A couple weeks ago, the ranch where our children work had their branding day.
Our kids were asked to come for the morning by the rancher's wife.
A couple veterinarians were there and other helpers.
Sam was given the job of administering vaccinations, and then the rancher's wife decided that each of the children except Danny would get a turn branding!
Rose got the above picture of Sam taking his turn.
And below is Timmy taking his turn.
They hadn't asked to do it! It was the rancher's wife who had decided very definitely that it was time they learned!
You can see one of the ranching ladies getting her own picture of Timmy doing it. 
Even Rose got a turn.
The children helped herd the calves back and forth where they belonged.
They had a very fun day, and stayed as they'd been invited for lunch.
Rose had taken a pumpkin roll and apple pie which were much enjoyed.
And the rancher's wife later sent Gatorade and a case of Raisin Bran with the kids to take with them on their hunting trip!
She is such a dear, generous lady who is more like a grandma than a neighbor!
Yeah, this is supper afterward with the boys telling their stories--
and sometimes they don't sit like they are supposed to. I know.
Don't think I didn't notice!
But sometimes you just gotta let them be.
Just days after the branding, I read in my devotions:
"You are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart..."
And I thought about how those hot branding irons sear through tough hide and into the flesh.
That is what the law and the letter of the law does.
The letter of the law is tough, impossible. It brands. It knocks you out. It even kills.
We could never perfectly keep the letter of the law of the Old Testament.
But Paul wrote that as ministers of Christ, we are "ministers of the new covenant,
not of the letter but of the Spirit;
for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life."
The Spirit doesn't brand; the Spirit writes.
The Spirit doesn't want to sear through a whole bunch of tough hide.
He wants to get right at the tenderest part of us--our heart.
Lord, sometimes we get so used to the letter of the law, to high pressure on certain issues that certain people think are important.
Or to the scoffing at other things that You say are unacceptable even under the New Covenant, but other Christians say are acceptable because it is so prevalent in our culture.
We are knocked out with the pain of the branding of everything from Old Testament Jewish laws
to the unwritten and unspoken rules of cultures and subcultures around us.
But what a joy to keep the spirit of God's law!
For example, while we as Gentiles and Christians are free from the Jewish laws of the Sabbath, we may use the Lord's Day to do good for others.
Crystal, Hannah and I had the joy of attending again at the Denver God's Missionary Church Sunday
while the others were down south spending a quiet Sunday in the mountains in between days of hunting.
I'm sure we traveled farther than a Sabbath day's journey.
At lunch time when I put our cherry cream pie in the fridge of the parsonage before lunch,
I noticed that the fridge was almost completely bare!
I have never seen such an empty fridge!
I wanted to make our gift of groceries we'd bought the day before a surprise, but I did ask first about doing a surprise in the church, so Pastor Christian and Holly wouldn't wonder what on earth we were up to in between morning service and Kids Club at 3 o'clock.
We ladies needed something to do in between services after all, and yes, we weren't up to snuff on Old Testament law about Sabbath keeping because we carried heavy loads and did some work!
But we had a ball, stayed awake, and the pastor's empty fridge would once again have groceries in it.
It was the Lord's money, anyway, that we used, but He allowed us to have some fun with it first!
Thank You, Jesus, for smiling upon us and letting us smile and rejoice together in Your provision for both our families! It was so fun!
And then we probably didn't keep the letter of the law again when we went to pick up children for Kids Club. It was a lot of work and a lot of stress. There was a bunch of screaming and burping and swearing and dirty talk and it was totally unnerving. Some bigger boys could not be allowed to come because they were unmanageable. They tried to come anyway, walking to church and showing up with a stick and a big glass bottle. They were not allowed in. It has been a tough time for the Walkers.
But other children came, and I plopped right down with the boys because they were the ones who needed more control. (That was probably not according to the letter of the law either, as I should have been on the girls' side.)
Then Holly told the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and she didn't keep the letter of the story or quite King James Version, but she told the story so the children could understand,
and it was a very interesting story.
She told how King Nebuchadnezzar chose boys at random because they were handsome or strong or smart and took them off captive.
One little boy, the one who had burped the loudest in the bus, promptly raised his hand and hollered, "Would you pick me?"
And without missing a beat, Holly said, "I would pick you in a heartbeat! You're awesome!"
And the little kid looked shocked and pleased all at once.
The letter of the law would have been to not pick him. He was about 6 years old and uncouth and had been saying dirty words and burping like crazy and he shouldn't have been picked.
But Holly picked him.
Just like Jesus.
God gave her a special wisdom and love in that critical moment when this little boy wondered if he would be picked.
God picks people like that.
And yeah, we didn't keep the Sabbath when the kids were playing golf on Sunday!
You guessed it!
They loved it and so did we!
Holly would ask a question about the Bible story, and the child who answered correctly got to have a try at hitting the "golf ball" into the basket for points, boys against girls.
The pastor had to chase one little boy around the pulpit once, helped by the boy's brother, but it was a good day.
We took those noisy, crazy, cantankerous kids home and it was one of the most fulfilling days we've had in a long time.
Lord, here are our hearts.
We open them to be written upon by Your Spirit and to be made part of Your life-giving ministry!
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