Rambling Ruminations

Spring (and I use that term loosely) Cleaning

2008-03-28T07:34:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the long blog break but I just plain needed to get some stuff done around here. The last week was our homeschool spring break and I was so excited to actually get some spring cleaning done. I started a three ring binder last week with each room of the house as a section. Each section had detailed lists of exactly what needed to be done in each room, how many light bulbs of what type I needed to have on hand for the coming months to replace bulbs, cleaning products I would need, stuff for little repairs that would have to be done, etc. I couldn't wait to throw open those windows and air the place out. Imagine my surprise at waking up to a few inches of new snow TWO mornings this week!!! Yikes!!! So, I can't wash any of the windows outside, but the inside is starting to look a lot better. I still have plenty to do as the kitchen stuff has taken me forever, working around all the partially done flooring and cabinet projects.

My eldest son was here visiting from New York for 10 days which was wonderful. My second and third sons both had birthdays. I made a quilt for the third one. The whole thing is pieced together, now I've just got to complete the quilting process. I'll post pictures when I'm done. There has just been a lot going on around here. Between the normal stuff (homeschooling, lots of kids needing lots of food, Jim's long hours) and the incidental stuff, it's been busy.

Anyway, I'm back! Lucky you!?!

Just one thing, I thought I might actually recommend watching something on TV tonight. Perhaps you had heard of the Van Ryn's and the Ceraks, couples from Michigan whose college-age daughters had been misidentified in a fatal car accident two years ago. Both of these couples and their daughters are believers. It is a powerful story. Gutwrenching, to be sure. If you can muster the strength to watch, I think you'll be amazed at the testimonies of these folks.

Coming next week: The Star System (How absolute power corrupts absolutely)
Monkeys and Bananas (don't worry, I'll explain)
Book Review (Been reading some good books on creativity)

I Just Got Back from the Windy City, the Windy City, the Windy City!!!

2008-02-17T08:08:00.001-08:00

Wow! That was fun! Jim had to take a two-day certification exam in Chicago and we (Carrie, Jeff, and I) tagged along with him. If you live within a day's drive of Chicago, GO! We had a ball.

For little kids (I'd say up to about age 7) the Chicago Children's Museum on Navy Pier is the way to go. Carrie and I went while Jim was testing. We stayed for 5 and 1/2 hours and had a blast. We constructed a chair, learned about safety, painted 4 different projects at a painting workshop, die-cut and assembled a horse, took pictures, learned about manufacturing, and had a wonderful time! She wanted to go back again.

Jeff was in the art museum a lot. He watched Carrie in the evening so that Jim and I could spend a few hours there. It was unbelievable! Their collection is just amazing. Even better was the fact that the museum was free during February. An enormous Winslow Homer (one of my faves) exhibit was there starting on Saturday so we didn't see it. Jeff, however, did. He was there without us on Thursday and didn't know it was a special exhibit. He just walked in not realizing that it was a special 'members only' preview. He was wondering why people were looking at him funny!

Here's just a sampling of some of the more famous pieces that are there:

American Gothic by Grant Wood - I have to link instead of showing it as most of these won't cut and paste.

Self-Portrait by Vincent van Gogh - fascinating to see this stuff 'up close and personal'.

Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler by Pablo Picasso - I'm not a big Picasso or cubism fan but I've got to say, seeing the real thing was pretty awesome.

I particularly enjoyed the paintings by Monet, Vuillard, and Pissarro. A few by Whistler intrigued me as well. I want to go back again when Jim and I can relax and take our time there. He had just finished a 3-hour exam and we had already been walking a good portion of the afternoon so we didn't take all the time we really needed. One thing is certain. The museum will never hire us as tour guides. We like what we like, and hate what we hate, and we laughed as much as anything at some of the stuff in there that they call 'art'. It was fun to make up our own sarcastic captions and descriptions for the occasional pieces of garbage hanging along side the good stuff. I suppose it's all in the eye of the beholder but I've seen my 1st grader turn out some better stuff than some of the modern stuff I saw. Really!

On the way to the art museum we walked through Millenium Park. There was a rather large, uh, sculpture, (I guess) housing the stage of an ampitheatre. Carrie looked up at it and said, 'Mom, look! A water tower fell over and crashed!". I laughed so hard. That's EXACTLY what it looked like! Right next to it is the oversized kidney bean/skateboard helmet sculpture (yeah, I'm POSITIVE that's not the real title) that was actually pretty neat because it reflects the whole skyline. The crown fountain was pretty fantastic, too. I'd love to see it all in the summertime, when the park is having free concerts, the fountains are spewing, and the gardens are blooming.

Like I said at the beginning of this post, I had fun. I guess I should have left it at that because now I'm rambling!

Oh....and of course I let my dearest take me to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch to fuel all of our walking...and no, I didn't have any cheesecake. I also didn't lose any weight.

Hotel Hopping

2008-02-11T05:54:00.000-08:00

This weekend was awesome! Our second son, Dan, had Carrie up to his dorm to stay with him over the weekend for Sibling Weekend. It just so happened that this coincided with celebrating our 24th anniversary. Wahoo!

We started the weekend in separate cars, because we had to bring Dan's car back up to school for him. It was sitting idle in the driveway unable to start for the past month and a half. One day son#4 and I decided to go smack it around a little bit before we had it towed to Norm (mechanic par excellence). Lo and behold we got that puppy started and it's now running like a gazelle. This is always a good thing.

Anyway......after depositing Carrie and said car with Dan, my dearest and I headed back to the tropical and exotic (okay, I'm lying) Lansing, MI. There is a fantastic bed and breakfast there (not lying) that we have been to before for our anniversary. The rooms is tucked up in the top of the house with our own enormous hot tub in the little roof alcove. The B&B is within walking distance of lots of restaurants, an art gallery, and yes.....a Barnes & Noble. We love our bookstores, the Mr. and I do.

We enjoyed our time there immensely and decided to spend the second night right up by Dan's school just in case Carrie couldn't handle another night away. We trotted back up the highway and thought to our frugal selves, "hmmmm, there is a new casino there. I bet(no pun intended) we could get a really nice room extremely cheap!". A lot of times these places offer rooms fairly inexpensively because they make their bucks on people pumping every last dime into the slots and such. We don't gamble so we figured we'd just get the good deal on a nice room. So we popped in the front door. How depressing. This new place reeked of smoke and was lined up almost out the door. I called the desk instead of waiting in line and EVERY room of this place was filled. We were glad. It was gross and depressing. So we took our non-gambling, unsmokified selves and took a look at the other options.

Seeing that we had already spent enough $$ at the nice B&B the first night, we thought we'd go 'budget' the second night. There was a Microtel that looked like it was brand new. I popped in while DH was checking his email. I started reading the signs behind the registration counter. I wish I had snapped a picture. They said everything short of 'your probation officer must register for you'. It smelled in there. Looked gross. There was a sign right over the breakfast buffet counter that said, "You must wear your shirt and shoes to have breakfast". Alrighty then!

I went back out to the car, made a phone call to a lovely hotel in Midland where they had an abundance of rooms and a lack of six-pack-toting mobs of people who had just lost way too much money playing KENO. Midland is a neat little town, past it's real prime (hey, so am I) but very charming. We've stayed in that hotel a few times with the guys. The park behind it is at the confluence of the Chippewa and Tittibawassee Rivers and there is a "tridge" over the whole thing. Very cool. Take a look, here. It's hard to see exactly how this three-way bridge is situated but in the fall it is just beautiful. There is a neat skateboard park behind it that holds lots of fun memories for our family.....all of our boys used to skateboard non-stop. Now Jeff is the lone skater. I don't think he'll stop until both wrists have plates and screws in them (one already does).

We put our things in the hotel and decided to walk for our supper. There were 4 choices(meaning places that served food and were actually open) within walking distance; a fifties diner that closed in 10 minutes, a restaurant/bar that had deemed itself the 'Party Headquarters' (no thanks), a sports bar(nothing says romance like 'sports bar'), and a place called Molly's. We walked into Molly's and found that we should have had reservations. Who knew? This was Midland not New York City. Anyway, Molly said she'd take care of us and to be back in an hour. We did and she did. Dinner was amazing. There was a piano, some drums, and a big old stand-up bass that were all played beautifully. Wonderful dinner music. Great atmostphere. And no sweaty guys trying to eat with their chest hair and toenails exposed.

It was a wonderful anniversary. We had a great time. Carrie had something fun to do. Dan made a lot of fun memories with his sister. Dave and Jeff enjoyed having the house to themselves (and yes, it is still intact and it was cleaner when we got home than when we had left.) The cat missed us (she'll get over it). I didn't think about the diet once. (that's a good thing for a change) and I'm thrilled and thankful to be married to such a great man. I will spare you all the mushy details.

I know this isn't my typical post but it's what been up in this neck of the freezing cold woods.

?????? about Church Planting-- or-- Heinz isn't the only one with 57 Varieties

2008-02-06T12:42:00.000-08:00

I submit this post to you with both a caveat and a disclaimer. The warning being that this might offend some. The disclaimer being that I don't have all the answers. This is mostly a 'thinking aloud' via blogdom. I feel a little awkward questioning what others feel God has told them to do, but yet I've been in situations before and done things 'for God' that now I feel were probably more of a 'jumping on the bandwagon' than the leading of the Spirit. So I'm not trying to be judgmental. I just don't get it.

So, church planting. Hmmmm. No doubt the activity itself has biblical roots. The apostles planted churches in those days when the good news was being spread into communities and cities it had not reached yet. Then they just had to function as the church (easier said than done).

Today I'm confused by the whole idea of church planting in the United States (not to be confused with sending missionaries into largely unreached countries). When I look at our small town, we have more than a half dozen choices almost within walking distance of my house. If Iwant to travel up to 30 minutes, I probably have close to 100 choices or more. Now, not all of those are places I'd necessarily want to go but many of them do contain real believers serving the Lord with sincerity and gladness.

Here's the event that brought my problem with church plants to the front of my mind. I got an email from a person I've recently been reacquainted with. This person was considering being part of a church plant in (insert large metropolitan city here). The problem is that this person also lives 2/3 of the way across the country having moved there for another church plant, from a church here. Now I guess what I don't get is that this first move was WAY out west. I have a hard time believing that there aren't enough believers out there to reach those around them. Who knows, the believers out there might be sending believers out here to reach the massive Arab population in the Detroit area. Doesn't it seem kind of silly to be 'trading' mission fields? Shouldn't we reach those that God put right in front of us? I know of a particular church in our state that is looking to plant in New York City. Right now the Brooklyn Tabernacle is doing an absolutely marvelous work in the city. They've got groups in all five boroughs. The church is living and active in Manhattan alone, in several different expressions already. NYC is a completely different culture than suburbia or the rural U.S. Who better to reach the people in the city, than those who already love the city as well as live and work there?

I remember when we lived in upstate New York in our apartment. In our little rural community along one particular country road, there were three Baptist churches all within about 3/10 of a mile. It was downright silly. One of them was called Fellowship Baptist Church and we used to chuckle at the name because they obviously weren't up for fellowshipping with the baptists 100 yards in either direction. Since that time it appears that two of those churches are now gone, but yet there are several more plants. In the other town in which we lived, we saw at least two plants come in while there were already a pile of churches in the area.

So, are we just shuffling believers around from church to church or are we actually reaching the lost in a big way? Are we determined to know & proclaim Jesus Christ and Him crucified, or are we wrapped up in our particular way of 'doing church'? I don't know. I have been part of a church plant at one point. We weren't one of the families that moved into the new area, but started attending just after they started the plant. I know that there were several gatherings of believers meeting within a few miles of them at the time. So were we bringing the gospel into an area that needed it? Seems to me like we were taking believers away from an area they were already ministering in and just shifting them into another. You can't tell me that everyone in the area where they had come from had already come to know Jesus. I know for a fact that is not the case. Had these folks already evangelized everyone that God placed in their lives, i.e., their kid's teachers, their work acquaintances, their neighbors, postmen, grocery clerks, etc.? I am all for sending out missionaries to places that haven't heard the good news, but in the good old U.S. of A., it seems like we are more interested in planting our type of church than bringing the gospel to people who have never heard it.

I guess what I'm asking is, "Does there really need to be a baptist plant (or two), a PCA plant, a Plymouth Brethren plant, a Christian & Missionary Alliance plant, a Church of the Nazarene plant, a pentecostal plant, an Independant Baptist plant, etc.........? (what is WITH all those labels anyway?) Are we footing the bill to open yet another plant in an area saturated with churches because we have a difference in the way we worship? Or are we renting or erecting yet another building because the the other churches in the area believes in only the King James Version and we like the ESV? I think the problem is that, although we don't like to admit it, we oftentimes are gathering around a set of distinctives rather than around the Lord. Another reason we plant seems to be an underlying feeling that our group has better methods of reaching the lost or discipling or whatever. Book upon book has been written about methodology from seeker sensitivity to bus ministry to cell groups and everything in between. The Bible only talks about the power of the gospel itself. There is no power in a particular method. In fact, I think when we start trusting in our methods we feel less of a need for reliance on the Head of the Church (um, that would be Jesus....not the pastor--but that's an entirely different post, I suppose)

Please understand that I'm not trying to be negative, controversial, or cynical. I'd love to hear your views. Just yesterday I heard of a church one town away from us, starting a church in another neighboring town (which already has a pile of churches). Go figure.

I Corinthians 3: Are you not acting like mere men? 4For when one says, "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos," are you not mere men?
5What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. 6I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. 7So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 8The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. 9For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building.

Okay, I'll Play - Six Random/Quirky Things Meme

2008-02-04T06:32:00.000-08:00

1) I am a go-with-the-flow, laid-back, come-as-you-are type person. It takes a bit to get me riled. Unless of course you happen to be one of those people that merges at the last possible second by zipping up the right hand side and cutting in front of all the people who have waited their turn. Oh, the wrath of Karen.

2) I once took a pregnancy test in the bathroom at Yankee Stadium. It was positive.

3) My christmas tree is still out on my deck

4) I've secretly always wanted to be a woodworker. I probably will fulfill that dream some time in the next decade. (Hey, Grandma Moses didn't start painting until her 70's....there might be hope for me)

5) I've always HATED running and considered it to be a pointless sport created for hopeless 'Type A' personalities, but I'm going to run a marathon this year.

6) I do the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle every week.

I won't tag anyone, just do it if you feel like it!

Rich People

2008-01-29T20:21:00.001-08:00

What does that mean, anyway? How much money qualifies us as 'rich'? Can a believer have too much?

I like to be frugal. Sometimes I feel bad spending money on myself. For instance, today I am going to the hairdresser and getting my once-every-four-month hair cut and some highlights (although sometimes I suspect the real motivation for my appointment is for the two hours of quiet and the cups of herb tea made by someone other than myself) I can afford it. I'm paying cash for it. I cut all the men's hair in my family myself to save money. My husband encourages me to do it...But I still don't like spending money on me. That is the mindset I am coming from.

Sometime just before Christmas, I realized that even though I wasn't saying anything to anybody about it, I was copping an attitude about people that had a lot of money and spent money on what I would call frivolous things or houses that rival the taj mahal. I live in a sort of weird area. There are some people with not a whole lot, but this is also the county where most of the auto executives live, many Detroit's professional athletes reside, and all the money that comes along with those professions. As well as my financially-middle-of-the-road friends, I have some friends that are loaded, or rather LOADED. I have acquaintences that are so rich it would make your head spin. Houses with 7 bathrooms. Indoor pool. Private club memberships. You name it.

I caught myself once (okay, lots more than once) thinking, "how can they spend money on that kind of stuff", or "I'm glad we don't spend money on nonsense like that", or any of several variations on that theme---kind of righteously indignant at their 'wastefulness'. Reality is that some of these people are believers that God has chosen to bless financially for one reason or another. Should I sit here and judge what they should and shouldn't do with their money? I know some of these people very well and know just the tip of the iceberg of how amazingly generous they are with their money. I know of times when they give like crazy and no one even knows. I've seen them give cars to people in need with not even a thank you. I've watched them opening their homes constantly to those around them who didn't have a place to go. There are more of these folks that I don't know as well and I have no place even thinking about their money choices. I don't know where their money goes because the right hand shouldn't know what the left hand is doing when it comes to giving. The Lord knows and that is enough.

Reality is, most people on this planet would look at what I have and think I am living like royalty. When Jim and I were first married, we used to have international students in from the University nearby. We had some kids from Beijing over to our little barely-furnished apartment, and the first thing they did was take pictures of our bed. They couldn't believe that a young couple would actually have their own 'large' bedroom like that in their own apartment. They thought it was just over-the-top. I suppose if we don't want to be judged for the relative wealth most of us have in the developed world, we best be careful how we look at what others have been given.

So I guess I'm just making a confession here about being somewhat judgemental from time to time. Not only should I be content with the station God has chosen for me in this life, I should not condemn others (verbally or just in my thoughts) for the lifestyle God has chosen for them. I probably will never be in a situation where I will influence or evangelize the very wealthy in this world, but those to whom God has given vast wealth just might.

Often we think the wealthy look down their noses at the rest of us, when oftentimes I think the situation is exactly the opposite. I think the key is that we should all handle our money (whether a mere pittance or a ridiculous abundance) according to biblical standards when it comes to giving, debt, helping others, saving, investing, contentment, and choices regarding our everyday spending. We need to bring all our thoughts and decisions regarding money to the One who owns it all anyway.

Where We Came From, Where We're Going

2008-01-29T17:30:00.000-08:00

This is a tough one for me to post. It's always embarrassing to admit your past mistakes, especially when you knew better. If this keeps someone from making the same bonehead moves, it's worth it.

Jim and I have never been classic 'spenders'. We don't go for the nicest cars, both our current house and the one we had in New York are average fare. Nice but not ostentatious, plenty big enough for us but not a palace. We never had a lot of expensive electronic equipment or toys like boats or snowmobiles. I say all this to show you that you can make a wreck of your finances even if you're not a 'spender'.

We also were givers. We supported missionaries, our local church, and others that we personally knew were in need. So that wasn't an issue that caused the floodgates to close or anything.

We ate frugally. Didn't eat out much. Rarely did expensive activities. Most of our furniture was handed down to us. We went for years on just one car for the six of us...even walked five miles with four kids to get to the dentist(uphill both ways,LOL).

So what happened? Actually there were a few things. The first being something that never happened, as in.....a budget. If you don't figure out ahead of time where your money is going to go, it goes everywhere and leaves no trail of breadcrumbs so that you can find out what happened to it. More on that later.

We lived from paycheck to paycheck, put nothing in savings. We viewed things like car repairs as catastrophes, which is just silly, seeing that all cars eventually need repairs, new tires, brakes, etc. Instead of budgeting for that and expecting it, we'd panic every time our cars needed something saying, "How could this be happening?". I don't know....maybe we thought we were going to be like the Israelites wandering around the desert for 40 years without their shoes wearing out like everyone else's. Anyway, the transmission would go and, bang, it's on a credit card. The heat bill would be a little high and the balance wouldn't get paid in full on the credit card. Or we'd have a big dentist bill and hit the overdraft in our checking account. Nickel by nickel, supposed emergency upon emergency, the credit card debt grew...I'm too embarrassed to tell you how high. We ended up with two cards.

Jim saw that the place he worked for our whole married life would not be the place for him long term and he ended up completely switching careers. We moved out here to Michigan. We had to pay more than double what we sold our house for,for a similarly sized house out here. The salary,although good, wasn't following suit. After working for them for around six months, Jim could see the writing on the wall and foresaw that they would eventually close the Detroit office. He got a new job but had to repay several thousand dollars of moving expenses. Hmmm.....how about we put that on the credit card? (by the way, they did close the office soon after and leaving was a great move)

So what did we do about it all? Nothing yet. Jim was extremely successful at his new job and kept getting promoted. The salary kept going up. He was eventually making double what he did in New York, which is all well and good except that we felt like we could relax a little financially, so we did. Around this time, Jim and I were just floundering spiritually and that didn't help matters. (My 100th post is coming up soon....I'll tell you all about that then.)

When I got pregnant with Carrie at 41, I was exhausted and sick a lot, so we ordered lots of pizza and went out a lot. We still weren't buying extravagant things, we just had no budget and no idea where it was all going. Our income was very high, we had nothing to show for it, and we were still living paycheck to paycheck.

Around the end of 2004, we said, "enough is enough" in many areas of our lives. We recommitted ourselves to the Lord, started losing weight, and decided that we weren't going to live on the financial edge anymore. Yeah, baby!

Around that time, Jim heard Dave Ramsey on a radio show or something. We purchased the book and attacked the debt with a vengeance. Here's quick rundown of how it works. Not gimmicky. Very do-able. The first thing we had to do was write a written budget. Part of the thing that had kept us from doing this before was that we both hated paperwork. Now that we're on the budget, we essentially have none. Instead of keeping track of every dime we spend, I go to the bank at the beginning of the month, take out the cash that is allotted to things such as groceries, kid expenses, clothing, eating out or family fun, pretty much anything we pay for with cash. I divide it up and put it into the appropriate envelopes. When the money in the envelope is gone, I'm done spending. No writing anything. It's graphic and it works.

Okay. So, first we did the budget. We tweaked it a little the second month because we just weren't real sure about all the numbers the first month. We stuck to that baby like glue.

Next thing was to set up an emergency fund of $1,000. I can't stress how essential that was and always is. Many people give up on programs like this because something unexpected happens that throws them off. This helps to prevent that. Case in point: we started this thing and put our emergency fund together. One month later our transmission blew, and a month after that our roof started leaking. Believe it or not, we were so intent on getting out of our mess, that we scraped up enough money for both those things that we didn't even have to touch our emergency fund but it was nice knowing it was there.

We had our budget and our emergency fund set up so were ready to start paying down all our debt. We took the smallest debt and worked on that with the intensity of a gazelle. Once that was paid off, we took the next smallest debt and threw everything we could at it. Success bred success, and we knocked that one out. All the money we used to use to pay the monthly payments on debt #1 and debt#2 could now be used to tackle debt#3. Next thing we knew, that was gone. We tackled what we had remaining on both of our vehicle loans. In 17 months, we were free and clear. We slept better at night. We weren't living paycheck to paycheck. We were no longer slaves to MBNA or Chrysler Financial. No more Ford Credit Corp. or Citibank. DONE. Forever!

Jim was laid off in May of this year while we had three kids in college. He was without work for three months. God provided for us. Had it been four years earlier, we would have squandered His provision by having to take care of all those stupid debts as well as our present expenses. Wow. I can't even imagine putting myself in that position again.

We are now working on a fully-funded emergency fund (3-6 months of expenses), and then we will begin throwing extra on our mortgage.

So, there you have it. Our embarrassing money foolishness.

We were very honest with all of this with our older kids. It was great for them. They saw first-hand the consequences of debt and the calm that ensued once we had done the work to overcome our initial money stupidity.

That's it in a rather large nutshell. If you have any specific questions, please ask. I've bared my financial soul. Thursday is your turn.

Acting Your Wage

2008-01-28T17:52:00.000-08:00

1 Timothy 6:6But godliness with contentment is great gain.

Hebrews 13:5Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."

You've probably heard me talk about Dave Ramsey before. Don't worry, it's not hero worship or anything. It's just that he does a great job motivating people to do the smart thing with money. One of his phrases is 'Act your Wage'. Why do most of us have such a tough time doing that?

Who's Your Master?

Proverbs 22:7........... the borrower is servant to the lender.

If our driveway is full of new cars that we're making payments on, and we're making purchases on credit cards, we're not acting our wage. Acting your wage is buying what you can pay cash for. If I don't owe anyone anything, losing a job is going to be much less a calamity than it would be otherwise. If I don't have monthly payments on a car or a houseful of furniture, then there's nothing to get behind on should a serious illness take us by surprise. I do think a reasonable mortgage can be a very good exception, because it doesn't depreciate. In the event of financial catastrophe, the house can be sold.

Who's Your Provider?

Philippians 4:11-13 I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13I can do everything through him* who gives me strength.
* him is not referring to the owner of CapitalOne

For christians, I think acting our wage is especially important. Do we believe that God will truly supply our needs? If we do, then why are we relying on CitiBank? Are we content with what God has given us? Then why are we buying a new tv on a credit card? Honestly, when we buy things on credit, I think it's like telling God, "Hey, I don't like what you've provided so I'm gonna go ahead and buy what I think you oughta give me". Then we wonder where God is when our financial house of cards comes toppling over. Then we ask him to supply our needs when what we really want is to have him shovel up our mess that was made either in defiance or neglect.

Are you doing things God's way financially or waiting until disaster strikes and then claiming his promise of provision over your life(even though you squandered his past provision?) Kind of like trying to blackmail God, isn't it? 'Hey God, how will it look to other people if you don't dig me out of this. You HAVE to. You Promised. Hey!!!'

Over three years ago, Jim and I set out determined to clean up our financial mess. It took us 17 months, but we cleaned up every dime of debt other than our house. Jim lost his job in May of 2007. Emotionally it was tough, brutal even, but financially, we didn't have to sweat. We didn't have to start begging God to please DO SOMETHING because we didn't have financial obligations other than our house payment. If that would have happened four years ago, we would have been sunk. We had two car payments, two credit card payments, and one of our lovely newer cars had an engine blow when it was about two years old (to the tune of about $6,000). I think Jim's job loss would have put me on the floor in the fetal position in a catatonic state had it not been for the Lord prompting us to get our financial house in order three years earlier.

This week is going to be $Money Week$ here at Rambling Ruminations. Tomorrow I'll talk a bit about our financial history(how Jim and I got in a mess) and budgeting(how we got out). Wednesday I'll talk about 'Rich People', Thursday will be "I've Been Stupid Day" (everybody can leave a comment telling about a time when they made a bonehead financial move - big or small- c'mon now, we've ALL done stupid things with money), and Friday.....well.....I guess I'll just have to come up with something now, won't I?

More tomorrow.....

Karen

I Know I've Forgotten a Few Favorites but Here Goes....

2008-01-25T07:43:00.000-08:00

I've never done a meme before but since I love books, I wanted to participate in this one...

1. One book that changed your life: The Bible
The Bible stands alone there, but there is another book I need to mention....The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey (If you're in debt or living from paycheck to paycheck, READ IT!! I did change my life in many ways.
2. One book that you have read more than once: (You get to hear about a few of them)
Frank Peretti's books, This Present Darkness, and Piercing the Darkness. Fantastic!!! I read them every few years or so. So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore, by Jake Colsen. All the Little House books, All the Narnia books.
3. One book you would want on a desert island: The Bible
4. Two books that made you laugh: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, and Dave Barry stuff. I haven't purchased any of his books but I usually browse them in the bookstore. There's a lot in there I have to skip over.....but the other stuff makes me laugh so hard that I cry. He's got the same warped sense of humor that I do.
5. One book that made you cry: You mean there are some that don't?
6. One book you wish you'd written: The Naked Church, by Wayne Jacobsen
8. Two books you're reading: The Non-Runners' Marathon Trainer,
9. One book you're going to read: Chemistry for Dummies (don't ask)
10. How about a few books that have had an influence on you other than the ones listed in #1?
Joy Unspeakable by Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire by Jim Cymbala...as well as others in that series; Fresh Faith, and Fresh Power. They were amazing!
11. Is there a book you wish hadn't been written? Yes, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne---I've seen a lot of wonderful people read this looking for some truth and it's complete wishful-thinking garbage. People have bought into this nonsense wholesale.
12. Favorite cookbooks? More with Less by Doris Longacre, and Extending the Table. I liked these both because they had stories about different cultures all mixed through the recipes. It was written by mennonite women, and many of the recipes were submitted by missionaries and are authentic recipes from all over the world.

The Primary

2008-01-16T05:47:00.001-08:00

The Michigan Primaries were last night, although on the democrat's side it was hardly authentic. Hillary was the only major candidate on the ticket so it was pretty much an exercise in futility for any democrat who had a different choice. It seems all the major republican players were on the slate. I ended up voting for Huckabee, knowing he had no chance of winning in this state. I still need to educate myself further. Sometimes I don't even think there's much of a difference between them all, cynic that I am.

The other day I read a good post on Mike that did exactly what I asked for in my post of January 10th. It gave substantiated reasons why I shouldn't vote for him. It had links to voting records and articles, etc. Unfortunately, I had to leave the computer in a hurry for some reason and forgot to bookmark it. In my ditziness, I drew a blank on where I had read it. So, thank you Richard for commenting on last week's post so I can link to yours. Go read it here. I will now go back and follow the links out of the post since I didn't get a chance to last time.

I'm freezing so I'm going to go turn up the heat and get some shoes on! More tomorrow.....

I Guess It's my Lucky Day!

2008-01-13T18:47:00.000-08:00

What would we do without email? Within the last 24 hours or so, I have won the lottery in the UK, secured jobs as both a medical transcriptionist and a forensics specialist, found that Uncle Sam wants to give me $25,000, was offered a lucrative deal from some Nigerian royal widow, and won the Chevron Petroleum $700,000 lottery.

Great! Now I can afford to buy convicted felon, Kevin Trudeau's book on natural cures, or the London Bridge, or even some prime acreage from Hillary and the gang down in Arkansas!

Pusillanimous Political Pontifications

2008-01-10T10:54:00.000-08:00

I think this is the first election in my adult life in which I have been thoroughly uninformed. I just started researching the candidates recently and I've got to say I tend to like Huckabee. Now, that is really not based on much at all, other than that he seems to have a somewhat conservative leaning. I did read a comment the other day by Ralph Ovadal (a pastor I had never heard of before) that slams him and says he promotes the antichrist. Whatever you think of Mr. Huckabee, I think articles like Ovadal's only play well for mindless people who want someone to tell them what to think. It didn't give any specifics, made plenty of generalizations, and serious blanket accusations. Nothing concrete. Nothing even spelled out specifically at all. I just wanted some real information to evaluate. I thought this article was the coward's way out----throw a few poison arrows and hope some of them hit their mark. Here it is....

"Beware of Mike Huckabee. He is basely using our Lord Jesus Christ for political gain even as he promotes Antichrist and his church. Mike Huckabee is a wolfish product of the neo-evangelical movement which, quite frankly, is the major problem in this nation, not the solution. Beyond that, Huckabee's political philosophy is grossly at odds with the principles upon which our Republican form of government rests. Politically speaking, Mr. Huckabee has far more in common with Bill Clinton than with America's founding fathers. We would be far, far better off with a simple "God and country" constitutionalist for president who doesn't claim to be a born-again believer. After carefully watching and listening to Mike Huckabee with an open mind, about the only good thing I can say concerning his candidacy for president is at least it keeps him too busy to pastor a church."
Pastor Ralph Ovadal Pilgrims Covenant Church

I did find out about the released convicted rapist story from a different website. It was a horrific story and one that Mr. Huckabee, I would imagine, still loses sleep over. But.....does it disqualify him from the presidency MORE than any of the other candidates' 'junk'? Maybe, maybe not Call me a cynic, but I'm sure there are some pretty awful decisions in each of the candidates' closets. Unfortunately, nobody has a candidate that lines up with how we feel about everything 100%. If we wait for that, none of us will be voting come November.

So, folks, why should or shouldn't I vote for Mike Huckabee? Some REAL reasons, not things like , "he's a wolf in sheep's clothing". Instead tell me WHY you think what you do. Give me examples. I really want to know! You are all entitled to your opinions, and I would love to hear them no matter where you fall politically. All opinions on all candidates welcome. So that we can have fun, keep it clean & nice. I do love satire so by all means, let loose! Let's make this the first annual political "Say What's on Your Mind" blog week! We've got to start having some fun with this election because I lost interest before this one even began. Too many years of caring about it WAY too much.

Waiting to hear from you,

Karen

A Personal Update

2008-01-10T06:35:00.000-08:00

Jim's job. I forgot to tell you.....after he gave notice, they came back a week later and offered him the position there that he really was more suited for. He's running IT Operations! Wahoo! He's so good at it. He was frustrated at this place because there was just no room for growth. It wasn't just about money. Turns out, the guy he works for wants to move elsewhere within the company and they were looking for someone to replace him come April so Jim will be the replacement. The transition has already begun. Obviously the money is much better, but I'm just thrilled that he is back to managing people and running the IT Operations large-scale. I think it's beneficial that he stayed at this company for another reason.... they run the IT for a huge network of hospitals. For those of you unfamiliar with the Michigan economy, autos are out and healthcare seems to be the future of business here. This kind of healthcare experience will be great for him in the future as well. After being the IT Director for an advertising business, he's glad to be doing something that can really help someone, not just the company. He loved what HE did at the last place but doesn't exactly love the ad business because he doesn't particularly like the whole concept of convincing people to buy, buy, buy things they don't particularly need and can't afford! Running IT for hospitals is something that matters to the people in the hospital in a real tangible way, not just lining advertisers' pockets.

I guess this is just big news for us because 2007 was a long, somewhat discouraging year with the work stuff going on. It would be nice to say it doesn't matter, it's just work. Family is more important. While this is true, it is also true that the sole bread-winner will be spending most of his waking hours at work from Monday through Friday. When things are screwy there, it affects a whole lot of other things. I think being out of work is one of the most emotionally devastating things a man can face in his life. It's important for the rest of the family to recognize that.

We are so thankful that he's been offered this opportunity. He's almost a month into it now and it's crazy and busy and non-stop.......just how he likes it! It should calm down a little bit after he's been in there a while and has implemented some of his 'stuff'.

Unavoidable Craziness

2007-12-12T08:08:00.000-08:00

I won't even pretend that my busy-ness is any busier than your busy-ness.....because I think we're all pretty flat-out this time of year.

Right now we're trying to get this kitchen done. We just can't see ourselves shelling out the big bucks to buy cabinets and hire plumbers to do what we know we can do ourselves so we have committed ourselves to this massive project. Jim is building the cabinets. We are both cutting and nailing, sanding, and staining the pine floor that we got for $2 per square foot. I hope to be able to demolish the soffit and redo the drywall this week. I'm hoping to get Jeff and Dave to paint. Mind you, most of this must be done before Christmas when my family comes over. We're going to be doing the floor the week after Christmas. We have been putting this off just because by the time Jim gets home in the evening, we can't put in another 4 or 5 hours and these kind of projects don't lend themselves to 15-minute increments.

That being said, with all there is to do around here, I've not been able to put much time or thought into blogging. I haven't disappeared, I would rather just write nothing than meaningless drivel..................which is what you'd get if I was blogging daily right now. So, for the time being, I am only going to be posting to my weight loss blog here. This is out of necessity. My marathon blog and this will pick up after the holidays and my kitchen mess are past.

I have been reading all of your blogs and enjoying them immensely! I just haven't had much time to comment or keep in touch. I'll be back, though!

Have a wonderful Christmas season!

Karen

We're Back, We're Tired, More Tomorrow

2007-11-16T05:17:00.000-08:00

We got in at about 8:00 last night. It's a long drive to do in one shot but I'm glad we did. We hit rain, snow, sleet, and one large traffic jam but still did it in twelve hours. Not bad!

Carrie got sicker than a dog while we were out there, so it did curtail some of our activity but we spent lots of time with our dear friends Jerome & Eva. It had been eight years since we had done so (in person, anyway) and it was just wonderful. We laughed and cried and enjoyed one another's company.

Seeing the old stomping grounds was a little weird. Most of my time out there I couldn't remember what planet I was on. So much of the area has changed. Our neighborhood and house looked exactly the same. There are so many fantastic memories there. We raised all of our four boys there. They rollerbladed in the living room, played endless hours of whiffle ball in the back yard, and had a riot with each other. I must admit, it made me a little wistful for those very simple days of their childhood. My youngest boy, David, made the trip with me and it was just kind of cool to have him see it all through the eyes of an 'almost adult'. I took some of the guys' friends out to lunch with Jim & Dave on Tuesday (they're all almost done with college now) and it was just great. So many memories. Lots of time invested. You never know what will come of it all in the grand scheme of things.

Enough musing for now. David has now got whatever Carrie's got. I am praying I am not the next to topple. Too much going on!

I will be back writing daily come tomorrow (barring illness, of course).

Karen

Where's Karen?

2007-11-06T05:01:00.000-08:00

Sorry I haven't been here much lately. Things should get back to normal (what's that???) soon. I have been away for positive reasons, though. My eldest has been back home visiting from New York for the past week and it has been GREAT to spend the time with him. He is here without his car, though, so I have been doing a fair amount of playing taxi driver----which I don't mind, but it does take up considerable time. We have also been down a car the last few days as two of ours are in the shop. We rented one but it's still doing triple duty. At least #4 can walk to work unless of course the weather continues on it's present trend of 37 degrees and rain/snow. Then again....he could still walk....and be able to tell his future kids how his parents made him walk to work in the snow, uphill both ways.

The other distraction has been a positive as well. Earlier this year, my husband was laid off. It was the end of a very long and horrible situation. The place catapulted him into an upper level position and provided a lot of opportunity for him but so much of what went on there I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. His leaving there was closing the door on a bad chapter in many ways. As difficult as the whole 'ending' was, it created a 'beginning' by necessity. It took three months to find something suitable. (yeah, that good old Michigan economy) He started working again in August. It's funny....as soon as he took this position, he heard again from another place that kept bringing him in for interviews. Then he heard from another place where he had never even applied. His reputation had apparently proceeded him. That and the Lord was providing opportunity. He told one group "no" and kept interviewing with the other, all the while doing great work for this new place. He then heard nothing from either place for about a month and then, boom, all in a week's time, both of these places called back again. He went in to both places again to talk to the powers that be. He said "no" yet another time to the one, and finally accepted an offer from the second. He has given his notice at the present company and starts with the new one in about two weeks. It should be a good fit. In Michigan, there are some 'slim pickins' when it comes to opportunity, so it was nice for him to be a little 'in demand'. I'm excited for him!

I probably won't be that active in blogworld for the next week because my son is still around until Monday, at which time #5 and I will drive him back to upstate New York. It should be fun as #5 has never seen the house that we and all her brothers used to live in back there. None of my NY friends have seen her either.

Well, enough of my personal stuff for now. I haven't forgotten about Harold and I will do that puzzle soon. Starting next Thursday, I should start posting again regularly.

Where's Harold?

2007-10-25T05:30:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I thought I would be posting a little puzzle today but can't find my original to scan it in! I will draw it up myself but seeing that I am no artist, it will be but a laughable representation of the original. It will also take me a decade or so to do it. Well maybe not quite that long....

I'll be back.....

...........eventually!

Re-introducing the Christ

2007-10-23T04:16:00.000-07:00

This is something totally different than what I would normally post but I listened to this on someone else's website and thought it was extremely powerful. This woman doesn't mince words. Have a listen.....

On the same blog,Loving Jesus-Leaving Church, there is a link to a transcript of David Wilkerson that I thought was great.

Finally, I received something in my email that brought joy to my heart. If you have read this blog for any time at all, you know that I'm pretty disturbed about the condition of the church and grieved with what she has become. My husband and I have burned out on church programs over the years and we are now spending our time developing intimacy with the Father rather than using our skills in program after program after program in a building we refer to as 'church'. Here I go on my soapbox again.......I'll spare you today. Here's a link to the article. Please keep in mind that I believe Bill Hybels to be an honorable man of God and his honesty here is a testimony to that.

Those three things encouraged me yesterday! I get excited when I see the church fulfilling what she was called to be, standing against sin, walking in power, and relying on the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 16:18......... I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Coming up.....Help Harold find his way to the church! Come back on Wednesday and find out what I'm talking about. Also later in the week I can share some news about what is going on with us. And, no, I'm not pregnant!!!!! Just the Lord doing more than I could ever ask or think. It's almost getting comical.

Have a great day!
Karen

MLM's - the Ultimate People-Repellant

2007-10-09T08:12:00.000-07:00

Are you tired of your friends? Want to make them run in the other direction when they see you coming? Do you want to know with certainty that any new acquaintances will roll their eyes when they hear your voice on the phone?

Then I've got a plan for you! Spend roughly 250-500 of your well-earned dollars (to BEGIN with) and sign up for an MLM. Along with that you'll purchase the right to spend another chunk of change on required product to sell (or bury in the backyard). Further down the road you'll have the opportunity to make your upline just a little(or a LOT) wealthier by buying tapes and other 'tools' to help you build your business. But wait, there's more!

You, too, can make your income dependent on your friends', relatives', and acquaintances' willingness to listen to your sales pitch and then decide to buy everything from you even if they could get it cheaper or more conveniently through Wal-Mart or any local store on sale. You can guilt them into narrowing their choices and buying through you because they know how much you need the money.

There's an added bonus. You can convince yourself that you're doing this to further the Kingdom! That's right....you're doing more than just helping the Scamway empire!

In my lifetime, I have spent a lot of time with people of varying degrees of wealth, from the poverty level to extremely well-to-do. One thing that is hard for folks from every social strata to resist, is the lure of what appears to be a quick buck.

I have seen wonderful people of God get completely consumed with Amway. I have heard of churches having huge divisions because of MLM's. I have seen broke people stay broke because they dumped all their time into an MLM instead of getting experience or education for a career that could really help them financially.

I won't come right out and say all MLM's are bad. There could be exceptions to that rule. I just haven't found any. Of course, this is all just my opinion. Why do I feel the need to spout it here? Because I've just seen some of my sons' friends, broke and starting college, get snookered into putting good money into these things and losing it all. When my son's friend had just signed up and wanted #3 to do the same, I found a christian brother online that was involved and asked him a few questions. The responses I got back were wonderfully sweet but avoided the real answers like the plague. Do I think it was on purspose? No, I think this man and his wonderful wife were completely in denial over how much they had socked into their 'own' business, and how much they had(n't) made once you took out the cash they had spent on 'tools' to supposedly grow their business. He also gave me the spiel that it wasn't about the money, it was about growing the Kingdom. Hmmmmm? I can think of lots of things that I can do to grow the kingdom that don't involve a dime.....why blur the lines? I corresponded back and forth a few times with this couple and decided to just leave it be. In a year's time from my letter to them, I will email them again and find out just how many of the things they were told have actually materialized. I will also ask them how many of their non-mlm friends are still close to them.

I don't print this to criticize, I print it as a warning to anyone who might be considering an MLM. Do your homework! If it were any other business you were buying into, you would ask to see the owner's tax statements from the prior year to see how much the business was making. Why do any less for an MLM. If you find that you are getting a lack of straight answers.......................RUN!......as FAST as you can in the opposite direction and never look back. I don't know everything. I don't know everyone's experience, obviously, BUT I have yet to meet a person who got everything they thought they would out of one of these MLM experiences. I have never met a person who made anywhere close to a 'living wage' from one of these businesses. I have only met ONE person out of MANY who have approached me over the years about an MLM who was upfront about what the business actually was.

If you go to one of these meetings and they use 'group-think' or the cheering mob to instill a little Rah-Rah! into you.....be afraid, be very afraid. If they've told you to put a picture of your dream house/car/whatever taped to your refrigerator to keep you motivated to sell, sign people up, and sell some more......rethink the whole thing before you go a step further. Has one of these people told you that your parents or friends will have a problem with the MLM thing because they're 'old-fashioned', too old to be internet savvy, or un-enlightened? Run!!! Have you shut out your trusted friends' and family's opinions on all of this? Why? Think again.

I hope I haven't offended anyone here. If your story is different from this, by all means, set me straight. I just think there are a lot more fruitful ways to 'invest' several hundred dollars.

Proverbs23:4 Do not wear yourself out to get rich; have the wisdom to show restraint. 5 Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle. .......................23 Buy the truth and do not sell it; get wisdom, discipline and understanding.

Warning: Lightweight Posting Today

2007-10-08T09:22:00.000-07:00

Nothing too deep here today. Just a quick tip. Maybe I'm late to this party but I just discovered Cartridge World. They've been about a quarter mile from me for ages but I never walked in. Today both my color and black & white cartridges gave up the ghost. I didn't want to pay a fortune since us homeschoolers go through them like water. I popped in to Cartridge World and less than 3 minutes later I was out the door and spent a combined total of $20 for both cartridges. I also got a free punch card that gives me a free refill for every 9 paid ones. You take your old cartridges in, they exchange them for refilled ones. If they don't have one ready for you, they'll refill yours while you wait in about five minutes. I have refilled my own before, but I didn't have real good results with the color.

The cartridges have just been tested on my printer and they are working perfectly! Sorry for the lame post but this was my great excitement of the day! Wow! Pretty pathetic.

Karen

Sometimes We Act Like He Doesn't Know

2007-10-02T05:26:00.000-07:00

Psalm 10:1 Why, O LORD, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?

Over and over again in the Psalms, David seems to ask God, 'okay....I know you're gonna come through for me eventually but WHERE ARE YOU????' Sometimes I'm almost blown away by the candor David uses with the God of the universe. Then again, this is a man who, in spite of his failings, knew God. He had watched Him deliver again and again and he talked to Him like He is real....which, of course, He is. I think, too often, we don't pour out our heart to the Father almost like He doesn't really know what we're thinking or what's in our heart. Don't get me wrong, I still don't know if I could be quite as blunt as David was......but when I read through the Psalms I see David 'spilling his guts' to the Lord. He didn't mince words because he knew that his thoughts were already know to this One who never slumbers nor sleeps.

Sometimes I need to remember what prayer is and what it isn't. It isn't a magic formula where you need to say the right words, and use the right formula or God won't hear you. Yes, I know we're to ask in His name and in His will, but I don't think it's our remembering to actually say those things that has Him answering or not answering. Somehow I don't see Him with this little checklist.....okay.....Hmmm...nope.....she didn't say in Jesus' name at the end.......no can do. Oh.....she didn't say 'if it's your will'......another request I just can't answer. No....this is a God who knows our thoughts, knows our frame, and loves us so much that He died to save us. Surely He knows the thoughts and desires of our hearts and loves to hear our requests.

With my own kids, I long for conversation with them. It sometimes includes requests. I don't make them phrase it exactly the right way (okay--'please' is nice :-D) and ask on their knees, or say pretty please with sugar on top. If my relationship with my kids is right, and we have an ongoing interactive relationship, requests and conversation is a natural outflow of that. How much more with our perfect Father. Not that we treat Him with a lack of honor and respect....but we also need to remember that He is, in fact, the one who redeemed us and longs to spend time interacting with us.

Hebrews4:15For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. 16Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

One-Slice Baloney Sandwiches (A Lesson in Hospitality)

2007-09-28T20:17:00.000-07:00

Romans 12:13Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality.
Romans 16:23Gaius, whose hospitality I and the whole church here enjoy, sends you his greetings.
Titus 1:8Rather he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined.

When we were quite newly married, quite young, and I was quite pregnant, we had just moved and were visiting churches in upstate New York. We had visited this one place a few times and about the third time a family asked us over for lunch after church. We went. When we got there, the house was less than perfect, her three small kids were helping her get lunch on the table. They were making baloney sandwiches because that's what was in the fridge that day. There wasn't a whole lot of baloney so it was one slice per sandwich with a little yellow mustard and out came a bag of chips. My sandwich was touched by lots of little hands that may or may not have been very clean, dinner was certainly not deluxe, but I enjoyed that lunch so much because it was borne of true hospitality. This woman wasn't out to impress us with her culinary skills, show off her house, or put on any airs. It wasn't about the meal. It was about fellowship. She just wanted to make us feel welcome in the body of Christ. We had a great time. I've since been invited to lots of places, some very beautiful homes of very wealthy people, some not. The things that make a home a place of true hospitality are not a five-course meal, lots of square footage, and fine things. The things that make a home hospitable are the people who invite you into it, the fruit of the Spirit in their lives, and sharing their lives with you.

I learned a lot that day. I was much more apt to invite someone over for 'whatever' on the spur of the moment than to wait until I had the time or money to put out a 'spread' and impress them with my cooking. The most recent church I was in hadn't quite gotten that concept yet. We were around there for nearly a year before we were given more than a friendly hello. Finally someone asked us over. It made all the difference. We had been on the mend from some serious spiritual burnout and just needed someone to reach out to us. Hospitality is so important and actually much simpler than we've made it in recent years.

Enjoy your weekend!

Jesus and Your Relatives

2007-09-23T18:25:00.000-07:00

Romans 10:14How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them

Sorry to do this so much lately, but I'm going to quote some portions out of Living with Jesus Today by Juan Carlos Ortiz. Again, this is a fantastic book. It is out of print but you can still get one from Amazon as they have them used. This is going to be a loooooong post, but I probably will only post here a few times this week, so break it up if you'd like. I just didn't want to leave out any good stuff from this chapter.

"When my parents came to the Lord, in no time at all we started to fellowship with those in the church which we had begun attending. They became our whole interest.

Do you know what our relatives said? "Since they got into that religion, we lost them."

It was the truth. We were so busy with the church that we lost all contact with our friends, relatives and former acquaintances. We saw our relatives only at funerals. The very ones we were meant to bring to the Lord were suddenly no longer a part of our lives.

Who are the ones who bring new people to the Lord? Those who have themselves just been converted, because they still have friends in the world. but after a few months they won't bring any more new people because they will cut themselves off from all their friends. They will burn their bridges with the world and, instead, will come to prayer meetings and Bible studies, becoming totally absorbed in the church system.

I recall the time when our family belonged to an Italian church. We had meetings every evening except Friday. Six evenings out of the week we were away from our home!

Each evening at 6:30 we left home with our Bibles under our arms. We had no car at that time, so we had to walk seven blocks to take the train. We didn't return until around 10:30 pm. Imagine what our neighbors thought! Every day at 6:30 they watched us leave. They were sorry for us, "poor people, what a religion they have!"

Of course we had no time to make friends with them---we were so busy with the church. Even when there was a holiday, the church held a special meeting. We were always in church, so there was no room for our relatives or our neighbors in our lives. We thought that spirituality was to be in church continually....

.....If you are in a university, you are there first to spread God's kingdom. If you can't preach, you can shine as a light. You can love people, so that they see that Christ is alive today. Suppose you work at Ford Motor company. "Well, I'm there because they pay better, and because they have so many benefits," you tell me. No, you are at Ford Motor company because God needed a missionary there. He simply uses Mr. Ford to support you in the mission field.

If you have two lives--a private life, and a religious life--you can work in a place for many personal reasons. but when you live only one life, God is in everything you do. And wherever you find yourself, you are responsible to those who are a part of the structure of your life.

First, we are responsible to our own family. The pastor isn't responsible; he is just a helper, a counselor. We are the responsible ones. Husbands are responsible to their wives and children....

.....in every household where there is someone who knows the Lord, he is responsible. He is the light to that house....God will ask each of us, "What did you do in the place in which I put you?"

Second after our immediate family we are responsible to our relatives--our uncles, aunts, and cousins. "But it is 20 years since I last saw them!" Yes, and that is very wrong; because you are responsible to them. Third, you are responsible to your friends. Not just your close friends, but also your lawyer and your dentist. If God has saved you, it is because He wants to reach through you all of these people who are a part of the structure of your life. If not through you, then through whom?

Fourth, you are responsible to your neighborhood......yes, you are the 'pastor' of that neighborhood.....every christian has a 'parish' Your block is your 'parish'. You are responsible to that block. Do you imagine that God is going to send an angel from heaven to evangelize your block so that you can go to meetings?

You are also responsible to your fellow workers.....They are a part of the structure which God wants His light to permeate through you. So this means you have something to do. Perhaps you should start by making a list of all the people you are responsible to. But before you begin, I want to draw a very clear distinction between the concept and life. If you have just the concept of being responsible as a priest in your parish, you will either find it a tremendous burden, or you will rush out and try to convert everyone by preaching to him. the letterkills. If your responsibility is just a concept to you, it will either kill you, or you will kill those to whom you witness because you will turn them off!....

...I am not talking about trying to get your relatives, workmates, friends and neighbors to come to church. That is all part of our system. Most of them are not interested in those things, because they are religion and not life. I don't know how to say this....I don't think there is an easy way to say it. I think I just have to say it, even if it seems hard. I believe there is coming a time of great shaking of all of our systems, and only that which is unshakeable because it is the life of Christ will not be torn down...
.......we are not going to have pipe organs, and we may not have hymn books and Sunday School materials. We may even be without our Bibles! But the primitive church didn't have any of these things. The New Testament hadn't been written yet. and most believers didn't have access to the Old Testament. All they had was the Holy Spirit. but because they had Him 24 hours a day, they had the kind of faith that cannot be shaken. As a result, they turned the world upside down! ...
......You see, a church SYSTEM may become a hindrance....We have added so many things that we are caught up in and we don't know how to get rid of them. We even think they are essential.
Let me illustrate what I mean by a hindrance. Our church in Argentina is charismatic. We raise our hands when we sing. (Well, sometimes we do and sometimes we don't.) Now that doesn't appeal to everybody, so the system has become a hindrance for many people. Once we invited a certain family to our church. "No, I don't think we want to come. We don't fit into your atmosphere," they said. Some people feel better in a Baptist atmosphere, or in a Catholic atmosphere, or in an Episcopal atmosphere. I'm not justifying the attitude, but I do wonder if sometimes the things we do in our churches aren't a major reason why the world doesn't want to come to them. Most of these things are just not normal,they are religious.

You know, most of the people you are responsible to will not come if you invite them to church. But did you ever think of inviting them to your house? They will come there. If you bring a person to a Pentecostal church, or a Baptist church, or an episcopal church, he has to overcome many things in order to get to Christ. Perhaps he is anti-catholic, anti-charismatic, or anti-liturgy.....But he is not anti-ice cream! So you bring him to your house. Your home, not the church building, becomes the center of your christian activities. When the church is centered in a home, it is more likely to be centered in people than in a building. The key is that EVERY home starts to function fully as a center. EVERY home, EVERY individual.

I am NOT talking about taking your car out of the garage and driving to someone else's home for a church meeting. No, that is just like going to a church building. I am speaking of bringing to your home all who are a part of your structure of your life---your relatives, friends, neighbors, and fellow workers.

Now I DON'T mean holding meetings in your home with gospel songs and Bible study. Some churches do that.....But that is just another church of the kind that we have in buildings. I am talking about staying in your house to fulfill your duties of priesthood. You begin with your wife. I was the pastor of the First Assembly of God, but my wife was neglected. Start by evangelizing your wife.

What do I mean by evangelizing? To evangelize is to have complete love. It is to have fellowship, communion, full understanding between each other. So evangelize your wife. Love her and meet her needs as the Holy Spirit prompts you. then check your relationship with your children. How are you getting along with them?

What about your relatives?
How are you doing with your cousins and aunts? How long is it since you last saw them? Start to rebuild those burned bridges. I did it and it is amazing how many we won to the Lord without speaking a word. I wrote them, making friends with them again. I didn't preach. I shared love with them. I repented of neglecting them, rejecting them, because I had let the church system take all of my time. I won them just by loving them.

Those women whose husbands don't know the Lord--how many of them go to all the church meetings? No wonder their husbands don't come to the Lord. The church is their rival! They need to evangelize at home by showing the love of Christ as the Holy Spirit leads. He will tell you how to love if you listen to Him and do what He tells you to do. ....

Okay, I better stop there. I've already used most of the chapter. The rest of the chapter is so good that I wish everyone had the book to finish it! Maybe I'll put it in another post next week or something. Have a good week everyone!

Karen

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The Walk after the Talk

2007-09-19T20:59:00.000-07:00

About 20-some years ago I heard someone at a conference tell a story about what happened in the church he was pastoring. He grew tired of preaching lovely sermons each and every Sunday seeing that, in all reality, not much changed around the place. He'd give a sermon about joy, for example. He'd get the usual, "Great message today, Pastor!", and "powerful words, Pastor", and "that was really challenging". But the next week would come and the people were no more walking in joy than they were the week before. He decided that he would no longer move onto the next topic until the church was practicing what he had already preached on. Talk about guts. He stood up on Sunday morning, went to the pulpit, and when it was time to speak to God's people, said only, "Love one another. Have a lovely week. You are dismissed." , and then he sat down. It took a while before the people began to 'get it'. Somehow, they figured it out. They started loving each other. It was practical. It was real. It honored God. If I remember correctly, a few months went by before he preached the next 'sermon'. I believe it was , "Love your neighbor as yourself". Wow. So simple yet so hard. We love ourselves pretty much. We treat ourselves pretty well. Do we love our neighbor the same way? I don't think I'll ever forget that story. I just thought it was so awesome.

Like I've talked about before, I think we take a very simple walk and turn it into a maze of programs, complicated sermons, and lists of rules that protect us from breaking other rules. Jesus said, "follow Me".

Quite honestly, there's a whole lot I know in my head about walking the walk. I've been studying the Word practically since I was old enough to think. Life is where the rub comes in. Oh, we can theorize about patience and say," ah...what a lovely sermon on patience" but when we're in the checkout line with a slow clerk and a broken scanner.......or when the car breaks down for the third time in a month and we don't have the moolah to repair it....that's when the walk needs to match the studying. That's when we see if we're allowing God's Word to change us and conform us into His image. We have to practice living in his presence at those moments. We need to DO the things He asked us to do. Hiding his Word in our hearts is necessary to avoiding sin. Studying so that we know what God said in His Word can be useful, no doubt. Unfortunately, many times this has taken the place of living it. Paul did stay on in Corinth to teach them the Word of God for a year and a half.....I'm not against teaching. The people in Corinth didn't know God's Word. The gospel was new. It hadn't been long since Jesus died and rose again. People were pretty much blank slates when it came to what they knew about Jesus. The jews could connect their prophecies to Him and most of them had a great understanding of the torah but didn't know much about Jesus. There weren't Bibles you could just take home and read and study.

Let's contrast that with today. Most believing homes in the developed world have multiple Bibles. Most people in churches today have been there a good portion of their lives. Most of the time, the pastor is giving a sermon that is just slightly different from the last one he gave on that topic a year ago. I really don't think my experience has been a whole lot different than anyone else's but I could be wrong. I can say that just because of the sheer volume of time I've spent "in church", I've pretty much heard lots of variations on the same messages over and over again. I'm not being demeaning to these pastors, I'm merely relating my experience. I rarely learn something particularly new or applicable, nor do I see a whole lot of people reached for the Lord in these meetings. When Paul was in Corinth, it says that he stayed and 'reasoned with them'. To me that doesn't imply a lecture, it implies dialogue. It just seems like we spend a lot of time preaching to the choir, passing along the academics, instead of spurring each other on in our knowledge and love for the Lord and teaching what we have experienced from God's Word.

One of my favorite periods of time I've had with the church, is back in New York when we led a cell group. We had a bunch of new believers in it and we generally didn't have a set text to study from(not that there's anything wrong with having one). Each week we would get together and have coffee, chat for a while, then sit down and go around in a circle, each one answering the question...,"what is the most significant thing that happened in your life this week?" Some weeks it would be nothing more significant than having a birthday or your child starting first grade. Other weeks people would have serious issues like, "I got pregnant before I came to Christ.....what do I do with this baby", or "I just lost my job", "I'm struggling with such-and-such sin." Instead of trying to preach a one-size-fits-all message, we used the Word to minister to each other in each of these situations as they came up. I am still in touch with many of these people. God knit us together. God built us up in His Word as we applied it to our lives. It was exciting. It was awesome. We grew. Unfortunately, we had to stick to the program that the church was dictating and every six months the group had to multiply or divide or whatever. The organic aspect of our friendships was changed and we had to start all over again with a new group. We became a slave to the cell group "program" instead of what was working to change us into the image of Christ. It took me a long time to get over that whole thing and it was very disillusioning at the time. I have since learned a lot, grown a lot, and put it behind me, but I am very determined to never again be a slave to a program, only to the Spirit of the living God. This is much harder to do than I ever imagined. Even in a non-typical church environment, we can become a slave to a different kind of 'program'. Any time it starts to be academic at the expense of practical, we run the risk of just getting bored at best, or 'puffed up' with knowledge. I think these verses in II Peter 1:5-8 talks about what we need to be effective in our Christian walk. 5For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. 8For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I Don't Get It

2007-09-17T17:29:00.000-07:00

There are times like these that I just don't understand. A family that I know has a diabetic teenage son (juvenile diabetes, not adult-onset). It's very serious and this morning they couldn't wake him completely and he ended up in the hospital. Thankfully, he is home now and doing well. He responded to medication.

These parents have been praying for his healing since he was diagnosed at age 6. They are godly people who are sold out for the Lord. This past Thursday when we were over there praying, we spent a lot of time praying specifically for his healing and for healing of my husband's sleep issues (which I can go into another time).

So----what is up with that? We are told to pray in faith, nothing wavering, and that the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective (James 5:16) That's what I'm having a hard time with. I understand that God does not choose to heal every person every time we ask, but I've got to say that sometimes I have a hard time with NEVER seeing someone miraculously healed. I can't believe it's not EVER His will to heal that way. Yes, I've seen some amazing things happen through prayer and I am SO thankful for those demonstrations of His love and power. I just can't help but wonder why I have not been privileged to see a 'yes' answer to my requests for physical healings for people I've prayed for, in faith, with no harbored sin in my life or other things that hold us back in prayer. I remember going to visit one of my son's little league friends in the hospital about 10 years ago. He went from 'fine' to coma in about 3 hours. I went to visit, realizing the situation was grave. I laid hands on this boy (11 years old) and prayed in the name of Jesus with every expectation that God would heal him as a testimony to his family. He died the next day.

On a less serious note, when I was pregnant with #2, they discovered that I had a tumor on my ovary. They left it alone because although it was large, it didn't seem to be growing at any suspicious rate. I had the elders pray over me. We had great faith. Next time I went to the obstetrician, they told me they couldn't see the tumor on the ultrasound. I just assumed that God had gotten rid of that tumor. Imagine my surprise when, after I delivered my son, the doctor saw the tumor and I had to go have it removed when my son was 6 weeks old. It damaged the right ovary and tube so they were removed with the tumor. Now it was no big deal because I actually ended up pregnant 6 weeks after the surgery and then two more times after that.....but I just wondered what the deal was. Why wasn't I healed when I had already believed that I was?
I realize this isn't a particularly uplifting post, but I was just wondering if anyone else experiences that kind of frustration. We are told to have faith, but when I have, I didn't see the answer I was expecting or having faith for. I know these things are happening in other parts of the world, but I don't see them around here. I have walked in charismatic circles where we did a lot of proclaiming that a healing had taken place but in reality, I never once saw an unexplained-by-any-other-means healing. I'm not criticizing this group, I just never saw healing any more there than I did in the churches I was generally a part of at the other end of the spectrum.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Meow!

2007-09-17T09:57:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe that I'm saying this, but, we are now cat owners. Since my 6-year-old is kind of like an only child seeing that her brothers are so much older, we thought it might be a good idea to get a pet. I, quite honestly, have no desire to take care of a dog. I know myself. I have a hard enough time keeping my house clean, let alone taking care of a new puppy. We thought a kitten might be the perfect pet instead. They really aren't a whole lot of work. We visited the humane society on Saturday, found a 7-week-old kitten named Shirley, filled out all the paperwork, and we should have her tomorrow morning. She is being spayed today. Tonight we go get all the supplies.

I'm excited to have a little pet around. It's been a while. We had cockatiels and a conure around 8 years ago back in New York. They were fun but not quite so cuddly. Carries' birthday was the perfect opportunity to move back into 'pet world'.

The LOCAL Church

2007-09-14T04:27:00.001-07:00

In the New Testament, churches were generally identified by their locale. The church at Phillipi, the church of Laodicea, etc.

I don't know about you, but for most of my life, I attended "church" about 1/2 hour away, at least. I know that as a kid, our family did this in order to attend the type of gathering that we believed did everything 100% right (I'm chuckling even as we speak!). As an adult, we did it to find a place that was most in line with what we believe Biblically, best for our family, decent preaching, etc. You know the drill.

But when I look through the new testament, it seems a little more organic than that. What do you think? There had to be something about those local gatherings that were a powerful testimony in the areas where they met. I realize that much of this could just be my imaginings but I'm just picturing the impact it would have, say, in a small town like mine, if the true believers here met together around Jesus instead of a set of distinctives. What would that say to the world? If our head is Jesus and not "Pastor Smith" we eliminate a whole lot of problems.

What if they do this and we don't? What if we sing this and they don't? These things become a problem because most churches today, in my opinion, gather around a preaching service rather than gathering around Jesus. We meet for programs that have been put in place rather than around the Lord. We put a spoon in the pastor's hand and tell him to feed us, contributing to the 'eternal babyhood of the believer', instead of picking up a spoon and feeding ourselves. Until I decide that I am responsible to make sure that I 'eat', nothing is going to really take root in my life. Yes, God has given some to be teachers. I'm just not sure that it's always going to look like one guy giving a lecture to the rest of the body for exactly 30 minutes each week. I think teaching happens in many different settings, a lecture is only one of them. I think those verses in Deuteronomy 6(yesterday's post) give a better picture of effective teaching. What are those lessons you've learned the best? Those you've personally walked through. When Paul said, "But my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in Christ Jesus".......it comes to life after you've walked through need, or when someone who has personally walked through it shares it with you. My children know that "the borrower is servant to the lender" because we walked through getting rid of debt and shared it with them.

Again, I'm not talking about joining a church that doesn't believe that Jesus is the only way. I'm not talking about joining a church anyway! It's so much simpler than that. I'm talking about Hebrews 10:25......assembling together with other believers.

I think if the church was functioning like it did in the New Testament, the church would see more of what they saw in the New Testament. Thousands being added to their number. Right now I believe the church is weak. I think we are merely a caricature of what the church was meant to be. When I read through the New Testament, this group we call the church was a force to be reckoned with. They walked in power. The stuff they saw happening in their midst couldn't be duplicated by the Boy Scouts or the Lions Club or any do-gooder type program. The gates of hell were not to prevail against us.

I believe that if the church was functioning as it should, it would literally alter what our cities looked like. Bars would be closing, strip clubs shutting down, you name it.....not because of legislation, but because of supply and demand. Unfortunately most of what we do 'in church' has become somewhat of an academic pursuit. We spend a great deal of time turning the Bible into merely a text book. Please understand.....I think we need to be in the Word ALL the TIME. But I think sometimes we spend so much time pursuing it academically that we don't go out and live it with each other and with our neighbors. We take a part of our lives that most people look at as boring (sitting in a classroom for 13 years) and take our exciting gospel and put it in the same format. Eeeewww. Don't get me wrong, I love to learn. Just not that way! And I don't think I'm alone. Would you rather hear someone teach about the amazon jungle by standing in front of you relating facts, or have someone sit down with you and share facts about the Amazon through his stories of traveling through it for ten years? Better yet, how would you like to learn about it by taking a guide along and navigating it yourself?

I remember hating history as a kid in school. I grew up. I happened to travel to Boston. Wow! I saw Paul Revere's house, some graves of famous historical figures, walked into the building where the lanterns were placed before Paul Revere's famous ride. Guess what? I was hooked. I love history.

We need to bring Jesus out of the classroom. We need to 'bring Him to life' in front of the world, in front of our kids, and in front of the body.

We need to hide His Word in our hearts. Nobody can do that for us. Then we need to pass what we've learned on to others and they need to do the same.

Another rambling post. Sorry. At least the new name of my blog is accurate.

Breaking the Chains of Bondage in Your Family

2007-09-12T08:25:00.000-07:00

John 10:9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture.

The scene is England, around 100 years ago. James McKendrick was a travelling evangelist, moving through rural areas with his Gospel "Van"....a horse-drawn carriage....to bring the gospel to those who had not heard. Please read on....

This story is reprinted from What We Have Seen and Heard: During 25 Years' Evangelistic Labours, James McKendrick, 1914

"The following, however, may be taken as a fair sample of our experience. We arrived at a place called Keddington, in Suffolk, during our first season. The darkness and needs of the place were appalling. Our custom was to go from door to door with tracts and invite people to the service........

.....When my way seemed clear, I wrote asking the man to secure a place, and I would begin on the first Sunday in February. To get a suitable place was difficult, but one of the publicans, hearing that a hall was wanted for religious services, offered his place gratis,--promising to provide seats, light, coal, etc. I was willing to pay 1 pound per week, but he would not accept a penny.

To explain this unusual offer, I will have to go back a year or two. At one time there was a brewery in the district owned by a man who was a preacher. There may seem some incongruity in brewing damnation and preaching salvation, but so it was. He lived in London, but when he visited his brewery, he often stayed the week-end, and on these occasions would conduct a religious service in the club-room of the White Horse public house. Such services were a novelty, and many people came to hear Jenner the brewer preach. When the service was over on the Sunday night, most of the congregation, as they came down the stairs, went into the White Horse to have a drink. The publican was quick to see that these services brought corn to his mill, as so many remained to drink when the service was over. At the time I write, the brewery had been closed for about two years, and no services had been held during that time, but remembering his former experience, and with an eye to business, he made the seemingly generous offer I have stated.

I confess I was surprised, for I had not been used to such kind treatment from publicans. I had prayed much for the meetings and had asked many others to do likewise. It was well known all around that the man who had been with the van was going to preach in the White Horse club-room. The place was full from the first service, and the power of the Holy Spirit was manifest in every service. People were deeply convicted of their sins, and instead of going in to drink after the service, fled home with all speed. Ere the first week was over, God has saved the chief of sinners in the place. To drink and fight were the chief delights of George Mayes, who was known for miles around. He had several days of deep conviction, and got peace with God one afternoon as he wrought in the field. When he came home that evening he threw down his lunch basket, and danced and capered through the house like a man possessed. He could not eat for joy, and he left his meal untouched. He didn't even wash his face, but set out to tell his friends and neighbours of his conversion. His good little wife had often seen him mad with drink, but this form of excitement puzzled her. I have often laughed heartily afterwards, as I heard her tell of that night's experience. She could not understand what he meant when he said he was saved; that he was a child of God, and his sins were forgiven. All this was to her foreign language.
As the hour of service drew on, he came to the club-room just as he had left the field As he entered his face literally shone. I was conducting the meeting, but when our eyes met, he shouted, "Ah, Mr. Kendrick, I'm saved, praise the Lord; I'm saved. I didn't know what it meant last night but I know it now." (He never called me McKendrick, but always Kendrick.) I had to stop, and when he had thus spoken to me, he turned to the people; and I am sure all who were there will long remember that night, as he proceeded, through tears and sobs, to tell how God had saved him. The power of God fell upon the people as that poor, illiterate farm labourer testified to the saving grace of God. "An hour before I was saved," he went on to say, "I twice went down to the river to throw myself in. I seemed to be between two powers, one dragging me into the river, the other holding me back. I felt I was too great a sinner to be saved, and hell was waiting to receive me." For quite ten minutes he thrilled the audience with his experience....

.....As these men and women became possessors of the knowledge of their salvation, they at once did all they could for others, and it was simply marvellous what gifts of utterance these illiterate people displayed, though scarcely any of the older people could read a word.....

.....Suffice it to say that we built a hall of wood with an iron roof in Keddington. A man gave a loan of 80 pounds, I advanced 20, which was all I had in the world; and with a few other small gifts we soon had a building, capable of seating 240 people, erected free of debt, and there the worship and service of God was carried on, and many added to the saved.

George Mayes was distinctly the leader of this company of believers. His little daughter taught him to read, and ere long he could read all the Bible. It is his one book; he knows and loves it well. Others also learned to read the Bible, and ably assisted George in the Gospel work. The Mayes family was a large one. George had many brothers and sisters, and all were married and had large families. There were about fifty of the Mayes family saved, including the old father and mother. It would be no exaggeration to say that within a radius of five miles of Keddington about 200 people professed to have passed from death into life during a period of three years. Two of the public-houses were closed, and the owners of the others had to find additional means of livelihood."

Back to the year 2007...
George Mayes, in fact, continued to walk with His Father until his death. He apparently talked to his children about the Lord as he stood, or sat, or 'walked along the way'. How do I know this? Because George Mayes was my great-grandfather. I only met two of his children, my grandpa and great-uncle Arthur. Both were godly men, as is my Dad. My parents have visited Keddington. There is nothing much there.......but that is where my family's spiritual history began.
Thanks for reading,
Karen

Deuteronomy 6:5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

The Best Things That Money Can't Buy

2007-09-10T18:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, life's little material joys. Today, the things you can't put a price on. I think this whole week will be lists. I like the theme. Oh, and thanks for leaving your own versions in the comments. How fun!

1) Hugs
2) Photographs of people you care about
3) Big, old, trees
4) The crisp smell of a midwest autumn day
5) A homemade casserole in the oven.
6) A phone call from an old friend
7) An email from a new one
8) My husband walking in the front door in the evening after work
9) Smiles
10) Hearing, "I Love You"

On the Lighter Side - Life's Little Material Joys

2007-09-10T06:15:00.000-07:00

1) Blue shop towels by the roll
2) 1000-pc. puzzles
3) Tea
4) 100-year-old, half-gallon, bluish-green mason jars with zinc caps (even better if you only pay a buck for them)
5) bleach (I confess, I'm addicted to that clean smell)
6) plants & seeds
7) notebooks & pens
8) the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle
9) fresh, clean sheets on the bed
10)a good old analog clock

The Fruit of the Spirit - Or Spiritual Fruitcakes

2007-09-07T08:50:00.000-07:00

Now before ya'll get all panicked thinking that I'm hoping we can all just get along and put up with every doctrine that's preached everywhere........ I haven't said or implied that we all have to go join the Ecumenical movement and put practicing gay preachers in the pulpit or put up with "a different gospel." I guess what I am saying is that there are true believers, washed by the blood of Jesus, in many different groups. We don't need to sit around running them down or preaching against all the different groups, as in, "Those charismatics!" , or "those legalistic fundamentalists ", etc.

We need to watch OUR lives & doctrine carefully, not those whom we have no responsibility for or to.

If 'Jane christian' down the street speaks in tongues and I think that is a gift that has ceased, I can still love her & know her by the fruit of the Spirit in her life. The fruit of the Spirit isn't speaking OR not speaking in tongues. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, longsuffering, gentleness, meekness, and faith. Hmmm....did I leave anything out?

If 'Born-again Susie' at Corner Post Independant Baptist believes that we should only use the King James Version and I think that's crazy, that also is an opportunity to love part of the body of Christ. Again, the evidence of the Spirit isn't using or not using the KJV only, it is love, joy,peace, etc.

If we think someone within our realm of responsibility or influence (within our 'church' or someone we're discipling or are friends with) has gotten into some wacky doctrine or some 'new' revelation that 'tickles listening ears', then I believe it is our responsibility to confront it as long as we can do so with scripture. But the wholesale 'flogging' of this group or that, is not befitting the body of Christ. i.e., I am not a Rick Warren groupie but I have seen people verbally burn him at the stake for being a heretic. I would venture a guess that most of the people I've seen do this haven't really read or listened to more than a sound bite or two of his stuff, if that. I don't agree with every word that comes out of his mouth, but I am certain that he believes in salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ alone. Rick Warren doesn't fellowship with me, nor is he part of the local expression of the body of Christ where I live. So why do I need to tear down his ministry? I think some of us will have a lot of 'splaining to do' when we stand before the Lord due to our treatment of other believers who didn't quite line up with our understanding of scripture.

We're not enemies. We serve the same Jesus.

I had the unfortunate displeasure of listening to a certain preacher at a certain campmeeting via the internet. His whole message was pretty much tearing down other believers. None of his complaints were biblically black and white things. He had a problem with:

1)Men who preached without a suit and tie. (definitely the apparel of the apostles, don't you think?)

2)Women who wore cullottes or pants -He said a skimpy bikini was better than pants because women wearing pants takes leadership away from the man in the home. Alrighty then. (Again, if you believe that God would only have you wear dresses, that is between you and the Father....but his argument for it was nowhere near biblical-he didn't even attempt a scripture and the skimpy bikini is pretty blatantly not modest apparel and my wearing of modest pants certainly hasn't taken away from my husband's authority in this home nor my father's in his)

3)People who read anything other than the KJV --He put the NIV in a group along with a sexually transmitted disease, mickey mouse, a lethal pesticide, and a few other things that I can't remember nor do I want to. (However you come down on the side of the KJV only argument---I'm not sure I'd want to stand before God having called a translation of His word the equivalent of a venerial disease.)

4)Preaching without a pulpit---Oh, Is THAT why they stoned Stephen?

5) Church not looking like a church--with carpet and a pulpit ---HUH? Last I checked, the church looked like a group of people, not a building with crosses and pulpits. I wonder if the persecuted church in China or Albania is deterred from worshipping by lack of a 'churchy' looking building. I have this feeling they're a little more concerned about intimacy with the Father or who is knocking on the door to arrest them than they are about having carpeting to worship on.

6) Christians who use projectors & screens instead of hymnals. (Wow is all I can say to that one)

So you see, he wasn't talking about defending the deity of Christ or preaching against someone saying we have to earn our way to heaven. He was angrily ranting about his preferences.

I don't give this gentleman's name or location because I don't want to tear him down publicly .....I only use this as an illustration. I have to be careful, too. When I first started blogging, there were people I wanted to go toe to toe with over a few issues but God spoke to me about that through many verses in Proverbs.

When we turn our guns on each other over preferences, we cease to show the fruit of the Spirit and start acting like......you got it!........ spiritual fruitcakes.

Okay, so it's Not Much Better

2007-09-07T05:10:00.000-07:00

Since I'm using up all my creativity these days on getting my house looking good and teaching my daughter, you will have to settle for another lame name for this blog. Lame as it is, it does fit. I ramble about the stuff that I've ruminated on for years.

The old name was what my brother used to call me when we were growing up. Nerak is just Karen backwards.....and I had put it as the blog name because I just wanted to get started and couldn't think of anything.

Busy day today, so no real post. I did just want to clarify something regarding my post 'Being Honest'. There are some that will say that church isn't there to entertain us. I wholeheartedly agree.....but neither is it there to bore us silly. The early church might have been persecuted and full of problems but one thing they didn't seem to be was BORED. What do you think?

Upcoming posts:
????? About Church Planting and the 57 varieties
Finances (How I Learned the Hard Way)
Jesus and our Relatives
MLM's, the Ultimate People Repellant or, The Great Hole that you Throw Money Into
Loving God When No One is Looking, Part II
The Fruit of the Spirit and Spiritual Fruitcakes

We Cannot Choose Our Brothers

2007-09-06T09:08:00.000-07:00

II Corinthians 5:16So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

The following words are not my own. They are from a book I read 20-some years ago by the name of Living With Jesus Today, by Juan Carlos Ortiz. He was an Argentinian evangelist. The book had an impact on me then, but combined with all I've learned and experienced I am enjoying it even more the second and third time around. This is just part of one of the chapters. The book is currently out of print but there are 11 used copies available at Amazon.com for next to nothing, if you feel like reading it. I give this book 5 stars.

"The primitive church was just starting. It was small to begin with, but they conquered. Wherever they went, all over the earth, one desire consumed them: to bring the whole world into the worship of Christ. They preached Jesus, not a systematic theology.

The aim of the primitive church was not to have a bigger church so that they could say, "Ours is larger than that one."

It wasn't to form separate denominations based on certain doctrines, calling themselves "methodists" or "presbyterians" No, their whole purpose was to expand the kingdom under Christ. They had unity because they were centered in Jesus.

Today we are not under Christ, but under other banners. So we have a broken church that is fractured into hundreds of denominations. But Jesus does not have many churches. The church is the bride of Christ, and He is not a polygamist. He is going to marry just one church.

Don't ask me which church I belong to, because there is just THE church. When you say "baptist," "methodist" or "lutheran".....be careful. Those names are bad words in the kingdom of God. Don't repeat them too often, because Jesus may wash your mouth out with soap if you keep on saying those things.

We cannot choose our brothers. All the children of God in the same area belong to the same church, whether they like it or not. We cannot say, "you are my brother but he is not my brother."

Who can choose his brothers in any family?....

.....The church is formed of all those who have the Son within them. Whether they are Anglicans, Seventh Day Adventists, or Roman Catholics---if they have the Son, they are in the kingdom. They belong to the family of God. It's not by philosophical approach, but by the life they have.

Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Our system of religion tells us that if we believe that Jesus is the way, that's okay. That's enough to be saved.

But it's not okay. Jesus in not the way just so that we can believe that He is the way, He is the way so that we can walk with Him. He is the truth not just so that I might believe He is the truth, but that I may trust Him. And He is the life not just so that I can believe that He is the life, but that I might live that life. We cannot just have a doctine or a concept, we must have the reality. The primitive Christians were called those of "the way." Is the Anglican church way? Are the methodists or the baptists the way?

No, the way is Jesus. It doesn't matter whether you are a member of a denomination or of an independant congregation. To be in "the way" is to have Him who is "the way."

If you are in Jesus, you are in the same way that I am. If you have the Son within you, you have the life of God.

It doesn't matter whether you believe in the millennium, or you don't believe in the millennium; whether you believe in the coming of Christ before or after the tribulation. Those things divide the people of God and have no value for living. They are just an intellectual approach to the philosophy of the Bible. They may be interesting, but they have nothing to do with whether or not we are brothers.

The church has a tendency to be a Christian club. A club is an institution in which all of the members agree to certain principles. If we start a new club, say a non-smokers and non-drinkers club, it's because all of us agree not to smoke and not to drink. So non-smoking and non-drinking is what unites us....

....When we gather together around principles or doctrines, that's a club. Anything that is centered in a set of rules or concepts is a club. But when we gather together around a living person whose name is Jesus, we are a church.....

....When we get converted, we become Baptists, or Episcopalians. We are rivals. It's like two clubs. Before we fought for our politics or for our football club. Now we fight for our doctrines. But it's the same flesh finding new channels to manifest itself.

I used to belong to a church which prayed kneeling down. We never prayed standing or seated. Once we went to visit another church where people stood to pray. We were scandalized. "Look at that!" These cannot be Christians. They pray standing." Today, the issue might be whether a brother is immersed or sprinkled in baptism, or whether he speaks in tongues or not. But all of these divisions are because we are more centered in doctrine and concepts than in life.

A person becomes your brother because he has been begotten by the Father. ......

.....He commands us to repent of our hatred of one another. And when He lives within us and we are led by His Spirit, we will accept each other as members of His body not because of doctrines, but simply because He has accepted us. We will be one church because we all share one common life----the life of Christ in us."

New Blog Name

2007-09-05T20:13:00.000-07:00

I can no longer stand the name of my blog....and I will be changing it tomorrow evening should I have any burst of creativity. Just wanted to let you know, should you wander by and think you're at the wrong place. The URL will remain the same.

Thanks!

Karen

Being Honest

2007-09-04T04:36:00.000-07:00

1 Peter 1:8-9
8Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

As God's people, the church, we are all about obeying God. Or are we? There's this little matter called honesty. I'm not talking about the usual honesty--certainly we know that it's wrong to tell untruths whether they're little teenie exaggerations or whoppers. I suppose I'm talking about telling ourselves the truth.

Let me give an example.

A)I grew up in the church. I have been attending Sunday school, worship services, the Lord's supper(that was a separate service where I attended), conferences, Bible camp, special meetings, missions conferences, etc.

B)I also came to trust Jesus for salvation when I was a child. I love Him, serve Him, tell others about Him, and try to minister wherever I can. I love the Word. I believe prayer is an unbelievable gift from the Father. I have seen His hand move in unbelievable ways because of prayer.

BUT........

From early on in my adult life, something in the back of my head told me that all those things in paragraph A were maybe not as related as I thought to those in paragraph B. Unfortunately, that was not a feasible way to think so I pushed those radical thoughts from my conservative/compliant/don't-rock-the-boat little brain.

In my early 20's a group of us young adults were all going to go to Florida together. Everyone wanted to go to a Bible conference. All I could think of was how horrible it would be to spend a week in Florida inside an air-conditioned church building that looked just like any other church building listening to someone preach some variation on something I had probably heard a thousand times before. Did I say this to anyone? No, I just didn't go. I could barely say this to myself aloud. What? Are you crazy? Admit that sitting in a service bores me to tears? Not on your life. If I admitted that, there were a whole lot of other things I would have to think to their logical conclusion. My brain would probably have shut down. Once again....I had to give myself another excuse not to go..."I really can't afford this trip".....and then shove those insolent thoughts to the back of my mind yet again.

A bit after Jim and I married, we were involved up to our eyeballs in any church we were a part of. "Busy for God." What could possibly be wrong with that? Except now the truth was more nagging because as we got busier at "the church", we were actually propagating the myth that one's commitment to and love for the Lord was measured (even subconsciously) by involvement in church programs and how many meetings you showed up for. No one would ever say this.....but if I am honest with myself ....I thought it....lots. As in, "I wish so-and-so would be consistent in our Sunday school class---they're not 'sold out' " Those of us in leadership knew who we thought were doing well spiritually. But maybe we were wrong. Maybe we were judging by all the wrong things.

During our time at our last church, I started exploring these thoughts and feelings even more. We had moved out to Michigan on the tail end of being super-mega-overthetop-crazy-up front-most nights of the week-committed to a church in New York. When that involvement was gone, I realized that I had neglected the best (intimacy with the Father) for the good (involvement in church). In fact, it was becoming clear in the back of my mind that involvement in church as we know it today can be (dare I say it?) counterproductive in our journey towards walking in the Spirit and practicing His presence.

Also during our tenure in this last 'church', I observed a few things that either grieved me or made me just shake my head. Mind you, this church was a good one by most standards. Not liberal or 'out there'......it was Bible-centered, we had preaching, Sunday school, and many were active in bringing people to Christ. The problem started for me one time when I noticed in the class we were attending (even though I was bored to tears) that one woman's newly saved husband had shown up. As we went through this fill-in-the-blank Bible study and everyone gave the answers they knew the teacher wanted, I was embarrassed. We were teaching this new believer that the abundant life that he just committed himself to was a matter of sitting in meeting after meeting all week long. The 'inexpressible and glorious joy' that the Word talks about wasn't happening anywhere I was looking.

I knew I needed to start being honest with myself. The churches we all attend don't seem to resemble anything we see in Acts or any of the New Testament for that matter. Jesus didn't give His life so that we could sit in meetings all week. In Acts they met together daily in the temple courts. Do we really think this was a church service? Or was it an extension of daily life? They're in the market place and by the temple....they couldn't wait to be together and share their new lives in Christ. They didn't go home and put on a suit and tie and establish an "order of worship" and have a 'sermon' ---at least from what I can tell. Living for Jesus should be life-on-the-edge/I-can't-wait-to-see-what-He's-going-to-do-next EXCITING! In the New Testament, the church was a force to be reckoned with....causing great fear to come upon the people in Acts because they walked in tremendous power. Now the church is pretty much a joke to non-believers and I think for the most part, we deserve it.

Also at this last church there was this couple. Great people. A little older than us. Didn't see them much. I thought, quietly, that they must not be that strong spiritually because they weren't involved in much. Wow! Now I'm embarrassed that such a thought even crossed my mind. These people were doing the work of the church. I was doing church work. These people had already raised their four children who were all out of the home already---then they turned around and adopted 4 more, one at a time, all with special needs!

I think we need to start being honest about what it means to serve the living God. We have to have the guts to look honestly at what the New Testament says about the church and, just as crucial, what it doesn't say. We have to stop reading stuff into the Word. We have to somehow block out the church as we know it today and evaluate how we live as the church by Scripture and not by tradition. We have to give others the freedom to think and not do all their thinking for them. We have to stop being afraid to step out of traditional thinking and be committed to Biblical thinking even if it goes against the grain.

Again, I've rambled. I just get pretty excited about what I know the church can be. Last night we spent some time with some dear friends of ours over dinner in their home. Talking about the Lord and learning from each other, mulling over what the Word means, and discussing what the Lord is doing in our lives right now was so natural. We accomplished more last night around the dinner table than I believe we ever have in a church service.

Acts2:46Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Planning for Shopping Day

2007-08-30T07:25:00.000-07:00

Alright, no heavy stuff today. It's hard work trying not to offend anyone.

Today...groceries and finances. One of these days I'll tell our whole financial story from years back but I don't have the energy or time today.

We always follow a written budget. I hate bookkeeping. I loathe tracking spending. Every month I go to the bank and withdraw all the money I have in my budget for groceries for that month. It put it in an envelope. When it's gone, I stop buying groceries. No checkbook to balance, no overspending, no impulse buys.

One of the things that helps me keep spending down is when I take the time to write out a cryptic menu for the week or month. When the kids were little, I used to do this for the month. Now I might do it for a week or two and I base it on what's on sale at the grocery store and local farm markets. I don't go into a lot of detail, and I can swap meals within a week, but to have a plan assures that I have everything in the house that I need for all the dishes to be prepared that week. If I go to make a plan and there's not a lot of stuff I usually use on sale that week, I just plan one week and then wait to see if the next week's flier has some better choices on sale and then do a longer menu/shopping list based on those sales. I realize this is no original genius plan.....it's just how I do it and it works for us. When all of the guys are around my grocery bill is hideously enormous so every little bit helps.

I need to make my plan today. Tomorrow is bank and stock the fridge day. I think it will also be 'blog about the finances day'.

Have a great day!

Man of God, Called to Preach

2007-08-28T19:32:00.001-07:00

Many of us begin our careers with the goal of achieving success. If we haven't entered our work as a result of God's calling, we will eventually face a chasm of deep frustration and emptiness. Success flatters but does not provide a lasting sense of purpose and fulfillment. So often we enter careers with wrong motives-money,prestige, and even pressure from parents or peers. Failing to match our work with our giftedness and calling is like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. If that happens over an extended period, a person crashes. At this time, many make another mistake. Workplace believers think that beginning a new career in "full-time Christian work" will fill the emptiness they feel. However, this only exacerbates the problem because they are again trying to put another square peg into a round hole. The problem is not whether we should be in "Christian work" or"secular work," but rather what work is inspired by gifts and calling. If there is one phrase I wish I could remove from the English language it is "full-time Christian work." If you are a Christian, you are in full-time Christian work, whether you are driving nails or preachingthe gospel. The question must be, are you achieving the God-given calling for your life? God has called people into business to fulfill His purposes just as much as He has called people to be pastors or missionaries. It is time for workplace believers to stop feeling like second-class citizens for being in business. It is time workplace believers stop working toward financial independence so that they can concentrate on their "true spiritual calling." This is the great deception for those called to business. -- Os Hillman

In nothing has the church so lost Her hold on reality as in Her failure to understand and respect the secular vocation. She has allowed work and religion to become separate departments, and is astonished to find that, as a result, the secular work of the world is turned to purely selfish and destructive ends, and that the greater part of the world's intelligent workers have become irreligious, or at least, uninterested in religion. But is it astonishing? How can anyone remain interested in a religion which seems to have no concern with nine-tenths of life? The church's approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confiined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes on him is to make good tables." --Dorothy Sayers

"There is truly is no division between sacred and secular except what we have created. And that is why the division of the legitimate roles and functions of human life into the sacred and secular does incalculable damage to our individual lives and the cause of Christ. Holy people must stop going into "church work" as their natural course of action and take up holy orders in farming, industry, law, education, banking, and journalism with the same zeal previously given to evangelism or to pastoral and missionary work ."
--Dallas Willard, The Spirit of Discipline, pg 214

What sort of picture develops in your mind's eye when you read the title of this post? For most, I'm sure it will conjure up an image of a guy in a suit and tie, standing behind a pulpit, preaching the Word of God. More than likely, he will be on staff, the 'main man' at a 'church'.

I believe that within the body of Christ, we are all given gifts to help us function as the body. For some reason, that of pastor/teacher has been elevated to almost a priestly role, functioning in a similar manner to the levitical priests or one of the prophets. The other gifts seem to all play a supporting role and I don't see that in scripture. I look around at churches today (and I suppose for the last few hundred years) and see that everyone looks to this 'man of God' as their head rather than the Lord. Few would acknowledge that, but everyone looks at the pastor as the one who knows the word better, has some kind of 'special' knowledge of God, is further ahead spiritually, and is their authority. This is very dangerous both for the members of the church and for the pastor. For years seminaries taught that pastors shouldn't get too close to members of the congregation. It is the only gift that we, for some reason, now substitute for the person's first name. Pastor Jones, Pastor McCarthy, or sometimes we just shorten it to calling him Pastor, as in "Pastor just called and wants to see if you can meet on Thursday during lunch--he doesn't want to use his 'own time' to spend time with you." My husband is an encourager. When we were in a typical church, he was always put in a teaching role, because he has learned to use his gift of encouragement in that way. We don't call him Encourager Jim. He's Jim. He's an encourager, so that's what he does. Others have the gift of giving, yet we don't call them Giver Charlie or Giver Terry. Why do we do that with the role of pastor? I don't get it.

Pastors(as we know them today) rarely have normal friendships in the church because of those things. Since they don't have these 'real' relationships, they have no one to really walk with them through things like grief, doubt, discouragement, depression, family problems, sexual temptation, etc. This leaves them very susceptible to all sorts of stuff. The way we put pastors up on a pedestal is also dangerous to the rest of the church. All we see is this guy a few times a week, dressed up with his family all perfect, and never see his flaws, doubts, struggles, etc. It makes others wonder what is wrong with them when their walk isn't the perfect sinless example that the pastor's seems to be.

Don't misunderstand. I don't think pastors are this group of hypocritical closet sinners. Far from it. I do believe they are just the same as any other group of men who are following the Lord, at different stages of their walk, with sins that 'so easily entangle'. They need to be in relationship with the rest of the body in order to deal with these things. I am certainly not against having pastors or preachers but I think the role we have cut out for them is much different than what it was meant to be.

I am getting off track here. My point is that all Christ-followers are men and women of God and we are all called to preach. Preaching doesn't necessarily have anything to do with a pulpit or a platform or a suit and tie, or even a service in a church building. We are to be ready "in season and out of season" to give a reason for the hope that is within us. Look at preaching in the new testament. It wasn't from a prepared outline with seven points that all begin with P. These men walked with Jesus and they told everyone about it. Pretty simple. Very effective.

Unfortunately, we teach our male children (and adults) that the only way to be truly spiritual is to be in "full-time" christian work. The only way to be truly sold out to Jesus is to be a preacher(in the traditional sense). I illustrate this with the following story....

About two years ago, there was a baptism at our 'church'. Two of the folks being baptized were older teenage twins. The pastor baptized one of them with very little fanfare other than a testimony of salvation and some of this person's schooling plans. The next one came up to be baptized and the pastor told us (with great enthusiasm) that "so and so has a calling from the Lord to be a youth pastor". The place went wild with clapping and amens. I was dying. What is that all about? The reality is that most believers aren't gifted with something that involves preaching. Yet they're just as in love with the Lord. We teach them that the only way to demonstrate that we REALLY love him is to get "The Call". I have yet to see this 'call' in scripture for one gift any more than the others.

I will tell you that with all our years in the organized church, filling every role from A to Z and then some.............most of what we did within the church setting had very little impact until we took it a step further and made it 'organic'. Growth took place in others and ourselves when it happened in relationship. Sunday school class had little impact. When we got together individually with couples from the class and we actually got involved in each others' lives, real growth happened. Cell group had little impact when we huddled around fill-in-the-blank lesson books, but it changed lives when we 'got real' and started talking about real struggles and asked each other questions that kept us up at night. Men's breakfasts can be stilted and phony until they are the result of real friendships rather than assigned groups, where guys really care about each others' marriages and families and they are accountable to each other out of relationship rather than a checklist.

I realized I've rambled here, but there is just so much I could talk about on this topic of the church/giftings/callings. I have seen a few of my friends get saved or come back to the Lord and just assume that the logical next step (if they're really committed) is to become a pastor. I've seen some people really struggle that way because it was neither their call or their gifting....or at least not in the setting we traditionally put the pastor/teacher in. Then if it doesn't happen for them.....they assume they are a spiritual failure.

So now I've revealed my radical self. Sorry, I guess. I hope this doesn't come across as terse, it wasn't intended that way. I must also say that I welcome comments, whether you agree or not. I can't be afraid of being wrong. I need to always look at what I think critically, in light of God's Word.

Ephesians 4:11It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
14Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. 15Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. 16From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

Romans 12:4Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. 7If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; 8if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.

A Delay

2007-08-28T04:52:00.000-07:00

I did say I was going to post on "Man of God, Called to Preach", but I decided to do something else. There was a quote or two that I wanted to use from a book that I remembered I had loaned to someone. I actually have another copy coming from Amazon. I'll do that post then. For today, I hope you'll enjoy the post below.

Karen

Loving God When No One Is Looking

2007-08-27T12:33:00.000-07:00

I have a friend who loves God. She is one of those multi-talented individuals who can do pretty much anything she sets her mind to. She owned & operated her own upscale home & decor shop before she had kids, she paints beautiful watercolors, she runs, is a great mom, she's smart, has the energy of ten people, knows the Word inside and out, and is a tremendous wife to her husband. As a result of her being so talented and willing to help, she is asked to do many things at the church she fellowships with. She has finally started saying no to some of those good things, in order to do some of the things that nobody sees, that God has called her to. It's only a couple of us who see what she does because she never does these things to glory in herself, but to be a witness to others. Here's one of the things that she's gotten herself involved in (okay---the Lord arranged them and she was more than willing).

A few years ago someone in our town was charged with being responsible for the death of her own baby just after it's birth (I believe it was abandonment or neglect). My friend was amazed at the way this woman was being crucified by the press---the same press that would have thought it was a wonderful thing that she had the right to choose to legally snuff out that baby's life if she had done it just hours before birth via abortion. In no way did my friend think that what this woman did was anything close to okay....she was just angry at the inconsistency of the press and felt a great compassion for this woman. So, she got involved. Quietly. No one else knew. She found out where this woman was incarcerated, got the address, and started writing to her. They are now friends. She's sent Christmas presents to this woman's other children who are living with their grandma. She writes and encourages her. We bring her needs before the Lord at our Thursday gatherings. I think she's finally been approved to go see her in prison. Her sentence is a long one. She will never be out while her kids are young. I don't know what will become of this. This woman has trusted Christ for salvation and is growing, partly due to my friend loving God and being obedient to His call to serve-----even when no one is watching.

Matthew 25:35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'
37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

Baseball, The Church, and Hairy Eyeballs

2007-08-27T10:33:00.000-07:00

Years ago, as parents of four young boys who were all fairly obsessed with baseball, we were very involved with the sport. My husband coached at least one of their Little League teams every year. (2005 was his 14th and final year......WHEW!!!) The boys loved it. We loved it. There were others who didn't. We have always been very involved in our church ---especially when we lived in upstate NY. Jim was an elder. We taught adult Sunday School classes together (he did the formal teaching - I'm just a sidekick!). I've run VacationBible School. We planned and led the music on Sunday mornings. We led a cell group in our home. Jim ran Boy's Brigade on Wednesday nights. I could go on. I only bring this up to show that we weren't sitting around letting everyone else carry the load in our church.

When late spring rolled around every year, we usually spent a lot of time at the field. Four boys, four different ages, sometimes meant four different teams. Usually three because two of my boys are only a year apart. At any rate.....if you've got that many kids each playing even one night a week, you are pretty much sitting in the bleachers most evenings during baseball season. We were very comfortable with that. Unfortunately, I have seen the "hairy eyeball" out of the corner of my eye from other church leadership during baseball season. I even heard someone address the issue from the pulpit with something like, 'you have to question your commitment to the Lord if baseball or football is more important than Wednesday night service'. Every spring, prayer meeting was out for two months and baseball was in. We planned on it, knew it was coming, felt like that was where God wanted us. Commitment to church programs is not the same as intimacy with the Father or commitment to the Lord. Performance is not righteousness.

I'm sure there have been times when I've given someone else the "hairy eyeball" either overtly or covertly(the chicken's way out). I'm also certain that doing so was sinful behavior on my part although I didn't think so at the time.

Two years ago, my friend, who was married to a crack addict, had weeks at a time when she wasn't 'going to church' on Sunday mornings. She was a part of the Sunday School class that my husband and I taught for young marrieds. She had two very young children and was pregnant.....and was living life quite on her own as her husband had been away in rehab for most of their married life. She was living with her unbelieving family at the time in a less than perfect situation. During this time she was soaking up the Word, praying, and truly becoming a woman of God in circumstances that most of us would crumble under. We usually got together about once a week at my house or the park or whatever. Was she being disobedient in not attending 'church' during that time? I'm sure some thought so. I'm quite certain she was doing exactly what she was supposed to be doing.

My point is this. Sometimes the better choice isn't always the one that others will think is the godly one. We have to look at what GOD tells us and seek Him rather than the approval of others or relying on what we think God wants us to do based on tradition. For instance, we are instructed to pray without ceasing(I Thessalonians 5:17). We are also instructed not to give up "assembling" or "meeting" together in Hebrews 10:25. We are instructed to build each other up, love one another, encourage one another, etc. all through the new testament. The early believers devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, breaking of bread, the fellowship, and to prayer (Acts 2:42) However, we are not ever instructed to have Wednesday night services, be at "church" every time the doors are opened, or not have leisure activities with our families. We are never told to have programs or services. We are told to remember the Lord in the breaking of bread. To present our bodies a living sacrifice. Sunday school is never talked about in the Word but we are exhorted in Deuteronomy 6: 6 "These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up."

The church system has ordered our lives for us in a sense. It can be dangerous because if we can check off all the things on the list, we think we're doing okay spiritually and being obedient. Sunday Morning, check. Sunday evening, check. Wednesday night, check. Men's breakfast or ladies' meeting, check. Sometimes we go to all the right meetings but it somehow never takes hold in our lives because there is no life outside of that artificial environment called the church building. How many of us are horrified if someone doesn't show for worship service, but we actually spend very little time worshipping the Lord at home when no one's looking. Are we guilt-ridden when we miss prayer meeting (where most of the praying is done by others), but spend little time pouring out our heart to the Father alone or with our family at home? Do we attend every single men's breakfast or ladies meeting when maybe we should have been home with our families that week instead? My dear husband used to take flack because he refused to attend Saturday morning men's meetings. It was the only morning of the week when he could be home with us instead of zipping off to work or piling in the car with all of us and going to church. I loved that decision! It was the right one. With four little kids at home at the time, I needed him home. They needed to be with him. Sometimes it's easier to go to church and listen to someone talk about walking out the Christian life than it is to actually live it.

Back to Little League. Over the years, sports has taken a bad rap in the church. I suppose it is probably because it interferes with church 'programs'. I'm glad my husband has chosen, over the years, to listen to what he knew was right for us in this area. We have established relationships with other families that we never would have had. We have relationships with kids in our community that never would have been there. Our children got to see how we can relate appropriately to those in the world and be "in the world" without being "of the world". They got to see their father handle situations in a godly way with other coaches, people and Little League boards, etc. In Deuteronomy, I think it was talking about that type of thing.....in other words.....talk about the precepts of the Lord as a part of your daily life.....when you walk along (or drive your big old paint van), when you get up (and you're enjoying that skim milk and oat bran on your diet), when you lie down (and pray with your kids for others and thank Him for His blessings, when you sit at home (or are cleaning the basement or doing yardword). Deuteronomy 6:7 wasn't talking about church programs. It was talking about life! The early believers in Acts were meeting together daily in the places that were common meeting places. Their homes and the temple courts.

I'm actually a very compliant, don't-rock-the-boat, just go along with it kind of person (unless, of course, it's something ungodly or sinful). I don't like confrontation or controversy. However, like I stated in a previous post (I am, Therefore I Think, August 6th), I don't want to be afraid to think or evaluate things. I don't want to push nagging issues to the back of my mind. I want to be able to honestly answer questions like "Why do we do this?" "Why don't we do that?" "Is the Word really telling us this or is it really saying that".

I love the church (God's people). I love being with people who love Him. I love talking about Him and His blessing when I walk along the way, when I sit and when I lie down. I don't neglect assembling with others who know Him. It's difficult to even portray some of these issues I have with the church as we know it today without sounding angry or radical or bitter because you don't know me and unfortunately tone can be picked up in print that isn't there in conversation. I am just grieved that the church as we know it today has become a building that we go to that is essentially run by one person rather than the living organism that it is. Church is not something we attend. We don't "do" church. We are the church. He is not at a church building any more than He is in our living rooms Acts 17:24"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. Now He dwells in us. The implications are staggering! Sunday isn't the 'Lord's day', they ALL are.

Have a great day! Tomorrow's post......"The Man of God, Called to Preach"

God's Amazing Ways, Part III

2007-08-25T16:28:00.000-07:00

Part III begins. The ladies and I have been meeting for about nine months now. Early in the spring we had a tea party that we opened up to some of our acquaintences. We prayed for months in advance to see who the Lord wanted us to invite. We had chicken a la king, asparagus, cheesecake with fresh strawberries, and of course----TEA. It wasn't an overtly 'spiritual' event, but we told all the ladies exactly what the three of us did every Thursday and invited them to come any time they chose to. One of the ladies has been very regular in meeting with us. She came to the Lord many years prior but has had no one to help her along in the faith or walk it out with her. She is growing and spending a lot of time with one of our group during the week, just being mentored and learning what it is to be a christian wife and mom.

This summer we hosted another informal get-together with lemonade and strawberry shortcake. It was a great time of just getting to know some of those that we have been praying for. Some are not believers, some are starting to ask questions, some are younger christians, and some are mature in their faith.

This summer we haven't been consistent with Thursdays....vacations, kids home from college, car troubles, etc. But we have been consistently praying for each other & each others' families and keeping tabs on what is going on in each others' lives.

This next part may not be a huge deal to you but this is just an example of how God takes care of our children when we pray for direction in their lives. My first friend I told you about has 3 sons. One of them is a young adult who is an extremely gifted athlete who also loves the Lord with all his heart. He has been trying out for teams all around this region and the doors keep closing for no apparent reason....the talent is there. This spring he was to the point of wondering if it was time to quit the sport between discouragement and some very lonely times on the team. He's a very outspoken believer and sometimes it was very difficult for him. The other guys would bring nearly pornographic movies on the bus, the talk was certainly not particularly wholesome and as a result he spent a lot of time with his headphones on and his eyes closed. He was upright and didn't fall to temptation.

Well, we have all been praying for direction for him. He found a team a little further out west and they love him. He decided to go play for them and possibly attend classes at a nearby university. The guys all stay with local families while they're with the team. His family drove him out there last week. Her son got talking to some of the other young men on the team and one said something about all the people that these guys are staying with wanting them to go to church with them on Sundays. He asked a few more questions and talked to the owner of the team. It turns out that the owner is a believer who acquired the team to reach young men for Christ. They run a tight ship, all of the families that the guys stay with are believers, and they just share their lives with them. How awesome is that???? So tell me, Why am I surprised when things like this happen? Here is this kid...looking to play his sport to the glory of God, actively sharing his faith over and over again with his teammates up until this point, and God plops him right in the middle of this team! They had NO idea that this team was like this before they went out there. Now he can have the opportunities to witness to his teammates and be in a great environment as well. Sometimes I can almost imagine God saying, 'Come ON Karen---did you really think I wasn't going to come through this time?'

Ephesians3:20Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

God's Amazing Ways, Part II

2007-08-25T07:19:00.000-07:00

I Cor. 12:12For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body— Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
14For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? 18But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
21The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you," nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you." 22On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, 24which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, 25that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

About a year after I met my new friend, she told me she was thinking of doing a neighborhood Bible study and asked if I'd be interested. I told her that it wasn't exactly what I was looking for.....(I really loathe fill-in-the-blank Bible studies and I think a more organic approach is both more effective and more real....but that is yet another post, and a long one at that) We decided to just pray and see what the Lord had in mind. In the meantime, one of her believing neighbors popped over and during conversation mentioned that she wanted to do "something in the neighborhood" for other women, but she wasn't sure what. And so it was born. Thursday mornings....the highlight of my week. We started about a year ago and once a week the three of us get together and talk about what is going on in our lives and our families, bounce things off of each other, talk about what we've been reading in the Word, talk about difficult questions, and best of all....we pray and pour out our hearts to the Lord. We pray for the church in our town--not a specific group, but the church in Milford as a whole (all those who are trusting in Jesus for salvation--wherever they happen to fellowship). We pray for our spouses in detail, our kids, our husbands' businesses or careers, direction, those that don't know Him yet who He's brought into our lives, and pretty much anything else we feel led to pray for. It is unbelievable. I can't tell you how we have seen God move. It is just unbelievable. Some stories I can't even recount because the details are more than I should divulge over the internet, especially because they involve others.....but God has intervened in fantastic ways.

The body of Christ. An awesome thing. We are three completely different women from such unbelievably different backgrounds. One is a baptist lady who grew up in a catholic family, the other went to a baptist high school and now fellowships in a very charismatic church, and then there's me. I grew up in a very conservative background (I bet you've never even heard of them...the Plymouth Brethren---yet another post to come), and grew up thinking that those charismatics were the next best thing to satan worshipers (okay not that bad, but close), and that baptists were believers but they weren't quite as "on the mark" as we were. And catholics....oh my! There can't actually be any "real" believers lurking in the catholic church, can there? Another post yet.

My point being this. God supplied a need in my life. He did this with people I didn't even know two and a half years ago, with types of people I wouldn't have thought I had enough in common with years ago. We have had a ball enjoying our walk with the Lord and just living out our lives together. Any differences we may have are just not deal-breaker issues. Christ's body. United to do the work of the church.....not church work. There's a difference. I leave you with this quote.

"There is a distinction between church work and the work of the church. Church work is what you do for the organized institution of the church. The work of the church is what is done between Sundays when the church is scattered all over the metropolitan area where it is located - in homes, schools, offices, on construction jobs, in market places." Dick Halverson

Tomorrow, Part III

God's Amazing Ways, Part I

2007-08-24T05:21:00.001-07:00

I apologize ahead of time....this will probably be a long post. God is good. He provides for His people, and not just monetarily. Let me share a few stories....

About 2 years ago, my husband and I had (a year earlier) just come back to fellowshipping daily with the Lord. We had gotten lazy in our walk and had left ourselves open to that 'prowling lion' who truly did some major damage. God, in His grace, has restored us. Sometime I'll do a whole post on that but for now I submit that just for a little background. Joel 2:25And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.

Anyway...we were in a good church but had a little bit of a unique situation. Our four boys were all high school/college age. We were in our late forties. We also had a three-year-old daughter As a result of our family situation, we kind of didn't fit in with the people our age (we had a toddler), and the other parents that had toddlers were young enough to be our children. Don't get me wrong....I am friends with plenty of people with no kids.....I just needed someone who I could get together with and my daughter would have someone to play with as well.

As any of you know who have been through raising teens, those are years when you need support & encouragement from the body of Christ. We were doing our best to make those connections but for one reason or another, it just wasn't happening. Carrie needed some buddies, too, so I put her in a swim class at the YMCA. The first day there, I got talking to another mom. We found out our daughters' birthdays were just 11 days apart, we both had four older kids, had both moved to the area 5 years prior, and both were enjoying a great relationship with the Lord and beginning to see the amazing things God was doing through prayer. Our families have become good friends and a great prayer support for each other. The live about a mile from our house and the fellowship and encouragement is incredible.Matthew 7:7Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
9"Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

That connection right there was such an amazing blessing from the Lord. I think I'll stop there and I'll post parts II and III on Saturday and Sunday. Of course, the blessings of the Lord could fill the internet so I guess these are just some highlights from times when the Lord did "special things" at a time when I needed them.

Starting All Over Again 17 Years Later

2007-08-21T05:38:00.000-07:00

Well, if you had told me even 10 years ago that right now I'd be heading up to another A Beka book display meeting to start homeschooling again, I wouldn't have believed you. It was around this time 17 years ago that I was going to all sorts of homeschool conferences to get started with my four boys who are all men now. God, in the mean time, has blessed us with Carrie, who is to turn 6 next month. I will be teaching her and her friend in our home this year. I taught them to read last year using Sing, Spell, Read, and Write...........which I think is the BEST reading program on the planet.

This year we start first grade and I'm excited. Homeschooling is such fun in the primary years! I like to use a little bit of everything....KONOS, A beka, the internet, whatever. There are so many good options. Since I haven't been in the elementary age homeschooling world for a while, please inform me if there's something you've used that I 'just can't do without'. I like knowing what worked really well for others and what was a waste of money.

Son#3 registered for his second year at the community college and starts a new job today. It's close enough that he can walk...which is a good thing considering that at any given time one of our vehicles is on the brink of auto death.

Son#4 registers for school today. He's already got a great job in a golf and banquet center that provides him with free golf....which is worth a lot. He golfs competitively so it gets a little expensive to keep his game up without the freebie.

Well, I need to get ready to go. The book display is about an hour away ----just a few miles away from the outlets. It would be shame to go all the way up there and not get a new skirt or two at the Coldwater Creek outlet, wouldn't it? :-) Come on, work with me here.

I'm off! Have a great day!

Psalm 103:1Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name!2 Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits,3who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases,4who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,5who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

Just the Word This Morning

2007-08-17T05:21:00.000-07:00

1Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.2Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

One of Those Mornings

2007-08-16T05:11:00.000-07:00

Ugh. My five-year-old woke up last night at 1:30 because of a nightmare. I went into her room and snuggled with her for a few minutes but then a nasty mosquito started buzzing! Aaaahhhhhh! The torture! I ended up having to stand up on her bed and kill it up on the ceiling, but by that time we were both wide awake. By the time she fell back to sleep it was 3:00 ....then I went back to bed. Of course my mind was going by this time. I tried to use the time to pray but at that time of the night it's tough to stay focused. Although I'm sure my dieting buddies will have a great day today because I did manage to pray for each of them while I was awake.

Busy day today. I need to shop for a wedding shower for my 1st cousin. I am also supposed to prepare a devotional per my aunt's request. I love to talk about the Lord, but I'm a small gathering type of person. I believe that is the way the Lord gifted me. I dislike doing this in a larger group. I also prefer a more organic setting.....as in we're all sitting around talking about a topic and if the Lord is dealing with someone on a topic, they share. Sometimes it's tough to do a one-size-fits-all with a larger group of ladies. You might think this strange if you knew that I believe my spiritual gift is that of a pastor/teacher. Of course, I'm not talking about a traditional 'pastor'. I believe the Lord has gifted me to shepherd and teach (pass along what I know) to other women. Nothing formal. This usually takes place one on one for me with a lot of give and take. I will explain some of what I think the Bible says about spiritual gifts in another post. I'm too scattered right now from lack of sleep.

Astonished? With me?

2007-08-15T05:00:00.000-07:00

Acts4:13When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. 14But since they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was nothing they could say.
The following is something my husband and I read in a magazine probably 20-some years ago. I cannot give credit where it is due because I don't know who wrote it. I was able to find it on the internet but nobody assigned proper credit. I first read it in "the Wittenberg Door" (which doesn't exist anymore-at least in the way it used to). Here goes...

"Management Consultants
To: Jesus, son of Joseph-Woodcrafter,Carpenter shop,Nazareth.
From Jordan Management Consultants
Dear Sir
Thank you for submitting resumes of the 12 men you have picked for management positions in your new organization. All of them have now taken our battery of tests; we not only ran the results through our computer, but also arranged personal interviews for each of them with our psychologist and vocational aptitude consultant. It is our opinion that most of your nominees are lacking in background, education, and vocational aptitude for the type of enterprise you are undertaking. They do not have the team concept. We would recommend that you continue your search for persons of experience in managerial ability and proven capability.
SIMON PETER is unstable and given to fits of temper.
ANDREW has absolutely no qualities of leadership.
The two brothers, JAMES AND JOHN, the sons of Zebedee, place personal interest above company loyalty.
THOMAS demonstrates a questioning attitude that would tend to undermine morale.
We feel it is our duty to tell you that MATTHEW has been blacklisted by the Greater Jerusalem Better Business Bureau.
JAMES, the son of Alpheus, and THADDEUS definitely have radical leanings, and they registered a high score on the manic depressive scale.
SIMON THE ZEALOT, having pronounced terrorist leanings, would blow apart the harmony of the team.
One of the candidates however, shows great potential. He is a man of great ability, and resourcefulness, meets people well, has a keen business mind, and has contacts in high places. He is highly motivated, ambitious and responsible. We recommend JUDAS ISCARIOT as your controller and right hand man. All of the other profiles are self-explanatory.
We wish you every success in your new venture.
Sincerely yours

JORDAN MANAGEMENT CONSULTANTS"

I think sometimes in the church we are looking for the wrong things. We want talented people, people who won't embarrass us, people that are easy to love, people whose gifts suit our church programs. But what kind of people did Jesus choose to use? A bunch of unschooled fishermen, some men with questionable pasts, and eventually a tentmaker who used to murder Christians. But these men had something.....and it didn't come from anything earthly. These men stuck out because "they had been with Jesus". They were walking in incredible power because of their reliance on the Lord. No training in a seminary, no incredible talent or knowledge, no title.....just a daily walk with Jesus.

Reality is that most of us are pretty ordinary. Quiet, gregarious, tall, short, fat, thin, confident, mousy, whatever.....God can make us extraordinary in our walk......so that others are astonished.....not with us but with the evidence that shows we have been with Jesus.

Psalm 147:10 His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse, nor his delight in the legs of a man; 11 the LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love.

It's Getting Awfully Quiet in Here

2007-08-13T05:32:00.001-07:00

We took son #2 back up to school yesterday. He's an R.A. so he heads up a few weeks early. Son#1 is living in upstate New York now. Son#3 has gone camping for a week with his friends. Son#4 is working or golfing most of the time in the summer, my wonderful husband is enjoying his new position, and it looks like this week it will be mostly be #1 (and only)daughter and I home together. It's also the first week I've had my car to myself all summer because son#2 was using my van for his painting business. The inside of my van looks a little like exterior housepaint camouflage. Don't knock it until you've seen this lovely new look.

All of these things are reminders of answered prayer. Son#1 desperately needed to be experiencing real life apart from mom & dad. He loves where he is, it's close to where we used to live, and he's being responsible financially as far as we can tell. We miss him.....but we're glad he's enjoying life as an adult.

Son #2 and the paint van...My!, how God has provided here. We really didn't want to take out school loans for any of the guys. The Lord provided this one with an opportunity to run an exterior painting business for the last two summers. He gained more real business insight from that experience than he probably will his entire time in college. He had to hire, fire, advertise, estimate, cold call, motivate, train, problem-solve, etc. --and did an incredible job of it. Another evidence of God's goodness in answered prayer is that van. We don't owe any money on the thing and it is a big old full-size van probably close to auto-death. Don't you know....that van was PERFECT for his business. All the ladders fit on top perfectly on the rack we used to use for camping. The power washer fit in the back perfectly. The van is so old that a little (okay , a LOT) of spilled paint isn't going to kill me. The thing started having a few goofy mechanical problems early in the summer and we just had to have it going for painting and it LASTED the entire summer. Thanks, Lord! I half expect that when we pick up ladders from the last job that his crew is finishing, that the van will cough, sputter, and surrender to the junk heap when we pull it back into the driveway. I'm hoping not....I will miss it. My son is now back at school and will be rooming with someone from his Life group (a group of other believers up at his school). The RA gig is paying for his room and board, and he's got enough money to cover the other stuff because of his painting.

Son#3 is having a ball camping and doing great having worked for son#2 all summer. A little less than a year ago he was struggling so much and prayers have been answered. He's making good choices and is becoming more confident. He's enjoying the musical gift that God has given him. I love to hear my kids making music.

Son#4 is still in high school and learning to make good decisions. He's made excellent choices when it comes to who his friends are and I'm proud of him.

Our daughter is doing great and I'm thankful that we've got the schooling decision made. I'll be teaching her at home like I did with the boys. I'm excited. She's excited. This should be interesting with the remodeling going on around us (that's another post).

This year will be an interesting one, all around. I can't wait until the fall so our Thursday morning prayer group is in full swing again. I miss that, BIG time. God is still working and things that we prayed all last year about are coming to pass in His timing.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's suddenly getting quiet in here.....but evidence of God's care is all around.

I am, Therefore I Think

2007-08-06T18:38:00.000-07:00

I was just thinking today about how unwilling we are to challenge our own thinking. I've determined to stop being so afraid to think things out to their logical conclusion. Why do we do that? Do we even hate admitting to ourselves that we were wrong? Does it make life too inconvenient? Sometimes as Christians I think we even go the other way....almost like it can't be of God if it's not complicated or difficult enough.

An example of the unwillingness we have to grasp the obvious comes frequently in the area of finances. Back when we had car loans and a credit card and no written budget, we obviously were making enough to cover our expenses but it felt like we were broke all the time. We're not big spenders...actually pretty frugal....but somehow I could justify not having a budget and sticking to it. I could still convince myself that I should put something on a credit card and believe that even though I didn't have the money at the time, it would somehow magically appear.

I know this has been true for me, in a large part, with parts of my christian walk. Not with the fundamentals....Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The other stuff. Why Christians do or don't do certain things. Pre-trib, Post-trib, etc. I guess in some way I've always looked to others to do my thinking for me when I didn't want to mess with it. Some of it is not wanting to rock the boat (a personality thing with me). Then I subconsciously hide the truth of a matter from myself so I don't have deal with it. Is this just me or does anybody else do this as well? Does anyone even know what I'm talking about?

Scripture and the Church is another area where I have to really discipline myself to think it out rather than just accept what has been passed down by tradition in different churches, through various leaders, etc. We all want to be like the Bereans and hold up the things we're told against the Word, but actually doing that is very difficult because we tend to read our beliefs(or someone else's) back into the Word, rather than letting the Holy Spirit illuminate it in our own lives.

I don't really ever want to suffer from amnesia, but there are times I wish I could wake up one morning and temporarily not remember anything about the Bible and be able to read it again for the very first time. Without Scofield notes, a concordance, a pastor, preconceived ideas, family bents, or any study aids whatsoever. His Word is living and active and sharper than a two-edged sword. We reduce it to something little more than a textbook that we disect to death. Sometimes I feel like we've gotten so far into our own concepts of concepts of concepts of concepts in the Word that we can't see the simplicity of it anymore. What 'church' has turned into is a perfect example. Many today can't even imagine a church without a pastor in charge, a 'church' building, soloist, worship team or song leader, a service that starts at 11:00, Sunday school, Wednesday night meeting, hymnbooks (or projection screen), dress-up clothes, etc.......and yet none of that is spelled out in the Word.

Behavioral issues are another area we do this....things like, say, smoking (which I can't stand) that we hold up as this huge thing that Christians just don't do. What is the biblical reason we give? Because it's bad for our bodies which are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Okay, then what about being obese? Living a sedentary lifestyle? Eating lots of refined sugars and white flour? Sucking down 8 Mountain Dews every day? I'm not saying any of these things are or are not sin, I'm just pointing out that we treat one of them as this major evil (smoking) while the others get a pass. We determine the level of evil subjectively, by tradition. This is just an example....but we do it in a lot of places...not always having to do with sin, but all areas of our lives.

I'm still in the process of looking at exactly what He did say about His church....again, without adding the 20/21st century mindset back into His words. There wasn't much he told us about form or when, how often, or where to meet. He told us we shouldn't give up meeting together. We know what the early believers committed themselves to (breaking bread, the fellowship, the apostles' teaching, and prayer). We know the body has pastors, teachers, prophets, evangelists, those with the gift of mercy, healing, giving, etc. We know that when they came together they each had a word or a song. What should that look like today? It gets me excited to think about what it could be.....how organic and real it could be. I look forward to the day when I have my believing friends over for dinner and afterwards we break bread and remember the Lord together. I'm excited to get together with the church at Starbucks or Caribou Coffee and others overhear what we're talking about and want to get to know Jesus. I look forward to not worrying about a building fund or new sound equipment, paint, etc. but being able to help missionaries, the sick, and poor with my giving directly. You see, we ARE the house of God. Ephesians 2:19-22. That's pretty exciting. All believers together make up the church. It's not the size or the place of the gathering that labels it as a 'church'. It's not something we go to, it's His people, together.

Thoughts?

New Blog

2007-08-03T12:58:00.000-07:00

In keeping with the great Christmas Crisco Challenge, I decided to make it a blog all on its own. You can check it out at http://christmascriscochallenge.blogspot.com

Thanks!

One Down, 145 to Go!

2007-08-02T08:21:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a whopping Weight Watchers success. I kept within my points parameters and ate some great stuff as well.....corn on the cob, a grilled hamburger, and a fresh tomato salad!

This is definitely do-able. I did it before, I can do it again.

The Christmas Crisco Challenge

2007-07-31T09:28:00.000-07:00

Well, it's that time. A wedding coming up, maybe my 30th HS reunion....in other words...it's time to finish losing the rest of the excess weight. DH starts his new job tomorrow so it will be a great time to get this thing going.

The amount I need to get rid of is roughly equivalent to fourteen 3-pound cans of crisco. I like to put it in those terms so it absolutely grosses me out and helps me to visualize just how much pure fat is hanging around my skeleton. EEeeeewww. If I start on August 1, and lose roughly 10 pounds per month, I will have a new body by Christmas! How cool would that be?

Anybody else want to join me in the challenge? What would it be like to start 2008 almost 50 lbs lighter? Use whatever sensible diet you'd like, lose it at a rate that will be safe, and check in with each other from time to time. I'm sure I'll do fine at the beginning but when I get down to those last 20 it might take some serious support from some others fighting the same battle. DH and I have lost some weight together but with work and such, it's tough for him to stay on this with me.

Happy eating!

The Peril of Seeking Truth

2007-06-12T23:11:00.000-07:00

"I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives."

--Leo Tolstoy

I thought this was an amazing observation. I have found it, unfortunately, to be pathetically accurate as I have walked through my journey of seeing what God's Word says about the church.

I've spent most of my adult life propping up the failed(in my humble opinion) system we call "church" that really shouldn't even be a system, but a people. I guess I've questioned its weaknesses (not the Church, the system) from early on in my marriage but always wanted to improve on what was there....being scared (for lack of a better word) to really think some of the things I've come to embrace in the last 6 months or so.

My dh and I have found tremendous freedom in our decision to spend more time with the church rather than attend meetings in a building. However, the one peril to seeking the truth is letting anybody else in on the journey. When we left our "church", we left quietly, sowing no discord or hard feelings, and keeping our opinions on the state of the church pretty much to ourselves. On a few occasions we have been either pushed to give our opinion or views on these church matters, or it has naturally come up in conversation with close (or so we thought) friends. In at least three of these instances, the reaction to our views was defensive at best, and bitter, hostile, and nasty at worst. Mind you, neither of us has had any particular desire to convince anyone that we are 'right' on all of this. Some of these conversations were just musing aloud....trying to get others' takes on the whole thing, seeing how they saw certain things in the Word. We like what we are experiencing and we think this is what God desires for us. We don't have any desire to push our views on anyone, or tell anybody that they're wrong. We don't believe the Christian walk is a cookie-cutter ordeal. One-size-fits-all just doesn't cut it in the church. Hallelujah!

Anyway, if you're on the same journey we're on, just be prepared. I suppose we knew that this stuff would happen, but we just didn't expect such hostility from some or blind denial from others. So expect it......but don't give up seeking what God wants for you and how He wants you to function as the church.

It's Sunday, and the church went to Starbucks

2007-06-10T09:53:00.000-07:00

I know this little part of the church had a great morning eating breakfast down in the village with my daughter and my husband, enjoying a quick trip into Starbucks, then spending some time in the park on the playscape and wading in the river. It was about 70 degrees out with a slight breeze. No one had to nudge me to keep me awake, my stomach wasn't growling waiting for a service to get over, I wandered in and out of quiet conversation with the Lord about my husband and his employment prospects, some of my kids who aren't home today, the people next to me in Starbucks, and a friend who is very ill. My thoughts of the Word weren't on a preprinted handout. I believe that my relationship with the Lord is more down-to-earth and real than ever before and I don't set aside a big portion of time to "be with the Lord" these days. I am with Him every minute, and I'm enjoying "practicing" that presence.

A Missed Opportunity, A Lesson Learned

2007-06-04T21:18:00.000-07:00

The other day, my dh and I plopped down in two of the four cushy chairs in the local Starbucks to play Scrabble. The shop started to fill up about halfway through our game when a woman (late thirties) walked in with her 12-year-old son. She bought him the beverage of his choice as well as choosing one for herself. How special! They meandered over by us to the other two comfy chairs near the front of the store. As soon as the kid's keister hit the chair, mommy dearest laced into him about screwing up at school. Now....don't get me wrong....we all make mistakes and our unsanctified selves will blurt out something awful or we'll be too harsh, etc., but this was WAY over the top. She went up one side and down the other in front of everyone at Starbucks and well within earshot of many of them. The humiliated subject would occasionally try to flee and she would raise her voice and tell him to get back and sit down. Finally, he could take it no more and he left.

Now, I was sitting in my cushy chair, minding my own business, laying down my Scrabble pieces, praying for this woman and her son, and asking God how I should handle this situation. After the boy left, I quietly approached the woman and asked if I could pray with her for her son, and asked if I could help or if she wanted to talk. We went to the back of Starbucks, prayed together, and had a really nice conversation.

YEAH, RIGHT!!!!! That is, unfortunately, what I WISH had transpired. Instead, I sat there the whole time muttering under my breath, thinking of sarcastic things I could say to her. When she finally left, I said, "what a jerk", probably loud enough for her to hear. I was so angry at what she was doing to this kid in public, that I completely missed an opportunity to treat this woman like Jesus would have. It was a good reminder to me. The next morning I thought of how I should have handled it. I am praying for another opportunity to run into this woman at Starbucks again. This time I'll be ready. This time I'll pray.

Colossians 4:4-6
4Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. 5Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. 6Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

The Reason for My Absence

2007-06-04T19:49:00.000-07:00

It has been more than a month since my last post. Alas, things have been a little unsettled around here. As of May 3rd, my DH lost his job. This was more of a blessing than a curse in the long run, but in the short term, I'm sure it felt like a punch in the stomach to him. You would think there would be more time on our hands because of this mandatory "time off" but, in fact, it seems like we're busier than ever. Finding a job in Michigan is akin to seeing the Cubs win the world series....yeah, it can happen, but it's not particularly probable. Dh's days, evenings, and nights have been consumed with studying for certifications, searching job posts, tweaking & updating the resume, calling headhunters, interviewing with said headhunters, taking care of our benefits, etc. Each of these things are quite a chore in and of themselves and when they're all together, on top of the whole emotional thing of a job loss, things can be pretty exhausting.

In the midst of all this I can say that God has been faithful to meet and exceed our needs and wants. If this had happened even five years ago we would have been scrambling like crazy.

DH has a few irons in the fire right now, a couple that look extremely interesting. We are asking God to intervene in this process and grant him interviews in some of these places that probably get thousands of resumes every day. Without the Lord, I truly believe it's the luck of the draw whether a resume is seen or not. My DH is doing everything he believes that he's supposed to do but we're both realizing that while we should most definitely prepare and do what is in our power to do, that is not where our hope lies. (Proverbs 21:31, Psalm 33:16-18)

These verses in Proverbs have been jumping out at me for about the last 9 months or so every time I turned around. I do believe that God was preparing me for this chapter of our lives. Before it even happened we both knew, we both were ready in a weird sort of way and now we will have the opportunity for God to work His miracles.

This would be REALLY scary if God weren't in control!!!

2007-05-06T19:47:00.000-07:00

Well, well, well. We find ourselves in a bit of a situation. By the grace of God we sensed it coming but nevertheless it is a little unnerving. Last Wednesday my husband's position was terminated. YIKES!

While this is no picnic, I am certainly not panicked like I would have been even a few years ago. This is why....

I will try to make an extremely long story very short. My husband is one of those people that is good at everything. (I'm not biased, REALLY!!!! Every place he's ever worked, he's started out doing one thing and ended up getting promotion upon promotion because he's, well, good! He's self-motivated, a man of integrity, he's a quick study, becomes fluent on any topic rapidly, treats people well, mentors those who work for him, isn't political, does the right thing for the company and the people who work for him, treats everyone with respect, and is creative with solutions for tough business problems. Can you tell what I think of him? Okay, I'll stop.

But that's not the reason for the lack of panic. There are a few verses that have been on my mind, forced to my attention over and over again this year. I read Psalms and Proverbs nearly every day of my life because I think the principles and situations in both books have so much to do with our lives every day. The verses that have had such an effect on me are Psalm 33:16-18 and Psalm 147:10 & 11. In other words, it really doesn't matter just how qualified or amazing my dearly beloved is.....what matters is that "He delights in the man who fears Him, who puts his hope in His unfailing love." "No king is saved by the size of his army, no warrior escapes by his great strength". These verses are especially significant for us here in Michigan where the economy gravitates somewhere between the toilet and the septic tank. Jobs are scarce. So I suppose it's good that it's not the strength of the economy that will deliver us from being unemployed, it's the might of our God. If DH gets a new position quickly in this environment, we'll certainly know Who provided it.

Tribute to Total Money Makeover/Dave Ramsey

2007-05-02T18:08:00.000-07:00

Today is my tribute to Dave Ramsey and his Total Money Makeover. If you are unfamiliar with him, just go to his website at Daveramsey.com, start listening to his show online or read the book. He practices the principles he teaches, he's very motivational, the program is fun, the whole thing is actually great fun to do with your spouse and will change the course of your financial future.

If you are in debt (most people are) spend a few minutes today and listen to his show. In 17 months we paid off both of our cars, some stupid credit card debt from years ago (yeah---and we knew better!), and started a pretty decent-sized emergency fund.

I feel that God is using this guy in a big way. I'm so glad my husband ran across his stuff a few years ago and we started implementing it. It is certainly nice to sleep at night knowing we don't owe anybody money except on our mortgage. That is next, of course.

God used him to help us get our finances in order which put us in an okay place when my dh was laid off today. It's much easier to trust when you know you've stopped being foolish with what you've been provided. THANKS Dave!

THE CHURCH AND DRIVER'S EDUCATION

2007-04-29T23:59:00.000-07:00

If driver's education was like the church as we know it today.......

At 16, each person would have the opportunity to decide whether they
would choose to devote time to learning how to operate a vehicle. If
they chose to take that first step, we would enroll them in driver's
ed classes, every Sunday and Wednesday, FOR THE REST OF THEIR NATURAL
LIVES.

Every class would start with exactly 20 minutes of songs about how cool cars
are and why we like them so much, followed by a soloist singing about cars. It would be assumed that this person was rather intimately acquainted with the workings of cars & driving, even though singing in front of other people about cars isn't really any indication of anything other than a love of performing.

Next on the class agenda would be an offering of sorts.....primarily to pay for the professional driving instructor, to construct a more modern and cushy lecture hall for the driving school and flashy programs to keep future drivers more interested in the school-like babysitting program that existed during all the lectures. Since the parents never really drove at home or had time to talk about driving with their kids, they would let the driving school assume that role with their children.

Next would be the lecture. Even though the only way to really learn to drive is to get in a car and drive while a veteran driver instructs you, driver's education would be taught by lecture only. Students would be expected to attend lectures at least twice weekly, other meetings and seminars about cars, recruitment meetings to try to win others to the joy of cars, ---almost anything that would keep the students so busy that they would have no opportunity to actually drive or enjoy driving with others outside of the driving school.

Every Sunday and Wednesday, the teacher, or someone on his staff, would drive the students all home, for fear they wouldn't be able to do it themselves. Even after years of lessons, most people would still drag themselves to the lectures and allow the teacher to take the wheel on the way home every week. Driver's education would take the place of actually driving. Driving was for the professional teachers.

None of the students would actually drive a car during class--which would consist mostly of lectures, or ask any real questions about driving a car. That would be rude and who knows what a free-for-all they'd have if students started voicing their questions and fears---and actually discussing the finer points of driving! They could even start interpreting the manual for themselves and next thing you know they're careening their way down Main Street.

None of the instructors would have much driving experience other than driving back and forth to class from homes that were usually on the same property as the driving school. Their jobs would be incredibly secure unless they stole or totalled a car, started advocating train travel, or something equally serious.

That's all for today....

'Nerak'

Our Dirty Little Secret......sshhhhhhhhh!!

2007-04-28T04:23:00.000-07:00

In late 2006, after spending nearly 48 years going to what we call 'church', my husband and I decided to call it quits(on going to church--not our marriage ☺). When we made this decision, we were doing very well spiritually (still are) and we weren't in the middle of any controversy, split, or anything of that nature whatsoever. One week we started talking, looked at each other, and we both just knew that we would no longer be getting up early Sunday morning to GO to 'church'. I'm sure there will be times when we'll be in one of those buildings again to visit someone, etc., but we both decided that our growth has taken place outside those walls thoughout our walk and for the most part, the flurry of activity associated with being a part of a church (as we know it today) seems to do more to pull us away from intimacy with the Father and makes it nearly impossible to build relationships with people in our communities in order to point them to Jesus.

I've been wanting to write this series of blogs for a long time, but I really don't want to seem angry and negative. While I am not angry at all, some of my views on the church AWKIT (As We Know It Today) are negative ones.....but that, in itself, doesn't make my opinion wrong. I would like to speak what I see as the truth, in love, but I ask that you know the underlying message is that I love the church and I would love to see it functioning in a way that brings people into intimacy with God.

One of the benefits of not having any readers at this point, is that it doesn't really matter what I say here. I can just practice writing! If anyone does happen by.....please feel free to comment. I enjoy the discussion. There is a lot to say and I'll try to answer the questions I get most often, such as---"What if you get into error?", "What about leadership?" , "Doesn't the Bible say not to forsake the assembling of church?", "Where will you get your teaching?". If there are any more out there, please add to the list---then at least I know someone is reading!

That's all for now,

'Nerak'

Cars....can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em

2007-04-27T08:29:00.000-07:00

Haven't written for a while, that's mainly because I'm now sharing this laptop with three of my kids.

Today's subject.....cars and money. First of all let me say that I am beyond thrilled that I owe no money on the vehicle of which I will be speaking. This car was purchased new (something I'll never, EVER do again---see Daveramsey.com--great site if you have any debt) back in 2001. Approximately 2 years later, son#1 was driving son#2 to work and cop#1 arrived on the scene because said car hit another and wound up with nearly $6,000 in damage. Insured car is repaired. Later that year son#2 hits rock at side of road and scrapes door. Minimal damage. Car is not repaired. Son#2 attends gathering at friends house and someone apparently backs into car but doesn't own up. Minimal damage. Car is not repaired. Author takes trip to grocery store in said car and is attacked by wind-propelled grocery carts( I'm not making this up!!!!) Car is not repaired. Approximately one year later, son #1 borrows car #1 to take a quick trip to the bank. Quick trip to bank turns into lengthy trip to collision shop because son #1 decided to back out of said bank without looking, thus ramming the car with the right-of-way. Insured car is repaired. Husband and I pick up car from collision shop and on the way home, car#1 stops running. Completely. Coughed and sputtered and died, 4 miles from home. Had said car towed to the best mechanic in southeastern Michigan ....Norm's in South Lyon. Norm informs us that said car needs a $5,000 -6,000 engine replacement...and that he's seen several of these in his shop with the same sludge problem. Seeing that we still owed tons of money on said vehicle, it stayed on Norm's lot for about 6 months (bless his heart). We finally scraped enough together to pay for the stupid repairs. Car is repaired. We were actually enjoying 2 years of relative car bliss (with THIS car) when son#4 spends the night at someone's house and someone in his friend's family(who will remain nameless) backs into car and says nothing. My son, seeing that the car door was smashed shut, went into the house and asked if anyone had hit it. Finally an admission of guilt. Mother calls author. Mother asks author's son to file false police report saying that some anonymous person in parking lot hit it so it would fall under my insurance so that they don't have to tell the family patriarch about driveway incident and insurance won't increase. Author refuses, knowing that filing a false police report is a felony offense and that what friend's mom should be more concerned with is that OUR family patriarch is unable to get into his car because the door is smushed shut. Friend's mom finally reports accident. Insurance company calls author. Author gets estimate and faxes it to insurance company. "Check is in the mail". Check never shows up. Author calls insurance company. Person handling claim has been canned. "Check is in the mail". Check doesn't show up. Collision shop calls. "Do you want to bring the car in?" "No, I will wait for the check and then I will probably only get the door problem fixed (since it's a good thing to be able to enter your car) and skip repairing all of the cosmetic damage (because I care more about getting soaked on resale than I do about what the car actually looks like right now). Don't order parts." Two weeks later, collision shop calls and same conversation occurs. Author calls insurance company. Repeatedly. Doesn't hear from them. Finally makes trip to collision shop. While asking questions, author discovers that said collision shop has cashed a check made out to him and me.....without my endorsement. Author steams. Collision shop lies. Author calls insurance company. "new check will be in the mail. A month goes by. No check. Author becomes pain the the neck for insurance company by sheer volume of phone calls. Finally, after maybe 10 calls in a single day, author receives assurance that check is, in fact, in the mail. Approximately four months after the driveway incident, the check is received, and deposited. Door still won't open. That will be repaired soon, right? HA!!!!! Fast forward to this Tuesday. Son#3 is driving son#1 to school for his final. Son#3 pulls out of neighborhood into oncoming car. Vehicle is presently sitting in collision shop. Insured car is not repaired. Author calls collision shop. Appears that car will be totalled. No, this cannot be. The car with nine lives has finally met it's waterloo. Moral #1.....don't buy a car that you can't pay cash for. Moral#2.....Have an emergency fund for times such as these., Moral#3....don't ever assume that four teenage boys (as wonderful as they are) can make it to adulthood without destroying your property. Moral #4.... don't insure this family.

Ode to a Vacation

2007-04-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

Late-night driving, lousy food
Construction zones galore
Triptiks, maps, and mileage charts
& Backpacks on the floor

Hotel beds and swimming pools
breakfast bars and tea
refrigerator, microwave, and
NOTHING on TV

I'm glad we're out----away from home
to this grand vacation
to relax and read and play and pray
....enjoy some conversation.

No meals to fix or house to clean
No scheduled anything
The weightiest decision of the day
"McDonalds or Burger King?"

Catching up with Mom & Dad
Great times at the ocean
LOsing glasses in the surf
Gallons of suntan lotion

Carrie and David having a ball
Memories they'll now treasure
Laughing, swimming, playing games...
watching them's a pleasure.

Hearing from the guys at home
Makes me happy too.
KNowing they've grown to great young men
And care about us too.

When everything dries from last night's rain
We're heading for the shore!
To soak up some rays and leave behind stress
To mill around & explore.

The end of vacation comes too quick
A thought I can't bear to ponder
Praise God for wonderful breaks like this,
That make me, of home, grow fonder. :-)

Today's recap

2007-04-08T20:26:00.000-07:00

Today we spent the morning down around the pool. The kids swam a lot. DH studied by the pool. It was still a little cold so it took me a while to get in. I just enjoyed taking a slow morning, reading my Bible around the pool, and challenging #4 son to a lap competition.....see who could get the most laps in by the end of the week.

Then we went to lunch with my in-laws. We chuckled at the choice of restaurants because on the way down here we were laughing about how it seems that the degree of one's love for smorgasbord-style restaurants is directly proportionate to one's advancing age. Guess where we went? Actually it was very good and reasonable as well. While we were in line I turned around because my 6'4" husband kept getting knocked into me. I turned to see that behind him was a height-challenged, senior citizen of the female variety (politically correct term for a little old lady). She was literally shoving him out of the way to get her spoon in a dish of food. It was hilarious. In another setting, I'm not so sure someone wouldn't have pushed her face into the bowl of potatoes. She was a piece of work. We about died laughing.

After that we went back to said in-laws' condo and watched The Masters since all the guys golf. We got back here fairly late and stopped in Micky Dee's before turning in. My husband ordered a couple of apple pies for dessert, walked to get a coffee at Starbucks, settled down on the couch to enjoy. What he pulled out of those boxes didn't resemble anything like I've ever gotten at Mcdonalds. It looked like someone had siphoned off all the filling with a straw. All that was left was a deflated, lukewarm leathery pastry. Yeah, I know those pies are only 50 cents apiece but it's the principle of the thing.

Well nothing too exciting to write about today but I'm enjoying sitting on my keister all week. No meals to make, no cleaning, no wash to do, no schedule to stick to, and no phone to answer. I think I feel inspired. Tomorrow....Ode to a Vacation! Lucky you!

Wow

2007-04-04T05:52:00.000-07:00

Well, I've decided I need to get writing every day whether I have something to say or not, just to get in the habit.

Today I'm in a rant of sorts. I was doing a search the other day for some lyrics to a song from a kid's album my sons had in their early years. Don't ask me how, but I ended up in a webring of a bunch of extremely conservative baptists. Now, mind you, I have no problems with conservatives (I am one) or baptists ( my parents are), but this was one of the more bizarre strings of websites I had ever seen. The common thread was that they are absolutely gaga over the King James Version of the Bible, authorized in the year 1611. Gaga doesn't even begin to cover it. Wow. WOW!!! It was crazy! I couldn't tell if they were more in love with Jesus or this version of the Bible. I'm still trying to figure out why they're so obsessed with a version that was 'authorized' by an earthly king (whose own relationship with Christ is largely unknown) for purely political reasons. It was this same king who sent a baptist leader to prison (he died there!) for writing a book on religious freedom.

While I don't have any problem with the KJV, their defense of it as the only english version of the Word of God that is divinely inspired is just plain cuckoo IMHO. There are great options out there. I'm not advocating that we all run out and get "The Message" and take our doctrine from it but the ESV and NIV are both great translations. I believe the Bible was written for everyone, not just the educated. The KJV was written in the english language of 1611. If we're going to essentially translate it into the everyday english of today via our pulpits because it's difficult to understand, what is wrong with a valid, easier-to-understand translation. Being stuck on a translation done in 1611 is kind of like being caught in the amish time warp.....sort of like one period of history is more godly than another. Hmmmm.

I'm just sitting here wondering how the rest of the world can even exist in a Christianity that doesn't include the KJV!!!:-)

I suppose that is enough for today's rant. Maybe the plummeting temperatures are getting to me! I'm so looking forward to warm sunny Florida and hitting the discount bookhouse in Georgia on the way down. Then again, I do have to venture through the Carolinas....home of all these KJV only blogs. You never know what might happen if I get caught with the NIV!!!

Ta Da! The first post!

2007-03-22T19:36:00.000-07:00

I suppose it doesn't make any sense to start a blog without giving you a little sense of who I am. I am usually not into forwards, but today someone passed one along to me that was actually useful.....at least useful in the sense of being able to get to know some of your friends a little better. Part of the forward was a little exercise where you had to fill in some random information about yourself and send it back to the friend that sent it to you, as well as to another friend. Since it didn't come with threats like 'your dog will die and you'll have eight decades of bad luck if you don't pass this along to 47 other people', I decided to participate. So.....here are my answers to that random little survey.

1. FIRST NAME:
Okay, I think I'll keep that one confidential for now....

2. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?
No

3. WHEN DID YOU LAST CRY?
Last night. Not sure why...hormonal maybe....just a
little weepy.

4. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
Oh....do people actually do that anymore:-) Give me a
keyboard anyday.

5. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT?
Liverwurst with a thick slice of purple onion, on
bakery bread, completely covered with black pepper.
Unfortunately, after eating that nobody wants to be
within 6 feet of you -- due to your unique aroma!

6. KIDS?
4 boys, ages 21, 20, 19, 16, and one girl, age 5

7. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS
WITH YOU?
YES...but not after I had eaten one of those
liverwurst sandwiches.

DO YOU HAVE A JOURNAL?
Not in the traditional sense, but I have a few
journals where I write down all the things I'm praying
about or that our prayer group is praying about, so I
can look back and see God's hand moving as a result of
prayer.

DO YOU USE SARCASM?
What do YOU think, genius?
No - seriously....while my tendency is definitely
towards using sarcasm, I try to refrain most of the
time because it feeds a part of me that doesn't need
to be fed :-)

DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?
Yes....and my appendix, all my limbs, and 25 extra
pounds. What am I missing? Hmmmm....an ovary.....a
fallopian tube...my mp3 player.....and the other half
of about sixty-seven pairs of kids' socks.

11. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?

Let's see.....do I want to jump upside down a few
hundred feet above a rock-hard surface, placing my
trust in someone to have all the equipment in working
order who is working for five bucks an hour at a
carnival. NO!!! Not unless the following conditions
are met......1) my life insurance gets increased, 2) I
can do it over a 300 foot pile of marshmallows, 3) the
"carnie" submits to a drug test and breathalyzer, and
4) they pay off my mortgage just for trying it.

12. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?
Meuslix mixed with Wheaties, covered in fresh berries
and bananas. The milk will make my mouth itch for a
half hour but it will be SOOOOOO worth it!!!

13. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG?
Yes-in some ways....but my abs are pathetic.

14. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM?
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup from Stewarts in upstate
New York.

15. SHOE SIZE?
9!!!! I have a greater understanding.

16. RED OR PINK?
Why Pink, of course!

17. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?
Boy----that's a real toss-up! Either...
....that I gain weight so easily and have trouble
keeping it off.
OR
...that I am naturally very disorganized and have
trouble keeping my house neat.

18. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST?
Rebekah.....my friend who moved to Arkansas. I got to
see her this week!

19. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU?
sure!

20. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?
Blue jeans and my favorite black clogs...

21. LAST THING YOU ATE?
Okay....do I have to admit this after just telling you
how I gain weight so easily? After doing Weight
Watchers the better part of this month, I just had 3
poppin' fresh biscuits and a....oh man.....a
pepperidge farm cookie! I confess!!!!!!!

22. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?
I let my daughter flip on Nick, Jr. for a few minutes
while I'm writing this. Lame-O!

23. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?
I would be one of those big crayons that had a bunch
of different colors depending on what part of the
crayon you were using!

24. FAVORITE SMELL?
Pot roast or apple pie baking in the oven.

25. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE
PHONE?
My husband.

26. THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?
Eyes and how they treat other people.

27. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU?
You bet I do!

28. FAVORITE SPORT?
Kid's baseball

29. EYE COLOR?
green--sort of. I can't tell what color they are.

30. HAT SIZE?
Never even thought about it.

31. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?
Do I have contacts? Yes. Have I worn them lately?
No.

32. FAVORITE FOOD?
Depends on what day it is. A few homemade favorites
are... macaroni and cheese, beef ragout, cheesy
potatoes (MmMmMm), eggplant parmesan.
The carryout favorite: Thai food, especially if it
has eggplant in it.
Eating out favorite: doesn't matter...steak, I
suppose. Or Eggplant parmesan:-) I just like
eating out. It means someone else will be cleaning
up!

Did I mention that I like eggplant?

33. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDING?
Happy endings, for sure.

4. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING?
Why Pink, of course!!!

35. SUMMER OR Winter?
Fall

36. HUGS OR KISSES?
Lots of both!

37. FAVORITE DESSERT?
Ice cream on a perfectly ripe sliced banana, slathered
in good hot fudge, a puff of real whipped cream and a
sprinkling of chopped walnuts, garnished with a cherry
(just for looks not taste).
....with black coffee---got to watch those calories,
you know!

38. WHO IS MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
Not me.

39. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
Uh, that would be me.

40. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING?
I've got bookmarks in so many right now. Lets' see..
Non-fiction:
What is a family...by Edith Schaeffer...looks good
but I just started it.
The Naked Church ....Wayne Jacobsen...unbelievable
good, this is my second time through. I wish I had
written it!
When the church leaves the Building...David
Fredrickson...awesome but I needed to know the rest of
the story...it ended too soon. Second time through
this one, too.
The Bible....specifically: 5 Psalms and 1 chapter of
Proverbs each day, also reading through Acts and some
of the letters to try to see what God intended the
church to be......it's really hard to read it without
reading my 21st century mindset back into the
Word.....so I'm trying to pretend I've never seen it
before.
He Loves Me....by Wayne Jacobsen...good so far but I
just started.
How full is Your bucket?...I forget the author....good
but I just started
Fiction: Does it count that I've pre-ordered Randy
Alcorn's new book, Deception?

41.WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT?
Two episodes of According to Jim. Tried to watch DIY
network but it was a rerun at the time slot I was
trying to watch.

42. FAVORITE SOUND?
My husband telling me he loves me!

43. ROLLING STONE OR BEATLES?
Beatles. No question.

44. THE FURTHEST YOU'VE BEEN FROM HOME?
California.

45. WHEN AND WHERE WERE YOU BORN?
Royal Oak, Michigan , too long ago.

46. WHO SENT THIS TO YOU?
Misty

47. NAME ONE PLACE YOU WANT TO GO THAT YOU NEVER HAVE
BEEN?
China....Oh, and heaven, of course! :-)