SEASONS – WHAT IS THE REAL MEANING BEHIND VALENTINE’S DAY?

( Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

It is almost that time of year again, that special day of celebrating love and lovers.  Most people either adore this day or hate this day; depending on their circumstances at the moment.  

Out come the Hallmark cards, all decorated in red and pink.   Out come the chocolates and the candy hearts and roses.  For one day these things seem to cover the land and occupy our thoughts.  It seems to be a special day for the whole world to say “I love you” to their sweethearts!  

The world has taken this day to a whole new level; probably one more than originally intended when the day first originated.  How on earth did all of this ever get started anyway?

Like most noble days, the day we now call Valentine’s Day was started with the brave 

actions of one faithful man.  His real name was Valentinus, and he later became known as St. Valentine. 

St. Valentine was a real Roman Catholic priest who actually lived during the time of the third century.  At that time there was a ruler named Claudias that was persecuting the church.   He had ordered the people to give their worship to twelve pagan gods, and anyone who associated with Christians or Christianity was severely persecuted. 

Claudias also thought that unmarried soldiers fought better than married soldiers because the married ones might be afraid of what would happen to their wives and children if they were killed in battle.  So he issued an edict that young couples were not to marry.  Reader beware!  This is what happens when we let rulers make edicts!  Can you imagine that?  This was a time of great evil and lawlessness and most couples simply wound up living together unmarried without giving a thought to whether it was right or wrong before the true God of heaven and earth.  This history is sounding a little too familiar.

Of course the faithful church was at work and intent on keeping the will of God.  Let's hope that will be the case in our modern times too.  Naturally, the true church was against people who were not married living together based on the fact that this act would break the commandments of God; so they had to come up with a solution for their congregations who were trying to live faithful lives amidst a very evil and pagan world.  

As an answer to this problem, they performed secret marriages.  The man who championed this cause was named Valentine.  St. Valentine began secretly marrying people of the church who were truly committed to following the ways of Christ.  These secret marriages became his main mission in life.  He also participated in rescuing those who were put into prison for marrying.  He would organize creative and successful ways for them to escape.    

Valentine was eventually caught and thrown into prison for marrying people against the edict of Emperor Claudias II.  It is said that he was terribly tortured in prison.  There are legends about his faithful actions and the ways he cared for others even while suffering himself in prison.

A man named Asterius was one of the judges who sentenced Valentine to prison.  He had a daughter named Julia who was blind.  

While Valentine was in prison Asterius brought Julia to be schooled by Valentine, who was also known as a great teacher.  

Valentine taught Julia history, math and science.   Though blind, she was brilliant and learned quickly.  

Valentine also taught Julia about God.  She trusted in his wisdom and followed his guidance.  One day she asked Valentine if God would really answer prayers.  He assured her that God would.  She confided in Valentine that she was praying for God to make her see so that she could see with her eyes all the wonderful things that that he had taught her.  Valentine told her that God always did what was best for us and that He always listened to the prayers of a believer.   

After that conversation, Valentine prayed with Julia right there in his prison cell and in a matter of minutes she screamed out that she saw a brilliant light!  She was healed of her blindness.   

Valentine was destined to be martyred the next day.  

  

Valentine died on February 14^th  in the year 269 a.d.   He died a horrible martyr’s death.  Because of his stance on Christian marriage he was sentenced first to beating with a club, then stoning and eventual decapitation. 

It is said that his last words were written down in a note that was sent to Asterius’s daughter Julia telling her to stay strong in her faith in God.  He signed the note with the words “from your Valentine.”  It is from the action of his written note, and how he signed it, that we get the practice of sending Valentine cards today.  The color red signifies his martyr’s blood and the hearts stand for his true heart. 

It is said that Julia later found St. Valentine’s grave and planted an almond tree with pink blossoms on it over the grave site.  That is how the tradition of giving flowers began.  

Because of the miracle that happened to Julia, her father,  Asterius, later became a Christian too.  

St. Valentine did not die in vain, many came to Christ because of his martyrdom.

So you see the real original St. Valentine was a Christian martyr.  He laid his life down for what he believed and he died for taking a stand for his faith.  Later he became known as the patron saint for lovers.  It is a good and fitting legacy. 

Many couples seeking advice for having a strong marriage are advised to study the life of St. Valentine.  Upon hearing his story they learn that sometimes you have to suffer for true love, but the truly committed keep their vows to the end, even unto death, because that is what true love is all about.  St. Valentine demonstrated this to us with his whole life.

MONDAY NIGHT MENUS: THE BEST BUTTERBEANS YOU EVER TASTED

MAKING COOKING AT HOME EASIER
WITH MONDAY NIGHT MENUS

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf) 

Tonight is an easy old country comfort meal.  This meal is a great way to end a chilly day.  The Best Butterbeans You Ever Tasted with Buttermilk Cornbread and Creamy Cole Slaw.  Then if you are having dessert; one of my favorite cakes; Hummingbird Cake.  Enjoy!

THE BEST BUTTERBEANS YOU EVER TASTED

4 cans large white butterbeans

2 cups of Chopped Cooked Ham

1 onion chopped and sautéed

2 tablespoons garlic

Instant potato mix

Small can Pet milk

Mix the beans (do not drain), ham and onion together.  Add the garlic.  Heat in a large pot until they are hot.   Take off stovetop.   Add in the potato mix.  Stir and let set for a few minutes.  Pour in milk and stir again, reheat by simmering for about 30 minutes with lid on pot.  These would be a meal all by themselves, just add cornbread!

BUTTERMILK CORNBREAD

Ingredients:

¾ cup all purpose flour

¾ cup yellow cornmeal (or white if you prefer)

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. sugar

¼ cup melted butter

1 large egg

1 -1/4 cup buttermilk

3 tsp. canola oil

Directions:

Preheat oven to 300 degrees and drop the canola oil into a 12- inch cast iron skillet.  Heat for about 15 minutes until hot but not smoking.  Mix dry ingredients well; then mix wet ingredients.  Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix lightly until blended, but do not over-mix.  Pour cornbread mix into the hot skillet and return to oven for 20 minutes.  When the top is golden brown remove from oven and let cool enough to place a plate over top of skillet and invert to remove cornbread onto a plate.

CREAMY COLE SLAW

Ingredients:

1 head green cabbage finely shredded

2 large carrots finely shredded

¾ cup best quality mayonnaise

2 tablespoons sour cream

2 tablespoons grated purple onion

2 tablespoons sugar (or to taste)

2 tablespoons white vinegar

1 tablespoon dry mustard

2 tablespoons celery salt

Dash of salt and fresh ground pepper

1 Tablespoon Heavy Cream

Directions:

Combine the shredded cabbage and carrots and grated onions in a large bowl.  Whisk together the mayonnaise, sour cream, sugar, vinegar, mustard, celery salt, salt and pepper in a medium bowl, then add to the cabbage mixture.  Mix well to combine and do a taste test for the seasoning.  Add or subtract seasonings as desired to your own taste.  When all is mixed and ready to serve, stir in one tablespoon of heavy cream.  This is the secret to making the coleslaw stay creamy.

 HUMMINGBIRD CAKE

CAKE:

3 cups all purpose flour

2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3 eggs, beaten

1 cup chopped bananas

1 cup vegetable oil

1- 1/2 teaspoons vanilla 

1 (8 oz) can crushed pineapple with syrup

1 cup pecans, chopped

Combine flour, sugar. soda, salt and cinnamon; add eggs and oil, stirring until flour mixture is moistened. DO NOT BEAT. Stir in vanilla, pineapple, pecans, and bananas.   Bake in 3 greased and floured 9-inch cake pans at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a wooden toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans 10 minutes; remove from pans, and cool completely.

FROSTING:

(8 oz) package cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup margarine, softened

1 (16 oz) box powdered sugar, sifted

1 teaspoon vanilla 1/2 cup pecans, chopped

Combine cream cheese and margarine, beating until smothe. Add powdered sugar and vanilla; beat until light and fluffy. Spread between layers and on top and sides of cake. Sprinkle pecans on top

 

AN APPLE A DAY - DAY 123 OF 365 DAYS TO LIVING A HEALTHIER LIFESTYLE

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

GETTING ORGANIZED BY ELIMINATING TIME-CLUTTER

Time is so important!  What we do with our time really matters to our overall health. 

Your life is made up of seconds, minutes, hours, days, months and years.  You can’t just stretch them out whenever you feel you want or need more.  No matter who you are, or how much money you have in your bank account; there are still only 168 hours a week for you to use as time

How you spend your time amounts to what your life turns out to be.  One day we all will have to give an account for all of our time.  Psalm 31:15 says:  “My times are in Your hands; Deliver me from the hand of my enemies and from those who persecute me.”  The wise author of this Psalm was doing the first thing we all must do in relation to making our times count; he was consulting God on how to spend his days and asking for God’s help in keeping himself organized.  Good plan! 

Psalm 74:16-17 tells us:  “Yours is the day.  Yours is the night.  You have prepared the light and the sun.  You have established all the boundaries of the earth, You have made summer and winter.”  When we read these very profound words we realize that God has given us everything we need to keep our time in order.  But then another question comes to mind; just how are we doing with that task?

How are you going to measure up when that final day comes around and you have to give an account for your time spent on this earth? 

What will be on your mind during the last few hours of your life on this earth?  Will you be wondering how you could have spent your time differently?

Will you be wondering why you didn’t have enough time to do all the things you really wanted and needed to do? 

Will you be sorry you wasted so much time on TASKS and did not spend enough time on relationships? 

Time can be your friend or your enemy depending on the decisions you decide to make about how to use it. 

One question will determine how well you are with managing your time and that question is well worth pondering: 

Just who is in charge of your time?  Is it you; or are you letting time-clutter break down your hours and days?  If so; we need to address that right now.  Let’s look at how we can cut down on time-clutter in order to give ourselves a healthier calendar.  Let’s lose all that extra weight we call time-clutter!

We all should be feeling great right now about getting our schedules and appointments organized with the new calendars and personal planners we discussed last week.  Are you enjoying the methods we discussed on the previous blog about incorporating, planning and organizing your daily time?  That project will go a long way in eliminating some of the time clutter in your life.  (If you missed those tips go here: http://dancinginseason.blogspot.com/2017_01_20_archive.html to catch up with us.)

Even with that part of our time management solidly in place; there is something else to consider.  The ultimate goal of time management is not about scheduling every waking moment in your life; it is about making sure that YOU are the one in control of what goes on in those moments.  If we want to make healthier, better organized choices we still have to consider eliminating what I call “time-clutter” from our daily schedules. 

So what exactly is “time-clutter” anyway?

Time clutter is anything taking up your available time which is totally unnecessary to bringing you peace-of-mind, order, joy, happiness and health.

We all have different types of “time-clutter” in our lives.  It varies from season to season as we live out our lives.  Can you think of are some things that currently cause you to have time-clutter?

Perhaps it might be a good idea to stop right here and make yourself a list of the things that give you “time-clutter” problems.  Identifying a problem is half-way to the solution.  If you find this hard to recognize just try jotting down how you are spending your time every day.  For one day log notes on your activities from hour to hour.  This log can help you to identify some of the things you might be missing.   I’ll also try to help you identify a few problem areas by discussing the areas of time-clutter that are common to almost everyone. 

UNSOLICITED PHONE CALLS AND CHATS AND TEXTING:

One of the most common areas of wasted time these days are phone chats and text messages.  We are 100% available to everyone all the time now with mobile phones and high-tech.  You can waste hours of time by answering all of your phone calls and text messages every day. 

Please don’t misunderstand this; you SHOULD be available to the members of your immediate family whenever they need you; but do you really need to answer all of those other calls????  Some of them might still be important too - but if they are; most likely they will leave a voice mail message where you can call them back at a time that is more convenient for you. 

I suggest you only actually answer calls from immediate family members when the phone rings.  Let everything else go into your voice mail.  Keep your family member calls down to under ten minutes.  Time yourself if you have to.  Save those LONG conversations for those REAL visits which you are going to have more time for if you follow some of these simple suggestions.

Check your voice mail once a day at the same time each day; and set aside 30 minutes each day for returning important, necessary phone calls.  If you run out of time make a list of numbers to carry over to answer the next day.  Answer the most important first.  DO NOT SPEND ALL OF YOUR WAKING MOMENTS ON THE PHONE. 

Friends ARE a necessity; so DO return the phone calls of good friends who are just wanting to chat; but try to fit them into YOUR schedule; not theirs.  A good time to use to return these phone calls might be on your commute home from the office at the end of the day.  You are in the car anyway – you may as well make the most of your time while you are trapped there inside your car.  Do this safely though; invest in hand’s-free phone products and use your speaker while you are driving instead of your actual phone, keeping both hands on the steering wheel at all times.  This one thing alone will make a HUGE difference in eliminating the time-clutter in your daily life.

 Also – just ignore and delete all of those marketing calls that slip through your do-not-call-list monitors.  If you have someone constantly calling you with marketing that you are not interested in and they continue to call your phone over and over – I suggest blocking their number.  Then you won’t have the stress of being frustrated with them.  Your time belongs to you.  Your moments are precious and valuable.  Don’t let parasites that bring nothing of value into your life or your family eat up your phone time! 

Charities are a very good thing and I whole heartedly endorse giving to worthy causes; however; these are something that you should be deciding on with clear thought and good research.  You should chose your charities at the time that is convenient to you.  Sit down at the beginning of each year and decide how much money in your budget can go toward charities and pick the ones you want to sponsor.  Do that, then ignore the rest without guilt.  You are not responsible for the well being of the whole universe.  That job belongs to God.   There is a limit to any one’s extra money – so stick to your decision to spend where you feel your money can do the best.  Learn to ignore those charity phone calls. 

I would also offer the same advice for those random requests at the check-out line and whenever you are purchasing something at the store.  What gives them the right to decide where you will be investing in charities?  It is a very rude assumption; and I think stores are wrong for doing this.  They are simply playing on people’s guilt.   I consider those things an invasion of my personal privacy and walk away without one smidge of guilt.  You could do the same.  Just remember to do your part and make your contributions to a better society in a more focused, thoughtful, correct and considerate way as mentioned above.   Delete those messages and/or block them out and give your money responsibly instead of on a whim to whatever charity screams the loudest.  Support those that you really decided to sponsor on your own. 

Make sure your home phone system has a screen that shows you who is calling and if there isn’t a name attached to it that you recognize; let that call go to the answering service, especially at the time they love to get you the most – your dinner time.  Trust me – you will be much happier when you are able to free up your more valuable time to spend with those who truly love you for who you are and want to be with you for free.  Don’t let other people’s bad and inconsiderate phone habits clutter up your life.

OBSESSIVE WORRY:

How much of your precious time have you been giving away to worry each day? 

Worry can really clutter up your time.  It can paralyze you if you let it.  Throw worry out with the trash every day.  Don’t let it hang around your house and drain you of all your positive energy.  Matthew 6:25-34 offers some excellent advice in this area:  “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear.  Is not life more than food; and the body more than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air, they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not much more valuable than they?  Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?  And why do you worry about clothes?  See how the flowers of the field grow.  They do not labor or spin.  Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all of  his splendor was dressed like one of these.  If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you – you of little faith.  So do not worry, saying; ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.  But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.  Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Worry can tire you out and keep you from those things that you enjoy the most in life.  Just don’t’ do it!  Let it go!  Be responsible in every way that you can – then quit worrying without guilt or shame.

If you have something that you can’t get out of your mind and that worry is keeping you from having a more productive life; call a trusted friend and talk it out.  Hire a counselor if you must.  There are many good ones out there.  Share the load instead of carrying it around with you everywhere you go.  Two heads are always better than one.  Your friend or counselor may offer a solution that you haven’t thought about.  Talking it out with a reliable person will help you to cross that needless worry off your list so that you will be able to  move on. 

Don’t wait too long to do this.  Whenever you are feeling bogged down in worry; seek help immediately and then move on with the solution to the problem.  Get rid of the stress before it gets rid of you.

NOT DELEGATING THE THINGS THAT YOU REALLY DON’T HAVE TIME TO HANDLE:

Sometimes when we are feeling overwhelmed with time-clutter it is our own fault for not delegating those tasks that we don’t necessarily have to handle ourselves. 

Are you cooking ALL the time without ever treating yourself to a night out? 

Do you HAVE to wash those dishes EVERY night?  Why not use paper plates and plastic cups on some less formal nights? 

Do you not have time to clean like you want?  Have you considered having a maid come in twice a month?  It might be more affordable than you think. Are you considering not spending so much time with your grandchildren because you don't have enough time to clean, but it breaks your heart?  NO!  Let them come on over and make as much of a mess in your house as they want and THEN hire a maid.  LOL.  We all have our priorities; this is one I'm having to learn.

Do you struggle with having enough time to do your yard work?  Lots of people are looking for that type of employment these days.  If you search around and inquire with your neighbors you can find someone who is reasonable that does good work.

Do you need a break from constant child care?  Have you lined up some good, dependable people who love being with your child who would gladly help out for a few hours if you only gave them a call? 

Do you need to spend some more hours each week with an ageing parent but have trouble carving out the time?  Do you typically attend church every week?  Why not just go with your parent to their church a few weeks out of the month?  It would make their day and yours too.  You would gain a lot of common ground for conversations later; and you are already spending that time going to church anyway.  Your congregation can make it without you now and then and God can be in both places at the same time!  The more creative you get with some of these time-clutter issues, the more interesting life turns out in the end.  I DO encourage you to think outside the box.

Are you overwhelmed from church activities?  Don’t you think there are other people out there that might want to help out with your food pantry chores on Thursday nights?  Volunteering your time is a wonderful thing to do.  I highly recommend it; but once you get started and others see your willing spirit, sometimes you become the “go-to” person for the whole world.  There has to be a limit even to such worthy causes.  If you are volunteering after work more than one night a week; you might want to reconsider how you are spending your time in that area. 

Do you hate grocery shopping?  Do you know there are services out there that will do it all for you and all you have to do is pick it up?  Some of these services even deliver right to your doorstep.  They are becoming more and more affordable and easier and easier to use. 

Do you ever just order a pizza and have it delivered?  It isn’t a healthy choice for every day but it sure is a lifesaver if you are too tired or too scheduled to do anything else. 

Almost every chore that causes our time-clutter problems has an answer that can be delegated to others.  I'm not saying that you should blow your hard earned money by hiring EVERYTHING out; but sometimes you DO need a break and those are the times to look at the possibilities. If you can aford it; do it.  I have friends who barter and exchange certain services for other certain services.  One lady cooks extra meals ahead twice a week for her friend in exchange for her friend watching her children after school for a few hours a week.  I thought that worked out nicely for both of them!  Be creative if you don't want to spend the cash; but DO give yourself some freedom from time-clutter whenever you can.  Just one thing in one area only once a month can be a real treat for most of us.   Study how you are spending your time and make a list of how you can delegate and put a new plan into action.  See if this one little thing doesn’t give you more Sunday afternoon walks and family time. 

HIGH-TECH CLUTTER:

These days we all have to deal with a lot of what I call high-tech clutter.  These things will totally consume you if you let it happen.  We have already covered the telephone; but there are many other such things to deal with today.  Ask yourself these questions:

How much time am I spending answering text messages?

How much time am I spending on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and Twitter?

How many e-mails do I receive simply because I ordered a product or did business with someone in a one-time transaction?

How much television am I watching every day?

If you have watched television over one hour a night; you are probably watching too much.  Get up and get moving and save that little hour for your unwind time.  Consider renting a movie or scheduling a show you really do want to watch instead of the constant noise of that television.  You should turn it off completely two or three nights a week and let yourself curl up with a good book instead. 

Of course, if you are like me you will not limit your reading to one hour either.  I’ve learned to set a timer and keep a bookmarker handy. 

For those pesky e-mails, just click onto “unsubscribe” and you can quit wasting your time cleaning them out of your-in box every day. Such an easy solution!

When it comes to using social media, there are many plusses and minuses.  Being a writer, a certain amount of it is totally necessary in my day, but even people who use it for a living need to set limits.  Allow yourself 10 minutes a day for each of your favorites and let that be all the time you spend.  Don’t become so addicted to keeping up with other people’s lives that you forget to live your own.  That would be so sad.

I have a simple statement to my friends who expect me to always answer all of their text messages; “I don’t text!  Either send me a real e-mail message and I’ll get to it when I can or give me a call and I’ll answer when I can.  I will not be a slave to a cell phone.  Sorry.”

Well I think you can take over from here.  Look at all of these areas, analyze your time and think of some real solutions for your “time-clutter.” 

Good luck!  I’m off to do something else; spending too much time on my laptop……

COME AS A CHILD LESSON 154 BUILDING THE ARK

BUILDING THE ARK

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

In building the tabernacle and all the items that went inside it; God was giving Moses divine patterns.  Many people believe Moses saw the actual area of the heavens in the form of a vision as God spoke to him and gave him these very specific instructions.  So we know that these patterns were divine because they were fashioned after a heavenly reality.  This tabernacle was to be a type and shadow of the area around God's Throne in Heaven.  
Perhaps the divine aspect of the project was why it took so long for God to give Moses the instructions.  God created the earth in just six days; but he took 40 days to instruct Moses on the specifics of building the tabernacle.  The Book of Genesis only devoted one chapter to the Creation.  There were six chapters written to give the instructions for the tabernacle.  This lets us know for sure that we are dealing with some pretty important stuff in this study!

In all the building that Moses did from God's patterns, everything was to scale.  When we do this in the architectural world in which I work every day, we call it "building a model."   A model is a scaled down replica of something real.  You can look at the model and see what the real thing will be like.  In order for something to be properly built to scale all the measurements have to be exactly accurate.   

After God instructed Moses about the pattern for making the tabernacle; He gave Moses instructions for the items that would go inside the tabernacle.  The first thing God told Moses to do on the inside was to build an ark.  This ark was to be the most important item inside the tabernacle because it was molded after God's actual throne and that was to be the place where God would rest when He met with the priests of the tabernacle.  The ark was the point of man's connection with God.   God instructed Moses to follow a very exact pattern for building this ark. 
   
The ark was to be made of acacia wood.  Acacia is a wood that is harder than oak and it is very durable because the wood-eating insects avoid acacia.  At the time of the giving of the instructions for building the ark, Moses and the people were camped in the Arabian desert.  During this time period and in this area of the desert acacia wood was plentiful and easy to find.

This ark was to be two and one-half cubits long and a half high. It was to be overlaid with pure gold both on the inside and the outside.  It was to have a gold molding around it’s sides.  Moses was to cast four gold rings for it and fasten them to its four feet with two rings on one side and two rings on the other.

Moses was to make poles with acacia wood and overlay them with gold.  These poles were to be inserted into the rings on the sides of the ark and used to carry it.  The poles were to remain within the rings of the ark and not be removed. 

Moses had everything that was needed right where they were camped.  The people had lots of gold that they had brought from Egypt.  It has been said that altogether they had 1,900 pounds of gold, 6,437 pounds of silver, and 4,522 pounds of bronze.  In today's world that would translate to about $13 million dollars worth of valuable items that they were storing in little tents as they camped in the wilderness.  It must have been fun for them to lug all of that around! 

God was the architect of all of this, and God had provided the people with exactly what they needed to carry out his own specific design.  Not one man put his own design on anything in the Tabernacle.  God was the ONLY architect.  

You might say Moses was God's construction/project manager.  A good project manager always knows how important it is to stick to the original blueprint and listen and communicate with the original architect.  Many times over in these scriptures we hear of God speaking to Moses and saying "make all things according to the pattern."  

It was important to God that the ark be covered with gold, both inside and outside.     The purity of the gold is symbolic of God's holiness, and the acacia wood is symbolic of mankind.  The gold and the wood combined represent symbolism of how God can make men perfect and useful.  It is the gold covering that makes the wood special and valuable.    

God instructed Moses that He would give him tablets containing the written laws that God and the people had covenanted to place inside the ark. 

Then Moses was to make an atonement cover of pure and solid gold two and one half cubits long and a cubit and a half wide.  This was what has been called "The Mercy Seat."  This is the place where the high priest would go later, on the Day of Atonement and sprinkle the blood as a covering for the sins of the people.  

The Hebrew word for Mercy seat is Kapporeth.  It actually has nothing to do with mercy, but means "atonement."  Atonement and mercy are not the same.  Mercy is complete forgiveness; and the Hebrew word for God's mercy is "Checed."  Atonement is a covering and it means to condone, placate or set aside.  The children of Israel who did not yet have Messiah needed to have atonement.  The coming of Christ, much later would bring complete mercy.  The Mercy Seat will later become very significant when the law inside which men have broken is sprinkled with the covering of the blood of Jesus Christ as a perfect sacrifice.  It is the ONLY perfect sacrifice for the forgiveness of the sins of mankind.  Until this happened, the people had to continue to bring sacrifices of animals and receive atonement.  

During this beginning of the building of the Tabernacle the Ark sat in The Holy of Holies behind the veil.  Men could not enter this space.  Only the sanctified high priest could enter and only once a year with great caution.  Little did they know that the day would come when God would rip the veil from top to bottom and open up the way allowing mankind direct access to God's mercy seat.  

In the days of the wilderness tabernacle the high priest would be very careful to make sure that the proper incense was burned and he would allow it time to cover the mercy seat before entering.  This was the preparation for entering the presence of God back then.  Today it is our prayers, praise and worship that act like the sweet incense that allows entrance before the mercy seat where you can enter into the very presence of God.    

There were instructions for Moses to make two cherubim of hammered gold at the ends of the cover.  One cherub was to go on one end and the second cherub was to go on the other end.  The cherubim were to be one piece with the cover at the two ends, and they were to have their wings spread upward overshadowing the cover with them.  The cherubim were to face each other, looking toward the cover. 

Moses was to place the cover on top of the ark after he put the tablets containing the covenant of the law that God would give to him inside the ark. 

God told Moses He would meet him there above the cover of the ark, between the two cherubim that were over the ark of the covenant law.  Whenever God met Moses in this place He would give Moses all of His commands for the Israelites.

Wow!  There is something amazing going on with the instructions for this ark!  Are you getting a picture in your mind of how things are going to be?  Do you see how God has made a way to come and dwell among the people?