Getting Down with OPI !

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Kurt Zeck and His Very Talented Daughters!

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Psalm 23
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name's sake. Yea,though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For you are with me;Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; And I will dewll in th house of the Lord Forever.


Sheep are very interesting animals in that they must fully rely upon the shepherd for everything. These are animals that can not simply make it on their own. They do not function well under stress and get afraid very easly. (sound familiar)
We have read this Psalm over and over. It is one we are very familiar with. I am sure you have heard many great teachings on this and I am not going to spend a whole lot of time taking it apart. But there are somethings that I would like to pull out to remind us of our relationship with the LORD.
You see I have had a very busy week, a week that is not over yet and in this week I have seen so many times where I have been wanting? I have felt week, I have felt overwhelmed at times but I relaized one thing and it was this. At those moments I took my eyes off of my Shepherd and more on my surrounding. This action of mine created in me a wanting, this action of mine taking my eyes off of the Lord for a moment created in me a fear, and uneasy feeling, a overwhelming drowning feeling. This is not How God wants me to be, This is not how I should be. Psalm 23 tells me “ The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. I must say something here, because not everyone can say The Lord is my Shepherd. You must first know the Good Shepherd in Psalm 22 who laid down His life for you so that He could become your shepherd. If you do not know Jesus as your shepherd if you can not say I have a relationship with Jesus then I invite you to make that clear. He laid down His life for you that you might have everlasting life and enter into this relationship that I am talking about .
This relationship of knowing the Shepherd and being known by the Shepherd. For Jesus tells us in John 10:14 “ I am the good shepherd;and I know My sheep, and am known by my own.”
Psalm 23 talks of my relationship with the Shepherd it is a He and me Psalm
verse 1: He is my shepherd,
verse 2. He makes me to lie down, He leads me
verse 3. He restores me
verse 4. though I walk in danger I fear not for He is with me He protects me and comforts me
verse 5. He prepares a wonderful table before me, He annoints me, my cup overflows
verse 6. His goodness and mercy they follow me, I dwell with Him in His house forever.

David in this Psalm describes what the Shepherd does for the sheep and how in all that the Shepherd does the sheep are simply enjoying it. Look The sheep do not lack anything verse 1 tells us that I shall not want. Why?
Because the shepherd He makes me to lie down in Green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters. A sheep who is by still waters and in green pastures and is laying down shows you what, That the sheep is completley satisfied, Jesus said that He is our sufficiency “ And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst” John 6:35
You see I was reminded this week that He has provided all that I need, I was stressing out for nothing He had it all under controll He was leading me and guiding me He was going to take care of it all, and you want to know something HE DID!
Hey I was reminded of How Good my Shepherd is I hope you realize it too, Learn to enjoy and be satisfied with the green pasture and still waters He has brought you too, Know that no matter where you are or what difficulty you are going thru He is there, remember His goodness and His mercy are with you He is your protector and your comforter. And that soon and very soon you and I will be in His house FOREVER!!!!
JH

True Friends

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Friends, True Friends don't come too often. You know exactly the kind of friends I am talking about. These friends except you exactly the way you are, when you are together you do not need to talk to understand eachother, you share the same intrest and the time goes by so fast when you are together. God has Blessed Anja and I with such friends here in Germany. Dee and Eva mean so much to us. They have been there for us when we really needed them, We have laughed so much together we have cried together we have encouraged eachother to continue to fight the good fight. I don't know what it would be like not to have Dee and Eva in our lives. They are so special to us.
I pray for you all that you would have such friends in your life, these kind of friends are a gift from God, Take the time to tell these kind of friends in your life how much they mean to you.
For Dee and Eva I would lay down my life.
Dee and Eva Though the distance between us has grown since we have moved to Stuttgart, Every opprotunity we have to see eachother is a blessing from heaven, your many words of encouragment have helped us in our times of low's and your laughter and smiles have given us many of our high's in life. I Thanks God for giving you two to us. Keep up the fight, Stay the straight and narrow this is only the begining of a Friendship for Eternity. ( just a little note to the newspaper the police did not really catch them in the park but they did try to smooch and they didn't really crash a wedding but Dee and I really did walk up to see the fancy car and we all looked at the horse statue in the courtyard)
Harts4

An Encouragement For My Brother

On This Day in Which we reflect and celebrate our Freedom as Americans. I wanted to take the time to Say Thank you to my Little Brother and all those others that make it possible.

To my Little Brother,

May you never forget from where you get your strength, God is by your side as it says in Joshua 1:5 "No man shall be able to stand before you al the days of your life; as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will never leave you nor forsake you."
Brother "This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success." Joshua 1:8
It says in the next verse 9 "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid,nor dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go."
I know it to be true, It is impossible for God to lie. Brother stay strong, stay grounded and rooted in His word, Keep it up. Thank you for your sacrifice that we might be able to continue to wave our flag high and live in Freedom. and to the others that every day put themselves in harms way for us to have our Freedom Thank you.
God Bless America

"I AM MY BROTHER'S KEEPER"

I turned 6

Hi family and friends, Something huge took place on June 18 I turned 6.

Wow! my boys are growing up too fast! it feels just like yesterday that we brought him home from the hospital and now Luca is six years old and will be starting school in September. He can't wait for that change. His B-Day was a great day his cousins from Anja's side were there Louisa and Phillip His friend from Kindergarten here in Stuttgart lukas and then a huge joy was when a car of friends from Heidelberg showed up to celebrate His Birthday one mother Heike drove a car full of friends here to Stuttgart Laurence, Tasmine, Anne, Marlene, and Heike's little one Anton. This for Luca was the highlite of the day. Thanks Heike for taking the drive with the kids to make Luca's Birthday a special one.
Luca got a bunch of presents, a Backpack for school and a trolly to pull the backpack so he doesn't have to wear it on His back, Hockeysticks which we just used them on Monday at the park and the boys played streethockey while Anja and I stood in the goals and tried to keep the ball from coming in using only our feet, the boys did a great job. We also made little clay figures in which you place it in the microwave for 10 minutes and it gets hard after that you paint them it was a lot of fun. Well we have another year behind us and a year ahead of us with new things, new challenges with the Lord's help you will acomplish them all.
To everyone that could not be there I hope you enjoy the pic. We love you all and miss you all very much, Thanks for being a part of our lives.
Josiah & Anja, Levi & Luca (THE FOUR HARTS)