Psalm 42 and 43

So, my mom's and mine journey through these two chapters was a little more challenging than chapter one in Psalm. We gain quite a bit of knowledge with these two chapters but memorizing them was difficult. Chapter 42 was our goal and we ended up adding chapter 43 to the list because it is the conclusion to chapter 42. It felt incomplete to leave it out. We talked about what made these difficult and decided that it was because the verses and thoughts are disconnected emotionally. For a couple of verses the writer is depressed then he is joyful then back to depressed. It does reflect many a walk with Christ, even ours. Memorizing this journey of the writer was not easy. We'd lose our place because it didn't flow a lot.

We picked chapter 42 because of verse one: "As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for you, O God." We love this song and thought that knowing the Psalm it comes from would be nice. For myself the verse that stuck out was the end of verse 5 "...for I shall again praise Him for the help of His presence." Just God's presence is help to this writer and he praises God for it. I remembered that just God being near me is worthy of praise, whether He does anything I see or not, doesn't matter. Mom was amazed that the writer always came back to praising God even though it was obvious the writer was in some sort of trouble. No matter how bad it got, in the end he would praise God. We did some background research on this chapter and discovered that it is possible that the writer is taken from his home and from the Temple due to captivity. The writer recalls "...You from the land of Jordan and the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar." (verse 6) as if he is no longer there. Back in verse 4 he remembers leading a "procession to the house of Go, with the voice of joy and thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival." It seems to us that he not only longed to be in God's Temple again but also with God's people. Verse 10 speaks of his adversaries and how they taunt him. Based on what we found it could have been his and his people's captors.

As you can see chapter 42 ends sad. Chapter 43 gives the rest of the story. Verses 1 and 2 are still mourning the situation he is in and he is asking where God is, but in verses 3-5 he puts his trust in God's light and truth to lead him back to God's dwelling place. He knows that he will be filled with joy again and that he will hope in God again! I am working on verses 3 and 4. I am memorizing these a little slower and with our other memorizing chapters. For some reason, I feel that I am digesting these slower and much closer to my heart than the others.

We still wonder what Chapter 42 verse 7 means. "Deep calls to deep at the sound of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have rolled over me." If anyone has any thoughts our resources they'd like to share, we'd love to do more research!

On to Psalm 4!

Girl and Boy Birthday Cakes!

The top two pictures are our daughter's "dance cake". This is what she told me she wanted when I asked her for ideas for her cake. I thought to myself, "How am I going to make a 'dance cake'?" It took a long time of going through pictures to come up with something. The flowers were actually the easy part. I made them ahead of time and then let her put them on. She was very excited to help! The silhouette was a bit trickier. I ended up printing out a picture then cutting the picture out carefully and keeping the hole it created. I took the said hole in the paper and laid it on the cake. I carefully took the pink icing and spread it on top, filling the hole of the ballerina. Then I peeled the paper off leaving the silhouette on the cake. Basically I stenciled it on as you would have with paint to a wall, but with icing to a cake. It worked pretty effect I thought!

The bottom was so much easier. When I asked our son what he wanted on his cake he was very specific. He said he wanted a blue race car. Well, that was easy enough! I found a picture, printed, piped, filled. Ta-Da! Then I added the "road", grass, and boarder. He was completely happy :). Boys are so much easier sometimes!

Enjoy!