Browsing Tag

Sheep

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

On the Sixth Day of Digging Deep…

Posted on August 12, 2024

On the first day of Digging Deep, this digger got to  see… A new deluxe edition for me…

On the second day of Digging Deep, this digger got to see…two giant swag orders and a new deluxe edition for me. 

On the third day of Digging Deep, this digger got to see …three posted dig-a bits, two giant swag orders and a new deluxe edition for me.

On the fourth day of Digging Deep, this digger got to see …four sample screen-prints, three posted dig-a-bits, two giant swag orders, and a new deluxe edition for me.

On the fifth day of Digging Deep, this digger got to see…Five Golden Crowns!!!!…four sample screen prints, three dig-a-bits, two giant swag orders, and a new deluxe edition for me.

On the sixth day of Digging Deep, this digger got to see…Six sheep-a-grazing…Five Golden Crowns!!!…four sample screen prints, three dig-a-bits, two giant swag orders, and a new deluxe edition for me.

Looking back on the study, I think the sheep and shepherd part at the the beginning of  The Crown was probably the portion with which we may have had the most fun in all the years of Digging Deep. Ladies made magnets and bought sheep socks and found sheep greeting cards and a group of us even went out to talk to a shepherd in Tennessee and watch him call in the sheep. We were amazed at the peril of the cast sheep and we learned the allegories that mirror the tenant shepherd versus the invested shepherd, We  learned to love the Chief Shepherd more than ever before. We had “sheep singings” and we were thankful for the safety of the fold. We grew closer to each other under the protective eyes of the Good Shepherd.

 

 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

The Bleating and the Bleeding

Posted on December 4, 2023

All of my inboxes have been sheepish for the past three months! I never truly thought about the saturating presence of sheep in our western culture until we studied about sheep and shepherds and wool and wolves for a few weeks in our Digging Deep study. But you found, made, wore and decorated your study rooms with sheep intensely there for a few weeks. Best of all, you learned from the Good Shepherd, Jesus the Christ, the Messiah. He is the anointed sacrificial lamb. While we had no other recourse, but to cry as sheep that are bleating to Him for rescue, He became one of us so that He could become that bleeding Lamb. That’s the over-arching lesson from the past couple of months.

Here are the two latest (and some of the sweetest) DIggers’ lamb creations that have come my way. One is a table decoration at Little Mountain church in Winchester, Tennessee. The other is an ornament that I get to hang on my tree. It’s from Tracy Jeter, of the Noah church, in Manchester, Tennessee. (All those “chester” places are good with the sheep!) 

Don’t forget you have two more days to get your submissions in to the contest! Winner will receive the entire HOPE bundle for teaching children the Word. A $60.00 holiday value, it includes a study guide for parents, a set of sturdy character flash cards, a timeline for putting the Bible characters in their historic perspective, a set of character trait flash cards for real life application and a memory game using the characters. It can literally fill up your kids’ or grandkids Bible time year in 2024. You can get all the contest info here:https://thecolleyhouse.org/its-christmas-contest-time

(If you can’;t get your video to upload The Colley House Facebook page, just send it to my personal Facebook Messages or to byhcontest@gmail.com)

Enjoy the holidays. If you are hurting, as so many I know are this season, you may not enjoy, but you will faithfully serve.  While we do not have any Biblical authority to claim we know the date of Christ’s birth or to celebrate it as a spiritual holiday, isn’t it nice when more people are focusing on the Lord? Let’s you and me remember the birth, life, death and teachings of the anointed one, the Messiah, every day of every year!

 

 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Diggers in the Fold!

Posted on October 16, 2023

Last weekend, while in Middle Tennessee at a Keepers at Home Retreat, some of the ladies were outside studying the second month of Digging Deep “The Crown,” when they heard the bleating of sheep. Our study this month is from Psalm 23 and is about the Shepherd and his sheep. A few hours later, I found myself knocking on the door of the shepherd to ask him if the diggers at this retreat could come see his sheep. 

He was a very nice gentleman whose wife has been through a very dark battle with cancer. He was extremely open and and answered all of our questions about the sheep as he patiently led us through the gate to the barnyard and pasture that was indeed his sheepfold. He had five lambs that were born only the day before.  

The sheepdog was a large Great Pyrenees and he was extremely protective of the sheep. He herded them away from the intruders (us) and stood between them and us. Knowing that we’d love to have a picture with his sheep, the shepherd got a bucket of feed, rattled it and called the sheep to the barn. His call was very loud and shrill….”Coyeeeeeah!” The sheep answered back” “Maa-aa-aahhhh” in unison each time the shepherd made the familiar call. As the dog led them toward the shepherd and the barn, they followed. But the dog stopped short of bringing the flock past our little group. We stood in the gap between the calling shepherd and the flock. They were not coming to eat until the “threatening intruders” were outside the fence. 

We expressed our gratitude, left some jam and relish that one of the sweet sisters made, sent a Digging Deep book to his wife and drove away with the sweet security in our souls that we are the sheep of the GOOD Shepherd. John 10 and Psalm 23 were all up in this sweet visit! 

I just want to be a sheep, Baa!

Lessons from this fold: 

  1. God’s Providence is sometimes fairly obvious. The diggers were out there studying sheep and they heard the bleating in a nearby sheepfold. This is not an everyday occurrence in this part of the world.
  2. Christians are given opportunities around every bend in the road. Around that bend was a shepherd who needed the prayers we promised for his struggling wife. That apple butter and relish that my sister brought to give the women would end up being used for another purpose, too, and, perhaps, even open a door. That shepherd needs THE Shepherd.
  3. Sometimes there are obstacles between the sheep and the shepherd. Are there people or things in between you and the Good Shepherd? 
  4. The sheep do hear the Shepherd’s voice. We could have stood there all day and called. They were not heading that way until they heard the familiar voice. Then the response was automatic. Are you responding to the Shepherd’s voice? 
  5. Those sheep stuck close together. In the face of intruders, they seemed to understand their need to stick close to one another. Do Christians find strength and comfort in one another when we face the intrusion of outside threats? 
  6. This shepherd was an expert, both a shepherd and a sheep judge, putting 16,000 miles on his sheep trailer in one year. There were obvious ways we could tell this: the immediate response of the sheep to his voice, the medical attention that was evident on one of the sheep that had been partially sheared to remove pests, the cleanliness and proper ID tagging of the animals, the neatness of the barn and pasture. Is our Shepherd interested in our spiritual health and purity?