1888 - Moradabad hailstorm: hail stones allegedly as big as oranges kill 246 people and some 1600 sheep and cattle in Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh.

1897 - English physicist and head of the Cavendish laboratory J. J. Thomson announces his discovery of the electron in a lecture to the Royal Institution.
1945 - German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler commits suicide in his underground bunker beneath the Chancellery building in Berlin. His mistress, Eva Braun, whom he'd married the day before, dies alongside him after taking a cyanide pill.
1948 - The Landrover is introduced at the Amsterdam Motor Show.
1967 - Ostankino Tower, the then highest free-standing structure in the world at 540m is finished in Moscow, Russia.
1975 - Official end to the Vietnam War when the South Vietnamese Government surrenders to North Vietnam. Fighting had continued despite the signing of a peace treaty in 1973.
1980 - Armed terrorists seize the Iranian Embassy in London taking 20 hostages and threatening to blow up the building.

1988 - The then largest banana split ever, at 4.5 miles long, is made along Market Street in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania.

2022 - Jacky Hunt-Broersma sets world record for running 104 consecutive marathons in 104 days, after surviving cancer and with a prosthetic leg. 

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Never raise your hand to your children - it leaves your midsection unprotected.
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"Middle age is when a woman's hair begins to turn from gray to brown."
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Soon after our last child left home for college, my husband was resting next to me on the couch with his head in my lap. I carefully removed his glasses. "You know, honey," I said sweetly, "Without your glasses, you look like the same handsome young man I married."

"Honey," he replied with a grin, "Without my glasses, you still look pretty good too!"

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Power to Acquire Wealth

And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth. But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day. Deuteronomy 8:17-18.

When God blessed Abraham, Isaac and Jacob He increased their herds and gave them wealth. When God blessed the children of Israel, He did the same. He never told them He was pleased with their poverty. On the contrary, He refers to poverty as a curse. 

'You shall carry much seed out to the field but gather little in, for the locust shall consume it. You shall plant vineyards and tend them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat them. You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with oil; for your olives shall drop off. You shall serve your enemies, whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of everything; and He will put a yoke of iron on your neck until He has destroyed you'. (Deuteronomy 28:38-40, 48).

The Hebrew mindset, as well as the reformed Christian mindset, maintains that God blesses us in every area of life, including the area of material wealth. The Lord is not warning against an abundance of material possessions; on the contrary, He encourages the people of Israel to build beautiful houses and dwell in them (Deuteronomy 8:12). What the Lord warns against is arrogance and a life independent of Him.

The Lord warns the children of Israel of forgetting that it was He who established their wealth and that this is a part of the covenant (verse 18). God is particular about upholding His part of the covenant. And He desires that the people of Israel, also, uphold their part so He can continue to bless them. How do they uphold their part? 'By loving the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength'. (Deuteronomy 6:5).

When we whole-heartedly love the Lord, there is nothing left over for mammon. Whole-hearted devotion to the Lord ensures we never forget from where the blessings have come. When we love the Lord with all our heart we remain humble despite the abundant blessings and we do not look down upon anyone. We become trustworthy stewards with open hands and willing hearts. Whole-hearted dedication to God enables us to become vehicles for His blessings, which flow out in all directions.