Give Praise where Praise is due!!!: I was going to go someplace else today.....

but I do believe God wanted me to write this!

I want to share God’s amazing love in a real way today!

I use to hate history. Maybe because in my day, it was all about the dates. Memorize those DATES! I did not fall in love with history until I fell in love with genealogy. Genealogy, or family history, requires you to learn the whats and whys of the times, as well as the whens.

I am almost ashamed to be a southerner, since our visit several years ago to Camp Sumter in Andersonville, GA.

We ran across it by accident on a trip to Florida. It had two of my great loves—history and a cemetery (you have to love and embrace them in genealogy too!)
After seeing and hearing the horrific way the Northern Soldiers (Yankees) were treated, I was ashamed!

There was absolutely no ‘southern hospitality’. But, to their defence, no one could imagine that the war would last so long and cause the need for so much space and supplies.

Here another view:

Andersonville Prison as it appeared in August 1864. Drawn by Thomas O'Dea, former prisoner.
A Picture Worth a Thousand Words

I never drew a picture before in my life. Were I an artist, I could have completed it in a short time. I commenced this work in the winter of 1879 and finished it in 1885 devoting to it my leisure moments for over 5 years....

...In executing the work, I had no picture, map, plan or scale to guide or instruct me, but I relied upon and drew the whole subject from memory. To the casual observer, such a thing may be looked upon as absurd and impossible, that it is impossible after such a length of time for "memory" to retain such a perfect list and one of details as here portrayed and that I must have had assistance from some other source to be able to present such a vast combination of characters and situations in so perfect manner. Ah my friends, had you been there and experienced the sufferings that, in common with the thousands of other unfortunates who "were there," you too, like myself, would have the whole panorama photographed in your memory to remain there to your dying day....

Thomas O'Dea, 1887

Yet, even with this, God showed his grace and mighty love and mercy. I visited this site and it was awe inspiring—almost like you where on Holy ground. I can’t imagine what it must have meant to the men who had been drinking sewer water….here is a part of the story….

September 2005
ANDERSONVILLE/CAMP SUMTER
By Kevin Frye(to view this webcite click here.)
As presented to an American Civil War chat on AOL
The stream that crosses the prison site is Stockade Branch, the principal water source for the prisoners and one of the deciding factors in locating the prison here. From this small stream the prisoners obtained water for drinking, bathing, and laundry. In addition, the toilets, or sinks in Civil War terminology, were built along this brook on the downstream side of the camp. Stockade Branch may have been sufficient water supply for the 6 to 10 thousand men for which the prison was originally designed. However with the overcrowding, this stream was quickly overburdened. Wastes from the bake house and the guard camps upstream polluted Stockade Branch before it even entered the prison. In their search for a better water supply some prisoners located small brackish springs along the hillside or dug wells. Those who located water often sold it to their fellow prisoners.

John Ransom, a prisoner here, wrote in his diary on May 18th: "Some of the wells dug by the Yankees furnished passable water, am improvement anyway on swamp water. Well water, in great demand, is sold readily for such trinkets as the men have to dispose of." During the hot dry summer of 1864, the prisoners' need for water became so great that they began to pray to God for help.

In August, a heavy rainstorm transformed Stockade Branch into a raging torrent that washed away part of the stockade wall. It also gave the camp a greatly needed cleansing. According to legend, during the storm, lightning struck the ground. Upon investigation a spring was discovered flowing were the lightning had struck. Since many prisoners felt this was the answer to their prayers, it was named Providence Springs. John Ransom simply wrote on August 13, "a nice spring of cold water has broken out in camp. Nearly enough to furnish all here with drinking water. God has not forgotten us.

A memorial building over Providence Springs was erected in 1901. The spring still flows today.

Okay, this was a stretch for me to put together....because I'm not all that smart, but I do believe God gives me messages to blog about.......

No, I don't hear voices and I don't get a meesage on 'my space' or emails from Him, but when something catches my eye and heart in a certain way, I file it for possible future use.

I haven't been blogging much lately, because I don't blog just to stay busy....I'm a mom and a wife....get real, I gots lots to do! But I open myself to God to be obedient, therefore I have this blog!

My Father is the King of Kings, therefore I am a Princess!

But I did feel God letting me rest and really get some Bible studying, lots of Bible reading, and the hardest for me, from Psalm 46:10--Be still, and know that I am God. Oh, I know He's God, that's not the hard part....it's the BE STILL part...but to know God's heart....it's a must, therefore, before I actually publish a post, I pause, and yes, some of them have gone on the back burner and some have actually been deleted, because I felt it was my message and not God's!

So, here is the verse He gave me today:

John 16:33 (New International Version)
33"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

I finally got it with the Andersonville thing, the water thing and boy, they had trouble! In this world you will have trouble!

Boy, I can testify to that! But until you have truly experienced PEACE that comes from God, you haven't experience anything!

And then the last part--'I have overcome the world.' COOL!

I wish when I became a 'card carrying' Christian, I would have been given new words, or a new language (the official Christian language). It just doesn't seem right to use the same words I used for worldly things, before my devotion to Christ, and now use these same words to describe the love and peace and mercy and grace and joy that I get from God!(and by the way--we don't carry cards--it's just I began to walk in the way of the Lord, my Savior and my guide.)

I hope this flowed together for you, because it became so clear to me. I have learned how hot is miserable it can be here in Alabama and I'm sure Andersonville, GA is at least as bad, so these men need a sign from God.

And I'll leave you with this sign from God: