Wild Weather

A couple of weeks ago my son texted me to let me know that the power was out where he is stationed, at Ft. Bragg in North Carolina, and there was a tornado warning in effect. Continued texting assured me of his well-being. I checked later that evening online and saw that the area had indeed been hit by several tornadoes, and there were already photos and video footage available of the damaged areas. This morning I was tagged in a Facebook post written by a friend in Georgia, informing me that a mutual friend in Alabama had a near brush with a tornado in her neighborhood, but was okay.

Confessions of a Non-Confrontational Calvinist

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In the movie Toy Story, there is a character with whom I particularly relate. Rex, the big green dinosaur, towers above the rest of the toys and has a mouthful of teeth and a fearsome roar, but it quickly becomes clear that Rex is a coward. In a scene that returns to my mind on a regular basis, Rex shakes his tiny little fists and declares, "I don't like confrontation!"


 
Yea, that's me.

We’re Not From Around Here

Many Moons ago, waaay back when Jim and I had one child and were expecting our second, we made the decision to leave the Army life behind. We had met while both of us were serving in the Army, married while on Leave, and spent our first three years as husband and wife living in Germany, where Jim was stationed. (I left the Army in order to get married.) One reason for our decision was that we wanted to have a family, but we did not want to have to uproot ourselves every few years in order to move around wherever the Army sent us. We wanted to be settled as part of a community.


 
God has a sense of humor.

Tuesday Ten

I'm taking a moment out of my week to list ten things for which I am thankful.



1. Coffee, ready and waiting for me when I stumble downstairs in the morning. Jim, being a night owl, works late into the night on his class work, and before he comes to bed in the middle of the night he sets the coffee maker so that I don't have to fumble with it when I get up.

P2R, Week 1

The first week of memorizing the book of Philippians is now behind us and I think we had a strong beginning. Looking through the little Memory Moleskine it appears that we started off easy with the memory work. Further in, the weeks involve a lot more memorization than this. We each spent time individually working on our verses during the week, but once a day we gathered to read them over together. A couple of evenings, Isaac was the one to remind us to get our books and read together.

Raining Cats and Dogs

Yesterday Kate came home for the afternoon and, due to a project on which she was working, did not leave until about midnight. It had rained all day yesterday, with the rain becoming heavy at times. Right when she left was one of those times. Jim helped her carry a last armload of stuff out to the van and then ran back indoors. In his rush, the front door did not close securely.

Partnering to Remember

A few years ago I found the blog of a Christian pastor, Timmy Brister, who had the idea of reading through the Puritans, one a month, for a year.  The discipline of embarking on such a quest "with" someone else, following his posts through the year and reading the comments of others on his blog, was an adventure.  While I didn't make it through all of the books, it was a blessing to have read those which I did.

New Title

I began this blog years ago almost by accident.  I had friends who went to Kazakhstan to adopt a boy, and they started a blog to keep everyone apprised of their progress.  One day I just HAD to comment on one of their posts, and stumbled into creating my own blog by mistake.  I was sitting at a public computer in the clubhouse of the apartment complex where we were temporarily living as we waited to move into our new home in our own adventure.

Under Construction

If you've visited this site lately you may have noticed that it has been changing in appearance. Blogger, having recently been acquired by Google, has given me many, many options for customizing my blog. As anybody who knows me will attest, I love arranging and re-arranging rooms until I like the results. Spring cleaning is upon us at home, and the furniture is being shifted around in order to customize our home. I'll move a few things, look at the result, sit in the room for a while, leave it and return later; all to gauge how comfortable I feel with it. One thing that has been a steady constant for me is that I don't want my home to feel as if I've just walked into a furniture store, with everything matching and new. That just wouldn't reflect my personality.

Thursday Thirteen

Many moons ago I was in the habit of posting a weekly note on Facebook titled, "The Tuesday Ten". Spurred on by a friend, Kilby, I would take a moment out of each Tuesday to focus on gratitude. Alas, like most good habits, this fell to the wayside. I would see occasional thankful notes written by friends, but my own notes on thankfulness merely added to my growing pile of good intentions, and we know where that ends up. I now have a new friend who weekly posts a "Thankful Thursday" on her blog. Like a good poke in the ribs, this has inspired me to pick up right where I am and express my own gratitude.

To Be Prey, or Not to Be Prey; No Question

[Disclaimer: The following is NOT a How-To guide, it is a How-I-Responded story. Thank you.]


Let me state right off the bat; I am a dog owner. My dog is a Shepherd mix, which means that she is large, she has a strong protective instinct, and she will bark her freaking head off at anyone who happens to be walking along the street as if they are the first wave of an assault of Visigoths intent on our murder and utter destruction. We don't need an alarm system; we have Vali. Because I own such a large and obnoxious dog, I am sensitive to others' reactions to her and do my utmost to keep her from annoying or frightening people. (Unless you are a Visigoth intent on our murder and utter destruction, in which case she is free to be her protective self.)

A Road Runner’s Plea

I have been running for more than a year now, with a brief hiatus during the winter nastiness, and I have a few thoughts which I'd like to share with drivers. I realize that, for a driver, the few moments involved in driving past a person running down the road are quick and almost not worth considering. I know that to be the case, because until 16 months ago I was behind the wheel giving very little thought to those lunatics running on the side of the road. Now that the shoe, (the high-stability, lightweight, wide, New Balance running shoe, that is) is on the other foot, allow me to suggest a few things for you to consider.

Virtual Ligonier

While we lived in Florida we were blessed to be able to attend the annual Conference for Ligonier Ministries, in Orlando, several years in a row. Now that we live so far away, we enjoy the blessing of watching the conference streaming live on the internet. Rather, I should say, the mixed blessing of streaming live on the internet. Because the live webcast affords us the ability to watch from home, it means that as we are watching the conference, we are- say it with me- still at home.

True Beauty in Christ

The following is a talk which I gave at our Church Women's Fellowship this morning. We enjoyed a lovely brunch together, had a lesson in tying silk scarves and an accessory exchange, some songs, and then I shared what had been on my heart as a result of going through the book of 1 Peter with my Bible study group for the past several months.

When you hear the word, "beauty", what comes to mind? Personally, "tall" and "svelte" top my list. Images of physically beautiful women are all around us. Every grocery store checkout line has magazines plastered with the world's ideals of glamour and beauty. Television and movies parade for us endless images of beautiful women. There is an entire industry devoted to convincing us that physical perfection is not only to be desired, it may even be within our grasp. If we take their diet pills, wear their fashions, use their makeup, and subscribe to their magazines so that we can keep up with their ever-shifting definitions, we too might achieve their ideal of beauty. The beauty that we see emblazoned across the world's standards is representative of only a slim percentage- no pun intended- of women today, and yet, for all of the billions of dollars spent on the beauty industry each year, it is missing the mark.

Ice World

We have had quite the onslaught of winter weather lately. Most of what we have been getting is in the form of snow, which can be plowed off the roads and will look beautiful and even provide entertainment. Last week Isaac was able to build one big snowman in the front yard and a giant snow head in the back. They're still out there. Only now, they're covered in a thick layer of ice. The winter storm which swept across the nation, coming up from Texas, caught us on its fringes, sending us wintry mix and ice instead of more snow.

Field Trip!

Last week we celebrated Jim's birthday. Depending on whom you ask my husband is now either 41 or 49… (long story). If you subscribe to the idea of "love languages", I would say that Jim's love language is "Doing Stuff Together", with a strong accent on "Historical Interest", otherwise known as, "Old Stuff is the Best Stuff". So instead of a pile of gifts, we gave Jim a field trip day into Philadelphia. We live so close to this city which is filled to the brim with "Interesting Stuff", "Old Stuff", and "Interesting Old Stuff", the kids and I figured we'd be able to find something just right for Jim. With a little bit of internet research I found a museum in Philly which fit the bill perfectly.

Marching for Life

Many moons ago, way back when I only had three children, I went to the March for Life in Washington D.C. I took my then six-year old Nathaniel and five-month old Rebekah. Kate stayed home with friends. We went with a busload of people, many of whom we knew and would help me along the way with my baby and the stroller. I had been active in the local Pro-Life group, so this was an issue with which I was familiar, as was Nathaniel. He had made a poster for a contest, which he won, the prize being the tickets for the bus to Washington. That year, 1993, the March fell on the day after President Clinton's Inauguration. While we marched, our new President reversed years of pro-life progress by issuing five executive orders reversing Title 10 regulations banning abortion referral by federal employees, repealing the Mexico City Policy restricting federal funding of international organizations that work to reverse countries' abortion laws, negating the ban on funding for fetal tissue transplants, ordering military hospitals to perform abortions, and asking the FDA to "review" the import ban on RU 486. The timing was certainly no coincidence and was a symbolic victory dance for the pro-death camp which had found in William Jefferson Clinton a man after their own heart.

Baby, It’s Cold Outside!

I've not mentioned anything lately about running for the simple fact that two circumstances occurred simultaneously and sidelined me… for now.


 
Circumstance Number One, when I went for a Saturday morning run with the running group in mid-November, I got as far as 4 and a half miles, was feeling great with my breathing and rhythm, was no longer minding the cold temperature, when my knees both began to hurt. A lot. This wasn't a crankiness about the work I was putting them to, this was a downright mutiny. I tried walking a bit, thinking that after a brief break I could pick up again with the running- after all, it was going so well. But when I slowed for a walk they suddenly hurt even worse- in a weird, weak way. I actually stumbled and almost fell. Once I had walked for a bit the pain was gone so I resumed running and the pain returned almost instantly- and the knees had recruited my left hip to join them in their mutiny. I finished the distance, (for a total of 6 miles) somewhere between a limp and a run. Anyone watching my halting gait may have thought I was rehearsing for an upcoming audition for the role of Quasimodo.

A Few Points of Clarification

After my recent confession I feel that I need to clarify a few points. Weak and imperfect as I am, and miscommunication of what I've written being a distinct possibility, (all fault being my own) here goes.

Let me first and foremost declare that outside of Christ I am nothing, can do nothing, and have no hope whatsoever. He saved me, dead in the trespasses and sins in which I once walked, following the course of this world, a child of wrath, not because of works done by me in righteousness, but because of his own great love and bountifully rich mercy toward me. God saved me from death, from bondage to sin, from an eternity in hell, to be made alive in Christ, raised up with Him and seated with Him in glory. (Eph. 2: 1-7) To quote a friend, "(1) I did not deserve it and (2) I did not deserve it and (3) I still do not deserve it."

To Be Honest…

There are some topics about which I don't write here simply because they cut too close to the heart, and I don't want to sound as if I'm complaining or being negative. Yet there are things through which we are living now, circumstances which seem to dominate our lives, through which God will ultimately be glorified. But if I've said nothing, how will anyone know? What follows is not a complaint, nor is it a masked plea for money- really. I've waited until I'm in a good mood to write this in an attempt to keep the negativity at bay.