catching some z's

long time no blog

2009-08-11T06:13:00.004-05:00

i haven't decided if i'm ever going to blog again on a regular basis, if i'm shutting down "catching some z's" or just what. my new job (well it's 5 1/2 months new) takes a lot of my energy even though it's only part-time and i find i'm zapped as well on the other days i don't work. and then there's the recent development of my mama needing more of my time with some of her health problems of late (bless her). i'm thankful for the time i've had to blog from october 08 through may 09.....i just don't know if i can keep up!

i saw the movie last week "julie and julia" and it was great fun! blogging played a large role in the movie and it made me long to jump start my blog but when? what do i have to say? what's it all about alfie? sometimes it seems a worthwhile pursuit and other times not. i'm just not sure about this whole blogging business for me.....i don't even have time to read others' blogs and i miss knowing what's up with yous guys!

i miss that sabbatical A LOT. i was off work for 6+ months which is when i began reading your blogs and writing mine.....and now it's back to work i've gone and no can do everything though i certainly wanna.

intercession

2009-05-28T08:29:00.003-05:00

instead of praying for certain things for my loved ones several days ago i felt led to thank the Lord for where God had each of them. i'm usually so focused on what i want to be different for my children or spouse, myself or others, what i want from the Lord for these folks. where i want the Lord to take this one or that one. it's all about change and going forward and being in a different place. asking the Lord for blessings and so many things i'm always wanting from Him. asking, asking, asking. there was such sweet comfort, peace and relief really during this particular time of intercession - to acknowledge and accept where things are with each loved one according to His will, being thankful and submitting to that rather than asking for things to be different.

on 5.24 i prayed the following prayer:

Father there are many needs but today i just thank You for

>>>>>where she is in her life this exact place You've brought her to

>>>>>where he is with everything right now, exactly in all areas

> >>>> the exact place of Your will

>>>>>> and their 3 children

my friend>>>>> where she is this day

>>>> and >>>> where they are today, thank You

Father, You have designs for Your loved ones,

my life, where i am today, exactly, all that's going on, not going on, the positive, the negative. thank You.

(then i listed many more names)

You have each person where he is for a reason, for Your purpose. thank You Father for this and the confidence i have in Your will, Your purposes. Your plans, Your caring love for each of these, including me. i love You. amen.

can man live without God?

2009-05-20T08:57:00.005-05:00

handsome husband read this to me from a book he's reading by ravi zacharias entitled "can man live without God" (1994). it's a satirical poem "creed" by steve turner, the english journalist. see what you think about it.

we believe in marxfreudanddarwin.

we believe everything is ok

as long as you don't hurt anyone,

to the best of your definition of hurt,

and to the best of your knowledge.

we believe in sex before, during and

after marriage.

we believe in the therapy of sin.

we believe that adultery is fun.

we believe that sodomy's ok.

we believe that taboos are taboo.

we believe that everything's getting better

despite evidence to the contrary

the evidence must be investigated

and you can prove anything with evidence.

we believe there's something in horoscopes,

ufo's and bent spoons;

Jesus was a good man just like Buddha,

Mohammed, and ourselves.

He was a good moral teacher although we think

His good morals were bad.

we believe that all religions are basically the same -

at least the one that we read was.

they all believe in love and goodness.

they only differ on matters of creation,

sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation.

we believe that after death comes the Nothing

because when you ask the dead what happens

they say nothing.

if death is not the end, if the dead have lied, then it's

compulsory heaven for all

excepting perhaps

hitler, stalin, and genghis khan.

we believe in masters and johnson.

what's selected is average.

what's average is normal.

what's normal is good.

we believe in total disarmament.

we believe there are direct links between warfare and bloodshed.

americans should beat their guns into tractors

and the russians would be sure to follow.

we believe that man is essentially good.

it's only his behavior that lets him down.

this is the fault of society.

society is the fault of conditions.

conditions are the fault of society.

we believe that each man must find the truth that

is right for him.

reality will adapt accordingly.

the universe will readjust.

history will alter.

we believe that there is no absolute truth

excepting the truth

that there is no absolute truth.

we believe in the rejection of creeds,

and the flowering of individual thought.

p.s. chance

if chance be

the father of all flesh,

disaster is his rainbow in the sky,

and when you hear

state of emergency!

sniper kills ten!

troops on rampage!

whites go looting!

bomb blasts school!

it is but the sound of man

worshipping his maker.

from a house of marriage to a house of mourning

2009-05-09T10:34:00.000-05:00

scripture tells us it is good to go into a house of mourning. well i did just that, along with many other friends and family, on thursday as we memorialized virgie, the mother of my friend harriet whom i've known since 7th grade. seems i've known for years the scripture from ecclesiastes 7:2 written by solomon, the wisest man in the world: it is better to go into a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting because that is the end of every man and the living takes it to heart. but in the service i heard more about this from chapter 7. you know how you've read it or heard it before but then it pops out at you when you hear it again for some reason. this time what i heard was 7:1 the day of one's death is better than the day of one's birth and 7:4 the mind of the wise is in the house of mourning while the mind of fools is in the house of pleasure.

what profundity. tuesday was the day miss virgie died and that was the best day of her life because she died and went into the loving arms of the Lord where her body was healed of all ills and she is seeing by sight now, no longer seeing by faith. oh for the glory of that! the only thing better for her, the preacher said, was being with all her family sitting together in the service. but he said they wouldn't want her to come back just for their grief with all she'd gained in her dying.

Lord, please bless the grieving in their loss of virgie and as they make this huge adjustment to life without her. praise you that one more believer is in your Presence worshipping you for all eternity, free from sin and sorrow and crying and sickness and now instead of seeing in a mirror dimly virgie sees You face to face! help me each time i go into a house of mourning to reflect on the meaning of life and take to heart as solomon said the lessons therein. amen.

the Bride and the Bridegroom

2009-05-08T10:00:00.001-05:00

it was such a pleasure to attend Allison and Michael's wedding this past saturday and have the opportunity to reflect during the ceremony and reception upon the picture of the church as Bride and Christ as Bridegroom and the relationship between the two, something talked about thoroughly throughout the scriptures.

my handsome husband married the beautiful couple but one of the groomsman, also an ordained minister, gave the talk about how the couple's relationship is to reflect the relationship between Christ and the Church. for example the husband groom is supposed to lay his life down for the bride, as Christ did for the Church. and the wife bride is to love the husband as the Church does Christ. it was a wonderful reminder not only of that but also of the heavenly reunion to be had when Christ comes again! we look forward to The grand wedding feast and celebration - won't it be glorious? i can't wait! last weekend was just a foretaste of glory divine.

psalm 62:1-2,5-8,11

2009-05-07T08:23:00.003-05:00

my soul finds REST in You alone,

my SALVATION comes from You.

You alone are my ROCK and my SALVATION

You are my FORTRESS.

i will never be shaken.

i can find REST o my soul in You alone

my HOPE comes from You!

You alone are my ROCK and my SALVATION

You are my FORTRESS.

i will not be shaken.

my SALVATION and HONOR depends on You God.

You are my MIGHTY ROCK, my REFUGE

i can trust in You at all times.

i can pour out my heart to You

for You are my REFUGE.

one thing You have spoken. two things i have heard:

that You, o God are STRONG! and

that You o God are LOVING.

amen!

miriam, the flower girl

2009-05-05T07:30:00.000-05:00

miriam was the flower girl at the wonderful wedding this past weekend of allison and michael. she is allison's darling four year old niece. it was a beautiful wedding and reception and miriam did a wonderful job of placing the pale pink rose petals one by one down the aisle before the bride was escorted by her father to meet the groom at the front to the tune of "all hail the power."

it was at the reception that i was most intrigued by miriam's lack of self-conscious behavior and i thought how quickly she'll soon outgrow this precious gift of early life. when the dj began to play the music for the first dance of bride and groom she began to dance around them uninhibitedly with the freedom of an angel as if worshipping God. she looked up the whole time as she danced, hands outstretched, and twirled and spun around the bride and groom as they danced. when it was time for the bride and her father to dance, miriam continued to float freely and dance to the music. the little one had no idea the whole room (including her proud parents fred and lauren) was focused on her freshness, her energy and zeal which did nothing to take away from the bride but only added to the bride's beauty and the beauty of the reception as a whole.

it was bittersweet for just a moment as i reflected on how soon this freedom to fly, to dance, to twirl without a care in the world will remain in miriam's life and how that freedom will soon be replaced with the burden of self-consciousness before man and God. it reminds me of a song, words below, by sara groves who writes that we must struggle to live and breath for an audience of one rather than living for man's approval in the way of self-consciousness.

that's what little miriam appeared to be doing - dancing and twirling with abandon for an audience of One. o may she take the beauty of her dancing into her latter years and continue to live and breath for an audience of the One, the only One who truly matters. this must be some of why the Lord says "suffer the little children to come unto me" and "unless you become like children you will not enter the kingdom of heaven."

When I stand before the Lord, I’ll be standing alone
This journey is my own
Still I want man’s advice, and I need man’s approval
This journey is my own
Why would I want to live for man, and pay the highest price
What does it mean to gain a whole world, only to lose my life
So much of what I do is to make a good impression
This journey is my own
And so much of what I say is to make myself look better
But this journey is my own
And why would I want to live for man, and pay the highest price
And what does it mean to gain a whole world, only to lose my life
And I have never felt relief like I feel it right now
This journey is my own
Cuz trying to please the world, it was breaking me down
It was breaking me down
And now I live and I breathe for an audience of one
Now I live and I breathe for an audience of one
Now I live and I breathe for an audience of one
Cuz I know this journey is my own
And why would I want to live for man, and pay the highest price
And what does it mean to gain a whole world, only to lose my life
And you can live for someone else, and it will only bring you pain
I can’t even judge myself, only the Lord can say, ‘Well done.’
Oh, this journey is my own

Sara Groves This Journey Is My Own lyrics

may 1 journal entry

2009-05-01T08:50:00.002-05:00

morning! praise You for your yummy Word this morning. i eat it like honey and it satisfies me each time i go to it - never disappointing. it is alive and sharp as a two edged sword, dividing the spirit. thank You for using the diviner balaam in numbers, an encouragement to me about my family member that practices divination to find his way at times when seeking direction for his life. You can use and change anyone - even a diviner or even the diviner's donkey, balaam's donkey! amazing! and then contrasting the old testament reading with the new about elizabeth and mary's miraculous pregnancies. mary's humble "be it done unto me according to Thy will." You are the God of miracles! how awesome and amazing You are Father God and Son and Holy Spirit! i worship you in my sleepy state this first of may morning. i love you with my limited ability to do so. i feel like a donkey in my capacity to love and understand who you are and to love others your way and live my life according to Your will but am encouraged by Your Word that You can do Your will with anyone if You desire it! You alone are God! amen! amen!

pages from my journal, 2007

2009-04-29T09:04:00.005-05:00

april 24,2007

oh how vainly i struggle and resist being still!! how much like martha am i in the doing and going about this house. how i long to long to be more like mary who desired the greater thing. i need to look up the passage and see what it says. my year verse taped up throughout the spots in the house where i can see them gently speaks: be still and know that i am God, psalm 46:10. i want literal stillness this year, the practice of it, the discipline of it. oh what do i avoid? why do i avoid this? help me oh Father. i can only "be still" by your power for i am powerless to do it. oh i can be still with a good novel, a good movie, a tv show. a client i'm listening to but to be sitting with You? oy vay. i cannot in my own strength even begin to try! because? i don't want to. it is going against my FLESH. ah, there's the truth of it.

april 30, 2007

coffee, prayer. Your Word...FIRST! a miracle because You know my divided heart. my grace-heart wanted to go straight to my novel to finish it and yet - You drew me. You drew me. You empowered me to put You first. seek FIRST the Kingdom of Heaven and all else will be added to me!!! please forgive the struggle even as your child of 40 years (since my "walk" down the aisle at 10) to put You first. i used to be so religious, legalistic and batter myself into the QT every day asap as if it was a law and because i couldn't do it i felt so guilty ALL the time. so then i swung over it seems years later to too much freedom in your grace and love and became undisciplined and loosie-goosie. now Father my desire is a balanced mind - a sound mind, not one of fear but power, love and a sound mind! not (necessarily) sinning all the more that grace should abound, as Paul says, but because of grace, in and by and through grace and only in Your power with the knowledge that it is NOT a law i am bound by - i choose and You empower me to be disciplined and put You first, seek You first as often as I can in this discipline of

praise

prayer

the Word and

being still!!!

oh what a goal!

oh what hope there is in You!

i love You God! amen.

NOTE re: the marys and marthas in this life

i remember looking up the passage on mary and martha and being so relieved and quite thrilled actually that scripture says Jesus loved martha! i always had the impression that it was mary whom Jesus must've loved MORE because in the Luke 10: 40-42 passage martha was distracted with all her preparations but mary had chosen the good part of sitting at Jesus feet. but john 11:5 says this: now Jesus loved martha and her sister and lazarus!!!! i was thrilled to find out that Jesus loves the marthas as well as the marys of this world!

the L's

2009-04-21T06:59:00.007-05:00

Jesus came to minister to the L's i heard a preacher say at a church i visited several months back when my husband was out of town. he didn't say the L's, i just heard him say the following list and i decided it was the L's.

the least

the lost

the little

the left out.

i've been adding to the list ever since when an L comes to mind. more came up even in writing this post.

the lonely

the looney

the lazy

the un-lovely

the leper

the liar

the lawless

the lagging

the lame

the laden

the lowly

the lustful

the last

the loser

i'm sure this is not an exhaustive list. you could think of more L's too. Jesus came to save the sick not the well. the sinner not the saint. the least of these not the greatest of these. i am among these L's and i am forever grateful to Him that i don't have to get up every morning and put on my face and pretend to be something i'm not for God and that helps me not pretend for others too (though i admit i'm better at the former than the latter). i'm just a conglomerate of L's that Jesus came to save. and i want to be the one leper of the ten that thanked Him for the healing he received.

ps: thanks to d for helping me add to the list of L's.

medication for depression: part two

2009-04-17T07:54:00.000-05:00

as a fellow depression sufferer myself, i can tell you that this body problem is a real, biochemical, brain disorder. it's a genetic disorder that you can trace in your family tree. anxiety runs in my father's side of the family and depression in my mother's. my handsome husband can definitely tell you that medications work to help me feel better. if my neurotransmitters are out of wack - seratonin, norepinephrine, dopamine to name a few - then i'm sick and not only do i need to pray, meditate, focus on God's truths, exercise, practice good self care, rest more often, reduce my commitments outside the home but i also need to take medication, have a medication adjustment, get in to see the doc.

another thing about treatment for the body problem of depression and other things like it is the length of time you need to take meds. if you have an infection, say a URI (upper respiratory infection), you might be placed on meds for 10-14 days or on a z-pack for 5 which covers you for 14. but for anti-depressants you have to take these for a minimum of 6 months and up to one year. why you ask? as dr. seuss said "i don't know, go ask your mother!" no, seriously, i can't explain it to you medically i just know it to be true according to all the research. we don't know if that's the time it takes for the brain to heal itself while the medication is treating the symptoms or just what. you've heard it called the "practice of medicine." all we know is that it works. someone who has had more than two or three episodes of depression has a chronic illness and is most likely going to need meds the rest of their lives (sorry to be the bearer of good/news bad/news).

the last thing to mention to you while i've gone from "preaching to meddling" is that if you suffer from depression or one of the other mental illnesses like it, research shows the best results in treating these ills come from the combination of medication and psychotherapy from someone like me! psychotherapy (a fancy way of saying talking to a trained professional that's not involved in your situation) changes a person's body problem for the good! sometimes folks start out with meds alone. sometimes they start out with counseling alone. but the best results are from the combination of the two.

borrowing a line from steven brown, one of our favorite modern day theologians who has a radio gig, you think about that!

medication for depression: part one

2009-04-16T10:00:00.000-05:00

what a funny thing to blog about you might be saying to yourself but this is something i teach about constantly in my job as a psychotherapist (therapist for short) (social worker by trade) (it does get confusing since there are so many names for just being a plain old counselor which is what i am!). i thought you might like to be edumicated too but if not, just skip this one! (yes, it's been a while since i've used a made up word, just trying to throw you off a bit today!)

most folks don't understand medication for depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses - even those with the illnesses themselves. unfortunately, in some christian circles too the thinking is that a person should just pray about their problems, focus more on Christ, meditate more on the scriptures and the like and medication would not be necessary. end of discussion.

one example i use in my teaching at work is to take the problem of vision and the need for eye glasses. now that i'm over 50 i have to wear "readers" so i can use my own glasses as a teaching tool. let's say i can't see very well. ok. apply the same logic as above to seeing better. i'm going to pray about it. ask God to help me read and see better. i'm going to set my mind according to philippians 4:8 on things that are right, pure, of good repute. i'm going to set my mind on things above, not on earth below. but that's still not going to help me to see the words on the page any better. i still need my glasses because i have a vision problem that needs correcting. part of my body has a problem.

another example we (psycho)therapists use is diabetes. you wouldn't tell a diabetic to pray about his blood sugar levels and take himself off glucophage for type 2 diabetes or off insulin if he's type 1. no! of course not. because he has a body problem, he needs the meds for his problem.

so it is with depression. if you have diagnosable, clinical depression then you have what i call a "body problem." it brings to mind one of the rhymes in my children's book "the bible-time nursery rhyme book," emily hunter, 1981.

God gave me a body house.

It's mine to keep and prize.

I look out from my body house

Through my two window eyes.

that's only part of the rhyme and then the verse attached to it is proverbs 20:12,

"the hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them."

if i have a body problem, if i have a chemical imbalance that leads me to have a lack of neurotransmitters then it needs correcting with medication. i'll have problems with the following: keeping my mood stable, keeping my emotions in check so that i'm not crying too much or too little (feeling no emotions), issues with sleeping adequately (maybe sleeping too little or too much), issues with appetite (eating too little or too much), feeling tired all the time, thinking mostly negative, hopeless thoughts about life (sometimes to the point of having suicidal thoughts), lacking energy that is within normal range (we could debate normal 'til the cows come home), feeling worthless about myself, difficulty concentrating and being motivated to do my ADL's (activities of daily living). if i'm having these problems and they've been going on for some time now (i'd say more than a month) and nothing seems to be helping, then i might have a body problem since God gave us a body house! if you look at this list all together, doesn't it look like a list of physical ailments? then why oh why do we accuse ourselves and each other of having a spiritual problem instead? it's difficult to explain in a short blog post but i want to give you a bit of an idea of what i'm talking about.

look for part two in tomorrow's post!

can you imagine being that interesting?

2009-04-15T07:22:00.000-05:00

i am one of five children. i truly and deeply love all my sibs but i want to tell you about my baby brother preston, named after our maternal grandfather. he has led such an amazing life thus far for his young years (he's ten years younger than me) that one day years ago i slipped up and not realizing what i was saying to my husband i opened mouth, inserted foot and said: can you imagine being **that** interesting?

it's a good thing my husband is not short on self esteem (which comes from God esteem) because though he got my oops! it didn't phase him one bit. we laughed and laughed about my oops!

my brother pres lived in france for several years after graduating from college. he says he lived there so long that he began to dream in french. he set out without any connections to speak of with the goal of living abroad for a few years and so he did. back to the states for his masters in linguistics and then he went to taiwan to live for a few years to make more money than he could in the states (sounds like an excuse for another adventure to me!) translating children's books from chinese into english (if i've got that right, it's very hard to keep up).

it was in taiwan preston met his wife-to-be vered who is from.....israel! she was abroad collecting data for her asian studies masters and they ended up being roommates with two other people and lell in fuv! they quickly became twitterpaited (from "bambi").

being raised in our pentecostal-jewish home with the "believe whatever you want to believe" mentality, he chose to convert to judaism to marry vered and because of circumstances i'm not sure i could explain here (something to do with a green card?) they were first married in the u.s. by the justice of the peace. then, they were married a second time a year later in tel aviv, israel with a big jewish wedding with the chuppah (the canopy under which the couple stands) and the ketubah (the formal wedding contract) and the smashing of the glass just like in "fiddler on the roof" (oy vay, i tell you, it must've been beautiful) (are you catching my drift here: can you imagine being this interesting???????). oh how i regret not attending that wedding. i can't remember all my excuses for not going - money, time commitments, etc. - but oh how i wish i'd been there.

now they live in delaware and have made beautiful music together along with two beautiful girls noa and ariel. in israel names are neither male nor female - they're interchangeable - for example noah over here would be a boy's name but in israel it's a girl's name as well. or ariel in israel can be a boy's name like ariel sharon. each of their girls are multilingual. pres speaks only french to them every day. vered speaks only hebrew to them. and they speak english at school. my brother who now has a doctorate in linguistics speaks a few other languages and throws in some spanish for the girls and probably some chinese for all i know.

though he speaks many languages well, his first language is english afterall and he's written 4 books (fiction) in his spare time! he's combined the first 3 into one and has an agent in new york city to tote it to publishers. i've read the first two books and they were quick, exciting reads of a story taking place in israel and palestine. best wishes to him for getting them published. remember, i knew you when!

i still say: can you imagine being **that** interesting?

one very important postscript: the interesting brother has a very interesting mother - ours! she traveled to the places he lived - france and taiwan (they toured china and hong kong); she went to his wedding in tel aviv in 1999 and in 2007 i nervously put her on a plane by herself to meet him all the way around the world at a meeting in cairo, egypt! she doesn't miss a beat in keeping up with her youngest child. i'm just proud all the way around! here's two pics of them in egypt hh helped me add to this post.

married at least 80 years

2009-04-14T07:21:00.004-05:00

when handsome husband and i married we determined to be married at least 80 years. we'd each come from divorced families. his parents divorced when he was 4 months old and mine when i was 20. we determined that in the Lord and to the best of our abilities we would stay married. our goal was at least 80 years even though marrying at 25 and 28 that would make us 105 and 108 respectively!

but then a year or so into our marriage, hh came to me and said "honey, we've set our sights too low" and showed me an article of a couple who'd been married 80 years. throughout our 26 years of marriage he has continued to bring me articles from the paper, magazines or off the internet of couples who've met our goal of 80 years - a source of encouragement to say the least but also a wink from God about the 80 years goal we set!

i've kept several of the articles. one in "world" magazine reads:

eighty and counting.

love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage. which may or may not have been what frank and anita milford drove away from their wedding ceremony on may 26, 1928, in torpoint, a village in southwest england. in may the couple celebrated their 80th wedding anniversary in the plymouth nursing home where they both live. mrs. milford says the pair met in 1926 at ymca dances while attempting to foxtrot. "he used to step on my feet." mrs. milford, now 99 said. mr. milford, now 100 made up for it, though: she still wears the engagement ring costing six pounds that he bought her.

a second article from the washington times off the internet, september 7, 2006 reads:

harve de grace, md

couple marks 80 years together

margaret and donald mergler's relationship got off to an underwhelming start when he took the wheels off her toy baby carriage to make a scooter when they were in grade school - during the wilson administration. "i didn't think too much of him then," mrs. mergler says of the boy who grew into the man she married in 1926. she does now. on monday, the merglers marked their 80th wedding anniversary, and the husband and wife - both 98 years old - are likely the oldest living couple in the united states. mr. and mrs. mergler were both born in harvre de grace, a historic small town that smells of fresly cut grass and sits about 30 miles north of baltimore.

a third (faux) article was written september 20, 2006 by hh and sent to me via email with the above article included at the top and this one at the bottom:

arkansas democrat-gazette

couple marks 80 years together

january 3, 2063

little rock, ar

catching some z's and hh (code names used to protect the innocent) marked their 80th wedding anniversary yesterday and are probably the oldest living couple in the united states. mr. and mrs. hh both grew up in little rock and have lived here the past 72 years since 1991......

hh, i think i'll keep him - at least for 80 years!

april is national poetry month

2009-04-13T08:00:00.002-05:00

last week i told you that april is national sexual assault awareness month. what a heavy post that was. there are many and varied topics for each month on our calendar. april is also national poetry month according to a link a co-worker sent me to explore.

here it is for you at www.poets.org/freeverse if you'd like to look at some fun photos taken of free verse written on things like mirrors, chalk boards, typewritters, leaves, fingers, cookies and the like.

see if you can find a few of my favorites by looking at the section: free verse: poetry in the wild. or today is said free verse (pool). every time i've looked at it they've added more entries and changed the website up a bit.

1. mary oliver's the summer day: tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

2. ode to a potato: how many deals can a man make before he stops being small potatoes?

3. rise up from the stump of sorrow and be green also like the diligent leaves

4. covering two years by weldon kees: parts of a sentence, hanging in the air

it's a very creative site to explore when you have a few minutes to spare. enjoy! thanks for sharing cp.

moose

2009-04-10T06:00:00.000-05:00

after such a serious post yesterday, something much lighter.....

MOOSE used to be an inside joke between handsome husband and me but now the word's gotten out - we're such big mouths and tell everything - so i might as well tell you about it too!

'course i have to start with dictionary.com.

moose [moos] Show IPA

–noun, plural moose.

1.	a large, long-headed mammal, Alces alces, of the deer family, having circumpolar distribution in the Northern Hemisphere, the male of which has enormous palmate antlers.

back in 1996 our family took a road trip west and part of the trip was to go to utah and connect with my sis and her family and drive into yellowstone national park. what a wonderful vacation that was! A-merica is A-mazing! along the way we saw many moose and also were introduced to the state of wyoming. we decided we loved both! we began to fantasize about having a retreat center one day in the future out in green, cool, low humidity wyoming (ignoring for now the frigid winters) where pastors and their wives could come for handsome husband (hh for short, and he's short, too) to teach and me to counsel and we'd just fix them right up and send them back out into the world to continue their ministries. wyoming seemed just the place. away from it all. we didn't know how anyone would pay to get there. or how we'd pay for a retreat center. that's why it's called a fantasy!

some years later, hh and i began to joke anytime we were tired, fed up, ready to run away from it all: we'll just go to MOOSE!! let's just go to MOOSE! that'll fix everything!!!!!! lo and behold, one day he decided to check the map or was googling or some such thing and found out there is actually a MOOSE, WYOMING!!!!!

so combine the fantasies of retirement, a retreat for others using our skills and gifts God's given us (thank You, Lord), getting away from it all and you have - voila! - MOOSE.

i have a stuffed animal now that hh gave me on one occasion who lives in the guest bedroom on a shelf to remind us of MOOSE. and a plastic rendition of a MOOSE on my makeup tray where i get ready in the mornings. hh has a plastic MOOSE his friends purchased for him in seattle (see, we can't keep anything to ourselves) at his office to keep our hopes in mind. we're ready for MOOSE when and if it ever becomes reality.....until then it's our fantasy and it was our inside joke! now you can enjoy it, too!

we've even had friends say they want to go to MOOSE with us NOW!! when they're exhausted, fed up and just plumb tuckered out with this life here on earth - and we certainly can't beam our way up to heaven, scottie - surely we can get out to MOOSE, surely we can pull that off, can't we??

sexual assault awareness month

2009-04-09T07:02:00.008-05:00

april is sexual assault awareness month. this morning i googled it and thought i would share some of what i found out with you here today. it is so commonplace - you would not believe it! - unless maybe you also are a survivor yourself and know this to be true.

first, let me share with you that i am a survivor of sexual abuse and know so many people near and dear to me (friends, family, clients) who have also been victims. as recently as two weeks ago, the daughter of a friend of mine in another state was assaulted by a co-worker in an elevator. she took the proper steps to report him to her boss and it turns out that he had done this before to others and has now lost his job. also, since starting my new position 8 weeks ago, i've already heard countless stories of assault and abuse - in just 8 weeks.

dan allender, phd has written an excellent book on recovery from the effects of abuse called "the wounded heart," written from a christian perspective. he has a graph detailing types of abuse and they are all - i repeat ALL - considered severe. some are just more or less severe than others. what i went through is considered to be less severe, that is no one touched me, but there were three times between grade school through college that men exposed themselves to me, all very traumatic events. i was exposed to a lot of pornography growing up which counts as abuse and an employer sexually harassed me in the 70's though i didn't even know what that was at the time or i would've taken action.

when counseling others over the years, clients will often say "he tried to abuse me" and what i end up saying is he didn't try, if he did anything, then he DID abuse you. yes, it could have been worse but the trying is abusing. a lot of the below statistics are on rape but abuse comes in many forms so keep that in mind as you read the stats. there were many other things i could've mentioned here but since this is only one post, i've just listed a few for you to consider.

the website i perused listed multiple publication topics which i found to be quite telling:

anti-sexual violence movement

child sexual assault

intimate partner sexual assault

rape/sexual assault

sexual harassment

sexual violence and substance abuse

sexual violence by professionals

sexual violence in the workplace

sexual violence in the military

here are some statistics i've taken from one of the webpages this morning FYI:

**17.6% women in the US have survived a completed or attempted rape. of these 21.6% were younger than 12 when first raped and 32.4% between 12 and 17 y/o

** 64% women over 18 who survived a completed or attempted rape were raped by their husband, partner, boyfriend or date

** only between 26 and 37% of rapes are reported to the police

** 25% women and 8% men will be raped or physically assaulted by their current, former spouse, co-habitating partner or date in their lifetime

** 300,000 intimate partner rapes occur each year in women 18 and older

** between one in four and one in five college women will be raped each year

** every two minutes somewhere in American someone is sexually assaulted

** one out of 6 women in their lifetime have been victims of attempted or completed rape

** 5% (1 out of 20) of rapists will ever spend a day in jail or 19 out of 20 walk free

** sexual violence is associated with a host of short and long term problems including physical injury and illness, psychological symptoms, economic costs and death

** in 2000, nearly 88,000 children in the US experienced sexual abuse

PS: it was many years ago during the middle of a counseling session with an abuse victim as she recounted in detail her story that it hit me how my own traumatic events had prepared me to hear her story and bear her burdens. that God had been true to His Word once again - romans 8:28 and 2 corinthians 1 - for my good, others' good (somehow by His grace) and somehow for His glory we'll only understand in Heaven.

salvation birthday

2009-04-08T07:00:00.003-05:00

when we moved to little rock from charlotte in march of 1991 i decided to call markham street baptist church where i was baptized as a little girl and see if they had some kind of antiquated records to find out when i was baptized. that way i could find out how old i was when i became a believer. i was never quite sure of the age of my conversion, i always thought i was around 12 or so.

sure enough they had kept records that far back on paper and got back to me that i was baptized in april of 1967 when i was ten years old!!! i remember that i'd walked the aisle in that baptist church the week before it must've been and then baptised a week or so later. therefore, i've marked the sunday before my baptism april 12, 1967 as my salvation / born-again-in-Christ day and have it on my mary engelbreit birthday flip calendar.

it's very hard to believe that i've been a christian now for a whopping 42 - forty-two - years. some people can't point to a specific time in their lives when they were converted to Christ, became a christian, were born again - whatever lingo-lango you'd like to use. there was a wave in christian circles back in the 1970's - it still may exist today - where it was VERY important to know exactly when you became a christian. i don't believe that to be necessary. GOD knows the exact point of your conversion, your being changed from unbeliever to believer so it's not as important, to my way of thinking, as some doctrines might lead you to think. as long as you know that you know that you are His, that's what's important (some people struggle with that, but that's a different subject for a different blog!). in our church, when babies are baptized (not for their salvation but as a sign of the covenant God makes with His people), we pray that the child may never know a day he doesn't believe in the Lord Jesus as His personal Savior. there are some people who have that testimony, being unclear as to when their changeover actually took place.

a bit of background: i wasn't raised in a christian home. i've talked about this on my blog before so plzzzzzz excuse the repetition if you know this already. my mother was raised pentecostal and left those roots behind in her adult years. my father was raised jewish and did the same in his adulthood. raising us they said "you can do anything you want to do, believe what you want to believe" (sounds like a song?).

i have a distinct memory of the sunday nite that i became a christian. mrs. gibbons (bless her even now, Lord!) (the mama of the neighbor family i went to church with) came inside our home with me, we went upstairs to my mama's bedroom (for some reason she was already in bed) to tell mama what happened the nite i was saved. i don't remember mama's response that much, maybe just an "oh, good honey, that's good" or something along those lines.

and then the next week i was baptized in the baptismal font with my white gown floating up in the water (wearing shorts and a t-shirt underneath) by brother branscum. i don't remember mama or anyone else in the family coming to church that nite.....that's hazy so it may mean they didn't come. again, we were on our own in that department.

i'm so grateful to know the Lord. even after 42 years i still have moments when i wonder: is all this christianity stuff real? is God real? but deep down in the depths of my being i do know it is real, He is real, He is the creator God, He is the Savior of my soul and He is the One, the One and only true God. i can see His Hand providentially in my life time and time again throughout my 52 years - even before april 1967 - and all i can say is: thank You God the Father. thank You God the Son and thank you God the Holy Spirit, the three in One. amen.

NPR, again

2009-04-07T08:00:00.002-05:00

i heard another interview on npr recently about an upcoming book that sounds interesting. this time it's written by a comedian dani klein and was a show that's being made into a book to be released april 28th (who can read all these books anyway? just a side note of frustration! i could be a reader fulltime or double time or triple time!!! but who would pay me to do that?)

the name: "afterbirth: stories you won't read in a parenting magazine." the interview was only 7 minutes long but i was hooked. the author said she's not interested in talking to people who have success in their parenting but those who struggle with what she calls flawed parenting and the cycle of blame, guilt and self loathing. or another way she put it, beginning with self loathing and then layering in the others. not wanting to make the same mistakes as our parents made, wanting to set boundaries with our children, how much to do or not do for our children, etc.

boy, can i relate to this. even though my favorite son and daughter are 24 and 21, i struggled so much with blame, guilt and self loathing when i was raising them and admit to confusion even now at times in how to relate to them as young adults!

i'm so glad there is forgiveness for the times i was truly guilty of hurting my children with my parenting flaws. i'm thankful that He knew exactly how short i would fall before i even conceived these children who are a gift from Him and that He will use these flaws (and sometimes flat out sin) in their lives as he has used my parents' flaws in mine for their good and His glory.

ps: happy birthday dear friend ellen!

the glorious covering of Christ upon us

2009-04-06T07:15:00.002-05:00

do you believe we are born basically good people? scripture teaches that we are born with a sin nature and yes, even babies are born that way. it's a doctrine called total depravity, that no aspect of our being is not touched by sin and given a choice, we'd do what we want to do, not what God wants us to do. this has been on my mind because of the excellent sermon my pastor preached weeks back as he takes us through the book of zephaniah. (my husband just fills in when needed but this sermon was from pastor tim who is the pastor of our church at cov pres little rock.)

tim said this: "by nature we are wart ridden people." we are "born shameless covenant breakers." "we hide via facade" from God and others. we can't fake out God. He knows all. others we can to a point except those closest to us, for example, my husband and children know most all my warts. how true it is that we try to hide ourselves from one another, especially those warts. i know i do!

the hope of the Gospel, tim shared, is that we stand before the mirror of truth, we see who we really are - covenant breakers - we experience the shame of who we really are - covenant breakers - in need of the animal sacrifice of the old testament where our sin was atoned for and in the new testament when the last and final blood sacrifice was made - Christ's death. there on the cross His sacrificial death covered our shame completely, once and for all. he called it "the glorious covering of Christ upon us."

i was so inspired after that sunday's message. this may sounds miniscule to you but it was a big deal to me at the moment. i'd signed up to keep the kids that sunday nite at church but because of what i thot was the wart of my fatigue i thot i'd better *hide* that and fulfill what i'd signed up to do. after the sermon i was **FREE** to admit my warts 'n all (not that fatigue is a wart but sometimes we think our frailties, our limitations are warts too and feel ashamed of them) so i admitted to the coordinator i wasn't up to helping and i was very relieved to take care of myself, rest that afternoon and evening, and trust that the childcare would be taken care of somehow - and it was!

just last nite before small group my husband and i were trying to decide about how much to share in the way of prayer requests. because of this **FREEDOM** to share our wart ridden lives and it not being necessary to hide any longer since we're covered by His blood once and for all, we chose to be transparent, share from our hearts, and received not only a lack judgement in return but kind and gentle prayers along with confidence that there'll be continued prayers for us in the future.

i'm sure you're quite familiar with the old hymn that comes to mind (sorry i couldn't get it to print out better than the below).

"nothing but the blood of Jesus"

robert lowry, 1876

1.      What can wash away my sin?   Nothing but the blood of Jesus.   What can make me whole again?   Nothing but the blood of Jesus.  Refrain:  O precious is the flow   that makes me white as snow;   no other fount I know;   nothing but the blood of Jesus.   2. For my pardon this I see:   nothing but the blood of Jesus.   For my cleansing this my plea:   nothing but the blood of Jesus.   (Refrain)   3. Nothing can for sin atone:   nothing but the blood of Jesus.   Naught of good that I have done:   nothing but the blood of Jesus.   (Refrain)   4. This is all my hope and peace:   nothing but the blood of Jesus.   This is all my righteousness:   nothing but the blood of Jesus.   (Refrain)

TGIF!!!

2009-04-03T06:11:00.004-05:00

from good old wikipedia....

TGIF is an acronym for the phrase Thank (God/Goodness/Gosh) It’s Friday.

[edit]History

Starting in the United States, it has become a common expression of relief at the end of the work week and anticipation of relaxing or partying over the weekend. The term was originated by the Akron, Ohio disk jockey Jerry Healy on radio station WAKR in the early 1970s. The phrase was further popularised by the 1978 movie starring Donna Summer, Thank God It’s Friday. The phrase has also become common for advertising and promotional materials. On college campuses beginning in the 1970s, the phrase (sometimes shortened to "TG") became associated with Friday afternoon beer parties, usually held outdoors.

we won't be having a beer bash 'round here this weekend but we will be enjoying a wedding shower in our home of one of handsome husband's favorite friend's daughters! congratulations allison and michael! we can't believe it's time for weddings and grandchildren, surely we're not old enough for these happenings. maybe our children have aged but we haven't, have we? don't answer that! anyway, TGIF whatever you do this beautiful spring weekend, wherever you live.

for the end of our work week:

colossians 3:23

whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord, rather than for men.

for the weekend:

1 corinithians 10:31

whether then you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

no, worry, i'm not listening anymore

2009-04-02T07:39:00.008-05:00

i was getting ready for work yesterday and was worrying about some things going on in my new job. the thoughts were just a swirling 'round my head like the smoke 'round santa claus' head from smokin' his pipe. but this wasn't a pleasant site like at christmas time, no! i recognized this once again as the old familiar destructive pattern of WORRY!

i've been a really good worrier from little girl forward, yes all my life i'm quite sure. my mother taught me inadvertently that it was related to my horoscope sign and for christmas one year in junior high (speaking of christmas a second time now) i received a beautiful green felt banner i hung in my room that said i'm capricorn: i worry. i don't believe in horoscopes but this time it was right on. i didn't become my horoscope i promise but it has always been true of me - i do worry.

so yesterday, once again, i determined to say no to worry and on the spot when i recognized the sin of worry, the angst of it, i took a lip pencil out of my of makeup stash and wrote on the mirror "no, worry, i'm not listening anymore." (if you plan ahead, you can use a dry erase marker to write reinforcing truth messages like this. washes off better than makeup!) i wish it was that easy - tell myself to stop and it's done - and maybe it is for some folks. maybe applying God's Word which tells me a gazillion times DO NOT WORRY is easier than i make it. but then i think: well, if it was that easy, would He need to tell me that many times?

i do believe it's a besetting sin for me, one that trips me up on a regular basis, worry flowing through me as if having it's own personal bloodstream. it's so automatic that there i was doing it again getting ready for work, putting on my makeup and had i not been listening and paying any attention to my inner world, that inner voice, my thought life (which God instructs us to pay attention to) i might not have recognized it's sneaky self.

the worry is revealing my idolatry of man: what do the people at work think of me, what do the doctors think, do they think i know enuf for this job? how long will they give me a learning curve before they fire me? in my private practice it was just me, myself and i plus my clients. this is me plus a huge clinic of doctors, therapists and admin staff so i'm feeling quite exposed, thus the "will they like me and find me competent enuf" questions. it's also revealing the idolatry of self instead of trust in the Lord. here are some verses that are meant to help me with all of this since worry is a mix of anxiety and trust issues. maybe they'll be of encouragement to you if you can relate to what i'm going through where you are.

psalm 118:6-9

the LORD is for me; i will not fear; what can man do to me? it is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man. it is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in princes.

2 corinthians 1:9b

we should not put our trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead!

luke 12:22-25

do not be anxious (worry) for your life as to what you shall eat, nor for your body, as what you shall put on....which of you by being anxious (worrying) can add a single cubit to his life's span?

matthew 6:34

therefore do not be anxious (worry) for tomorrow, for tomorrow will care for itself. each day has enuf trouble of its own.

rejoice in the Lord always!

2009-04-01T07:00:00.004-05:00

i've decided that this will be my last post on catching some z's. since i've started my job i just don't have time any more to keep it up......april fools!!! JK!! did i get ya???

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

handsome husband preached a richly blessed and inspired sermon on sunday about glorifying God and enjoying Him forever, the answer to the first catechism question "what is the chief end of man?" from the westminster confession of faith (1647). the scripture he used was from philippians 4:4 - rejoice in the Lord always, again i say rejoice!

now there's no way i could pretend to even come close to summarizing what he said in such an excellent brought-me-to-weeping-and-awe sermon here in just a few words. yet i know there is a principle of learning that goes something like this: learning is increased when heard, written down and then taught to others, so i'm going to try!!!

the bottom line is that of all the ways we relate to Him, enjoying God glorifies Him the most. although He wants us to enjoy His many benefits to us, the relationships He's given us, His magnificent creation, His provision for us from His salvation to many other spiritual blessings and gifts, the preacher was encouraging us to rejoice in and enjoy HIM. His Presence. Him alone. that Almighty God is with us wherever we go, there's no where we can flee from His Presence. the preacher admitted he doesn't know or understand what this means exactly and that it's easier to focus on enjoying the things He provides for us but He was challenging us to consider enjoying Him for who He is. period. Him in us and us in Him.

if we're only enjoying God for the things He gives us, then what happens to our enjoyment of Him when we suffer, when we go through the loss of those things? do we still love Him and enjoy Him? the preacher asked: don't we get angry and disillusioned? he wasn't blaming or shaming us for these things. he said sorrow and suffering are part and parcel of this life and God understands and makes provision for these times. but he was just trying to point us toward a deeper joy in HIM ALONE apart from the blessings and losses of this life.

that's about as nut-shelled as i can get it. he referenced but didn't give the title of a small pocketbook (89 pgs) by john piper who calls us to what he terms christian hedonism. i'll give it here: "the dangerous duty of delight" (2001). the longer version of this book was written 15 years earlier and is entitled "desiring God."

i'll close with one of many quotes shared in the sermon: c.s. lewis said God cannot give us happiness and peace apart from Himself because it is not there. there is no such thing.

yet

2009-03-31T06:30:00.000-05:00

it's a very small word in our english language but oh such an important three letter word!!!

miss maryann whom i mentioned to you just last week uses yet a lot when encouraging others who are upset about this or that not having happened. two examples might be a loved one hasn't come to Christ or there hasn't been justice in a situation. she says sweetly and cheerfully something like: honey, it's just that it hasn't happened YET. not yet doesn't mean not ever and when we thank Him in advance of what we want to happen, we prove or demonstrate our love and trust in Him.

she has many stories of how she prayed for years for the "not yet" and then the "yet" took place and her prayers were finally answered, if you follow me with that verbiage.

what are you waiting for that is in the not yet category? add yet to what worries, concerns or discourages you and it makes a huge difference in your thinking. in fact your thinking becomes more biblical, more hopeful and demonstrates that trust and love for the Lord maryann talks about. we are to live by faith and the verse below about noah where he acted on faith in things not yet seen points out the faith focus of the yets.

my son isn't walking with the Lord (yet).

my mother doesn't know the Lord (yet).

there's been no justice with that enemy (yet).

i still have no answers to my illness (yet).

i don't know what to do about continuing conflict with a co-worker (yet).

i can't love the person - no i can't (yet).

i know God has forgiven me but i can't/won't accept His forgiveness (yet).

i want to get back into church but it just seems like i never will (yet).

i'm still unemployed and struggling financially, there's no job around the corner (yet).

God is the God who turns our not yets into yets for us when He wills of course, the timing being for our good and His glory.

taking a bit of a rabbit trail, it reminds me of a theological principle of the "already and not yet." for example, as believers in Christ, we are already spiritually seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty (ephesians 2:6) but not yet there bodily. one day He will turn this longing to be fully present with him in heaven from the not yet into the yet! a second example taken from the verse in 1 john below is that we know we are children of God but we don't know what that looks like yet until he appears in the future when we shall be like him - when we see him just as He is!

hebrews 11:7

by faith noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark.

1 john 3:2

beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. we know that, when he appears, we shall be like him, because we shall see him just as He is.

z's snoozing

2009-03-30T08:00:00.001-05:00

it's a monday, so i thought i'd keep it light today and tell you about the name catching some z's......i think i said way back in october '08 when i started my blog that i'd say more about the blog's name. it's pretty obvious by the title that i like to take naps. and z is an initial in my first name so i've used it to sign emails for years. what more can i say really? okay, the truth is: i can always say more!

as far back as i can remember, i've been a napper. it's a true gift from the Lord. it's sometimes been an escape and i have to be aware of this since with depression, escaping thru naps can actually make the depression worse. but the restorative nap is da bomb!!!

years back someone gave me a daily mary engelbreit calendar and i've saved this one page that sayz

O BED, O BED! DELICIOUS BED, THAT HEAVEN UPON EARTH TO THE WEARY HEAD.

thomas hood

if you know mary engelbreit's artwork, the illustration is the cutest and it has a little boy waking up in the am with the rooster crowing and the boy's just a stretchin'. a good nite's sleep is o so good and vital to our mental and physical health. but we're talking here about a nap. sometimes even lying down for a few minutes and taking a (viva) cat nap can be just what the doctor ordered but then on sundays i love, truly love, a two to three hour nap if i can get one!

God believes in REST too so i'm pretty sure if He endorses the sabbath rest and the eternal rest and resting in Him, then He's all for resting too while catching some z's.

catching some zzzzzzz's is a wonderful pursuit. enough said!

today is his birthday!!

2009-03-27T07:13:00.009-05:00

he's the most godly person i know. he's the most gentle and patient person i've ever known. he's my resident theologian to whom i turn with all my God questions. he is a temperate man and i can count on one hand the times he's lost his temper since i've known him and all with good reason. he hasn't cussed since the 2nd grade when he lived in a housing project and ran with some kids who were rougher than he was used to and he got caught up in their lifestyle for a brief moment.

he loves to preach as often as he can get in the pulpit and teaches the Word too in a sunday school setting whenever it's his turn in the rotation at our church. he was visiting some friends of ours whose daughter was sick and at children's hospital many years ago before we even lived in little rock. they'd had a chaplain come visit them and the friends remarked "you know, you'd be really good at that. you're so calm and comforting."

after leaving a pastorate and moving to little rock, he began working in hospice settings as a chaplain and soon ended up working as a chaplain at that same children's hospital where his friends' daughter had been a patient. now he runs the department and has for 14 years.

he was one of three boys raised by a single, sometimes-married mama (bless her and may she rest in peace), each of the boys with different fathers. one of his brothers was tragically killed in his twenties in a single car wreck with their first cousin, both killed immediately. drugs and alcohol were both culprits in their deaths. there was lots of alcohol in his home growing up and he knows the ravages alcoholism can bring into people's lives.

he wasn't raised in a christian home. one day when he was in elementary school, not wanting anyone to know what he was doing, he snuck outside to the storage shed to read the king james bible he'd received at school just to see what that was all about. later in high school, he prayed to receive Christ as His Savior at a young life camp in colorado on a cold, winter's nite in a conversation between him and God with a spectacular, clear sky full of stars too many to count.

he's been a wonderful (too inadequate a word) husband for 26 years, the excellent father of two: a favorite handsome son who's 24, a favorite beautiful daughter who's 21.

he is and will be (God-willing for 80+ years) my handsome husband and today is his 55th birthday.

happy birthday sunshine!!!!!!

who am i?

2009-03-26T06:30:00.000-05:00

the following is a reading from ravi zacharis' ministry i get via email. on a recent sunday i pulled up to church really late and parked right in front. i felt very arrogant parking in that prime spot! i wondered about all the many things about myself. am i arrogant? was that the enemy's voice or can't i be arrogant for sure at times? but am i not positionally holy in Him, thanks be to God? who am i really? only the Lord knows. this reading reminds me of the oftentimes weary struggle within to figure all of this out while i'm on earth. i look forward to heaven where the angst will end.

While in prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer struggled with the many reflections
of his life. As a seminary instructor he was considered a saint and a
giant. In America they made him feel like an escapist. In prison they
made him feel like a criminal. There were days when he saw himself as all
three and all the stages in between. It was in such a convolution of
images that he asked:

"Who am I?
This or the other?
Am I one person today, and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
And before myself a contemptible woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army,
Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?
Who am I? They mock me,
these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am Thine."(2)

Our adoption by God is our identity, the picture we hold as children until
the day when there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, and
God will wipe every tear from our eyes. Neither death nor life, nor
anything else in all creation, can separate us from this love of God that
is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi
Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

http://www.rzim.org/slice/slice.php

more singing and praising

2009-03-25T07:00:00.001-05:00

miss maryann at my church is filled with the gift of encouragement and she also knows the Word thru and thru. one day i was pouring my heart out to her about an enemy i was dealing with and she began telling me that i couldn't think of my troubles and sing and praise the Lord at the same time so just stop that stewing and start singing and praising!

she began telling me of an account in 2 chronicles 20 about yet another fix the israelites were in, fighting yet another enemy. the Lord tells them in verse 15: do not fear or be dismayed because of this great multitude for the battle is not yours but God's. (you may be familiar with this verse.) but later in verse 21: and when he (king jehoshaphat) had consulted with the people, he appointed those who sang to the LORD and those who praised Him in holy attire, as they went out before the army and said "give thanks to the LORD, for His lovingkindess is everlasting." verse 22: and when they began singing and praising, the LORD set ambushes against the sons of ammon, moab and mount seir, who had come against judah; so they were routed!!!!! verse 24: when judah came to the lookout of the wilderness, they looked toward the multitude; and behold, they were corpses lying on the ground, and no one had escaped.

when miss maryann gives counsel she backs it up with the Word of God. (i aspire to such!)

hip hip hooray for more singing and praising in our lives! it does battle for us with our enemies. imagine that! praise Him for His Word. it is truly profitable for us when we turn to it.

we can sing praises right back at'Him

2009-03-24T09:30:00.001-05:00

psalm 30: 4

sing praise to the LORD, you His godly ones, and give thanks to His holy name.

psalm 30:12

that my soul may sing praise to Thee, and not be silent. o LORD my God, i will give thanks to Thee forever.

pslam 63:7b

i sing in the shadow of your wings!

psalm 89:1

i will sing of the lovingkindness of the LORD forever; to all generations i will make known Thy faithfulness with my mouth.

{{{what intimacy we have with our God and King!!}}}

He rejoices over us with singing

2009-03-24T09:30:00.000-05:00

zephaniah 3:17

NKJV

the Lord your God in your midst, the Mighty One, will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet (you) with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.

NASB

the Lord your God is in your midst, a victorious warrior. He will exult over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.

{{{amazing love, how can it be?}}}

cs lewis: joy is going to be the serious business of Heaven!

praises to our God

2009-03-23T08:00:00.002-05:00

praise you Father! i love You God! My Shepherd! My Fortress. My Deliverer. My Salvation. My King. My Rock! My Friend. My Jesus. My Holy Spirit. My Comforter. My Alpha and Omega. My Presence with me. My Strong Right Hand. My Shelter beneath Your wings. You who rejoice over me with singing! My Confessor. My Forgiver. The One who washes my feet. The One who meets me at the well. The King and Judge who answers me, the persistent widow. The One who invites me to dine with You when I am up a tree! The One who knows when I've touched the hem of Your garment. The One who would raise me or my family from the dead. The One would would deliver me out of bondage from mighty Pharoahs, whoever they are in my life today, into a land of milk and honey. The One who forgives me over and over for complaining when I want to turn back and go back into slavery, into bondage. The One who is with me in the storms - yea calms them - tells them peace, be still. The One who is with me in the fiery furnace, who is with me when the waters come aflood but keeps them from overflowing. The One who suffered to the point of death on a cross undeservedly so i who am so deserving wouldn't have to. The One who shuts the mouths of lions to protect me. The One who keeps me from the evil one and arms me with the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the sword of the Spirit (the Word of God), the helmet of salvation, who shods my feet with the Gospel of peace so that i might extinquish all the flaming darts of the enemy just like that. The One who comforts me in my affliction and is with me on my sickbed. The One who promises to never leave me, nor forsake me. You are the One from whose Presence I can never flee- even if I make my bed in sheol - You are with me there. You are the One who is so acquainted with all my ways that Your thoughts towards me are too numerous to count! You are the One who says: come to me and buy without money!! You are the One who gives wisdom liberally without saying I told you so and You are the One with whom I can build my house and when the floods come and the rains and storms of life come (and they will and they have) You will make my house stand still.

You God are this One. You God are my One. I love you. You are mine. All mine. Praise You. All worship and honor and glory be Yours forever and ever and ever be Yours. Amen. Amen. Amen.

ps: whom have I in Heaven but Thee?

the story of rose

2009-03-23T07:30:00.000-05:00

when i was a little girl of 6 my sister was born and my mama named her heidi with the middle name of rose. she was named after my granny, mable rose, my mother's mother. i said mama, why don't i have a middle name, huh? why don't i? so mama said, you can have the middle name rose, too. all growing up i used rose as my middle name. mrs. gibbons, my neighbor who - God bless her - took me to church as a little girl, still to this day calls me petunia rose!! even though i was already six when mama gave me the middle name, i didn't remember this story so until i got married and moved to mississippi i never knew rose wasn't my real name. never.......until......

at some point i had to get my birth certificate for something and for the first time i realized that my name isn't really ROSE. all i had was just a plain old first name. i was quite shocked, asked my mother about it and she told me the story above of how i came to be called with a first and middle name. all my other siblings had first and middle names so the mystery just continued and my mama had no real satisfactory explanation for it!

several years ago my sister went to mexico with her family on vacation and needed her birth certificate for that trip and lo and behold! her name isn't really ROSE either! she only had one name as well! what?? my mother's explanation: she took baby sis to meet granny and said something like: this is heidi rose named after you, not realizing it would stick?

before heidi realized she wasn't a true rose, i had a daughter. i wanted so badly to name her hannah rose but.....for some odd reason (i know, i'm without excuse) it just didn't sound right and so i gave her a different middle name. (((at least i gave her a middle name, do i get any credit for that?))). and so i continued the middle name drama since it wasn't rose. but as she grew up, she knew her name was supposed to be rose, it just was. for graduation from high school, to surprise me, she had her name printed in the bulletin and her name was read as she received her diploma: hannah christine rose!! now that was creative and fun....and as it should have been!

finally, when my sis had her daughter, she named her victoria rose - AHHHH - and we got our first and only real official on-the-birth-certificate rose in the family, the first since our granny, mable rose.....until.....last but not least......

my brother married a beautiful girl from israel. all the way from israel, this is no lie. he met her in taiwan (this is no lie either) where he was there making money translating books from chinese into english and she was working on her master's thesis. her name is vered and the translation of her name???????????? ROSE. she is a twin and her twin's name? iris.

aren't some things just meant to be? 'course i don't know what that says about all of us who weren't named rose officially. but truly, no matter what's on our birth certificates we're all roses. because

what's in a name?

that which we call a rose

by any other name would smell as sweet!

shakespeare's "romeo and juliet" 1594

weren't you waiting for that?

biggest regret

2009-03-20T07:30:00.002-05:00

i just read in "hillcrest cottage life" that her biggest regret was not being able to meet her grandfather. i never thot of that but i'd like to echo her sentiments for different reasons. i do regret not being able to meet my jewish grandmother for whom i was named - i've mentioned her here before. she died when my dad was in his late 20's of heart disease. she was only in her 50's which seems younger and younger now that i'm in my 50's. "cottage life" talked a lot about how she almost feels like she knows her grandfather because family kept his memory alive by frequently talking about him. in stark contrast to that, no one ever talked about my grandmother. i'm not sure why that is. (i never missed her growing up because i had my wonderful grandma lil whom my grandpa married after grandmother's death.)

guesses: grandmother died too young. to make matters worse, my father's sister carol died tragically young (also of heart attack) when she was only 30. two deaths in one family clams people up? just too hard to talk about? no one ever got over either of their deaths? my dad never got over their deaths? (i almost know this to be true.) my grandpa remarried and it would have been unkind to his second wife for some reason to talk about the previous wife? i can only imagine because she just wasn't talked about. it was taboo to ask too many questions.

another mystery. there are very few pictures of my grandmother. gratefully, i have my grandparents' beautiful wedding photo. (my mother and aunt patterned my wedding veil after grandmother's.) i have another snapshot of her in a group photo at my uncle's graduation from college. and a few other pics i'd never seen until my father died and i was given an old sort of scrap book album by my dad's wife (he'd remarried after my parents' divorce). that's it. period. end of story. where is she? who was she? am i like her? do i look like her? do i act like her? do i share more with her than my name and my genes?

there's only one person left in the family that's living who might be able to tell me more (but she'll have to be willing). that's my aunt joan. she's my father's brother's wife. she's in her early 80's, lives in chicago and i'm planning a trip to see her in june, God-willing, either with or without my siblings. i've already been talking it up via email so we'll see what happens. that's not the only reason i want to go visit my aunt and my two cousins up in the windy city but it's certainly one of them.

thanks for your blog post "cottage life," for making me think more about my grandmother because of your thots of your grandfather and your regrets in not knowing him. one of the beautiful benefits of reading is the way it sometimes brings up to the surface what's hidden inside of me so it can be dealt with.

walk to work

2009-03-19T06:34:00.008-05:00

i work in a building that is connected to a baptist hospital in the city where i live. my office rents space within this building but is not connected with the hospital system. however, we have the benefit of the beautiful grounds.

i park out in the hinterland and walk into the building tuesday thru friday (it's okay, it's the only exercise i'm getting these days, being too undisciplined to get back in the habit of my stationary bike or walking my neighborhood streets). but on the way in just before the buildings rise from the pavement is a beautiful park like setting for the patients and families of the hospital to rest with amazing landscape work. right now there are tulips, forsythia and other blooming flowers galore. there is a large cross at the center of one sitting area. but the greatest thing? the Word of God is printed in the concrete in large rectangles strategically placed around the front of the hospital. so everyday when i walk into work i'm reminded of His Truth. that He is my Shepherd. that all i have to do is call upon Him and He will listen and rescue me and many other scriptures like these.

what a beautiful bonus the Lord has provided for me as i go to work in a secular setting that rents space on the 10th floor of a building connected to a baptist hospital that has definitely included the Lord God in their mission statement. and what an encouragement to believers, this one included, who tarry there (or rush in late to work) or a witness to unbelievers who pass by!

children: a blessing from the LORD

2009-03-18T08:43:00.008-05:00

i woke up with favorite son (only son) in his bed! he is home for three nites from where he lives three hours away. that's a nice change of pace from the day-in, day-out and causes me to reflect this morning on psalm 127:3-5:

behold, children are a gift from the LORD, the fruit of the womb is a reward. like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth. how blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them; they will not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies in the gate.

i've been given a gift! i've been given a reward! i have arrows in my hand as if i was a warrior. i am blessed and my quiver is full, according to the Word. even tho i only have two children this must be my "fullness." (we prayed and prayed for a third child, the answer remained a firm "no" from the Lord.") i am not to be ashamed when i speak to my enemies at the gate.

which leads me to another train of thought. instead of children being thought of as gifts and rewards, they are being aborted as burdens every day in our country and around the world when women and girls find themselves in crisis pregnancies.

our church is participating in 40 days for life, from february 25 thru april 5, a nationwide prayer campaign in over 200 cities.

i used to volunteer at crisis pregnancy centers in the states where we lived when i was a stay-at-home mom years ago. i'm thankful for this opportunity that our church has given me to join this particular campaign to do something in this fight for life. i confess that my zeal has definitely lagged far behind as year after year the abortions continue and the laws stay in tact against life. it's so easy to become enured to the problem. BUT i am very thankful for those who still feel strongly called to lead the fight for life and continue to organize prayer vigils like this, walks for life annually, legislate in congress, volunteer at crisis pregnancy centers and the like.

oh Lord thank you for our children and be merciful to us as a nation for our sin of abortion. be with the women and girls who have abortions and heal them from post abortion syndrome that oftentimes accompanies the abortions, sometimes showing up in their lives years later. help the boyfriends and fathers of these aborted babies to heal as well. forgive them for they know not what they do! save us from ourselves as a nation. we need your merciful help! amen.

synergistic

2009-03-17T06:15:00.002-05:00

dictionary.com is such a great place to go to for definitions and spellings!

word for the day - synergistic:

adjective

1. used especially of drugs or muscles that work together so the total effect is greater than the sum of the two (or more)

2. of or relating to the theological doctrine of synergism

3. working together; used especially of groups, as subsidiaries of a corporation, cooperating for an enhanced effect; "a synergistic effect"

i shared quite a bit in previous posts (november '08) that i struggle with depression. depression is not a spiritual or moral problem though there are things that one can do to contribute to its symptoms as with any illness. (it is possible in some cases that depression is a direct consequence of blatant sin but it would be difficult to prove the connection.) research has clearly shown it to be an illness or disease that runs in families like diabetes, high blood pressure and the like. i still struggle at times with the definition and causes of it because when i am depressed, my mind plays tricks on me (and i'm certain satan chimes in) and it feels like it's my fault, i'm causing it, i'm spiritually bankrupt or i wouldn't be depressed.

but right now i'd like to to share my depression is better! (not symptom free but so much better!) i've been going through a very serious bout with it for some time now, for at least 18 months. i started today's blog with the word synergistic because that seems to be what - though foremost it is GOD'S GRACE AND MERCY ABOUNDING IN MY LIFE - is the cause of this improved state of health. a synergistic effect of a combination of things. {and the reverse seems to be true - that there was a combination of reasons that my depression worsened when it did.} all i know is that it's better and the individual parts made up the sum of the whole that cooperated for an enhancing effect, a synergistic effect if you will.

i've been treated for this illness for 21+ years and there've been three very distinct periods worse than the others. this recent past was one of the very darkest of times. i am forever thankful that the Word says in psalm 139:12 even the darkness is not dark to You and the night is as bright as the day. darkness and light are alike to You. and psalm 41:3 the Lord will sustain him upon his sickbed, in his illness You restore him to health.

aren't those beautiful passages? i was in the darkness for so long but i knew that it was not dark to Him and He did sustain me on my sickbed! praise Him for bringing me into the light once again for my good and His glory for however long He wills.

i do know that He works all things together for good (synergy?) and so i know that He will use this past bout of darkness for good, in my life or others' (romans 8:28). i also know - because the bible tells me so - that He will some how use my suffering as a means to comfort others (synergy?) according to 2 corinthians chapter 1:3-5 and i can always count on His Word to be true and profitable.

blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort; who comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort by which we ourselves are comforted by God. for just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ.

yes, bless Him, today and always.

writer's block

2009-03-09T07:43:00.005-05:00

we just had another wonderful missions conference at our church, the 31st annual. the theme was the generosity of God. our main speaker was from arizona with food for the hungry and then as is typical with our format we heard several other missionaries speak throughout the conference. on saturday morning there was a ladies breakfast and four missionary wives spoke, each sharing from her heart what God is doing in her life. i was overwhelmed with all they shared and wouldn't know where to begin to encapsulate the beautiful love of God that came through.

maybe this is what writer's block is. tho it truly started at the end of last week. usually i have lots to say and have several blogs written waiting in the queue to be posted. right now, nothing. a few ideas but generally stalled.

humm.....i interrupt "catching some z's" to bring you writer's block.

flash of genius

2009-03-06T07:12:00.001-06:00

since i'm such a spoiled daughter of the King, when i had some time off i rented a pay-per-view (during the day no less!), indulged myself, and watched "flash of genius" (2008; pg13 for language). i'd wanted to see it in theaters and never got to. greg kinnear did a great job. halfway thru alan alda surprised me by showing up in a "bit part" - he's a real fav.

i love movies "based on a true story." it was also a david versus goliath. the previews revealed as much so i'm not giving anything away by telling you it's about the man who invented intermittent windshield wipers and presented his invention to the big ford company who then stole his idea and put the wipers into their cars. the movie is about how he attempts to seek justice for this injustice. there's a bit of a faith theme in the movie tho not well developed. in an early scene, one of the young daughters of the main character (out of the mouth of babes) suggests they pray for rain to try out the invention so everyone at the dinner tables bows and the kinnear character prays. pretty soon the downpour comes! that was exciting! there's even a psychiatric twist in the movie just for moi the counselor.

i thot "flash of genius" was excellent with a mixed happy/sad ending you'll have to rent to see for yourself!

grandmother's china

2009-03-05T06:27:00.008-06:00

i was named after my jewish grandmother. in the jewish tradition (maybe an american tradition, i'm not sure this is across the board in other countries), the next child that is born is named after the last person who died and that would've been my paternal grandmother. she died before my parents married when my dad was in his late twenties.

my grandpa remarried to the only grandma i ever knew whom i loved very much. the passover dishes that my dad's parents used while he was growing up were packed up and put in the basement of the chicago apartment building and left there for years until grandpa died and grandma moved to arizona to be near her family in the mid 1990's. it was then that my chicago family recovered those dusty boxes and asked if i wanted the passover dishes since they had belonged to my namesake. did i want them?! oy vay! YES of course! i'm VERY sentimental and said, i'll be right up to get them! no, i don't remember that part, of how soon i got them back to arkansas, but i definitely wanted my grandmother's dishes.

previous to this i had inherited a beautiful mirror of my grandmother's - the only item of hers that i had. my mother had the mirror in our home while i was growing up and passed it on to me. when we moved to little rock, handsome husband accidentally hung it with door mollies instead of wall mollies and it came crashing down!! it's a good thing i'm not superstitious (some jews are very superstitious) but i was really distraught that the only thing i had of hers was now gone - until i inherited her dishes.

fast forward to a month ago when i took that trip to hot springs to purchase my first ever china cabinet. now grandmother's passover dishes are finally in their "resting place" where they can be seen and used (more frequently) for the first time since i've had them. oh, they were in my kitchen cabinet and i used them occasionally but not very accessible and certainly not in their rightful place of prominence where i can talk about them and share their history to anyone who might be interested!

something i'd like to do in the future is serve a passover meal with grandmother's dishes. i'd have to study up a lot because tho i'm half jewish i know very little about that side of my heritage and my forefathers' faith. indeed, they are my biological forefathers and my spiritual forefathers as well so it will be an exciting pursuit!

ps: happy 18th barrett!

the third chapter

2009-03-04T08:20:00.004-06:00

i love NPR. i'm not a die hard fan where i listen at home, just when i'm in my car. i guess i started listening in the carpool lines years back and have continued. those were the days when i also listened to dr. laura (i still wish she was still reachable in little rock) and local talk radio. (one of my many dreams/fantasies since i am a chatty cathy counselor is to be a christian dr. laura btw - wouldn't that be fun!)

my fav NPR show is the diane rhem show. she's GREAT! it's where i first heard an inspirational interview with the writer of the book "seabiscuit" which was made into a wonderful movie if you've never seen it. the book was a fabulous read too.

anywho, i heard an interview recently with diane that was fascinating about another writer, sarah lawrence-lightfoot, and her recently released book (jan '09) "the third chapter: passion, risk and adventure in the 25 years after 50." the writer is a 74 year old (?) sociologist and professor at harvard university who over a two year period did extensive interviews with 40 men and women and then told their stories in this book. there is discussion about our culture's messages about internal/external beauty and the messages we've got to learn to give ourselves about wrinkles, greying, aging and the positive shift she sees in our culture towards valuing growing older.

i read on-line that "the third chapter"

offers a strong counter point to the murky ambivalence that shrouds our clear view of people in their third chapters....(the) years between 50 and 75 may in fact be the most transformative and generative time in our lives.....

isn't that affirming? i want to check this book out from the library and dig in since i'm 52, an empty nester and am curious and excited about this next stage of life - my third chapter if you will.

*****

add on to this blog: the comment from hillcrest cottage made me think of the very motivating passage in hebrews 12: 1-2: therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us [in the bible, friends around us today, and maybe even in this book "the third chapter" who knows?] let us also lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us [in the next 25 years and beyond] fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God!

an alcoholic gets help!

2009-03-03T09:15:00.001-06:00

i've shared with you in my blogging somewhere along the way that i go to alanon. that means alcoholism is a disease that runs in my family, just like high blood pressure and diabetes. we have a praise this week (an horrible/good praise): on wednesday, one of my family members - my first cousin once removed - is entering treatment! you don't know him so it's all good.

if you want to know more, you could indicate this by making a comment (or sending me an email if you know that address) and i'll try to send you a brief "day in the life" testimony of how God worked this all out, written by the step-mother of my cousin. she's given permission to share it with anyone who needs encouragement along these lines. in fact, she shared this story in an email with a family member of her husband's who has a pastorate in mississippi and he said the timing was impeccable (isn't God great?) as he was just about to preach this past sunday on addictions because his congregation is full of people struggling with them. his plan was to read her "testimony" of what God had done within the context of his sermon!!

maybe you know someone who needs treatment but you don't believe they'd ever get it. my cousin is a 37 year old young man. it's possible that his ex-wife had implored him to get help for his drinking but all we know is that the very first time treatment was offered - even mentioned i might add - by his parents last week, he said yes, i think i have a problem! and yes! i'll go for an assessment! and to the counselor, yes! i'll go in for treatment! God answered many prayers and paved the way and he'll be admitted wednesday as we pray for a health and life changing experience. i'll also pray for his spiritual awakening because i believe that until he comes to know the Lord God as His "Higher Power" and the "God of his understanding," any treatment program is going to be of limited value. even AA says sobriety is not enough.

thanks for letting me share this good news with you today!

His Presence

2009-03-02T08:30:00.003-06:00

He is with us.

anytime something is repeated in the Word three times, it's very important, i thot i'd try that here! :)

the Word is very clear that we will suffer, we will go through the valley of the shadow of death (isn't that one of the first scriptures you learned, psalm 23?). we will go through the waters tho they will not overflow. we will go through the fires tho we will not be scorched. we will go through many trials and tribulations until His glorious return. didn't our Lord do the same while on earth and is He not acquainted with our suffering having suffered to the point of death on a cross after being accused and abused?

our family has been thru some intense suffering in the last coupla years so i'm not approaching this subject from an academic angle alone. and i know too many ones near and dear going through things right now. two have family members in psychiatric settings. one is about to enter a treatment facility for alcohol addiction this wednesday. a close friend has just lost a day of work, her hours cut back from 5 to 4 days per week and she can't pay her bills on that. another family is struggling to stay out of foreclosure and now know where the local food banks are. i'm sure you could tell stories like this from your own life or others'.

but the Word also says He is present with us. (psalm 23 is all about the shepherd tending to us, being present with us, His sheep.) i don't know but if i did a comparison of how many times in the bible's 66 books it says we'll suffer and how many times it says He is present with us, i wonder which number would come out on top?

psalm 46 assures us of this very truth. verse 1 says He is a very present help in times of trouble. verse 5: God is in the midst of us! verse 7: the LORD of hosts is with us and that is repeated in verse 11: the LORD of hosts is with us!!

psalm 139: there is no where we can flee from His presence! and back in psalm 16:11 the psalmist proclaims there is fullness of joy to be found in His presence!

there's a story in the book of daniel chapter 3 that i've never forgotten from the very first time i heard it. shadrach, meshach and abednego are ordered by the king to be bound together and thrown into a blazing furnace where the pre-incarnate Christ is seen in the furnace with them!!! in verse 25 the king was amazed: look! i see four men loosed and walking about in the midst of the fire without harm, and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods!

i could go on and on but i'll just leave you with just one more scripture. isaiah 41:10: do not fear for I am with you. do not anxiously look about you for I am your God, I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.

i can attest to this - His Word - being the truest truth! throughout our difficulties in the last few years, we've always known His presence with us. no matter how dark the times have been, we've always known He was near and hadn't left us alone. there was always evidence of His presence. and the friends mentioned above? they have testified to this as well, that in the midst of their suffering, they, too, have known God is with them and it has brought them comfort, peace and even joy.

He is with us! amen.

the quick change artist

2009-02-27T07:10:00.003-06:00

satan is called many things in the Word. i met a young but wise pentecostal preacher on an airplane flying back from atlanta last october who called him a quick change artist. i sat next to him and in the aisle across from us were his wife and baby. they are canadian but are new in a pastorate in whitehall arkansas of all places! we were talking about many things spiritual - it was a delightful conversation as i chatted mostly with him about their particular denominational beliefs since my granny and papa were not only pentecostal but my granny a preacher!

we talked about spiritual warfare. he said satan will tempt you to do something, lure you into sin, make it look so enticing and attractive. then as soon as you've done it, he'll step into the proverbial phone booth, change his clothes, come out as if a different person you won't recognize and then BAM! he'll turn right around, point the finger in your face and say you're so bad, you awful sinner you, you're the worst of the worst! how could you do that! i thought you said you were a christian!

i'd never quite thot of it that way. what an apt description of how he operates!! of his m.o. that ole accuser of the brethren, the thief who comes to steal, kill and destroy, the adversary (the devil) who prowls like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour, the liar, the enemy, the one who masquerades as an angel of light, the evil one, the prince of this world, et al.

may the Lord bless this preacher and His family in their ministry here in arkansas, protect them from the quick change artist as they do His will among their flock and community of arkansans, and make us all wise to the wiles of the devil as we fight the spiritual warfare that goes on around us 24/7 (ephesians 6:12).

isaiah 49:25 is very encouraging as we fight this warfare. the Lord God tells us plain as day:

I will contend with the one who contends with you.

surely that includes the contentious enemy, the quick change artist himself.

quiet times

2009-02-26T08:25:00.003-06:00

do you believe in grace when it comes to your quiet times? i guess "quiet time" is a phrase from the 1970's but i'm pretty sure it's still bandied about in the 21st century.

when i was cutting my teeth on the faith as a growing believer in college and beyond, i knew about grace, but i still lived by works. (((now grace without works is dead but that's a whole nuther ball of wax. i'm talking about being free from the law of sin and death that beats you over the head with the shoulds and oughts or else God doesn't love you kind of rules and regs and i'm not talking about never reading His word and never having a qt or studying His Word.))) i thot "i must read my bible and pray every morning for so many minutes or else.....God will be mad at me, i'll be a bad christian. i won't be successful. i won't be as fruitful." you fill in the blank. i have struggled for years with this one and still do to some extent.

the Word says and i paraphrase "this book of the law shall not depart from you but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do all that is according to what is written in it for then your way will be made prosperous and then you will have success." it says Jesus "rose up early to go to a quiet place to pray." and "pray without ceasing" and "the Lord inhabits praise."

but have you ever found a place that says from 6 to 7 am, thou shalt study the Word and then pray in the format of ACTS? and if you're married, thou must be praying with thy spouse for part of the time or thou is in sin? Jesus scolded the folks he was around for adding to the Word and for following the traditions of men. i think i've done this for years!

when i do have what you might call a "quiet time" i am always blessed and it is rich to sit still before God with His Word and to pour out my praises and petitions before Him. but i fear telling you how i do it, because i'm afraid you'll think THAT is how it oughtta be done and you'll go right back under the law and feel guilt and shame and the enemy will say to you: see, you don't do it right, you're 2nd class.

but mostly if i'm honest, i'm afraid to tell you how frequently/infrequently i do it for fear you might judge me and think i'm the 2nd class citizen of the kingdom. and i'm sort of afraid for all the same reasons to know how you do it. now that's just too much fear, don't you think?

so i'm thinking this: if you and i are meditating throughout the day on His Word, singing praises and hymns when they come to mind and we're praying without ceasing and as often as possible on a regular basis having more formal sit downs with the Lord, then i'm thinking we're following the "whole counsel of God" (a seminary term my husband taught me, meaning keeping in mind all of His Word, not picking and choosing one verse/passage over another).

i just don't want you or me to beat ourselves up for something that's made up by man in the form of what someone calls a "quiet time" any more ever again. i rest my case but i hope i can leave it there.

disputable matters and boundaries

2009-02-25T08:59:00.007-06:00

i've written before that my granny (my mama's mama) was a pentecostal preacher. she was so precious to us all and lived until she was 98 1/2 years old, praise the Lord! she says she was the first or one of the first in arkansas to be "filled with the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues." she was the happiest of believers when i was growing up - she was retired by then - and she would tell of her days of preaching in arkansas but would always clarify - she never thought the Word said it was okay for her to have her own church since she was a woman.

for some time granny would tell me that i was like a very clean glass, saved but not filled. like i was clean and put up on the shelf (she said it so many times, i can still see that shelf in her trailer where she lived) but i needed to be filled with the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues. she was worried about the salvation of many of her children and my cousins and others but with me she was worried that i didn't get this filling. i prayed for quite a long time to receive the gift of tongues. by this time i was in college and i'd studied and i believed that if the Lord wanted to give me the gift, He would but that it was one of the lesser gifts (see 1 corin 12-14).

finally, one day, without knowing anything about paul's discussion of disputable matters (things not worth arguing over between the brethren) (see romans 14) nor anything about boundaries in relationships (see "boundaires" by drs. cloud and townsend) i said granny, you know i love the Lord. you know that i'm a christian. i've prayed for the gift of tongues. the Lord has not given me that gift. please don't mention this to me anymore.

and she never did!

there are some matters that we differ on as believers - let me change that. there are a lot of things we differ on. some things are not worth discussing. some things certainly aren't worth going over, time and again. some things aren't worth losing a relationship over, are they? maybe all it takes it a gentle request: please don't ask me that again. or please don't bring that up again because it hurts. it worked for me that time with granny. and i'm still grateful to my granny that she left it alone.

she also used to sing: why do you bob your hair girl? but that's another story for another blog!

ps: this woulda been my dad's 85th b-day!

a room with a view

2009-02-24T08:01:00.002-06:00

from atop the 10th floor at my new office, room #6, i can see due west all the way to pinnacle mountain (i told you i was a spurled {spoiled}). it's an amazing view to say the least. what a bonus in my new workplace!

but if i had to say what my ultimate view is, that would be a view towards heaven. if i didn't have that hope, then i'd falter many times. as one of it's ultimate promises, my faith says that i'll spend eternity with God. there's a verse i can't quite put my fingers on (i've been looking this am) that says to encourage one another about heaven to come.

i remember trying to encourage a client with the hope of heaven several years back - that one day all her earthly sufferings would be over - and instead of being bolstered with courage, she was afraid and appalled. oh, don't say that she said. this on earth, this is where i want to be encouraged. i don't want to think about the after life. i know another person who is also fearful when thinking about heaven. maybe there are lots of folks like that.

for some reason it doesn't frighten me, it's an encouragement to me. if i love my office view, what a view to come there'll be! on my "to read" list is the book lotsa folks have already read, alcorn's book on heaven. but i may never get around to reading it - i'd almost rather just know it's there and know God will take care of the rest.

and rest it will be. that's what i'm looking forward to the most. rest from the suffering, the trials and tribulations, the financial woes, the heartaches, the crying, the constant what's- around-the-corner, what's the next sort of loss or stress. but it's so peaceful and restful when i look out my window from the 10th floor, the beauty of it all, out towards pinnacle and i've been up close and know its beauty as well.

it reminds me of my view towards The View i can't see but He can and i can rest in that while i wait for that ultimate View.

FYI

2009-02-24T07:15:00.003-06:00

someone asked me recently whether i could tell if they're reading my blog or not. like was there a list of addresses or something for those who've been on "catching some z's"......just wanted to letcha know i can't and there'z not!

there'z no record of who, what, when or where! my helper-in-all-things-computer (handsome husband) did put a counter on here that i have to go through gyrations to get to so i know how many people read my blog but it's completely anonymous and i have no idea WHO reads it (and rarely check the #s because of the gyrations).

just thot i'd letcha know. usually if one person asks a questions, there's otherz who're wondering the same thing!

btw, if you are reading, THANKS, it's fun for me to write and i enjoy knowing you're reading, even if only occasionally! :)

decorating our nests

2009-02-23T14:00:00.002-06:00

we praise God for His creation outside our homes. we're enjoying this beautiful winter. we'll go wild about spring blooms (they're already on the scene!). the coolish summer nites. the great falls we have in arkansas. and all creatures great and small that also enjoy His outdoor creation.

why not praise him for the beautiful world we enjoy inside our homes too? (not saying this is an original idea.)

to treat myself, i bought the feb issue of "house beautiful." aahhhh. i love to look at pictures in a decorating magazine, get new ideas and just ddddreeeeeamm.

handsome husband and i went to hot springs two saturdays ago to visit and shop in my cuzzins' store i've mentioned before - home again used furniture** (see contact info at end of blog if interested!!) - and came home with several beloved things in our van which we've used as a truck since we bought it in 1996.

"you're always going to find new things - it's not like you decorate it and it's done. nothing's ever done." annie selke

"for me, decorating is never an exercise in spending money. it's more a quest to get the details right. details give a room soul." carelton varney

i like these two quotes from the magazine.

settling into our new-to-us home (keeping in mind moth and rust destroy the contents with which we decorate, matthew 6:19) has been a delight as i've shopped for items to add to our new-to-us nest, arranged things in places they've never been before, marked lotsa boxes "garage sale," given some items away and even taken two loads to the city dump!!

**Home Again Used Furniture Etc., Inc
314 Albert Pike . . . 501.622.6785
HOURS: Tu-Fr 9-5:30 . Sat 10-4
"Not Your Ordinary Used Furniture Store!"

ps: happy b-day annie!

the first day

2009-02-20T07:30:00.001-06:00

distant past...

the first day of kindergarten.

the first day of junior high.

the first day of high school.

the first day of college.

the first day of marriage.

recent past...

the first day in a new-to-us home.

the first day of our empty (or roomier) nest.

the first day on the first new job in 11 years.

that's today.

the f word

2009-02-19T07:30:00.001-06:00

growing up i taught my children the "f" word:

FLEXIBLE

sorry to frighten you there. but it's such an important word in the english vocab.

dictionary.com says this: 1. capable of being bent, usually without breaking; easily bent; 2. susceptible of modification or adaptation; 3. willing or disposed to yield.

it started when the kids were little. we went to visit family in hot springs one day and ended up staying 3 days without any change of clothes, no toothbrush, nothing for a trip overnite to speak of. did we learn the word flexible or what! that was just the beginning. it was a fun memory (to me at least, i think to them, also).

i was to start my job on tuesday this week. now i'm supposed to start friday. flexible.

i bought a skirt on sale. i set the buttons over. it still doesn't fit. what now? sew a dart? return it? flexible.

we wanted a house with a smaller yard. we got a house with 25 trees instead of the 12 we had (but how i DO love my trees) and a backyard the size of a football field! flexible.

we wanted a goodly sized family when we married. i came from a family of five kids, my husband, four. we had two. flexible.

i want taco bell! i want mcdonald's! we eat at burger king. flexible.

the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control = flexible?? just a thot. i don't know about you but i'm not very flexible, not much like gumby or pokey but i pray that more and more, as the Day draws near, He'll make me more fruitful and flexible.

the Weaver

2009-02-18T08:05:00.000-06:00

back to the recent question my daughter asked me re: why she was so sick, why is a question that will come and go throughout her lifetime, mine and yours.

there's a song i learned in the 70's from my friend annie that says it quite well. if you haven't heard it, it's worth knowing the words anyway. my handout is inaccessible right now, therefore this is from memory and may not be accurate. i also think there's a 3rd verse. here goes:

my life is like a weaving between my God and me,

i do not choose the colors, He worketh steadily.

sometimes He weaveth sorrow

and I in foolish pride,

forgets He sees the upper

and I the underside.

chorus:

until the loom is silent and the shuttles cease to fly

will God unvail the canvas and explain the reason why

the dark threads are as needful in the skillful Weaver's Hands

as the threads of gold and silver, in the pattern He has planned.

and when each thread is in it's place

and the final plan is known

and God has laid His loom to rest

and called His children home.

until then I won't be afraid

'cause the Lord is by my side

He's the Master of my footsteps

He's the Master of my life

chorus:

until the loom is silent and the shuttles cease to fly

will God unvail the canvas and explain the reason why

the dark threads are as needful in the skillful Weaver's Hands

as the threads of gold and silver

in the pattern He has planned.

yes the dark threads are as needful in the skillful Weaver's Hands,

as the threads of gold and silver

in the pattern He has planned.

movie review!

2009-02-17T08:00:00.000-06:00

my blogs tend to be so serious like me. here's one for fun!

"confessions of a shopaholic." sounds serious but it is a pg movie by disney's buena vista co. now showing at yur local theater. went to see it with my sis and niece in town from hotlanta.

i recommend it! very fun and light! got it all - comedy, drama, romance. huge montage of actors you'll recognize but the main girl (isla fisher) was new to me and did an excellent job.

takes place in NYC, can't beat that. fun, fun, fun. clothes, clothes, clothes. color, color, color! and GREEN plays a major role in the story! see if you can find out how!

a 12 step meeting thrown in for me but very funny, not serious, i promise.

hurry while tickets last!

you cannot outgive God

2009-02-16T08:45:00.001-06:00

throughout my adult life a principle that seems to be demonstrated over and over is this:

you cannot outgive God.

here are a few examples of this, not in any particular order:

***in 2008 i made a casserole for us and gave half to some friends who were in financial need. not long after, as a surprise some friends of ours brought food to us because of fatigue i was experiencing! you can't outgive God.

***in the 1980's, we worked in a small pca church but didn't make enuf money to make ends meet so humble husband worked as a crossing guard at our son's elementary school. one nite we ordered pizza. as it turns out, we were given the wrong pizza due to a "coincidental" different spelling of the same last name so it was free. you can't outgive God.

***last week, i was thinking i'd used up my very last precious week of my sabbatical off work caring for my sick daughter but b/o a computer glitch, my start date was delayed a week. you can't outgive God.

***recently, i passed on some clothes to a friend in need that i wasn't wearing anymore, still in good shape. why should they hang in my closet not in use? shortly afterwards, someone passed on some clothes to me that someone couldn't wear any more which spruced up my stash! you can't outgive God.

***this story doesn't exactly fit but i must include it here - because it's still fits the theme. last year, someone anonymously mailed us a fifty dollar bill. i was so encouraged about His provision for me, i held on tightly to that envelope and bill and stuck it in my prayer journal. i savored it. i pleasured in the Lord's love for me. and months later i placed that same bill in an envelope and mailed it anonymously to someone else, keeping that hope in circulation, the hope being much more important than anything i could have spent the money on. (if this person is reading this blog, let's keep it between us, ok?) you can't outgive God!

God's message to me:

z, you can't outgive ME

not that i'm trying, how could i? it's just a clear msg He's wanted me to know. this may not be the lesson He's teaching you. you may not need to know this. His design is to teach each of us differently what each us needs to know. He is intimately acquainted with all our ways and His thoughts towards us are too numerous to count (psalm 139).

the greatest (fun) mom song ever

2009-02-13T17:58:00.003-06:00

i just got this from a friend. had to share it with you right now without delay.

you have to listen if you haven't heard it before.

it's here.

hilarious, encouraging and exactly right on re: raising kids! enjoy!

chatty cathy

2009-02-13T07:01:00.004-06:00

did you have a chatty cathy doll (mattel, 1959) when you were little? i'm giving away my age here. i did. i LOVED her. you'd pull the string on her back. i don't remember what she'd say (there were 11 phrases accdg to wikipedia) and she was really "neat."

i'm just like her except you don't even have to pull my string, i just talk away. the family i grew up in thinks it's hilarious in a wierd sort of way that i get PAID to listen to people talk. they just can't imagine i'd shut up a minute and listen to anyone as much as i talk.

there are so many scriptures about the significance of listening. God knows how difficult it is for us. being slow to speak, quick to listen. where words abound, transgressions are unavoidable and such. i have to really pray about my tongue and shush myself at times. sometimes i just talk too much and say too much and at the wrong times.

and if you think about it....how great a listener is God to us? does He butt in? does He interrupt? does He overassert? is His focus all about Him? WOW. He has a still small voice. no chatty cathy there. i'm humbled right now as i write...

(now, it's not that He doesn't like words, He gave us the 66 books of the bible.)

maybe it's the jewish side of me (not trying to stereotype, this is true of me) because i can also be very assertive and that can be an asset or liability. from "my steak isn't cooked the way i'd like it" to "could i have 20% off this please?" yesterday i was very assertive but in an aggressive sort of way when it came to getting my favorite daughter in to see the doctor today please and last nite i wrote a letter of apology, making a quick amends for how i handled myself.

oy vay! it's hard to be a chatty cathy! but God made me and He who began a good work in me will complete it in the day of Christ Jesus. He'll take the good in me and use it and take away the bad in me - from the same type of trait. isn't that great? praise Him from whom all blessings flow and for His mercies that are new every day.

alanon

2009-02-12T06:30:00.001-06:00

do you know what alanon is? it is a free support group for family members with loved ones who are alcoholics. i've been attending for over 3 years and it has been a great addition to my life spiritually, emotionally and relationally. once i got past the format of the meetings - "hi, my name is _____" - i really began to love it.

it's not a "religious" program, they like to say, it's a "spiritual" program. it's based on the same principles, the 12 steps, started by two alcoholic men who were christians, if my understanding is correct. these men wrote "the big book" which is the AA bible, if you will.

but over time, readings and wordings have been changed to "the God of your understanding" and things such as that. however, i have not attended one meeting yet that hasn't closed with the Lord's prayer which i find very interesting.

the 12 steps have been christian-ized by a church in california (rick warren's church - - warren gave the invocation at obama's inauguration) and made into a recovery program you may have heard of called celebrate recovery (CR). i've also attended this and was in a bible study that took us thru the whole 12 steps which was excellent.

it's not necessary to have a family member who is an alcoholic to attend. there are some who come who don't. the principles we look at in meetings are boundaries, detachment from other's problems, self care, obsession with people, places and things, worshipping God not others and a whole lot more.

there are catchy phrases (slogans) that are very helpful:

how important is it?

no is a complete sentence.

the argument starts with my reply.

your business stops at the end of your nose.

progress not perfection.

you didn't cause it. you can't cure it. you can't control it.

one day at a time.

think.

SLIP (sobriety loses its priority)

SLIP (serenity loses its priority)

i guess if you were interested in finding out more, you could google it! :)

why?

2009-02-11T07:24:00.008-06:00

why is God allowing me to be sick, mama? what's He doing?

this is some version of what my favorite daughter asked the other day. she's been sick now for about a month. the first time she was sick with bronchitis, sinus infection & pleurisy. that took a coupla visits to the doc and a few tests. the nite the tests came back "lungs clear," she began to run a fever followed on the heals by other symptoms. even her doc was discouraged and surprised at that. today is day 9 of that fever et al.....many serious tests and a coupla ER visits later and the diagnosis please? you have a virus.

the answer to my daughter was something profound like: God knows, we don't, we'll trust Him.

isn't that what it boils down to, really? i've been a believer since i was 10 years old - thanks be to God - and now i'm 52. haven't come up with much different in lo these many years.

job (i love this man of God) said this: "shall we accept good from God and not trouble?" (job 2:10) and also this: "tho He slay me, yet will i hope in Him." (job 13:15). amen.

the wisdom of menopause

2009-02-10T07:19:00.001-06:00

there's a great bestselling book on menopause entitled "the wisdom of menopause" by dr. christiane northrup (2006).

i was desperate with symptoms last summer and asked my handsome prince who bears all things to check it out of the library for me. i began perusing and taking notes thru the book. i'd heard of it for several years but stubborn me wouldn't take a look-see until i was desperate enuf that i needed HELP!

i found some things to be true for me. i thot i'd share a few things in bullet points (ok, asterisks) like bubbles did on her saturday, jan 31 blog re: the marriage conference.

when i left work last august a client gave me a pretty green plaque that said:

when i stand before God at the end of my life i would hope that i would have not a single bit of talent left and could say, "i used everything You gave me." erma bombeck

it was as if my client sensed there were some changes a foot and knew there was more to me than counseling. northrup's ideas made me think that too - that there are other parts of my brain that God's given me that don't have anything to do with counseling.

when i began blogging in october, i thot: this is what dr. northrup was talking about. i've always wanted to write and so i am. there's other things that i want to do OR YOU MAY WANT TO DO but haven't done yet (the all important yet).

here's some of my fav ideas in the book:

*you're not getting alzheimers, you're rewiring your brain for a whole new way of thinking

*part of our adaptation to the hormonal changes as our biology focus switches from procreation to personal growth

*it's like the logical side of the brain goes to sleep...to force us to become more intuitive...in tune with emotions and inner wisdom

*problems are signals regarding the need to renegotiate habitual relationship patterns

*begin to....establish an entirely new and exciting relationship with my creativity and vocation

*circuits are being re-wired, circuitry update

*it was a warning coming from deep within my spirit: "grow...or die."

*voice beckons...explore aspects....dormant during years of caring for, focusing on the needs of others

*(don't laugh at this one) she's preparing to give birth to herself

*diseases of postmenopausal women: heart disease, depression, breast cancer

*bodily symptoms...often contain a message (msg) for us about our lives - if only we can learn to decipher it

*we attract precisely the illness or problem that best facilitates our access to our inner wisdom...your body's msg to you will be in the language that best breaks thru your particular barriers and speaks most specifically to the issues you need to change in your life. the wisdom of this system is very precise (i love this one!)

*goal: heeding my inner voice, listening to what the illness is trying to teach me

*guilt about doing something we love is always a clue that points to blocked energy (i like this one too)

*correlation between pms and difficult peri-menopause with symptoms can't be ignored

*first half of life, caring for others, birthing others

*second half of life, caring for self, birthing me

*the last, best chance of body's inner wisdom shining light on aspects of a woman's life that needs work (menopause is)

*signals from our mind and body that we have reached a new developmental stage - an opportunity for healing and growth

*underlying susceptibility to distress in the first place....hormonal swings bring that to the surface

*urged biologically to work on yourself (i like this one)

*ASK: what is out of balance that needs to be changed? (she sounds like a shrink)

*no matter what else you do (exercise or take meds) it is your attitude, beliefs and daily thought patterns that have the most effect on your health (this is biblical, setting your mind, etc.)

*if you take hormones, she talks about importance of bio-identicals

*breakdown to breakthrough

*midlife teaches us a liberating truth - aspects of our lives are simply not under our control (is this true or what????)

*some symptoms are the result of unprocessed and unresolved emotions (yuck, i don't like this one) (ex: upset about adult child, don't sleep well)

*before HRT and SSRI's (antidepressants), we saw women who negotiated the change by closing their door, taking to their beds, leaving the families with the rest of details. months later, many emerged from the chrysalis of depression rejuvenated. (hummm....)

*like all symptoms depression is one way your body's inner wisdom tells you something in life is out of balance

ps: happy 24th b-day to favorite son, born 59 minutes (and a few years) after his granny's b-day

if it ain't broke, don't fix it

2009-02-09T12:11:00.008-06:00

i've been off work for 6 months. i was privileged to take some time off for r and r. i didn't know it but i guess there was some burn out going on with work and i just had lots of other things needing seen to. all that's done now and it's been time to look for work the last several months.

i'd perused thru a book on menopause (see next blog post) and i thot "i'm supposed to do something different in my next job." as i read, i thot: maybe that's part of why i stopped counseling. i'm supposed to do x, y or z.

okay, track with me. next subject but trust me, i'll relate it back. i have one precious aunt on my dad's side of the fam in chicago. i asked her in an email recently: "tell me, you're 30 years older than me, tell me all you've learned in those years, what should i do the next 30 of my life differently or the same as you've done? i want to glean wisdom from you. write me a letter please." we've loved one another's written notes and cards thru the years so i was salivating with the request. she wrote back in an email and declined my request but said this:

"if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

(in the cliche' book, see: leave/let well enuf alone: do not try to improve matters lest you make them worse. this idea was stated in ancient greek times....)

that was her sage advice. i wanted more, pages and pages of what she'd learned, but it must've boiled down to this for her.

so i pondered that and in the end, decided doing the same thing - counseling - was indeed what God had planned for me to do work-wise. i'm still holding on to those other ideas and we'll see what comes of those but for now since i've worked as a counselor, psychotherapist, what-have-u imma do that next tuesday. it wasn't broke, i was just supposed to do some other things for 6 months i reckon.

ps: happy 76 trombones birthday today mama!

the sabbatical ends

2009-02-07T09:00:00.006-06:00

She's Gone Oh I,

I'd better learn how to face it

She's Gone Oh I,

I'd pay the devil to replace her

She's Gone - what went wrong

Hall and Oates, "She's Gone" (1973)

i promise i'm kidding on the devil part but the wonderful, sabbatical (the "she" in the song) from work is over now after a total of six months! now, it's

Heigh ho, heigh ho

It's off to work we go

Heigh ho, heigh ho, heigh ho

Disney, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937)

it's still part-time, like the last 17 years of work, and for that i am so grateful and still feel very sperled (we like to make up words in our family). see you at the bank when it's time for making that first deposit. i can't wait! thank you Lord. You've been very, very good to me. (like beisbol)

up to 6's and 7's

2009-02-06T08:32:00.005-06:00

denise used a cliche' when she was talking to us - you know i love cliche's! "at sixes and sevens...in disarray or confusion. the term comes from a game of dice in which throwing a six or seven has special significance." she quoted steven brown (also an RTS professor) who said everything that happens to a non-christian is going to happen to a christian so that the world can watch us!!

why? because when we are at (or up to) sixes and sevens, others will be watching. "we are a visual aid for others to see a God who's really there, who's busy making a great name for Himself." then, she quoted psalm 67 **that He will be gracious to us and cause His face to shine upon us when we're at 6's and 7's and **that He will make His salvation known among all the nations.

when my children were little i somehow decided in my fantasy world that because my husband and i were believers (and did not come from believing families), and because we were praying for them, this would put a hedge of protection around them and my children (and therefore me to an extent) would be exempt from a certain amount of suffering. that has not been the case (to my limited, human way of thinking, tho i heard a speaker say years back: we have no idea how much He has protected us from by His grace and mercy).

what she said truly ministered to me. i cannot see what others have seen in watching us go through the particular difficulties. but when she said it, i knew it to be true and i will trust the Lord that He knows and denise knows and steven brown knows and other believers know and His Word knows even tho i can't see it.

choosing our children

2009-02-05T09:02:00.012-06:00

i enjoyed listening to the wise man's wife as well!

that would be denise, from the marriage conference. i loved this story she told. when her daughter was only four years old, denise was at a very low point, truly a giving-up point. her daughter thought SHE was the mother, instead of denise. after yet another conflict, she placed her daughter in her room and then went to talk with God (this is my interpretation of her story, you must realize, not an exact word for word).

the Lord told her to go back into her daughter's room to whom she had nothing else to say. she had no more ideas, no more tricks up her sleeve. but she obediently went anyway. when she got there, her sweet but stubborn child was lying on her bed under her covers, face peaking out.

out of denise's mouth came what she knew were not her comforting words and could only be the Lord's. "honey, if i lined up all the four year old little girls in our neighborhood and all the four year old little girls in your school, all the four year old little ones in our city and all the four year old little girls all around the whole wide world, i'd still pick YOU as my little girl."

her daughter rushed into her arms, burst into tears and that was the breakthrough that their long tension filled relationship needed. denise even went on to say they NEVER had another fight over who was the mama again.

denise said that her daughter was looking to know who was in charge and how much her mama loved her. did she love her enough to stand up to her, to be in control, to care for her and TO LOVE HER NO MATTER HOW NAUGHTY (my words, not hers) SHE WAS? isn't that just how it is with God? don't we want to know how much He loves us, which He does, no matter what?

i'm looking for the right time to tell my favorite son and my favorite daughter this very thing. i can't wait.

more from dr. richardson

2009-02-04T11:20:00.010-06:00

i heard from bubbles that she wrote about the conference on her blog today.

see her blog for more about dr. richardson with multiple bullet points, lots quicker than i'll get to it! she's fast, that bubbles! :)

here she is at:

http://www.bubblesandmoney.blogspot.com/

wise, not sick

2009-02-04T08:17:00.009-06:00

we went to a marriage conference this weekend at our church. the speaker, dr. guy richardson is the president of RTS, a seminary in jackson, ms where my husband got his mdiv (master of divinity).

the pres is also a licensed therapist with several lmnop degrees by his name and it was, as our pastor said on sunday morning, a "rich" time of learning.

his wife denise spoke as well and i hope to take my notes and make them succinct for my journal this week because there were so many one-liners to remember. maybe i'll blog about some of those but one to begin with is this:

those who seek counsel aren't sick, they are WISE.

and then he supported his statement by all sorts of scriptures. he wasn't talking about how Jesus came to save the sick, not the well. that's a different line of thought, also true of course! in this case, he was encouraging us to take advantage of the different levels of counsel - from friends, to older women or men in Christ, all the way to the professional level when needed.

we're not sick, we're wise when we seek counsel. i love it!

movies!!

2009-02-02T09:33:00.008-06:00

i LOVE movies. i realized why several years back. it just hit me one day when i was pondering those dear and near who said "z, you're a movie addict!" it rolled so easily off their tongues! the truth came from several sources.....i knew they were right.

i love stories and i love details. what are movies? detailed stories in short order. i enjoy sitting and listen to my clients' stories too, my friends' stories - anyone's. i'm fascinated by the beginning, the end, and the middle. and for my clients i love to contribute to how things will turn out, teaching all the way.

here's a silly review i sent to my cuz on "frost/nixon" which i didn't want to see but this was one my mama wanted to see. imagine that, she LOVES them too. my cuz said " why not add movie critic to

your blog?" i do everything my cuzzin sayzzzzzzzzz.

review:

with mama: great

snacks: great

the movie: entertaining

kept my interest

great acting

subject a bit boring compared to my normal fare

conclusion: see it!

the iron bed

2009-01-31T18:32:00.002-06:00

favorite daughter has moved out today and she's taken with her the beautiful, white iron bed my mama and dad bought me in a new orleans' antique store on one of dad's business trips. i have had many an "iron bed talk" on that bed and it will be sorely missed, silly as that may sound. 'course i'll miss the beautiful daughter that sleeps on it, too.

we'll continue our prayers just as much as when you lived with us for 21+ years little patootie, lilly bubs et al, because you'll always be the one we sang lullabies to years ago. to borrow a phrase, i'll love you forever, i'll like you for always, as long as i'm living, my baby you'll be.

see you when the sun comes up.

another cultural treat

2009-01-30T08:15:00.002-06:00

another excerpt from "I Remember Mama" 2005

I remember....sassafras tea you or my Granny (your wonderful Mama) would make (she was also perfectly planned by the Lord God above and given to you and then me by Him). You'd dig up some roots (of a tree? I don't recall), wash them off real good and boil those roots in some water 'til hot. Then we'd drink the fragrant hot tea and it was always a treat. I remember later on coming across a stick of hard candy by the same name and would buy one because of the tea. Along these lines I remember you picking water cress or poke sallet from a cold, spring stream but I never liked to eat those - too healthy. I certainly wouldn't eat something green that looked like it might taste like spinach. When I was growing up I mostly liked any kind of potato and coca cola (Coke, never Pepsi and never, ever Shasta cola).

a chaw of sweet gum

2009-01-29T08:53:00.006-06:00

in 2005, i wrote what was my version of "the tribute" to my mama in booklet form called "I Remember Mama*."

a dear friend who read the booklet keeps talking about this one story. sharing it with you today is like a little slice of summer's past on a cold winter day.

I remember....a chaw of sweet gum (and certainly recall the smell of it, as well). This "chaw" was expertly made by you from mixing the hardened sap with very sticky fresh sap in your mouth until the right consistency was achieved. The sap was handpicked off a sweet gum tree we'd find in the woods of a park or down a dirt road somewhere and you said we had to find a tree that had some injury to the bark. I learned to identify the leaves of a sweet gum tree so I'd know where to help you look. You'd always encourage me to make one (a "chaw") myself but that just never quite worked out, because yours was always the best. Once the right consistency of the gum was achieved, you'd pass the gum to me to chew. When my jaws were tired out, which inevitably they'd become, the "chaw" was oft' times passed back to you, or even to a brother or sister.

ever had a chaw of sweet gum?

*title used without permission from an old black 'n white movie, 1948, starring irene dunne as a norwegian mama in san francisco (i highly recommend it!)

viva diva neefa feefa

2009-01-28T08:09:00.005-06:00

viva is my 9 month old girl kitty, adopted in october from the animal village here in little rock. well, okay our kitty, but really she's all MINE.

she's gonna be real handy to have around when the emptiness and loneliness come as our nest grows bigger. i thank the Lord for His Presence always with me and in advance for viva's small presence in the soon-to-be empty nest (or roomier nest i once heard someone call it).

viva's a little lover girl. likes to nap with each of us and is a great snuggler. smart & responsive to our instructions, too (tho mostly after the furniture scratchin' and walkin' across the counter).

viva's full name is viva diva neefa feefa. her last two names are from the heroine in dr. seuss' made for tv story "pontoffel pock and his magic kingdom" (a must see for your kids and you if you can find it!).

aren't you afraid for us?

2009-01-27T07:39:00.011-06:00

the last adult child is leaving the nest this friday/saturday. yup. moving out into her own place, she's got that f-time job, the roommate - even the boyfriend. we'll be left with her empty room and 21+ years of memories.

the fireplace mantel (new to us since our move in november) is loaded down with pics of the kids - i mean adult children) and i wondered yesterday if that's not part of the empty nesting, thinking one day there'll be something different up there, some fabulous print i just had to buy. i was going through still more boxes the other day, packing, re-packing and i sprinkled just a few of favorite son's and daughter's school-made things around the living room. they'd been in the kitchen on display for years, then in a box, now back out again. i'd never thought of it before in these terms but there does seem to be a bit of nesting going on even in the absence of the children. trying to make sure their presence is still felt here.

the other nite, sis was gone out. as husband and i sat on the sofa together, we took a gander at my pitcher collection (as in pouring water from), named each one and told a story for each (there are 8). 7/8 of them are animals. it was quite a good time but i've had these pitchers for-ever and never have they been named.

i asked sis the other nite "aren't you afraid for us? we sat home the other nite and named the pitchers? we're gonna do wierd things after you're gone." she laughed a knowing laugh and said "no, i'm not afraid."

we will transcend

2009-01-26T08:04:00.014-06:00

my husband and i made it to small group last nite for the first time in years. we just haven't been able to be a part for a combo of reasons but the time seemed right for us to join the human race again in this particular venue. we anticipated encouragement would be waiting as we got out of our self-absorption and interacted with others we knew would be transparent about their lives. we ate a meal together, laughed and when it came time for requests there was the sincere transparency i hoped for. burdens were unfettered like chains falling off and i could sense the relief as we went around the room taking turns sharing.

this morning when i checked my email, my sis-in-law had sent me a wonderful link to a u tube must-see. all my she said was "for you."

here's the link and it relates well to the reason i need connection with you, we went to church last nite, and about transcending life together.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_4qwVLqt9Q

speaking of cliche's

2009-01-23T11:04:00.007-06:00

i LOVE cliche's. (if there's a way to put the ' where it goes, i dunno how.)

seems in the last few years, i've found myself using them more and more so i requested a book for one gift occasion and favorite daughter (only daughter) supplied! the title is "the facts on file dictionary of CLICHE'S second edition: meanings and origins of thousands of terms and expressions." 2006, by the christine ammer, 1992 trust.

better late than never. let's start with that one since it was the title of my last blog.

pg. 31. a time-honored rationalization for tardiness. it can be traced to greek and latin writers, including the historian livy, and appears in several early english proverb collections. the full proverb is sometimes stated, "better late than never, but better never late." there are versions in numerous other languages as well."

sorta disagrees with what i said doesn't it?

better late than never

2009-01-22T10:30:00.008-06:00

i don't know about you but as i get older, my birthday wishes, cards, calls aren't as on time as they used to be. not just for birthdays, it might be a grief note or thinking of you, any type of correspondence. and, by the way, i still believe in paper in the mail with stamps correspondence. i hope that art never dies out completely in this computer age.

but the point today is not that, it's really that it's never too late to send that note or even give that gift. i had a birthday recently and i was thinking about a gift i received last year A YEAR LATE. that was probably the most memorable gift i'll ever receive (tho not the giver's intention). it was a gorgeous, white orchid (with green stem and leaves!). my aunt was not too shy once she realized she missed my b-day the previous year and so she sent the plant A YEAR LATER.

don't ever think "it's too late, i'm too embarrassed, i'll just forget-about-it." go ahead and do it! the person(s) will appreciate the loving deed no matter when it's done. i surely did and still do, a year afterwards.

texting and our new president

2009-01-21T07:37:00.017-06:00

yesterday, right before the new president barak h. obama was sworn into office, i received this text from miss ellen:

God bless America! Where we can have a peaceful transition of power from 2 competing ideologies.

i was thankful to be home and able to watch the proceedings, the parts i was interested in. not in this order, but i was privileged to watch the swearing in, the invocation by rick warren (wonderful that obama chose this very conservative man in spite of the controversy it would bring), the benediction in rhyme by the elderly joseph e. lowrey ending in lots of amens which you know i loved!, the beautiful quartet (no one better than yo-yo ma on cello and itzhak perlman on violin) and poetry reading by elizabeth alexander, the singing of "our country tis of thee" (by aretha franklin, if i'm not mistaken) and the playing of our national anthem by the u.s. navy band.

it was all so beautiful and awe inspiring. and exponentially so if one is of the doctrinal belief that God ordains whatsoever comes to pass and puts men in positions of authority over us. i'm grateful scripture says not to put our trust in princes, chariots or horses (among others) but put our trust in the name of the Lord our God. obama has a huge task before him and i would be afraid - no matter who was sworn in yesterday - except for knowing our God is trustworthy in all things. He is actually the President we didn't vote for. He'll never run for office. He is and was and always will be.

correction

2009-01-20T09:36:00.008-06:00

i incorrectly spelled miss annie chaires' name in my earlier blog. it is spelled cheairs. her 89 y/o brother-in-law, dr. carl wenger, went to heaven last week and it was a privilege to attend his funeral on saturday where his 3 children spoke. i found her name spelled the right way. so i thought i'd print a correction. sorry annie, but i know you were used to that your whole life!

green

2009-01-20T09:00:00.001-06:00

i love green.

i don't mean going green as in eco-friendly green but it could end up that way, one never knows.

yesterday for lunch i ate green guacamole in a green bowl with green chips (i kid you not. thus the idea for this blog was born.). we painted our living room in our previous home with a rich beautiful green, the color was grape leaf. as soon as we can get to it, we're going to paint the brown front door to our new-to-us home green and our master bedroom green (it's currently a very dark designer slate and i do mean d a r k).

i just realized that in our home, i have 7 - count 'em - 7 green rugs! and since this house is bigger than the last, look for more.....i have a few empty floors to fill (no carpet here and i'm so happy, no offense meant to you carpet lovers).

i was thrilled when i walked into "my" alanon room several years back and the worker bees behind the scene had painted the whole room.....light green! i don't know why green was chosen but my immediate interpretation was: green for growth, even if it's slow, faith stretching growth but there's lots that takes place in these rooms and green is an appropriate, hopeful color for those walls.

pretty soon we'll have spring greens to feast our eyes on. i don't mean the kind you eat but i can just hear my mama saying "you mean like a mess of greens we can eat? or polk sallet i can pick and fry up a mess of?" all different colors and shades of green when spring arrives. it'll be marvelous to see the beautiful changes from winter to spring, not that i mind the other seasons at all, there's purpose in each.

i have lotz of house plants that are.....green! (at least the ones that survive me and those surviving kitty viva now, she's very hard on green.) i can't live without my plants. they're like my babies. i talk to them. don't you? several didn't do well in the move. one was a tree of sorts i'd had for 17 years and i lost half of it. it's only half the green it was. another had 3 stalks before the move, now it has 1. :(

finally, behind our home we have what we like to call our very own 100 acre woods. so far they are beautifully wintry looking of course, replete with coyote noises at nite time and even daytime howls can be heard. (tangent: once our whole family was awakened in the nite as if there was a pack fighting in our living room!) we are looking forward to the green to come in those woods and since our house sits up on a hill, we'll be able to look out at those woods and be reminded of the importance of green and it'll be like a slice of green heaven to me.

there's healing in green. i just know there's got to be because the Word says our Father is our Vinedresser. the Son is the Vine. we are the branches. if we abide in Him, we shall bear much fruit but apart from Him we can do nothing. we need green. our life depends upon it. think i'm taking green a bit too far? i don't think so. look around. think again!

this is a test of the emergency broadcast system

2009-01-19T18:50:00.009-06:00

just kidding for those of you who remember that age-old test. but this is a test of a sort.

the last time i posted seems forever ago. well, that day mr. blogger did a funny thing. i wish he was a person i could call and say "help!" when i had a question. i posted something on a monday, january 12 entitled "thursday's blog." that came out fine.

then on tuesday, jan 13, i posted "the decision envelope" and instead of the heading being tuesday, january 13, it came up monday, january 12 again. not only that, it then erased the heading of monday, jan 12's blog as if i'd written two posts on the monday. if i wasn't an ocd type, then this would be no big deal but alas, things like this bug me.

it's a bit confuzzing to follow what i'm saying happened or unimportant to anyone but moi. suffice it to say now i'm a bit skiddish about blogging. imma publish this and see what happens right now and see it it's still broken so-to-speak.

regarding thursday's blog

2009-01-12T11:09:00.015-06:00

God is so faithful. amen? (i am a preacher's wife. but really i'm a closet preacher myself, like my granny before me.)

i belatedly picked my 2009 verse on saturday, led by Him i trusted. i wrote it down in my journal but also jotted it down to have my daughter write it in her cool handwriting on the back of some old business cards to put around the house in different places so i could see it as i come and go. "these words...shall be on your heart...when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead and you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." (deuteronomy 6:6-9)

and the very next day, what do you think the preacher preached? one of the very concepts contained in the verse.

only He could confirm such a thing like that and so quickly, too. only He is so personally acquainted with all of our ways (psalm 139) - yours, mine, each of ours throughout this whole, wide world. what's that song we learned as little children? He's got the whole world, in His hands! He's got the whole, wide world, in His hands! He's got the whole world, in His hands! He's got the whole world in His hands.

can you hear it?

the decision envelope

2009-01-12T09:55:00.002-06:00

don't know when he first begin doing it but sometimes when my husband makes a big decision, he writes it down, puts it in an envelope and lets it sit for a few days while the Lord confirms YES or NO as to the decision he's made.

last week i couldn't sleep one nite. my head was swirling with all these thoughts about a decision i was coming to after months of cogitating about something work-related. finally i got up, went to the computer (thank you Lord for our computer) and wrote down what and how i thought God was leading regarding this decision. after two pages, i hit print, and put it in the decision envelope.

like a bird sitting on an egg waiting for it to hatch, i just sat, metaphorically speaking, on the envelope and waited for the Lord to confirm, or not, the decision made. in this case, i waited over the weekend.

monday morning came. i opened the envelope, read the contents. my heart and the Lord's leading were still in agreement with the contents so it was "a go" - "a YES."

one time my husband recalls that he pursued the God-affirmed decision in the envelope but over time and thru a series of circumstances God revealed His will did not match the contents of the envelope. this is not a "magic" envelope, it's just one way we've used over the years not be impulsive and emotional about discerning His will and God seems to have honored it.

miss annie chaires

2009-01-08T09:30:00.006-06:00

miss annie chaires, may she rest in peace, was my sunday school teacher for several years back in the 1990's. she taught us one thing that i'll never forget and that i still do to this day. she taught us to ask the Lord, at the end of each year, to lead us to a particular verse to meditate on for the whole of the next year. the whole of the next year. every day.

and put that verse by your bedside, by the kitchen window, wherever you'd see it on a regular basis. i remember her specifically saying this: "now, in the morning, before your feet hit the floor and you put your feet into your slippers, say that verse to the Lord and pray that He'll teach you what He intends you to learn about it that day." (i confess, this is one part of her plan that i haven't stuck to.) (it's good to take a person's idea and make it your own.)

i've been doing this since 1993 and have attempted to record the verses in my bible since then (there's a few missing in the record) and it's been a great blessing in my life.

in 1994, a client gave me a gift - a book on the beatitudes - not knowing that my verse for the year was contained therein, matthew 5:6. only God knew that.

another year i meditated on a verse on jealousy but the next year i meditated on envy. same but different.

finally, in '07 and '08, i meditated on the same psalm both years as i needed it so badly (psalm 46:10). i'm late now, in choosing a verse with His help for 2009 but i'll find one soon and see how God will bring it to fruition in my life because of miss annie chaires' suggestion long ago.

you won't know 'til you know

2009-01-07T11:15:00.010-06:00

it was october of 2007. both of my adult kids had come home to roost, one bringing a puppy. after 9 years, i could no longer do my counseling practice out of my home. but what to do, Lord? should i move my practice elsewhere? should i stop counseling and do something else? take a break altogether? go to work for patti who works with the elderly in nursing homes? go to work for another counseling clinic? the ideas and leads were there but the answers were not. finally, it came to me, something i thought was from the Lord above: i won't know until i know.

i was trying to force a solution which is one of my favorite alanon sayings. the rest of it says we become irritable, restless and discontent when trying to force solutions or something close to that. i began to relax. i began to apply the scripture "be still and know that i am God" from psalm 46:10. it was an ah-haaa moment for me and so i waited more patiently and in a few days, the answers came. i moved my practice to another location, in with two other social workers.

january 2009. it ocurred to me once again. i'm trying to force a solution. once again it's about work. (i think that may be coincidental, maybe not.) i've been on a sabbatical from work since august and am now ready to return to work this month. but where? continue private practice? work in a hospital setting? go to work for hallmark selling greeting cards? become a teacher in the social work department at ualr? not that i've been asked to do any of these things but while i'm at it, why not brainstorm? but panic has been there for months instead of remembering the lesson from before: i won't know until i know. be patient. be still before a faithful, trustworthy God. i'm breathing better already since He reminded me of the lesson i'd already been taught. isn't He great to teach us over and over the things He's already taught us?

true resolutions

2009-01-06T09:45:00.002-06:00

i hope my tongue 'n cheek blog the other day did not offend anyone. i can be a real smart aleck if i'm not careful. in this month's "tabletalk" which my husband takes, there's an article on jonathan edwards' resolutions, unrelated to the new year in edwards' thinking but mentioned in the january issue because resolutions are on all our minds when the calendar rolls over.

during 1722 & 1723, when in his teens and just following his conversion, he wrote 70 resolutions. quoting the article in "tabletalk": "his (edwards') goal in making and keeping resolutions isn't self-fulfillment but the glory of God." here are just a couple.

1. Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God's glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence. Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many soever, and how great soever.

4. Resolved, never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or body, less or more, but what tends to the glory of God; nor be, nor suffer it, if I can avoid it.

6. Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live.

28. Resolved, to study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.

29. Resolved, never to count that a prayer, nor to let that pass as a prayer, nor that as a petition of a prayer, which is so made, that I cannot hope that God will answer it, not that as a confession, which I cannot hope God will accept.

67. Resolved, after afflictions, to inquire, what I am the better for them, what good I have got by them, and what I might have got by them.

i am challenged to follow Jesus more intimately by anything the puritan edwards says. if i can resolve to do that in 2009, then all the rest will fall into place and i won't have to set unrealistic goals i'll never achieve like getting up at 4 am, spending hours-long quiet times and the aforementioned sillies in that previous blog.

i resolve to depend upon and need Him alone as God, not myself as god, reflecting less of myself, my self centeredness, fears and tendency not to trust, to name only a few of my struggles.

#'s

2009-01-05T11:30:00.001-06:00

27: the floor our room was on, nite #1, in this beautiful high rise hotel, alexandria va

28: the floor we moved to because the 27th floor room smelled of cig smoke :(

26: years we've been married as of friday (1.2.09)

17: beautiful, white, pink and red roses that awaited my arrival at the front desk - i was very surprised!

7: years in a row husband has had meetings here

3: times i've come along using free sky miles - what a gift

4: nites of this run-away-from-home (i am so spoiled, i've always said)

14: days by which we'll miss the 44th president's, obama's, inauguration

1949: 1st televised inauguration, president truman (thx andy rooney)

7: degrees outside, carter's coldest-on-record inauguration (thx andy rooney)

8.2: miles from our window's amazing view to the washington mall (we can see the washington monument, the capitol, the pentagon and the national cathedral and more)

13: minutes driving time to get to the white house from here - hullo george and laura!

3: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit Who make all these #s possible, the 3 in 1

resolutions

2009-01-03T10:06:00.006-06:00

i talked with a friend around 10:30 am new year's day.

good morning! i'm so happy today! all is well. i've made some great new year's resolutions and have got right on them. i've been on that diet and have already lost 10 pounds - today! i've walked my daughter's dog and ridden the stationary bike as well!

then i had an hour quiet time. but that was just reading his Word. no, then i praised and worshiped for an hour after that. i've been up since 4 am. that must be what successful people do, they must rise and shine at an early hour.

she played along and said and what about your husband, what've you done for him? oh, yes, well, of course, like you wouldn't believe, serve, serve serve. some things i just can't repeat to ya, you'd be embarrassed but you get my drift.

and i've also worked on my self care another way too - i've showered, shaved those legs, lotioned up afta - i mean this is the start of a new year honey-chile! oh and i've decided to go de-caf too. can't you tell? i'm just a calm as a sleeping baby, girlfriend!

holidays do make for reunions betimes

2008-12-30T07:49:00.028-06:00

there were 8 of us including my cousin's husband, not counting animals. dave was real important, 'twas him kept the fire going and the coffee a going too (can't decide which was more important). it was the 3rd girls retreat at the farm. cuzzin cindi and dave have a farm outside hot springs in pearcy, 50 acres or thereabouts, bought from our uncle horace years back when cin and dave lived in california (they're forward thinking folks). this '08 retreat was a suggestion my brother preston in delaware made to cuzzin cindi on facebook since he and his fam would be in arkansas for the holidays; one nevers knows what'll happen when you say it on facebook. as the winnie the pooh song goes: beware, beware, be very, very ware. (thx for the suggestion pres!)

it's quite a feat when you get that many folks together from so many places. z and norma (my mama) from little rock, sis-in-law vered from delaware, my sis heidi from atlanta, sis-in-law donna from monticello, andrea (cin's sis) from dallas. now only God could do such a thing (with help from pres' suggestion on facebook). none of us could remember who was at the first and second girls retreat (need a guest book to sign, nominate an historian, something). we know who came but not who came which time. it was an hilarious conversation trying to figger that out.

thank the Lord and thanks to cin and dave for shopping and cooking and lettin' us come (cindi is a gourmet chef all the way and she used fresh eggz from her hens in the quiche and breakfast casserole). most of our time was spent eatin' and talkin' and that's what we love about our time at the farm besides being with each other, of course. with chickens hither and thither and lots of growing things - herbs galore, flowering cactus, even a pomegranate tree, fig trees and you wouldn't believe what all else. this is just some of what cin and dave do in their spare time; full time, they have a fabu used furniture store in hot springs called:

Home Again Used Furniture Etc Inc.

check it out next time you're tinkering around hot springs. it's right near mcclard's bbq!!

2008-12-24T10:50:00.009-06:00

morning bloggers. yesterday i found myself quoting the shorter version of the serenity prayer about something as simple as my not being able to control my son's care of his doggie (they're both home for the christmas visit). i'd never heard the longer, original version of the prayer until the last few years and found it curious that it is quite a biblical prayer. i thought i'd share it today tho it has nothing to do with christmas eve per se!

niebuhr was a methodist minister from missouri. i did some research on him just about a year ago for a presentation i did at alanon. alanon is a wonderful, free support group for family members of alcoholics, based on the 12 aa steps originally designed for alcoholics. i've been going now for three years this month. (i was also involved in celebrate recovery for almost a year and loved it as well. it is a great program that has added scripture to each of the 12 steps. can't beat that!)

unfortunately, alcoholism runs in my family. it is a(n) horrible disease. yes, i do believe it is a disease, not just a moral, weakness problem. anyway, before i go to preaching, here 'tis.

SERENITY PRAYER

God, grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change,

the courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time,

enjoying one moment at a time;

accepting hardship as a pathway to peace;

taking, as Jesus did,

this sinful world as it is,

not as I would have it;

trusting that You will make all things right

if I surrender to Your will;

so that I may be reasonably happy in this life

and supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.

Reinhold Niebuhr

God will take care of you and me: part two

2008-12-23T10:35:00.007-06:00

here's the rest of the scriptures i'd gathered on His provision for us, as well as a hymn. oh how precious is His Word when we take the time to peruse it.

JEREMIAH 32:27: I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?

JEREMIAH 33:2,3: This is what the Lord says, He who made the earth, the Lord who formed it and established it – the Lord is His name. Call unto me and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.

ROMANS 8:28: And we know that all things work together for good for those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.

I TIMOTHY 6:6-8: But godliness actually is a means of great gain, when accompanied by contentment. For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. And if we have food and covering, with these we shall be content.

HEBREWS 13:5: Because God has said, never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.

Be Not Dismayed Whate’er Betide (1904)

Be not dismayed whate’er betide, God will take care of you; Beneath His wings of love abide, God will take care of you.

Through days of toil when heart doth fail, God will take care of you; When dangers fierce your path assail, God will take care of you.

All you may need He will provide, God will take care of you; Nothing you ask will be denied, God will take care of you.

No matter what may be the test, God will take care of you; Lean,weary one, upon His breast, God will take care of you.

Chorus: God will take care of you, through every day, o’er all the way; He will take care of you, God will take care of you.

God will take care of you and me: part one

2008-12-22T09:20:00.014-06:00

here it is christmas week and the time for giving, stuffing stockings, serving bountiful meals, thinking of others! and we have two toilets that won't flush consistently (time to call the plumber already in our new-to-us home), a $500 deductible from the car wreck i had in the ice, and i'm unemployed and in need of a job. i'm ready to watch "it's a wonderful life" to get all things financial in perspective. yesterday's sermon at church helped MUCH with tim's exhortation to praise GOD no matter what our temporal circumstances are because God isn't dead! i was wandering thru my handouts this am and found this one on God's provision with some of my favorite scriptures and a hymn and His rich Word again righted me that He hasn't forgotten about the new mortgage that's due, He hasn't forgotten any of our needs, nor my readiness to work, nor the time of year it is. He hasn't changed tho our circumstances have. and our circumstances compared to the rest of the world's? there is no comparison. i truly have no needs. only fearful, untrustful panic. praise Him that He is the same yesterday, today and forever. and His love for me - and you - does not change, nor His faithful provision for me - and you either. amen.

GOD’S PROVISION FOR US

PSALM 37:25: I have been young and now I am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his descendents begging bread!

PROVERBS 30:8-9: Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is my portion, lest I be full and deny Thee and say, “Who is the Lord?” or lest I be in want and steal, and profane the name of my God.

ISAIAH 41:10: So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

ISAIAH 42:3-4: A bruised reed He will not break. And a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish; He will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not be disheartened or crushed until He has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands will wait expectantly for His law.

ISAIAH 43:1-2: But now, this is what the Lord says – He who created you, O Jacob, He who formed you, O Israel: Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you talk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.

ISAIAH 45:3: And I will give you the treasures of darkness, and hidden wealth of secret places, in order that you may know that it is I, the LORD, the God of Israel, who calls you by your name.

ISAIAH 46:4: Even to your old age and gray hairs I am He, I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.

ISAIAH 49:15.16: Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.

ISAIAH 65:24: Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear.

my friend's birthday is today

2008-12-18T09:43:00.013-06:00

we met at church one day in 1988 when she was visiting unity pres in charlotte, NC where my husband was the solo pastor. i never thot i'd see her again but there she was at a crisis pregnancy center training one nite, downtown charlotte. we gravitated towards one another during a break saying "don't i know you?" and have been fast friends ever since. kindred spirits, bosom friends as anne shirley says in "anne of green gables" (1985, i would've thot older).

i wish i could steal her away from work and buy her lunch today. shower her with my love and appreciation for the gift she is to me and all the things we have in common. two kids each, same age just opposite sex for older and younger. a love of the Word. a love of movies. joy in birdies and cats. a love of mani/pedi's. dependency upon prayer to name only a few. listen to this: she once prayed for God to send me a bird during a difficult time. the most fantastically bright yellow bird showed up on a high wire during the funeral procession of my husband's sister in memphis. now that's answered prayer wouldn't you say? what a God of details we have and how sweet is He to answer our prayers like that?

i cannot compare one friend to another, that's not my point. they're all too precious to me. i am very blessed by all the many friends God has given me, some since 7th grade!

but on their special birthdays when i enjoy celebrating how they were born into this world just to be my friends (it's all about me) and celebrating the days they were born again in Christ, i just long to be with them a little more than usual. thank you GOD for my charlotte, NC friend. bless her today, real good, i pray, amen.

walking with God

2008-12-17T12:31:00.009-06:00

http://walkingwithgod.net/audio-excerpts.htm

this is the link to john eldredge who's audiotaped reading from his recent book "walking with God." you may know more about it than i do. he's written "the sacred romance," "wild at heart," for men and his wife stacey wrote the companion for women. sound familiar?

this book is taken from his journals. i like it so far, i'm about half way through. just thot i'd share it with you today on my blog. i've read several of his books and heard him speak live once so i figgered it'd be great. my friend harriet told me about it. hat tip to her!

life's analogies/parables

2008-12-16T11:56:00.007-06:00

the streets were getting bad. there was black ice forming from a misty rain, some sleet. the temp was no higher than 25 degrees. husband called. are you okay? yes, i'm fine. i'll be careful. oh, he's such a worry-wart. my own personal jewish mama, he is. almost home. approaching the last traffic light to turn right onto my street. the light must've been red because the lexus was stopped (he told me later). all i know is i tried to slow down and i couldn't. my brakes didn't work. i thought: this is the first time my brakes have not worked. i knew i was going to hit that car. i tried to veer to the left of him so i'd at least hit the side not his rear as i sailed past him and the light, pumping my brakes to no avail until 30 or 40 feet past the light my rav came to a stop, the brakes finally doing their job. car off, flashers on, i went to check on the person i'd hit. he was digging out of his air bag that had deployed so i must've hit him hard, he was after all sitting still at the light. he said "i'm fine. no, it wasn't your brakes. you hit ice. it's very icy here. are you okay? we're both fine. it was the ice, it was an accident. you didn't mean to do it. let's get out of the street. i've already called 911." he was very kind throughout the whole incident. thank you, Lord.

God speaks to us, teaches us in stories, in parables, in analogies. what's the story here? what's He saying here? speculating, as it's only the morning after the wreck with not much time to ponder, my initial thought is: appeciate my husband's cautious, loving concern, no more poo-pooing of that. he knows things i don't know. i'm not such a smarty pants.

looking deeper tho, my thoughts remind me of how we were sitting at the stop lite of life four years ago and were slammed by suffering in april 05, fall 05, then again in april 06, each time involving our children. and we're not out of the proverbial woods yet with other dates i won't name here. (yes, we are ready for them to cease and are praying to that end.) i promise you, we were sitting at the light, minding our own business and life slammed into us. God providentially ordaineth suffering (the lexus driver may not realize my slamming into him was ordaineth by our God in the grand scheme of things). one day i'll have permission to share these particular slammings in blog fashion. in the meantime, please know that we have plenty of support from those who know all details and have listened, counseled and held our hands thru every bit of it. there is wisdom in a multitude of counselors and we have taken stock in that scripture! (proverbs 15:22)

Westminster Confession of Faith, 1647

III, I

God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass;

V, I

God the Creator of all things doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by His most wise and holy providence, according to His infallible foreknowledge, in the free and immutable counsel of His own will, to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.

sharing from andree seu

2008-12-10T08:54:00.008-06:00

catching up on reading andree seu's blog today i came across this about her thankfulness for friends. she references 1 samuel 23:16 (the marvelous strengthening in the Lord david received from jonathan) and then 1 samuel 30:6 where david called upon the Lord by his lonesome for help, as it sometimes happens there's not a friend nearby. the scripture i have had on my msw business card is 1 samuel 23:16 because that's what i believe we do for one another - strengthen each other in the Lord. AND, i love the point she makes, that when we are alone, which can be often, when we don't have "another person with skin on" (who said that?), it's okay, because we can make it then, too!

My Thanksgiving

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 27TH, 2008 | 7:40 AM

If I have to choose one thing to thank God for this year, it would have to be friends who help me find strength in the Lord. This is one of the God’s greatest gifts. This is the gift God gave David in Jonathan. I don’t know how long a trip it was from the royal palace to the wilderness of Ziph, but Jonathan evidently thought it was worth the trouble. “Jonathan, Saul’s son, rose and went to David at Horesh, and strengthened his hand in God” (1 Samuel 23:16).

And now I know how Jonathan did that because I have friends who do that for me: He spoke truth to him—the full, big picture truth, and not just the little particle of the truth that we tend to focus on when we’re afraid, as David was, being pursued like a flea by King Saul.

Sometimes it happens that you don’t have a strong friend around to strengthen you in the Lord, so you have to do it to yourself. This is not the ideal (Hebrews 3:13 says it’s good to get a little help from your friends), but it can be done. David was down to zero friends after the raid at Ziglag; there was talk of stoning him. So he “strengthened himself in the Lord his God” (1 Samuel 30:6). Same method. Talk truth to yourself: God loves me. God is my refuge. God has a purpose for me.

Jesus was down to zero friends as he hung on the tree. He came to his lowest point ever: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). How do you think that in a few minutes’ time Jesus went from that sentiment to this muscular movement of the will: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46). Same method. He reminded himself that he had come from God and was going to God (John 13:3).