Matey joins us for breakfast

Saturday/Sunday, November 17:  Look who joined us for breakfast this morning? Emma brought Matey over to the table to see if he wanted to visit with us while we ate our food. It turned out that he wanted to EAT our food, sit on our bowls, walk across our banana peels, etc. I had no idea budgie birds would eat bananas, did you?

 It cracked us up. Emma gave up trying to train Matey to stay OFF her cereal bowl and finally just lifted it off her plate and kept it in her hands while she ate. Matey took little licks from the banana slice on Emma's plate and then he waltzed over to the banana peel and took little nibbles from that as well. Who knew!?

 Isn't that just the cutest thing ever?

 We enjoyed our worship together this morning. The music was just amazing. The worship was truly ... WORSHIP. Wonderful in every way. I was so thankful to be there to join in and be part of it. Pastor spoke on self-control in the area of technology. It was challenging.

After we came home and ate lunch, we had our Bible study. We continued talking about the kings and prophets from 2 Kings 11 and 2 Chronicles 22. This is Emma coloring a picture of Queen Athalia--the only queen to rule in Judah EVER.

 I learned so much while studying this story on Friday, most of the day. I learned that Athalia was a daughter of Ahab & Jezebel. King Jehoshaphat (Judah) married his son Jehoram to Athalia (military convenience? stupid match-making?). We learned that Athalia was every bit as wicked as her mother, Jezebel. We learned that Jehoram was crowned king after his father, Jehoshaphat died. Jehoram murdered all of his brothers after he became king. He only reigned in Judah for 8 years because God struck him with a painful stomach disease that killed him. 

After Jehoram's death, his 22-year-old son Ahaziah (his youngest son) succeeded him. But he only ruled for one year because he died as a result of a war injury. He had several little sons that could have succeeded him, but his MOTHER murdered all of them (they would just have been little boys) except that her daughter, Jehosheba rescued a year-old baby by the name of Joash--and no one knew about this except her husband, Jehoida the faithful priest. These two hid Joash in the Temple and raised him there in secret. Six years went by and then Jehoida felt Joash was ready to receive the kingdom (you see, Joash was the only living descendant of King David--God kept His promise to keep the kingdom in David's family) and at age 7, Joash was crowned king. Queen Athalia had a fit, screamed "Treason!" and was then executed outside the temple. 

While I was studying all of this, I asked the Lord to help me learn what He wanted me to learn. I believe He reinforced to me just how serious marrying the wrong person can be, how cruel and evil people can be, and at the same time how brave and upright people can be (Jehoida and Jehosheba); also, that a very young person can learn about God, be taught the truths of God's Word, and serve Him. Our next lesson will be on what happened to the boy king--what did he do with the life that God allowed him? I'm going to title that lesson: "You are NEVER too old to completely mess up your life." Hmmm.