{"id":218,"date":"2020-11-30T15:47:19","date_gmt":"2020-11-30T15:47:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wendycarter.website\/?p=218"},"modified":"2020-11-30T15:47:19","modified_gmt":"2020-11-30T15:47:19","slug":"gods-protection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wendycarter.info\/?p=218","title":{"rendered":"God’s Protection"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Early Christmas Greetings Everyone!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gary came huffing and puffing through the front door early one morning from his regular walk around our village. He reported that he had seen about four water animals swimming and diving near the bridge that spans our Credit river.\u00a0 He couldn\u2019t determine whether they were otters or muskrats \u2013 a common misunderstanding.\u00a0 So, I decided to do some research to try and figure out what he saw.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Otters are brown, furbearing, long-whiskered, semi-aquatic mammals from the weasel family.\u00a0 They grow to three or four feet long and weigh up to 30 pounds, smaller than the beaver.\u00a0 They have a long, thick tail that takes up to 1\/3 of their body length.\u00a0 They stay under water for 15-20 seconds where they go after small fish, turtles, crayfish.\u00a0 They are very fast swimmers but also extremely agile on land and can even climb trees.\u00a0 Their back legs are longer than their forelegs. \u00a0They can live between 10 and 20 years.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Muskrats are also brown, furbearing semi-aquatic mammals \u2013 a medium-sized rodent.\u00a0 They are much smaller growing only to about 18 inches with a very thin tail.\u00a0 They have long claws to dig burrows.\u00a0 They will eat roots, stems or leaves from plants.\u00a0 They like to spend most of their time in the water and can hold their breath for 15-20 minutes.\u00a0 They can swim backwards or forwards.\u00a0 They are valuable for their fur being one of the most trapped animals in history.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gary\u2019s conclusion from my study was that he must have seen muskrats of which we haven\u2019t noticed many before.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As with many of God\u2019s creatures He built within them a defense mechanism for protection like the skunk\u2019s smell, the porcupine\u2019s needles and the bumblebee\u2019s stinger.\u00a0 Both otters and muskrats can become quite vicious to protect themselves and their families \u2013 the otters being known to attack humans.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

People don\u2019t usually use a defense mechanism built within for protection unless extreme anger causes them to react violently in a bad situation.\u00a0 In the Bible, God promises time and time again that He is there to protect us.\u00a0 All we have to do is call upon Him for His help.\u00a0 In Psalm 91:4 we read, \u201cBecause he loves me,\u201d says the\u00a0Lord, \u201cI will rescue him; I will\u00a0protect\u00a0him, for he acknowledges my name.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

During these days of COVID crisis, Gary and I find ourselves calling upon God\u2019s protection lots for our family members, friends and ourselves which I am sure you are doing too.\u00a0 Hillside church continues to meet each Sunday at Ned Devine\u2019s restaurant. God has protected us in this venture so far but each week we wonder if we will be shut down the next. \u00a0Even some of the staff members are beginning to pay attention to our Gospel message when they can.\u00a0 We are preparing to deliver about 200 Christmas packets to our community contacts over the next couple of weeks.\u00a0 The packets include some Gospel of John resources. \u00a0Please pray that the recipients will read this material and consider some changes for their lives.\u00a0 Be sure to look at our thejohnchallenge.xyz website.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blessings and God\u2019s protection for you over this unusual Christmas season,<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wendy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wendy.carter@kainos.org<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Early Christmas Greetings Everyone! Gary came huffing and puffing through the front door early one morning from his regular walk around our village. He reported that he had seen about four water animals swimming and diving near the bridge that spans our Credit river.\u00a0 He couldn\u2019t determine whether they were otters or muskrats \u2013 a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wendycarter.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wendycarter.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wendycarter.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wendycarter.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wendycarter.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=218"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wendycarter.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":219,"href":"https:\/\/wendycarter.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218\/revisions\/219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wendycarter.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wendycarter.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wendycarter.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}