Thorns?

I've been attending a bible study group on Wednesday mornings. It is held at the Chrisitan Reformed Church down the street from us. It is part of Coffeebreak ministries. They provide child care services as well. What we have been studying this session is a series on "Comfort".

One of the areas we talked about was how to handle Stuff in our lives that we don't want in our lives.

For instance Paul talks, in 2 Corinthians 12, about a thorn in the flesh. "

1I must go on boasting. Though there is nothing to be gained by it, I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. 2I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven--whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. 3And I know that this man was caught up into paradise--whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows-- 4and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. 5On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. 6Though if I should wish to boast, I would not be a fool, for I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me. 7So to keep me from being too elated by the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from being too elated. 8Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I've been thinking a lot about that, because I have things in my life that I really wish weren't there. And since really reading this and thinking about it, I have come to understand that if I didn't have this "stuff" I would be so much more reliant upon myself. Because of this "stuff" I know the importance of daily devotions, I know the importance of saying "God I can't handle this, here... you take it", I know the importance of having good Christian friends and so forth.

Then this morning I read from Deuteronomy 8

1"The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the LORD swore to give to your fathers. 2And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. 3And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every wordthat comes from the mouth of the LORD. 4Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years. 5Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the LORD your God disciplines you. 6So you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him.

It just seemed to all pull together a bit more for me. God gives us "stuff" in our lives that we need to deal with. This "stuff" tests us. It shows where our hearts truly lie. Do our hearts lie with our "stuff" or do they lie with God?

My prayer is that more and more, that my heart will lie with God and with the things of God and not with my "stuff". Sometimes I fear that I am far, far away from that point. But through God's help...I'm getting closer.

God is So Cool

So I was reading in a magazine the other day. Go figure eh...me reading! :)

Anyways, the mag was called "mothering: natural family living" It was an article on caring for premature babies.

"Remarkably, a recent study led by Dr. Ludington-Hoe showed that when mothers of twins Kangerooed their babies simultaneously, the temperature of each breast adapted to regulate the temperature of the baby closest to it. This phenomenon, called breast biosynchrony, means that one breast might become warmer to help a baby whose body temperature needs to be higher, while the other breast might remain at the same temperature, or even grow cooler, if the infant on that breast is already warm enough."

(p. 44, Caring for your premature baby by Christine Gross-Loh)

When I read this I thought...wow....God is so cool. Like who would have thought about making a momma's body in such a way that a wee little baby could be cared for by his momma like that? And to be able to care for two different babies at the same time with such a intimate level of care...giving each just what it needs. I was just SO amazed by that.

It just shows how God cares for even the tiniest among us. :)

St. Patrick's Day

Christ shield me this day:
Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every person who thinks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me


Taken from: http://www.catholic-forum.com/Saints/saintp01.htm

How Irish are you?

You're 25% Irish

You're not Irish. Not even a wee bit. Not even on St. Patrick's Day!

How Irish Are You?

Rome???

You Belong in Rome

You're a big city girl with a small town heart Which is why you're attracted to the romance of Rome Strolling down picture perfect streets, cappuccino in hand And gorgeous Italian men - could life get any better?

What City Do You Belong In?

I like what this guy said.....

I was over at doxoblogy and I found this piece that he had written on being Reformed. I'm just going to excerpt part of it, you can go there yourself to read the rest.

So what does it mean to be Reformed? Well my answer is going to be very simple. Being Reformed is being convinced of a Biblical set of truths. These truths are Justification by Faith Alone, Salvation by Grace Alone, the Sufficient Sacrifice of Christ Alone, the Final Authority of Scripture Alone, and a God who Alone deserves and receives all glory in, from, by, and through His creation.

Sola fide-We are declared righteous by our Holy God upon our act of Biblical Faith.
Sola Gratia-Even our Faith is a gift from God who owes us nothing.
Souls Christus-Christ alone merits our salvation for us through His perfect life and sufficient death, burial, and resurrection.
Sola Scriptura-The scriptures are the divinely inspired, inerrant words of God.
Soli Deo Gloria-God alone gets the glory for our salvation because it is He alone who has foreknown, elected, predestined, created, redeemed, called by the Gospel, regenerated, given faith, is keeping, and will one day glorify us.

I thought it summed up things rather well. Sometimes I have a hard time putting into words what makes me different as a believer than say my mennonite believer friends. I do know that I've gotten into some interesting conversations with them in the past. I just liked this post because it made it more clear to me, so this way, if I get into "interesting conversations" again, hopefully I'll be clearer at explaining the importance of believing ALL of God's word, and how everything in my life is dependent upon God...even my faith in him.

Help comes from many places...even men with beady eyes! :)

Today's meditation

I read this passage this morning Mark 12

1And he began to speak to them in parables. "A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower, and leased it to tenants and went into another country. 2When the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. 3And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 4Again he sent to them another servant, and they struck him on the head and treated him shamefully. 5And he sent another, and him they killed. And so with many others: some they beat, and some they killed. 6He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, 'They will respect my son.' 7But those tenants said to one another, 'This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.' 8And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. 9What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. 10Have you not read this Scripture:

"'The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
11this was the Lord's doing,
and it is marvelous in our eyes'?"

Made me think of how often the messengers of God are killed. God sends out people time and time again, and they all get killed or beated or set away, by the very people God is trying to communicate with. And then he sends his most precious messenger...and he is destroyed as well.

Not only did this actually happen physically...but it also happens mentally and emotionally. Christ was crucified, he was dead. he was alive again. he rose and is now sitting besides God in heaven.

But his people, who call upon his name, are being martyred around the world daily. People are harassed, beaten, sued, denied jobs, driven out of their homes, just because they believe in Christ and have the "audacity" to tell others about it. God sends these people out. he's given all believers the ability to tell others about him, and it's something he actually tells us to do. Unfortunately many of us are too afraid to do anything about it, but we still need to. We can't let .. oh i want to say we can't let the world win... but that's not what I mean. We can't let all those lost souls perish for the want of hearing God's word.

We need to be obedient to Christ.

It's like those servants who were sent out. They knew what happened to the previous servants...beaten or killed. They still obeyed the will of their master. As Christians today, we can't let the fear of loss of position, money, life, liberty, and so forth stop us from heeding the word of our risen Lord and Saviour.

Your thoughts?

Contrariness

So I was reading from Leviticus 26 this morning

23"And if by this discipline you are not turned to me but walk contrary to me, 24then I also will walk contrary to you, and I myself will strike you sevenfold for your sins.

These lines are repeated throughout this chapter. God calls the people to heed his voice, to walk the way he told them to. They don't. He punishes them in order to correct their ways. He then tells them what he will do if they continue to walk away from him.

It just struck me at God's patience. He didn't go AH!!! Enough of this!!! and just turn and walk away. He persisted in disciplining and calling his people back to him. How it must have grieved his heart to see his people persist in their evil ways.

This after reading yesterday from Deuteronomy 5 after God had given them the 10 commandments

24And you said, 'Behold, the LORD our God has shown us his glory and greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the midst of the fire. This day we have seen God speak with man and man still live. 25Now therefore why should we die? For this great fire will consume us. If we hear the voice of the LORD our God any more, we shall die. 26For who is there of all flesh, that has heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of fire as we have, and has still lived? 27Go near and hear all that the LORD our God will say and speak to us all that the LORD our God will speak to you, and we will hear and do it.'

28"And the LORD heard your words, when you spoke to me. And the LORD said to me, 'I have heard the words of this people, which they have spoken to you. They are right in all that they have spoken. 29Oh that they had such a mind as this always, to fear me and to keep all my commandments, that it might go well with them and with their descendants[e] forever!

The people had PROMISED to follow God, to obey his word. They knew that if they did so, God would have things go well with them. It goes to figure that if they didn't, well then things wouldn't go so well. But all that God did to them was an effort to turn them back to him, an effort to help them keep their promise to him.

I don't know about you, but when someone breaks an important promise to me once, okay, I'll forgive them and try to help them keep it the next time, the second time around I'm a whole lot less likely to do that. And yes, that's the sin in my life, and it just shows the greatness of God. But this just makes me go WOW! God really loves his people. God really wants his people to do right.

It just fills me with amazement at the Lord God that I serve.

Almost 50

1. What time did you get up this morning? first time: 330 to give sons med and nurse him, second time:645 to change son and get him and myself ready for the day.

2. Diamonds or pearls? not really into jewellry, love a necklace my hubbie got for me though, just don't wear it due to son

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Eight below

4. What is your favorite TV Show? NCSI, CSI: MIAMI, CSI: New York etc.

5. What did you have for breakfast? depends on the day, often egg and cheese sandwich

6. What is your middle name? Full name: adriana henrietta

7. What is your favorite cuisine? whatever tastes good

8. What foods do you dislike? food with cumin or curry in it

9. Favorite Potato Chip? Plain rippled

10. What is your favorite CD at the moment?

11. What kind of car do you drive? 1998 Mazda Protege

12. Favorite sandwich? Meat and cheese (ham, turkey, chicken, egg)

13. What characteristics do you despise? Cruelty

14. What are your favorite clothes? Jeans and t-shirts

15. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation where would you go? Alaska

16. What color are your eyes? blue

17. Favorite Brand of Clothes? Thrift store

18. Where do you want to retire to? farmland

19. Favorite time of day? what? um... I like the whole day.

20. Where were you born? Palmerston

21. Favorite sport to watch? sports? watch them??? Oh yeah..the olympics

22. Whom do you least expect to respond to your tag? have NO idea how to do tags

23. Person you expect to send it back first? See above

24. Coke or Pepsi? Neither .... water!

25. Are you a morning person or night owl? morning fer sure

26. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with everyone? Justin has FIVE teeth, he's almost over being sick!

27. What did you want to be when you were little? A veterinarian.

28. What is your best childhood memory? Fishing with my dad.

29. What are the different jobs you have had in your life? Pig farm worker, library assistant, newspaper delivery, stock person, fast food, special needs worker, counsellor for disabled people, wife, mother

30. Nicknames: Annetty, 'nets, aunt, Annette, etc.

31. Piercings? used to, not anymore

32. Ever been to Africa? No

33. Ever been toilet papering? Of course not

34. Been in a car accident? Yes, next question please

35. Favorite day of the week? Wednesday or Friday

36. Favorite restaurants? east side marios, mcginnis landing,

37. Favorite flower? NOT roses

38. Favorite flavor of ice cream? vanilla with chocolate chunks

39. How many times did you fail your driver's license? uh...two or three times

40. Before this one, from whom did you get your last e-mail? trains.com

41. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? no clue, can't imagine doing that

42. Bedtime? right now? 9 or 10 pm, before the boy, 11

43. Who are you most curious about their responses to this questionnaire? All of them

44. Last person you went to dinner with? My hubbie

45. What are you listening to right now? son crawling around under the computer

46. What is your favorite color? Blue I suppose.....

47. How many tattoos do you have? None

48. How many people are you sending this e-mail to? Zero, it's a blogpost

49. What time did you finish this email? 716 a.m.

Hmmm...

So, I wasn't sure what to title this blog entry so I'm just going with the hmmmm.. aspect of things. :)

For those who know me fairly well, I've always, well okay, not ALWAYS, but since just before my teens, have been a person with a fairly active fantasy life. I have Stories in my head almost all the time.

God has, over the years, taught me that this isn't such a good thing for me. :) So, over the years, I've been fighting this influence/tendency in my life. I want to be a solid Christian woman, a woman whose focus is on the things of God, and being distracted by mental imagery and stories detracts from that.

People have told me I should write these stories down....but I hesitate at this point to do that because these stories I don't want to make more real or give a reason to even more further be developed. Some stories...like the ones I tell Justin when I'm walking the floor with him, those I would have no problem writing down. But my own head stories...those I don't want give more life to. (hope that makes sense)

I've learned when I"m lying in bed at night to talk with God rather than lull myself to sleep with a tale or two. I"ve learned to memorize scripture and to contemplate what I've read in the bible or a good book. And doing this works at certain times but not always.

I delve into reading fantasy, murder mysteries and good non-fiction (yes, occasionally I read bad non-fiction too...but I tend to get bored with that after a while). I just love reading. BUT I was lying in bed this morning realizing that when I'm working on house work or walking the dogs or just doing stuff that it's a great deal harder for me to turn from stories.

It's led me to ask...what do people think about? How do people keep their minds busy when they are doing stuff? Surely not everyone does as I do and turns to stories to keep themselves entertained? (not sure that the word I want to use). But what do people think about? Like you can't think about the weather, or dog training stuff or whatever all the time.... so what do people do?

Sometimes I think that if I don't figure out what I can think about when I"m doing mundane stuff, that I will never get these stories out of my head. That they will always be a pervasive influence in my life that I do not NEED to have in my life anymore. I know at one point they were an excellent coping mechanism and helped me learn lots of dealing with life and people, but I don't NEED them anymore so how do I lessen their impact in my daily life?

Anyways, if you'll have any answers out there in computer land....feel free to share them.

A First for me!

So Jim went out the other day and picked up a battery for my car. He didn't install it due to not feeling well, a ton of snow sitting on my car and being otherwise busy. He told me it was easy to do.

So this morning, after walking the dogs and discovering that Justin was still sleeping, I thought I'd give it a whirl.

Asked Jim what the first step was and checked in with him occasionally BUT>>>>> (drumroll please).... I CHANGED MY OWN CAR'S BATTERY!!!! Jamie runs again!

WooHoo!!! Wow...I felt so competent by the time I was done. :) I couldn't get the plastic casing around it again, but I did make sure that the plate thingey across the top was as tight as I could get it, (and then Jim double-checked it), but it's in, the car works again! YEAH!!!! :) I even took her out for a test drive, and other than the shift being a bit sluggish...which I think is because of the cold weather and not being driven for a couple of weeks, everything worked great!

Justin has been sleeping lots today. He amazed me when he slept through company. He is usually up and hollering HEY!!!! You're doing something!!! I'm sure it's fun!!! I want to play too!!! (that is of course putting my language abilities into his crying abilities). :) He slept through...I was pleased and he was MUCH happier when he finally did get up. He's starting to act more like himself which is rather cool to see.

Our First Big Sickness

So my boyo Justin has a big ear and throat infection. We took him to emerg on Tuesday morning with a 102 temp. He was lethargic and not acting himself.

He is now taking amoxicillin three times a day, as well as advil to keep his temperature down. He needs to take it for 10 days. He is, I must say, pretty good about taking his meds though so that is SO much nicer.

He is NOT a happy camper...except occasionally when it seems we have our boyo back. But it doesn't take long and he's tired and cranky and just needing to cuddle. His temperature goes up and down seems at time to have no rhyme or reason for it.

I feel so badly for him, and I can't make him better. The best I can offer him is prayer and physical support. Kinda like God....he makes me an offer of Christ, he turns my heart to him, he gives me all kinds of support and waits for me to turn to him for help. I don't know...the analogy might not fit the best...but for now it works for me. :)

Anyways, lack of sleep is driving me to bed early so talk more another day.