Sometime before I completed my new 1860's dress I popped up into our barn loft and had inspiration strike! It's at least 100 years old in that part of the barn and I'm sure barn construction techniques did not vary very much between the 1860's and the early 1900's...and I knew I wanted a barn loft photoshoot for my new dress. We'll ignore the fact that it didn't come out as perfect as I wanted--the dress that is. The photoshoot was I think productive. Brace yourselves for a post full of my new dress, my round mug, an old barn, and an orchard full of white blossoms!!

Some of you know I have chemical sensitivities. Some of you may not. Anyway...if there is one "symptom" with my Lyme/Mold soup that seems to progressively increase rather than decrease, it it my sensitivity to chemicals. 

I went to town today. One stop was at Menards, a big hardware store. I love hardware stores. They are so much fun to meander around in. Well, I was doing alright until I walked by what smelt like fertilizer--I never did see it, but boy did I ever smell it. I could taste it, it bit into my lungs, and I gasped for air. 

I really don't know if one can tell by looking at me, but I feel like my face swells up (around my eyes in particular). Today I also felt like my hands were swelling and I got a random pain in my right arm. The tip of my tongue gets weird feeling. Not only that, the other chemical smells I hadn't really detected yet, suddenly began to stand out and choke me. I really was looking for something, but after a few minutes of this, I had to get out of there. 

This is just getting worse. 

Later, in the grocery, I walked off while Katherine was considering tomatoes because I had to leave a lady's perfume behind. I often gasp (as quietly as possible) while shopping because a woman walks by and I cannot breathe because of her perfume. Occasionally it happens with a man.

I never did like shopping much (just ask my mom!) and dealing with chemical attacks from a random lady's perfume or walking by the detergent aisle...or passing too close to new rubber or fertilizer just makes it even less of an appealing prospect. 

It's not just "fake smells" and fertilizer that bother me. Farm chemicals really do a number on me. I haven't gotten around any yet this year so I don't know if they still cause my meningitis to flare up--but since realizing at some point when I was still in Florida that when I get any farm chemicals on me (or I could say "in me" I guess since if you're out around them you can't help inhaling even tiny bits of them) I end up with a meningitis attack, I have really tried to stay clear of them. When I see the man with the spray machine pull up to any of the surrounding fields, I have been known to not just go in, but to run as fast as I can to the house and get inside before he deploys the booms.

Chemicals. I guess they are necessary in life...but some of us have serious issues dealing with them and we aren't crazy even though, "my arm starting hurting after I got a snoot of fertilizer" may sound like we are. :D

So...if you see me suddenly randomly choke and start coughing, don't worry too hard. I probably just got a whiff some something and I will survive it--even if I have to go outside and breathe deep and cough and repeat this process for awhile.

The enemy of Christ always realizes the value children. Why? Because they are the next generation and "train them up in the way they shall go" and they will follow right along in the footsteps of their fathers. Fill their little skulls full of mush with evil--and evil will follow. Teach them the Word of Righteousness--and even if they are not saved, they have a foundation of morality. (Can they entirely reject it? Of course, just as a child raised by evil can be not as entirely depraved as he has been raised to be--or he can even find salvation.)

Why, I must ask, why do Christian parents abandon their children to be educated by the state (particularly in these days)? Why are we so blind and so trusting? Why do we think that our little ones can resist the forces of evil alone? Why do we think that they will not be affected by the world around them unless we protect them and guide them?

As a child, I was educated at home; I lived what believe to be a fairly sheltered life (though the nature of my dad's job left me from an early age with the knowledge that life is bigger than me and my circle). As I grew older, and stronger in my faith, as I was fed the Word of God and settled on the doctrines of Scripture, I was introduced to the world as it is. A place of sin...and I was equipped to deal with it by further education. But! I was not equipped to deal with it as a child--even though I went to church every week and read my Bible every morning. If I had been thrust into the sphere of government education as a child, my mind would have been warped (I believe) in spite of my born-again state. 

Even further--I have seen under-prepared (home-educated) young people in their mid-to-late teens enter "secular" colleges...and have their thinking warped. Twisted. We must be ever vigilant as parents, as siblings, as friends, as PEOPLE to be aware of where the wayward heart of man is directed and constantly re-turn minds (our own included--first, actually) to the Word of God. To evaluate the basis of our thinking, our worldview. 

I have no children. I have no husband. I have no particular male friend for that matter. But I still see, and must see, and prepare to fight the enemy in all areas. Pride, lust of the flesh, anger, laziness...my children. I long to have little's I can call "my children" (for now I have to borrow other peoples' darlings) and yet I realize...their souls must be fought for, prayed over, given to the Lord. Outside of prayer, how best to do that but shield them from the influence of the world until they have a foundation under them which never buckles? I cannot guarantee that God will see fit to call those future children of mine into His fold, but I must never cease to guard them as children. When they become men, naturally, there is a letting go--but until they are grown--it is my responsibility before God (along with the husband I haven't yet) to protect them, guide them, instruct them in the Word of God.

Yes. The enemy understands the value of the children. The enemy delights in corrupting their minds...the enemy loves to use them. Why willingly hand them to him? 

History teaches us much...