Everything

I recently heard a quote that I loved.  It goes like this, How I view God is how I view everything.

Actually, now I'm plagued with doubt about the exact wording.  Maybe it went more like, What I believe about God is what I believe about everything.

Either way.

I've tried to explain to multiple people why this quote is such a great one, with varying measures of success.  It's a little more abstract than your run-of-the-mill statement.  But all that aside, here's why I like it.

Because if God is Just, and Perfect, and Good, and Unchanging, and He is Constant (I started capitalizing all the words and now I just can't stop), then I am able to understand that literally nothing else in this entire world will ever measure up to God.  Nothing.

A friend recently was talking about how life wasn't fair.  She's been praying for the salvation of several close family members, praying that their lives would get straightened up, that healing would come, but nothing was happening.  Don't all things work together for good to them that love God?  She loved God.

That's tough.  A lot of what was going on in her life at the time was unfair.  There isn't another way to say it except to admit that she'd been dealt a raw deal, and things were not looking good.  And you know what?  That's okay to say that things were unfair, things were unjust, things weren't looking good.

It's okay because God is good inspite of the injustices of this life.  It's okay because God is faithful in spite of the failures of literally every single one of us.  It's okay because there has never been a promise made to any single one of us that life would be fair.  It won't be fair because it can't be.  Because when I understand that God Himself is the only perfect and true constant, I can stop expecting that life will be perfect.  Life can't be.  Life is messy and hard, but in all of that, there's God.  And when I view the Lord Himself as the only answer, then I can rely on Him each and every time that life lets me down.

And that's why what I believe about God is what I believe about everything.  Because my view of God's of God's infallibility/immutability/etc. means that nothing else will measure up.  And that's actually a really, really, really reassuring fact.

Thanksgiving 2014

I love Thanksgiving.  No, for real, I do.  It's cozy, and thankful, and wonderful, and I just love it.

Not the food.  But I've said that before.   (I just searched by blog under the "Thanksgiving" label and came up with like 10 posts about Thanksgiving.  I'm not kidding, I love everything about Thanksgiving but the food!)

Also something I've said before is that for the last several years I've had my Sunday School girls write thanksgiving lists in class.  We read verses about being thankful, talk about why we should be thankful, and to Whom we should be thankful, and then try to think of things for which to be thankful (this year I remembered to be thankful for Chipotle.  Mmm).  Usually gets some pretty good results (one of our most frequent Sunday School-and-Gospel speakers is famous for reminding us to be thankful for everything, including chairs, so almost all the girls remembered this and marked that they were thankful for chairs), but this year I heard one I hadn't heard before.

While reading around an item or two from our list one girl shared that she was thankful for my eyebrows.

"Uh, my eyebrows?  Specifically me?  Or you're thankful for your eyebrows?"

"Oh no, Miss Joanne, not my eyebrows.  Yours.  I think they look okay with your face."

"Mmmmmmmnmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmk."

And that, my friends, is the story of how I got a complex about my eyebrows and I'm not even sure why, because, comfortingly enough, they are "okay."

(Just because I couldn't resist, I searched the KJV for references to eyebrows.  There's only one direct reference, and in this reference the guy is straight-up shaving his off.  Maybe eyebrows are meant to be expendable?)

Things that are real

Last night during gospel I was sitting in the midst of a horde of children (for real.  There were anywhere from 27-30 out--we never could get an accurate count) and they were dutifully taking notes (you remember something, you get a cookie or two--they have great incentive to take notes for the sake of remembering!) and Mr. Speaker mentioned that "the judgement of God is real."  He didn't say much about it, honestly, but the kids like sound bites that are easy to write down, so I noticed several kids dutifully writing down that "the judgement of God is real."

I literally almost never get choked up about things (for instance, weddings.  Never have I ever cried at one of those) but looking at the few kids sitting next to me, putting pen to paper and writing, "the judgement of God is real," make me emotional.  Because while I am confident that some of those children are truly the Lord's, I am equally confident that some of them are not.  For whatever reason, some keep putting it off.  And I think my heart broke a little bit last night, just thinking of the solemnity of it all.  Because even if they don't understand the severity of it, the truth of it remains, "the judgement of God is real."

This is why we spend and be spent for the Lord's work.  Because last night 27-30 children got to sit under the sound of the Word and they know, for sure, because they've heard, time and time again, about the love of God.  And they know, for sure, because they've heard it time and time again, that accepting the love of God is the best possible way to avoid the judgement of God.

Take with you words

The other day at dinner/Bible reading (yes, supper still lasts for like four hours at my house.  Okay, well, that's a slight exaggeration--it's more like two hours) we were reading Hosea 14.  We got as far as verse 2 before we digressed wildly (as we are often wont to do).

"'Take with you words, and return to the Lord'--hey, Joanne, this should be your verse!"

That was my dad, who in the split second it took to read the first eight words of the verse decided that when I write a memoir (because, you know, why not), I should call it "Take With You Words."

Honestly, it sounds like a good idea to me.  Not that I'm planning on writing a memoir any time soon (or ever), but if I do, at least I have a title.

It's a start.

(PS, not to toot my own horn or anything but I'll be honest--I've read memoirs before and thought that even within my limited 25 years of life I've probably acquired enough stories to write a more interesting memoir than some of them that are out there.  And for whatever stories I don't have, I could totally just write random things I thought about.  I could do this thing, people.  I'm not going to, but I could!)

(PPS, NO PICTURE TODAY.  I'm such a little rebel.)

The 12 Days of Dedication

I was reading Numbers 7 for my nighttime reading, and every time I read it (all 89 verses, haha, because it's the kind of chapter you feel silly stopping in the middle of, because whatever you read tomorrow will be a carbon copy of what you read tonight!) it rings through my head in a very 12 Days of Christmas style.

Presumably because there are lists of numbered things that were given, and they were given on 12 separate days.  Funny, that.

Anyhow, I've always sort of had it in my head as a song, and tonight realized that it doesn't fit at all.  But, I shall pretty much always sing it as a song when I read it, so I share it here, so you can annoying get the 12 Days of Christmas tune in your head as you read Numbers 7 next.  Because I love to share.  You're welcome.

On the first day of dedication the prince of Judah brought,
One weighty silver charger.

On the second day of dedication the prince of Issachar brought,
One silver bowl
And a weighty silver charger.

On the third day of dedication the prince of Zebulun brought,
One golden spoon,
One silver bowl,
And a weighty silver charger.

On the fourth day of dedication the prince of Reuben brought,
Various fillings,
One golden spoon,
One silver bowl,
And a weighty silver charger.

Okay, so this could go on forever.  And I'm cutting out may important things.  But as I said, this is actually remarkably difficult to condense appropriately.

On the twelfth day of dedication the prince of Naphtali brought,
Five first year lambies,
Five only male goats,
Five off'ring peace rams,
Two off'ring peace oxen,
One goat for sinning,
One first year lambie,
One ram for burning,
One young bullock.
Various fillings,
One golden spoon,
One silver  bowl,
And a weighty silver charger.

Phew.  That is a mouthful, and it leaves out a lot of important details.  And uses the word "lambies" because "lambs" isn't enough syllables.  So go, my friends.  Go forth and read Numbers 7, appreciate the exquisite detail, and feel free to let me know if you find a way to make this passage flow more smoothly (particularly lines that use words like lambies and off'ring)!  I think I'd sleep better at night if I had a version of this song that actually fit to this chapter!

Habit, I am thy creature

I like to think that I'm above stuff like habits.  I mean, brushing teeth and reading the Bible is good, but I've always had this vague opinion about myself that I could mix things up in my life and it would be no big deal.

Then I either got older or realized my habits for what they are:  habits.

This is super deep, I know.

There's an intersection I go through fairly often.  From that intersection there are two ways I could get home.  I could turn left, or go straight.  Both ways are probably comparable in time, though I guess I don't know exactly.  Anyhow, if I'm at that intersection coming home from the nursing home, I turn right.  If I'm there coming home from one of my Sunday school drop-offs, I go straight.

And I have no idea why.  I just do.

The same reason, probably, that there are some streets where I always drive in the left lane, even though I traditionally believe in driving in the right lane unless I'm passing someone.  It's a weird habit thing.

But it's interesting to think about habits at this point in the year.  People keep asking me what resolutions I made this year.

Resolutions?  Haha, ain't nobody got time for that.

But seriously, maybe I should be re-patterning parts of my life.  Because clearly, somewhere in the back portion of my brain, I love being a habitual person.  Regardless of whether or not I think I need habits or not, I make habits, and stick with them.  Imagine how awesome it would be if I made and kept good habits throughout my whole life!

Now I just have to decide if turning right is the good habit, or if going straight is.

It feels like a hard decision, actually.

I should probably eat less cookies.  Particularly when they're cute.

Evolution. Pfft.

A few weeks ago I was picking up my newphew(ish) from school and I asked him what they'd learned that day.

"Oh, nothing really," he said.  His usual response.

Naturally, I always give him a hard time about learning nothing, so I badgered him for a little more information.

"Well," he mused after a minute, "they were talking about volcanoes.  That was cool, but they said that it was because of evolution.  Can you believe that, Auntie Jo?  Can you believe that my teacher believes in evolution?  The Bible even says it's not true!  And she thought it was real!"

Oh, childlike faith.  I hope he never loses that staunch faith in the Bible.  Not like I think he's at risk to, but as a child I tended to say "Bible says it?  Count me in!" but once people started asking for specific examples of something, I never knew what to say.  I remember giving someone a gospel tract when I was little.  Just sort of wandering by myself when we were at a historic village one day.  Anyhow, the person to whom I gave this tract asked me if I believed in the Bible.  Of COURSE I did!  I was probably eight or so, which was old enough to know that I believed in the Bible wholeheartedly, but as soon as this grownup started asking me about the flood, and about creation, and all sorts of specific things that he said weren't true, I had no idea what to say.

It was sort of traumatizing, actually.

To this day, I'm not sure why I was wandering by myself, nor do I know why that adult thought it was okay to start grilling me about my beliefs.  I guess I did give him a tract, so I sort of asked for it.  Details, details.

Anyhow, I smiled when I heard my nephew(ish) talk about the folly of evolution, because of course it's not true.  The Bible says otherwise!

Tru dat, my friend.  Tru dat.

Eshcol's Grapes

The other night at dinner we were reading Numbers 13, and it took us quite a while to read through the whole chapter.  We kept getting very distracted (nothing unusual) and eventually my dad pretty much fell asleep at the table.  That was when we decided we'd pretty much exhausted every possible avenue of discussion about the chapter.

First I had to remark that I thought it was weird that Moses just sort of renamed Joshua in verse 16.  Then my mother was a tad appalled because it was adding the word Jehovah to the name, which is a good thing, and not weird.  My poor parents.

Then in verse 22 there's a random addition regarding Hebron.  It goes, "(Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)"  So then we had to discuss for some time why exactly this was important.  I mean, Egypt is a picture of the world in the Bible, and seven is a much-loved number of perfection, but when you put those pieces together, does it mean something deep and important?  We didn't decide.

We took a break partway through dinner to use the dictionary to look up something about gifts, though I recall not what.



Then we got to verse 23, which is a verse about Eshcol's grapes, and we had to all share our story of when we first had the eureka moment as to what this hymn by Mary Bowley actually meant.  Pretty much when I was young I didn't get it, because, the line goes, "The manna and the springing well suffice for every need; and Eshcol's grapes the story tell of where Thy path doth lead," and as a kid that was not enough.  Because Eshcol's grapes were telling a story about where the path did lead, but let's be honest, unless you know the story of the grapes, that doesn't make the most sense ever.



My friend and I aren't eating Eshcol's Grapes,
but rather grapes in Romania one time.  Mmm.



Anyhow.  I just wrote a bunch of stuff about God's way being the best way etc. but then when I tried to add that nifty picture of my friend and I eating Romanian grapes it deleted my last paragraph.  So now I'm done.  But anyhow, pictures make a blog much more spruced, so I figure I should try to put pictures up from time to time.  At least enough so my blog isn't so blase... 

Purity

Quite some time ago, back in August, in fact, I came across an interesting portion of the Sunday School Paper with this quote:  "Read [the Bible] every day, and ask the Lord Jesus to show you what it means and how its precious words can bring purity and usefulness into your life."

Maybe not the most profound thing ever, but I was really struck by it.  Because there has long time been discussion about what purity means.  Mostly people say it's, you know, being pure, and from a personal standpoint quantify purity as whatever boundaries they've set up for themselves. But too often we (I) think of purity as something physical, sort of the way you act, whereas purity should be our way of life.

Something that's pure is something that hasn't been defiled.  By anything.  So really, purity is sort of a huge deal.  Like holiness, it's more a reflection on your life then on your actions.

Speaking of, you don't even want to know how many people don't realize that the phrase "holier than thou" is from the Bible.  People assume it's sort of a made-up phrase because it sounds fun.  Not so, my Spanish galleons.  It's there!

Sorry.  That was random.

Bibley words

I love words.  Truly I do.  I one time read Fly By Night not so much for the plot but because the author so clearly loved words and knew how to use them with finesse.  I read Reading the OED not so much because I applauded the guy who had no job so he could read a dictionary, but because anyone who spent a year reading the Oxford English Dictionary has a level of Word Love I could only hope to one day reach.

 

All that being said, I was thinking about words in the Bible.  It, obviously, is full of the Words of Life, which is very important, but I was thinking specifically of the fact that since I read the King James Version, I run across so very many fun words.  Even if they're not traditionally "fun" words, it's still amusing to run across them in the KJV, like when it references "stuff" in the Bible, discusses the belching of heathens, or those times it talks about taverns or aliens (well, there's only one reference to taverns, as I recall), it just seems amusing because, well, they seem more amusing in the context of the Bible (don't laugh, but I still am amused when I run across references to frying pans in the Bible--which potentially goes to show that I should get out more).  Not to sound irreverent, but it's true.

 

But any words in the Bible ending in -some, like noisesome, or burdensome... don't you wish we still used those words?  I know I do.

 

This isn't a complete list, and PLEASE let me know if you have favorites that aren't on this list, but anyhow, here's a vague off-the-top-of-my-head list of words I like to run across in the Bible.  And I'm sure these words aren't even necessarily all obsolete, but they're obsolete enough to make me wish that more people read their Bibles so we could hurry up and get these words back into the common vernacular.

 

Ladeth.  Because I think we should still use it.  I wish the "eth" thing hadn't gone out of style so long ago.  "Why are we letting him road trip with us?  He ladeth our car down with his longboards and it's just getting annoying."

 

Magnifical.  Because WHAT AN AWESOME WORD.  I use it sometimes and was derided once for it being made-up.  "Not-uh.  It's in the Bible."  "Is not."  "Is too."  "Where?"  "The... temple stuff somewhere.  You know."  "You're making that up."  "Am not!"  You get the idea.  But it's good for any or all occasions.  The "magnifical cheesecake" works as well as "the Colosseum was magnifical."  It's sort of appropriate for any situation.

 

Anything ending in -ish.  When I read the Law of the Leper chapter and it describes things as being greenish and reddish, or when Job talks about something being "blackish" it just cheers my soul.  I went through a multi-year phase where everything ended in an -ish.  A friend of mine finally started calling me Joish.  But you can imagine how cool it would be if we brought back the color -ishes.  "You just repainted, right?  What color?"  "Reddish."  "Oh, like... more pink."  "No, I mean reddish.  That's the color."  "Yeah...  that makes SO much sense.  Or not."

 

Gazingstock.  Because it seems to so nicely combine being put in stocks as an example and a much-stared-at curiosity.  "My Sunday School teacher made me the gazingstock of the class when he caught me texting, which is NO FAIR because the other kids do it all the time and don't get in trouble!"

 

Bountifulness.  "The bountifulness of this Thanksgiving feast reminds me yet again of how much I have for which to be thankful!" And also, costliness.  Because all words deserve more than one suffix.

 

Solemnities.  This isn't obsolete, I know, but I feel like the number of occasions which could be referred to as "solemnities" are dwindling in our society.  But who knows?  Maybe they use this all the time in England or something.  "The solemnities of the past week reminded us that the queen isn't getting any younger, and some changes are surely coming our way."  Heh.  I don't even really know how you'd use solemnities properly.  I'll think of something.

 

Worthies.  Every time I stumble across this word in Nahum I can't help but think of the word "homies."  "F'real, what's he doin'?"  "Oh, he had to talk to all his worthies about their excessive stumbling, yo."

 

Troublous.  "These are troublous times we're in.  First they came for the users of blue pens, but I wasn't a user of blue pens, so I didn't stop them.  Then they came for the ones who left the trash cans on the curb for days but I was above that, so I didn't step in.  Now they've come for those of us who spend altogether too much time trying to slide words like 'insomuch' and 'notwithstanding' into everyday conversation, and there's nobody left to stop them!"

 

Holily.  I'm not going to lie: I didn't even notice this word until a few months ago when I was Bibleing in Thessalonians with my Bibleing buddies.  I'd obviously seen it before, but somehow missed it.  Clearly, since then I've delighted in the word, but honestly, I haven't found many things that can be described as having been done "holily."  I'm still working on that.

So, help me out here.  What do you like to run across in the Bible?  Do you enjoy running across words like sheriff?  parlours?  darling?  silly doves?  when people in the Bible say 'aha'?  the brief Santa Claus feeling you get when reading Zechariah 2:6?

 

And I have the feeling that nobody uses the links I sometimes provide for Bible references and such, and I really didn't feel like spending half of my evening looking up these places, so if you're curious as to where these words are in the Bible, just go to blueletter or Biblegateway and look them up.

 

Thanks for bearing with me.  When I started thinking about this last night I had no idea I'd think of so many! 

Oh, Euty

Last Sunday we were talking about Eutychus in our Sunday School class, and I was talking to the girls about being examples.  I brought up Euty because I was reading the story the other day and it made me ponder more about examplehood.  Not that that's a word.  But what's interesting to me about the story of Euty is that he wasn't paying attention to Paul, or got tired, or whatever happened, and fell asleep and ended up taking a tumble into the yard.

How this relates to examples:  So, say Eutychus had a younger brother or something who saw the severity of what happened to Euty (whether or not Eutychus actually died or was just presumed dead was a matter of some debate at the breakfast table this morning, interestingly enough) but then thought, "Hey, it's okay, he ended up alive.  I'm going to sit in that window sill where I can breathe some fresh air and I'll just make SURE to not fall asleep, since I know what could happen if I did, but even if I did, obviously nothing too horrible happens if I get all Humpty Dumpty."  All good in theory, but what happens if said younger brother actually does have a great fall and can't be brought back up alive again?  What then?

That's the thing.  God in His graciousness gives second chances, and sometimes someone takes a fall, as it were, and it works out fine, but sometimes things don't work out so well for the faller.  And that's why Christians have to be careful to not be the ones to make it seem like it's okay to fall in the first place.  Because the guy who follows (FALLows?)  after might not escape unscathed.

I don't think my Sunday School class necessarily got what I was saying, but hey, they got the gist of it.  I think.  I hope.

Also, I call Eutychus by his way-cooler nickname "Euty" because when I was a youngster I used to have a book of Bible poems by someone named John Knapp, and it's AWESOME.  Seriously.  You slash your children slash any person would love it.  He writes poems about several obscure persons from the Bible (Ethan the Ezrahite for one) and writes ditties to help you remember the lineage of Abraham's offspring, the churches of Revelation, and why Miriam got leprosy in the Bible instead of being turned into a pillar of pepper.  Trust me, it makes sense.  Anyhow, in one of his poems it references Eutychus and endearingly calls him Euty.  Ever since I first read that I've taken to also calling him Euty.  It has a much nicer ring to it.

A little update

The grandparents are doing well, my job is about a day and a half away from being done, and life is good, albeit busy!

I just finished reading Psalms and it made me remember how much I love that book.  I really can't say that there are parts of the Bible I like less or more than others (though there seem to be parts of the Bible I'm more enthusiastic about!) but there's something about reading through Psalms and picturing David at the different stages at his life, sometimes rejoicing, vibrant and secure, and other times writing with a despairing hand.  It feels like an intimate glance at his life, where you learn more about the author than the subject in most of the Psalms.  Of course, about half of the Psalms were written by other authors (Asaph, Moses, Korah, Solomon, some others) but when I read the Psalms I like to picture the shepherd David, growing from boy to King with a pen in his hand and praise on his lips.  I want to be more like David.  Only, well, minus the adultery and Kingdom and enemies.  So....  pretty much I take that back.  Never mind.

The Bible in 50 words

This was another forward I got, but I thought it was a fun read!  I'd love to see a picture book of this...  It would be a good journey through the Bible for youngsters.  And those of us who just love to read picture books!

"God made
Adam disobeyed
Noah flooded
Abraham started
Joseph ruled
Jacob fooled
Bush speaking
Moses leading
Pharaoh balked
People walked
Sea divided
Tablets guided
Promise landed
Saul freaked
David peeked
Prophets warned
Jesus born
God walked
Love talked
Anger crucified
Jesus died
Resurrection morning
Spirit adorning
Word spread
Jesus wed"

Upside-up

When our family reads the Bible in the evenings, we have some rather odd traditions.  Well, I guess only one truly odd one.  Our Uno-like fashion of reading has mostly been relegated to breakfast readings, and in the evening we do nearly everything regular-type except for the fact that we read with our Bibles upside down.  And when we have company we let them choose for themselves, but we still read upside down, as there's no reason to change just for the sake of company.

So Monday night we had a friend of the family over, and, come time for Bible reading, we explained that we read upside down and he was welcome to join us.  So he did, no big deal, and read quite well.  Afterwards, he told us that he was pretty sure that it was easier, due to his dyslexia (I agree!  You see the word more clearly as a whole, and have less chance to mix up the interior letters).  I had no idea he suffered from dyslexia, but he said that it was so bad he was pretty sure that he would have gotten into Heaven even without getting saved.  : )  This may or may not be an exaggeration, but he and I had an amusing conversation about our dyslexic tendencies.

I've always claimed a little dyslexia.  Try to get me to tell my left from my right and you'd be hard-pressed to get a quick answer.  I mix up words and write backwards and when I look at the letter "s" I still don't know if it's forward or backward.  But I'm pretty sure that reading was just so important in my house that I never got the chance to be dyslexic.  Other kids would have been diagnosed and fretted over, but not us!  When I was quite young (I learned to read by the age of five or something, so it had to have been before that) I remember saying that I was special because I couldn't read yet, and all of my older siblings could, therefore I was special.  My logic has never been all that sharp.

So I'm thankful that reading was just something that we learned to do, somewhat akin to walking and holding a spoon correctly.  I can read just fine (mostly...) and feel that I'm not handicapped in any way.  And the knowledge I glean from reading is well worth the occasional mix-up of "scarred" and "scared."

Plus, if it ever gets confusing, I guess I could start reading everything upside down!

Black and white

I tend to want things to be simple.  I want something to be good, or bad.  I don't like gray, and I don't like things to be open for interpretation.  I prefer things to be set in stone, done and done, no questions asked.

But... life isn't like that.  Life is full of middle ground.  And, even though there is right, and there is wrong, there are a lot of things that aren't mentioned in the Bible as being specifically one or the other.  And the process of deciding what is appropriate, and what is questionable, is sometimes not the easiest thing.  Wouldn't it be great if our Bibles had magic 8 balls in them, somehow, where we could just ask specific questions?  That would be great.

Thing is, there is a way to know.  Open communication with the Lord, and patience as we await His reply.  He'll tell us, we just have to be willing to lay aside our silly whims and opinionated thoughts and trust Him to make it plain.

Oh, but it would be so much easier if He had specific rules for all this stuff.  I love that we're under grace, but those under-law people?  At least they knew what was what.  They may have done a lot of stupid and wrong things, but they knew when it was wrong.  Of course, then they would get stoned, or stricken with boils, or suffer a famine or something.

Free will is such a bother sometimes.

By the dozen

I won't bore you with my regular introduction of "we have the best family dinners ever," but last week we had a particularly funny episode that I'll recount in part.

So, we were were talking about the old-timey way of hanging people (throwing them up on stakes on a wall, just in case you were curious), and other random things like why my brother and I long misunderstood Ezekiel 4, and eventually we started talking about clocks. This is because we have a heinous clock that chirps, hoots, and makes other bird noises ever hour, on the hour. It's awful. I took the batteries out one time, but my mom actually likes the clock, so she found new batteries and now the clock is as loud as ever. This is fine, as we say, because what makes her happy makes us happy, but during supper we kept hearing it (it ended up being a long supper, so we heard the clock at least twice, and possibly even three times) and it was quite the topic of conversation.

That brought us to the thought that we should manufacture a clock with the twelve disciples on it! By the way, this may seem like a confusing train of thought to you, but we were talking about clocks, and we'd been talking about hanging people, and Judas was a disciple, and he hanged himself... well, somehow this made sense to us.

So anyhow, we had great discussion about how the clock would look. Would it have sounds for each disciple? Like Matthew, being a tax collector, would have clinky money sounds, and John would have some angelic sound, and Peter and the fishermen-type guys would have... fish sounds. Well, we decided that maybe the disciples wouldn't get sounds after all. But then there was the discussion of where we'd put the disciples. Who would get the 12:00 spot, right at the top of the clock? I voted Peter, but there was significant pull for John. Then we questioned if Judas should even get a slot. Maybe we could stick Matthias instead of Judas. My brother, of course, thought that perhaps we could have Judas at the 6:00 slot, and the clock could show the rope hanging him.

My mom wasn't impressed.

After a while we thought maybe we should just skip the disciples (too much drama!) and just do the twelve tribes. Of course, then there's the discussion about which tribe you should leave out (remember, Joseph got two tribes), and then we started all over again.

I Googled "twelve disciples wall clock" later, sure I'd find that somebody had already invented it, and to my surprise, didn't find anything. I looked only casually, but the closest I could find was a Last Supper clock and an old clock in Prague with the twelve on there, but it's an old clock, and not for sale. Also, there's a rock formation in Australia called The Twelve Apostles, and you can get clocks with the rock formation on the face, but that is, in fact, no help at all.

So one day if you wander into a Christian bookstore and see a twelve disciples clock, well, perhaps it was I, who somehow managed to finagle a deal to design clocks. It could happen!

Give thanks!

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, ever. As much as I love National Grammar Day and Guy Fawkes Day, Thanksgiving tops the list, every time. First of all, it's a cozy holiday, secondly, it usually involves much family, and thirdly, it reminds me how much for which I have to be thankful. Dear prepositions, I wish I could use you at the end of sentences. Things would sound ever so much better.

Anyhow, we all know I'm thankful for my family, and my friends, but there's so much else! I'm thankful for the hope of the Lord's coming. May that hope never grow dim in my heart, may I never stop jumping! I'm thankful for the colors of creation, and for snow, and for purple flowers. I'm thankful for road trips, and speed limits that are 65 and above. I'm thankful for music, and singing, and friends with iPods. I'm thankful for the ability to travel, and for travel-sized bottles of shampoo, and for my Kindle. I'm thankful for regular-type books, and words, and the power to imagine. I'm thankful for sunshine, and the Hey Cow game, and for the Game of Three. I'm thankful for new friendships, and old ones, and ones that I don't even know about yet. I'm thankful for my Sunday School class, and for sleep, and for sleepovers on the roof. I'm thankful for the possibility of GFD11, and for Friendly Vacation, and for family meal times. I'm thankful for prayer, and for family Bible readings, and for the fact that my parents pray for me every single night. I'm thankful for my mom, who waves me off to work in the morning, and for my dad, who lets me be as strange as I need to be, and for my brother, who is one of my best friends, and for my younger sister, now my sister in two ways. I'm thankful for my 11 nieces and nephews, and the three wonderful sisters and three wonderful brothers-in-law whom I never see enough but love anyway. I'm thankful for the years I had with my older brother, and the relationship we had. I'm thankful for laughter that makes my side hurt and tears stream down my face, and for sorrow so sharp I can do nothing but cling to my Saviour. I'm thankful for the human ability to love, and hope, and keep believing. I'm thankful that my sins are washed by the precious blood of Christ, and that through Him I am a treasure, a child of worth. I'm thankful for health, and happiness, and comfort.

There's more. But... it's not even Thanksgiving yet. I'll save something for later.

PS I LOVE this holiday!

12.5

Apparently if you spend just 12.5 minutes a day reading the Bible, you'll be done in a year. It's a new, mathematical twist on the old three-chapters-a-day, five-on-Sunday story, but I find it an interesting bit of trivia. That is based on the fact that reading the Bible takes but 76 hours straight through, which seems to me like using generic information. Not everybody reads at the same rate.

Something to keep in mind on those nights when I'd rather slack off.

Not to mention, if I can devote half an hour or more to read some chapters of my latest novel, wouldn't you think I could devote half an hour (or more!) to reading the Word? To spending time in prayer? Yeah, that's what I thought, too. One of my friends and I were talking about this last night, and it really was strange to add up all the time we spend doing other things compared to reading the Bible and spending time in prayer.

Food for thought.

Reach

1 Corinthians 12 talks a lot about working together as the body of Christ, and at the end it talks about different positions and abilities that some of the members of the church there in Corinth had. Then, at the end of the chapter, it says, "covet earnestly the best gifts." It segues into chapter 13 (the love chapter, cue the sappy wedding music), but I've always sort of wondered about that last part. I've heard it discussed several times, that we should seek to do our best for the Lord, etc. (I'm sure I'm getting this all wrong, pardon my potential doctrinal errors), but I think it's a funny way of wording it, if you will, that we should covet the best gifts.

I've always sort of been that girl who wonders what she should do with her life. I always wonder if what I'm doing is all I should be doing. I feel strongly that I should be occupying until the Lord comes (it's been a while since I mentioned how much I'm looking forward to the Lord coming. So allow me to say it again: WOOHOO!!), but there don't seem to be specific guidelines in the Bible about what we're supposed to be doing.

I know that whatever my hand finds to do, I'm supposed to do it heartily, as unto the Lord. Sadly, this seems to include work. (Dear work, I don't seem to want to work heartily. Sigh.) I know I'm supposed to be living my life in such a manner that even under a microscope, people won't have something bad to say about Christians (yeah....), and that above all, I should keep Christ as my goal.

So, back to this whole "whatever my hand finds to do" thing. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'd love to really make the effort to reach out and do more. I'd love to cheer more people's days (I smile at people on the freeway on my way to work every morning. It might sound stalkerly, but people seem pleasantly surprised to see some very-clearly-singing-with-the-radio girl turn and give them a big ol' grin at 70 miles an hour), I'd love to be able to deepen my friendships (there are some people I've been "friends" with for years but am only now really getting to truly know them. You know who you are!), and reach out and make new friendships (I have a pen pal!! It was the most random pen-pal happening ever, that started with a random letter to a summer camp and a crudely-drawn family tree that bonded my new friend and I) (PS if you know other people who like to email and/or write letters (I hope to keep postal workers everywhere with enough work so that snail mail won't even have the option to die. Take that, email) then let me know, seriously, because, in case you haven't noticed, I love to write!) (also, I love parentheses. I have used too many today. Perhaps I should give up parentheses as my New Year's Resolution?) (Nah).

That was a long paragraph.

So anyhow, I just feel like as a Christian I can be doing more. More to encourage those that don't have the Light of Life living in their hearts, and more with other members of the Body of Christ. After all, the Lord is coming very soon. We might as well do the most with the time we have!

PS (or PPS? I guess I already used a PS in my post. Then again, can it really be a post script in the middle?) I clearly have had too much sugar today. There is no way a person without outside influence would be using such great quantities of parentheses. Or short sentences. La, la, la. Maybe I'll go hum, or dance a jig. Just kidding, I can't jig. (did anyone else ever think that Jiggy Nye, the bad-ish guy from the American Girl series Felicity, was a weird name? I did.) Or dance. Or stop writing, apparently. Maybe it's time to go bombard my friends with another round of long emails. Clearly I have a lot to say. =)

Daughter

I was going to start out by saying that doing a study of the word "daughter" in the Bible is really interesting, but then I realized that I'm in no position to talk, because have I really looked up all 327 times in the Bible where it uses the word daughter? Uh, no. A lot of the mentions are really generic ones "who was the daughter of some guy out of Bethel, etc." but there are many cool times where it references daughter. A lot of times the daughter in question was an actual biological daughter (Jephthah, for instance, cried about his daughter), but often it's almost like a term of endearment.

Like all those cool verses in Zechariah (and other places in the Bible, I just happen to fancy the ones from Zechariah) about the Daughter of Zion. Maybe it's just because of that song Todd Agnew did based off those verses (it used to give me shivers, no joke), but I love the imagery. "Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all thy heart, O daughter of Jerusalem." Good stuff.

But I got on this little tangent because I was thinking of those times in Ruth when Naomi called Ruth her daughter. I know, I know, she pretty much was, that whole in-law thing, but when you read the book of Ruth, the term "daughter" comes off as a caress. A small word that shows how much love and care Naomi had for Ruth. "Sit still, my daughter, until thou know how the matter will fall."

Maybe it's because it's one of those stories we romanticize, so maybe there's nothing cool about Naomi called Ruth her daughter, but it has always charmed me. Of course, Boaz called Ruth daughter, too. That's a whole different ball of wax.

Well. This was random.