Tuesday, May 29, 2007

The next best thing?

"Well, Andrew," Dawtie said, "if the Lord hasn't appeared in His own likeness to deliver me, He's done the next best thing."
"Dawtie," answered Andrew, "the Lord never does the next best. The thing He does is always better than the thing He does not!"

-"The Elect Lady" by George MacDonald

If only we could learn this lesson and remember it! Again, it comes back to trust; if we truly believed that God loves us—that He is good—we would trust Him. And He is, He really is.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

a long swim


I thought this was rather cute. Notice the highlighted directions. (Click on the picture if you can't read it.)

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Country Life


Well. We got a dump truck to deliver a load of soil here this morning so that we can start doing a bit of landscaping. We built our house last year and didn't have the time or money to do any of it then; you can see in the photo how it needs it. So the truck came and was about to dump the soil on the tarps we had laid out when two wheels went throught the top of our septic tank. Oh the joys of living in the country. Fortunately the driver managed to get the truck out and he helped me move the tarps so that he could dump in another spot.
When my husband got home we discovered that the pile of dirt was just where the log truck will have to go on Saturday to deliver our load of wood for next winter. So we have to get a neighbor with a tractor to move the dirt because there's no way we would get it done by hand by Saturday. And the excavator guy will be coming tomorrow to see about fixing the septic tank.
Yippee.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

The Race Car Cake

I worked really hard to make this cake for Joe's 9th birthday party which was on Saturday. His birthday was on Sunday.

Monday, May 21, 2007

Sufferings

I would like to share a devotional message from Joni Eareckson Tada. This is especially inspiring when you know that a 1967 diving accident left her a quadriplegic. I read several of her books last year (I had read "Joni" many years ago) and I was impressed and challenged by her attitude and her desire for Christ-likeness. There is a link on this page to the "Joni and Friends" website where you can subscribe to daily devotional messages from Joni. This was the message from May 12:

“For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory...” — 2 Corinthians 4:17 (KJV)

As a child, I was fascinated by the fairy tale about Rumpelstiltskin. The details are hazy, but I recall that he was an elfin sort of figure who was able to weave straw into gold. The color plate alongside the story in my old red fairy tale book showed a little man hunched over a spinning wheel, gold coins on one side, mounds of straw, on the other. I thought it would be wonderful to be able to do such a thing.

The fact is, we can. Your earthly problems are your pile of straw. On the other side of eternity in heaven is the treasure you are laying up. Problems on one side; gold on the other. In the middle is a kind of spinning wheel. That’s where you sit. If the problem-side seems overwhelming, then focus your eyes on the glory-side. When you do, you're a Rumpelstiltskin weaving straw into gold; like a divine spinning wheel, your affliction "worketh ... a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." It's as J. B. Phillips paraphrases, "These little troubles (which are really so transitory) are winning for us a permanent, glorious and solid reward out of all proportion to our pain."
It's not merely that heaven will be wonderful in spite of our anguish; it will be wonderful because of it. Suffering serves us. A faithful response to affliction accrues a weight of glory. A bounteous reward. The more faithful to God we are in the midst of our pain, the more our reward and joy.
Whatever suffering you are going through this minute, your reaction to it affects the eternity you will enjoy. Heaven will be more heavenly to the degree that you have followed Christ on earth. "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us" (Romans 8:18).

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Towels

Monday is usually my laundry day, but with the weather so nice here this week I decided to use the clothesline instead of the dryer. Since my clothesline is short and things take a few hours to dry, I decided not to wash more than I could dry on the line each day. Well, I finally got to the last load today: towels. So I asked Louise to go upstairs and get all the towels in the bathrooms. She got them all, alright. Aaaack! She got all the used towels AND the ones in the cupboard too and threw them down the stairs! After my expression of dismay she replied, "You should have said just the dirty ones!"

Sunday, May 6, 2007

Quotes from a hilltop

I am a voracious reader.

I want to list a couple of quotes from a book I recently read by Stephanie Grace Whitson:

"Storytellers are usually eloquent speakers. He is one of the best. When he finishes I realize that the greatest story he has ever told required no eloquence at all. Simple words--sin, debt, paid, cross, faith."

"The story is that Michelangelo was asked how he could look at a block of stone and get out from it such a wondrous thing as the 'David'. The master shrugged his shoulders and said, 'It is easy. I just knock off what doesn't look like David.' I think it is in the letter to Rome that Paul writes of God determining to make us look like Christ. The phrase, I believe, is, 'conformed to the image of his Son,' and I am thinking that would be good . . . for me . . . to be loving and wise as was Christ. And then I realize, that is what is happening since I believed. God knocks off what doesn't look like Christ. Of course, for God to make [me] look like Christ is much more difficult than for Michelangelo to form marble into a beautiful man. For human transformations, it takes the whole of life . . . and sometimes it hurts [ . . .]"

Saturday, May 5, 2007

A robot and a bookworm

This robot was hanging around my kitchen today. Mostly it was rather quiet and moved slowly.


And in the living room there was a bookworm. It's always fun to get new stories from the library.

Psychiatric Advice


Joe decided to be Lucy Van Pelt this morning, and hand out psychiatric advice for 5¢.



Louise watched from a nearby tree. He did get 3 or 4 customers, me and his grandparents next door.

Thursday, May 3, 2007

Trusting

I was afraid to trust. I thought God would make me marry someone I didn't like, or make me do things that would make people look strangely at me. Would I have to stand on a street corner and hand out tracts?

I was a born again Christian, after all. Wasn't that enough?

So I decided what was best for me. I had decided who I would marry. He wasn't interested in me that way, but I just wouldn't let go of the idea. Finally God brought someone else into my life, someone entirely unsuitable as husband material, but interesting as a friend. And it finally made me let go.

Then God's choice came and it was better than anything I could have dreamed.

In the ten years since then, I have learned that God loves me. Of course I had know that all my life, but it wasn't the same as knowing that He loves me enough that I can trust Him because He will do the very best. And I will never be disappointed.

He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? Micah 6:8

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Anatomy

Drawings by Louise (notice the spelling):
hand

















leg

















mouth

















another mouth

















arms

















ear

















eyes

















feet

















hair

Muffins


My daughter Louise and I made chocolate muffins this morning. She loves to put on her little apron and bake with Mommy or Grandmother.