about this problem the King of the Philistines told Isaac that he had become too powerful for the people of the land.  Abimelech asked Isaac to move away from them.  Abimelech was probably trying to avoid war among the people of the land and Isaac. 

So; Isaac moved from the main city of Gerar and camped in the valley.  Isaac reopened some more wells that had been dug by his father Abraham during his lifetime.  The Philistines had stopped up each of these wells after Abraham’s death.  It was nothing but a malicious act of spite.  They obviously did not have use for the water from these wells.  Isaac did though; and he re-dug them.  There were seven all together.  

Isaac renamed each of these wells using the very same names that Abraham had given them originally.  One of the wells Isaac re-dug contained fresh spring water. 

The Philistine shepherds of Gerar began to quarrel with Isaac in the valley too.  They claimed the water rights of the land as their own, and told Isaac the wells did not belong to him.  They probably wanted him to pay them for use of the water from the wells that he had re-dug himself, the same water that they had not needed previously when they had selfishly stopped the wells up for revenge!  The Philistines were always looking for a way to make a profit from someone else’s labor.  They were wicked and crafty in this way.

Isaac re-named the well that produced the fresh water Esek, because they disputed with him there.  This word in Hebrew means “contention and strife.”  That is exactly what the quarrel over the water was causing in the land, so that is exactly what Isaac called the well.  Isaac was not looking for a fight.  He gave the Philistines use of the well he had opened back up and moved on out of their way.

Isaac went out further in the land and re-dug another well.  They also disputed with him there.  Isaac called this well Sitnah, which means “opposition.”  He moved on from there too.

Finally Isaac dug a well from which the Philistines did not quarrel with him.  He called this well Rehoboth which means “room to live” and said “Now the LORD has given us room and we will flourish in the land.”

From that spot of land Isaac went up to Beersheba.  In Beersheba God spoke to Isaac again and said:  “I am the God of your father Abraham.  Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bless you and will increase the number of your descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham.”

Isaac built an altar in this spot and this was where he went to pray and call upon the name of the LORD.  He pitched his tent near the altar and had his servants dig another well there.

In a similar fashion as had happened with Abraham, Abimelech came to Isaac from Gerar with Ahuzzath (his lawyer and legal adviser) and Phicol (the commander of his army.)

It must have been pretty intimidating for Isaac to see these men ride up, and I think Isaac had lost his patience with them at this point.  Isaac actually had a very well equipped army at his own disposal, the trained servants of Abraham and their sons who had stayed in Isaac’s household.  Isaac asked those bold Philistines just one question: “Why have you come here to me, since you sent me away from your land?”

They said they had seen how God had blessed Isaac and they wanted to have a sworn agreement between him and them.  In other words, they wanted to make a peace treaty with Isaac.  Well!  It was about time!

Abimelech reminded Isaac that he had done him no harm and he wanted Isaac to say the same to him.  They proclaimed that they did not molest Isaac and had dealt fairly with him and had sent him away in peace.  They felt that God was with Isaac and this was the reason for all of his blessings and all of his wealth and prosperity in the land.  They called him “blessed of the LORD.”

So Isaac made them a feast (which was always part of any major agreement for peace) and they all ate and drank together.  The next morning all of the men swore an oath to each other.  They left Isaac in peace.

Later that very same day Isaac’s servants came in from the field telling him that they had found water at a well they had dug.  Isaac called that well Shibah; the same name that Abraham had given it after his oath with Abimelech.  Shibah means “the well of the oath” and it indicates “fullness” which doesn’t necessarily just refer to the water that they received from this well, but it indicates the life that they were living before God in this place.

The city there then officially became known as Beersheba.  Beersheba is a very interesting and complicated name to understand.  The root means “writing on tablets of stone made clear and distinct.”  The feminine as well as the masculine noun means a well or a pit.  The verb root means “My heart declares.” Some scholars have related the root-verb (barar) to some of the Semitic languages. These meanings would connote “shining, pious, kind, true, or even go to the more basic meanings “to be free or clear.”  The Hebrew verb suggests a “purifying or cleaning or polishing,” which is very interesting in light of prophecy that evolves around Ezekiel 20:38. This meaning also relates to “tested and tried men.” 

The stories that center around this important well of Beersheba are endless and full of meaning.  We could discuss them and the things that happened at this particular well and in Beersheba for days on end.  It was a very significant place in the history of God and mankind.

So we find that most things were going along very well for Isaac who was in the prime of his life, everything, that is; except for the troubles that Esau brought home.  Esau loved the Hitites and he rebelliously married Judith who was the daughter of Beeri (a Hitite) and Basemath who was a daughter of Elon (another Hitite.)

These two girls were a true source of grief for Isaac and Rebekah.  

COME AS A CHILD LESSON 72 REPEATING THE PAST

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

When loving godly families fill the land, God's love is spread across the earth.  Isaac and Rebekah had a godly family, but they struggled with the influences that the surrounding cultures had on their children.

So Isaac and Rebekah, still very much in love with one another are continuing their lives in the midst of a constant struggle between their two very different sons.  

Isaac had not yet been told that Esau traded his birthright to Jacob, but they found themselves constantly experiencing many disappointments around how Esau was living as he matured into a grown man.  He did not seem to relate to God.  He cared little for their family worship.  He did not seem to want to be a part of their family culture.  He was always living "outside the camp."   

Esau wanted to blend into the culture that surrounded them; one that was very different from the godly culture that Abraham and Sarah had developed for their children and their family life.  The people surrounding the family in this land were very pagan and ungodly.  There was a whole different world outside of the household of Isaac and Rebekah.  Esau found that world too tempting, exciting and adventurous.  Isaac, more than anyone else, held on to the hope that Esau would change and mature as he grew older, but there was no evidence of that so far.    

Much like in the time of Abraham, a famine struck the land where Isaac was living with Rebekah and Jacob and Esau.  Isaac considered taking the family to Egypt to find food, but the Lord gave him a dream and told him not to leave the land of his birth.  

God led Isaac in a different direction than he would have normally chosen in a famine.  

Remember how Abraham had told Eliezer not to let Isaac leave the land where he was born?

  Abraham had expressed this to Isaac also.  He must stay in the land that God had promised. 

In Isaac’s dream God basically repeated what he had promised to Abraham.  God now told Isaac that his descendants would be as many as the stars in the heavens, and God said He would give these descendants the land of Canaan.  God repeated that he would bless the descendants of Abraham through Isaac because Abraham had been faithful to do the things that God had commanded of him. 

God passed on the promises he had made to Abraham to Isaac.  It was the first time Isaac had heard them directly from God.

Isaac had heard these promises from his earthly father many, many times while he was growing up.  His whole life had been a preparation to seek these very blessings, and he had even willing laid down his life for God; but this was the first time that Isaac actually heard of the blessings himself, directly from God!  It must have been exciting for him to actually hear from God directly and not by way of another person.  In all that Isaac had been through, God had finally spoken to him! 

Many of us live in this place like Isaac where we are doing all we can and seeking God’s will in our lives and trusting Him with all our heart, yet; we are not hearing God speak directly to us.  We begin to wonder if we should make our own decisions because of God’s silence.  We do not always realize that God has put us in a time of waiting on Him.  Sometimes God wants us to wait on His timing.  He wants us to have faith and to trust Him in all circumstances, even the hardest of times, even when He is silent.  Even Isaac had to wait on God until God chose to give him directions.  When the time is right, God will intervene and speak.  It is our part to keep listening and trusting.  The results of hearing from God after a long trusting wait are always joyful!

Sometimes there is nothing to do until we hear from God.  We must learn to wait on Him.

After receiving this word from God Isaac built an altar and worshiped God in the place where he had heard His voice. 

It must have been very sobering too to realize that God was doing all of this simply because Abraham had kept God’s commandments and honored the covenant.  It was nothing that Isaac had done, even though he had previously been willing to lay down his life for God.  It was because of God’s covenant with Abraham.   Isaac understood this and he decided against going to Egypt.  Isaac was obedient in staying in the land where God had promised to bless him.  He was full of joy when God answered him and he worshiped! 

A word of caution here.  When you reach a place of deciding to obey God with all your heart and it brings you to the place of doing something different in your life because God has spoken to you; do not let down your guard.  There may be more than one test ahead and the devil loves to catch us off guard.  It is the desire of the devil to trick every child of God into making a wrong turn.  Never bask in the fact that you obeyed God once.  Keep the eyes and ears of your spirit open to God’s will even when things seem to be perfectly clear. 

Life as a child of God is one long continuous act of submission to God’s will.  Don’t let down your guard after a hard test is over and you have obtained a momentary answer or victory.   The Christian life is an on-going battle between following God’s way and giving in to our humanity.  This was the trap that Isaac had set before him by Satan, who would love to see Isaac fail before God.  The devil is a careful deceiver.  If you are not paying attention and listening to God every minute he will make you think you do not need to seek God’s face again the next time.  You will mistake over-confidence for over-coming.   There is always a NEXT TIME.  There is one for all of us, just as there was one for Isaac.

 There was still this problem of the famine in the land.  So; Isaac went to Abimelech, who was still the reigning King of the Philistines in Gerar.  Remember that Abimelech was a family name or a “title” for kings, so this could have been either the Abimelech that Abraham had encountered or even possibly his son or grandson after him. 

The men of Gerar though Rebekah was extremely beautiful.

The experience of Isaac and Rebekah in Gerar was very much like the one that Abraham and Sarah had twice experienced in their days before the birth of Isaac; once in Egypt with Pharaoh, and once with King Abimelech in Gerar.  This is no reason to think that the story didn’t happen exactly like the scriptures read. The same situation was repeated.  Some like to think that a writer got confused and wrote the same story twice.  How silly!  How many times have you seen a son repeat the same mistakes that his father made?  This is just a prime example of how real life is lived out.  Usually one generation is given the same set of problems and temptations as the next.  Some sons learn from their fathers and some sons tend to repeat the process of relearning. 

It is the exception, not the rule, when a son doesn’t repeat his father’s sins.  This passage simply shows us the fate of humanity when we do not let God guide our every step.  Isaac was human.  He made the same mistake that Abraham did.

The men of Gerar thought Rebekah was extremely beautiful and they asked Isaac about her.  Isaac lied and told them she was his sister, just as Abraham had done with Sarah in the same circumstances many years prior. 

The scriptures plainly say this time that Isaac was afraid they might kill him and take Rebekah for themselves if they knew he was her husband.  But; one day King Abimelech saw Isaac caressing his wife, not in the way that one would treat his sister, and he realized Rebekah was actually Isaac’s wife.  The king asked Isaac why he had lied to him about Rebekah being his sister.  Isaac admitted that he had been afraid for his life.  This made Abimelech angry with Isaac and he asked him, “What if one of my men had taken Rebekah for himself as a wife?  We all would have been guilty of doing wrong!” 

Even through Abimelech was angry, he gave orders to his men not to harm Rebekah or Isaac, and they were then safe to live in that area until the famine was over.  This is yet another situation where humanity did everything wrong and God’s mercy prevailed. 

Isaac, like Abraham before him committed two sins.  First, he lied.  Second, and worse than the first sin, he did not trust God to take care of them.  Isaac, like his father before him in such circumstances, caved to the culture he found around him.  When it came down to it, Esau's father was (this time) as guilty as Esau, it just wasn’t as obvious.  He feared mankind instead of trusting God.  God had promised both Abraham and Isaac that He would be with them and protect them, but they still feared men in spite of this. 

I suppose there are a million people living in the same circumstances today.  So often we let the ungodly people from the cultures living around us make our decisions for us instead of following God's ways and trusting God to see us through.  Why should we ever fear our enemy when we know for a fact that our God is bigger and full of might?  We usually default to our humanity instead of trusting in our divine God.  Isaac just repeated the sad story that is common to all other human beings.  Both Abraham and Isaac failed this same test.  So do most other men.  If a man can rise above his circumstances following God through all situations, he is truly a righteous man indeed.

We should never remove our focus from God.  We should not let the dangers around us control us and make us forget what our God has promised us. This is a very important fact to remember as we live through the last days of this earth.   We must keep trusting God to guide us, and we must keep striving to do the right thing and rise above the cesspool of humanity we find ourselves living in on planet earth.  Did God not say that two nations would come from Rebekah’s womb?  Had God not told them He had great plans for them?  Keep remembering the promises!  “I will never leave you or forsake you!” 

Now we have seen that God had spoken directly to Isaac and even in a time when Isaac temporarily forgot to trust in God’s sovereignty.  God does not forsake His children, even when they make terrible mistakes.  He is patient, merciful and loving and He will wait until our hearts are right again and bring us to the purposes that He has designed for our lives from the beginning of time.  Isaac’s purpose was to be the father of great nations!  God did not forsake him or turn His back on him.  We ALL have a purpose.  Every soul that enters this earth has a purpose designed by The Creator, even if they cannot yet see it.  Have faith, God will show you in time.

 This is a very strong lesson that should apply to the heart of every Christian person living today.  Even great godly men like Abraham and Isaac failed this test and had to rely on God’s great mercy and forgiveness.  Our God is not controlled by the pitiful, sinful, circumstances of humanity.  He will look after His people when they trust in Him and obey Him. 

God always keeps His promises.  We must always believe this.  Unbelief looks at the difficulty but faith looks at God’s promises.  Isaac should have had more faith in this situation.  He should have told the truth.  So many of us do the same thing; we have strong faith for some life and death situations, but we slip in the day-to-day decisions of being truthful and honest.  We forget to consider God’s will for EVERY moment we are living through.  If it isn’t BIG, we forget and default to our own decisions.   

God protected both Sarah and Rebekah when their husbands forgot to call on Him and trust Him for deliverance. This should give many women of today hope.  You might find yourself living in hard circumstances with a husband who has forgotten to call on God.  Do not forget to call on Him yourself.  He is there waiting, ready to deliver you from your misery and oppression.  He is ever faithful!   It is up to each person, individually, to call on God.  No one else can do it for you, not your husband, not your children, not your earthly mother and father.  God wants to hear from YOU.  

God had mercy on Rebekah and Isaac and brought them to safety in spite of their lack of faith and sinful lies.  They did not starve, and they were kept safe through the famine in the land.  Isaac did not have to leave the land where he was born, and that was very important in keeping the covenant of God and the promises that Isaac had made to Abraham.  If we wait on God in all of our hard circumstances He will make a way to bring His will about in our lives.  We must trust God to do this, always.

Once again we learn of a time when God took a very bad situation and worked it out for good.  God always keeps His promises!

COME AS A CHILD LESSON 71 ESAU EATS AN EXPENSIVE MEAL

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

One day Esau went hunting and had no luck.  He must have stayed in the fields and the woods entirely too long without eating, just thinking that the next hour would bring him victory in the hunt.  He did not find the prey that he wanted to find.  He came back home empty-handed this time, and he wasn't very happy about it.   A long time had passed as he stalked his prey without success, and he was without food the whole time.  He walked into the camp feeling very tired and faint only to find Jacob standing over a fire, cooking a delicious lintel stew, one of Esau's favorite dishes!  

The aromatic scent drifted across the breeze over the fire where Jacob was preparing the meal.  Esau had never smelled anything like it!  Just what he was craving!  He was SO hungry!  He felt if he did not have food soon he would surely pass out.  He strolled into his brother’s kitchen area like a bull in a china shop and loudly proclaimed “Give me some of that stew!”

This must have completely annoyed Jacob who sat clean and orderly before the meal he had prepared for himself only.  He must have noticed that Esau smelled horrible after so many days on the hunt, being outside in the land without bathing or changing his clothes.  By now in their lives Jacob had grown very tired of Esau’s way of always barging into what was his and just expecting him to give it up.  Esau seemed to think since they were twins that everything was community property and he could just grab whatever he wanted whenever he wanted.  Why couldn’t he be satisfied with all the blessings that he had?  After all, Esau was the oldest (by a few priceless minutes) and the one who would inherit the birthright from Isaac. Why should he want what little was left over to Jacob?

Jacob must have pondered what a waste this inheritance of Esau was going to be.  Esau had no respect for people or possessions.  For Isaac to turn over 2/3rds of his possessions to Esau one day seemed tragic to Jacob who was probably a diligent worker, a detailed planner and a very careful steward.  He must have wondered why Isaac did not see this trait in Esau every time Esau came along charming him by bringing home the wild venison that he hunted down and cooked for him.  Isaac had been fooled into loving and favoring this son by a few stupid bowls of wild meat, venison to be exact, which Esau always cooked for him after his hunts.  Well, apparently there would be no cooking for Isaac today. 

All of this must have been in Jacob’s head when he answered Esau’s pleas for Jacob’s delicious, perfectly prepared dinner. 

“Let me buy your birthright for this bowl of porridge” said Jacob in total sarcasm, probably wondering if Esau could be that stupid or wondering if Esau could be as foolish as Isaac was being in favoring Esau's stews.  Jacob was merely being sarcastic, knowing that Esau would not even realize what he was saying.  Surely Esau would not answer “yes” to that question; or so Jacob thought in his irony and sarcasm.

He looked up to see Esau actually considering his question! 

Esau’s eyes were on the juicy stew made from well-feed beef and freshly

grown lintels.  It had been flavored with homegrown spices and herbs, with just the right seasonings to blend with just the right fat, giving the tender long-and-slow cooked stew an awesome flavor.  Esau’s mouth watered.  He had never smelled anything to equal this stew and his appetite was working overtime.  He had to admit to himself that Jacob was the best cook in the land.  He thought it was a stew perfect enough to feed any very royal king.  Why should he not eat this stew instead of his brother?  Surely it didn't matter as much to Jacob.  Had Esau not been the one out doing the work of chasing down wild game for their father to enjoy while his brother sat in the luxury of the tent and filled his belly?  After all, there his brother sat all calm, clean and rested, and Esau suspected their mother had spent the hours while he was away waiting on him hand and foot.  Esau thought about how very spoiled Jacob was.  He detested how his mother treated him.  All she could ever talk about was “Jacob did this” and “Jacob did that.”  She was brainwashed.  Why should Jacob have all the luxury of this day?  He did not deserve it.  Besides, Jacob had been here eating regularly every day and Esau was hungry!

So he wanted the birthright……it all went back to the birthright, everything did. 

So much of the birthright was simply spiritual blessings; nothing that would really matter to someone like Esau who did not actually believe that this God from which Abraham first received the blessings existed.  Why should he care if Isaac bestowed these same words to him by laying hands on him at the time near his death?  Would that bring his father back to him after he was gone?  No!  Then Esau would have to take care of all those his father had looked after all his life; Rebekah, Keturah, aunts, uncles, cousins, servants, DROVES of servants.  What did Esau need with all of these leaches?  It all evolved around the fact that this God they believed wanted this done.  Esau did not believe that this God even existed.  He was sick of them shoving Him down his throat.  It was nice to feel important sometimes, but this birthright was not going to be worth all the work and trouble that would be tied to it.  It would totally interfere with Esau’s freedom.  Esau did not like being told what to do.  He valued his freedom to come and go and often went away for days at a time.  He did not like being tied down with heavy responsibilities.  Things were hard enough now.  Inheriting the birthright would only make things more complicated and take away even more of his time.  He would never be able to just take off on a hunt for days at a time again.  

In so many ways, Esau actually detested his birthright. It meant that he had to learn cultured things and go to school and think about handling money and making investments and being responsible.  If he complained he was always reminded of the birthright and his responsibilities.   His parents kept trying to push him in this direction; or Isaac did anyway.  Rebekah was always busy with Jacob’s refinement. 

To Esau, all that mattered in life was that the sun rose each morning and he had a bow in his hand aimed at a large buck off in the field.  Life was the hunt and the hunt was life.  What else was there?  

He cared nothing for the dignitaries and the oh-so-proper people that his parents often invited to dinner.  They sat at the table and talked more than they ate.  They discussed religion and war and money.  He cared for none of that.  All he needed was an open field and the sunshine. 

Esau knew his brother Jacob was quite a different story.  Jacob was always Johnny-on-the-spot, holding on to Rebekah’s coat-tails, coming to the table with a million questions and a hunger to learn all the answers, impressing everyone with his knowledge of everything.  Esau thought him greedy, arrogant, never satisfied with what he had, always seeking more.  Now he was asking for Esau’s birthright. 

Esau paused for a brief moment to consider that the birthright did not really mean much to him, and he looked at the stew with longing eyes.  All Esau ever considered in life was the very moment that he was in at the time.  His only hesitation was the fact that, for some strange reason, he kept seeing Isaac’s face in his mind as he considered this. 

What would his father think? 

Did he even have to know?  

Esau had tried to tell Isaac over and over that he just was not interested in carrying out the family business. Isaac had always expressed to him that he should just be patient; that it would mean something to him one day.  Well, Esau was a grown adult man now, and that birthright still did not mean any more to him.  What he wanted was a good bowl of lintel stew.  Yes!  He would solve two problems at once.  Isaac need never be told, and Esau could fill his belly RIGHT NOW and be content.  Right now was all that ever mattered to Esau.  He gave no thought for the future, he let that take care of itself.  That was his philosophy!

“Okay, I’ll trade.”

Jacob could not believe his ears!  How foolish could a man be?  How could this excuse of a human being be his brother, much less his twin?  Such a man as this did not deserve his father’s hard earned fortune!

It was going to be a good day for Jacob.  

He had long pondered the words of Abraham to Isaac in the giving of the birthright.  How Jacob had yearned to be the one receiving such words!  Some day Isaac would repeat them to the son who owned the birthright.   Esau had been in line automatically to receive the very same words that Abraham had repeated to Isaac, the very words that God had said to him!  Jacob had memorized them, long from his childhood because his mother had often whispered them into his ear.

“I have made you a father of many nations.  I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations from you.  I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.  The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you, and I will be their God.”

The birthright contained this promise from God to all of Abraham’s descendants!  What could be more important?  Jacob realized this was a very sacred thing.  He also realized nothing was sacred to Esau.  Should he take this foolish bargain from his brother? 

Would it be wrong?

Well, maybe it was an opportunity for someone to make the birthright turn out the way it should.  His brother would certainly never follow through with any of it.  All would be wasted if Jacob did not take it!  Even the one third that Jacob stood to inherit would go down the tubes too with Esau in charge of everything.  He consoled himself with this fact, never considering the other part of the facts; that it would mean he would become the ONLY heir to his family’s great wealth which had been passed on from his grandfather Abraham.  He would tell his father this when the time came.  No need to rush.  There were years left to do it.  Someone had to protect Abraham’s blessing from Esau, and he might as well be the one to do it since his father was not going to ever say no to this undeserving but favored child named Esau. 

Jacob slowly dipped out the stew and handed a very full bowl to his eagerly waiting twin brother.  

For a few priceless minutes Esau enjoyed the best stew he had ever tasted.

Soon Esau had filled his stomach to the brim and lay snoring right in the middle of Jacob’s kitchen floor.  For once Jacob did not care.  He quickly ran off, smiling all the way.  He had a lot to confide, and he must find his mother to tell her all of the details.

SEASONS - HOW DECORATION DAY BECAME MEMORIAL DAY

  

Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf

Did you know that Memorial Day wasn’t called Memorial Day in the beginning?  It was called Decoration Day.  They called it that because after the Civil War, people decorated the graves of the soldiers who were killed in battle on that day.  It was a southern tradition, to decorate graves to remember loved ones lost, but this tradition was now shared all over the country, for soldiers from the north and the south.  

Maybe it was a way to bring the people of the north and the south together after the war.  It took the South a long time after the Civil War before they joined in the celebration in a national way. As a matter of fact, it took another war, World War I.  

There were many organizations of southern women’s groups that went about in local areas decorating the graves of the Confederate soldiers on random but different dates in May each year, and they finally came to see that this day was not about division, but about reconciliation and coming together.  It was to be a time for honoring the soldiers who gave their all for all of us.  

The North and The South finally came together and began placing flowers on the graves of their heroes who were buried in the Arlington National Cemetery.   

The Civil War was such a misunderstood war.  Most people haven’t heard the whole story.  It wasn’t really all about slavery, as many think.  It was mostly about state’s rights and taxation without representation.  

As wrong as slavery was, many believed that the whole situation would have worked itself out eventually with the invention of the cotton gin and new farming machinery.  At any rate, the subject was often used for a political soap-box in order to get at some of the underlying issues that were really more important to those involved.  It is a sad fact that though people did care about the situation of slavery, the truth was that neither side would be willing to send their sons to fight over the issue of slavery.  They were, however, willing to die for their freedom to own and keep their own property, and their right to make a living and receive the financial benefit from it without government interference.  Hmmmm…..I wonder how people are feeling about that today?

To understand what really happened way back then, you must first see and note the contrast in the cultures.  The North and The South were two totally different cultures, with two totally different ways of life.  Out of the 5.5 million people living in the south, there were really only 12 rich and powerful southern plantation owners, who owned over 500 slaves each.  These men had a lot of political power, and they were involved with legislation.  In 1860 everything in the South evolved around agriculture, mostly cotton.  Everything in the North evolved around manufacturing goods.  There were 140,000 manufacturing facilities in the North in 1860.  The North thrived on exporting goods.  The South thrived on exporting cotton.  Most of the southern cotton was bought by England.  The English people manufactured their own products, and were not likely to import the North’s exports, but they were glad to export their own to the southern traders.  As a matter of fact the English had a good trade deal established with the South, where they would buy their cotton and in turn the Southern plantation owners would receive good prices on English products.  

The South wound up buying goods from England instead of buying the goods being manufactured in the North.  In order to counteract this, the North, who controlled the House of Representatives and the Senate at that time, decided to tax both imports and exports.  That put the South paying high taxes on both the cotton they exported, and the goods they imported from England.  

By 1860 the South was actually paying approximately 85% of the taxes collected by the U.S.   They felt they were overtaxed and under represented by our government. That was the main issue, and slavery was the song it traveled on.  The politicians of the day knew that slavery was the political subject that would pull at people’s heartstrings and evoke emotion, and they used it to their own advantage to stir up people’s hearts.  

Many good people, most from the north, but also some good godly people from the south, were already hard at work trying to change the situation of slavery.   Slaves were considered to be property, and therefore, they were a good source of tax revenue for the government.   In this respect, the north was just as guilty as the south in not stopping slavery.  They thrived from the revenue received because of slavery from the large plantations.  There were also excessive property taxes taken from the huge lands that made up the southern plantations where the slaves lived and worked.  

Remember “Gone With The Wind”?  A huge part of the story came to light because of the lack of tax money to pay Tara’s taxes.  This was a catch 22 type situation though – when it came time for the numbers to be counted of people in an area, the southern plantation areas could count their slaves and claim a larger stake of the pie.  There was legislation over this, and some real odd ways came about by trying to justify whether a slave counted in a region as a whole person or not.  The North got the slaves reduced to a fractional number until after the war when the whole issue was corrected.   

Because of the heavy taxation, and the reduction of the number of people the southern legislators represented, the southerners became financially and politically strapped.   They could not exist any longer under the current tax situation, and they could not gain any power in the House and Senate to make a change.  Desperate, they exercised their state’s rights to pull out.  When they did, everyone suffered. The northern industrial states had depended on southern plantations for their food sources.

  

It was a mess, and it was a stupid and greedy mess.  It took both sides a long time to recover from their wounds. 

I find it very ironic that a war within our own country was the event that evolved into a time of remembering and honoring the soldiers that died protecting our country from other countries.  It actually started out because we needed to protect ourselves from each other.    

Perhaps the greatest lesson of the Civil War was about coming together as a people of one voice, and putting aside our differences and creating workable solutions for all.  The abolishing of slavery certainly falls under this huge umbrella.  The Union soldiers never mentioned in their historical diaries that they were fighting to abolish slavery.  What you read in their writings was the fact that they were fighting to protect and establish the Union.  They wanted The United States of America to stay The United States of America, which was established as “one nation under God with liberty and justice for all.”  They gave their lives for the idea that we, as a nation, should always stay together and work out our problems, under all circumstances.   

Hence, Decoration Day was established, which became known as Memorial Day after World War II.  It was officially moved to the third Monday of May in the 1970’s.  This was done so that all of America could enjoy a long weekend while they remembered those who died for their freedom.