Mercy and Truth Are Met Together

I am Still Here. In Case Anyone Out There was Wondering.

2011-06-04T03:53:00.003-07:00

I am slowly coming to realize something about blogging as a mommy of little ones. I can sum it up in under 10 words:

It's not as easy as it used to be.

It's really not.

When I was single I blogged fairly regularly and had plenty of time to sit and study and look up cross-references and find Bible verses in support of the points I was choosing to make. I had time to make every post a tome if I wanted to, and apparently began to think that's what I had to do. Because when I got married and started having children and found that I didn't have as much time as I used to, I thought I couldn't write anymore until I DID have the time to sit down and “do it right.”

Oh. Do you suppose this could be that perfectionism thing cropping up again?

Someday I will figure this blogging-while-mommying thing out, I hope. The progress is slow, but I think I am making progress. In the form of rare little moments of illumination when a lightbulb flashes on in my head and I realize something that rocks my little blogging mindset – something like:

Oh. I don't HAVE to write a long blog post.

It doesn't even have to be more than one paragraph.

In fact, it could just be a sentence or two if they were really good sentences.

And it's not always necessary to know the exact Bible reference of the verse I want to post. If needing to take the time to look it up so I can post it keeps me from posting it, just post the verse from memory and say “if you want to know the exact location of this verse in your Bibles check out Bible Gateway.”

It's possible, right?

These revelations may not seem like revelations to many of you, but they were pretty earth-rocking for this particular perfectionist.

I'm still here. Perhaps someday I'll figure out how to find the time to make SOME kind of post every day, like I want to. Until then...maybe more frequent, shorter posts won't prove impossible for me.

But don't expect too much because I'm thinking about potty-training my 18-month-old sometime in the next few weeks.

Cloudy Day Thankfulness

2011-02-07T15:10:00.000-08:00

It's cloudy here today. Yesterday was a vibrant break in the long week of clouds we had before, but today the clouds are back again and the world looks gray and wintery.

I keep remembering what my dear friend Hannah Z. always says when I comment on cloudy weather: "But it's sun-shiney in our hearts!"

Or at least, it certainly ought to be. We have every reason in the world for sunshine.

Because He is risen. Just as He said. And I am His. And He is mine. That is more than I could ever begin to deserve.

But I have weakness still present in me. Today I was trying to catch up on my Bible plan and read Romans 7, which I was supposed to read several days ago...

But it's as if the Lord knew I would need it more today. Of course He would know. He kept it for me to read its truths NOW, when I need them most. After a sleepless night of struggling with a priceless babe who would. not. sleep. Have any of you ever been there? I suspected as much. You know what it is to have nights of weakly crawling into bed in exhaustion, trying hard not to make a peep lest the child awake, lying down and just drifting off to relieved sleep when...the screaming starts again.

Again?

Rising up to whisk her away to the nursing chair and away from the tired Working Man who needs to rise refreshed for a long day of bringing home the bacon...and I don't whisper how grateful I am to be blessed with a live baby - a baby who lives and squirms and can scream to prove it. For I know a family who in recent days had to leave a newborn at the hospital...a newborn who never took her first breath.

And all the long 9 months of pregnancy must seem, at the moment, as if they were for nothing, and what that mother wouldn't give to have a live baby screaming through the night - because it means she is breathing and her child never even knew what it was to breathe.

Why, then, do I weep wretched, thankless tears over my breathing child whose screams nearly pierce weary eardrums, and why do I weakly wonder if I'm crazy for wanting that large family I keep talking about?

Knowing full well that, come morning, I will feel the fool and will be right back to wanting that large family again. Because it's more than just a want: it is what I believe the Lord wants of me: after all, "be fruitful and multiply" is a hard command to fulfill if you only have enough to replace yourself and your husband when you are gone. And besides...I have already witnessed and know that, though it may be a duty to bring forth children, it is hardly a thankless one. One precious smile, one bubbling giggle, two little arms thrown about your neck, a little voice saying, "Mum-mum?" and I know, know, know that it is all worth it - more than worth it. It's joyous, it's beautiful, and I love being a mommy.

But in the dark of night, when my head aches and my eyes won't stay open and my jaw splits with yawning and my mind is so jumbled I am awake and yet dreaming at the same time...I am weak, and the weakness wins the moment. The weakness lets what's really inside show, just like the hot water brings out the true contents of the tea bag. I do not honor Christ with my attitude as I want to do. I do not joyfully scoop up the screaming child and whisper, "I am so blessed just to have your precious, living little body in my arms, and so blessed that you ARE nursing well and that your are gaining so much weight and that you are so pink and healthy and beautiful and God has been so good to me..."

No. I whisper, "What in the blue green earth is wrong with you?"

Ugliness. Words that would hurt if she could understand.

She doesn't know. She doesn't mean to make the night so long. She needs me because she is new and little and growing and scared and it takes so much work to get through being a newborn - and won't someone please just hold me close and love on me and make me feel secure and fill my empty tummy with sweet mother's milk?

And there I stand, weeping selfish over my own exhaustion, picking her up with hands that are anything but joyful, and I do not pick the Boppy pillow up gently - I do it with a jerk that doesn't in any way help the angst I feel within.

I was ugly. I was very, very ugly. And I knew I was being ugly at the time - knew I would regret it - but at the moment I was so caught up in my love of sleep that I completely forgot what I have learned before: if you get angry when you are deprived of something, that's a good indication that it's an idol to you.

What a fool I am. How much I have to learn. Romans 7 struck me right between the eyes today, which was exactly what I needed. "For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!"

Save me from the old man, Lord Jesus. How much I want to be like You and how often I am reminded of how very, very far I have to go.

How thankful I am that the Lord does not respond in kind to me when I, His child, cry out to Him in the dark of night and reach forth flailing arms, struggling, not even knowing what I need, just knowing that I am hungry and I need Him. He never begrudges me. He never chides me for needing Him. He just picks me up and fills my hungry soul with goodness from the pure milk of His Word.

May I be more like Him tonight when my child cries out for me. May I not forget to be thankful, for ingratitude leads to all manner of sin. May I not forget how unbelievably, richly blessed I am.

Now if you will just permit me to post my list of thankfulness - an exercise I much need to engage in today since I showed myself so forgetful last night - I will go scoop that little child up and spend some more time hugging on her. I've already done a lot of it today and I just can't seem to get enough.

24. Sleepless nights that drive me to the Cross

25. That tiny, soft little baby held close with a velvet head under my cheek and breathing warm sweet breath on my neck and little feet kicking and little arms flailing and fontanel throbbing with life.

26. That sweet little 15-month-old who lives up so beautifully to her name and fills our moments with joy.

27. The first precious, tentative, awkward and completely uninhibited giggles of a newborn.

28. Sitting in my chair, nursing Grace...and Felicity tottering over to sit by me on the nearby hearth, with her little baby doll clasped close to her as well...pointing in the wrong direction, admittedly, but she's on the right track.

29. Reading mystery stories out loud with my dear husband and sharing theories as to the outcome.

30. Warm cups of steaming, fragrant tea on a wintery-gray day.

31. The already life-changing "One Thousand Gifts" which I am managing to make my way through in my less-groggy moments.

32. The blessing of Sermonaudio.com and the many wonderful, godly speakers we can access there who we would otherwise rarely get to hear speak.

33. Sunday afternoon gathered by the piano singing hymns as a family - an the off-key humming of Felicity who desperately wants to join us but just isn't quite there yet. ;)

34. The endless mercy and grace of God, Who continues to teach me more and more about grace through the gift of our Grace, who grows more beautiful every day. Much like His grace does for me.

Multitude Monday

2011-01-31T09:02:00.001-08:00

Learning to savor the small…learning not to grasp at the great…things I have been learning in recent weeks. Things the Holy Spirit has been pressing upon my heart. To delight in every childish sound – every opening of tiny ruby lips to gurgle or coo or laugh…and even to cry. To cherish each kiss on lamb’s-ear-soft cheeks. To make each hug a little tighter…a little warmer…

A little longer.

And then this book kept popping up here, there, everywhere. Friends on Facebook asking about it; eagerly devouring it. Because I am already very fond of Ann’s blog (but hadn’t been reading it recently owing to being Too Tired To Read without Falling Asleep) I went to check it out and lo and behold, it’s about these very things. About savoring the moments God gives us because they are the only moments we will ever have. Each one precious, like a gem – and I so quick to let these precious stones of holy moments slip past me like so much dust in the wind.

But it’s the dust that makes the precious stones anyway, isn’t it? After all, a diamond is only carbon…the same dust that can also become coal. And only when pressure is applied does the carbon become either diamond or coal.

So, after all, it’s the moments of pressure that will produce either beauty or ugliness in me…but unlike coal or a diamond, I have some say in the outcome: I can become either a diamond or an ugly lump of coal by determining to either rest in Christ’s strength or by attempting to go on in my own strength.

Which is foolishness, for my own strength is nonexistent anyway. The only strength there is comes from Christ. And His strength in me produces a diamond from this rough. And a diamond is the strongest substance there is…and the only thing that can so much as scratch its surface is another diamond.

So in Christ, nothing can harm me. In Christ, I can do all things, for He gives me strength. In Christ, I can learn to live fully in each moment, both in the ones that are easy to savor and the ones that are full of pain – the ones that I want to fling away from me as a child does medicine and say, “This isn’t what I meant when I said to take my life and do with it what You will!”

For each moment is from Him. No moment is an accident. I know this. I do. Now I must learn to live it.

It’s a journey that will probably take my whole lifetime, but it’s the one His Word calls me to make, for He has bought me.

He leads and I must follow. May I learn to truly live as He would have me to, and to walk as a child with hands cupped in front of me, receiving each moment as the gift it is and learning to say with the Psalmist, “My cup overfloweth.”

At this moment, any hardship I have to bear is truly miniscule compared to the hardships of many friends who are going through things that seem to me unbearable. I do not begin to think that I have truly suffered compared to these souls. My prayers are with them…they go through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, while so many of us are in green pastures and beside still waters and still find cause to complain. This is why I must learn to be grateful for what I have, for if I am not even grateful when the sun shines what will I do when I find myself in the dark and forsaken deluge? And to those who walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death: remember that the Psalmist who wrote of that forsaken place said, only sentences later: “My cup overflows.”

Indeed, surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. By His grace alone, and in His strength, may I learn…

To live fully in every moment He gives, for each is a gift of grace.

Today is Multitude Monday over at the Holy Experience blog. It’s been too long since I participated, and I only made it as far as 12. There are so many more things I’m thankful for than just 12. So here are just a few of the things I’m thankful for today…

13. For warming rains and the sounds of birds singing as I sat in the quiet this morning…

14. Holding my baby while I rocked and listened to the fleeting sounds of the prematurely warm weather we are enjoying.

15. Moments of watching a newborn try to make Sounds Other Than Crying, and delighting as she managed to make a few happy grunts.

16. Delighting even more as she smiled with pride when she managed to do so.

17. Watching that little 1-month-old face transform from a scrunched-up, distraught, all-the-world’s-forsaken-me mess of heartbroken wrinkles and sobbing lips…to a peaceful calm with lit up eyes and then a toothless smile that takes over her entire face when Mommy picks her up and she looks up into my eyes…

18. The sounds of my 15-month-old playing joyfully in her playroom as I write, with many squeals and chuckles and conversational babbling as she burps her baby doll and plays in her playhouse and knocks over her tea set.

19. Childish feet that come padding quietly up, and chubby little dimpled hands holding up a beloved book so that only big blue eyes are visible over its top, and a little voice saying, “Mum-mum?”

20. Loud crashes from the playroom, followed by that squeaky, childish “Uh-oh!”

21. Spending this morning in the quietude, reading Romans 1, followed by some blog posts, in the warm glow of lamplight with a baby breathing quietly on my chest as the rest of the house still slept.

22. A good night of sleep. Meaning that it was more than 4 hours before it was interrupted, and then the interruption was only a very short one. The sweet baby girl is getting her days and nights figured out…it just takes some time.

23. Reading of people who have tragically lost children and weeping over it, and looking down to see that a teardrop had landed on my 1-month-old’s little soft spot and it was beating. Beating, beating…beating.

At Last...She Posts

2011-01-27T11:22:00.000-08:00

So we are almost to February of 2011, and I haven’t blogged a word in months. I seem to do this regularly – start my blog up again ambitiously, declaring that THIS time it will work, and THIS time I will stick with it…and then it doesn’t happen. Why? Because I don’t sit down at the computer and write anything, that’s why.

Trust me to elucidate the obvious. At least I don’t obfuscate the hidden.

I don’t think I have a particularly valid excuse for my failure to blog, other than the fact that I simply haven’t made it enough of a priority to do it. Because I have time management problems that I am still struggling to conquer. I want to conquer them. I need to conquer them. I want to take every minute captive to the obedience of Christ, in whatever way that plays out – not let the minutes take me captive to the obedience of the urgent. Which is what seems to keep happening to me.

So, as much as anything, this blog seems to be a chronicle of my struggles for dominance over the clock. Unfortunately, the struggle is mostly chronicled by my long periods of silence. My blog will never get anywhere at this rate. But maybe it doesn’t need to.

If you’re reading, whoever you are out there…thank you for sticking with me. Thank you for wanting to read even though I’m a pretty unpredictable blogger. I think I would make a better book author, but the problem with that is that I would have to find a publisher. This way, I can publish myself. Which hardly ever happens of course, but when it does, I certainly do enjoy it. I hope you do, too, whoever you are.

I want to write about my attempts to balance my truth-obsessed side with mercy, as the Lord demonstrates in Scripture. I want to write about the realities of being a Christian stay-at-home wife and mommy, which brings me to one of the reasons I have been absent from blogging: I am now a mommy of two. Sweet little Grace Anne was born the day after Christmas, and her birth story is rather interesting. I would love to share it with you, and am currently working on writing it. But I am finding it surprisingly challenging (or not so surprising, since I was already time-challenged before having any children) to find time to do anything at present other than eating and feeding my two children. Oh, and manage to cook healthful meals for my husband. We are trying to eat better this year, but his dietary needs are very different at this point than the dietary needs of a honkin-hungry nursing momma. So we don’t necessarily need the same food, and Felicity doesn’t necessarily need the same food as the two of us can eat, since she doesn’t yet have molars. And, of course, Grace Anne is dependent on Mommy for her meals right now.

Well, so is Felicity, for that matter, but at least now Daddy can feed her when he is home, which Mommy appreciates Very Much.

At any rate, I want to write truthfully about my experiences as a Mommy. I don’t want to pretend that I have no warts; I want to share the ones that are shareable so that I can share how the Lord teaches me to overcome them. He alone gets the glory for any improvements I may make in conquering my various vices. But I would never want to keep a blog which insinuates that I am viceless, because that is simply not true.

I want to blog about reality as I know it. Which involves much beauty: childish giggles, toothless little newborn smiles, baby dances, toys scattered about the floor, tripping over pacifiers, spending evenings around the diaper table…you think that doesn’t sound beautiful? But it really is, because these are the things I will remember with fondness when I am old and gray, should the Lord see fit to grant it. Right now - these are the moments I will cherish forever. And I don’t want to lose them. I don’t want to hoard them. I want to share them, lest we forget the beauties of mommyhood while in the midst of the seemingly Unbeautiful: sickness, tantrums, burnt dinners, broken appliances…struggles like: WHEN will I ever get to take a shower again?...or: how am I going to find time to cook THIS recipe?...or: I need to go to the grocery store NOW and I don’t have a babysitter…(thank the Lord for helpful husbands who work near home!). There are difficulties with being a stay-at-home mommy. But there is so much beauty. Endless beauty. If only we can remember to look for it and cherish it, it will sanctify the moments of Non-beauty.

Will you join me as I speak of things beautiful, and share honestly the fact that sometimes things are Not So Beautiful? But I want to cherish the many blessings the Lord has given, and I want to share that in some way that will last forever. So I write, because by writing I can speak into the future…and future generations will be able to read my words long after I am gone.

In case you haven’t noticed, I am feeling poetic today. If I manage to blog tomorrow, I may not wax so eloquently. You may sigh with either disappointment or with relief – and I won’t blame you either way.

In other news, before I wrap up for now – I am attempting to cook delicious South Beach food for my husband right now. I have a curious relationship with the kitchen. I love cooking, and yet I continue to nurture a certain venomous hatred for it at the same time. I struggle to make myself get into the kitchen and begin the process, because there is something about it that I dread – even though I love nothing so much as to set a plate of beautiful, delicious food before my husband and hear him be delighted by how good it is. It’s even more satisfying when I also know that it is healthy.

I am planning to kill the venomous hatred for cooking that lurks deep within. Because, actually, cooking is a beautiful way to serve others. In it, art and science meet beautifully, if one can learn to master the science behind it. Without the science of cooking, you can never master the art. I am endeavoring to master the science, and so am devouring educational cooking shows (since going to culinary school is not exactly an option) and planning to dive into some educational books on cooking, as well. I have already learned a great deal about techniques and science-of-cooking from the likes of Alton Brown and Nigella Lawson. I hope to learn a great deal more, and in so doing, to take dominion of that kitchen and slay the hatred that wells up whenever I think of cooking. I think the hatred is not so much for the cooking as it is for the clean-up that comes afterwards, in all honesty. I have been cooking fairly well for years, but have never been able to fully and utterly ENJOY it – partly because of my dread of the mountain of mess that I have to clean afterwards, and partly because I have been blindly following directions from a cookbook with no earthly idea of what I am actually doing or WHY I should do it this way as opposed to another. Consequently, when I make a mistake, I often have no idea what to do to correct it and have to give up and settle for a damaged dish, or start all over in the worst cases.

But I am learning, and freeing myself from the Bondage Of The Book. Sometimes I get in the kitchen and cook a meal without ever cracking open a binding to check on a quantity of salt, and THAT is when I feel free. Because I understand now what it takes to make a good chili without having to read up on it as I go, and without having to stop to consult the book and say, “Oh, no! I forgot to add the can of tomatoes back in step 2. Will it be ruined? Now I must go find a can of tomatoes. Oh – I don’t HAVE a can of tomatoes, because I used it in the spaghetti I just made and froze earlier. NOW what?” Because now I know. And my pantry-inventory-keeping skills are improving, as well. I think. I have nearly learned how to make granola bars without a recipe, and I can make spaghetti sauce and chicken pot pie, as well. Except for the crust of the pot pie…that I still have to consult a recipe for.

I am also learning, thanks to my cooking shows, the concepts of “mise en place” – having everything ready in advance, rather than scrambling around chopping up carrots while the onions and celery is already nearly finished sautéing. Oh, and did you know that that trio: onions, carrots, and celery, is called “mirepoix” and is the backbone of much French cooking? Now I know. If I want to make a good French dish, like beef bourguignon or coq au vin (neither or which are actually South Beach in their traditional forms) I can bet I’ll need those three ingredients. It’s comforting to have these bits of information tucked away, ready to pull out. I’m finding this cooking self-education I’ve embarked upon to be quite thrilling. My husband isn’t complaining, either. In fact, he’s loving it. And encourages me even when things DON’T turn out the way I had hoped they would. Which happens with a certain amount of regularity. Sometimes dinner doesn’t happen at all:

“I’m very sorry, dear, but we will have to have leftovers tonight, because both babies cried all day and I eventually joined them and basically we didn’t get anything done besides cuddling and reading books because that seemed to be what was needed for some reason.” He is a very gracious husband and not only understands, but says that is exactly what he would have wanted me to do when I have a day like that. I am very blessed. He is even gracious when the only thing I managed to get done was to get last night’s dishes clean and put away. I at least try to have the kitchen clean and tidy, because that’s the first thing he’ll see when he comes in, and I should think that after a long day at work it would be nicer to walk into a nice, orderly room rather than to a scene of a great disaster.

But sometimes, to be quite honest, even that doesn’t happen, because I’m still on the learning curve of figuring out how to manage things as a mommy of two under 1 ½. I am very blessed to have a husband who knows I’m on a learning curve and knows that I WILL get better, but that there will be rough days here and there where it doesn’t all get done. I am thankful for that, and you know what? I think I’d better stop there because I’m about to wax eloquent about how amazing my husband is, but I think that he’d rather me just share that with him personally, rather than proclaim it to the world – or whoever’s reading. I’ll just say I’m very blessed, and that he inspires me to be a better person, and I thank the Lord for him. There. I’ll move on now before I have to pull out the tissues.

Anyway, all that to say: I am seeking to overcome my dread of cooking by educating myself so that I can understand it. And I had every intention of stopping this entry when it was 2 pages long, and now it’s over 3. I’d better stop before I think of something else to say. I have the perfect reason to stop, in fact:

One of the babies is hungry, and, come to think of it, so am I. ;)

Has It Been a Week Already???

2010-08-31T08:18:00.000-07:00

I do apologize for my absence. Things are ridiculously busy here with new-house-remodeling plans needing finalization and old-house-packing starting to become an Urgent Thing. I am still learning this blogging thing. I should get on an post something every day. Even if it's not a full article. Even if it's not stunningly well thought out and beautifully crafted in prose that will warm the hearts of all who read it. Even if it's not the next installment of the courtship story (which has turned out to be in need of some editing - unfortunately, my Editor-in-Chief has been just a little too busy with remodeling plans, contractors, appliance decisions, and - oh, yeah - his job - and other things like playing with the adorable little girl that loves him so much...that he hasn't had lots of time left to go over his suggestions with me. We'll hopefully get it done soon, though. Hopefully.)

Have I mentioned that I'm a perfectionist?

I have?

I thought so. I keep finding those tendencies showing up with remarkable vibrancy as they relate to my blogging habits. Blogging has been good for me in many ways, and one of the biggest is that it shows me in Big Bold Letters just how much of a perfectionist I am. I hadn't really even realized it. So...I am working on it. The fact that I am sitting here writing a pointless post like this proves that I'm working on it.

But it's not really pointless. It's just being honest. I don't have stunningly good excuses as to why I haven't posted anything on my blog in days. Yes, we've been busy. But if I hadn't been a perfectionist, I would have sat down and put up something. A thought for the day. A quote from the devotional I have that's full of paragraph-long thoughts from John Calvin. Something to edify you. Something to make you laugh, maybe, like the "How To Write Good" post from a couple of years back. (Which, incidentally, is not by yours truly. I stole it from somewhere else.) Or even a photo of the day. After all, if I don't have time to write a thousand words, I can just post the proverbial picture instead.

Not that it takes me that long to get up to 1000 words if I just ramble long enough. Kind of like I'm doing now.

Since I don't have time to craft more of an organized post than this, I will leave you with a recommendation. If you have never heard of BBC's series: "Planet Earth" or "Life" I must urge you to look into them. Especially "Planet Earth." No, actually - especially "Life." Never mind. I can't choose one over the other. They're just that good.

They each present life on this amazing planet in such stunning beauty that it leaves the viewer astounded. The life stories of different kinds of animals - amazing facts about different creatures and plants, all done in the most beautiful videography I personally have ever seen. Jon and I have learned so much about God's amazing Creation by watching these DVDs. They are filled with fascinating, awe-inspiring inspiration that leaves us praising the Lord for the incredible richness and variety of His Creation. If you think you understand how varied and creative this Creation is, think again if you haven't seen these DVDs. There are so many creatures and plants out there that I had never even heard of - each of them doing what it was designed to do in some remarkably unique and creative way. Monkeys that use rocks to break open nuts that no one else can get into. Mountain goats who are born knowing how to scramble up sheer cliffs, leaving behind a hapless fox who thinks they'd make easy prey. The self-sacrificial love of an octopus for her young. The dedicated parenting of penguins - and not just the Emperor variety. The love of a mother whale for her young. The dances of the waterbirds. The multi-generational migrations of the Monarch butterfly. The trigger mechanism of a Venus flytrap.

The creativity is endless. Of course. Because it was all designed by an infinite God Who has given us only the smallest sampling of His endless creativity. But it's still enough to blow our finite minds away.

My caveats: the makers of the series are not coming from a Biblical worldview. They sneak in some evolutionary theory amidst the glory of the Creation, and for that reason I would recommend against letting young children watch it alone. Also, they present mating in a very matter-of-fact way - not very subtly at all. Sometimes it's not even close to subtle. I would recommend that parents preview episodes before showing them to younger children, if you are not ready for them to ask a host of Awkward Questions. There are some very disturbing scenes of hunter and hunted - they are presenting life as it really happens in the wild, and that does - thanks to sin - involve a good deal of bloodshed. I don't really enjoy watching lions rip into the flesh of a wildebeest, but that is how they have to stay alive. There is DVD in particular in "Planet Earth" - the "Jungle" episode - which has a particularly unpleasant scene involving chimpanzees cannibalizing each other. I had no idea they did that! Exercise caution when showing to younger viewers.

However, for those who are ready to handle the more graphic scenes involving the impact that sin has had on Creation, and who are ready to handle the presentations of reproduction, it's an extremely educational and edifying watch. Though not presented by Creationists, they can't help but use terms like "design" and "creation" simply because it is all so stunningly beautiful; so flawless; so perfectly choreographed. If you want a glimpse of the Master Designer like you have never seen before, please look into these two series. You will be awestruck and amazed by His Creation and marvel at His goodness in giving it to us. He is truly majestic and high beyond all that we can even begin to imagine. Though the makers of the series fail to give Him the glory, His handiwork speaks louder than anything they fail to say. It is clear as you watch: there IS a Master Creator.

And we not only get to know that He is...but He has told us who He is. We are beyond blessed. Watch and worship. His Creation declares His praise.

Marinated chicken with fresh herb olive oil

2010-08-26T10:23:00.000-07:00

Bon appetit!

I'm finally posting the recipe that several of you requested! I didn't make up the recipe myself - it came from a magazine I just picked up at Whole Foods the other day. "Cuisine Tonight - For Two" is its name. Lots of yummy, healthy-looking recipes in there. The portions aren't nearly big enough for the two of us, though. I mean, I AM in my 2nd trimester and all. But that's easy enough to adjust. ;)

Without further ado - le recipe:

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Marinated chicken with fresh herb olive oil

2 bone-in chicken breast halves, seasoned with salt and black pepper (about 8 oz. each) - (Note: I used boneless and it worked just fine. Easier to eat!)
2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
6 grape or cherry tomatoes (I used many more than that. I'm a tomato lover.)
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 tbsp. minced garlic (again, I used a lot more. But I'm a garlic loooooover.)
1 tbsp. chopped fresh rosemary (it's very important to use fresh - makes all the difference.)
1 tbsp. chopped fresh sage (again, it's better when it's fresh! If you don't want to use fresh, use only half as much of each herb - they're a lot more potent dried.)
salt and black pepper to taste

~ Preheat oven to 450 degrees F

~ Saute chicken, skin side down, in 2 tbsp oil in a large oven-proof skillet until golden, 4 minutes. Turn chicken over, saute 2 minutes more, then transfer pan to the oven. (This is a really cool technique - it gets nice and browned in the pan, and then it cooks all the way through without continuing to brown. Result: really tender, juicy chicken. I've got to remember this trick.)

~ Roast 15 minutes, then add tomatoes to the pan. Cook until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the meat registers 165, about 5 minutes more. (Or you could take the non-technological route and just cut a little slit in the chicken so you can peek in and see if it's done. It's entirely up to you.)

~ Combine 1/4 cup oil, garlic, and herbs on a small serving platter, and season with sat and pepper. Transfer chicken and tomatoes to the platter and let rest 10 minutes before serving, flipping the chicken every few minutes to coat with oil and herbs.

------------
Time for the side dish!

Roasted gold potatoes

3/4 lb. Yukon gold potatoes, cut into large chunks (I used sweet potatoes since they have some more nutritional value - and my hubby loves them.)
2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
salt and black pepper

~ Preheat oven to 450 degrees

~ Toss potatoes in a large bowl with oil, and season with salt and pepper

~ Heat a large oven-proof skillet over medium-high, then add potatoes and residual oil.

~ Saute potatoes until they start to brown, about 5 minutes. Transfer skillet to the lowest rack of the oven and roast 20 minutes. Stir, then roast until browned and crisp, about 10 minutes longer. (With sweet potatoes, you might have to add an additional 10 minutes. Just keep checking them.)

If you're interested, here's a video showing how to chop fresh rosemary

And here's a video showing how to chop fresh sage. This video annoys me because it takes forever to show you anything. But it's the only one I could find. I used the technique that he shows first, because I think it looks prettier to have the longer strips of sage curling on top of your nicely browned chicken. But that's just me.

Photo of the Day

2010-08-23T08:25:00.000-07:00

Baby hands - soft and sweet - curious and captivating

Because I Missed Thankful Thursday...

2010-08-23T07:16:00.000-07:00

I will do a Multitude Monday.

And, no, I did not get the next installment of the courtship story up. But it is written; it only needs to be proofread. I should have known better than to think I would get it up on a weekend when we would be busy looking at appliances and dreaming about our new kitchen. And trying to keep those dreams within realistic fences. It's hard to keep dreams that way.

So, I'm sorry for the false promise there. I need to stop doing stuff like that! Anyway...maybe this evening, hopefully tomorrow...but it's coming. At least I don't still have to get it written. ;)

~ 6 - The happy squeals and coos of my little girl as she plays joyfully in her play yard.

~ 7 - The dishes piled in the sink. Yes, the dishes that keep coming. Because they are the evidence that the house is lived in and that loving meals are eaten here.

~ 8 - Empty jars of baby food standing sparkling, rinsed, waiting to be recycled. Because it's not just Big People who live here and eat meals together.

~ 9 - Fluttery kicks from within that herald the presence of another little mouth; a reminder that everything I eat goes to him/her.

~10 - The incredible blessing of house church fellowship. Beautiful teachings yesterday; challenges for the week ahead; edifying conversation and thought-provoking discussion afterwards.

~11 -Sipping Yorkshire tea while perusing the most recent postings on the Holy Experience blog. A wonderful start to the morning.

~ 12 - Red and yellow roses standing delicately behind my laptop in the Old Country Roses vase, lifting full petals to the light and drinking deep from the water source within.

May we all spend this day and the rest of this week lifting our hands to the One and Only Light and drinking deep from His Living Waters that always freely flow.

In Which a Puddle Turns Into a Great Wetness

2010-08-20T21:18:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, I was planning to spend most of the day at home, catching up on laundry and doing general tidying up around the house. The tidying up that never seems to be done, because it's the never-ending battle of a housewife. Whoever says that house wives have nothing to do doesn't know much about the 2nd law of thermodynamics, namely the law of Increased Entropy. To put it simply, matter tends to go from a state of order to a state of disorder. The quantity of matter stays the same, but the quality of the same persistently decreases.

It's easy enough to find the parallels between the decay of the universe and clutter in the home. At least, to this housewife it is. It's a task of fairly large proportions. And I don't even have a dozen children!

Anyway, contrary to my plans for Thursday, I ended up running errands all day. As mentioned in my previous post. Our story begins as I was finishing up a rather long trip to Lowe's, during which time I had furnished myself with Far Too Many free paint samples.

Felicity was tired of shopping, and she was giving everyone her Most Disdainful Looks, punctuated by comments of a disagreeable nature directed towards Mommy - which she always does when she's displeased with the treatment which she is receiving.

After all, she is a princess. At least, that's what she thinks.

So we made our exit with the free paint samples piled into the back of the stroller, and that was when the fun began.

The sun was shining and it was stiflingly hot and humid. I thought I would melt before I could get her into the car. So we raced over to it and I pulled her out of the stroller to whisk her into her carseat and...oh, my.

Dear me.

Why is there a puddle in the stroller seat?

Oh.

Ohhhh.

Lovely.

My poor baby was soaked from the waist down. Drenched. I didn't think it had been that long since the last diaper change. But then, she had been so bored that she drank most of her bottle of Juice-Essence-Water. (That's what I'm calling her bottle of water with a leetle bit of juice added - because she stays hydrated much more easily that way. Even though I gave her nothing but water for the first few weeks of giving her liquids other than milk. Go figure.)

Well. Time for a parking lot diaper change, apparently.

I wondered if I should do it in the front seat, like I had done earlier, or just do it in the stroller where it was much easier to recline her completely?

I decided on the stroller, of course.

If I had been an observant person, I might have decided on the front seat. Actually, I might have decided on wheeling her back into Lowe's to visit the changing table, even if it is a bit nasty. Because, had I been an observant person, I might have noticed that it wasn't sunny any more. It wasn't sunny at all.

But I'm not generally an observant person. And especially not when I'm holding a dripping tot in front of me and feeling like a Very Bad Mommy indeed. I decided to improve my status of Mommyhood promptly, and dove for the diaper bag and retrieved the necessary acoutrements, drying off the stroller seat with a bib (because that was the best thing available) and settling her back into it with many apologies for the discomfort she must have experienced.

I got started and discovered that it was more than just a wet diaper. Much more.

"Oh, my." I said. "That will slow things down a bit." I stood up to reach for the wipes.

And that was when the heavens opened.

Not just a sprinkling of rain. Not just a little shower. But a downpour. A sudden, drenching downpour.

"Oh, my!" I cried.

I was so confused that I think I spun around in circles. I'm really afraid that I did. Do I grab the wet baby and climb in the car with her anyway? No, I can't do that, I've already gotten into the diaper change. And it's a stinky. And dripping wet. No way that's going in the car with us.

Water was pouring into the car. I frantically shoved the diaper bag out of reach of the shower and brought the wipes back with me. I looked at the baby to see that water was making its way into the stroller - through the mesh to her head and everything else. I might as well have left the puddle.

But after her initial look of astonishment, she was laughing. It was great fun to get rained on in the middle of a diaper change. This doesn't happen every day, Mommy. Why haven't we ever done this before?

I was feeling like crying. But suddenly, I saw the humor in the situation. I laugh at myself all the time. I hope that I never forget how, because it provides me with endless opportunities for mirth.

I stood there in the parking lot, with rivers running around my feet, drenching the hems of my garments - rain pouring through my hair - coming down harder all the time - and washing away the style, mascara likely running down my face - in the middle of changing a stinky diaper, with a baby who was getting wetter by the moment and loving it...and I thought how ridiculous we must look.

If anyone was looking they must be laughing. So I looked around the parking lot, threw my hands into the air, and laughed. And laughed. And cried, "Whatever!"

If anyone was looking (and they were) they probably thought I was slightly crazy. But I didn't care. Because it was kind of crazy.

So I recovered and went on to change the diaper as quickly as possible, and then got Felicity into the dryness of the car to get a new set of clothes on her, which had thankfully stayed dry thanks to pushing the diaper bag further into the car. I, of course, was still out in the rain as I got her dressed. I was completely drenched.

Felicity was thrilled by the novelty of it all.

I got her in her carseat and proceeded to empty the paint samples from the stroller, trying to keep them dry. Of course, in my haste, I had an accident. A certain percentage of them ended up in the parking lot. Which was basically a river at this point.

But I couldn't leave them there. I could leave the color behind that was the Perfect Color for the kitchen. And that wouldn't do. So I picked them up, shook them off, and threw them into the trunk. The ones that stayed dry went into a plastic bag. I folded the stroller up and a few paint samples that I had missed landed in the river again.

This was completely ridiculous.

I cleaned that up, threw the stroller into the trunk, and hauled my drenched self into the front seat.

And then...

The downpour stopped. Vanished. The sun came out.

I had been in Lowe's for nearly 2 hours and came out just in time for a 10-minute deluge.

No. Way.

The Lord most certainly has a sense of humor. I'm just thankful He gave me the eyes to see the humor in the situation as it happened. Otherwise I would have missed out on a good laugh, and laughter is surprisingly therapeutic. I didn't know I needed it...but I must have.

Happily, we have nearly reached the end of this rather long detailing of a 10-minute event. It has taken me longer to write about it than it took for it to happen. (Though at the time, I must say it seemed like much longer than 10 minutes. Much longer.)

You probably think that I went home after that experience. But you would be wrong. I hadn't been to the health food store yet. I wanted to get that done.

I am eternally an optimist trying to pass myself off as a realist.

"Well," I said to Felicity, "Once something that crazy has happened, things couldn't get much crazier."

So we went to the health food store. Admittedly, the sunny skies vanished en route and we ended up driving through lightning bolts and crashes of thunder...but it was only a small storm cell and was already clearing up by the time we reached the store. So we ended up having a very nice shopping experience after all.

The moral of the story? Always look for the humor in a situation. It might turn out that it wasn't sent to try you so much as it was sent to comfort you. Even if you didn't know you needed comforting. It's still making me smile every time I picture what I must have looked like - throwing my dripping head back and laughing in the parking lot while Felicity chuckled from her stroller.

Of course, there could be a secondary moral to this story, as well. Namely this: always look up before changing a diaper in a parking lot.

Dinner Last Night

2010-08-20T09:59:00.000-07:00

To begin with, I'm going to serve up a good dose of honesty. Lest you look at some of these pictures and think that I always have a perfect-looking breakfast nook, allow me to prove you wrong. By the time dinner was served, I had it tidied up, but to begin with, it looked like this:

Messy. But it's usually even messier. I mean, it's a flat surface, and flat surfaces are for piling, right? Right?

So, now you know.

Anyway, I got to work and tidied things up. And a couple of vases of fresh flowers always makes everything look nicer, too.


The beautiful gladiolas. They're even more beautiful because the whole bunch was only about $5.

You can never go wrong with roses. And yellow and red??? Ohhh, yes. Those are the colors I want in my new kitchen.

Now it was time to start dinner. It's easy to get inspired in the kitchen when I've put in some splashes of God's handiwork. Flowers are so inspiring. So are the colors of fresh produce and the smells of fresh herbs. God is so good to us, providing us with so many beautiful things to stimulate all of our senses. His handiwork is great fuel for human creativity.

Not that I was being terribly creative. I was just following a recipe. But it felt more exciting than usual to me, you see. Because I've basically been out of the kitchen for three months. That's right...sometimes real life turns out differently than you would have expected. When I was single, I imagined the gourmet meals I would cook for my husband - every day. Three times a day. Seven days a week. For years and years.

Then I got morning sickness and discovered that I couldn't even hear the word "egg" without having to run for a trash can. Much less get in the kitchen and smell eggs. Or olive oil. Or pepper. (Can you tell I first discovered this when I was trying to cook my husband's breakfast?)

For whatever reason, morning sickness makes me extremely sick. And "morning" sickness is a misnomer in my case - it lasts all day. So, for the past three months, I've basically just been struggling to keep any food down - and cooking it was out of the question, always resulting in me losing anything I'd just eaten or (if you'll pardon the graphic wording) dry-heaving over the trash can.

So, you might understand why I just haven't been cooking. I've missed it. It was not what I had imagined - having to read directions for my husband to cook his own chicken cacciatore, or watching him eat freezer food, or make sandwiches for himself. But it was what we had to do to get by. He was very sweet and understanding, but I know he missed the cooking. A lot. So did I. There's nothing like home-cooked meals.

Anyway, I don't tell you all of that to extract sympathy from you. I tell you all of this to clarify a bit on why, exactly, I was so excited to be back in the kitchen. It feels wonderful to be able to pull out raw chicken without getting sick just thinking about it, and to be able to not only handle all of the smells, but actually to be able to enjoy them again. It definitely makes me appreciate how wonderful it is to feel good. The morning sickness is passed for this time, I'm feeling the baby wriggle around happily, and I'm back in the kitchen.

Life is, indeed, good. I knew it was good. But it's nice to feel good, too. Very thankful for that!

So, I went to work on that chicken, and this was the end result: Marinated chicken with sage, rosemary, garlic and roasted tomatoes, with a side of roasted sweet potatoes. And I copied the plating from the picture in the magazine - I didn't think it up myself.

Yummy goodness. Jon was very happy, and it really wasn't hard to make at all.

I should mention that "plating" (as the pros call it) is not something I had given much thought to before. I would always just throw stuff on a plate and think that if it just tastes good, that's the most important thing.

But it really does make a difference if it looks pretty, too. It makes you approach the meal with a different attitude. It's not just a time to fill my stomach up so I can get on with life. It's a time to slow down; to savor the beauty of food that God created with loving care and was prepared by someone who also put thought and care into its preparation. It's a time to talk and relax and enjoy each bite. It's not just a pile of nourishment thrown onto a plate.

It's an invitation to slow down and chew the food slowly as we savor not only its flavors, but also the ebb and flow of conversation around an inviting, leisurely table; savoring morsels of food for thought as we savor the morsels in front of us.

It's good to be cooking again.

Where I've Been

2010-08-20T09:04:00.000-07:00

First of all, allow me to announce that the next installment of our courtship story should - Lord willing and the creek don't rise - be making its appearance tomorrow. I have not been working on it as I had hoped, because things have been surprisingly busy.

Or not so surprisingly. Considering as we just bought a house that we're planning to do some remodeling work on and such. Lots of perusing pictures of kitchens, trying to decide whether to go with stained cabinets - thereby spending more money - or save some money and go with painted cabinets, but run the risk that they'll end up looking dated.

And the list of things to think about goes on. Counter top color, style...material. Hardwoods color vs. cabinets color. Kitchen layout. Where on earth to put that microwave so that it doesn't take up counter space and doesn't blow hot air into my pantry items. Appliances.

Whew! It's tiring. But fun, all the same.

In other news, I spent all day yesterday going out - visiting the OB and finding that the baby looks nice and healthy and wriggly. After that, I carted Miss Felicity all around with me. We perused a furniture consignment shop just in case they might happen to have a nice leather living room set or a nice hutch for the breakfast nook. There was some leather furniture, but...well...it was looking a little too well-loved. So then it was on to a nearby hardware store to gather paint samples. I just needed a few swatches to go put up on the walls of our new house and stew over for a few days as I watch what they do in different lightings.

You see, I've never decorated a house before and I'm quite excited about it.

Well...I ended up with dozens and dozens of paints samples. No, actually, make that scores and scores of paint samples. I mean, they're free. Why not? I grabbed mint greens, aqua-greens, and apple greens to look at for bathroom colors. Slate blues, robins-egg blues, sky blues for the master bedroom. Crimson, cherry, apple for the dining room. Sky blues, deep blues, and smoky blues for the dining room, in case I decide not to go red. Sunny yellows, burnt yellows, honey yellows for the main parts of the house and the kitchen. Airy hues for the sunroom. I don't know what I want. I wanted all of my options in front of me so that I could weigh them all and decide on the best colors ever.

Is it just me, or is my perfectionism showing again?

And have I mentioned that I'm an analytical? I have to see every single option and weigh each one carefully before I feel equipped to make a decision. I like to make informed decisions. Only my definition of "informed" seems to be considerably more complicated than other peoples'.

Except for my husband, of course. He's the very same way. This is a good thing, because we don't drive each other crazy.

We just drive everybody else crazy while we pore over Consumer Reports and visit every possible appliance dealer and scan the Internet for reviews and still can't decide which brand of appliances we want to go with. There are so many pros and cons to each, and our analytical minds just can't reconcile all of the cons and decide which cons we con deal with and which cons we con't.

Please don't even bother to groan about those horrible, horrible puns. I just couldn't resist.

Sometimes I just con't help myself.

Okay, okay. I'm sorry. I'll stop. Really. I'm stopping. Now.

Anyway, I had a miniature adventure after the Lowe's experience which I'll be sharing with you later. It was one of those moments where I just stood out in the parking lot and laughed at myself because it was much better than crying. If anyone saw me, I'm pretty sure they were either laughing and going home to tell their family about the wacky woman they saw laughing in the Lowe's parking lot, or wondering if they should call the men in white jackets to help that crazy mama standing over there chortling over her baby.

Well, crazy or not, I managed to get home through pouring rain and made a nice dinner for my husband to come home to. The evening ended on a pleasant note of marinated chicken and roasted sweet potatoes. And a new vase of beautiful gladiolas to brighten up the kitchen.


A somewhat blurry shot of my gladiolas

Marinated chicken with roasted tomatoes and sage - roasted sweet potatoes

Coming Soon...

2010-08-18T16:16:00.000-07:00

Mercy and Truth - A Love Story - Part I

2010-08-18T08:16:00.000-07:00

So maybe it really started 15 years ago at Christmas time. Maybe. But I've come to realize that I'm a busy mama of one, with one in the oven. I'm a busy wife to a marvelous husband. I have things to do besides sit around and dig into my past and try to figure out exactly when I wrote a poem that rather romantically foreshadowed things that I didn't know would come later.

So I'm not going to start 15 years ago at Christmas time. I'm not going to start almost 8 years ago with THAT Christmas time, when the Lord saved my husband. I'll just summarize that by saying that my husband was saved 8 years ago when he set out to debunk Christianity. He'd had enough of being called "evil" by a fellow-worker who happened to be a Christian, you see. So he bought a bunch of books of apologetics and set out to find Christianity's fatal flaw.

The thing was, he never found it. He just found more and more fatal flaws within himself. And the Holy Spirit came and confronted him with the fact that HE was wrong about everything and that this - this Book he was trying so hard to disprove - was Truth indeed. He was broken. He surrendered. And his life has never been the same since. Thanks to that event, he began attending churches, and as he matured in his faith, he moved to different churches that lined up more with his understanding of what was Biblical.

And that was what brought him to a house church near my family. A house church that just so happened to be populated by a lot of people who have been friends with my family for years and years. We were closely acquainted with them. We went to their once-a-month Friday night Bible study (they do a regular one every Wednesday) and that was, evidently, where Jon and I first met.

This is where the reality sets in. You see, I said "evidently" because I don't remember it. At all. Jon vaguely remembers it. We were introduced to each other by the elders of the church, the Christians (name changed to protect the innocent), who were up to no match-making - they were just introducing us.

It doesn't work like it does in the movies, you know. There were no pin-pricks going up and down my spine. No little voice in the back of my head whispered, "HE'S the one!" His voice didn't make me swoon and I didn't go home and dream about him asking for my hand in marriage.

I forgot all about it. Sorry. But that's the truth.

And that was the last thing that happened until months later, in November of 2007. The aforementioned Mr. C. called my dad up to say, “Hi! We’ve got this really fantastic bachelor guy attending our church. You’ve met him – Jon. He needs to get married. But, as you know, there aren’t any young ladies of the right age in our fellowship. Are there any eligible young ladies of his age in your church that might be interested in meeting him?”

He had, evidently, been getting after Jon for some time to let them try something like this. Jon wasn’t terribly sure he wanted to be matchmade. It was a bit embarrassing. A bit awkward. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been trying to find a wife. He had tried…sad thing was, he was far too old-fashioned for most of the girls he’d encountered. You see, most girls these days really don’t want a guy who’s brazen enough to think that it’s chivalrous to hold the door for you, or who’s prudish enough that he actually wouldn’t want to kiss on a first date (before he was a Christian, he did date. By the time he appeared in my life, he’d come around to the courtship way of thinking.) – and, seriously, most of the Christian girls he’d met weren’t all that big on the whole male headship idea. Insulting, you know.

Matchmaking? Ugh. But…reluctantly, he agreed.

Two days later, to his alarm, Mr. C. called him back, saying, “You ready? We’ve got somebody for you to meet! Jim’s going to help us out!”

Well, as a matter of fact…my parents did think of a girl at our church that he might like to meet. So my dad contacted hers and asked if they’d be interested in trying it. Her dad came back with some questions for my dad to ask Jon, in order to pre-screen him for eligibility.

So Jon and my dad sat down at the next Friday night Bible study and had a nice talk. Nice and low-key, since, after all, my dad was questioning Jon for someone else – not for himself. Non-threatening. Relaxed. They really liked each other. My dad was very impressed with Jon’s character and grasp of Biblical things. He returned a Very Good report to the dad in question, who then gave his daughter’s consent that Jon could come to our church to casually meet her, and they’d see where it went from there.

In November, Jon began attending evening services at our church, sitting with our family. This, in itself, caused quite a stir. “Who,” people wondered, as people will do, “Is that young man sitting with them?”
We let them wonder. I chuckled to myself as they eyed us curiously and went about my business after service was over. After all, I knew why he was there. But I didn’t mind having people wonder a bit. I knew he wasn’t a possibility for me.

It was all so terribly amusing.

Strangely enough, Jon spent many evenings after church talking to my dad. He talked to the girl’s dad. But the young lady in question never showed herself. She would disappear after church was over.
Jon was hardly the type who would have been afraid to approach her. It’s just a little hard to approach someone who isn’t there.

Her father said that she’d like to meet him in a more laid back environment, so could he please come to the singles’ Christmas party in a few weeks? They could talk then.

Oh, well. He decided to make the best of his Sunday evenings, and spent even more time talking to my dad. My dad was increasingly impressed with him.

In fact, one evening he said, “I just wish you were about fifteen years younger.”

The implication being that, then, he would definitely be a candidate for his daughter.

You see, I’ll go ahead and bring up one thing that was definitely a complicating factor in the whole process. Jon is 13 years older than I am. He was not looking to marry someone significantly younger than him – he was looking for someone around his age, even though he knew that meant the field was narrowed considerably. I certainly wasn’t looking for anyone significantly older than me. It wasn’t even close to an option in my mind. But…really…it was hardly a Biblical constraint to place upon things. My dad was the first to come to that realization - it wasn't something he had ever had the need to think through before! The Lord certainly made it obvious, later, that a larger-than-culturally-normal age gap was hardly a valid concern. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Jon didn’t think much about the comment at the time. But it most certainly came back to him in the days to come.

--------------------------------

One week, when he had been attending for just a little while, my dad was engaged in conversation with others besides Jon. Jon, for the moment having no one to talk to, caught sight of me standing in the back of the building – also with no one to talk to at the moment.

Now, most of the guys that I was used to being around would have left the situation just like that, suffering from mortal fear that approaching me to speak would be heralded by the matchmakers all around as the prelude to a wedding, resulting in weeks of teasing and harassment from peers and frequent questions of, “Have you set a date, yet?”

Actually, I really don’t know if that’s what they were afraid of. I’m just guessing. All I know is: I never found it easy to have conversations with guys. I was terrified to approach most of them for fear of coming across as forward. They were terrified to approach me because…well…I never really figured out the “because” there. It plagued me.

I have a feeling that some of you girls out there can probably relate to me on this one.

But I was pretty sure, when Jon caught sight of me, that he wasn’t going to be the least bit afraid to come have a little chat with me. He was confident. And had obviously never met a stranger. Yes - it would be nice, actually, just to talk to a nice guy who was most certainly not a possibility. I might actually be able to act, well – normal.

Since he knew that I knew that he was there to meet someone else, he didn’t have any qualms about approaching me, either. No chance of that being misinterpreted. I wasn’t a possibility, after all. We both knew that.

All problems with awkwardness solved right there! It was the perfect set-up for a relationship - starting off with absolutely no thought of the other as a possibility.

I'm not quite serious about that, you know. That was never quite what I had imagined the perfect set-up for a relationship would look like. But...obviously, it was perfect for us. The Lord knows what each of us needs.

So Jon came over with a pleasant smile and struck up a conversation. It was to be a very important conversation, though neither of us knew it at the time.

"What?" you say. No intuition telling you that this was the guy? No prickly feelings running up and down your spine? No feelings of faintness? No...no HOLLYWOOD???

Nope. None of it. I didn't have a clue that anything important was going on. In fact, I didn’t even know it immediately afterwards. In fact…I didn’t know it for months. Because no one ever tells me anything, that's why. ;)

But it was to become one of the most important conversations I’ve ever had in my life, because it alerted my future husband to the fact that he may – without having the slightest intention of doing so – have stumbled upon a kindred spirit.

I'll tell you one thing. I'm not going to give you a courtship story that will make you think Hollywood happens in real life. The honest truth? Real life - the way God writes things out - is better than Hollywood. It's far more honest. And far less predictable. And I'm about to prove it to you.

Not that I'm at all biased about my own courtship story, or anything.

Part II is in the works...

On New Houses and Upcoming Courtship Stories

2010-08-17T07:15:00.000-07:00

As you may have noticed, you're still waiting on that courtship story. You will not have to wait for long. I have the first installment (and a bit more) ready for posting - I just have to let my husband proofread it.

The trouble is, he hasn't had time to proofread it because we've had one of the busiest weekends of our lives. We've been busy because - we have been buying a new house! We closed on a beautiful ranch yesterday. Ranch as in - one-level living. Not as in acres and acres filled with majestic steeds and lowing cattle.

I mean, for all you guys know, we could have moved to the Ponderosa. No - just a nice, child-friendly house with a beautiful sunroom and a nice, big kitchen. And a child-friendly yard, too. We're very excited about it and feel so blessed that the Lord led us to this home which fulfills all of the things we were praying for in a new home. I pray that we may be able to spend many happy, healthy years in it, rearing a family and practicing hospitality. It feels like a very hospitable house. It's just waiting to have musical talent nights and tea parties for little girls and festive dinners with friends throughout the year.

Yes...we are very excited.

But, anyway, all that to say - we're pretty busy over here. I hope to get the opportunity to show my husband the courtship story (as far as it currently goes) in the next evening or two.

After all, he figures pretty prominently in the story and needs to make sure I get details right - details about things such as his own inner thoughts, you know. It wouldn't do for me to let my poetic license get the better of me and convince me to dramatically embelish something.

Not, of course, that I've ever been known to do this in the slightest degree.

You believe me, of course.

Did I just hear crickets?

*chirp-chirp-chirp*

Anyway. To clarify, my dramatic embellishment has never actually made it onto this blog. It always gets snuffed out before publication. Sometimes I just get carried away while I'm actually writing, and may remember details that weren't there - such as, "Jon and I looked at each other and something...something deep down inside that we were scarcely aware of...clicked."

Now, I didn't actually write that line, because that would be such an embellishment that even I couldn't have imagined it. That didn't happen to us. At least, not at the beginning of our relationship.

Later, now. Well...that's different. Let's just say there was a lot more than just clicking going on when we looked at each other later. How about...explosions? Things got a lot more intense. But, unlike Hollywood would tell you - that was not the first thing to happen. It came later, after we'd gotten to know each other and realized that we loved what we knew.

But I'm getting ahead of myself again.

I just wanted to let you know that I have, in fact, made progress on my promise. I'm not going to forget. Don't worry.

If anyone was worried. I don't even know who reads this blog. Besides Jessica. I know she reads, because she leaves comments.

Beyond that, I don't know if I have 1 reader or 20. Hmmm. I've never really thought to ask this, but:

Is anybody out there?

If you are, I would certainly love to hear from you. ;)

Courtship Story Series - the Non-Perfectionist Version is Coming

2010-08-14T11:43:00.000-07:00

Months and months ago, I ambitiously started a Courtship Story series. If you bother to follow the link, you'll likely notice that I never got past the first installment. That was because I was being a perfectionist. I thought I would figure out when the Very Beginning was, and start there. I was going to get every detail of foreshadowing perfect. Every nuance set - every hint of what was to come made ready.

It was going to be beautiful. It was going to be perfect.

So, astonishingly...

It never happened.

I'm ready to start over. This time, I'm not going to start years before my courtship started. That will take much too long. This time, I'm going to begin at the more obvious beginning, which would probably be when Jon first showed up in my life.

It's a lovely tale. It's one that should be told. The Lord blessed us greatly.

Don't be expecting a fairy-tale romance. This is a true story. And it deserves to be told like one.

I like true stories. They're better than those fairy-tale romances, anyway.

I could give it a cheesy name, like "From Chatting at Seven to a Match Made in Heaven."

But I won't.

The title of my blog sums it up. That's our courtship.

So I'll just subtitle it "Our Courtship Story" and leave it at that.

You can try to name it if you want to. But I just want to get started writing it. The title can come later.

See? I'm working on this perfectionism thing already.

Onward!

Good Friends and Friendship

2010-08-13T21:22:00.000-07:00

Today was a good day. I had no opporunity to post before now because I was blessed to spend the Entire Day fellowshipping with my dear friend, Hannah-Z. Also known as Hanzums. Or Hampster. (Long story) Because I like to endow odd nicknames upon people, and especially upon Some People.

Felicity, of course, is already everything from the fairly normal "Sweetpea" to the not-quite-so-normal "Missy Lissy" to the downright goofy-sounding "Boo-boo Bear." But Manly and I both find that we tend to express our affection that way. It's all love and uniqueness over here, folks. Fortunately, our nicknames are not quite so - um - unique as those invented by my brother Jameson. But I digress. We'll talk about Jameson some other time.

I feel very blessed indeed to have a friend who's stuck so close through all of the drama of singlehood and beyond. It can be awkward, I think, for single friends to be sure how to relate to those friends who marry before they do. But with Hannah and I, we are always able to pick up right where we left off. Our topics today ranged from cupcakes to church government to Christian hospitality. We looked at pictures of the new house we're about to close on and talked about decorating schemes. Of course, we spent great quantities of time just enjoying little Felicity, who was delighted with Aunt Hannah's company.

(If you remember, Hannah figured prominently in Miss Felicity's birth story, becoming an honorary aunt and in the process getting more than she bargained for in her hope to help me stay comfortable. She helped me all right. The comfort factor was negligible, but...that was hardly Hannah's fault. Let's just say she's probably the only person in the world who could almost make me burst out laughing while I was going into transition. Interesting experience, that.)

Anyway. We had a lovely time of fellowship; playing with the baby; watching a couple of BBC movies. Miss Felicity was so enamored with her Aunt Hannah that she spent a great quantity of time just cuddling in her lap. Not wriggling; not trying to get loose and explore - just cuddling.

I was actually almost jealous. Except that I was so pleased to see them having such a good time together. Felicity was so excited that she didn't take very good naps today. She didn't want to miss a moment of Aunt Hannah's visit. She was so tired by the end of the day that she was squealing and giggling about everything under the sun, and especially anything Aunt Hannah did. She was very proud of her new skill of clicking her tongue (which she learned from Aunt Hannah - who was actually popping gum, but Felicity figured out how to mimic the sound alarmingly well with her existing acoutrements.)

When Aunt Hannah left (after, at Jon's request, we had gathered around the piano for a Chopin piece and then a hymn), Felicity finally realized that she was, actually, quite exhausted after all. She cuddled with Daddy a bit; then she cuddled with Mommy a bit, and stroked her head soothingly until she put herself into such a sound sleep that she got put straight to bed, even though she wasn't in her pjs just yet.

Good friends are a blessing. But for what it's worth, it's not just that Hannah and I happen to be perfect bosom-friends who never had to exert any effort to get along. Earlier on in our friendship - we did have some rough spots. Yes. I admit it. But we learned from the rough spots, and rather than damaging our friendship, it grew richer. It was George Washington who said, "True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity, before it is entitled to the appellation." I have some friendships - not Hannah's alone - that have withstood some of those shocks of adversity. It's worth plowing through adversity in friendships, because what you come out with in the end is that much richer and deeper than what you had going into the struggle.

True friendship is precious, but it doesn't come without effort. We mustn't forget that our friends are...what do you think? They're fallen creatures. Just like we are ourselves. But Hannah and I (and other friends) have, by God's grace, stuck it out through some of the harder things that can come upon friendships, and we've come out the other side appreciating each other's companionship that much more. It takes work to have friends, but Scripture says as much: "A man who has friends must show himself friendly" - Prov. 18:24

Work at your friendships. They are a precious gift from God. The opportunity to have fellowship with Him by having fellowship with His body - His church - His people - is a priceless gift. There can be a connection between Christ's own that is hard to understand apart from grace - but we have the common bond that we are broken and wicked people who have been bought with the blood of our God. That should be enough to surmount many difficulties.

Because, after all, Christ surmounted far greater difficulties for the sake of His own. Can we not bear with one another in our mutual brokenness and need for His grace?

"He who looks for a friend without faults will have none."

Thursday of Thanks

2010-08-12T20:24:00.000-07:00

Ann Voskamp of the blog "A Holy Experience" posts every Monday with a list of things she's thankful for. The idea is to eventually count all the way up to 1000 blessings...just by way of keeping focused on the many, many ways in which the Lord has poured out His blessings upon us.

Of course, you don't have to stop at only 1000. She has kept going. I would like to do the same - however, by way of jogging my alliterative memory, I would like to do mine on Thursdays...for a Thursday of Thanks. That way, hopefully, I'll be able to remember better from week to week.

For today, owing to the lateness of the hour, I will start with only five. But those five...how wonderful.

~1 - A godly husband who read my blog tonight and told me how glad he was to read my writing again...saying that it was my writing that he first fell in love with. And it was. But more on that in the courtship story that I'm going to write soon, Lord willing.

~2 - A precious little 9-month-old girl who smiles and giggles and naps and wakes joyfully, always happy to see Mommy and Daddy; always ready for hugs and cuddles.

~3 - Rather Dramatic squeals, howls, and grunts from the aforementioned 9-month-old when she is set in her highchair and realizes that her much-beloved meal-time is fast approaching. You would think I never fed her, she is so dramatic. But it's adorable.

~4 - Our fast-approaching closing on a new house nearby...one that perfectly fits our needs and will be much more child-friendly than the one we have now. Looking forward to reclaiming its needing-to-be-fixed areas and making it our own.

~5 - Those times in the evenings when Manly and I get to curl up and read a good book together, delighting in unsolvable mysteries (which are always solved on the last few pages, of course), books of history, books of theology, historical fiction...whatever we are currently making our way through, it's always more fascinating to read it together.

Thinking About Legalism

2010-08-12T17:55:00.000-07:00

Last night as I rocked our baby to sleep, I found myself thinking about many different things. Most of my thoughts were very bloggable, but by the time I got to a pad and pen I only remembered one particular thought that I proceeded to scribble out.

I was thinking about legalism. About how some of us try to define it very rigidly, as something very distinct - so distinct and fine-tuned that it is rare and hard-to-come-by, thereby excusing all kinds of legalism in ourselves. Some of us try to define it very loosely, as something which means conforming to almost any kind of rule whatsoever - thereby excusing all kinds of excesses in our own lives.

Legalism is very easy to come by. It is easy to want to think that we know what is right and wrong on every single subject. That every single thing absolutely has to be black and white, or else we have failed. But this isn't the freedom that is in Christ - it is choosing to be in bondage again to the law...even if that law is of our own creation. I very strongly tend to be this way. I am learning, thanks to the much more balanced views of my mercy-truth husband. It's the whole mercy and truth thing again, you see. The Truths tend to legalism, in general. The Mercies, on the other hand, tend to think that - because of grace - they are free to do virtually whatever they please. To wear whatever they want, to watch whatever they want, to listen to whatever they want, to drink as much as they want. Because, they say, they have the freedom to - because of grace. But this isn't freedom...it's bondage to the world's system.

Freedom isn't necessarily going to look like freedom to the world. It is still allegiance to our Lord. By its very nature, this will look very much like non-allegience to the world, because the world by its very nature is going to be in direct opposition to the Lord's Truth.

We have to be different. It may not be comfortable. It may not be hip. It may not win friends and influence people - at least, not by our culture's definition.

But neither should our freedom in Christ look so very much like bondage of a different sort that it drives people away by its very harshness. That is losing sight of the grace that loves and draws us even though we make mistakes again and again and again...and again. For even the righteous man falls seven times...but by God's grace, he rises eight.

Grace does not mean that we don't fall. But it also means we don't grovel in the dirt. We fall...but by Grace, we are not utterly cast down. We get up again, the Holy Spirit dusts us off, and we try again. Just like my little girl does when she takes a tumble...she doesn't say, "Oh, well! I'm free to just roll around here in the dirt if I want to. I think I will, because I can. No more standing up for me! It's too tough." No...she pulls herself up and tries again to stand. She falls often...but she gets up even more.

I am not going to get into what specific standards are too strict and which are too loose. That is not my point - that is not my place. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. I was only thinking about what legalism IS and what it is commonly misconstrued to BE.

Legalism is not simply the having of standards that make you seem unhip and disconnected from the culture's concepts of success, beauty, and strength. It is forgetting the point of the battle, which is not to estrange oneself for the sake of estrangement, but rather to estrange oneself from the world where pledging allegience to it would mean estrangement from the One Whose standard I bear.

Legalism does not consist of having standards, just as freedom does not consist of not having them. Legalism is clinging to the standard when the arrows fly rather than clinging to the shield of faith and the sword of the Spirit.

At its very heart, legalism is taking greater pride in the standard than in the One Whose standard I bear.

So, in truth, being full of fine-sounding standards is not the answer, if those standards do not come from God's Word and are not led of His Spirit - or if my focus becomes so much on those standards that I lose sight of my Savior. Being free of fine-sounding standards is not the answer, either - not if I glory more in my freedom from standards than I do in my freedom in Christ, my Master, whose bond-slave I am.

True freedom in Christ is found only in being His slave. Not in being a slave of standards. Not in being a slave of fitting in the culture's norms. Being a slave of Christ...means freedom from all that the world and the culture and the devil will try to use to bind me.

Freedom in slavery. An oxymoron?

Of course.

But the Holy Spirit is masterful at taking our poor, depraved selves and reconciling that seeming oxymoron...and making something beautiful - something wholly new - something beyond ourselves - something that the world can never, never understand.

Thank you, Father, for Your grace.

I'm Back!

2010-08-12T15:42:00.000-07:00

Not that you knew that I was gone, of course. Because I didn't tell you! As a matter of fact, our little family took a long weekend to go visit the mountains of Ashville and visit the Biltmore Plantation. Yes, we've been back for several days now - but I've been so busy settling back into a normal routine that I have not found time to update my blog! It's probably because I thought I had to do a full summary post, like this one. See? I'm still working on this perfectionist stuff.

Anyway. It was a lovely, refreshing time for all of us to bond and rejuvenate before we begin an exciting new chapter in our lives - we are closing on a new house very soon! It's a house that fits so many of the things we were praying for in a house - and the things that don't fit are going to be fixed, Lord willing. Remodeling is an exciting prospect, but at the same time very overwhelming. I felt that we could use a short respite to recharge our batteries before the big push begins, so I spent some time researching and found a nice, affordable little rental in the Ashville mountains...and then I talked to Jon about it and we decided to make the trek! It was our first little vacation with just our little family, so it was a new experience - but Felicity was a sweetheart and had a wonderful time, too. The Lord blessed us with a lovely time! We do feel rejuvenated and ready to tackle the projects ahead!

Thought-Bytes from the Trip:

The Biltmore

The Biltmore is much more stunning than pictures begin to indicate. We toured it on Friday and I was blown away by how majestic and ornate the house is. I can not begin to imagine living in such a place - in fact, I really wouldn't want to. But we enjoyed looking at it and marvelling at the creativity that God has endowed men with. It is indeed a beautiful, stunning home that seems like it's been transplanted from the countryside of Europe - it is so ornate and rich.
However, as much as we enjoyed the architecture of the house - the elegant wall-coverings and graceful drapes; the soaring, detailed ceilings; the vibrant color combinations and rich fabrics - the effect it had on us didn't begin to compare with what we felt when we stepped onto the back colonnade and saw the sweeping landscape of rolling hillsides and distant blue-hazed mountains. All of the beauty fashioned by man is only the smallest echo of the beauty fashioned by God.


God's Handiwork

On our second day of touring, we visited the lush gardens and marvelled still more at God's Creation. Stunning, breathtaking beauty. Lovingly designed gardens showcasing the work of the Master Artist. All of the ornate carving in the mansion could not compare with the delicately fashioned nobility of a single heirloom rose. Or the sweeping elegance of an aged hardwood. Or the fragile beauty of delicately curling head of lettuce. We walked the paths together and soaked the beauty in, and Felicity even enjoyed herself. She knows beauty when she sees it. She, too, was enthralled by it all.


God's Sculpture

In the mornings, we enjoyed leisurely times of bonding as a family; playing with the baby; eating homemade breakfasts (Hooray for the end of morning sickness! This wife can cook again.); watching the new Cooking Channel (Jon admitting that it was surprisingly interesting) and marvelling at how knowledgeable the chefs were; admiring the view from our little cottage. I would share a photo of it, but I am still editing my pictures from the trip. Most of the outdoor photos turned out with a surprisingly brownish-gray cast which does not do justice to the views we saw. Thankfully the human eye doesn't need editing.
Admittedly, if this photographer really knew what she was doing with the settings on her Canon Rebel, she might find that not as much editing would be necessary afterwards. It's true. I am barely even an amateur photographer. I don't know much about what I'm doing. But I learn as I go.
We enjoyed delicious meals at some of the Biltmore restaurants and watched Felicity marvel at the creatures in the petting farm. She stared at them all with wide, blue, wondering eyes, and uttered conversational little comments as we went. Not sure exactly what thoughts she was sharing with us, but as far as she was concerned she was letting us know what she thought. She clearly enjoyed herself.
We held hands as we drove in the car and allowed our GPS system (lovingly called "Jill") to direct us to the Biltmore Estate - which she apparently supposed to be somewhere in the midst of downtown Ashville. We landed in a highly-trafficked area with old buildings surrounding us and she proudly announced, "Arriving at Biltmore - on right." We looked at each other and said. "Ummm...I'm thinking this isn't the right place." So we back-tracked to I-40 and tried to start over. However, we quickly realized we were going exactly the opposite direction from where we should be going to get back to the Biltmore exit. No sooner did we realize this than all exits disappeared and we had to drive 12 miles through heavily-backed-up traffic to get to the next one, just so we could turn around and go BACK for 12+ miles to get to the exit we'd started from in the first place.
Owing to delays such as this, Felicity was getting very irritable and we were more than an hour late for our tour time. Thankfully, the Biltmore folks were very understanding, saying that it happens all the time to people who try to follow their GPS system to the Biltmore. We should have just followed the state-supplied signs; they were right on target. Oddly enough. ;)
Speaking of delays, I neglected to mention that we had a great deal of trouble even getting started on our trip. First we went to fill up on gasoline and grab a few things from Publix, during which time Mama (that would be yours truly) became ravenously hungry (as is often the case of late) and we had to stop to provide her with some nourishment of questionable nourishingness. (That would mean that it was from a fast-food joint.) When we were finally on our way, traffic was so heavily backed up that it took us some time to even reach the interstate, and once there, IT was backed up. All in all, we looked at the map on Jill and sorrowfully realized that it had been 1 1/2 hours since we left our house and we were still within a 15-minute's drive from it. Not the most promising of beginnings, but traffic cleared up and the rest of the drive was without incident, thankfully!
We drove through the grounds of the estate both days and said to ourselves that it would, in fact, be very nice to have a nice country estate. Not, of course, on nearly so large a scale; and we would be quite happy with a cozy cottage, thank you kindly. I'd prefer a house that is welcoming - not wowing. But the idea of having a few nicely rolling acres of beautiful land, suitable for large gatherings of hospitality and a few attempts at gardening; nice scenery to go for strolls through...yes...very appealing, indeed.
We wondered about the purposefulness...or lack thereof...in having such a large amount of money only to spend so much of it building a 250 room house filled with the finest of furnishings. Very beautiful, no doubt...but is that really the legacy one wants to leave? Not: he witnessed to hundreds of souls; or: he raised children who grew to be mighty warriors for the Lord; or: he discipled many who enjoyed his hospitality; or: he ministered to the saints in their affliction. Only: he had the biggest house in the country. In retrospect, it seems rather sad...empty, even. But there is no denying that the house showcases a huge amount of human creativity.
It made me wonder where we, as a culture, lost our appreciation for aesthetics. Somewhere along the way we've lost our value of talent and things which are excellently-made to be both functional and beautiful. At one time, beauty was valued more highly. Now, it's all about function, function, function; utility, utility, utility. Who cares how it looks as long as it gets the job done? As for me personally, I feel that most of us - whether we realize it or not - NEED to be surrounded by beauty. Just a nicely (not expensively) decorated home; and especially, especially the beauties of God's Creation. We are so citified and cut off from the beauties of nature. I think I should try harder to master the arts of gardening. After all, it was the first thing God told man to do - there must be significant value in working with the things God Himself has made.
Enough of my thoughtful meanderings. Back to the memories.
Jon had the exciting experience (I speak with sarcasm) of discovering a rather gigantic brown spider inhabiting a corner of the farmhouse - right next to a doorway which I had unsuspectingly walked through numerous times that evening. She was, in fact, much too large for comfort. He was concerned. I did not understand, at first, why he was so concerned - I foolishly thought it was only because she was BIG. But, no. When he heroically dispatched her with a spatula, it turned out that she was (as he had feared) so large because she was toting a very large egg-sac which was on the verge of hatching. Resultantly, hundred of miniscule arachnids went exploding in every direction as fast as they could scurry. The following events sounded rather like a celebration on the 4th of July; namely, Jon (who was prepared with shoes in hand) slapping every which way, attempting to defend the citadel from the enemy's onslaught. His energetic efforts were rewarded; the enemy was eradicated from our midst. (We think.) Of course, the fireworks woke Felicity, who had been sound asleep and proceeded to howl in horror: you see, she has never been awakened by fireworks before. I told her that it was just Daddy protecting us from spiders, but she did not seem particularly comforted. We went together to thank Daddy for protecting us, and she was rocked back to sleep not long after.
I spent the rest of the weekend walking through that doorway with some amount of trepidation; quite unreasonably expecting to feel thousands of tiny feet crawling all over me every time I went through. As if they would have kept hanging out in that vicinity.
Walking back to our car one evening, we were following an elderly man who was approaching the handicapped parking lot. He veered off the path and headed for the short wall surrounding the lot, looked both ways, and proceeded to vault the wall with astonishing agility. Then he headed to his car (which was, as mentioned, sitting in a handicapped parking space), got in, and drove off. Hmmmm. I mused to Jon, "If he can park in there, I should definitely be able to park there. 'Cause there's no way I could do THAT right now!"
Most likely the handicap was for his wife, or someone, and he was merely retrieving the car to go pick up the actual handicapped person, to save them having to walk so far. But it was rather humorous, we thought.
Felicity was so worn out after the 2nd day of touring (even though she'd had the distinct pleasure of being pushed about in a stroller all day, which hardly seems fair when you consider the huge amount of energy she has as compared with the huge amount of weight which her expectant mama is currently toting on her unforgiving feet...) that she crashed as soon as we got back to the farmhouse. This gave Jon and I the opportunity to play a card game for the first time in a while: we played a game of Five Crowns. A delightful game, if you've never tried it. And I'm not just saying that because I won by a factor of ten. (Okay...okay...I exaggerate. But only slightly.) ;)

And there you have just a few of our happy memories from the trip. I thank the Lord for blessing us with such a pleasant time of togetherness. We're still basking in its glow.

Now: we prepare to close on a house next week. After that: remodeling. Wow. Onward and upward it is!

Lesson From a Tailgater

2010-08-04T11:34:00.000-07:00

Being a mother has caused me to re-evaluate so many things in my life. If nothing was off-limits when it came to potential change before, I've come to realize that I need to be even more careful that no area of my life is gated off with a big "off-limits" sign on it, resisting change. If I want to be a good and godly example for my little girl, the little one on the way, and any other little ones that come along...I'd better be flexible.

It's not that easy to be flexible. It's much more pleasant to comfortably float along, content in my own supposed success, and imagine that I have arrived.

But the Lord is gracious to send along bumps in the road that startle me out of that kind of thinking. It's always such a shock when I realize that I've just had my eyes opened to another "off-limits" area - a blind spot - something I hadn't put under the microscope before.

Yesterday, I had a little wake-up call when I was out running some errands. My brother and sister had come to watch my little one for me so that I didn't have to make her truck all over creation as I tried to get a lot done. She stayed at home and got to play and eat and have a good naptime, and I missed her like crazy the whole time I was out.

I don't know if it's just me, but driving does not tend to bring out the best of my personality traits. I get irritated by other drivers. There are many things that irritate me, but probably the worst one is tail-gaters. I can't stand it when someone comes swerving in behind me and gets right up on my bumper so that I can see the whites of their eyes in my rear-view mirror. I really, really have trouble comprehending a mentality that would risk the life and limb of both self and others just to gain a few feet of highway space while gaining absolutely nothing in the area of time. Which one would presume is what most tail-gaters are concerned about.

I knew I let these things bother me too much. But yesterday it hit me in a way it hadn't hit me before.

I was nearing home and was completely worn out. My feet were aching from hauling around an undisclosed-number-of-extra-pounds all day - I am pregnant, you know. And I was really, really wanting to hold my baby.

And then he showed up. A dude in a big black GMC truck. He came barrelling down almost on top of me in my little black sedan with the rather obvious baby carrier sitting in the back seat. But he didn't care. He wanted those 5 feet of road space. It didn't gain him any time, of course. All he really succeeded in doing was scaring me into leaving an extra long space between me in the next car, so that I'd have time to stop slowly should it become necessary.

He was leaving so little space behind me that I couldn't possibly slow down much at all as I approached my turn. I turned my blinker on far enough ahead of time that he would see it and maybe take the hint that I was trying to get over for a turn. But no - he only came closer.

I was getting rather rattled and very, very irritated.

I had to barrel into the turn lane without touching the brakes at all, and then put them on hard and fast to stop in time for my turn. Meanwhile, he barrelled past, doubtless triumphing that he was rid of the slowpoke.

He probably found out a few seconds later that the car so far up in front of me was, actually, just as much of a slowpoke.

As I jolted to a less-than-smooth halt and watched him charge off into the distance, I snarled, "What an idiot."

And then a lightning bolt went off in my head.

So...maybe he was acting like an idiot. But what if there had been a pair of little ears sitting behind me listening? What happens when Felicity is just a bit older and is better capable of mimicking what she sees in me? Will she see me exemplifying, "Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt..." or will she see me showing this behavior: "Let your speech be always with salt...rarely with grace."

Just don't be surprised, I thought, if you hear your daughter start calling people "idiot." She won't have a clue as to when it is "appropriate" or not. If it's something that would be that easy for her to use inappropriately, maybe it isn't appropriate for me to use it at all.

"Okay, then," said the "Truth" side of me. "Call him what Scripture would call him. A fool."

But do you really want your daughter to hear that and start throwing the word "fool" around? Scripture reserves some serious words for those who throw that word around lightly. Don't exemplify that wrong behavior for her, either.

I realized that, as I have more and more little ears sprouting up around me, I'd better be very, very careful indeed.

Perhaps, should such a situation present itself again, it would be better to say nothing at all. Or, if I think I should point out the foolishness of such behavior, it would be better to say, "He was behaving foolishly." It's lighter on the salt and heavier on the grace - but the salt is still there. I don't need to pretend that tail-gaters are behaving politely and chivalrously. But neither do I need to lash out in anger and let their sin produce sin in me.

Rather, let it be an opportunity to learn a lesson and resolve not to behave in the same way - foolishly. And don't the Proverbs warn repeatedly that he who is quick to speak and quick to anger is exactly the same brand of person as that tailgater?

Lord, help me not to respond to foolishness by showing myself to be, in fact, a fool.

"Do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you also be like him." - Prov. 26:4

"Do you see a man hasty in his words? There is more hope for a fool than for him." - Prov. 29:20

Mercy and Truth

2010-08-02T17:01:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking that I really should get back into blogging recently, and keeping getting stopped by a few different problems:

I am a perfectionist.
Which means that I think I can't write a post unless I have it perfectly planned out a head of time.
Preferably having a whole series planned.
I also struggle with my time-management.
Because I am a perfectionist and put things off until I'm sure I can do them perfectly.

I have been reading "Womanly Dominion" by Mark Chanski recently and have been very convicted that, if I want to truly be a woman of dominion, I must get a better handle on my time management. One of the best ways to do this would be to just dive in and DO some of the things that I keep putting off, whether they turn out perfectly or not.

Because, you know what?? No one who reads this is perfect either. And I don't really want any of you to think that I am somehow perfect. I want this blog to be real and organic. Something you can come and read and actually relate to - not one that somehow gives you the deluded idea that I am a Wonder Woman. I know better than anyone else on earth...with the possible noteworthy exceptions of my husband, not to mention my parents and siblings...that I am emphatically NOT a Wonder Woman. I am very normal, which means that I am a very broken human being who desperately needs the Lord's grace to enable me to triumph over my weaknesses. I want to share that on my blog.

This isn't meant to be a blog about my strengths. It's supposed to be a blog about Christ's strength. About my struggles to learn to exhibit both mercy and truth in every area of life, which I can only do by His grace. I so often err on the side of "truth," which manifests itself in so many ways. The "truth"-obsessed side of me thinks that everything must be perfect before it can be done. That there has to be a black-and-white answer to every question and I have to be able to find it, or else there's something wrong with me. That I should be the perfect wife and mother every moment of every day or else I'm an utter failure. It's a good thing to strive for excellence, but if we lose perspective and forget how broken we are, we'll quickly end up discouraged. We are sinners. We are going to fail. Over and over and over again. But over and over and over again, our Lord is there to pick us up and set us back on track. He is good, and ready to forgive. If we focus on our own ability to succeed, we will only be disillusioned. If we focus on His ability to enable us to succeed in living His way, we will only be strengthened and encouraged.

That is where the balance between mercy and truth comes in. As fallen human beings, most of us fall either into the "truth" camp or the "mercy" camp. Those who err on the side of "truth" (I put these in quotation marks because our human versions of "truth" and "mercy" fall so far short of the true Truth and Mercy that we learn from Christ) tend to be very judgmental - obsessed with the black and white of life - perfectionists - quick to be certain that we have discovered the truth and that no one else could possibly be right, whether it's about skirt length or music styles or any number of "pet issues" that are important to us. We set ourselves up as experts and harshly judge anyone who doesn't share our views. We think we are the arbiters of truth and that all other men must answer to us. Anyone who disagrees risks our harsh displeasure. We think we are given the gift of "reproof," and anyone who does not heed us should be shunned as a sin-hardened reprobate. When we fail, we are harsh on ourselves. When our children fail, we give them tongue-thrashings that leave their little hearts in tatters and their spirits broken. We are Pharisees. Man's truth leads only to legalism and judgmentalism. We who struggle with the "truth" side of things tend to imagine that God's view of truth is the same as ours. (Note: I am not talking about truth in the sense of the most basic tenants of faith - the Gospel clearly does not allow for any variations on itself or on the path to salvation. I am talking about the tendency that many of us have to set up so-called "vital" standards which are not necessarily even drawn from Scripture's pages. I am also speaking of the tendency to be so focused on the fact that people must be right, right, right that we forget how much mercy we have been shown when we have time and again been wrong, wrong, wrong.) And this is where the mercy should come in.

But human mercy is often so different from God's mercy. Those who err on the side of mercy are easy to be too lenient on others who are struggling with sin issues. They give the benefit of the doubt over and over and over again and never extend a helping hand to pull a sinner out of the mire, thinking they would rather preserve the peace than risk disrupting him. He's obviously comfortable there - why ruffle his feathers? It is easy to become so open-minded that our brains fall out. It easy to love peace so much that we would rather make someone feel comfortable in their sin than give them the reproof they may need to wake up and get out of it. When a Mercy's child sins, he/she is reluctant to reprove them - just to pass over it and let it go by, thus letting the child develop sinful patterns of behavior that will be much harder to root out as an adult. This is behaving like Eli - who was undoubtedly a very kind man, but neglected truth to the point that his children left it behind completely. This - this Man's Mercy - forgets that Truth must come in with its corrective strokes and balance things out.

We are so quick to err toward one or the other. But only God perfectly balances the two. Look up the words "mercy" and "truth" on Bible Gateway or some similar site, and see how they occur together. Look up "righteousness" and "mercy" or "peace" as well, and see how they appear together. Only God has it right. We'd better quit focusing on our pet personality trait and get focused on what God's example is. Though He is slow to anger and plenteous in mercy, He never permits iniquity to flourish. He chastens His children when they sin against Him, and yet is often merciful in His chastisement. He does not always chide - He gives more grace. But He will never let us persist in disobedience. He sends rain on the just and the unjust, but there comes a point when He pours out judgment upon those who sin against Him. He cannot lie; He will not abide error; He will not permit false Gospels in His Church - but He is merciful to us when we sin, whether it's having a bad attitude, exhibiting slothfulness, or wearing something that we knew wasn't as modest as it should be. He is merciful, but is faithful not to let us persist in sin. He is perfectly True, and perfectly Merciful. Always. He never has a bad day and errs towards one or the other. Always, always - perfect Mercy, perfect Truth. In Him alone Mercy and Truth have met together; Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other. May we strive for this; Lord, give us the grace to exhibit more and more perfect Mercy and perfect Truth, as You do.

As I've mentioned, I have always struggled with leaning strongly towards a caustic kind of "truth." I am thankful to say that I have learned much from my husband - wonderful how much the Lord teaches me of Himself through a godly husband. It was only after I met him (and it took a while even then) that I began to see how much better he was at bringing mercy and truth together in his views than I was. It was the pivotal moment in our courtship when the realization finally hit me.

But that's another story.

Birth Story - Part IV - Final Installment

2010-06-17T09:28:00.000-07:00

Somewhere along the way, a nurse came in and told me to call them if I was suddenly seized with the irresistible urge to push. (Okay, that's not exactly how she described it. But I didn't want to get into her graphic description of what it was supposed to feel like.) ;)

Well, I never really experienced an irresistible urge. Somewhere around 4:30 or 4:45, I just knew that I became VERY uncomfortable and each contraction was more like a grunt. I think I was actually pushing for some time before we realized I was to the pushing stage. The nurse came in, listened to me for a moment, and went running for Dr. T. He came in, checked my dilation, and confirmed that I was ready to push that baby out.

This was where Hannah had intended to gracefully excuse herself. Instead, she was suddenly and inextricably stranded when Dr. T. unceremoniously shoved one of my legs in her face and said, “Hold this.”

So she did. And found herself with a front row seat for the whole delivery. I'm just glad she's still my friend. That's all I have to say about it. At the time, I frankly wouldn't have cared if he'd given the same command to Cary Grant. I probably wouldn't have even wondered what he was doing there. In fact, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have remembered that he's dead.

Anyway, while Hannah obediently took charge of one leg, Dr. T. ran around to the other side, shoved my other leg in Manly’s face and said, “Hold this.”

He then proceeded to coach me in proper pushing position and technique. I will say that pushing is definitely a relief after the turmoil of transition. Transition was THE worst – that was when I screamed so loudly that I was hoarse the next day. During pushing, I wasn’t screaming anymore – just concentrating.

At least, I don’t think I was screaming. Hannah or Manly could confirm that for you.

It took a number of contractions before I got the hang of pushing, but after that, it was not too bad. Dr. T. was fantastic – counting out each contraction while I concentrated. Somehow he always got the time exactly right.

At last, sometime around 5:10, the baby crowned. I also never experienced the “ring of fire” that I had been warned about. Seriously, when you’re experiencing that much pain, I don’t know how you differentiate the “ring of fire” from any of the other fiery pains you’re experiencing at the same time. I’m not that much of a pain connoisseur, I guess. I just knew I wanted that baby OUT.

Don't worry. I'm not going to talk about blood. This is as gory as it gets. So you can uncover your eyes now.

And right before 5:19, she did just that – came OUT. I looked up to see the most priceless expression of joy on Manly’s face as he cried, “You did it! You did it! Here she is! Here she is!”

I wish I had his face on film. His expression was beautiful - priceless. There is nothing on earth like a proud new daddy. Nothing.

And Dr. T. had her wiped off before I knew it and held her up for us to see. She was beautiful. Not wrinkled, not old-looking – just beautiful tan skin, dark fuzzy hair, and a sweet (but definitely unhappy) little face. She screamed lustily and Dr. T. handed her to me, where she looked right up into my eyes for just a moment before resuming her vocal displeasure. I don’t particularly remember the placenta being delivered. I’d heard enough scary things about how much it could hurt that I was nervous about it, but I must say I found the stitches afterwards to be much more disruptive. Not my favorite part.

Manly got to cut the cord, and I tried to nurse her. It didn’t work very well the first try, so Felicity was weighed and otherwise subjected to the unpleasant tests and check-ups that go with being born – but finally she was wrapped back up and given to us about the time I was sewn back up.

In retrospect, I wish I had tried longer to nurse her for the first time, but enough of my self-consciousness had returned that I really wished I could do it in a more private setting, and NOT while getting sewn up. But perhaps next time…

The nurses kept telling me what a great job I had done. I felt like I had just been a madwoman, screaming and trying to rip the hospital bed in half. Oh, and throwing up all over the place. I hardly felt like I’d handled it like a champ – but the important thing was, it all went well and the baby was here safely! The Lord was very gracious.

It was somewhere around this time, when we were waiting to get word that we could move to a recovery room, that Manly broached to me the topic of names. We had decided that she was going to be “Felicity Anne.” But he was quite confused, since when she was born, his first impulse had been to say, “Hello, Elizabeth.”

He just kept thinking “Elizabeth” every time he looked at her. I was, of course, a bit surprised. At the moment she didn’t look to me like either a Felicity or an Elizabeth. So we agreed to think on it a bit. This quickly transformed into thinking about it for the whole of our stay at the hospital, trying to decide whether he was going to keep seeing her as an “Elizabeth” or if it was just the result of being overly-tired. In the end, he decided that he didn’t want it to be her first name, since we’d already decided on Felicity – but “Felicity Elizabeth” sounded pretty nice. At first I didn’t think it flowed as well as “Felicity Anne,” but I wanted Manly to get to use “Elizabeth” somehow – so we went with it, and I love it very much, now.

Incidentally, after a few days of calling her alternately “Felicity” and “Elizabeth,” Manly got into the habit of calling her “Felicity.” ;) She looks the part now. I think the name sounds very vivacious. And so far, she’s a bundle of happiness.

And there you have our birth story. Our stay in the hospital was very nice – as nice as you could get, I think. The food seemed delicious – of course, labor does work up quite an appetite – and it was SO nice to have so many nurses available to wait on me hand and foot. I’m not generally one to love being pampered, but I must say it was NICE after going through labor and delivery. I was free to just bond with the baby and the nurses took care of food, checking on me and the baby, and generally being available to help. I felt like I’d had a mini-vacation by the time we took our baby home!

Well, almost. Apart from general pain and discomfort every time I moved, I was actually feeling pretty pampered.

Manly, on the other hand. Well. I, of course, had a hospital bed. He had what he (not so) affectionately referred to as “The Dad Slab.” It was a sofa that was supposed to double as a bed for Dad – but it had a most uncomfortable wooden ridge down the center that made it Rather Uncomfortable to sleep on. So HE felt more like he’d just been through boot camp by the time we got home. I hadn’t showered at the hospital – something about it just grossed me out – so by the time he got to bring his wife home, she looked like The Creature From Slime Swamp. BUT – importantly, we got our precious baby home, safe and healthy, and got to start our new life as a little family.

And now she’s just over 7 months old, and cuter than ever! We’re looking forward to our next birth story, due to occur sometime in late December or early January!

Birth Story Part III

2010-06-16T10:54:00.001-07:00

Manly’s parents and mine showed up and popped in to say hi, and then disappeared to the waiting room. Manly and Hannah stayed right with me, Manly very sweetly helping me to get around. I became so uncomfortable that I decided to try lying down and relaxing.

No sooner had I done so than the ever-present Dr. T. (who I THOUGHT was going to go catch a few winks while he waited for things to develop) and his student popped back in and Dr. T. said. “DON’T lie down. Come on. Get up and walk around – it will progress faster and you’ll be done sooner. Don’t stall it by taking it easy. You can do that after the baby’s born.”

I so enjoy Dr. T. He’s so to-the-point and let’s-get-with-the-program and yet he’ll sit there and talk to you about any questions you have for 30 minutes, too. At this particular moment, though, I had no questions. Shocking, I know. Dr. T. just grinned cheerfully and left us.

Hannah went out to the waiting room to do some studying, because the only person who could really help at that point was my Manly. He walked with me all around the labor and delivery unit. By probably 12:30, all I wanted to do was lie down. I was in pain. I didn’t like it. I just wanted to lie down and have him rub my back. Dr. T. showed up somewhere in here – it was all getting fuzzy to me – and checked again, and I was dilated enough that they moved me to a labor and delivery room. But I wasn’t supposed to stay in it. They just monitored the baby for a moment, saw that everything was okay, and took it back off. Manly and I were quite surprised by how amiable everyone was about the natural birth thing – I guess they probably see a lot of it from Dr. T’s patients. He doesn’t necessarily recommend it himself, but he gets a lot of weirdos like me, I guess. ;)

I must confess that, after this point, I lost all track of time. Manly and I paced the halls of the hospital, stopping every two minutes or so, where I grabbed a convenient handrail and let Manly massage me through each contraction. After what seemed at the same time like an eternity AND only a few minutes, I was uncomfortable enough that I retreated into the semi-privacy of the delivery room so that I could moan without fear of being watched.

Obviously, transition hadn’t kicked in, yet. I say that because I still had some sense of self-consciousness. That was all about to disappear.

I quickly became more and more miserable, wanting only to lie down, but I kept standing up. It was probably around 2:00 in the morning and I was having contractions even less than 2 minutes apart, and they were VERY uncomfortable. By now, I kept up a pretty constant low wail/moan/howl or something. I wasn’t sure what I was doing. I really couldn’t help it. Manly was finding it harder to ascertain what I wanted, as he could ask virtually any question and receive “I don’t knooooooooow” for an answer.

I soon moved to the delivery bed for another check by Dr. T. He decided that I was far enough along that it was time to just break my water for me – it wasn’t happening by itself, and it would just speed things up. So, quite simply, he popped it.

Then things got interesting. Quickly. I went almost straight into transition after that, which means that I lost all consciousness of space, time, and normal concerns about self-consciousness. The contractions became very intense and came right on top of each other. Poor Manly was massaging my back, and suddenly found me pushing his hands away. He asked me what he should do instead, and all he got for an answer was a howl. His quiet, unassuming wife had transformed into a screaming banshee right before his eyes.

I forgot all about relaxation. I couldn’t figure out HOW to relax. The baby was not sunny-side-up, but I felt like the pain never really let up. I was gripping the side of the bed with such ferocity that Manly was afraid I was going to rip the handle off. I screamed loudly enough that the whole labor and delivery section could probably hear me. I literally bellowed. Nonstop. And I didn’t even care. I didn’t even care when Hannah Z. walked in right in the middle of a contraction.

She still hasn’t really told me what she thought at that moment. I’m pretty sure she’d never seen me so…well…vocal. Believe me, I was vocal. I shocked myself. I was not exactly managing the pain like I had hoped. But…I was clearly surviving.

Hannah jumped right in and started fanning me, since I was pouring sweat. I managed to sit up and tried to squat in front of Manly. I didn’t really know where I was trying to get to or what I was trying to do – I just knew that lying on my side wasn’t helping me relax at all. So I might as well move. So Hannah followed me, flapping the paper in my face, while I backed Manly into a chair and knelt on the floor in front of him. I don’t know exactly why. I just remember that I did it. Manly supported me and tried not to seem too bewildered, and Hannah crawled into the floor, reached under the chair, and frantically flapped paper in my face some more.

I was seized with a very strange impulse to laugh. But I probably screamed instead.

In case you hadn’t picked up on it, I was doing a lot of screaming.

I decided that being out of the bed definitely wasn’t working for me, so I headed back to it. It was at this point that I lost my dinner. With no warning, so my poor assistants were not prepared. It went all over the floor AND all over Hannah’s shoes. She frantically raced around trying to find some kind of bedpan, but to no avail.

After that storm subsided and they had me settled back in the bed, Hannah surveyed the floor and muttered, “Well. Somebody had green beans for dinner.”

See? I told you those beans would be important later.

Birth Story Part II

2010-06-16T08:55:00.000-07:00

So I got off the phone with Hannah and called Manly to say that he should come home now. I am a little rusty on the timing of everything, but I think that was probably 6:30 or so. I asked him to swing by the grocery store and get me something. My mind was consumed with the one and only intense, all-consuming craving of my pregnancy. I wanted ice cream. And not just any ice cream. Blue Bell chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. Unintelligible ingredient list and all…I suddenly could not live without it. I also thought he would be well-advised to grab something quick to eat for himself, in case things developed more quickly than anticipated. So Manly raced to the store, picked up the requested ice cream and a few other simple odds and ends, bought a Subway sub, and rushed home to me to find me back on the phone with Hannah Z. You see, she wanted to be sure she left for the hospital on time and wasn’t about to let me forget.

I excused myself from the phone call, hugged my husband, and dove into the cookie dough. I got about two bites in and realized that something had changed since the last time I had eaten, not that long before. The contractions were more intense and made it rather hard to focus on eating. But I ate anyway. I wanted that cookie dough.

We settled in to wait – rather expecting that it would be some time before things picked up. Manly ate his sub and watched me contract. Not that he could tell when it happened at that point, I had to tell him – they certainly weren’t dramatic. But they were getting closer, and by about 9:00 they were 4 minutes apart – so Manly called Dr. T. I was not enjoying talking at that point and didn’t want to make the phone call. But Dr. T. rather sensibly pointed out to Manly that it would be helpful for him to ask me some questions, and it would be easier to just ask ME rather than having to ask me through Manly. So Manly handed me the phone and Dr. T. asked the customary things – how far apart are they? How do you feel? Are you packed?

He said that we should come on in. According to the Bradley method, we would probably have waited until the contractions were 3 minutes apart – but then, I was demonstrating a lot of the other symptoms that mean you should go ahead and head for the hospital. And I felt like things were moving along just fast enough that it would be good to get moving. So we gathered our things without rushing too much, and called to tell Dr. T. we were leaving – about 10:00.

And we didn’t forget Hannah! I called her when we were leaving and she headed for the car.

On the way downtown, Manly called our respective parents to let them know that it looked like the big day had arrived. He didn’t know it since I was being rather quiet, but I was becoming increasingly certain that we would not be getting sent home from the hospital as a false alarm. I was becoming quite uncomfortable and I hated the concrete portions of the interstate worse than ever. Bumps were most unpleasant, and I was finally experiencing definite pain. Not that I had been particularly anxious for it to arrive – I figured it would. I was trying to time my contractions but kept losing my train of thought – but it seemed that they were definitely getting much closer together. After Manly got off the phone I informed him of my condition and we were both glad we’d left when we did – I was not acting like I was headed for a long, drawn-out labor. I certainly hoped not!

We arrived at the hospital at 10:30, left our suitcase and things in the car in case we were told to go back home, and Manly helped me get in. I had to stop a couple of times to wait through a contraction, but it was quite manageable.

While we were signing in, I began to feel like everything around me was a dream and the only thing I could think about was breathing quietly through each contraction and waiting quietly for the next one. They seemed to be getting stronger every single time.

I vaguely remember that the women at the desk were very nice to us, said something about, “Awww, they’re still newly-weds!” (probably owing to the fact that I had wrapped myself around Manly, making it somewhat difficult for him to complete the sign-in sheet) and put the customary bracelets on my wrists. Finally I was able to go sit down in the waiting area. And I was ravenously hungry and wanted to lie down. Manly kept doing paperwork, and about the time he finished…Hannah arrived with backpack, snacks, and nurse scrubs. The nurse scrubs were actually her school uniform that she was going to need to be wearing for her 6:00 am class the following morning, and she figured there was a good chance that I’d be in labor at least until then.

“I just hope you’ve had the baby by then so I don’t have to be in class when she arrives!” she said, then added graciously, “Oh, and because I hope you don’t have a long labor, too, of course.”

“Thanks,” I whispered. I wasn’t feeling much like talking. Manly somehow ascertained that I was hungry. He must have asked me – I don’t remember. But the resourceful Hannah produced a bag of goldfish and I began to nibble on them while we waited to be taken to a room. It seemed like an exceedingly long time, but at last we were escorted to a room and Dr. T. and his intern came in. I was definitely dilating and clearly needed to stay there! At this point, I was hardly surprised to hear it. We showed everyone our birth plan so they all knew we were natural birth nuts, and hoped they wouldn’t give us a hard time.

They didn’t give us a hard time. They were fantastic. No one bothered us through the whole process – no one even gave me knowing grins and asked, “SURE you don’t want that epidural?” They were very respectful and stayed out of our way except for a few customary checks to make sure the baby was doing well.

Felicity's Birth Story - Part I

2010-06-16T07:31:00.000-07:00

At last – the birth story. Believe it or not, after 7 months, it is still pretty solidly emblazoned upon my memory! Praise the Lord, it was a safe, textbook story with no unusual bumps along the way, and in the end I was fine and the baby was safe and healthy, and Manly and I felt – and still feel – very, very blessed. I thank the Lord for His graciousness!

Before I get going, I should warn you that I like to portray life as it really is on this blog. This means that I will not be telling this story in such a rose-colored way that you’ll come away thinking that we went merrily on our way and plucked our little one out of a cabbage patch, with birds twittering and a choir singing in the background. Though I will seek to be fairly discreet, I do talk about “pushing,” “contractions,” etc. Just warning you.

Thursday, November 6, 2009. Something in my ever-changing body had changed again, and I knew it. But then, things had been changing for the past three weeks and that wriggly baby inside me was still just that…inside me. I was so ready to meet our little Felicity Anne…to hold her in my arms and feel her soft baby skin and dress her in some of those beautiful little baby girl clothes that lay waiting in drawers – waiting in silent anticipation of the little person they were going to adorn.

But Felicity Anne did not seem to feel the same way – she was in no hurry to arrive before her due date, which was either November 2 or November 10, depending on who you asked. This is hardly surprising, really, but my first doctors had assured me that it was highly possible – even probable – that she might arrive several weeks early. Yeah, right. Just for the record, I firmly believe that any doctor who would tell a first-time mommy such a thing had better be really, really sure of himself before he inflicts such insanity upon the already nearly-insane mind of a pregnant woman. Dr. T. didn’t tell me that – I told Dr. T. what they had said, and he laughed at me.

He always laughed at me. Does anyone know why?

Actually…don’t answer that question.

I had been sure she was about to arrive for 3 weeks, since I had been having a lot of contractions that never turned into anything. I was beginning to think that I should pretend she wasn’t close to arriving at all. Just for my mind’s sake, you know. Except that every time I rolled in and out of bed, or peered over my protruding belly to see my Needing-to-be-Trimmed Toenails, or woke up on my back feeling like I was suffocating, or all but bounced my poor husband out of the bed in my attempts to roll over during the night…I couldn’t help but remind myself that I was getting CLOSE to meeting that baby. CLOSE to being able to breathe again. CLOSE to being able to bend over and pick things up without getting stuck in transit. CLOSE…close…

That day, I thought I might be very close indeed. I had been having mild contractions off and on since that morning, and around 4:00 I encountered what was apparently my experience with “bloody show.” I’ll spare you the details, but it wasn’t nearly as dramatic as I’d heard it could be in some cases. Can’t say I minded that, or anything. After that, things slowly began to pick up, with contractions coming and going but getting more and more regular until about 5:30 or so, when they settled into a pretty consistent 6 minute pattern. I called my mom and talked to her about what was going on for some time, timing contractions with her, and she was pretty confident that it was the real thing this time. So I called Manly to warn him that I was, in fact, having regular contractions, but that he didn’t need to come home just yet. I was doing fine. They weren’t a bit painful at that point – just a tightening in my abdomen, and that was all. But they were definitely stronger than any I had experienced before, and they kept going even when I sat still, timing them. Writing down each contraction, how long it lasted, etc.

I was getting very bored.

I suppose that, according to my Bradley training, I might have been better off going and lying down on the sofa to relax. But I didn’t feel like I was in any particular need of relaxing at the time.

In view of what came later, maybe I was wrong. It might have been helpful to have been practicing relaxing with some real contractions that weren’t too hard to relax through – good experience for what was coming, you know. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

As I was saying, I was bored. And antsy. And impatient. A bit scared of what might be coming. What would the pain be like? Would I turn out to be a wimp? Would I be one of those who claim that they’ve had a painless labor and delivery? Would the baby be all right? Would she be…well…cute? Would this…would that…praying for the hours ahead, for God’s protection and strength…

And then I did what any bored laboring woman would have done in my situation…I called my dear friend Hannah Z. Anyone who doesn’t have a Hannah Z. in her life should go out and find one a.s.a.p. Although I’m not sure there are any more available. She’s worth her weight in gold. She is my nurse-in-training friend, and she was determined to be present at the hospital to help out in any way possible. This was especially easy since it was at the hospital she often goes to for classes and training. She would come and help out – bringing me anything I needed and massaging me or whatever – doubling for Manly. And then she’d be able to come in and meet the baby right away!

She got a little more than she bargained for that night. BUT…I got ahead of myself again.

We chatted for at least an hour, by which time my contractions were more like 5 minutes apart, and were beginning to make it harder to talk. I would hardly call them painful at that point…just more intense than any had been yet. I was ravenously hungry and devoured my leftover steak from Ruby Tuesday. And some potatoes. And I reheated some green beans and devoured them with gusto.

Remember the green beans. They’ll be important later.

To be continued...

Summer at Pinehaven

2009-07-03T08:10:00.000-07:00

I actually took these pictures last year at Pinehaven...but I was looking at them today and thought they were so lovely I just had to share them with you again. I love flowers. And these are so warm and inviting.

They make me want to find a nice rocking chair porch, sit on the front swing, and sip a cup of Lady Grey tea.

Yes. We're definitely planting some old-fashioned rose bushes for next year.

Poor Excuses, Poor Excuses

2009-07-01T15:55:00.000-07:00

As usual, the author of this blog has managed to disappear from the face of the earth without offering any explanation as to the whys and wherefores of this unpardonable behavior. After all, it’s not as if she has anything to do. She doesn’t fold laundry, do dishes, cook meals, run errands, or anything like that. Of course not. She just sits around eating Hershey’s nuggets and reading Dickens novels.

I hope you snickered. You do know better, right? Of course I do all of that stuff. I even eat the Hershey’s nuggets. But I haven’t actually been reading any Dickens novels lately. I’ve been thinking that I should revisit “David Copperfield” sometime soon, but at this point it’s just thinking. I don’t even know where my copy is. I suspect that it’s still in one of my boxes of books that hasn’t been unpacked, yet.

Actually, I have had a very busy few weeks here. As a result, I have not managed to get up the promised blog posts that I have mentioned several times. We’re working on finding the time, but it’s surprisingly hard to schedule time to write for a blog when one is a naturally disorganized person. It’s even harder when one is a naturally disorganized newlywed person. And it’s even harder when one is a naturally disorganized newlywed pregnant person.

Which makes it rather unnecessary to use the gender-neutral term “person” in that case, because it’s pretty impossible to be anything but a naturally disorganized newlywed pregnant woman.

I’m very good at stating the obvious like that. I do it all the time.

Anyway, I’m here to apologize for my tardiness in getting up my promised blog posts. I mean to do it as soon as I can, which probably won’t be this week unless I am very productive tomorrow. Because tomorrow is my baking day for the upcoming 4th of July weekend. I hope the week after this will be considerably calmer – as I’m expecting it should be – and perhaps then I will get a post up.

But, in the past few weeks, this is what I’ve been up to, just so you’ll know I’ve been doing more than eating Hershey’s nuggets.

Having my sister come spend several days with me, just for fun and to help me do some organizing.
Going to the homes of several different families in our church for delightful times of games, food, and fellowship.
Discovering, at one of the aforementioned gatherings, that Hershey’s Cherry Kisses are delicious even though they’re not European chocolate. I have determined to buy some when they come back out next Valentine’s Day.
Researching upright freezers and trying to determine which would be the best to get.
Researching local hair salons in an effort to determine where would be the best place to go in the next few weeks. I’m ready to try a completely different hair style.
Going to several wonderful church meetings and Bible studies. Having wonderful Bible studies with my insightful husband.
Big Item: Spending several days in the past week shopping seriously for a new piano. First I liked six. Then I narrowed it down to four. Then I narrowed it down to two. Then it went back up to three. And then back down to two. Finally, after much consideration and prayer for clarity, I chose between those two. My beautiful new piano will be arriving, Lord willing, sometime next week. I can hardly wait.
So, that last item accounts for most of my busyness this past week.
On top of all that, I have been Eating Constantly. No sooner do I finish eating one dish full of protein and carbs than I feel like it’s been hours since I ate. So I go make myself something else. And then I’m hungry again and have to make myself something else. And then it’s about time to start preparing dinner. So a lot of my time has been consumed by food preparation and consumption. It goes with eating for two.
Speaking of that, in the past few weeks we also found out that we are expecting a baby girl. I would have been delighted with either gender, of course – but it’s wonderful to know, and to be able to call her by feminine pronouns, rather than just “it.” Now we are trying to decide what to name her.
I can feel her moving more and more frequently. She kicks and wriggles and I absolutely love feeling it. It makes it seem so much more real – to realize that there is really a Little Someone inside of me. A little baby girl.
Now I’ve strayed from the purpose of this list, which was to tell you about what I have been doing in the past few weeks that has kept me from blogging. Number 11 had more to do with what the baby’s been doing, and that had nothing to do with keeping me from blogging. But it’s so wonderful I wanted to share it with you anyway.

And there you have it – what I’ve been up to. In the next couple of days I must prepare for our 4th of July celebrations coming up. I’m planning to make a 9x13 lemon poppyseed cake and decorate it with blueberries and raspberries to look like a flag. I am seriously hoping to make a 9-inch limeade layer cake with raspberry filling. But I’m afraid it may have to wait for another time – I don’t want to bite off more than I can chew. And I seriously, seriously want to make these. They sound too good to be true. There’s only one way to find out. I have to make these things when there are events to take them to, because otherwise they’d stay at home and I would have to eat them all. This would have a decidedly deleterious effect upon my resolve to eat healthfully (for me and Baby Girl) and provide my husband with healthy food. I really should avoid coating our innards with all of the unhealthy residue resulting from eating such foods. So I make unhealthy food when I can take it to outside events, so other people can eat it and coat their innards with the unhealthy residue resultant from eating such foods.

Am I being hypocritical?

(Editorial note: I assure you, I would not take food that I thought was truly very unhealthy. These are the kinds of foods that I figure are perfectly manageable in small dosages. The key word there is “small.”)

And there you have my poor excuse for my Negligence in Blogging. I will be back soon with more writing, I’m sure. I’m working on formulating a schedule for my days which would make certain that I have time set aside for it. Bear with me, and I’ll get this thing figured out.

Blessings!

Photos of the Wedding

2009-06-10T08:57:00.000-07:00

Promises of Future Postings

2009-06-10T08:18:00.000-07:00

It would seem that this weekend went as I thought it would. Jon and I were SO busy being sappy newlyweds, staring fondly into each other's eyes and trying to decide whether to eat in or go out for dinner, that we never did get around to editing the next installment of our story. I am truly sorry. I don't think we'll be getting to it tonight, but hopefully in the next few days...? I'm writing on the to-do list at our places at the table. Right now.

There. I did it. That might help a little bit. If we can stop staring fondly into each other's eyes for long enough to glance down at the to-do list. That's another problem we've been having. But I have a feeling that none of you would really begrudge us a little bit of sappiness. After all, we've only been married 7 months. Not even quite 7, actually.

Speaking of which, I have a couple of new post ideas in the making. One of them was my idea. The other was Jon's. Those should be coming up in the next couple of days, regardless of whether we get the next installment edited or not. I am filing all of the courtship series under the highly original tag, "courtship." I always could beat the nation at coming up with creative tags for my posts. It's a talent of mine, I guess.

Actually, the most original tag I have is probably "peanut soup." You'll notice that there is only one entry under this tag. You'll also notice that it's from the year 2004. This means either one of two things:

1. The author learned her lesson and will never make such a mistake again.

2. Another catastrophe of similar proportions is long overdue and may happen at any moment. So run for shelter.

I sincerely hope that it's the former, but I'm afraid it's much more likely to be the latter. I've been dropping things all over the place lately, in a disturbing resurgence of my former klutziness.

Wait, did I just say former klutziness? I can hear those of you who know me trying to muffle your laughter in your sleeves. Yeah, I can hear you. Okay, so perhaps I never really recovered from my klutziness completely. But at least I am recovering. I'll probably never be able to hit a volleyball and have it go anywhere but right into the server's face. Or completely out of bounds. Or straight up in the air. Or, if I'm really feeling talented, right to the ace player on the other team who will proceed to spike it right back at me, just to rub in the fact that I was not only stupid enough to hit the ball to him (or her, in some cases), but that I am utterly powerless to do anything to rectify the situation.

I admit that these things will probably never change. Even if all of my other siblings are the ones who are capable of spiking the ball right at me, the crummy player. And they don't even have to practice. Yes - somehow I missed that gene.

But at least I can throw a dirty rag into the laundry basket from the other side of the laundry room.

Okay, so our laundry room is only four feet wide. And the laundry basket is probably situated about 2 1/2 feet away from the door. I don't see what that has to do with anything.

Actually, I can throw a dirty washcloth 6 feet across our master bath, towards a 3-section laundry sorter, and get it to land in the right section. So far I've done it every single time. I realize that I'm probably the only person in the world who is impressed by this. But it makes me feel just a bit comforted about my utter lack of athletic ability in every other sense of the term.

I had originally titled this post, "Wedding Photos," but then I got far enough off track that I realized there was no recovering. So I'll just suggest that you check back in later - there should be a second post up, containing a few of my favorite shots from the wedding.

So, we have four posts in the works over here:

- 2nd installment of our courtship story
- wedding photos
- The Case of the Multiplying Folgers
- Newlywed Lessons

Note: these are not listed in the order of expected publications. In that case, I'm afraid the first item on the list would probably have to be the last. Beyond that, I can't make any promises on the order in which these will appear - but I'm pretty sure the photos will be the first.

Waiting for the Next Installment?

2009-06-04T11:30:00.000-07:00

A very few of you may have happened across my blog a few days ago, just in time to see "Part II" of our courtship story. That installment, you may have noticed, has since disappeared. This is not owing to any catastrophe, such as realizing that I'd accidentally revealed my social security number or that I received bad feedback.

Actually, I just posted it before I had checked the section on Jon's salvation out - with Jon himself. After all, he was the one who experienced it. I wrote it down as I remembered him telling me, but it was just possible that I didn't get a few key details right - or that I let myself take some poetic license without exactly meaning to. I checked it out with him after I'd put it up, which was when I discovered that I'd made a few errors. Ooops!

So, until he gets a chance to edit that portion, "Part II" is on hold. Hopefully, barring some computer-generated catastrophe which requires him to stay at work all weekend, we'll get it done in the next few days. But, actually, what's more likely to happen is that we'll just get so busy being sappy and stuff that we'll completely forget about it until Monday, when he'll have to go back to work. That's the way things go when you're newlyweds. ;)

If I can get Flickr to cooperate, however, I may tide you over with some pictures from the wedding. If any of you are even out there waiting, of course. I may just be posting them for my own benefit. But that's okay, because I never get tired of looking at them.

The Long-Vanished Author Returns

2009-05-07T15:22:00.000-07:00

After months of silence on the “Naught but Christ” blog, my readers have probably wondered what on earth become of its once faithful author. There have been many rumors circulating as to her fate. Some have supposed, in a clichéd sort of way, that she has fallen from the face of the earth. Others may suspect that she has given up writing in favor of a career in the kitchen, filled with Marked Errors and Exploding Blenders. I am sure there are many possible reasons people could come up with as to my absence, but I highly doubt that most of my readers have wasted much time in wondering. The simple reason is probably quite self-evident; if I had any readers left who did not already know about the Events which have filled my life for the past year, they probably began to suspect as much after observing the nature of my last few posts. They may have used their powers of deductive reasoning to reach a truly Sherlock Holmesian conclusion: that the author of this blog had encountered love, and presumably fallen quite deeply therein. Based upon a few sappy hints, a cryptic post or two referencing “hofmaken” and “Jon,” and even photographic evidence (complete with a Manly looking Man and vases of red roses), I suspect that one would not even have to be Sherlock Holmes in order to reach this conclusion. It’s likely that the Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew could have solved the mystery, themselves.

Mysterious references aside, however, any amateur sleuths wondering what had become of this blog’s presumably twitterpated author had every right to wonder why she never updated on the progress of her twitterpated status. She has not even really given an explanation as to Who the man is who propelled her into twitterpation, or What has become of him.

Let us begin our explanation with the present moment, and work our way backwards. At this present moment the twitterpated author is sitting in her kitchen, at a little desk in the corner, typing away on her laptop. She has much work to do, still, getting things organized and establishing a Place for Everything so that Everything may be in its Place. It is a cozy kitchen, with busy builder-installed wallpaper which will soon be either ripped down or painted over, and replaced with a cheery yellow. Things are looking much more neat and tidy in this room than they were only a few short months ago, for the author has made quite a bit of progress in the areas of Unpacking and Moving In.

Yes, moving in. For you see, not so very long ago, this house was inhabited only by a very kind Manly Man, and his dog and two cats. He had looked long and hard for a wife, and yet, for reasons he could not fathom, he had never managed to find her. But last year, after all of his waiting and praying, he finally found her. He found a girl who had been waiting and praying for a husband, and who had often been discouraged by the dearth of prospects in her life. And, in spite of her often faithless heart, the Lord brought her a Manly Man, and he is not alone anymore.

There, dear readers, you have your suspicions confirmed. The author of this blog has been absent, first, because she was terribly twitterpated. Second, because she was not only terribly twitterpated, but she was engaged to the man who was (and is) the object of her twitterpation. After that, she was occupied with planning a wedding, having a wedding, going on a honeymoon, and coming back and settling in and making some order out of the boxes she had brought into her man’s home. All the while writing thank you notes and making sure that she didn’t forget anyone at Christmas or on birthdays. She had just gotten on top of that, and begun to think that she might be gaining control over her schedule, when some New and Exciting News kept her from getting back to blogging yet again. She and the Manly Man are expecting a little baby, due sometime in November. Just in time for their first anniversary. God has been so good.

So, you see, she simply has not had time to blog. Now, however, she is determined to make amends for the time she has lost, and tell you all about what has been happening in her life since you last heard from her.

And now I shall stop referring to myself in the third person, because it is confusing me. I consider myself beyond blessed to be married to my wonderful Manly Man – my beloved Jon. The Lord provided me with someone who is beyond my wildest expectations. We couldn’t be more perfectly matched for one another – from the Most Important areas to the Smallest Details. We are beyond excited about the coming addition to our new little family, and look forward to seeing what the Lord has in store for us together.

Do any of you like a good story? I’ve always loved a good story. And if I do say so myself, I think the story of how Jon and I met and fell in love is a pretty enchanting one. Of course, I don’t really have to say so myself, because I didn’t make up the story. God did. All I plan to do is write it down, Just-So, As It Really Happened, over the course of the next few weeks…or months. So if you like a good love story, stick around. I’ll be putting ours together from start to finish, as I have the time and creativity. I won’t include any more sappy details than necessary – just enough to make sure you remember you’re reading a love story and not a history textbook, mind.

Now, where to start? Our story began many years before either of us knew the other existed, as love stories often do. It really began ages upon ages ago, for it began in the mind of God. But for the purposes of this chronicle, I shall begin with the providential workings that began to turn our paths towards one another, some seven years ago.

Seven years ago, on a Christmas Day in a December like any other, I was celebrating Christmas with my family, looking the part of an awkward teenager with permed hair that was too short, glasses that were always sliding down my greasy nose, and acne on my forehead. I was reading a book entitled, “Emotional Purity – An Affair of the Heart,” and was convicted that I was not doing all that I should to keep my heart pure for the man I would marry. After all, like many girls of that age, I was going through a crush. Thankfully for me, the Lord’s purpose cannot be thwarted by a silly girl’s heart. The exact date is lost to me now, but sometime around that Christmas I wrote the following poem:

To My Wife-to-be

By your coming husband

Oh, one I love, be patient!

Just wait, be still, for me.

I’m coming, love, don’t doubt it!

But save yourself for me.

Oh, dearest one, I’m saving!

My heart is ever thine.

Just save your heart for me, love.

Let it be ever mine.

Don’t give your heart to any!

Preserve it, full and whole

To give the one who’s waiting

To love you, heart and soul.

Preserve from vain imag’nings,

Ignore the flatt’rer’s voice,

Keep your heart with diligence –

Oh, love, ‘tis thine own choice!

Avoid the crude and vulgar,

The hollow, base, untrue.

Shun fools, and flirts, and dandies

Who seek to int’rest you.

Preserve from e’en the kindest,

For he might not be I.

Shed not a tear for even him,

Nor heave the faintest sigh.

Oh, lovely one, reserve it!

Keep thought, and ear, and eye.

Allow them not to cause you

To love a one, but I!

So, wait for me, my dearest.

Each day I draw more near,

To find a maiden, ripe for me,

Stained not by love-lorn tear.

One day the Lord will bring us

To cross each other’s paths.

Until that day, oh, patience!

Someday we’ll meet at last.

So, pure, dear, stay – until then,

And trust the Lord’s own time.

Until the day I give the ring

That makes thee wholly mine!

- Your Knight Errant

Little did I dream that my future husband was, at that moment, engaged in a battle of eternal proportions. Little would I have believed you, had you told me that the events of that Christmas – in his life – would be the beginning of his road toward me.

To be continued...

More Red Roses

2008-08-06T15:35:00.000-07:00

Creation Museum Trip - a Sappy Summary

2008-08-05T18:15:00.000-07:00

This past Wednesday through Saturday, our family took a road trip to Kentucky to see the Creation Museum, meeting up with a couple of other families when we got there. This by itself would have been wonderful enough for many people, but you must permit me to be a bit sappy and say that it was even MORE wonderful because of a certain man who was able to join us for the trip. I will be even more sappy and show you a picture of the Wonderful Man, just because I think he is handsome. ;)

Well...since then, I've decided not to put so many photos on my blog, so now you don't get to see the picture. You can just WONDER. But I can tell you, he is handsome. And everyone says he has extremely kind eyes. And he does. :)

And if you are rolling your eyes at me for being so sappy, I will merely issue this grave warning: just wait until it's YOUR turn, and then see if you're so sure that you don't want to be sappy. Now, then, with that aside, I will try not to be too ridiculously sappy ALL the time. Just some of the time. But the Lord has greatly blessed me by bringing Jon into my life - he is a wonderful, godly man and I admire him wholeheartedly. He loves the Lord with all his heart, soul, mind and strength and is incredibly kind and gracious to me. I don't deserve him! I only hope that my friends are blessed with a man who is HALF as wonderful as Jon is. No one could possibly be MORE wonderful, and I seriously doubt if anyone could be even ALMOST as wonderful. That is my own, personal opinion. Disagree with me if you want to, but you shall not change my mind. So!

Anyway, it was completely wonderful to have Jon with us on the trip. We enjoyed the road trip portion better than I remember enjoying any other road trip (it went by very quickly!), and we enjoyed traipsing through the Kentucky Horse Park together, marvelling at the magnitude and organization of the Toyota plant as we toured it, and wandering slowly through the Creation Museum, soaking up every bit of it. And we DID pay attention to the exhibits in the Creation Museum, thank you very much. We have pictures to prove that we went through and looked at things and didn't just sit on a bench and look at each other. Although we did some of that, as well. ;) My family enjoyed giving me a hard time about how sappy I have become, but I don't seem to mind. ;) God has been very gracious to me!

So. All sappiness aside - if you haven't been to see the Creation Museum, you must go as soon as you can make it. It's an incredibly well-done, professional, God-honoring production, which shows the visitor the ramifications of believing evolution, then leads him through the Biblical account of Creation (all the while providing plenty of lessons in science), and at the end points him to Jesus Christ in a powerful and compelling way. It's all about Scripture, and showing that Scripture and science do NOT contradict each other. It was a wonderful place! (And the chili cheese fries at the museum's grill were absolutely incredible, to boot.)

Flowers from my Manly Man

2008-07-29T13:36:00.000-07:00

Rachmaninoff Prelude in D major, op. 23 no. 4

2008-07-25T18:33:00.001-07:00

Today, for the first time ever, I attempted to record myself playing a piece that I have been working on - and I have decided to share the results with the blogosphere. ;) My Canon, it seems, has some difficulty picking up dynamic range - the whole piece rarely sounds softer than a mezzo-forte, though to me it sounded like I was playing pianissimo. Oh, well! It seems to help to keep the volume turned down very low - but not so low that you can't hear it, of course. Just a suggestion. And I believe I succeeded at turning off my background music so that you won't have to wait for the Tchaikovsky to stop before you can begin listening to the Rachmaninoff. Those happen to be a couple of my favorite composers, in case you couldn't guess...

Anyway, without further discussion, here is the video. Note how I crack my ankle on the piano bench before sitting down upon it. Ahem. ;)

Rare Golden Light

2008-07-25T18:33:00.000-07:00

A couple of evenings ago, we had a drowsy thunderstorm roll through at about 7:00. After it rumbled in the distance for about an hour, the dark clouds blew over, and it became strangely light again. I was ironing (as planned on my to-do list for the day) and looking out of the window, and drew everyone else's attention to the strange light. Everything was very green and lit with a golden light that was unusually bright as the fading orange sun hovered just above the horizon. We went upstairs to get a better view and found that the light was flooding into the library, so brightly that it looked like a light was shining IN from outside. It was all quite mysterious and beautiful, so I tried to snap some photos of it. Unfortunately, I am not very well-skilled at photography - much of what I know, I know by accident. I know next to nothing about how to shoot in low light - and, of course, it helps to have a tripod, but I didn't have time to get one set up, because the lighting wouldn't have lasted for long enough. It was gone in five minutes, and in ten minutes it was very dark outside. Anyway, my shots didn't capture the glow that the light gave everything, and the camera seemed to be picking up on more of the gold tint than on the green...but you get a bit of the idea.

The slower shutter speed captured more of how the light was flooding in, but lost the eerie color. Oh, well!

And the sky...

Finally...Memories from our Vacation!

2008-07-25T13:02:00.000-07:00

We recently returned from our long-anticipated trip to Kiawah Island. We have not been to the Island about eight years - much too long! It is one of our favorite vacation spots - perhaps our favorite. There is nothing like the South Carolina coastal life.

My favorite things:

(Summarized, in place of the long-winded descriptions I could provide. Since pictures are worth a thousand words, I'll let them do the talking for me.)

Long winding roads, shaded with oaks laden with Spanish moss, interspersed with palmettos and fan palms.
The Very Exciting Fact that Jon was able to drive all the way up to stay with us (after racing to finish a big deadline a day early) for the whole weekend. The lovely times we had, bike-riding, walking on the beach, playing Bocce Ball (which he was quite good at; I wish I could say the same for his girlfriend), purposefully and accidentally spilling water on each other (I will not say who committed the accidental offense, but his name was certainly not Tiffany), staying up late talking about All Kinds of Things...it was delightful.
The fresh-salty smell of the air all around, filled with the cries of water birds and the distant sound of the surf against the shore.
Grocery shopping at Newton Farms, complete with classical music in the background.
Making fried ravioli back at the beach house - plain ravioli dipped in eggs and coated with crushed pecans and parmesan cheese, fried in olive oil, served with marinara sauce.
Bike rides on long, shaded paths, going past beach cottages and elegant homes.
Riding down the beach to the perfect secluded spot and tumbling into the soft white sand to read a good classic. Stopping in between chapters to participate in discussions of theology with nearby family members.
Playing bocce ball and laughing and losing (almost) every time, unless I played with Daddy, who brought in all the points and remained undefeated for the duration of our trip.
Arriving one day at the beach when low tide was lowest and discovering miles of seashells scattered all around. Getting so distracted by gathering seashells that I forgot to put on sun protection and wound up with a nice burn or two, but also had a bucketful of cats-eyes and crab shells and even a few little conch shells to show for my efforts. They have since disappeared, though I am reasonably certain that they made it home with us. ;)
Going to the beach one night well after dark - brothers armed with flashlights leading the way down the narrow, windswept boardwalk. Running from crabs who always insist on running right towards you when you shine the light in their eyes. Watching Jameson engage in battle with one (not over-bright) crab who audaciously grabbed his Giant Stick-For-Defending-Others-From-Crabs and would not let go, no matter how he was shaken. He only let go when he felt that he had inflicted sufficient terror into us all, and returned to the place had had been sitting to glower at us with one upraised claw.
Turning away from the crab hunt to look up into the sky - and being so overwhelmed by it that I did not look back down again for some time. Thousands and thousands of stars scattered across the sky - the vaporous hues of the Milky Way - thousands of lights twinkle twinkling - the Big Dipper - and the more you looked, the more seemed to appear. Wondering how anyone could look at the sky and remain conceited enough to think that evolution could possibly be true. And wishing that Jon hadn't had to go back home already so he could have looked at them all with me. :)
Back at the beach house, making a pan of rich, nearly-black brownies, and serving them with a dollop of Moose-Tracks ice cream on top.
Playing Risk with the boys and being the first out nearly every time. (Benjamin: "All right, Tiffany - I'm attacking Kumchatka! You get one die, and I get three. Muahahaha!!!) Heading to bed while they continued to play to all hours of the night.
Playing rounds of Dutch Blitz with everyone in the family. All of us rolling with laughter at Jameson's constant flow of irrepressible humor. If I could remember anything he had said, I would replicate it for you here - however, I'm afraid that I cannot.
Playing Clue over and over again. Concluding that it was our favorite game yet. Even Benjamin loved it, despite his frequent failed accusations. "I'm going to make an accusation. Mrs. Peacock, with the revolver, in the library...Let's see...AUGHHHHH!" Developing a new strategy (which I shall not divulge) which worked about 50% of the time (hence my reluctance to divulge it). But when it did work, it worked very well.
Spending an hour or more playing Boggle - and then doing it again - and again. Achieving the enviable achievement of almost beating Mommy at it - but not quite getting there.
Playing the grand piano in our house for hours - Chopin and Rachmaninoff and Mozart and Beethoven - and listening to Jameson play the Moonlight Sonata and Nessun Dorma - and Stephen playing Chopin and Beethoven.
And I could list many more memories, I am sure, but I shall end it there...

To Do List for the Day

2008-07-23T10:22:00.000-07:00

- Have tea. This is one of the most important items on the to-do list. ;)

- Read more from Debi Pearl's book and do the corresponding Bible studying

By this time, the dishwasher should be finished and I could get out the blender to make smoothies like I did yesterday. Just blend together bananas and your berries of choice (I used raspberries and blueberries), pour in plain yogurt, a couple of tablespoons of flaxseed (for fiber), and sweeten with powdered stevia. They are quite delicious.

Do some blogging, submit some writing to a website (if I can find any of my articles that are short enough) and look into just how much one really has to pay for wallpaper murals and cut-outs. I love Ebay! (I'm plotting how to inexpensively redecorate a couple of rooms over here...)

While I'm thinking about decorating, I should look some more at the paint colors I need to choose from.

Practice piano. Perhaps even record a piece, if I can figure out how to get the camera to pick up dynamics.

Get rid of the very sparsely blooming moss roses. I don't know if I did something wrong in my care for them, or if that is just how they are. But inches of tangled, wiry stems with only one or two blooms a day is simply not the concept of beauty I wished to represent in my container planting. I think moss roses would look more at home amongst cacti and tumbleweed. ;)

I will be replacing them with miniature petunias. Much more plentiful and colorful. :)

At last, I should get some ironing done before starting on dinner, which will be split pea soup w/carrots and onions (good for a cloudy sort of day, even if it is summer), Sister Schubert rolls (because I am not yet accomplished in the art of bread baking, though I plan to work on that), and probably potatoes on the side. But, anyway, ironing first.

And, whenever I can find a few spare minutes, I will have my daily French lesson. If only I could get my microphone to let me do voice recognition...it would be extremely helpful in a language as hard to pronounce as French.

Created to be his Help Meet

2008-07-21T13:12:00.000-07:00

In the past week, I began reading Debi Pearl's "Created to be his Help Meet" for the first time. I have owned it for years, but had never determined to sit down and read it. In the past couple of weeks, the Lord has used a number of important events to make me realize something I never would have realized without those events: that is, that I am full of pride. Being full of pride makes me be self-centered and self-confident. Being self-centered and self-confident makes me, in fact, a feminist. Being a feminist means that I am not preparing myself to be a good wife to my future husband. I have always wanted desperately, more than anything, to be a virtuous wife to my husband. I am thankful to the Lord for being kind enough to open my eyes to see that I am, in fact, proud and self-centered and haughty and stubborn, judgmental, and even contentious. Every one of those sins stem from the root attitude of pride. Not all of those sins are blatant, but the attitudes of haughtiness and stubbornness and judging and contention are all floating right beneath the surface, manifesting themselves in thoughts and attitudes that I had previously been blind to. Often the Lord has to take us through the hardest things to teach us lessons - to open our eyes to our sin. So, in fact, I am grateful for the difficult things, since He used them to open my eyes to my pride. It never would have happened otherwise. So now I must begin the road to repentance from the sin I have been blind to. Love covers a multitude of others' sins; but pride covers a multitude of my own sins. I thank the Lord for opening my eyes to my pride. I have only just begun to realize how rampant this attitude has been in my life, and certainly cannot claim to have conquered it. I have only just become aware of it in order to start fighting it. It will likely be a long battle fraught with mistakes, but by God's grace, I hope to make the journey and straighten out my attitudes, so that I CAN be a wonderful wife to my husband.

So, with these concerns in mind, I began reading Debi Pearl's book this week. It has been convicting and eye-opening. She issues warnings to wives - young and old - against certain attitudes and the devastating effects they can have upon their husbands. I have seen an alarming number of those attitudes in myself, and it was a revolting sight. It is so easy for us to convince ourselves that we are greatly sanctified and that we have come a long way - and then God, to humble us, pulls back the curtain to show us the acres and acres of pernicious bile still oozing in our hearts' darkest recesses...and mercifully sends conviction to bring us to repentance. I am so incredibly thankful for the opportunity to see these attitudes, and I pray that I may be able to conquer them by God's grace, and become a truly virtuous woman after His own heart. I yearn to do my husband good and not evil all the days of my life.

Debi Pearl's book is not a comfortable book to read, even for the anti-feminist. By nature, all of us are feminists. We inherited feminism from our mother Eve, who started the modern feminist movement when she reached out, took the fruit, and ate it. Nothing has changed since. Every one of us has, in our sinful hearts, the desire to be in control. By nature we do not want to submit. We may convince ourselves that we are submitting and actually still try to be a conscience to our husband or to other family members. We forget that God leads us through our authorities, whether father or husband, and we try to "help" them see their errors, or "help" them see that we are right, or "help" them see why our convictions are more Biblical. Even the conservative woman, so often, still stumbles in the blindness of feminism. We miss the freedom that comes from trusting our father or our husband to follow Jesus Christ, and in following Him, to lead us in the right paths. We miss the peace that comes from turning over the reins to the men in our lives whom God has created to lead us. We fail to follow our calling; even if we do so outwardly, our hearts may still be independent, subversive, and arrogant, as much daughters of Eve as the feminist down the road who works with the men and sends her children to daycare. We think that we want our husbands (or even boyfriends) to be in control, and yet we still try to maintain some control of their minds and consciences, digging in our heels in and stubbornly claiming our right to determine our own callings and convictions in life, expecting them to respect our deep spirituality. We somehow justify the right to be distrustful - an incredibly unattractive attitude for a woman to take towards her man. Whatever became of trusting God to lead through him? Of letting his callings and goals and convictions become our own, knowing that God is sovereign over all and that this is the order He has chosen? How can we go wrong following the model He created? What a grave sin to go against His design, and how easily deceived we women are! Even when I thought I was following His design, my heart was straying far from it in so many subtle attitudes (some not so subtle!) that I was completely blind to.

Debi Pearl challenges us to embrace our God-given roles and to surrender control completely to our husbands. Though I do not have a husband yet, I have realized that I was not as willing to completely surrender control as I thought I was. I thank the Lord for opening my eyes through trials and sound counsel from wiser men and women than I, including the counsel of Mrs. Pearl in her excellent book.

Some favorite quotes from the book so far:

"When you are a help meet to your husband, you are a helper to Christ, for God commissioned man for a purpose and gave him a woman to assist in fulfilling that divine calling. When you honor your husband, you honor God. When you obey your husband, you obey God. The degree to which you reverence your husband is the degree to which you reverence your Creator. As we serve our husbands, we serve God. But in the same way, when you dishonor your husband, you dishonor God."

"You can only realize your womanhood when you are functioning according to your created nature. To covet his role of leadership is to covet something that will not make God, you, or him happy. It is not a question of whether or not you can do a better job than he; it is a matter of doing what you were "designed" to do. If you successfully do the job of leading the family, you will not find satisfaction in it."

"God's will is for a wife to have a merry heart, a cheerful countenance and a glow that will refresh the most stressed and tired husband on the planet. Bubbling cheer goes a long way to maintain or even restore a marriage. Make a decision right now to break the 'poor me' habit. Today, put it down as sin and rebellion, and then tomorrow, wake up with joy in your heart and home."

By God's grace, I do believe that my husband will be my total head in every area, and I am to be his helper in every area. The heart's desire of a godly man would be to follow Christ. I should determine to trust such a man to follow Christ, and in following Him, to provide for all of my needs. There is no need to take the reins for myself (in any area!) when I am following God's design.

Proverbs 13:10

2008-07-14T12:32:00.000-07:00

In the past week, the Lord has been gracious enough to take me through the refiner's fire, and the fire certainly is not over yet. The experience is always a mixture of the bitter and the sweet, but it is, truly, mostly sweet. He is challenging me in areas that have been blind spots for me. I pray that I may come forth as gold, purged of vanity and conceit.

"Only by pride cometh contention: but with the well advised is wisdom." - Proverbs 13:10

Study of a Daylily - taken with my new Canon Digital Rebel XT

2008-05-25T03:07:00.000-07:00

What a mighty and awesome God we serve! How great are His acts, and how marvelous His handiwork!

Lean Hard

2008-05-07T15:04:00.000-07:00

Lean Hard
- Anonymous

Child of My love, lean hard,
And let Me feel the pressure of thy care;
I know thy burden, child, I shaped it;
Poised it in Mine own hand, made no proportion
In its weight to thine unaided strength;
For even as I laid it on, I said,
I shall be near, and while she leans on Me,
This burden shall be Mine, not hers;
So shall I keep My child within the circling arms of Mine own love.

Here lay it down, nor fear
To impose it on a shoulder which upholds
The government of worlds. Yet closer come;
Thou art not near enough; I would embrace thy care
So I might feel My child reposing on My breast.

Thou lovest Me? I knew it. Doubt not then
But loving Me, lean hard.

Spurgeon on I Corinthians 13 - "Love endureth all things"

2008-05-07T14:34:00.000-07:00

"In reference first to our fellow Christians, love holds out under all rebuffs. You mean that I shall not love you, my good man, but I shall love you. You give me the rough side of your tongue, and make me see that you are not a very lovable person, but I can love you notwithstanding all. What? Will you do me a further unkindness? I will oppose you by doing you a greater kindness than before. You said a vile thing about me; I will not hear it, but if it be possible I will say a kind thing of you. I will cover you up with hot coals till I melt you; I will war against you with flames of love till your anger is consumed. I will master you by being kinder to you than you have been unkind to me. What hosts of misrepresentations and unkindnesses there are; but if you go on to be a true Christian you must endure all these. If you have to deal with people who will put up with nothing from you, take care to be doubly patient with them. What credit is there in bearing with those who bear with you? If your brethren are angry without a cause, be sorry for them, but do not let them conquer you by driving you into a bad temper. Stand fast in love; endure not some things, but all things, for Christ's sake; so shall you prove yourself to be a Christian indeed."

Birthday Festivities

2008-04-30T16:09:00.000-07:00

Lovely flowers that arrived in the early afternoon, from a Certain Wonderful Someone. =)

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Later in the day, we headed out to an Olive Garden to meet up with cousins, Anna T., and Jon. He would be the Certain Wonderful Someone who sent the flowers, you'll understand. =)

We were seated right on time, and everyone began the task of trying to decide WHAT to order! I got to sit next to a Very Handsome Man, and I opened my presents after we all placed our orders. My own set of "Little House on the Prairie" books, a set of Dr. Irwin Moon's Moody science DVDs, a book of letters between past presidents and their wives...and a watch from Anna T. AND - Jon gave me my own iPod! I felt quite spoiled by it all - everyone was so generous! Anyway, back to the pictures, which is the main reason I'm making this post. =)

Praise Ye the Lord

2008-04-17T22:06:00.000-07:00

“Praise ye the LORD. Praise, O ye servants of the LORD, praise the name of the LORD. Blessed be the name of the LORD from this time forth and for evermore. From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same the LORD's name is to be praised.”

Tonight my mom and I went for a leisurely walk through our neighborhood. It was a pleasant time to chat about all kinds of Lovely Things, while enjoying the breathtaking beauty of Creation. The temperature was perfect – comfortable and invigorating, and a light breeze rustled the leaves around us. All around the block, azaleas blazed in vibrant hues, and pale, lacey dogwoods leaned gracefully over bushes and fences and peeped out through shadowy woods. The Blades’ old horse leaned thoughtfully on three legs while resting the other against a fence post. Courtly geese and muttering ducks waddling carelessly about him, and the strange old sheep from across the fence peered through with witless curiosity. On the other side of the road, the green, green grass dropped away from an aged house into a bubbling, trickling creek; it ran far back into a lush green field, dotted with hardwoods and lined with a rugged brown fence. By the curb, purple phlox dangled teasingly down into a dip, and a few late daffodils peeped shyly around mailboxes. Japanese maples showed deep burgundy foliage, and everywhere the grass grew thick and green. Squirrels with darting eyes and twitching tails scuttled through pine needles and hopped through bushes, and a bird sang joyfully from the top of a graceful paper birch. A long pond rippled in the setting sunlight and the squawking calls of a few silly geese rang out through the dusky air. The scent of honeysuckle mixed with the early hints of night air wafted past us as we neared our driveway again. And I marveled at all that I had seen. God’s Creation is so beautiful. For that gift alone He is worthy of our praise. But, beyond that, He has poured out so many blessings upon me – so many unexpected, all undeserved. He has answered so many prayers! He is, indeed, a faithful God.

When was the last time you counted your blessings? If you really try to count them, great and small, you will find that they are without number. Today I was rejoicing in my blessings – from the blessing of a godly man who is courting me, to the blessing of spring with all of its blossom and fragrance, and all of the other blessings in between. It is a blessing to simply be able to sit here and write. A blessing to have a loving, godly family and loving, godly friends. But, most of all, it is a blessing to be loved by my Creator God. What a blessing it is to be able to praise my God. It is not as if He needs my praise. The Creator of all the universe could not possibly be made better or worse by whether I praise Him or not. No, He does not need my praise, but He has chosen to inhabit the praises of His people, and to be glorified thereby. As His creature, it is my most joyful duty to praise Him – and I owe Him so much praise that, were I to sing constantly from the rising of the sun to its setting, I could never begin to praise Him enough.

“The LORD is high above all nations, and His glory above the heavens. Who is like unto the LORD our God, who dwelleth on high, Who humbleth Himself to behold the things that are in heaven, and in the earth! He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill; That He may set him with princes, even with the princes of his people. He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye the LORD.” – Psalm 113

Spring Comes to Pinehaven

2008-04-08T23:03:00.000-07:00

Click to view photo set.

Contrasting Character Development - a Lengthy Comparison

2008-03-20T16:05:00.000-07:00

In my current Children’s Writing Institute assignment, I have been challenged to work on character development. I have thought this to be an area I need a great deal of work in, so I’m looking forward to trying it. However, as I have read over the Institute’s examples of great description, I have been reminded, yet again, of how terribly old-fashioned I am. Quite frankly, I don’t like the way people write nowadays. Description is virtually non-existent, especially in children’s writing, and what is insisted upon is action, action, action. If the character is not doing something, you’d better come up with something for him to do, and the faster the better. One cannot spend long at all describing, or you might lose your reader. Or such is the fear of most of today’s authors. So, today, the norm is to cause the character to portray himself by making his personality evident, and the theory is that the reader will figure out all of the details on his own. But, in the process, some important details are missed at times. For instance, I have read a number of sample stories in which I never could figure out whether the main character was a boy or a girl. This seems like a problem to me. Perhaps I could be accused of being a rebel, but I don’t want to be like most of today’s authors. After all, most of today’s authors aren’t going to end up in the classics section of Barnes and Noble. Most of yesterday’s authors didn’t, either. It is always the people who think outside of the box who end up in the classics section. I have noticed that many of today’s authors all sound exactly alike. Today’s authors are not the only culprits in this regard – read some “Lamplighter” books and you will notice that all of those authors (I believe from the Victorian era) also wrote exactly alike. There is no individual style or distinctive quality. Before I give the examples of description and character development from the classics, I will provide a couple of present-day examples from the Children’s Writing Institute. Please pardon the hint at a disrespectful attitude in the child in the following excerpt – this also seems to be a common feature of most of today’s children’s fiction.

Val kicked the soccer ball to an invisible teammate and then raced over to kick it back. It is no fun trying to be a soccer team all by myself, she thought.

Mom and Dad said the new house they were renting was a good deal. But Val thought that moving to a neighborhood that had no children was not a good deal.

Or take this example. Although we are discussing a little boy, he sounds like virtually the same character. And where is the description?

Jamal jabbed the volume button two times, and then three. His little sister, Tamika, was screaming in the next room, and he couldn’t hear the game on TV.

She was always throwing these tantrums. If she didn’t get her way, or she didn’t like what was for dinner, or she didn’t want to go to bed, she’d hurl herself on the floor and just start screaming. What she said never made much sense, and anyway Jamal never hung around long enough to listen. He’d run to his room or down the street to the basketball court – anything to get away. But today he was trying to watch the game – the BIG game – and he wanted to do more than just watch the ball bounce up and down the court and drop into the basket. He wanted to HEAR!

This last example is one of the only stories I found which employs any description at all.

Zakaria watched from behind a mahogany tree as the American family drove away from the compound. He waited a few minutes, to make sure they were really gone, then ran to the fence and began to climb. The chain links didn’t bother him. His feet were tough and calloused from nine years of going barefoot. His arms had plenty of wiry muscle from working on his family’s farm, but no fat, and they lifted him easily over the fence. He tore his shorts a bit going over the top, but he didn’t care. They had lots of other holes already.

For once, we actually found out what age the character is, and we know that his feet are calloused, that he is skinny but muscular, and that his shorts have holes. This is definitely better than the other two, but he still doesn’t sound like a very distinctive or memorable person. Through the whole story about “Val,” I never found out her age or anything about her appearance or the appearance of her surroundings. We just find out that she thinks her parents are nuts and that she loves her pet fish. Just attitudes – nothing concrete. This was also true of Jamal, except that we do at least find out that he likes basketball. Again, not concrete. This doesn’t make him come vividly to life in my mind so that I can clearly picture him.

Description is almost non-existent. This is largely because magazines impose word limits that severely limit an author’s ability to indulge in description. I’m not at all sure this is a good thing and I am somewhat hesitant to get into magazine writing. The trouble is, that’s the only way to get into any kind of writing – you have to start with magazines and their creativity-pinching word limits. Alas, c’est la vie.

“Show, don’t tell” has come to mean that you can never inform the reader of anything. You cannot interpret anything for the reader. Everything has to come directly from the character, because you can never write about the character from another character’s point of view. Generally, this is a good plan. But if I never come outside of the main character’s viewpoint, how can I describe him? This results in stories where you find out a lot about a character’s attitude, but virtually nothing about his personality as it comes across to others, and often nothing at all about his appearance. To me, all of the sample stories I have read could be about the same character – they are all nearly identical in their attitudes and modes of expression. Contrast the previous examples with a description of Charlotte from E.B. White’s children’s classic, Charlotte’s Web. Look at how effectively (but briefly) White describes her in the first paragraph, and then look at how much the characters’ distinctive personalities show up in the dialogue.

At last Wilbur saw the creature that had spoken to him in such a kindly way. Stretched across the upper part of the doorway was a big spiderweb, and hanging from the top of the web, head down, was a large grey spider. She was about the size of a gumdrop. She had eight legs, and she was waving one of them at Wilbur in friendly greeting. “See me now?” she asked.

“Oh, yes indeed,” said Wilbur. “Yes indeed! How are you? Good morning! Salutations!
Very pleased to meet you. What is your name, please? May I have your name?”

“My name,” said the spider, “is Charlotte.”

“Charlotte what?” asked Wilbur, eagerly.

“Charlotte A. Cavatica. But just call me Charlotte.”

“I think you’re beautiful,” said Wilbur.

“Well, I am pretty,” replied Charlotte. “There’s no denying that. Almost all spiders are rather nice-looking. I’m not as flashy as some, but I’ll do. I wish I could see you, Wilbur, as clearly as you can see me.”

“Why can’t you?” asked the pig. “I’m right here.”

“Yes, but I’m near-sighted,” replied Charlotte. “I’ve always been dreadfully near-sighted. It’s good in some ways, not so good in others. Watch me wrap up this fly…”

“You mean you eat flies?” gasped Wilbur… “Do they taste good?”

“Delicious. Of course, I don’t really eat them. I drink them – drink their blood. I love blood,” said Charlotte, and her pleasant, thin voice grew even thinner and more pleasant.

“Don’t say that!” groaned Wilbur. “Please don’t say things like that!”

This was wonderful example of “show, don’t tell.” We have found out all kinds of things about Charlotte in a lively and interesting manner. She’s starting to seem real already – and at this point White has already endowed Wilbur with plenty of personality, so the reader is well acquainted with him. And this is the book that has been made into two movies, mind you, so there is clearly something very memorable about it!

Next observe how Louisa May Alcott introduces each character at the beginning of Little Women, so that you already have a sense of their personalities. Keep in mind that Little Women was written as a children’s book – it is not meant to be adult fiction.

“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.

“It’s so dreadful to be poor!” sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress.

“I don’t think it’s fair for some girls to have plenty of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all,” added little Amy, with an injured sniff.

“We’ve got father and mother and each other,” said Beth contentedly, from her corner.

So, just from the first few lines of the book, we already know that Jo speaks her mind and does unladylike things like lying on the rug. We know that Meg does not like being poor and that she is dissatisfied with her old dress. We know that Amy likes pretty things and places importance on the opinion of others, and that she puts on airs (as judging from the “injured sniff”). And, clearly, Beth is sweet, conciliatory, withdrawn, and content. It’s all right there, but she had to inform us.

Next, a more detailed description of Jo from a bit later in the chapter.

Fifteen-year-old Jo was very tall, thin, and brown, and reminded one of a colt; for she never seemed to know what to do with her long limbs, which were very much in her way. She had a decided mouth, a comical nose, and sharp, gray eyes, which appeared to see everything, and were by turns fierce, funny, or thoughtful. Her long, thick hair was her one beauty; but it was usually bundled into a net, to be out of her way. Round shoulders had Jo, big hands and feet, a flyaway look to her clothes, and the uncomfortable appearance of a girl who was rapidly shooting up into a woman, and didn’t like it.

And now we are quite acquainted with Jo and know what to expect from her in the pages to follow. Again, at least three movies have been made about this book, as I recall – perhaps even four.

Now we move on to one of my favorite books with some of my favorite characters of all time. Following are three descriptions from L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables: Mrs. Rachel Lynde, Marilla Cuthbert, and, of course, Anne Shirley. This was, again, meant to be a children’s book.

Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies’ eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert place…She was a notable housewife; her work was always done and well done; she “ran” the Sewing Circle, helped run the Sunday-school, and was the strongest prop of the Church Aid Society and Foreign Missions Auxiliary. Yet with all this Mrs. Rachel found abundant time to sit for hours at her kitchen window, knitting “cotton warp” quilts – she had knitted sixteen of them, as Avonlea housekeepers were wont to tell in awed voices – and keeping a sharp eye on the main road that crossed the hollow and wound up the steep red hill beyond. Since Avonlea occupied a little triangular peninsula jutting out into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, with water on two sides fo it, anybody who went out of it or into it had to pass over that hill road and so run the unseen gauntlet of Mrs. Rachel’s all-seeing eye.

Marilla was a tall, thin woman, with angles and without curves; her dark hair showed some gray streaks and was always twisted up in a hard little knot behind with two wire hairpins struck aggressively through it. She looked like a woman of narrow experience and rigid conscience, which she was; but there was a saving something about her mouth which, if it had been ever so slightly developed, might have been considered indicative of a sense of humor.

Matthew was not looking at her and would not have seen what she was really like if he had been, but an ordinary observer would have seen this: A child of about eleven, garbed in a very short, very tight, very ugly dress of yellowish gray wincey. She wore a faded brown sailor hat and beneath the hat, extending down her back, were two braids of very thick, decidedly red hair. Her face was small, white and thin, also much freckled; her mouth was large and so were her eyes, that looked green in some lights and moods and gray in others. So far, the ordinary observer; an extraordinary observer might have seen that the chin was very pointed and pronounced; that the big eyes were full of spirit and vivacity; that the mouth was sweet-lipped and expressive; that the forehead was broad and full; in short, our discerning extraordinary observer might have concluded that no commonplace soul inhabited the body of this stray woman-child of whom shy Matthew Cuthbert was so ludicrously afraid…”I suppose you are Mr. Matthew Cuthbert of Green Gables?” she said in a peculiarly clear, sweet voice. “I’m very glad to see you. I was beginning to be afraid you weren’t coming for me and I was imagining all the things that might have happened to prevent you. I had made up my mind that if you didn’t come for me tonight I’d go down the track to that big wild cherry tree at the bend, and climb up into it to stay all night. I wouldn’t be a bit afraid, and it would be lovely to sleep in a wild cherry tree all white with bloom in the moonshine, don’t you think? You could imagine you were dwelling in marble halls, couldn’t you? And I was quite sure you would come for me in the morning, if you didn’t tonight.”

She doesn’t break the “show, don’t tell” rule, as far as I can see. She paints a vivid word picture of each character, and after one paragraph about them we are already vividly acquainted with aspects of their personalities. It’s wonderful. And this was made into a fabulous movie, as well. I believe every homeschool girl has it for a favorite at some point, just like The Sound of Music.

And, of course, we mustn’t neglect Dickens, the greatest of all character creators. Of course, most of his famous writings were not intended for children, so one could not be as complex as he is in writing a story for a child. But he is so accomplished that I must mention him anyway. In David Copperfield, he introduces the formidable (and very pivotal) character of Miss Betsey Trotwood in the following fashion, as she makes her arrival on the eve of David’s birth.

My mother…was sitting by the fire, that bright, windy March afternoon, very timid and sad, and very doubtful of ever coming alive out of the trial that was before here, when, lifting her eyes as she dried them to the window opposite, she saw a strange lady coming up the garden.

My mother had a sure foreboding at the second glance, that it was Miss Betsey. The setting sun was glowing on the strange lady, over the garden fence, and she came walking up to the door with a fell rigidity of figure and composure of countenance that could have belonged to nobody else. When she reached the house, she gave another proof of her identity. My father had often hinted that she seldom conducted herself like any ordinary Christian; and now, instead of ringing the bell, she came and looked in at that identical window, pressing the end of her nose against the glass to that extent, that my poor dear mother used to say it became perfectly flat and white in a moment.

She gave my mother such a turn, that I have always been convinced I am indebted to Miss Betsey for having been born on a Friday…

“Mrs. David Copperfield, I think,” said Miss Betsey; the emphasis referring, perhaps, to my mother’s mourning weeds, and her condition.

“Yes,” said my mother faintly.

“Miss Trotwood,” said the visitor. “You have heard of her, I dare say?”

My mother answered she had had that pleasure. And she had a disagreeable consciousness of not appearing to imply that it had been an overpowering pleasure.

“Now you see her,” said Miss Betsey.

We already know that Miss Betsey is quite a unique person. He continues, very artfully, to reveal more and more of her personality in the following lines. He doesn’t sit down and tell us everything about her – but it comes out without having to invent contrived conversations.

And now, the introduction of one of my favorite characters from all the literature I have read: Mr. Micawber.

…Mr. Quinion tapped at the counting-house window, and beckoned me to go in. I went in, and found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his cout, - for ornament, I afterwards found, as he very seldom looked through it, and couldn’t see anything when he did.

“This,” said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, “is he.”

“This,” said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, which impressed me very much, “is Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well, sir?”

I said I was very well, and hoped he was…

“I am,” said the stranger, “quite well. I have received a letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he would desire me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at present unoccupied – and is, in short, to be let as a – in short,” said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of confidence, “as a bedroom – the young beginner whom I have now the pleasure to” – and the stranger waved his hand, and settled his chin in his shirt-collar.

“This is Mr. Micawber,” said Mr. Quinion to me.

“Ahem!” said the stranger, “that is my name.”

“Mr. Micawber,” said Mr. Quinion, “is known to Mr. Murdstone. He…will receive you as a lodger.”

“My address,” said Mr. Micawber, “is Windsor Terrace, City Road. I – in short,” said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and in another burst of confidence – “I live there.”

And there you have it. This book was made into two movies that I know of, but I wasn’t particularly fond of either. Dickens’ books are almost too complex to fit into anything short of a miniseries. ;) But this is the way I wish to write. Did you notice how distinctive each author’s style was? No two were alike – none were really even particularly similar. But all have very effective methods of portraying their characters, without relying upon the character to accidently “leak out” information about his looks or personality. The emphasis is not on attitude – it is on personality and what makes each character unique. They feel like real people. As most of my feminine readers have probably experienced, after reading Little Women or Anne of Green Gables you feel as if you know the main characters personally. Contrasting this with much of the modern literature I have read – I never feel as if I know the characters at all. They are all two-dimensional and predictable. They are almost all virtually the same. This is true of many old books as well – for instance, as much as I like G.A. Henty, all of his main characters are exactly the same. There are no quirks or curious traits to make them individuals. Don’t write like everyone else. God did not give us creativity so that we could all parrot one another!

Thus, the key to creating a memorable character is to capitalize on what makes that character a character. Be sure you fill the reader in on those distinctive qualities, whether you tell them right off or let it gradually come out in dialogue – it must be done if anyone is to come away from your story saying, “I loved the characters in that story – I feel like I know them, myself!”

Comparing the Stars

2008-03-14T18:22:00.000-07:00

I just got lost over on YouTube, looking through videos of great violinists. I have always said that if I did not play the piano, I would want to play the violin. There is something so human-like about a well-played violin - so vocal and songful. I would like to share a few links to some great violinists, all playing the same piece: Tchaikovsky's violin concerto in D major. This is one of my favorite pieces for violin and I thought it would be interesting to compare how a few of the "greats" play it. In my opinion, demeanor and poise add a great deal to a performance - one of the following performers would be much easier to enjoy if he were not so bent on making grotesque facial expressions. There is a difference between someone whose facial expressions indicate intense concentration and soulful artistry (and one of the following violinists would fall into that category) and someone whose facial expressions seem to be purely grotesque for the sake of showing off, or something (and, as I mentioned, one of the following violinists definitely falls into this category - in my opinion). Anyway, I will not say which of the following performances is my favorite - I would be interested to hear your thoughts. But every performance is so very different, and each is quite beautiful.

First, Joshua Bell plays the concerto. Joshua Bell is in a newer generation of violinists, but he was trained in the old style, so his playing is grand and eloquent, and not unlike the old masters below.

Second, Itzhak Perlman plays with the inimitable Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia orchestra. A fabulous violinist who was afflicted with polio and has to give his concerts sitting down. He is proclaimed by many as the reincarnation of Jascha Heifetz (listed next), and his technique and tone leave many speechless when they have heard him.

Last, Jascha Heifetz plays an abbreviated form of the concerto for a movie, with the great Fritz Reiner conducting. Generally held to be the greatest violinist of the last two centuries, he possessed an absolutely flawless technique that held up even through even the most virtuosic literature. Many consider him to still be without equal, much like the great Caruso of opera's golden years.

Two Sonnets

2008-03-06T17:13:00.000-08:00

I wrote these sonnets several years ago when I was in highschool. The first was inspired, presumably, by my study of English history, and the second was inspired by a combination of English history and the discovery of a few fascinating old English words. I believe I was taking a poetry course at the time and had just been learning about sonnet form. The first, I hope, follows the correct rhyming scheme and number of lines. Evidently I didn't remember it all correctly, for, alas, the second sonnet (which was always my favorite) has one too many lines. Oh, well. So much for writing a Shakespearian sonnet! ;)

A Serf’s Meditation

My eye observes this land on which I’m dwelling –
This land I work for one of grand estate,
And ponder on my own, unchanging fate.
That here I stay – a man my freedom quelling,
Here I remain, with no chance for excelling,
This land, not mine, but his to cultivate.
It seems absurd as here I meditate
That I should lead my life at his compelling.
But here, at least, I have my home and worth
To dull somewhat the blade of serfdom’s knife.
At least, around my table, we have mirth,
At least, at home, I worry not for strife,
And here, beside our hearth, we have no dearth
Of love, which makes worth living dullest life.

--------------------------------------------

The Battle Cry

Sound me cry o’er mead and burn, ye lads,
Take ye’er pikes and lances and a’hie!
And o’er yon grassy vales and then away!
Drop your mead, ye sots, and take ye’er halberds,
Not a time be this war now for nidderds.
Iwis we reach the battle – it is nigh
And all ye sons o’ Britain, hark and rise!
‘Tis battle, ‘tis, a kingdom’s massacre!
Methinks that concord be a thing long past,
Yet twain our kingdom’s split, and purged in gore.
I wite ye not for gazing thus aghast,
But leave ye’er tofts and come with me to fore.
A’hie, ye sons o’ Britain! To the rasp
O’ flashing swords and halberds, battle’s chords,
And hold ye’er fatherland, until the last!

"Fellowshipping with the Vegetables" (in which the author proves that she can gab about anything)

2008-02-21T21:03:00.000-08:00

The curious title of this post is taken from one of my siblings, commenting on the similar state of several other siblings gathered around the dinner table...that is, sitting and staring at vegetables, working up the courage to eat them. Tonight we had a few adventurous vegetables, along with a delicious London broil, new potatoes, green beans, and poppy seed rolls. The adventurous vegetables were, by name, cauliflower and the ever-popular favorite, Brussels sprouts.

We tried Brussels sprouts because rumor has it that a certain person of our acquaintance thinks they are infinitely superior to okra. So we decided to give them another try.

My parents, not being picky eaters, are both rather fond of Brussels sprouts and cauliflower. The author was surprised to find that she enjoys them far better than she remembers enjoying them when she was a wee tike. In fact, they were quite appetizing. (She is discovering that it makes a huge difference when they are actually cooked properly.) However, most of her siblings did not share similar emotions towards the sprouts - this was not always stated, but often implied by various facial expressions and other non-verbal modes of expression, such as evacuating the table and hanging over the garbage can. The Littlest Brother could barely swallow his, and, in fact, begged out of it. He even tried to beg out of the cauliflower but was forced to eat it anyway, though everyone else found that they enjoyed it quite well.

The poor, neglected Brussels sprouts, however, did not go over so well. Only one brother enjoyed them, and he decided to rub it in by going over to the counter and grabbing a sizable sprout (and a sizable stalk of cauliflower) and stuffing both into his mouth with smug relish. This was only to the mutual disdain of the other siblings, who remained staunchly unaffectionate towards the lowly Brussels sprout.

Alas for the brassica oleracea. It seems to be a very unpopular vegetable - save for those with very refined and intellectual tastes. In fact, according to Wikipedia, the name stems only from the fact that they are grown in Brussels, not necessarily because they are popular there. Again according to Wikipedia, they are quite good for you (as most vegetables are, naturally), for they contain helpful amounts of vitamins A, B6, C, and K, folic acid, manganese, dietary fiber, and potassium. They can even help prevent colon and bladder cancers, and are reputedly good foods for detoxing. (Hum!) The United States is actually a large producer of this grievous green (you can thank the French for introducing it to Louisiana back in 1800), with thousands of coastal growers in California, and 2% of the crop coming from Long Island, New York. (Notice that they come from the most politically liberal locations in the entire country...could there be anything to learn from this?) ;)

How many tons of Brussels sprouts do you think the U.S. produces? Yes, tons. And not just a few of them. Actually, the U.S. produces 32,000 tons of Brussels sprouts and they are collectively worth $27 million. (Perhaps...just perhaps...I should call our farming neighbors down the street and advise them of the monetary benefits of raising Brussels sprouts - the only problem being that the climate is all wrong around here. Oh, well.) Ontario, Canada only produces 1,000 tons, and Germany only produces 10,000. The Netherlands produces 82,000 metric tons. That's a lot of Brussels sprouts.

The article states that an unnamed 2002 survey found that the Brussels sprout is England's most-hated vegetable. They are, however, a traditional Christmas vegetable in the United Kingdom. It seems that, when they are cooked for too long, they release sulfur compounds and smell unpleasant. As I said before, when they are cooked properly, they actually are quite tasty.

So, now that we know more about Brussels sprouts, here are a few recipes for your enjoyment. I haven't tried them, yet, but I shall have to do so at some point. It's good to branch out, right? I enjoyed my plain Brussels sprouts enough tonight that I'm ready to try dressing them up. And these recipes even got good reviews on Allrecipes.com. ;)

Roasted Brussels Sprouts - very simple, just olive oil, kosher salt, and pepper, roasted in the oven

Shredded Brussels Sprouts - with bacon, butter, pine nuts, seasoned salt, and pepper.

Breaded Brussels Sprouts - sounds a little strange to me, but it has good reviews; salt, butter, Parmesan cheese, bread crumbs, garlic powder, black pepper, and seasoned salt.

So - will you try them or not?

Lone Ranger Schooling

2008-02-20T09:03:00.000-08:00

The Lone Ranger was taking in a math lesson.

This was followed by a brief lesson in knot-tying...

Which was followed by a demonstration of escapology, for which the Lone Ranger requested that we remove his mask.

Evidently the Lone Ranger possesses some skills as a Houdini, for he quickly extricated himself and returned complacently to his math lesson.

Hofmaken in the Homeschool Household - an anecdote

2008-02-12T22:20:00.000-08:00

It was a night like any other in the typical homeschool household. Well, actually, it was quite a different night in many compelling respects, but we digress from the point of our story. We were sitting in the living room, discussing everything from theology to Halloween to Rachmaninoff, and then everything from the roles of men and women to the merits of house churching, and many other topics of mature and adult interest.

However, to the Youngest Brother, there was something intensely interesting about the mature adult conversation in progress. No doubt he has overheard many discussions on equally mature topics, and it is doubtful that he is, at present, particularly desirous of participating. If he is anything like I was at his age, he thinks that grown-ups must be the most bored people on the planet, because they can do nothing but sit and talk. Why talk when you can run and play? What fun is there in talking? But on this particular night, playing was not as interesting as the conversation in question. This is not an uncommon phenomenon in the homeschool household, hence my reference to its being typical. However, as aforementioned, there were certain aspects to this particular situation which made it decidedly non-typical - so perhaps this contributed to the Youngest Brother's interest.

At any rate, as the conversation proceeded, the Youngest Brother was upstairs growing tired of being upstairs. Perhaps, after all, the grown up conversation was more interesting than he would think. In fact, it could be getting very interesting. Especially since...well. He wondered what was going on...if he was missing anything particularly fascinating or important. He decided to investigate. Being a good homeschooled child, he has no lack of numerous educational, scientific, and potentially dangerous tools at his disposal. In a few ingenious moments, he had rounded up the old plastic periscope, and stealthily crept over to the upstairs railing which offers a narrow view down into the living room.

Out in the computer room, which also has a view of the living room (you might gather that the living room would not be a good place to have any Really Private conversations), a Bigger Brother peered over the fish tank and gaped in astonishment. Above the heads of the unsuspecting conversants, from between the rails of the banister, a long yellow tube came unsteadily snaking down.

At the other end of the long yellow tube, the Youngest Brother peered down to see how the mature adult conversation was progressing. Since he could not really hear it, it was hard to tell. But at this point, he was not the only one curious - for an Older Brother came slithering stealthily up beside him and hissed, "Let me take a look!"

All the while, the clueless conversants proceeded through other mature adult topics, never dreaming of how fascinating it all seemed to the younger and not-included members of the party. It was, perhaps, fortunate for the conversants that it was only a younger brother with a periscope to whom they were so oblivious, and not a sniper with a well-aimed rifle. But we needn't digress into speculation.

Meanwhile, as the periscope swung a bit lower and peered around inquisitively, the Bigger Brother was becoming genuinely alarmed. This simply wouldn't do. Bigger Brother began to silently gesticulate at the long yellow tube, with very strong gestures indicating that it should be immediately withdrawn to the place from whence it came. And he peeped over the fish tank to see if there really was anything intensely worth seeing in the living room.

Alas for the peepers at the periscope. It was silently withdrawn and its bearers beat a stealthy retreat. And the mature adult conversation in the living room continued pleasantly, without further (known) mishap or interruption.

Loved, So to Love Thee - a Poem

2008-02-05T22:01:00.000-08:00

Loved, so to love Thee.
Alone and ashamed,
Caught running and sinful,
Belligerent, blamed.
A God-hating soul
Cursed the holiest King -
Yet was loved, and by loving,
Forced sweetly to Thee.

Sought, so to seek Thee.
In self, no desire –
No longing and yearning
To taste of Thy fire.
Yet loving, You sought, through no light of my own,
To draw me from darkness to bow at Thy throne.
From brawling to bowing;
From high looks to tears.
You taught me, oh, Father,
To love and to fear.

Enslaved, to know freedom.
Bound, self to desire –
And stubbornly choosing
Not Christ, but sin’s mire.
And yet, by Thy vict’ry
O’er death Thou hast won,
And bought me from slavery
To sin to Thy Son.
So now my redeemed soul in lowliness brings
This God-ransomed body as slave to my King.

Chosen to choose Thee.
Believing in self –
Pursuing my passions, my pleasures and pelf,
My heart fleeing from Thee,
By Satan’s host claimed,
By my own choosing battered, left ruined and maimed.
Yet chosen – not worthy to taste of Thy grace,
Deserving not even the glance of Thy face –
Yet chosen. And by Thy own choosing, redeemed,
Despite my own will, to be ransomed to Thee.

So now may my self die yet more every hour,
For now the old man is renewed in Christ’s power.
This worm-equalled wretch made from lowliest sod
Was loved by my holy and infinite God.

Henceforth may this victory song ever ring
In praise to my Savior – my Jesus, my King.
My Captain, my Master, my Prophet and Priest,
Who rampaged my dungeon and brought me, released.
Not seeking, He sought me –
Not yielding, He won –
Not yearning or bowing to worship God’s Son.
Yet chosen by Jesus,
And drawn from above,
Brought home from that sin-mire,
And ravished by love.

A.W. Pink's "Practical Christianity"

2008-01-31T21:21:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I (finally) completed A.W. Pink's book, "Practical Christianity." Pink is not the easiest author to read - not because he is a bad author, but because he delves so deep - so it generally takes me quite some time to get through his books. I would, however, heartily recommend him to anyone seeking a good book to read. His works are weighty and deep, and eloquently presented. He follows Strunk's rules of uses and does not indulge in excessive or flowery language, but his very economy of words makes him just that much more eloquent. He strikes right to the heart of the matter, and when he has a hard saying to present, he just says it and doesn't try to make it more palatable than God does in His Word. His writing is peppered with Bible quotations and references - so much so that he scarcely leaves himself any opportunity to wander away from exposition into speculation. He sticks to the Word and doesn't let himself launch into human reasoning. And yet, for all his lofty eloquence and depth of insight, one comes away from his books feeling like you have just been sitting at tea with a very dear, very truthful friend - just talking about God and His Word.

Now, prefacing aside, I will speak more particularly about this book, "Practical Christianity." This book is a collection of articles written by Pink at various points in his life, but all are about the same general topic of how to live Christianity out in real life. He discusses doctrine, but his main intent is to show how exactly our doctrine should affect the way we live in every situation. He begins by lovingly challenging every reader to personally work out his own salvation with fear and trembling - and to make certain that he is evidencing himself to be a true child of God, and not a self-deceived hypocrite. He challenges hypocrites to repent and encourages the sincere to delve deeper. He encourages all to be certain that you do not think of Jesus Christ as merely being "Savior" - that you also are submitted to Him as absolute LORD of all.

"Have you searched yourself narrowly, my reader, to ascertain whether or not 'the root of the matter' (Job 19:28) be in you?"

"Many are never saved because they wish to divide Christ; they want to take Him as Saviour, but are unwilling to subject themselves unto Him as their Lord. Or if they are prepared to own Him as Lord, it is not as an absolute Lord. But this cannot be: Christ will either be Lord of all or He will not be Lord at all. But the vast majority of professing Christians would have Christ's sovereignty limited at certain points; it must not encroach too far upon the liberty which some worldly lust or carnal interest demands. His peace they covet, but His "yoke" is unwelcome. Of all such Christ will yet say, 'But these Mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.' (Luke 19:27)"

"Many are willing for Christ to officiate as their Priest, but not for Him to legislate as their King...But come to particulars: apply to each one of them those specific commandments and precepts of the Lord which they are ignoring, and they will at once cry out 'Legalism!' or 'We cannot be perfect in everything.'"

He expounds upon the power of God, inspiring the reader to awe and fear, in the wake of the soul-searching of the first chapter - encouraging them that, however great their sins, there is One Who is able to rescue them from that sin.

"Sin is a mighty monarch which none of his subjects can withstand. There was more in Adam while innocent to resist sin than in any other since, for sin has an ally within the fallen creature that is ever ready to betray him into temptation from without. But sin had no such advantage over Adam, nevertheless it overwhelmed him. The non-elect angels were yet better able to withstand sin than Adam was, having a more excellent nature and being nearer to God, yet sin prevailed against them, and threw them out of heaven into hell. Then what a mighty power is required to subdue it! Only He who 'led captivity captive' can make His people more than conquerors."

And so he goes on, correcting misunderstandings of verses like that in II Cor. declaring that, "old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." He discusses the woes of the sin nature and lays out ways for the true Christian to determine whether or not he is truly regenerated, if he is struggling with doubts. He discusses the work of God in the new man's heart, and warns against becoming a "sleepy saint" through carelessness or indifference. He encourages the Christian to mortify the flesh and to put on the full armor of God. He then lifts the reader's gaze upwards again towards the supremacy of God (this is the chapter I recently posted in its entirety) and, after showing the reader what an Awesome Lord he serves, demands that we render Him obedience. He discusses the right of Christians to private judgment - not to be dictated to by popes or any other, but to examine God's Word for themselves. After a few words directed specifically at Christian employees and how they should behave in the workplace, he discusses (in a lengthy final chapter) the idea of chastening and God's blessing. If a Christian is saved from punishment, why is he still chastened upon earth for his wrong doing? Pink expounds upon this at much greater length than I am able to do here (I would have to copy the entire chapter), but he explains the difference between God's providental dealings with men and His governmental dealings. One may be truly saved from eternal punishment by the blood of Christ, but that does not mean that any ill behavior now is going to be winked at. Our disobedience must bring God's punishment, which is mercifully given to direct us back into the narrow path - our obedience brings God's blessing. This was one of my favorite chapters, for the simple way in which he expounded several difficult verses and skillfully handled objections and questions. I wish I could post it all for you, but I suppose you'll just have to purchase the book if you want to read it. ;)

Following, a few more favorite quotes from the book - there are so many excellent, convicting, and sobering ones that it is hard to choose just a few!

"The regenerate 'love the brethren' not because they are affable and genial, or because they give a warm welcome to their circle. They 'love the brethren' not because they deem them wise and orthodox, but because of their godliness, and the more their godliness is evidenced the more will they love them; and hence they love all the godly - no matter what their denominational connections. They love those whom Christ loves, they love them for His sake - because they belong to Him. Their love is a spiritual, disinterested and faithful one which seeks the good of its objects, which sympathizes with them in their spiritual trials and conflicts, which bears them up in their prayers before the throne of grace, which unselfishly shows kindness unto them, which admonishes and rebukes when that be necessary."

"Where the eternal interests of the soul are concerned only a fool would give himself the benefit of the doubt."

"Commenting on the quickness of his conversion, Whitefield aptly said to those who queried whether any were genuine Christians who had not undergone some 'terrible experience' of conviction or terror of the wrath to come, 'You may as well say to your neighbor you have not had a child, for you were not in labour all night. The question is, whether a real child was born, not how long was the preceding pain!'"

"When the mind rests upon the human instrument, not only is spiritual progress in the Truth immediately arrested, but the living power of what Truth is already attained dies out of the enslaved heart, being displaced by dogmas received on human authority. Divine Truth then degenerates into a party distinction, for which many zealously contend in naught but a sectarian spirit."

"'They made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept' (Song of Sol. 1:16). Then away with fruitless controversies and idle questions; away with empty names and vain shows; away with harsh censuring of others - turn upon yourself. You have been a stranger long enough to this work; you have trifled about the borders of religion too long: the world has deterred you from this vitally necessary work too long. Will you now resolve to look better after your heart? Haste you to your closet."

Photos of the Day - Creative Gingerbread Men (mostly made by Hannah Z, but the dough was rolled by Benji

2008-01-31T20:42:00.000-08:00

How A Snowflake Is Born

2008-01-29T17:28:00.000-08:00

High up in the dark winter sky, a snowflake was born. In the beginning of the snowflake, it was only a tiny little ice crystal, no bigger than the period at the end of this sentence. A tiny particle – smaller than a speck of dust – floated up high into the clouds. As the air grew cold, high up where the clouds were, the water vapor froze against the particle, forming a tiny crystal. When it froze, more particles of ice continued to stick to it as they blew against each other, forming a crystal face with six sides – a hexagon.

As more and more ice crystals joined together, the crystal face began to form into a prism – a tiny block of ice shaped like a hexagon all the way through. The ice crystals formed as water molecules froze, and when they joined with other ice crystals, they always did it in six-sided shapes. Water molecules cannot be shaped with five sides, or eight sides, or ten sides. They always form shapes with 6 sides, and so the snowflake began as a hexagon.

All snowflakes start off the same way, like this one, but not all of them are shaped like the pretty, feathery ones we see in pictures. Some are shaped like needles. Some look like little ice bullets. Still others are shaped like long columns, and others look like empty thread bobbins. The fancy, feather ones are called “dendrites,” but the ones that don’t grow as many branches are called stars. There are about 41 different basic shapes of snowflakes, but no two are ever quite alike. The way they form depends on what happens to them as they fall, and it is different for every snowflake.

What happened next to the snowflake was different from what happened to all of the other baby snowflakes forming up high in the wintery clouds, and all of them were different from each other. All of them were blown about by different winds, and fell through different temperatures of air for different amounts of time. These things and many more changed the way the snowflake looked as it continued to form.

The snowflake was still just a prism, but the prism was growing as more and more ice crystals joined to it. Inside of the prism, cavities began to form because the ice grew faster near the edges, where more ice crystals could touch it. Soon the edges sealed shut before the inside was filled with ice, and this left little lines deep inside the crystal’s growing surface. They formed the shape of a star, and this is how the stars are formed that you can often see in the very center of a snowflake. Why they form into the shape of a star, nobody knows for certain. Perhaps someday you can figure out why it happens that way.

Still ice crystals were sticking to the crystal, but something was beginning to change. The six corners of the prism touched more water vapor than the sides, so more ice crystals began to stick to the corners, forming wee little branches that began to sprout out from all six corners. More and more ice crystals clung to the branches, and they grew longer and longer. The snowflake was blowing through a place where the air was 10.4°F (-12°C), so the branches grew fat and wide, and grooves and ridges formed in beautiful, symmetrical lines. (Symmetrical means that they all looked much alike, like a mirror image.)

The snowflake fell through some cooler air – just a little bit cooler, for instead of 10.4°F it was 8.6°F (-13°C), and the branches began to grow more narrow branches. And so, every time the temperature changed by just a degree, the snowflake’s branches changed a bit more.

When the air warmed a degree, new branches began to grow out of the first branches. Each branch formed separately, all by itself, and yet as the branches grew out, they all grew alike. No one knows why the branches all form alike, even though they grow all by themselves. That would be almost like you and your brothers and sisters all growing up to look exactly the same way. Of course, that never happens – but it does with a snowflake. Perhaps someday you can be the one to discover why snowflakes’ branches grow just alike.

When the snowflake reached the ground, it was not a baby snowflake anymore. It was a beautiful dendrite with six feathery points and a star in the middle. Around it were many other snowflakes – many were also dendrites, with differently styled points and feathering. Some of them were simple stars, and there were some that had joined together, forming 12-pointed stars. But some were deformed, broken and ugly. What had happened to these? Perhaps they had bumped into other snowflakes on the way down – or had been blown about too much. No one could have told – but some snowflakes do not come out looking beautiful and perfect. Some are destroyed and deformed before they ever reach the ground.

Do you know that there are many people who declare that a snowflake is proof of evolution? After all, it is something coming from nothing, isn’t it? Actually, it is a wonderful evidence of God’s hand in creation. Water molecules are designed so that they can only join in the shape of a hexagon and form beautiful snowflakes. They could not possibly form in any other way. Every snowflake that falls is a testimony of the Creator behind the laws of nature, governing everything from the orbits of the planets to the formation of a snowflake. “God thundereth marvellously with his voice; great things doeth he, which we cannot comprehend. For he saith to the snow, Be thou on the earth; likewise to the small rain, and to the great rain of his strength. He sealeth up the hand of every man; that all men may know his work.” (Job 37:5-7)

(Photos from www.snowcrystals.com.)

Photos of the Day

2008-01-29T17:11:00.000-08:00

A mockingbird checks out the fearsome plastic owl which Pinehaven's previous owners set out to frighten away pesky critters...

And he quickly decided that he had nothing to worry about.

Matthew Henry Quote...

2008-01-26T13:10:00.000-08:00

"When we are out of the way of our duty we are in the way of temptation."

- Matthew Henry on II Samuel 11

Poem Inspired by a Photo

2008-01-22T22:16:00.000-08:00

As I looked at my winter photos last night, I was inspired to write a poem based upon the photos of snow-covered blossoms. At one point in the poem I use a word which I had never heard until recently, when I listened to Haydn's "Creation" oratorio performed in English. The word is "roundelay." It is a charming little word from Old English, which came from the Old French "rondelet." "Roundelay" means:

1.	a song in which a phrase, line, or the like, is continually repeated.

2.	the music for such a song.

3.	a dance in a circle; round dance.

It seems like such a perfect word to use in describing spring and its beauties - as spring is so much like a song, in itself - so I was looking forward to an opportunity to use it. It is a beautiful word, so I thought I would explain it so you'll know what it means when you encounter it. I certainly would not have known, if not for Haydn. =)

-------------------------------------------------

I bloomed when warmth’s deceptive breeze
Came whisp’ring winsome lies to me -
When quiet rustles of the spring
Seemed true enough to waken me.

The balmy breezes of the South
Blew from the pit’s purloining mouth,
And in my naiveté I grew –
Grew – as all springtime flowers do.
I did not note the taste of death -
The chill beneath the under breath.
And in the haunted dawn of doom,
Spread tender petals forth to bloom.

The timid others did not dare
To spread against the whispering air –
But I, in springtime’s hasteful mirth,
Drew forth my sustenance from earth.

The birds were still, and not a tree
Put forth a single leaf,
But me.

I thought but little of delay,
As first of springtime’s roundelay,
And so put forth my precious gems
Amid the earth’s sweet blowing winds,
But not another flow'r did peep –
Yea, all did seem still fast asleep –
All lost in winter’s slumbering stay,
And, blissful, lost to night or day.

As soon as it had come, it fled –
And in came winter, cold and dead.
The knavish, rogueish, balmy wind
Had left my flow’rs and I to fend
Against the cruel bite of death
Blown by the North’s own chilling breath.

Aye, as the chilling wind came by,
The snow-clouds filled the darkening sky.
And by the night my boughs were bent,
My blossoms cold and brown and spent –
Before the light of morning sun,
There was not kept alive
But one.

That one held forth its glowing face
Against the winter’s fierce embrace –
Until at last, all curled and chilled,
It fell upon my snow-banked hill,
Where all around, in snowed-in tombs,
Lay spring’s own first and slaughtered blooms.

And there, in blackened stillness, I,
Amongst the dead, would wish to die.

All through the winter months I wept
As all around the wise ones slept.
Their precious petals kept in store –
And mine, not kept there anymore.

When spring would come, then they would bloom,
But I, in mem’ry of my doom,
Would sport dead twigs and blackened leaves
Where bright and glowing blooms should be.

And then, through winter’s cold, a breath –
But this was not the taste of death.

It was the spring – the spring!

But I,

With mirth and hopefulness run dry,
Clung to my melting banks and wept,
For ‘neath the melting snow was kept
The carcasses of hope all dead,
And rotting in that winter bed.

But warmth came in, and with a breath,

Blew far away that dust of death,

And breathed into my shaken frame

A hope of life and joy again.

Then, through my shattered branches, crept

A joy that through the winter slept.

And through my startled, blackened gloom,

Came forth the buds of springtime’s bloom.

Aye, through the cold of death they came,

And more than were before, I aim.

And with the others, all in mirth,

I drew my sustenance from earth.

The birds, they sang, and every tree

Put forth its leaves and blooms

With me.

And beautiful those blossoms came,

Not cold and hard – not dead or maimed,

More glorious, and fuller still

Than all the dead blown from the hill.

And so has sprung new life from death,
And let each creature, with its breath
Give praise to the Creator, Who,
With caring tenderness has proved
His love for His Creation, aye,

And first to join that praise

Am I.

Snow at Pinehaven

2008-01-21T21:35:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, we were delighted to wake up to the sight of big, fluffy snowflakes floating down from the heavens. Though temperatures hovered just barely above freezing, the snow did build up to about an inch - so I, being the Southerner that I am, frantically ran out to take some pictures of our January "snowstorm." Though I am not quite ridiculous enough to have my portrait taken with a lone snowflake, I do get quite excited about the least bit of snow, and we have not had any here in several years. Even if it was only an inch, it looked very pretty until it began to disappear in the afternoon.

Powder snow...

Black and gray by the hollow

Pine and hardwood sentinels

Over the drowsy rose arbor...

The lonely bench.

A bush in the side yard had bravely begun to sport dainty pink blossoms, only to have them laden with snow after the deceptively warm weather we had earlier. Almost every blossom was weighed down by a teaspoonful of powdery snow.

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"Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow?" - Job 38:22.

I plan to make another post very soon, exploring some of those "treasures of the snow." How a snowflake is formed...why it is symmetrical...yet no two are alike. How men contrive, through complex processes, to produce their own snowflakes - yet still fall short of those which naturally fall from the cloud-heavy skies. The snowflake is a truly amazing facet of God's many-wondered Creation - and one which remains quite enigmatic to the minds of those who seek to comprehend its mysterious formation.

Pink on The Supremacy of God

2008-01-08T12:04:00.000-08:00

In one of his letters to Erasmus, Luther said, “Your thoughts of God are too human.” Probably that renowned scholar resented such a rebuke, the more so since it proceeded from a miner’s son; nevertheless, it was thoroughly deserved. We, too, though having no standing among the religious leaders of this degenerate age, prefer the same charge against the vast majority of the preachers of our day, and against those who, instead of searching the Scriptures for themselves, lazily accept their teachings. The most dishonouring and degrading conceptions of the rule and reign of the Almighty are now held almost everywhere. To countless thousands, even among those professing to be Christians, the God of Scripture is quite unknown.

Of old, God complained to an apostate Israel, “Thou thoughtest that I was altogether as thyself” (Psalm 50?21). Such must now be His indictment against the apostate Christendom. Men imagine that the Most High is moved by sentiment, rather than actuated by principle. They suppose that His omnipotency is such an idle fiction that Satan is thwarting His designs on every side. They think that if He has formed any plan or purpose at all, then it must be like theirs, constantly subject to change. They openly declare that whatever power He possesses must be restricted, lest He invade the citadel of man’s “free will” and reduce him to a “machine.” They lower the all-efficacious Atonement, which has actually redeemed everyone for whom it was made, to a mere “remedy,” which sin-sick souls may use if they feel disposed to; and then enervate the invincible work of the Holy Spirit to an “offer” of the Gospel which sinners may accept or reject as they please.

The supremacy of the true and living God might well be argued from the infinite distance which separates the mightiest creatures from the almighty Creator. He is the Potter, they are but the clay in His hands, to be moulded into vessels of honour, or to be dashed into pieces (Ps. 2:9) as He pleases. Were all the denizens of heaven and all the inhabitants of earth to combine in open revolt against Him, it would occasion Him no uneasiness, and would have less effect upon His eternal and unassailable throne than has the spray of the Mediterranean’s waves upon the towering rock of Gibraltar. So peurile and powerless is the creature to affect the Most High that Scripture itself tells us that when the Gentile heads unite with apostate Israel to defy Jehovah and His Christ “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh” (Ps. 2:4).

The absolute and universal supremacy of God is plainly and positively affirmed in many scriptures. “Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is Thine; Thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and Thou art exalted as head above all…and Thou reignest over all” (I Chron. 29:11, 12) – note “reignest” now, not “will do so in the millennium.” “O Lord God of our fathers, art not Thou God in the heaven? And rulest not Thou over all the kingdoms of the heathen? And in Thine hand is there not power and might, so that none [not even the Devil himself] is able to withstand Thee?” (2 Chron. 20:6). Before Him presidents and popes, kings and emperors, are less than grasshoppers.

“But He is in one mind, and who can turn Him? And what His soul desireth, even that He doeth” (Job 23:13). Ah, my reader, the God of Scripture is no make-believe monarch, no mere imaginary sovereign, but King of kings, and Lord of lords. “I know that Thou canst do every thing, and that no thought of Thine can be hindered” (Job 42:2, margin), or, as another translator, “no purpose of Thine can be frustrated.” All that He has designed He does. All that He has decreed He perfects. All that He has promised He performs. “But our God is in the heavens: He hath done whatsoever He hath pleased” (Psalm 115:3). And why has He? Because “there is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord” (Prov. 21:30).

God’s supremacy over the works of His hands is vividly depicted in Scripture. Inanimate matter, irrational creatures, all perform their Maker’s bidding. At His pleasure, the Red Sea divided and its waters stood up as walls (Ex. 14); the earth opened her mouth, and guilty rebels went down alive into the pit (Numbers 14). When He so ordered, the sun stood still (Josh. 10); and on another occasion went backward ten degrees on the dial of Ahas (Is. 38:8). To exemplify His supremacy, He made ravens carry food to Elijah (I Kings 17), iron to swim on top of the waters (2 Kings 6:5), lions to be tame when Daniel was cast into their den, fire to burn not when the three Hebrews were flung into its flames. Thus, “Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did He in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places” (Ps. 135:6).

The absolute and universal supremacy of God is affirmed with equal plainness and positiveness in the New Testament. There we are told that God “worketh all things after the counsel of His own will” (Eph. 1:11) – the Greek for “worketh” means “to work effectually.” For this reason we read, “For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen” (Rom. 11:36). Men may boast that they are free agents, with wills of their own, and are at liberty to do as they please, but Scripture says to those who boast, “We will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell…Ye ought to say, if the Lord will” (James 4:13, 15)!

Here then is a sure resting-place for the heart. Our lives are neither the product of blind fate nor the result of capricious chance, but every detail of them was ordained from all eternity, and is now ordered by the living and reigning God. Not a hair of our heads can be touched without His permission. “A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps” (Prov. 16:9). What assurance, what strength, what comfort this should give the real Christian! “My times are in Thy hand” (Ps. 31:15). Then let me “rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him” (Ps. 37:7).

Masterpiece...Or Madness? (I Cast My Vote for Madness...)

2008-01-07T13:22:00.000-08:00

Last night, our Pastor presented another installment in his series on Biblical principles of music. This week, he was discussing the philosophical changes which led to major changes in the worldviews of nations, and how these changes affect art and music. One example he gave of the destructive meaninglessness of modernism was as follows: a portion of a video of John Cage's "masterpiece," which is called, simply, "4:33." This means it lasts for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. Not one second more, not one second less. It is presented here in its fully orchestrated version, in three movements so people will have time to cough in between.

It is meant to be heard differently by everyone who hears it, because truth is what's inside of you, and whatever you get out of an experience is true - or so John Cage believed. The piece was to illustrate the autonomy of man, and the sheer meaninglessness of it is so absurd that it is beyond ludicrous. It seems like something which should happen on Looney Tunes. But it is what John Cage believed to be his greatest masterpiece. And what's really disturbing is how seriously everyone takes it.

So watch...the three movement piece which has places for the orchestra and conductor to turn pages, even though there really isn't even a reason to have pages - or movements, for that matter. Try to endure through the whole thing to get the full effect. You just won't believe it.

And the announcer has to be someone they borrowed from a local mental institution...

John Cage's "4:33"

"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools...Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen." - Romans 1:22, 25

Paul Washer on The Holiness Of God

2008-01-01T19:06:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to everyone! It has been some time since I posted over here - things have been insanely busy this month and I can't believe it's over already. The New Year of 2008 is upon us. I pray that we may go through it all with a growing sense of the holiness of God - a holy fear of Him engendering a holy love of Him - that we may never grow used to thinking high thoughts of Him, as this 10-minute video eloquently exhorts us.

The Holiness of God Part I

The Holiness of God Part II

Hebrews 12:29 - " For our God is a consuming fire."

Psalm 18:6-13 - "In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears. Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth. There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also, and came down: and darkness was under his feet. And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies. At the brightness that was before him his thick clouds passed, hail stones and coals of fire. The LORD also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave his voice; hail stones and coals of fire."