Dancing With the Stars

As many of you know, I love the show Dancing With the Stars. I'm going to go ahead and put out my predictions for the top five. I feel pretty confident for one of these, but not so sure about the others, but oh well. We'll just see how close I get to being right.

1. I think that the gymnast Shawn Johnson will make it for sure unless people forget to vote and just assume that she will be there the next week (like they did to the Cheetah Girl). I'm going out on a limb and will peg her to win the competion.

2. I also think that in the top you will see Melissa from the Bachelor. I'll wait to see how she does with latin rounds to say for sure. As long as the girl can shake it I'm going to say that she has a chance.

3. I'm also going to say that we are going to see Cheryl Burke's and her partner some where in the final five.

4. I'm also going to say that David Allen Grier the comedian will make it in the final 5 too.

5. I'm also going to predict that Jullianne Hough and her boyfriend Chuck Wicks will be there too. I think that they could be in the top three.

My pick to go home this week: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. A big surprise to me was Steve-O tonight, but not sure if he has what it takes to bring it. I'm sorry I didn't see Lil Kim and Derik Hough perform so I will watch them tomorrow and if I feel that they are worthy enough of my top 5 list, I will re-adjust accordingly. The person I would like to see the most improvement from is Ty Murray. I've always heard he can be a little cocky, but tonight he seemed really humble. He may grow on me yet. I think that if he gets a chance he could do better than Billy Ray Cyrus. Ok so there you are, my top five for DWTS.

UPDATE: 3/10 I just watched Lil Kim and and she will definately be in the top 3. I'm going to go out on a limb and place her in the final two. After seeing her perform, I'm know that it will come down to her and Shawn Johnson in the finals. Not quite so sure who will win now.

Esther Chapter 3

My loyal readers,
You'll be excited to know that here at last is the long awaited Terrina's take on Esther Chapter 3!! I learned something today and I can't wait to share it with you!!

It may have been a while for you so lets just go back and recap the end of Chapter 2. Mordacai had gone to the gate probably to see Esther. Two of the gate guards conspire to kill the king. Mordacai over hears the plot and tells Esther. She in turn tells the king. The conspiracy theory is tested, found to be true and the two men were hung on the gallows.

Chapter 3 starts off with one of the king's men Haman, son of Hammedatha, the Agagite being given a promotion by the king. All the royal officials at the kings gate knelt down to pay homage to Haman as ordered by Xerxes. Everyone that is except Mordecai. Some of the officials at the gate take notice of this and proceed to ask Mordecai why he didn't obey the king's command to bow before Haman. This questioning continued for some time, but Mordecai still refused to comply with the command. These men decided to go tattle to Haman and see if his behavior would be tolerated or not. It is important to note that here we see that they make sure to draw attention to the fact that Mordecai is a Jew. The author of Esther, as I found out from Beth Moore does this for a reason. Notice that the chapter starts out by the author telling us the info about Haman. They tell us his nationality. Then, they go on to tell point out that Mordecai is a Jew. The fact that they show the nationality of the two men puts them against each other as rivals. As I found out, this rival actually goes back a long way. In order to see what I mean, I'm going to tell you what Beth pointed out in the video session. I'm a history geek so this is really cool to see how this all comes together. Hang with me here for a few minutes...LOL!!

In chapter two we find out a lot of info on Mordecai. We find out that he is a Jew from the tribe of Benjamin and that he is a descendant of Kish. You need to go back to 1 Samuel to find out more info here. Kish is King Saul's dad. Let's take a look at Haman. He is a presumed Amalekite and a descendant of Agag a king during Saul's reign as king. I want you to take a look at 1 Samuel 15:10-23, 30.
Here is what it says: "The word of the Lord came to Samuel: 11 “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.” And Samuel was angry, and he cried to the Lord all night. 12 And Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning. And it was told Samuel, “Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set up a monument for himself and turned and passed on and went down to Gilgal.” 13 And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him, “Blessed be you to the Lord. I have performed the commandment of the Lord.” 14 And Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the oxen that I hear?” 15 Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God, and the rest we have devoted to destruction.” 16 Then Samuel said to Saul, “Stop! I will tell you what the Lord said to me this night.” And he said to him, “Speak.”
17 And Samuel said, “Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. 18 And the Lord sent you on a mission and said, ‘Go, devote to destruction the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.’ 19 Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you pounce on the spoil and do what was evil in the sight of the Lord?” 20 And Saul said to Samuel, “I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me. I have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and I have devoted the Amalekites to destruction. 21 But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.” 22 And Samuel said,
“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,as in obeying the voice of the Lord?Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,and to listen than the fat of rams.23 For rebellion is as the sin of divination,and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,he has also rejected you from being king.”

Pay close attention to verses 17-19. Now take a look at Deuteronomy 25:17-19. “Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you came out of Egypt, 18 how he attacked you on the way when you were faint and weary, and cut off your tail, those who were lagging behind you, and he did not fear God. 19 Therefore when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your enemies around you, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven; you shall not forget.”

So here is the rival plain and simple. Mordecai's relative Saul was ordered by God to put to death everyone and everything that was Amalekite. No exceptions! God doesn't get any more clear here than to say blot out Amalek from under Heaven. Then he goes on to say DON'T FORGET!! An Saul in true Israelite fashion, does just that and forgets. Did you notice what Samuel told Saul because he didn't listen to God's command? Go back up and look at verses 22-23. Wow and we are only getting started.

OK so now back to the book of Esther. Haman begins to look for a way to get rid of all the Jew's throughout Xerxes's kingdom. (Doesn't this sound a little familiar to our recent history and WWII?) We are told that in the 12th year of King Xerxes, in the Jewish month of Nisan, Haman and his buddies cast lots to determine the day this mass annihilation of the Jews would begin. The day falls on the month of Adar. Keep this in mind, we are going to come back to this.

Haman goes to the king and tells him that there are certain people in the kingdom that are different from the other people and don't obey the king's laws and it's not in his best interest for him to tolerate them. He tells the king that he would line the pockets of the royal treasury with 10,000 talents of silver (by the way, that amount of talents equals 375 tons of bling. I can't imagine why on earth Xerxes would have said no can you?) for the men who would be willing to carry out this evil business. Being greedy as he was, Xerxes gives Haman his signet ring and pretty much lets him do as he wants.

On the 13th day of Nisan, the royal decree went out to all the providences with the decree that all Jews--young, old, men, women and children, were to be put to death on a single day, the 13th day of the month of Adar. I will give it to Haman, at least he was up front about what he was going to do and gave the Jews of Persia a year to think about what was going to happen to them, unlike Hitler. I have to tell you that this is the part where history is very cool my friend! I decided to look up the Jewish calendar and see just when the 13th of Adar corresponds to our calendar today. What I found out is that TODAY is the 13th of Adar. This is where I got goose bumps! Over 2000+ years ago the Jews knew that they were going to be facing sure annihilation on this day. It reminds me of the promise that God made to his people that he would aways save a remnant of His people from these situations.

The chapter ends by telling us that the couriers went out and issued the edict in the citadel of Susa. As this was happening the King and Haman sit down to have a drink, while the city of Susa was bewildered. I have to say that Beth couldn't have said it better than "a casual drink over chaos!" Can you imagine the sight?!

Thanks for hanging in there with me! Stay tuned for Chapter 4!

Esther Chapter 2

Our saga of Esther continues. Today we set the stage for Esther to become Queen. We start out the chapter by King Xerxes finally cooling down after Queen Vashti made a spectacle of him in front of his friends. He begins to feel bad that he cast her out of his presence so once again he gets the advice of his buddies. They suggest that he seek out the most beautiful virgin women in the land, give them 12 months beauty treatments and then if one should catch the eye of their king that he make her Queen in stead of Vashti. It says that the king liked this idea and so the search began.

We are finally told that in Susa there was a Jew from the tribe of Benjamin by the name of Mordecai. Mordecai was a cousin to Hadassah who was also known as Esther. We are also told that Mordecai takes Esther in because she has no father or mother, so he was gracious enough to take her in and care for her as his own daughter.

I think that it is important to look at what Esther's name means, because they often give us insight into that person, especially in the Old Testament. Esther's name means star. We will soon see that she is the light that saves her people from sure destruction, becoming the star of the day.

Modecai knew how beautiful his niece is and so he sends her off to the harem. He told Esther not to reveal her nationality or family background. Esther is taken into the harem and put into the care of Hegai, the kings eunuch. (Just as a side note, I've always wondered what a eunuch was and I recently found out. Let me just warn you now, it isn't a pretty thing. Eunuchs were castrated males that were close to the king. They were castrated so that they couldn't have offspring and then over throw the king. See not so pretty, huh.) Esther immediately won Hegai's favor and he provided her with beauty treatments, special food, seven maids from the king's palace and moved her and her maids into the best place in the harem. Talk about first impressions!!! Keep in mind these beauty treatments lasted a whole year. She spent 6 months learning about oil of myrrh and 6 months learning about perfumes and cosmetics.

I have to tell you the beauty treatments portion really intrigued me, so I tried to do some research on the net t see what I could find out about these and what life in harem might have been like for our soon to be queen. I was soon confronted with issues of human trafficking, the slave trade, and abuse of all kinds. I can't tell you how saddened I was to see proof that these things are still happening today all over the world. Innocent girls being sold by their own families into brothels just so their family can put food on the table for another month. As a victim of child abuse myself my thoughts and prayers go out to every young child and woman having to endure these kinds of situations.

In those days, probably much as in today's Persian society, the king collected vast amounts of wives and jewels. The concubines lived separately outside the palace in the harem and only got to see the king when he summoned them from sexual pleasure. Esther's life would have been restricted and some what boring. Although, as any woman knows, if you are living with a bunch of women, there is bound to be some sort of drama or another. Also, it says that Mordecai walked by the harem's court yard daily to find how how she was doing and what was happening to her. I'll bet that Esther looked foreword to her uncle's visits!

Esther wouldn't have been able to see the king much so she would have to make a big impression in order to get his attention, especially being surrounded by all these other women. The Bible says that she would only be called back to see the king if he was pleased with her and called her by name. He did call her and moved her into the palace. The Bible says that this happened in the 10th month of Tebeth, in the 7th year of King Xerxes reign.

The king was so taken by Esther and favored her above all the virgins that he made her queen instead of Vashti. The threw another big banquet in honor of Esther for all his nobles and officials and proclaimed a holiday through out his kingdom. He also gave out gifts with "royal liberality".

Keep in mind that Modecai and still told Esther not to reveal her identity. On one of his daily trips to the gate, he over heard two of the king's officers plotting to kill King Xerxes. Mordecai told Esther about the plot. She in turn, told the king. The report was investigated and found to be true. Both men were hung on the gallows. Esther gave all the credit to Mordecai, and he received very little fan fair.

So here we have the sum of chapter two. When I first started reading this chapter I really didn't expect to walk way feeling the way I did. It is amazing what God can choose to reveal to you when you least expect it. Stay tuned for chapter 3.

Esther

This morning in my quiet time I decided to get a head start (kind of) on the next Bible study that I'm going to be a part of in a couple weeks. We are getting ready to do Beth Moore's new study on Esther. Let me tell you how this first chapter goes.

Esther starts out with King Xerxes throwing a big huge party for everyone that was in the palace of Susa. Now, I'm not just talking a party like we would have today, where the whole thing lasts for one night. Oh no, King Xerxes partied in style. It says that for a full 180 days (about 6 months) he displayed his vast wealth of his kingdom. After that he held a big ole banquet which lasted 7 days. It tells about how the garden was decorated with things that would even be impressive today. Things like couches of silver and gold on mosaic pavement, marble, and mother of pearl. On top of that, everyone was given their own gold goblet and each goblet was different from the others. Everyone got as much or as little to drink of the royal wine as they wanted. We're not talking the cheap wine either, this is the creme d 'la creme of the palace. It goes on to say that even Queen Vashti even gave a banquet for the women of the palace. Apparently they didn't get to party with the boys. Man, can you imagine having to clean up after a party like that?

Now let me give you a little bit of history here. King Xerxes the Great was king of Persia from 486-465 BC. He was Persia's 5th king. Susa was his winter palace. At that point in time, Persia was the world power. Persian kings of the day loved to flaunt their wealth and when they did so, it usually meant they were preparing for war. They wanted to show everyone that they had enough money to be able to go to war. It wouldn't be uncommon to see them wear precious gems in their beards and it was a common practice for warriors to even wear gold jewelry into battle.

On the 7th day of the banquet after King Xerxes was all liqueured up, he decided it would be a good thing to call his little misses out to strut her stuff and show off her beauty for all his friends. He sent off his 7 servants to tell Her Royal Highness to get all dolled up and come before him. They deliver the message to Queen Vashti and she suffers from a moment of diva syndrome and says "I don't think so" and refused to come before her husband. We don't know why, but she refused to go. There are a couple of possible reasons for this. It may have been that it was against the Persian tradition for a woman to appear publicly in front of a gathering of men. There is also speculation that Vashti was pregnant with their son Artaxerxes and chose not to be seen publicly in her state. No matter the reason, as you can imagine, this didn't set well with the drunken king. He decided that she had broken a law and gathered his closest advisers and friends to discuss what they should do about this insult to his personage. After all, he had his most important officials and advisers there so that they could see is power, wealth and authority. If he couldn't control his wife, how would he control his troops. This could have devastated his military creditability. So, they all decided that she should be never again be in the presence of King Xerxes. They also come up with this brilliant edict that is sent out to all the kingdom stating that all men should be the ruler over his own household.

I should mention that back in those days, the king was seen to some of his people like a god, so once a rule was made, there was no going back. The law couldn't be changed, no matter how ill advised it was. The only thing that could be done was for such an ill advised law was to neutralize it by create a new law.

So there you have it. The synopsis of the first chapter of Esther. Man! Women, can you imagine how many times you've refused to go to your husband right away after he has called you to come to him. I'm sure glad that we live in the society that we do! Otherwise, I might be banned from the palace even as I type!! LOL! I can't wait to share more with you! The book of Esther, I'm willing to bet, gets better as we go!

Joyful and Thankful

It is a cold snowy day here. Although it is only January, its sad to say that I already have cabin fever. When you've had a couple of 70 degree days one just can't help but long for the warm days of spring. However, my Bible tells me that I am to give thanks in ALL things so I am thankful for the moisture and I supposed I'm even thankful for the cold that I currently have, because it reminds to slow down a little from time to time.

Bryan & I have been house hunting lately. We just really need a larger house. I thought that we were going to hold off for a while, but apparently the hunt is back on. There is one house that we have found that we are pondering, but there are a couple of things that I don't really care for in the house. For one, even though the house is modern above, when you walk into the basement, it is like walking into the 70's with wood paneling and this lovely shade of mauve, pink carpet. Oh yeah, there is even a pink bathroom to boot. Don't keep me wrong I love pink, but there is tasteful and then just plain hideous!! Oh well, they are all just aesthetic things that can be changed. If this is the house that the Lord will provide us I will be joyful and thankful for His provisions.

The thought from my heart today:

Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

My First Blog

Well, here it goes my first official blog. I guess that with that being said, I should probably bring some of you up to date on what is going on with me these days. My husband Bryan and I have been married for almost 12 years now. We have two kids, Wyatt and Makaela. I'm currently work for Emmanuel Baptist Church as a Ministry Assistant (glorified name for secretary) and also as the Nursery Coordinator. I feel very blessed to work in such a great environment with such a great group of co-workers/friends. Our church is in the process of building a new building. With God's grace we should be moved in around late April!

The kids keep us pretty busy. Wyatt loves playing video games, hanging out with friends and playing soccer. Kaela is our little cheerleader/monkey. I keep saying that I need to get her into gymnastics, but am hard pressed to find a good coach with moral character.

In addition to our children, we also have three fury ones. Baxter is our Barky Van Schnauzer. JD and Beau-Bella are our two cats. JD and Beau have funny little stories that go with them. About a month after we got Baxter, Bryan called from work and said that he had found this little kitten and asked if I knew of anyone who was looking for a cat. I told him that I didn't know of anyone right away, but to bring him home and we would find a home for him. Needless to say, we did find a home for him, our home.

Beau-Bella is a recent addition to our home. At the beginning of December, a pastor friend from Ovid brought this adorable little kitten into work. Mark said that he had tried to call the Humane Society but the were full. He even tried to put her on Swap Shop and still no one wanted her. It was close to Christmas, and all I could think was "The poor little thing! Every animal deserves a home at Christmas time!" So against my better judgement, I brought her home. (Let me stress that Mark said that this cat was a girl.) The kids loved her and we gave her the name Bella. Bryan took a little more convincing, but Bella won him over with her loving disposition. Then, just about 2-3 weeks ago, I realized that Mark had no clue what he was talking about. Bella is actually a BOY!! We are still having a hard time adjusting to this fact and didn't want the poor cat to have a complex generated by a female name. Hence the name Beau, the masculine equivalent of Bella.