Hand Wringing and Doom and Gloomers

If it is a sin to worry... oh, wait.. you may not know that, let me set my premise to this whole chat then.

Worry:
In Matthew, chapter six, Jesus speaks a good deal of worry, he asks us if it really gets us any where and in a way answers that and then says to not worry because He will take care of us.

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Worry and being anxious is in direct opposition to faith, anxiety is the opposite of what Christ calls us to, He calls us to have faith in Him, not in our strength, not in dates and opinion polls, not in our ability to fuss and worry over all things in life, but to have faith in His strength, to rely on Him.

Christ tells us not to worry about earthly things, clothes, food, friends, He even tells us not to worry about what would be terribly important, our testimony when we are arrested because we know Him.

Even modern science tell us that worry, stress, robs from us. It makes us age faster. Like Christ says, today has enough trouble of its own, like the poor, there will always be stresses, ones that we cannot escape, ones that are not a result of faith breaking worry and fear. But we are not to heap on the troubles of today and worry and fear our tomorrows. Worry certainly does not buy us more time and science backs that one up. Not because Christ needs modern science to back Him up, but interesting how the truth of the words of Christ do not need to see the end of this world to be plainly seen as true, right and good.

What is sin really, but to go against God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit? To live in and for the flesh and not reside in the Spirit, all of that, it is all sin. Sorry, if that just broadens the scope of what is sin and what is not, in your world. But to worry, to fret, to fear situations, is to not have faith, to not rest in God and take Him at His word, that He will take care of us.

Check it out, you do not have to become a breatharian ascetic to live a Spirit-led, faith-filled, anxiety-denying life. The Spirit leads us to eat and eat peacefully. True servants of His made cloth for clothing and tents for shelter. He calls us to be in company with one another, to crave to be in fellowship, to travel, to do good deeds of all sorts. But all that for Christ and not our very own flesh.

Might I go on now?

So its a sin to worry and be anxious and sin will always come into the world, we aren't going to stop it at the gate. However, if the one who lets the sin slip by them and causes a child of God to sin there by drawing an eventual remorse so strong that the Path-Paver would then choose to be drown for certain in the sea with a millstone around their neck, then why on earth would you desire to cause or stir up worry in another person?

Just wonderin'.

(Matthew 18:6, Mark 9:42 and Luke 17:2 in case you think I'm nutty about what happens to the path pavers, wide gate openers, uh, what they would rather have happen to them.)

So if you would not wish to cause another worry whether for their soul or for your very own neck, then why would you do business with a person who trades on anxieties and worries to make their buck?

Now I am not talking about not buying a safe ladder, or rubber gloves, or new brakes for your car, or vitamin C.

Remember, weavers, tent makers, moms, dads, travelers, neighbors we're all called to be His.

What I am speaking of, wondering about is, perpetuating the commerce of anxiety by buying into doom and gloom and "whoa is us", and "oh no the world is coming to an end" or at least a whopping good crisis.

I got news for you. The world is going to end. That is with out a doubt.

However, no one knows that day and time, not even Christ, only the Father. And no one is going to escape it no matter how deep their bomb shelter, or secluded their dwelling, or stocked their root cellar is, because it will end at God's hand, not a bomb, not a nuclear winter, not a carbon overloaded-sky-climate change.

I am not saying that you ought not to be prepared for the future, if you are headed for a trip in the mountains, by all means, grab your coat and put the chains in the trunk. But for crying out loud, do not worry and do not borrow trouble that is not there for you.

What business is it that these purveyors of doom and worry are in? You find them every where, selling nearly everything, everything but real peace and contentment. They will even sell you false mind-numbing contentment if you want it. They will convince you you have some crisis. They sell you themselves and their ideas, they sell you products to stave off the end of the world or at least protect you, or numb you, but mostly what they are selling you is anxiety, worry and a fraudulent product.

Y2K bring back any memories for anyone? A contrived crisis, where no one was reminded to rely on God but instead they were sold millions of dollars of "survival goods." The only business that hurt from that one was the sorry fellas that don't know how to be good hucksters: find or contrive a weakness, a fear; strike it; suck it for all its worth; and then move on to the next thing.

Some purveyors of panic are very good, very discrete, you can hardly tell what they are up to, it all seems so sweet and well meaning, and "golly, I was wondering about that too." No clear signs of selling fretfulness.

But then there are the others, that because no one calls out the selling of worry and whoa, doom and gloom, they are just plain bold, and the point is right there in their very own words.

Yes, they may be dressed up all cutesy in overalls and a floppy garden hat, or Victorian garb and dainty lace gloves, but their message of looming crisis is strong and unabashedly bold in print. "Buy our product because there is a crisis on the horizon, a big one, a prolonged one. To make it through you need us."

They say their product brings you peace.

With that one Dear Christ-Follower, you ought to hear in your head, your gut, your heart, your spirit, the sound of a needle sliding across a rotating disc of vinyl.

No one brings peace in a crisis or in daily life but Christ. And Christ says not to worry.

Then why are you buying into a product that is wringing its hands on the sideline with a pitifully knit brow and tears in its eyes for the Unprepared?

And low and behold nine times out of ten the product is faulty. Food in tin cans can not last forever, grain once it is ground will loose its nutrition, and many seeds do not last for five years, albeit some last longer, but some last a little over a year.

Live right right now.

Don't by a bucket of stale right living and put it in your freezer to pull out when the crisis hits. Most plants for food take an average of three months to mature, the unprepared ground another month or two to prep, given even that the right crisis hits in the right season, what good is it to bank on a salvation that comes four months after the crisis?

Look, I'm not saying that it isn't a good idea to garden and learn to save seed, in fact that is what I am saying, learn to listen to the Holy Spirit, make your food today, save of your harvest what you know you will need for the next day's planting, be an ant, be wise, be fruitful but do not worry. There is a big difference.

I'm not saying to be indolent and then arrive at my back door or freeway off ramp when your belly is a little empty. Learn to work your soil and your muscles so that you are not found weak and un-knowledgeable. But that takes daily practice, not a bucket in your freezer to be pulled out when the crisis finally hits.

And if you have no soil of your own or your muscles are not what they used to be? Find an honest business that is there to fill your needs, your honest needs, not your pretend or sinful needs. Hire them to do what you cannot, there is nothing wrong with that. The concept of self-reliance is not only quite far fetched it is also not how we are to live.

We are to live in community, relying on each other no matter how painful and irritating that may be. But we are to do so with honesty and forthrightness. Not manipulating each other's base fleshly worries and oiling up our panic buttons.

Being in a line of work or having a fairly decent smattering of skills that could play along with the current "green" crisis business, it is very tempting to join hands and participate in the nonsense that could make cash for my hip pocket.

To part hand-wringers from their hard earned cash in a barely honest manner is very tempting, "everyone is doing it", and good people are participating and buying into it, why shouldn't I?

Why shouldn't I? Because it will make my Father's stomach turn? Because it will grieve the Holy Spirit in whom I ought to be relying on to teach me better ways?

Because it will continue to cause others to sin?

And golly, I really don't like the idea of drowning.

Too Much? Balance?

Please be patient with me today Dear Reader, I know I've written about my pet peeve before but some things have been stacking up towards needing to write about it again, then my good friend wrote a little something and it got me all charged up. Read this and then come back here for my tirade of agreement!


My friend, her family and mine and a few other friends have heard a lot about how we are being overly protective. We are Christians: Christ followers, God listeners, we do have a big tendency to listen to what God says, in His written word and in personal answer to prayer, over what the world or even well meaning friends have to say. But that doesn't mean that what others say and confront us with doesn't eventually wear on us to the point where we feel we need to speak up.


In the past those speak-up times rarely change the mind of those who have confronted us directly or indirectly through others, mostly because those folks are not you my Dear Reader. But they do have a way of encouraging others and encouraging those of us in our circle of influence. I hope that this is one of those times, for her post was for me, I hope this is for her and our other friends.


Overprotective, and balance, two words that drive me nuts and ones I feel that Christians, Christfollowers, should avoid using. Yes, shout out "balance" to the girl hoicking herself up to walk on the top of the stone wall. Yes, inquire, "Is that balanced?" to the person using a scale to measure an important item. But balance in things of soul building or soul destroying nature? No way. Feed on food in moderation but feed on the things of God 'til you think you'll pop and then some more.


Does God call us to a balance between deceit and honesty? Between thievery and earning your wage? Between preserving life and destroying it? Does He ask for a certain behaviour and then settle on the realization that you just can't make it there?


Over? Can you over do it on prayer? How about kindness? Charity? Peace? Not in your self-preserving vision on life, but with Christ's vision. Did he warn us that we could indeed go too far beyond what the Good Samaritan did? Did he tell us that yes, indeed we could do too good of a job taking care of our elderly parents?

So then Paul was lying when he suggested that we pray unceasingly? To imagine that every word out of our mouth, every thought in our head could become captive to Christ, become a prayer to Him, that would be crazy? Paul was just excited and talking about something no one can do?

I do not believe that a life lived in Christ is a call to a life lived in mediocrity. There was, and is still, nothing mediocre about Christ. Simple yes, mediocre never. There is simply doing what is right and avoiding, so as to not do, what is wrong.

When things seem as if they have gone too far, take a second look. Is it really that a virtue has been taken too far or is it actually a sin dressed up to appear as a virtue.


So when folks say, "oh dear, he is over protective," when they hear about or see a father who locks his children up in the basement, beats them when they go outside without his permission, are they actually seeing protectiveness that has gone too far or are they instead seeing a bully, tyrant, hate filled man? A man who is not attending to the words of Christ? What is really being seen is a self-centered person not a protective person. Over protection is an oxymoron, you can not over protect. If you are actually harming something or someone you can not be said to be protecting that thing. Satan dresses up the road he would rather have us travel with all sorts of baubles and tresses so that we are lured into his life of perpetual lies. Look at what something really is not what he says it is.


When you look at a cold hearted frigid woman and the deprived man she is married to, do you pity him because she is too pure? Too Victorian? You ought to pity him because she is not pure enough, if she were actually pure, and not just self-absorbed and drug away by Satan's lies, she would know that God gave her and her husband an amazing gift to be enjoyed and celebrated, to be honored. But when we constantly tell our unmarried children, "don't do that (sex or anything sexual) because it is naughty or nasty" we are indeed lying to them. Sex is not nasty. Sex outside of marriage is a sin. There is a huge difference. So the poor woman who can't bring herself to have sex with her husband because it is naughty is not being pure, not in any way shape or form.

We call women who behave in this way, who do not care for coming together with their husband, who cringe at the idea of sex, a prude. And while that is correct in the vernacular of the word, what we commonly think of the word meaning, it is actually incorrect. Prude comes from prudefemme, "a worthy or respectable woman". We, through our being drug away from goodness by Satan often begin to use terms in the pejorative when they were never meant to indicate something negative or wrong. We, in our sinfulness, do not like worthy and respectable women, we would rather they take it down a notch and be human like us. So we call them a prude, and soon the word and concept becomes distorted and people use it to describe a person who does not have the proper vision of sex and purity.

You actually cannot be too pure. We can speak of gold as being ninety percent pure because it has impurities, because things that are not gold are in it, but it can never be a hundred and four percent pure. Purity can not be over the top.

And so while it may be advantageous for a ring to not be pure gold, to have a certain level of impurity in it so that it can hold up to daily wearing, we stop our analogy at this point because we are speaking of the Christ-like nature that we are to take on. "Follow me as I follow Christ," Paul says. He does not equivocate on this, he does not hold out a here or there where you might not want to follow Christ as he does or where he himself ain't going because it is too Christ-like.


Come on. Can you really take a virtue, a character of God, too far, be too kind, too forgiving, too loving. too faith-filled? Really, is that your answer? Because if you answered "yes, you can be too much of these things" and cite times when perhaps you were taken advantage of, over looked because you were too humble, then I gotta ask, in whose estimation are you looking at that with? Christ's or man's self-preservation?

Can you take something He, God, asks you to do too far? Can you be too repentant for your sins and evil thoughts? Can you listen to the Holy Spirit too much? Or would he just have too much to say to you, ask too many things of you, ask you to do something he knows you cannot do even though you lean on the strength of Christ to do it?


God calls me as a parent, well he calls all parents actually, but yes, I can really actually only speak for myself and demand a certain level of obedience from myself, He calls me to protect my children. That is my job as a parent. That is my only job actually, all else falls under love and then protect. Education protects from abuse and exploitation, training in skill and attitude for work protects from poverty and freeloading.


But shielding from the world, protecting from sin, it keeps my children's hearts for God's work, it lessens the footholds for Satan in their lives, it bends them more God's way and less Self's way, self absorption.

What is my scripture for that? I immediately want to say, there are so many scriptures, from the beginning to the end of the whole of the Bible, that build my understanding of what my job as a parent is that I am at a loss as to which one to cite. Then there is this good one here that speaks of this and this one here that speaks of that, really we could go on forever. But now I have gotten a tap on the shoulder and I know that there is a verse I can cite that goes to the heart of our call, Dirt's and mine, as parents. It is one verse really but it is in three of the gospels and it is Christ's very own words, often found in red:

“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes!" Matthew 18:6-7

"And if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck. " Mark 9:42

Jesus said to his disciples: "Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. So watch yourselves." Luke 17:1-2

Some version say be careful. Can you be too careful? Read those verses again, can you be too careful? Really? Care to drown?

I protect ultimately because I love, not because I fear. To acknowledge that Satan is outside our doors, prowling, waiting for his chance to devour and destroy us, is not the same as being in fear, paralysing, poor reaction causing, fear.

Fear and panic are not emotions that bring about care or careful ways. They are in fact ungodly. But often we go to fear and panic after something has happened. Satan has gotten inside our lives perhaps because we have not been previously careful. We have not been filled with care and attentiveness, something has now gone a wry and we panic out of fear of more things going a wry. This is not how we are to behave, we are to at first be care-filled, that when things go wrong around us we do not compound them with our panic and fear.

Misery loves company the old adage goes, the Biblical concept of that would be a little leavening ferments the whole. Do you tell me I am too over-protective because it is too much trouble for you too be likewise with your child and therefore you want me to parent like you do? Is it really my best interest you have at heart or do you just want your whining child off your back? You want to give in, but you want company in your misery and so you ask, beg and then criticize when my child doesn't get to accompany yours to the mall to hang out, or on a road trip with friends, or to a nice little college to find themselves? Or maybe you would just like my child to date a little so that you don't have to wonder if your kid could have actually found a spouse without having to get pregnant first?

We as a society, including Christians, spend the majority of our children's early years, and a boat load of our money on a career for them that may or may not last about thirty years (and in some cases never get off the ground) yet we spend little time or resources preparing, preserving them for a daily relationship that is to last "until death us do part" not to mention the relationship that will last an eternity.

Bible verse? How 'bout a whole chapter, Genesis 34, a great illustration of where neglectful parenting can lead. This chapter spoke loudly to Dirt and I as we began to take seriously the great honor it was to raise four daughters for God. Not only does it show what can happen to a good girl when she is allowed to hang out with just the women folk in the market place, but it shows that neglectful parenting not only can have consequences for your very own family but many people can be greatly effected. A great many people can be affected by the nonchalant cultural choices we often make with no regard to what God's word may actually say on the topic or where the Holy Spirit could lead you to if you were to only listen first then act, instead of acting first and then listening to the correction through ill consequences.

We are not saying we have done everything right, that we have been as protective as we should have been. We are not saying that we are not the cause of some of our children's sin. We indeed are and for that we ask them and God for forgiveness, and we pray that we are able to find the right road again. But please, do not then ask us to be less careful with their lives, their very souls. Stop telling us not to parent as God has called us to.

So Where In My Mind Do Start?

Well I guess the biggest hurdle is that I'm sorta tired of the mishmash I hear, and see. I want to taste the Truth, everywhere I go.
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Oh, I know, I live in a fallen world, the devil hates Jesus and the Father of Lies has been busy, but God has built his Church and the gates of hell shall not, can not, prevail against it. I meet her every where I go, or at least that is what I'm told.
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I want to roll the ganache that is the smooth and lustrous beauty of God around in my mouth and swallow a mouthful a hundred times over from one spoonful. I want to savor every corner of His word. I want my head to explode like it does when the dark richness lets a migraine break through. I want my mind to expand beyond the boundaries of my tiny little skull.
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Lately, my standing muscles have been thoroughly tried. Some of my stand up routines have gone swimmingly well and some, not so hot. When the not so hot ones hit, a little of that thirty-five year habit has flared and I've wished I could ride the fence once again and call a bunch of stuff grey areas, or semantics or some horrible misunderstanding most likely blamable on the shoddy translation that I was using. (I say, always keep those questionable translations handy for just such times.)
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So where do I start Dear Reader? Heck, lets start with a couple of pieces of shoddy thinking from this week and work backwards. This week, not to dissimilar to other stand up instances, the garbage is nothing new and nothing I haven’t spoken against before, things that have caused a further deeper search for the truth and to avoid the deceptive philosophies of this world that the Church has allowed in through her sweet doors.
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This week, I was hit with one more round of "we all have dry periods."
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Explained, not so dissimilarly to other times this concept has been espoused, as a time that God, for whatever reason, removes himself from us.
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Key in the sound of that needle scraping across the vinyl that my mind so often hears.
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What the heck, did that not follow directly on the heels of the reading of scripture: "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Jesus' words in Matthew 28! (emphasis mine)
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I did not read in my suspicious translation, "And ya know, surely I am with you most of the time. But sometimes you might find that I've sort of left you, well as much as an omniscient, omnipresent, indwelling, immanent sort of God can. I'll do it so that you buck up and grow a little and want me more. Consider it sort of like a legal separation in marriages these days, you know how much I love to use marriages to compare our relationship, well you folks have really got that whole absence makes the heart grow fonder crap down pretty stinking good, well except for the times those separations end sorta ugly like Paul will warn you about in one of his more stirring letters I help him write, but hey lets ride with the analogy for now. I will move out, or so it will seem, I might be hiding in the closet, who knows, so that you will miss me and try a little harder when I'm back yakkin' at you full time. Now I'm not talkin' here about the times Paul will tell you to toss some rebellious, blatantly grossly rebellious dad's-wife stealer out of your church so that he will repent, I'm just talkin' takin' a powder from letting you feel my presence."
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I don't give a crap what your experience has been.
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And my experience does not trump your experience.
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But what does tell me to call hooey on your experience or this opinion that “we all experience dry times at the hand of God“, separate from our own choice which is usually from wallowing in sin, is that no where in the Bible, in the New Testament, in the crucifixion and resurrection Reality and Word, does God promise that He will remove His presence from striving Christians to make us stronger. No where.
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In fact the way I read it, and you know what, I'm not going to sit here and cite scripture, it is all through the New Testament, and I am going to paraphrase sumpin' fierce, the way I read it is that we are only, only, made stronger as we abide in Him and He in us. It is through Him and Him alone that I am strong enough to do all things, or everything or anything or what He calls me to do. So where does one read that the removal of God's presence grows someone? Or that He does indeed remove himself?
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Another thing for tonight, and this one is going to be harder for me to explain because it will slightly sound to the half asleep mind that I am contradicting what I have always said, well in the last twenty-eight years, that there is no sin, none what so ever, that God can not forgive. He is just that big. That huge, that powerful and that mighty. None of our sin, even mass murder, is bigger and more powerful, more evil, than He is good.
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That said the other thing that came out this week is that same ol' same ol' crap of "ya, that's the goal sure 'nuff, but we all sin, its just a big circle, down we go into sin, up we come, down we go. It is what it is."
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Holy shoot fire, you're sure God is okay with that freakin' attitude? Oh ya, that's gotta come from that whole misreading of Romans 7. Read it again folks, but this time read it from chapter one on through to the end. Blow on past the end and read a bit in Philippians and some of Paul's other inspired letters and maybe, just maybe you'll get the sense that the helpless guy is the guy under the Law, not indwelt by the Holy Spirit. No, we are not without sin, not saying that, but we sure as heck are not freakin' slaves to the "Circle of Life" that includes dippin down into sin and coming up for a little God-air.
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So this is me, not having learned to be very graceful over summer vacation: Get over yourself. Get over yourself and help me get over myself. Don’t tell me anymore that my sin has an excuse if only the excuse that “we are all sinners.” Ya but, should I be wallowing in it or scheduling it into my cycle?!
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And stop wringing your hands or being complacent even about these imagined dry times. There is no such thing. God is willing to yap your ear off. It is just that He is most likely saying things that make you warm under the collar, make you wiggle in your seat, make you question your conformability, make you consider disrupting your life. Perceived dry time? It is not because He is withholding, it is we that are withholding, we are the ones who are cheating on the relationship, it is we who look for a sweeter lover, not God. He chose us, He wed us, and no matter how horrifyingly skanky whorish we are He is never leaving us even for a trial separation.
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But we oughten to come at God and demand that we have our way, our time of disobedience and then our forgiveness, our endless chats about ourselves.
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Hope you've settled into the easy chair Dear Reader, there are many more chats about ridding ourselves of the mishmash, the deceptive philosophies of this world.

My Daughters Crack Me Up

The other day our youngest Vick Chick, Anna Banana, Peanut Butter, maker of phenomenal pies, bread, dinners and more, all from scratch, was going to make the dinner of her daddy's fond desire, grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. She does the best grilled cheese of anyone I know, it is an art form. That night the sandwiches were wonderful as usual, the tater tots baked to perfection. But the soup? It was a bit strong tasting.


"Anna," I say to her, "What did you do to the soup?"


"I don't know! It's awful isn't it? I even added a little cream to it, and it is still awful."


"What kind of soup did your daddy bring home?" I inquire, knowing that she has on occasion used the store bought tomato soup out of those cool hermetically sealed boxes, but the can she was unfamiliar with.


"It was that nasty canned stuff. I had to use three cans" She says.


"Did you add a whole can of milk for every can of soup?"


"No." She replied indignantly, "It didn't say to."


Knowing that this is also my incredibly impatient child, at times over the top impatient, I asked to see said can because in her favor it may not have been the can I thought it was.


It was.


Give the girl a sack of flour and a couple of apples and she turns out a beautiful pie or with a little yeast a nice crusty loaf of bread, give her a bag of peas and some quick instructions while you work in the garden and she has a lovely hearty soup waiting for when you're done, but she has no time for a stupid can of tomato soup.



Then there is Bettispaghettie, Betti-kins


Betti-kins aka Elisabeth (not pronounced like Elizabeth) is my oldest at home girl.


Sometimes her humor surprises the heck outta me because she is so dog gone quiet most of the time. But her father is rubbing off on her more and more and she is beginning to make up songs about whatever she sees or is doing at the moment.


The other day while she was suggesting to her little (nearly taller than her) sister that the dogs needed tending she came up with this song and it soon became the anthem for the weekend. It is sung with a little western twisted tune (where'd she come up being such a western music person I'm not totally sure but in my need to place blame I might look in a hedgerow somewhere).


Give the dogs food and water,

It will change your life.

Never let your mother or your daughter,

hate your wife.


Now I don't care who you are, but that is downright funny to hear being sung by a gaggle of girls in the back seat of a big fat Ford 350 diesel dually going to the feed store to buy some hay and chicks.


But then if you think about it no truer words were sung. It isn't good for a man to allow his mom or his daughter to have ill feelings towards the woman he is married to.


I think we forget what that word married means. In cooking you can put a stew together hastily and bring it up to a hot and steamy temperature with some quick heat but you will be able to taste the full flavor of the individual ingredients if eaten separately. However, if you take the time to marry the flavors then you could never again completely separate out the different components as if they were separate foods on a plate. They are married, now one, inseparable. The meat essence has oozed from the bits and melded into the softened carrot chunks and the carrot fragrance has infected the potato, nothing can be separated from the other, not completely.


With stew it takes time, but through the miracle that God has created in human marriage it only takes a moment, a moment of a vow, an acknowledgement and the two are one, never again completely separable.


It doesn't take years of dating, a lengthy engagement or a big wedding, it only takes what the community accepts as an understanding of marriage and it is done, forever. One shot. You are married for the length of your life. You cannot get the other out of your skin, children or no children. They, the children, are not how you become one. God proclaims the married as one, not two living together until the children come; they are in fact one, one right now and one forever.


If the mother hates her child's spouse, she hates her very own child, for now the two, her child and another, are one flesh and always will be. The idea of a mother hating her child isn't healthy; for a mother to hate her child's spouse is to hate her child and that is crippling to a mother.


So the husband in Bet's song can't allow that to happen not just because he loves his wife but because he loves his mother and if his mother hates his wife, she hates him and if she hates him she does damage to that thing inside her that is a mother. She would be denying what she was created for, motherness.


When Jesus takes the thou shalt not murder thing to a whole other level with His Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5) he showed how our ill thoughts and words towards another is right in there with murder. Solomon, the wisest man, knew that a mother could never murder her own child without causing herself chaos and degradation. Connect the two.


Somewhat similarly, a daughter cannot be allowed to hate her mother for it will do her damage and her father cannot let that happen for it is the father's job to keep his daughter from harming herself. To hate her mother would do just that, harm the daughter. She came from this woman, she cannot stand in the kitchen with her hands on her hips, level her face to her mother's and scream her hatred for her without causing untold damage to herself. She hates her mother? She may as well hate herself. And as we know from Jesus' lesson to hate is to murder. Self-hatred is suicide. Self-hatred by the way is not the same as self-denial or self-control or selflessness, not in the least.


Need some more dots to connect? Commandment five says, honor your father and mother. In Ephesians it is pointed out as the first commandment with a promise. The promise is for a good and long life; “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”


The promise is not just a cookie that God gives for being good but a natural consequence in God's magnificent creation. And we know that a certain amount of time isn't really that same amount of time in God's perspective. Even in our own minds time can change; a good time, a happy and joy filled time is as productive, worthwhile and seemingly long even if it is shorter in actuality than a miserable retched time where regrets and disappointments live at the end.

If you hate yourself by hating whom you came from, who's DNA you have making your hair curly or your eyes green, then you are not going to live a good long life; it will be short and miserable even if you live to ninety-six.


So it may very well have been a silly spur of the moment Bettikins song but it is very, very true.

My Meditations Today

For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness. 1 Corinthians 1:21-23.


O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? Have you suffered so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?— just as Abraham “believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.” So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.

For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.” But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for “the just shall live by faith.” Yet the law is not of faith, but “the man who does them shall live by them.” Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

Brethren, I speak in the manner of men: Though it is only a man’s covenant, yet if it is confirmed, no one annuls or adds to it. Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “And to your Seed,” who is Christ. And this I say, that the law, which was four hundred and thirty years later, cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ, that it should make the promise of no effect. For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no longer of promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise.

What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator does not mediate for one only, but God is one. Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law. But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.

For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. Galatians 3

We are not saved by law or ritual. It matters little how well we follow the law, the days we obligate and hold dear, how deep or accurate our rituals are performed. We are not made righteous by the symbols we wear.

The crucifix is not mere symbol, not mere ideal, it is reality. Christ died. Christ hung upon a cruel tree for us. We are not freed from sin because of the idea of a cross or the thought of a Substitute. We are free because He, who had become man, did indeed pay our price. We are free only because He, who was utterly righteous, hung upon the cursed tree. We are free because after he was beaten and humiliated He died upon the cross, held by the blood stained tree until he breathed His last breath.

Gaze upon Him, suffering unto death upon that cross, bloody, battered, humiliated, and scorned and know that you are free because He is there, He has taken the punishment and disgrace in your stead.

See the empty cross tomorrow, the open tomb is there but for meditation another day, give today, the full day to see the cross in its fullness of the pain and grief, the pain we create, the grief we cause, that our Christ has taken upon himself for us. In His pain and our release grieve and rejoice for what He has done today.

Hooray, It's Pi Day!

Bet has one turkey pot pie in the oven, another went into the freezer and now she is making a strawberry rhubarb pie or pi. I am not showing any pictures as I do not care to share. Not today, I know you people, you'll ask for a bite, then another and then one of you will sneak out to the well house and into the freezer and my pi will be gone!

Actually Bet may wish to post about her culinary doings today so I'm just forewarning you of pictures that may cause overeating.

Today we sheared Kathy's sheep, I'll give her the chance to post pictures of her own sheep first, aren't I being courteous today? But now we are all home thawing out. Buggers it is cold out.

Tomorrow the duck fence goes up because the logging trip was canceled. Which in my world is a good thing because I am not thinking of next year's heat but this year's onion plants that are being pulled out. The little stinkers. They don't even eat them, they are onions after all, so why do they feel the need to pull them out?

They also need to be kept from sitting on the garlic bed. I am trying to console my garden heart by telling myself that sitting on my garlic is keeping lice or something off of my little duckies that I love but that can be just this side of maddening.

No pictures today at all because lately Blogger will only upload one of my pictures at a time. Tia is going to show me how to change my pics in Photoshop so that they are smaller or something any way technical lingo and understanding aside she said they would load much faster. So I am hoping that not only will they load faster but they will actually load. However, this will cut into my Mahjong playing time.

Tuesday is St. Patrick's Feast Day, feast days are usually celebrated on the death of the saint or whomever is being celebrated. And much like Shrove or Fat Tuesday I am saddened that it has turned into an excuse for debauchery. I like beer as much as the next Northern European import to America, but it doesn't need to be green and I don't need to drink so much that I can't remember why my beer is green.

But making things green isn't a bad idea, green is a very meaningful color, it is the color of:

1. evergreen, never changing like God.
2. life
3. promise of eternal life

So because green is significant and in the middle of this season (winter/spring and lent) green can be a welcome reminder of what is to come, the girls and I will be making green velvet cupcakes to take around on Tuesday to all our town folks.

Oh man, just had a bite of the turkey pot pie. Sorry but this post has come to an abrupt end. Till next time Dear Reader, take care of what God has given you.

A Good Time

So many moments of "meeting together" this week. I am blessed to have a huge helping of the Body available to lean on, glean knowledge from, laugh with, share burdens. I am fortunate to be able to get together physically with many but we also have the telephone wires for those times we need to share but cannot get together.

Spurring one another on to love and good deeds. For this time in my life I am focusing on the "good deed" of really pouring love into my home through meal times and pleasant scenes, so that Dirt can come home, gain perspective and rest, that he might better fight the battles that he faces, that right now I cannot because they are not my place.

I am also focusing on the deeds of prayer and burden bearing. If that is all I could do, I could spend the greater part of the day praising God on the behalf of others and petitioning for His will to be done in our lives all around us and far away, petitioning that we may, as individuals and collectively, hear His wisdom, hear His will not ours.

The one deed that I feel especially called to for at this time but that I am really having a hard time with is the oft forgotten second half of James' telling of what is pure undefiled religion namely, keeping myself unstained from the world. Not only myself but the children that I am still responsible for. And helping Dirt accomplish this also. He, however, is better at letting go of the things of the world that soil us.

I, on the other hand Dear Reader, as you know, love to rationalize that just a little of this or that or one more hour of this or that really won't make much difference.

I have stopped listening to the news. My head was swimming with all the evil in the world. I am well acquainted with how evil man can get, right now I am in a spot that the knowledge of individual instances of evil is not helpful to me and makes it hard for me to get about my daily work.

The hard part is the "fiction" on the box. I rationalize that it isn't really real and has so very little to do with my life, that a little frivolous entertainment certainly cannot be all that harmful. I am not so sure about that for me right now. I don't mean to wag a finger at anyone but myself. The line is "to keep yourself unstained, or unspotted, and if you can do that Dear Reader and still watch or read much of the fare that is out there then I am no one to tell you different.

I certainly am not about to think that by watching "fictional" tv that I will abandon my marriage, throw off how I see people, or allow my daughters to play with fire. However, I have been wondering greatly at something way more insidious. Attitude. Snotty, self-indulgent, impatient, spoiled attitude.

Certainly not the attitude that my side board says it is time for, time for being last. I come away from being "entertained" with an altered mind set. I let whininess come in like a flood. "I deserve this that and the other thing." I am not necessarily looking for the materialistic things in my life to increase, but the admiration, respect or tolerance from others. I can be short tempered with others but they dare not be short tempered with me.

Ugh. I am not for a minute blaming tv, I am arrogant, critical and demanding all on my own. I'm just wondering if I should let my brain soak in the type of entertainment that green lights and even builds up those wrong attitudes and thoughts.

So I am thankful for my godly friends who are so willing to call dung, dung and to tell me to get off my high horse for my sake and to look for God's way not mine. I am thankful for activities that strip me down and take me to Camp Humble. I need to be there, not at Camp Self Indulgent or Self Preservation Conference, or Me-Time Seminars.

Right now, more than other times, I need to be at places, physically and mentally where I am nearly forced to dwell only on things are true, noble or respected, just, pure, lovely or beautiful, of good report, searching out virtues and anything that is praiseworthy and wholly meditate on exactly these things.

If my mind is awash in only these things, awash in the character of God, then the things that I intentionally or accidentally produce could not but help being a better fresher lovelier fruit. The love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control, would come with less struggle and self condemnation.

It is easy, really very easy, to do with out entertainment of the sort I am talking about, for me it is not just the tv, but radio, certain music, books... I needed none of that tonight, I am not an out of control junkie who must get a fix. Its when I am being lazy, when is it so easy to click on or open up and allow my mind to being sullied. I would rather spend an evening in the manner that we spend each Friday night and other random lovely nights than how I spend some of the rest.

Gotta hit the pillow Dear Reader, just thought I'd let you know what I was pondering. I am joyfilled that God has me in His hand and that He is willing to fill me with His wisdom when I am ready to want it more than anything.

My Dogs Have Tissues

I know, I am famous for my misspellings.


I freely admit that I spell like a frog on acid, the hippy-drug acid not the etch-your-glass acid. But the title is not a typo or misspelling. I know Dear Reader, you think that I mean to say that my dogs have issues. And as well you know, I have rat terriers, blind border collies and a orphan drug dog rescued from a dysfunctional family, so it is easy to jump to the conclusion that I mean to tell you today that my dogs have issues. And for sure they may, but today they have tissues.



A whole box to be exact! They did this on my bed. You're right Dear Reader, when you say, "most likely because they have issues." It appeared from the evidence that they were after the glue in the cardboard box that once contained the tissues. Next time I just leave them some glue in their dish. Or maybe they would like glue in its raw form and I'll have Dirt trim feet on the livestock for them.

Hey, today is Fat Tuesday, a celebration I've never really gotten into.

One time, some friends took me up to the Seattle celebration of it back in '78. Uh, I'll grant you that I was very rebellious at that time in my life, but the "whole wander city alley ways drunk out of your mind in the middle of winter" thing?, not my ideer of fun.

And then in 2001 the Pioneer Square business sponsored Fat Tuesday "celebration" turned violent and a young man was murdered, kicked and stomped to death in a crowd of people, businesses were looted, a woman was hit by a car, there were many injuries, hospital emergency rooms were packed and seemily every cop in Seattle was all over the situation but not making much of a dent in the violence. Then the next morning the region had an earthquake, the epi center was sixty miles away from Seattle's Pioneer Square, yet it was in the Square where the most damage occured. There were many business that had to close down because the front of their buildings were in a heap on the sidewalks, they were connected to those buildings or their building had incurred such structural damage as to close them until they could be repaired. Connect the dots?

Come on, you're really going to tell me that all those people in the most famous of all Fat Tuesday celebrating regions are really ready to settle down to a good bout of self abnegation for the next forty days when they get up tomorrow morning? I didn't think so.

There is a huge difference between eating up all the eggs and meat before the fast starts and running around naked in a crowd of rebellious sin-filled drunks.

So we will have a bit of indulgence today, a little feast perhaps before the fast, in the form of cake (already had a bit of chocolate with my coffee), but no nakedness, no debauchary, no reveling in sin.

Hey, you might say, "You need to eat a box of tissues to assuage your issues today," eh?

Dear Reader, perhaps you and I should take time today to listen to God, is He calling us to a deeper discipline? Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not in accord with the calendar, maybe next week, maybe in the middle of tonight on Saturday. Sometimes He taps us when we least expect it. Sometimes we least expect it when it is blatantly obvious and written on someone else's calendar.

Feelings

"Feelings, nothing more than feelings, trying to forget my feelings…"

The concept of feelings has been a topic as of late in my circles. It is one of those subjects that keep coming up off and on. Christians are constantly instructed by each other that it, this God thing we do, is not about feelings. Feelings cannot be relied upon. Feelings cannot be trusted. We must stick to the facts, stick to the concrete, what we know, what the Bible tells us, stick to tradition, stick to routine. We are to avoid feelings and emotion. Feelings and emotions are seen as fickle, always fickle, cute and fun when you’re in love, but fickle.

We do ourselves a grave disservice when we think like this. First, it is not God recommended that we ignore our feelings or disconnect from our emotions. Yes, Scripture calls our heart deceitful, if the heart be the source of feeling and emotion, but God, in Isaiah, also says our thoughts are not His thoughts, His thoughts will always be higher. Yet, in scripture we are called upon to take thoughts captive and bring them to obedience as we also have David’s lead in scripture to call upon God to create in us a clean and pure heart.

God himself has feelings, he loves, grieves, he has joy. We are called to emotion by scripture, rejoice with those who rejoice, mourn with those who mourn. To live an emotionless, stoney life is not God’s intent.

How is it that feelings are inferior to thoughts and ought to be ignored? Christians tend to believe that feelings are faulty and cannot be trusted but that thoughts when properly thought are the basis of knowledge, they are less faulty once trained. Yes, like the trained scientific thought that for years held to the belief of spontaneous generation. Christians think it enough to hold on to provable thoughts of God. But I ask where exactly is the proof that allows you to have such faith? Does your faith spring from absolute proof?

Christians become excited when it appears that there will be scientific proof of God’s existence, scientific proof that a biblical event has indeed occurred, the e-mails fly, magazine articles are passed around. But is that what our faith hangs on?

If someone were to come to my house waving my daughter's birth certificate, holding out family photos and video clips of other people speaking of my daughter it would not impress me as to her existence. I know she exists because I have experienced her, I was there at her birth, I smelled her little self, I fed her and bandaged wounds and scrapes as she grew. That is how I know my daughter exists.

That is how I know my God exists, I have experienced Him and now I know He is real, more real than my daughter or my-self. Since I have experienced Him, felt Him, smelled Him, heard Him, I no longer wonder and have doubt. Myself I doubt, whether I am a child of His I have since doubted, recently, I wonder if the me I know is me, who I believe myself to be may be a lie, but of God I no longer doubt. But the telling of how it is I know would not prompt world wide acceptance of God. The telling would prompt the following response; very few would nod their heads in understanding, a few would be puzzled but encouraged to continue to seek Him for themselves, many would say “how interesting” but would not be encourage to look for Him any further than the pages of scripture and worry about my stability, many more would write it off as the babbling of a whack-o and a few would wonder if I need to be committed. For the vast majority my version of reality would be no more real than events on Star Trek.

The popular understanding of my proof would be that it rests originally on feeling and emotion and not rational concrete trainable thought. That it is feeling and emotion that indeed has corrupted thought. And indeed I would agree. All except the division between thought as trainable and feeling and emotion as inherently wily and capricious.

We have a tendency to think of thought like a dog and feeling like a cat. Cats come and go where they please, they use the litter box because they want to but cats are beyond being trained. Dogs however are trainable, given the time and consistency dogs will do as their master says, sit, stay, heal. Thoughts are dogs, feelings and emotions are cats.

I have been in proximity lately of a reoccurring dialog between men, discussing Jesus’ words on lust. Good learned men are convinced that Jesus was not calling out those men who, while looking at a woman nonchalantly, were overtaken by man-ness and all of a sudden found themselves lusting. That would be madness they declare, impossible, like asking them to no longer be human. Instead they claim that Jesus was speaking of first having lust in their hearts and then looking at a woman with that in mind. Granted, this argument is plausible, it certainly seems fair and it surely is far more merciful.

That is if you consider it merciful to ignore that we can and ought to take all thoughts captive and make them obedient to Christ. It is merciful if you think it good to leave it wide open to letting a large part of our lives out from under submission to our Lord Jesus Christ and an enormous foothold for Satan.

For emotion and feeling is just that, thought. And God calls us to think His thoughts, to bring all thoughts under submission to Christ and leave nothing of ourselves out there capriciously blowing in the wind. We are made in the image of God, we will have emotion, we will feel, to leave a majority of ourselves outside of God, outside of submission to Christ is to commit the worst of compartmentalism.

The enemy is not that we feel or that we have emotion. The enemy is that just like thoughts, feelings and emotions are put up against God. That we allow ourselves to continue in self-indulgent, self-agrandizing, self-preserving emotions and feelings, that is the enemy. That enemy is increased when we recognize the faultiness of our present emotions and feelings and instead of bringing those forms of thoughts into submission we ignore them, we dismiss all those forms as faulty and not to be trusted. Enjoy them for what they are, a momentary fuzzy wuzzy but do not look to them as anything more than a hormone rush and for heaven’s sake do not indulge them or give them a serious thought.

Through this type of ignoring they become like a two-year old left on its own to figure out how to behave. It would be fine, I suppose if the two-year old stayed a two-year old, unfortunately that is not the case and when we attempt to raise two-year olds in such a manner we end up with thirteen year olds that we know even less what to do with and they in turn become thirty-year olds that appear to never have grasped the meaning of adulthood, hopefully mommy and daddy and the zoo-keepers of their lives don’t ever die.

But we need not deal with feelings and emotions in this manner, they needn’t grow up to be an incredibly crippling albatross around our necks or shoved into the closet to never be seen again. God meant for us to take all thought, not just lofty concrete rational verifiable factual thought, under control. We can and we will if we desire, through the strength we have in Jesus Christ, take emotions and feelings under control. By the leading and teaching and counsel of the Holy Spirit we can and we will if we desire to, begin to have God’s emotion, God’s feelings, God’s thoughts.

We can give with His compassion, we can laugh with His delight, we can dance with His joy, we can smile with His pleasure, we can weep with His sadness, we can comfort with His grief, we can wake with His love. But we must desire His not ours.

Continuing What I Started

So back to Ethel's assignment for me. As said before this will not make sense if you do not read the two prior posts first so scroll down if you please to "I've Been Tagged."

So where was I.


1. Wild Weather
2. Wild West
3. Witness

And as per suggestion from Lisa, Wisdom, I could not possibly pass that one up. Wisdom from God has served me well, I only wish that I had more. I love the Wisdom of God, pure and clear.


4. Wisdom from God.

Meli, sorry but I cannot love walnuts, I certainly appreciate them and in a few things they are very good. Dirt cannot have chocolate chip cookies unless I make them with lots of walnuts barely broken. Unfortunately sometimes due to a chemical reaction with other food, walnuts absolutely shred the inside of my mouth. I lean more to pecans as my all time favorite nut but that would be a "p" not a "w."

And water, have you seen my pumpkin patch? It is often under water. Yeah, no doubt water is groovy and we need water, after all that is what we are mostly eh? But around here we have beavers so water becomes an issue. Admittedly not as bad as the folks that loose houses and cars from flooding, but certainly enough to keep it off the love list. Lets call Lanny and Water pals shall we.

Now there is a type of water that I cannot live without but it starts with an "L." There it is, the "L" again, should have had "L" so that I could put Living Water on the list.

Oh Lisa, that reminds me, yeah, for the most part waves are groovy and hopefully I will be jumping in some this summer, maybe June. But there have been times in my life when I have disliked waves so I couldn't put them on my list. One was when all I wanted to do was go fishing with my dad. Big fish fishing. Out in the Ocean. For those of you who have done such things you will understand or be terribly confused.

On my first ocean fishing trip, as we went over the bar (the place where the harbor water meets the ocean water and no matter what it is always rough) I was thrilled! My brother informed me that this was where people lost it. Uh, really, cause I loved it. Hit me, beat me, tear me apart, I love to go crazy wild places, the adrenaline surges and all is forgotten.

Unfortunately we had a beautiful day on the water after that, nearly glass smooth. The boat just gentle rocked back and forth, back and forth with the little gentle waves of water. My belt buckle saved me from flipping into the water while retching my guts out. I believe I lost three toes out through my guts. I hate to throw up. Hate it.

Dirt and others in my life will say ridiculous things to me when I am sick like, "throw up, you'll feel better." That is insanity! Who can feel better when you are blowing chunks from your nose for the next week? And I am convinced that it comes out my eyes. (Lachrymal ducts). So anything that has caused me to throw up cannot go on my "I love" list. Well, except for Dirt getting me pregnant and the girls rolling around inside me like a reverse row boat ride.


So where are we. The count is four. Oh and Melli has suggested whipped cream. Heck yah, I have no fault what so ever, except that I will change it to Whipping Cream, heavy style, that way I can use it for more things like: homemade ice cream, (the girls and I love to make homemade ice cream); cream sauces which are almost, na they are as good as anything with whip; homemade butter, which I don't usually make but I would if I ran out; and the base for a good cream soup or chowder. Like the clam chowder we had last night with our good friends.


So now the count is up to five! Half way there!


1. Wild Weather
2. Wild West
3. Witness
4. Wisdom from God
5. Whipping Cream
6.Woods

Definitely that one fits. It feels good. I'm reaching... and finding nothing that would keep me from saying "I love woods." Mossy green, ferny, dark and cool woods. Woods of my childhood where I played carefree, or curled up with one of my favorite books. Woods of adulthood, here at the farm. Yeah, its in.

7. Wellness, just came from the doc and I gotta say I love wellness. I love being well. Okay, so something is making my toes numb but I just checked my lab returns on the net and my thyroid is great, my blood pressure was one hundred four over seventy-three today. No signs of diabetes (those labs were done a while back). When I was getting ready this morning I sneezed , hang on Ditto, five times in a row, but I used my Netti pot and all is well with my nose tonight. So I can't wait to see what the neurologist (got a referral today) will have to say.

8. Weakness. I need my weakness. I am weak in myself but in Christ I am strong. "out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens." Hebrews 11:34 I love the things that show my weakness, when I must admit my weakness for then all I have is Christ. And then I have everything. (Paul says it better, 2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

9. Wonder, I love wonder. It is amazing that there is now more wonder in my life than when I was a child. I know we all like to like children and we love to think that childhood is the ultimate pinnacle of life. But it is not. Wonder fills my heart each day and it is a phenomenon that it does because as an adult I am supposed to know a lot of how all this works, I'm supposed to understand how the moon comes up at night and the sun goes down and how the stars hang in the sky. But for all the understanding I have I really only have wonder. For all the uncovered mysteries only produce multitudes more mystery and wonder.

Exodus 15:11 "Who among the gods is like you, O LORD ? Who is like you— majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?

Job 5:9 He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted.


10. Worship. Real full body worship. Working as if unto the Lord, reading as if unto the Lord, hugging a child as unto the Lord, comforting the sick as unto the Lord, singing in my yard like the sparrow if she were me and singing as unto the Lord.

Full body worship, bearing a burden not only in my heart but in my body for those who hurt and are in pain, bearing a burden and praying all night for healing and restoration or a baby or a marriage.

Full body worship, dancing in my seat because I hear a song that sings what is deep in my heart.

What an Incredible Day

What an incredible day, is right! Praise be to God from the top of my lungs.

Okay, so even though I had to delay my cocoa with the girls, we had a very good lunch, hand made burritos with cocoa. Real cocoa. Real cocoa with whip cream in our snowman mugs at the dining room window looking out at the birds and the snow. Great lunch.

When we went outside to go to town this pretty little things was singing the sweetest song. Look at that sky, so blue and clear. An amazing start to a great day in town.

We checked out a new shopping center, I introduced the girls to Mary at McConkey's Nursery Supply where Anna scored big on the "take it for free" shelves. (and Mary's candy bowl)

And then home to an easy but satisfying real dinner made by Bet while I immediately fixed my ninety percent off (fake) bouquets, out with the pine boughs in with some white carnations and now they are perfect for February. Oh, and I modeled my seventy-five percent off leather dress gloves for Dirt.

After dinner we were laughing at Janie and saying how she looks like a little piglet like Toot and Puddle, so Bet went up and got her book Toot and Puddle, by Hollie Hobbie and read to us while Dirt ate his banana split. You're never to old for a read aloud from a good picture book.

Who would guess that I feel very close to the emotions Paul spoke of when he said, "that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life."

Burdened by the things of this world that taunt and pull at all of us, the very things that drag some of us down. Burdened for those who's struggle runs deep, who are entangled beyond sight.

Burdened by the things of this world that are the fire that Jude spoke of when he wrote: "And on some have compassion, making a distinction; but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh."

In between that hard spot of compassion, heart aching compassion and tenderness for some and the urgency, gut wrenching, adrenaline surging reaching for and hope of pulling others from out of the fire. The hopeless fire of the pride and desires of this world that scorch and burn the core of the very people you love, the very people that only God could knit into your heart so tight that you can't breathe when they hurt. Tirelessly expressing hate for the defilement caused by the flesh, sometimes spoken in harsh words, sometimes spoken in silence. Feeling overwhelmed by the fight. Yet being buoyed by the knowledge that:

"Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us, you also helping together in prayer for us, that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the gift granted to us through many. "

Being buoyed by the prayers of the faithful, who pray whether they know the situation that their brethren are slogging through or are just burdened through the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Lifted up. Lifted up out of the quagmire and "despair for life" by the very thing from Christ, His Body. The members of His Body in prayer for one another.

Comforted by the sweet mercies that God brings. His cool soothing breath that He breathes on my heavy laden heart. Sweet mercies that are echoed and appear in days like today and days like tomorrow. Mercies that I cling to, Sweet Breath that I breathe in, breathe in again, breathe in deeply. Mercy and comfort to my weary soul, tired but not spent because of Him and Him alone. Comfort even in the face of endless escalating battles. That I might echo Paul:

"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 tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ. Now if we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effective for enduring the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or if we are comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. And our hope for you is steadfast, because we know that as you are partakers of the sufferings, so also you will partake of the consolation. "

Oh Lord God, that sweet sparrow songs could come from my throat, burned and aching from the scorching battle. Oh Lord God, you make it so, you make me sing the sweet song in the morning. You wake me gently to clear skies and songs of mercy and love. You wake me from deep and restful slumber, taken in Your arms alone,

You hold me up when I can no longer stand. You dance me on my feet, You give me strength to hear and catch the beat and cadence of Your doing, You set me gently on the branches above the raging muddy flood waters of pride and lust and put Your clear water before my beak, that I may drink and sing to You my Dear Lord.

I look forward to the comfort of tomorrow and I pray that I may in turn deliver comfort to one who needs it. My hands are scorched but my Lord has brought soothing balms, He has tenderly applied the balm as I have wept and told Him of my deep sorrow. It is His song and breath that sang me to sleep and rest that I found strength and resolve to continue when He calls.

Today's verses (in purple) are primarily from Second Corinthians Chapter One . A dear sweet messenger delivered God's words to Dirt and I last week that we should drink them in and share them out.

Snow, Snow, Snow, Snow

Okay not really that much but enough to brighten the heck outa my spirits.

Looking forward to cocoa tomorrow instead of coffee.

Chose coffee this morning because Dirt was heading us into town. (Which by the way did not have snow, a few errant flakes but not like what we had, that is unusual)

Coffee can be grabbed and go, or drank while getting ready and picking things up.

Cocoa not so soa (feeble attempt at rhyme, it worked in my head) but you get it right? You must sit with cocoa, unless of course it is in a thermos and your drinking it while doing winter sports, ice skating, sledding, skiing.

Tomorrow morning Bet and I have a cocoa date, we'll let Anna come too but she isn't going to make us drink her powdered inferior stuff (although she prefers it, like macaroni out of a box).

I am going to have melted chocolate.

See you shortly after that with pics and a recount of Lady Amber and her antics in the snow last night with the blind lady "looking" for her.

Tomorrow noonish then?

Till then Dear Reader I am meditating on: 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 "But even if our gospel is veiled it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine upon them."

On the eight day of Christmas
My True Love gave to me
Eight Maids a milking...


Maids and Milk

That's one heck of a dairy you have, to get eight maids to milk it. We used to have dairy goats along with our sheep. I loved them, and I miss having them. But that memory lane is for another post, another time.

In the all the different versions of what the Twelve Days of Christmas stand for the eight maids a milking stand for the eight beatitudes that Jesus began his Sermon on the Mount with.

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Now that is truly a collection of eight maids.
Maids serve.
Maids are virginal, pure.
To take the position of these attributes would certainly serve us, give us purity of heart, mind and soul.

As for them milking, throughout the Bible milk is not just another food.

Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. 1Peter 2:1-3

The Old Testament writings frequently refer to the Promised land as the land "flowing with milk and honey." The Christian's Promised Land cannot be found on a map, we cannot tromp the earth and discover it. We are brought to it by our merciful God who gives His only Son that we may live in the Promised Land first here on earth and then for eternity in Heaven with Him.

Be sure you know the condition of your flocks, give careful attention to your herds; for riches do not endure forever, and a crown is not secure for all generations.
When the hay is removed and new growth appears and the grass from the hills is gathered in,
the lambs will provide you with clothing, and the goats with the price of a field. You will have plenty of goats' milk to feed you and your family and to nourish your servant girls.
Proverbs 27:23-27


When we begin to look at the significance of maids and milk, the picture that eight maids a milking bring to mind are far richer than just the number eight. The eight beatitudes are like eight maids that serve, and bring purity into our lives, they make tending our flocks and herds more certain, that our riches in Christ may increase and not dwindle and wan.


Eight

The number eight certainly is significant and it is not entirely coincidental why I suppose there are eight beatitudes. Or why the Eighth Day of Christmas is the first of January, the first day of the New Year.

I'm not a numbers person but this is really fairly interesting. Today's discussion might make you look at today just a little differently.

Even though in some traditions the "days of Christmas" can begin being counted off on the twenty sixth of December making this then the seventh day and in our family depending upon what is going on I have often started the first day of Christmas on the twenty sixth, I may think twice about that from here on out. Because listen to what I found about the number eight and why it is so Godincidental that it has landed on the New Year!

"In Hebrew the number eight is hnm# (Sh'moneh), from the root Nm# (Shah'meyn), "to make fat," "cover with fat," "to super-abound." As a participle it means "one who abounds in strength," etc. As a noun it is "superabundant fertility," "oil," etc. So that as a numeral it is the superabundant number."

Isn't that what we all wished for at Midnight this morning? What we hoped we were ringing in? Abundance? Is that what the New Year is, superabundant fertility? The New Year is pregnant with possibilities.

Then:
Circumcision, consecration, happens on the eighth day:

Leviticus 12:3 On the eighth day the boy is to be circumcised.

"You must give me the firstborn of your sons. Do the same with your cattle and your sheep. Let them stay with their mothers for seven days, but give them to me on the eighth day. Exodus 22:29-30

As we know, things of the Old Testament foreshadow, foretell, prophesy what is to come.

Eight is the number of resurrection, new beginnings.

One is the number of beginning, seven is the number of completion.

Christ rose on the eighth day of the week.

Believe me when I say I am not a numbers person, I don't have "a number," I don't have a favorite number. But all of a sudden in this whole going over the Days of Christmas for something to focus on for my Christmas Season blogging, I am really becoming a number person.

The Godincidence that yesterday, the last day of the year, just so happens to be the seventh day of Christmas, the number of completion is just to groovy. And now the whole thing about eight and New Years Day, pretty nifty if you ask me.

So I got to thinking, the year that New Year actually falls on a Sunday, the first or eighth day is in two-thousand twelve. Hmmmm. So maybe all those predictor people are right and two thousand twelve is the beginning of the end. But then again we probably have had a great many New Year's Days that fell on a Monday.(I meant Sunday) In fact the last one was 'o six and six is the number of man so maybe 'o six was the beginning of the end.

Okay all silliness aside, I was just now wondering if the choice of December twenty-fifth was based on then when New Years was on the calendar or if it is completely Godincidental?

Dear Reader, have a terrific New Year's Day. Make it a very special one. Not what someone else thinks it should look like but what you want it to look like, what you need it to look like, what God wants it to look like in your life today!

Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation. Galatians 6:15

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 2 Corinthians 5:17