2nd Samuel 11 // What I Got Out of It

 A couple weeks ago my girls bible study started reading the book Seamless by Angie Smith. Angie's goal in this book is to cover the whole Bible in 7 weeks. Now obviously she doesn't cover every. single. point. but she does a great job of giving an overview of these stories. She's told us these stories in such an interesting way that I'm curious to study more about every topic. We're in out 4th week and this is so far my favorite chapter. Right now we're going over some of my favorite stories, the story of Samuel, Saul, David, and Solomon. This story really encourages me and I'm here to share my thoughts on it with you =)


   In 2nd Samuel 11 it talks of David having an affair with Bathsheba and him murdering Bathsheba's husband Uriah. Because of this sin that David committed he took away his son. Now right now you might say, "That's a horrible thing to do God. Why'd you do that?" But my pastor has been talking a lot about the patience of God. After Cain murdered his brother Abel because of his anger, God let him live. Yes, God cursed and alienated him, but God in his mighty power could've done something much worse. God could've killed Cain, but instead he let him live.


   In 2nd Samuel 12:13-14 it says,


David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. ¹⁴ Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord,^[a] the child who is born to you shall die.”




   There you see it. The Lord put away his sin, and he shall not die. God could've done far worse than killed David's son. And yes while this is still a big punishment we still need to see God's mercy.


   We can also be reminded of God's sovereign plan in this story. Why do you think God didn't kill David because of his sin? Because he still had a plan for his life. As horrible as this tragedy was, God uses these tragedies to shape us into more godly people.




Psalms 119:71 says,


 "It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes."

   Okay, I finished covering two things I was encouraged by in this study. One more.
   Psalms 51 was written by David after Nathan confronted him concerning his sin. David shows humility as he confesses his sins to God. Often when say, "Oh I'm sorry for my sin, but I really like doing it, so I think I'm going to do it again." But David comes to God and says, "Create in me a pure heart." This sin is horrible. I don't ever want to do it again.


   This really encouraged me and made me more aware of myself when I say sorry. Not to just say sorry and think I can do it again, but cast myself from it. I hope this encourages you too :D





Thanks for reading!!
bouncing in to say bye,
                                   Bernie

My When Calls the Heart Thoughts

  random picture my limited edition st. patricks day lucky charms. HAPPY ST. PATRICKS DAY. I love this holiday because I love green (it's my favorite color) jsyk ;P

  okay any when calls the heart fans out here? *proudly raises my hand as high as I can* yup I'm one of those proud fans.

   We just started watching the episodes of season 4 and I'm like "woahhhh. It's totally normal that Jack's just so likeable. and then Elizabeth and Jack's relationship is *a bijillion heart faces*  AHHHH I love it. I'm also enjoying Bill aka the bessttttt umpire eva lol and the bestttt cooker ever. I'm always laughing whenever he's in the scene. I like how there's finally a married couple in this show (Lee and Rosemary). I like their relationship a lot. I especially like Lee trying calming down Rosemary (cause she doesn't even know the word calm). So what about you? Who's your favorite character so far? mine's Jack if you didn't know *tears of laughter*

   Which makes me think of a random question? Do you emphasize your feelings about a show, movie, etc. Because whenever I watch when calls the heart my face is as straight as a line but like in my mind I'm thinking, "AHHH THIS IS SO AWESOME. IM DYING." So who are you? Someone who tells your feelings about that show aloud while it's going on? Or someone who keeps it to yourself?

   Anywho, back to my thoughts. Everything is going so perfect and WOAH there's this random (he already looks like a horrible person) dude who just comes up and says "I'm the new teacher." WHAAAAT? ugh so now we all have to wait for ONE WHOLE week to find out what's going to happen.

   Which makes me think of something else. You might say, "well we all know what's going to happen. Elizabeth is gonna get her job back. duh." And yah I'd agree with you, but it's still cool because we can see how it happened. Sure Elizabeth will probs get her job back but HOW? And yeah this random dude in this random movie might die but HOW? and how's everybody going to react to it? so it's still cool to see shows and movies even when they're predictable =) do you agree with me?

   So, SHOOT ME YOUR THOUGHTS guys. If you want to be my when calls the heart buddy (txt me or Instagram direct me or something) Literally I always send random videos to my friends (who don't care about the show really) but YOU CAN BE MY FRIEND.


   Heyyyy guess what? Me and Sarah share our blogger account. That's why my name always pops up as Sarah and Bernie when I comment on your blog.  but Sarah got her own account so now I have my OWN name. Yayyyyy. It's Ellie (or Bernie) cause you can call me whichever :P yayy I'm excited about that =)

do you like when calls the heart? if so, who's your favorite character?
do you express your feelings during shows?
what's your blogger account name? hehe
bouncing in to say bye,
                                 bernie

// What I Like About The Song Come Thou Fount //

Hey guys. Today I'm going to share what I like about the song, "Come Thou Fount." 

         A couple weeks ago I played it with my guitar teacher and I couldn't stop playing it. I hope I'm not annoying my family, because I play it all the time. Seriously, I could play it all day. Sometimes you play a song and never realize what it means, which was the case for me, until last night. As Sarah was writing a blog post I played it for her for inspiration and I really paid close attention to the words. It was so encouraging and comforting to hear the words. Pay close attention to these words and I pray they will be encouraging to you too.

"Come thou fount of, every blessing,

tune my heart to sing Thy grace.

Streams of mercy, never ceasing,

call for songs of loudest praise. 

Teach me some melodious sonnet, 

sung by flaming tongues above. 

Praise the mount, I'm fixed upon it, 

mount of Thy unchanging love. 

Here I raise my Ebenezer, 

hither by Thy help I've come. 

And I hope by Thy good pleasure, 

safely to arrive at home. 

Jesus sought me when a stranger, 

wandering from the fold of God. 

He to rescue me from danger, 

interpose His precious blood. 

O to grace how great a debtor, 

daily I'm constrained to be.

Let that grace now, like a fetter,

bind my wandering heart to Thee. 

Prone to wander Lord I feel it, 

prone to leave the God I love. 

Here's my heart, O take and seal it

seal it for Thy courts above." 

           I just LOVE the last verse. It's so true how I can so easily wander from God. I feel like sometimes I do my Bible study in the morning, feel so closer to God, close my Bible, and forget about everything I learned about in my Bible study. So easily can we wander away from God and cling to the things of this world.

This verse is soooo awesome.

"Let that grace now, like a fetter, 

bind my wandering heart to Thee."

NOW THIS IS SUPER COOL GUYS.

The definition of "fetter" is:

"a chain or manacle used to restrain a prisoner, typically placed around the ankles."

"Like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee."

Like a chain that restrains a prisoner, "bind my wandering heart to Thee."

THIS IS MY PRAYER EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. 

How can this not be your prayer?

That God may bind you to Him. That you'd never wander away from Him. That you'd be chained and bound to His Holy Spirit. That your heart would be close to Him. 

"Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, 

prone to leave the God I love."

Here's my heart, O take and seal it,

seal it for Thy courts above."

        I can't do this on my own, God. I can't live a second without wandering from You. I ask that You would take my heart and seal it for Thy courts above. Only You, alone can do that.

        Side Note: We've been talking in church history about justification. Some people thought that we could be saved by works, but justification means that WE ARE SAVED BY GRACE ALONE.

The Five Solos are:

Faith Alone

Grace Alone

Christ Alone

By Scripture Alone

For God's Glory Alone.

We can't be saved by OUR works.

ONLY GOD CAN SAVE US.

Okay back to the song I'm talking about. 

OH MY.

Whoever wrote this song, was seriously thirsty for God.

I PRAY THIS IS YOUR PRAYER.

That you would truly want God to bind your heart to Him. 

"Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; give me life in Your ways."

Psalms 199:37

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
    and renew a right^[a] spirit within me.
¹¹ Cast me not away from your presence,
    and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
¹² Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
    and uphold me with a willing spirit.

Psalms 51:10-12

bouncing in to say bye,

                                    Bernie

Hello March

Hello guys. I'm pretty excited cause I'm posting my February Highlights. yeahhhh this month was very busy, but exciting so I'm pumped to tell you about it ;)

February Highlights

Sunny and Warm Days with Friends

It's been reaaally warm around here. All month it's been 70 degrees. Even though I love winter I really liked it being warm too. UNTIL I GOT A MOSQUITO BITE. Anywho, we walked that cute dog (the mayor's dog. yah we're cool) and it was awesome. Then, we strolled around town with a scooter and a bike. it was like back to my childhood days when I scootered everywhere. seriously scooters are so fun though.

Valentines Day Banquet

Our church band does a show every Valentines Day where the youth perform songs from different genres in the olden days. You know cause it'd be like Throwback Tuesday to the old people ;) So we did old gospel songs in the Grand Opry. We dressed up in country dresses, boots, and lots of rhinestones. Before we performed we served them with a delicious dinner. It was a lot of work, but sooo fun. The best song was He's Got the Whole World which had a very interesting twist in it. Please check it out on Youtube right here. It's really good. And if you watch it, tell me if you liked it ;)

IHOP and Mall Adventures.

Once Sarah and Mila finished their book we wanted to celebrate by going to IHOP. I'm pretty sure it was my first time going there. and it was really goodddd. After that we went to the mall. We have this thing about going to stores, trying on weird clothes that you'd probably never see us in, and taking pictures together. We've done ugly Christmas sweaters, old lady clothes, suits, and then we did dresses. I was in a black lace dress, Sarah was in a white sparkly dress (we all agreed she looked like a three year old with her pink pants under them), Mila was in a romper (that was funny. she looked like she just got our of jail), and Ellie was in a really long black dress (and she just got back from prom lol not really. it looked like it though). So there you are, now you know what we do at malls. #secretrevealed

Piano Festival

Although it was very nerveracking, it was fun. Basically piano festival is where you play for judges two songs that you've been practicing for about 5 months and they judge you. For the five years that I've been doing it I've got a superior (the highest score you can get) every year. This sixth year I got another superior. So, I was really excited. Danny and Sarah got a superior too!! After our festival we went to Golden Corral. AHH FOOD. it was sooooo good. I was glad to get another year of festival done.

Gymnastics

So two things that are really cool happened this month concerning gymnastics. Firstly, I went to my first gymnastics meet. EEP it was awesome. If I do competitive gymnastics this fall I will compete the level I got to see. I didn't expected it to be as advanced so I'm really excited to do all those skills. Lordwilling I'll be competing this fall. AHHH anywho that was really fun. Secondly, I did an ariel (no handed cartwheel) for the FIRST TIME this month. All by myself in my backyard. I was super encouraged by that because I barely even practiced with my coaches. So it's kinda weird that I would just GET it. but it's really exciting. :D oh one more thing hehe :P Every week we practice any skill we want on the trampoline (a perfect time to do my front flip) but I was scared to because I fail at it a lot. One day I told myself to do it so I can get better and I did. It was a lot better than I thought. I'm finally starting to get a hang of it, but it's a very hard skill.

Roadshow Concert

Every year we go to this concert that has tons of Christian artists. We got to see Jordan Feliz, Passion, Rend Collective, Franchesca Battistelli, Family Force 5, and Steven Curtis Chapman. You might've not heard of Family Force 5 but you should check them out. They have great music to dance too ;P everyone else I really enjoyed listening too. I really liked Franchesca Battistelli, Family Force 5, and Steven Curtis Chapman. :)

Random fact: our youth group is going to see NF (a Christian rapper that IS AWESOME)!! I'm so excited. Look him up dudes. Therapy Session, How Could You Leave Us, and Mansion. Please.
YOU WILL BE PLEASED.




February Goals
Earn a superior in my piano festival. YESSSS I MADE IT

Drink more water. ugh noooo I definitely failed at this

Condition more. #proud yesss I did this :D

Do another photoshoot with Sarah. Teach her some tips on photography so she can start doing picture of me :P. ugh nooo

And finally do my roundoff right. so yeah I'm not totally perfect on this but I definitely got better so ima gonna check it off ;P

March Goals

write more letters

draw more

make a special St. Patrick's Day dinner

I literally don't really have anymore.

(watch me publish this post and think of like a hundred goals for this month)

so yeah happy March. I'm pretty excited about March because of St. Patrick's Day. dude, that's like my holiday because my favorite color is green hehe :P. I'm gonna wear green a lot this month and I'm going to make a special Irish dinner yup :D


Btw, I failed at trying to post this before March ugh maybe next time. Sorrrryyyy

thanks for reading

bouncing in to say bye,

                                bernie