new life Archives | Page 1 of 2

| 1 2 | next ten entries

Sunday, September 07, 2008

he's definitely more than just a handsome face.

I thought some of you might be interested in listening to this. (Um, that's a link.) It's T's first (of probably many) sermon at the fellowship we've just started up this summer. Right now it's just him and one other man doing the teaching -- the other guy does it nearly every week, not only because he has a lot of good stuff to say but also because he's retired and so can study and write sermons full-time -- but one of the foundational ideas of the fellowship is that any believing man from among the group who has something to share can share it; there's no professional "pastor" as such. Anyway, this is from two weeks ago, but I just now thought to post it here in case anyone was interested in hearing it.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

way awesome

Jenn is participating in Lauren's Bloggy Tour of Testimonies with thirty days of posts. I am SO LOOKING FORWARD to this whole series, and I thought I would give Jenn (and the grace of God) a bit of a plug here. Do make sure to check her out over the course of the next month. I love Jenn very much, and this story she's about to tell is one that I have a feeling will make me cry more than once.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

dilly dallying

I'm supposed to be typing. Well, I am typing, but I'm supposed to be typing something very specific, namely a transcription of an audio file that is queued up and waiting for me to stop putting it off and do my work already. It's funny, because yesterday when I was muttering and slamming things around and frustrated about the whole tenant/back surgery/work/money/everything thing, I was thinking what a great time it would be to have a transcription job come in. Then about five minutes after I had that thought I checked my email and there was a message from the guy who hires me to do this stuff. It's a small job but every little bit helps make me more sane. So yay.

The only problem is, I didn't buy any Jolly Ranchers today (after our last frightening non-tenant experience, we're being VERY careful not to spend any money until it is actually in our hot little hands. This even extends to Jolly Ranchers, since if I stop off at the store to just buy a $1.70 bag of candy, our bank account will inevitably be at least $20 lighter after I've checked out. Hey, admitting I have a problem is the first step toward healing, right?). I think this is why I can't get motivated properly. I have a few left over from my last job, but they've been around a while and humidity and Jolly Ranchers don't play well together. So I'm a little afraid to look at them.

Also, in the 'ha ha very funny God' department, we have had six serious calls about our apartment today, and I had to tell every one of them that it was already taken but thank you very much. That God, he sure has a sense of humor.

Also, I used the weedeater today. IT WAS FUN, and I did a good job. And what a feeling of empowerment! Any time I saw a thicket of tall weeds today (and living where I do, this is not at all an uncommon experience), I would think, I could weedeat that. Before, weedeating was a mystery, an enigma, a task best left to my betters. Now I have conquered. Next up: the chainsaw. (or... maybe not. Some things a clumsy girl just shouldn't try. But then again, it's not like T's going to be using one anytime soon.)

Monday, September 26, 2005

the retreat

I'm glad I went, and not just because of the six delicious meals I didn't have to cook. Not even just because of the chocolate fountain:

That's melted dark chocolate (nothing can be perfect in this world, right?), and we had everything from Nutter Butters and Rice Krispie Treats to strawberries and cherries to dip in it. I won't show you pictures of the cheesecake table, or the dark chocolate cake with frosting apparently made of chocolate chips, or the fruit and cheese, because then you'd just be jealous.

No, I'm glad I went because I really did learn a lot, or at least I was in an environment where I could come up with a lot of great ideas on my own (since many of the things suggested by the professional organizer who was the speaker wouldn't quite mesh with our household -- although some will), about organization and how I could make my house more appealing. I do think that the mounting sense of discomfort -- you could even say total insanity -- about the state of my house has been God's way of working me up to a point where I was really open for ideas for this sort of thing. Also, the worship was beautiful, even though it did involve a bit too much of the "let's repeat this one line of this song until we're all mildly hypnotized" sort of thing (as Hank Hanegraaf might say, in his pompous and annoying "I've said this phrase so many times that it's totally meaningless to me and totally unintelligible to you" tone, maybe they were trying to put us in analteredstateofconsciousness).

That said, it wasn't like last year. There was no life-changing spiritual renewal going on. There was only the vaguest mention of anything that might lead people who didn't know Jesus to trust him and love him. The best memories I've taken away from this weekend, honestly, are:

• walking around the beautiful grounds and surrounding area with my SIL, taking pictures and talk-talk-talking.
  
• Making a new friend out of a recent acquaintance. I think. Time will tell.
  
• Coming home and hearing shrieks of joy at my appearance -- which is something that T gets every day, but only happens to me twice or three times a year.
  
• The idea that I can actually maybe make my house the way I want it to be.
  
• The worship singing. It really was nice.
  

And good thing for all those memories, because I came home and was instantly overwhelmed by the actual scope of the job of organizing this place. One job at a time, I know, but at that rate it'll take me till T retires to get all the jobs done. And of course they won't stay done, if past experience means anything. Still, I'm going to try. Hmm, I wonder how much that professional organizer would charge...

Sunday, May 22, 2005

worship and songs, and a little survey

Jane wrote an entry today about some of her thoughts on worship, which is interesting, because I've been pondering the same subject for much of the day. Specifically I was thinking about worship songs. It seems like such a no-win subject for a congregation; you'll always have somebody who thinks there're too many praise choruses, and some who think there are too many fuddy-duddy hymns; some who think the tempo is too fast and some who think it's too slow. And then there's me: from one week to another, my opinion on the above is prone to change, but one thing I always manage to get hung up on is lyrics. I can't get into a worshipful mindset if I don't agree completely with the lyrics of the song. I don't complain to The Powers That Be at the chapel I attend; I just either don't sing, or I change the lyrics as I go, or I, like today, get so caught up in musing about the correctness of a lyric ("are we worshiping God's majesty, as in, that attribute of God, or are we worshiping His Majesty like he's a king?" Either one, I don't particularly like) that I completely miss the point and end up with pretty much no worship experience at all, as far as the singing goes.

How does all this work for you? I mean, do you prefer hymns or praises or a mix? energetic or contemplative? How much of your "worship experience" depends on the songs being a good fit for you, theologically or otherwise?

Thursday, May 19, 2005

another interesting experience

(you'll want to have read the previous entry before reading this one or it won't make any sense. Also, some of you might be really turned off by this. Sorry, please do come back anyway.)

Last night after I typed that entry I was lying on the couch, and LT (in the recliner) and I were trying to go to sleep. I was praying for my boy, asking God to help him relax and get some rest and trust in Him, and I was praying for myself, that I wouldn't let this make me anxious. I also prayed that God would help me to understand what was going on, if He could even let me feel whatever it was that LT had been feeling, so I could at least know what he was talking about for sure.

About a minute after I whispered Amen, cold chills just started coursing over my body. At first I was like, what on earth--?, and then I remembered that of course, I was getting what I had asked for, I was being let know what it was that my son was feeling and trying to describe to me. This morning when I asked him, he confirmed that the "shivery" feeling was indeed the same feeling he gets when someone rubs a jacket with their fingernails, or when he's kind of grossed out, or at the end of going pee (I would roll my eyes and say "boys" here, but it was C who came up with the last two examples). I told him that God had shown me that that was what he was feeling, and that was how I knew.

So. We don't know why it happened, or if we can expect it to happen every night, but we at least have both had confirmation that even if we don't know, God does. That sort of thing has happened in our family a handful of times -- a very visible, immediate, direct answer to prayer -- and it always leaves me with a tangible sense of the presence of God, in a very awestruck "the creator of the universe is HERE IN THIS ROOM WITH ME" kind of heebie-jeebie sort of way (speaking of cold chills). It's good to be reminded sometimes.

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

alive!

Yesterday morning we had a really interesting experience. It actually started on Sunday night, when I realized that I hadn't seen our cat Mary all day, and neither (I found when I woke him up to ask him) had T. I went out in the dark in the rain and looked for her, as well as checking all her usual indoor haunts, and didn't find her. In the morning, T looked around as well, with the same results. I remembered that late on Saturday night, Mary had been acting a little strangely, and I concluded that she must have been ill, and that she had gone off somewhere to die. I broke the news gently to the kids mid-morning on Monday, which of course was not a lot of fun for anyone, and started cleaning the house, partly because it just needed it, and partly so that if she had not done the "going off" part of "gone off to die", we wouldn't be finding her mortal remains by smell in a few days. The kids were cleaning their rooms and I was working in the living room when C came dashing out shrieking with joy that she had seen Mary under her bed, and her eyes were open. For some reason I was still convinced that Mary was dead (after all, she hadn't responded when we'd called her; we hadn't even heard her collar bell jingle) and told C that she probably was, eyes open and all, so that C wouldn't have her hopes up.

But of course when we went and peered under C's bed, we saw that Mary wasn't dead. She was a little sick, we think, and she'd huddled under that bed for who knows how long, but after another day of lying around the house not eating or drinking or playing, she woke up today so much improved that I cancelled her appointment at the vet, and she is pretty much as chipper as ever tonight. I just walked past her, lying on the end of C's bed, and I got thinking about the resurrection. I thought of the way C jumped up and down after we'd pulled the living breathing Mary out from under her bed: "I'm the hero of finding Mary!!" I remember how we all felt kind of slap-happy for half an hour or so afterward, and how relieved T was when I called him to tell him the news, and how surreal the whole thing seemed later. Mary is "just a cat", but yet, the account of the Resurrection in Scripture is similar: doleful, sad, let-down followers of Jesus, still loving him, hearts broken, a bit scattered, trying to move on. Then comes the news: He is risen, just as he said! How fantastic, what a surprise, He's not dead after all! What a pivotal moment, from grief to joy with head-spinning rapidity.

I am guilty, as are most Christians at one time or another, of going through my daily existence knowing full well that Jesus was dead and that he rose again -- completely aware of how boggling and joyful a truth that is and how it has changed my life and my eternal destiny -- and not being excited about it in the slightest. It's distant from me, it's old news, it doesn't have a lot to do with all the stuff I have to do day in and day out. I need to remember that excitement, to catch fire with it like I have done a few times in my spiritual life, but not nearly often (or steadily) enough. The Lord is risen! And because he rose again, I too can walk in newness of life. I'm asking God to help me to LIVE like that's as amazing and exciting as it really truly is.

Saturday, April 09, 2005

big decisions

I'm going to the hospital on Thursday to have surgery. As if it weren't hard enough to make a decision on the scale of the one I had to make to arrive at that point, now that it IS decided, I face what is possibly an even bigger quandary:

What the heck am I going to bring to read?

So far I have in my stack: Anne of the Island. A Shakespeare omnibus edition, Four Comedies, which includes Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, and The Merchant of Venice. The ancient hardcover edition of A Tree Grows In Brooklyn that I bought at the Salvation Army thrift store a couple of weeks ago (possibly the most serendipitous purchase I've made in years; I have wanted this book for a long, long time, and this is a nice old edition without any modern soft-focus art on the cover, and that's exactly what this book SHOULD be. And I got it for fifty cents). I also have my bound paper journal, which I haven't written in since last fall, and of course I'll be bringing my Bible; maybe I'll study Romans in addition to my daily reading, where I'm in Joshua.

It's not like I plan to read ALL of these. I just want a variety to choose from, because who knows what my mood will be? And -- here's the scary thought -- I really don't want to be down there in the hospital, alone and in pain at eleven o'clock at night, and suddenly think of the ONE book I REALLY want to read, and have it not be with me. I wonder if I could have the surgery at home. You think? Then we'd at least be just down the street from the library... T wouldn't mind a little library outing, would he?...

Anyone have suggestions? I'm open to them, as long as they leave room in my bag for my stuffed Grover, who has been through a lot of hospital hours with me.

I hadn't planned to post this initially; I was going to keep it all lighthearted, but, well, here are some of the worries I keep giving to God and then snatching back from Him, in case you were, you know, fresh out of things to pray for:

• Pain. There will be a lot of pain, this I know.
• Loneliness. I am not really accustomed to sitting alone in a hospital room from the end of visiting hours to the beginning of visiting hours the next day.
• Coming out of the anesthetic. I'm not worried that I won't; I'm OK with that. It's just that -- well, I'm sure there must be a more miserable physical sensation than coming out of a drugged sleep into debilitating pain, but I've never had to deal with it, and, well, I feel wimpy right now.
• Having to explain to the entire world why I'm having a hysterectomy at thirty, or else having everyone think I'm trying to keep some deep dark secret if I just say "I've had surgery." I know, I know. None of anyone's business, and I worry too much what people think. But there it is. Here's a short synopsis of "why", since I know if I don't do this I'll have to do it in the comments anyway. I hope it's not TMI; just in case, you might skip to the next bullet if you're squeamish and/or male. Adenomyosis (basically low-grade endometriosis) --> really horrific, um, well, girl stuff --> severe anemia --> exacerbation of supraventricular tachycardia --> weakened heart, possible severe heart problems later. And over all of that is a family history that makes my gynecologist's pen nearly catch on fire from scribbling notes anytime I have to remind him of it. So.
• The possibility that I will be coming home to an utter disaster area. This is not very likely; T is nicer than that. But I know how things can get away from a person.
• Getting a roommate who wants the TV on all the time. Oh please, no. Please. ;)

Friday, April 08, 2005

quiz (EDITED)

Ever the copycat, I saw that Kristen had taken a quiz, so I had to do it too. (Better not jump off the Empire State Building, OK, Kristen?) My results were:

1: Baptist (non-Calvinistic)/Plymouth Brethren/Fundamentalist (100%)
2: Congregational/United Church of Christ (87%)
3: Baptist (Reformed/Particular/Calvinistic) (81%)
4: Anabaptist (Mennonite/Quaker etc.) (79%)
5: Pentecostal/Charismatic/Assemblies of God (75%)
6: Seventh-Day Adventist (69%)
7: Church of Christ/Campbellite (63%)
8: Presbyterian/Reformed (61%)
9: Methodist/Wesleyan/Nazarene (57%)
10: Anglican/Episcopal/Church of England (43%)
11: Lutheran (39%)
12: Eastern Orthodox (37%)
13: Roman Catholic (21%)

The top result I can really see. I have read about the Plymouth Brethren in the past, and from what I read, I found their attitudes about the church, method of meeting/worship, and set of beliefs to be the nearest of any established "denomination" to what I see as Scriptural. Edit: I was mistaken; I was thinking of the Christian Missionary Alliance, I think. The confusion comes in because a man whose biography T and I like to read (R.G. LeTourneau) was brought up as one and converted to the other. Whoops. I don't know enough about Christianese labels to interpret the rest terribly accurately. It is interesting that the more credal, liturgy-based denominations landed nearest the bottom -- rather accurate, considering that even a responsive reading sends me into convulsive Methodism-flashback shudders.

Saturday, March 26, 2005

Happy what?

In a way, this is one of my least favorite times of year. It's not the rain, it's not the chill in the air, it's certainly not the longer days or the green grass or the wildflowers everywhere -- it's the darn bunnies.

You can't go three steps in our town this weekend without being told "Happy Easter". And therein lies the problem. We don't celebrate Easter, for reasons that are pretty important to us (more on that in a minute) but it's to the point where we just gloss over the comment and move on, rather than trying to explain it. Unless people start pestering the kids about it, and then we'll usually go into it a little. Here's what we tell them.

• The name itself, "Easter", is derived from the name of a Babylonian queen (the wife of Nimrod), who was revered as a goddess of fertility in Babylonian "mystery religion". She was originally known as Semiramis but later became known as Ishtar.
  
• Bunnies and eggs have nothing to do with the resurrection of Christ. They are, however, pagan symbols of fertility. (and besides, the Cadbury creme ones are really gross.) I know some people see them as symbols of "new life" and equate that with the Resurrection -- but we don't see a need to stretch them in that direction.
  
• Even the date is not Scriptural in its origins. Ordinarily "Easter" is celebrated on the Sunday after Passover, which is in fact the Sunday on which Christ was resurrected. However, that's just an ornate kind of coincidence, since the actual determination of the date of Easter is that it is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. This year Passover is in late April, but Easter is in late March.
  

We do commemorate the Resurrection. We just don't do it with egg hunts and baskets of candy (this doesn't keep me from overdosing on chocolate during this time of year, however. ;). And this year, we won't be doing it when most people do.

I'm not posting this to say that I'm holier than anyone else, or to imply that Christians who dress up their daughters tomorrow morning and go to an egg hunt after church are unspiritual slackers who don't love Jesus. These are just our family's personal convictions about this one particular issue. Comments and questions about them are welcome.

new life Archives | Page 1 of 2

| 1 2 | next ten entries