DFO 1675 11/83—After Dad Went through the Old Testament List of Miracles.

1. POOR EMAN‚ I BEGAN TO FEEL SORRY FOR HIM AS I WENT THROUGH THAT BIBLE MIRACLES LIST, because I'd say about half of them were totally inappropriate & virtually impossible to use. They listed all the miracles that God did on His Own which did not use human instrumentality. What I'm more interested in is demonstrating human instrumentality, because showing the miracles that God did without anybody, that doesn't prove the point. So I chalked off about half of them already, maybe two-thirds of them, a third that couldn't be used & about a third that he's already done, which only left about a third, somewhere around 20 pix left on the Old Testament list.

2. BUT I WOULD SAY THAT THE NEXT ONE THAT WOULD BE AN APPROPRIATE ONE WOULD BE GEN.21:19, THE OPENING OF HAGAR'S EYES TO FIND WATER IN THE DESERT. He could read the story. She was out there alone with a little baby, our Girl doesn't have a baby as far as I know, not yet, that would be an interesting development. But anyway, she could be out there with one or two other people fleeing into the wilderness, which is what Hagar was doing, dying of thirst. The Lord shows her, you can put it up in a sort of cloud like a vision, where there's some water, like an oasis‚ a water hole. So if he's run out of work to do, he can work on that.

3. I REALLY FEEL SORRY FOR THE POOR GUY THAT I HAVEN'T BEEN GIVING HIM MORE GUIDANCE‚ but I've been so busy with other things & I just thought that's enough guidance‚ he can just go through the list‚ but I didn't realise this list was so difficult. Some of this is ridiculous because he couldn't have her doing it. So that's about the next one that could be a good one‚ or if he's started on something else that he found was good, that's okay.

4. I CAN SURE SEE WHY HE SKIPPED AROUND NOW, THIS O.T. LIST GETS PRETTY DISCOURAGING. PTL anyhow. Would you give him that word, tell him I'm sorry, I didn't realise this OT list was so difficult, & I'm sending him a simplified list listing all of them, & it looks to me like about 2/3 or almost 3/4 of them are scratched out as either inappropriate or he's already done'm. And a lot of them are very similar duplicate types that we don't need more than one picture of.

5. SO I'VE SCRATCHED EVERYTHING OFF THE LIST THAT I DON'T THINK IS APPROPRIATE & EVERYTHING THAT'S ALREADY DONE & I came up with only 26 left in the O.T. There will be more in the N.T. There's about 5 pages here, the list is longer than the O.T., twice as many. So we're probably going to get a lot more out of this & because most of them were done by human beings, therefore probably a lot more of them will be appropriate. He's already done a few of them, healing & raising the dead. I still want him to try to do the O.T. ones first, but hold off on'm till he gets this list.

6. ALSO TELL THEM THAT I CAN UNDERSTAND HOW THERE ARE CERTAIN MORE COMPLICATED PICTURES in which there are more characters in the picture, such as a wall falling on a whole army & stuff like that. I'm suggesting he doesn't try to draw a whole army, but just maybe a few cops or soldiers or something like that‚ so he can cut down the number of figures. But on things like that‚ of course, when there are more people in the pictures than she alone & there has to be more background, like a wall falling or something, they're bound to take longer, & a picture like that would probably take him all day. So on some of these more complicated pictures‚ tell'm that we're not totally unreasonable or harsh, we realise they will take longer, but try to restrict it to not more than a day at least, or at most. Draw'm as simple as he can.

7. (FAM: CAN HE WORK LARGER ON PICTURES LIKE THAT WALL FALLING?) Honey, I think if you let him work any larger he's going to go into too much detail. If you give him an inch he's going to take a mile. I mean it! He's just going to have to learn to do cameo work, that's all. And the smaller he draws the less he's going to draw. I mean it. We just don't have all that much room. Not only that, but he'll draw things that by the time we shoot it down to our size you'll hardly even be able to see it. We've gotta make him stick to this size. He's got to get used to drawing this size, that's all there is to it.

8. IF HE DRAWS ANYTHING SO UNUSUALLY BEAUTIFUL, like that one of the Angel in the Lion's Den that Maria loved, we can always shoot it up. He can even colour it some day maybe. We'll wait & see what masterpieces he comes up with. But we don't have time for masterpieces unless he just accidentally does one.

9. I DO FEEL SORRY FOR HIM TRYING TO MULL THROUGH THAT LIST! I didn't realise it was such a mess! Boy, those church people! Ugh! What a funny list they made! Leave it to them to show most of the miracles that God did all on His Own rather than emphasising the people He used, because they don't want to be used! They want God to do it all. And in the Old Testament it looks like He just about did! Maybe He had to!

(Later after Creations got Eman's new pix:)

10. DID EMAN TRY TO DO THE IMPOSSIBLE?—Closing the wombs or something? (No.) I'm glad of that! (Fam: He did Moses' rod transformed into a serpent, but he also did the burning bush not consumed.) That's all right, we can use it. I was just thinking that there were some that weren't really necessary. God can do a few miracles for her, after all, He does'm all!

11. (FAM: ALSO HE DID THE PLAGUE OF THE FROGS.) That's good, I was almost going to leave that on the list‚ but then I thought the little kids won't understand that, why I like frogs & why they were a plague. But anyway, if you have'm jumping in your bed & everything else, you sure would think they were a plague! So if he did'm, fine. (Fam: And he did one of "Flame" destroying Sodom & Gomorrah.) Very good, that was one I left on the list. All right, I hope he's encouraged. I'm going to be a little more patient with him now since I saw what a mess that list was! It's really sort of difficult choosing on some of those lists.

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