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Saturday, 04 April 2009
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"I thank my God upon every remembrance of you."
Philippians 1:3
Zachary Levi Ketron
December 5, 2008
Tuesday, 17 February 2009
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"My love has come to Him in His humiliation.
My faith has found Him in His lowliness.
My heart has recognized His majesty through His mean disguise,
And I know at last that I desire not the gift but the Giver.
When I can stand in His house by night,
I have accepted Him for Himself alone."
George Matheson
Job 2:10 - "...Shall we indeed accept good from God and shall we not accept adversity?" If everything was stripped away from us, would God alone be enough for us? We sing about how He is all we need, but what song does our life sing? I desire to live a life that demonstrates that if God did nothing more for me, he, alone, would be enough. Lord, teach me to desire you alone. May my life acknowledge that you are all sufficient.
Tuesday, 12 August 2008
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O.K....I know it has been a LONG time since I last logged on but I'll try to get something up soon.
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
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I was reading in Streams in the Desert and came across this great excerpt. It encourages us about the power of God working through us. He made us to be used - and He can work all things together for our good when we allow ourselves to be used by Him.
"Christ is building His kingdom with earth's broken things. Men only want the stron, the successful, the victorious, the unbroken in building their kingdom; but God is the God of the unsuccessful, of those who have failed. Heaven is filling with earth's broken lives and there is no bruised reed that Christ cannot take and restore to glorious blessedness and beauty. He can take the life crushed by pain or sorrow and make it into a harp whose music shall be all praise. He can lift earth's saddest failure up to heaven's glory." - J.R. Miller
Tuesday, 01 April 2008
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20/20 Vision
Ever had one of those nights when you can't sleep? I can usually fall asleep but always wake up in the early morning hours with thousands of things running through my head. Sometimes I lay there and try to fend them off by making checklists in my head or on my Palm of what needs to be done the next day and other times, I just get up and read. One night, I chose the latter option and had an insightful time with the Lord. I was reading from a devotional and the theme of 'vision' stuck out to me. Here's some excerts from what I gleaned. Hope you enjoy.
"Waiting on God is necessary in order to see Him, to have a vision of Him." - Dr. Pardington
The troubled survace of the lake will not reflect an object.
"Where there is no vision, the people perish." Proverbs 29:18
"I will stand my watch and set myself on the rampart and watch to see what He will say to me and what I will answer when I am corrected." Habakkuk 2:1
Sight, often referred to as vision, is one of the 5 senses. One of the ways the Lord gave us to take in our surroundings and move through our life. The bible also talks about our spiritual eyes and uses the analogy of sight or vision to explain our conversion to Christ. "I once was blind, but now I see." Paul's conversion experience - talking about scales which fell from his physical eyes and how his spiritual eyes are now opened.
Once our spiritual eyes are opened, we have sight into the spiritual realm but how good is our vision? A person may have ability to see - they may have sight - but have impaired vision. Sin impairs all of our spiritual vision but God has given us His word to help correct our sight. Using the Word as our glasses, as the way to view the world, we gain a clearer vision of all that life can be, the way God has intended it to be. Without the view through the Bible, our vision is simply impaired, distorted - we miss out on things around us - the clarity, definition and details of the life God has placed before us. May we strive to sit at His feet - to have our vision corrected and to be able to take in the fullness of His glory and walk with a clear vision.
Wait upon the Lord - use and cling to the Bible as the source to sharpen our spiritual sight. The view through His Word will always be better than the world's distorted vision.
Saturday, 15 March 2008
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It's been a while since I last wrote. A lot of things have happened and the pace of life has kept its fast pace. I completely intend to post updates soon but just don't have the time right now.
Thursday, 03 January 2008
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Christmas 2007
It's hard to believe that Christmas 2007 has already come and gone. It was a great holiday season and I'm including some pictures to prove it. Enjoy!
This is our Christmas Tree in all her glory. I love the feel the tree give to the house - so warm and inviting. We put it up Thanksgiving night while watching 'Home Alone.' Here it is at night - a little blurry but you get the picture.
The weekend before Christmas, Zac and I traveled to North Carolina for the wedding of Pastor Ken's daughter, Jennifer. I attended Crossroads Church all seven years that I was in Buies Creek and came to love the church family dearly. Jen and I did some dances together during my time there. She was an experienced ballerina and was beautiful to watch dance. While there we stayed with my closest friend from law schoo, April and her husband, Ryan. They have a beautiful home and two black labs. We took Jenny with us on her first road trip and she did surprisingly well. She had a blast with Pack and Bo-Radley. We love being with April and Ryan. Ryan runs the hog and chicken farms so he and Zac would take off during the day to tend to the animals and April and I got time to hang out. But we all four have a great time together too - it's a great fit and they're wonderful friends - sure to last a lifetime. I'll have to post pictures from April's farm later.
We started Christmas off on Christmas Eve at my mom and dad's house. My brother John was in from Chicago, IL and we had dinner with my grandmother and my uncle, Mike. Then we went to the Presbyterian Church for a candelight Christmas Eve service. I always enjoy going - it's a small crowd but always heart-warming. Even though Jesus wasn't actually born on Christmas night, it's neat to think about how things were for Mary when she delivered the Saviour and for the shepherds as they learned of his birth.
The next morning, Christmas morning, Zac and I got up and exchanged gifts and let Jenny in to play. Here she is pile up with the wrapping paper.
After that we headed over to Bristol to have Christmas with my dad's family at my aunt, Ellen's house.
Every year we have a picture taken of the grandchildren and it's neat to see how, from year to year, we change and our family grows. This picture doesn't include my cousin Matt and his wife Susan. And next year this picture will also include their soon-to-arrive baby girl. We're all so excited and talking about plans to go to NYC after she arrives in March. But pictured here are me, my brothers, Zac, Jaime, my cousins, Paul, Steven, his wife, Amy, and their boys, Jake and Ben. Notice that Jake is carrying on the Puckett/Vols tradition!
We owe our heritage to our grandmother or "Mamaw" as we all call her. She will be 88 years old on her birthday this year and has done so much and invested so much in all our lives. We love her dearly and are so blessed she can spend this time with us. That's my dad on the left and my aunt in the middle and Uncle Mike on the right. Not a bad looking bunch, heh?
After Ellen's we traveled to Zac's mom and dad's house to have Christmas with his family. We wrapped up our Christmas there but not before a family picture...
I definitely slept well that night but was up bright and early the next morning to enjoy the annual Christmas breakfast with the best girls in the world...I love you all!
Well, I'll have to add to this post later but wanted to give you the scoop on my holiday. I'm so blessed and am reminded of it everywhere I turn. May God bless us all in the New Year and may we seek to serve Him and honor Him in all we do!
Monday, 22 October 2007
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How I Spent My One-Year Anniversary
On October 14, 2007, Zac and I celebrated our first year of marriage. It was a beautiful fall day and we took advantage of the weather to do one of our favorite things. We loaded up the 4-wheeler and stopped for Subway and then ventured to Dry Branch to begin our ascent to 40 Foot.
We began on some land owned by Zac's great aunt and road the 4-wheeler up the mountain from there. It was really dusty but the leaves were turning and there were pops of color here and there.
See that top part where the trees start and the clearing ends? That's where we went. This picture was taken from about 1/2 of the way up from where we started.
We finally made it to the top and enjoyed a great picnic lunch with this view.
Pretty amazing, huh? We loved it. This was where Zac was going to propose but b/c I was studying for the bar, we couldn't get away and take the time to come up here on a picnic. But I think it made the perfect place to celebrate our first anniversary. We walked all over the knobs and through the woods, although I was very cautious in listening for bears. Zac said that the hunters have been seeing them more and more with the drought this year b/c they are coming down out of the mountain for water and food. Thankfully, our trip was without a bear sighting.
We had a great day and we are so thankful to the Lord for blessing us with such a great first year. I am blessed with an amazing husband who I can trust wholeheartedly (even if I did get a little "apprehensive" on the 4-wheeler). He's wonderful and I'm a lucky woman. I can't wait to see what this year has in store for us.
Tuesday, 25 September 2007
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The Rest of the Story...
Continuing the story of our first vacation, after Zac and I left Williamsburg, we headed down to the Outerbanks in North Carolina. We had a room in Kill Devil Hills, NC. It was on the beach and we spent 4 relaxing days at the water's edge and took in the Wright Brother's Memorial.
The waves were so strong at the Outerbanks. I ventured into the water one afternoon and got slammed by a wave which resulted in skinned knees (so I can verify what Betsy is saying). The weather was perfect and there was always a breeze on the beach which made for great reading conditions.
There was this mom with two little boys, ages probably 11 and 7 or 8 who were there every day we were. The littlest kid was hillarious and totally accident prone. In the picture below he was laying on the sand and this wave totally came in and overtook him. He and his brother had bright red hair and played so hard every day. It reminded Zac of he and Wes when they were little.
As I said, we ventured out to the Wright Brother's Memorial which is located in Kill Devil Hills. It is a simple area but when you stop to think of the implications of what took place at that location, it's quite overwhelming. Coast to coast flights are possible, people can travel across the Atlantic Ocean in one day all because two brothers were determined that man could fly. Here's some pictures we took:
The gray stones represent how far each of the 4 first flights were. If you look close in the far distance is a speck which is the final flight - check out the distance...
The brothers swapped out with each flight so Wilbur go to take the longest flight.
This is the statute which you see in the first picture. It's the memorial and stands on what was once a huge sand dune. We read that the brothers picked the location at Kill Devil Hills b/c of the sand dunes (for soft landings) and the winds (to help them take off). They've covered this sand dune with grass to preserve it during hurricanes.
Below is a replica of the plane which made the first flight:
Before leaving, Zac and I got into the spirit of the first flight by mimicking some of the bronze statutes in a replica of the first flight:
We really enjoyed being there and it's always special to me to stand on soil where some part of history actually took place and to think about the emotions which were running through the minds of the Wright brothers over the months when they were building, studying and making attempts at flight. History is ageless.
Finally, while I was shopping one afternoon, Zac road up to the Bodie Light House and took these great pictures:
Like I've said before, we had a great first vacation together and I look forward to see where our years of vacation take us. Our kids will not be ignorant of history - that's one you can take to the bank. We're gearing up for our one year anniversary in October but we don't know where we'll go...maybe Gatlinburg? I'm sure wherever it is they'll be pictures to tell that story! That's all for now folks!
Friday, 07 September 2007
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Vacation 2007
Continuing in our year of firsts, Zac and I took our first vacation (well at least the first one we paid for) the last week of August and had a great time. I learned something about our future vacations: we will have to always go somewhere where there are things to do, preferably history related. Zac and I both really enjoy history and when it comes to history in our state we are even more excited. So, to start off our first vacation, we headed out early Saturday morning to Williamsburg, VA. When we got there we went to Colonial Williamsburg at the hottest possible time of day. We were ROASTING (and left our camera in the car, hence no pictures) but we were amazed to see the citizens of Colonial Williamsburg in full colonial dress. I think it actually made us even hotter. That night we caught the Balkcom Bus to Yorktown where we enjoyed good seafood and great conversation with Betsy and Dustan. Then on Sunday, we were up bright and early and arrived at the Jamestown Settlement at 9:00 a.m. We had learned our lesson with the heat the day before and decided to hit the outside exhibits early and then do the inside, museum stuff as the day got hotter. Our plan worked great. Here's some pictures of the settlement:
Me inside an Indian home - they used all those dear skins on the "bed" behind me as covers.
These are what those houses look like from the outside. The funny part about this part of the exhibit was that the "Indians" were pale white people with light blonde/red hair. Not exactly what you call authentic.
This is a bear that Zac would like to claim he caught and killed - and says he would have if he lived as an Indian years ago.
These are replicas of the ships that the Jamestown settlers road over from England. The first picture is the largest fo the three ships, the Susan Constant. She carried approximately 72 passengers over with her. With all of these ships you could go onto them and to their lower decks. I was reminded what a sacrifice it was for these people to make just to come to a new world. But amazingly, only one passenger died on the journey and he was killed when the ships stopped in the Indies to trade for supplies. The other two ships are the Godspeed and Discovery. Discovery is the ship in the foreground of the lower picture and was the smallest ship and is the only ship which did not return to England. It was kept in the colony and used to navigate what became the James River to explore more of the new world. (I told you we're into history.) The Godspeed was the middle ship and has actually been rebuilt because they discovered new dimensions of the ship and changed it from the old one.
From the ships we moved into the Jamestown settlement and got to put ourselves in the place of the first settlers.
If we ever build a house, it will likely have a fireplace which looks like this in it. I say that b/c that is the only reason we took this picture. Zac saw it and said immeidately, "I can build that in our house." I love it and fully support him in his endeavor.
Okay, so as a woman, I probably wouldn't have been a part of the militia. In fact no women were brought over initially on the original voyage. They were brought along at a later date to encourage the men to settle in the new world and form their families. But as you can see, I was ready to take on the call of duty.
This is a chicken we found in one of the homes inside the fort. I think I forgot to mention that the settlement was built inside of a fort. It was just perched up on one of the beds back in the corner and they were wandering all around the settlement. I'm not sure how I would feel if this occurred while I was sleeping...maybe that is what the armor was really for.
One of the last parts of the settlement was the church. We really like it and Zac tried his hand at preaching and me at sitting in the Governor's chair.
It was really neat and we loved it all. When you went inside to the exhibits, there were quotes and a lot of history about the development of the colony. There was on quote which said (in much better words) that all of America came out of Virginia and her original colonists. I think that's really neat and being at the settlement, I could really appreciate the sacrifice which was made to establish our country. I kept thinking if anyone would do that today or are we too comfortable and not motivated, not necessarily to discover new worlds but to take drastic actions to change the world around us; create something better for mankind. Anyway...that's another blog. I'll end my story here but know that it's only half of our vacation. We also had dinner with Betsy and Dustan later Sunday night. Thank you all so much for opening your home and your Williamsburg life to entertain us. We loved spending time with you and are excited to have you home!
In my next entry, I'll tell you about our time in the Outerbanks at Kill Devil Hills, NC. Until then, we highly recommend Jamestown Settlement and rediscovering the rich history of our great state.
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