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The randomest of thoughts

Posted on May 31, 2011 by Barbara Harper

I mentioned my middle son, Jason, getting a job in a neat way after a very long wait. The day he got the news that he got the job, his wife’s car (the main one they drove) died. In fact, Jason was in the tow truck when he got news of the job. A day of highs and lows! I think I mentioned in last week’s FFF post that the Lord provided them with a new car. And now they have a new apartment — they’re moving in this weekend. So, yeah, it’s been a bit of a whirlwind, getting a job, car, and apartment all within eight days! We’ve enjoyed having them with us but I know they are eager to get out on their own.

My dear husband spent a lot of his Memorial Day weekend mowing. He took Jesse down to our old town so that he could go to graduation at his old school and meets friends for lunch. Jim had some things to do on our old house, one of which was cutting the grass. He and Jesse got back here Saturday, we had church Sunday, and then Monday they went to our old church property to cut grass. It’s been up for sale for a long while, and of course the church needs to keep up the property until it does sell. The adult Sunday School classes are taking turns cutting the grass, and this is the weekend Jim signed up for (the joke at Sunday School is that each man is praying the property will sell before his turn comes. 🙂 ) Then, of course, we had our own grass to cut, and Jason helped Jim with that.

I had a good deal of Friday and Saturday to myself, and at first thought I should probably use the solitude to work on some writing I’ve had in mind. But it was one of those times I just wanted to accomplish something, to have something physical to show for the time. So I ran some errands that had been on my list of things to do for a while, went to a thrift store to look for a couple of pieces of furniture, didn’t find those but found a few decorative items, and then went to Home Depot and got some plants for the planters in front of the house (I’ll show you those in Friday’s FFF post).

When I checked out at the thrift store, the cashier asked me if I needed any discounts or coupons. I didn’t know what she was talking about, but instead of asking, I just shook my head. Then my eyes fell on a sign saying that people 55 and older get discounts (and I think coupons — didn’t read the whole thing).

The sad thing is I will be eligible for that discount next year! Maybe by that time I’ll be glad to save the money instead of sad to be that old! 😉

One of the things I got was this little flower arrangement:

This is what I had previously on this little table:

The flower arrangement on the left had looked pretty nice in our previous living room that had more color on the walls…

But against beige walls, it just looked a little blah. But I like the touch of color the new one adds:

I also mentioned last week the bird feeder at my mother-in-law’s. We had noticed that the level of the bird seed seemed to be staying the same and no birds were coming around, and I wondered if maybe the openings of the bird feeder were stopped up, but I confess, I was leaving it for my husband to check out the next time he came. Then a few days later I saw this:

Either one of the birds brought some grass seeds or some of the seeds in the mix started sprouting. I had never seen that happen before! Jim got it cleaned out and added more seed this weekend.

Speaking of bird feeders, as I came to the sink this morning and looked out the window at ours, just at that moment a female cardinal flew from another tree to the branch near our bird feeder, and a male flew from the bird feeder to the female and gave her some of the seed. It seemed such a sweet moment — though I’m sure they were probably just taking care of necessities without any thought of sweetness. Then they flew off — too quickly to even grab the camera. But I was glad to be in on their little moment.

And those are just a few of my stray thoughts and doings lately. What’s going on in your world today?

Book Review: The Deepest Waters

Posted on May 31, 2011 by Barbara Harper

The Deepest Waters by Dan Walsh wasn’t on my Spring Reading Thing list or even on my radar, but I saw it when looking for books for my mother-in-law for Mother’s Day, and I had enjoyed Dan’s two previous books, so I picked it up.

The book is inspired by a true story: though details of the characters are fictionalized, the main “bones” of the story are true.

John and Laura Foster are on their honeymoon on the steamship SS Vandervere in 1857, heading to New York in order for Laura to meet John’s family when the unthinkable happens: the ship is damaged in a hurricane and begins to sink. The women and children are rescued by another ship, but the falling darkness makes it too dangerous to go back to rescue the men. The captain and first mate decide the Vandervere could not have survived the night and the men are given up as lost. The rescue ship, the Cutlass, is not even equipped to handle the number of women and children on board: conditions are crowded and food is limited. Laura’s future is grim with no possessions but the clothes on her back and the pouch of gold John gave gave before they parted, all her wedding gifts sunk with the ship, heading to meet John’s family for the first time, uncertain of their reception — and that’s if the food holds out and they encounter no other storms or further setbacks.

It’s not much of a spoiler to tell you that John does survive, because that is revealed early on in Chapter Three, but he and several other men are hanging on to debris from the ship with no other ships in sight, wondering how long they can last without food or fresh water in the blistering sun by day and the cold water by night.

Interesting subplots involve a slave on the Cutlass, Micah, who helps the passengers as much as possible with an uncommonly cheerful spirit and John’s family, whom he had left not on the best of terms.

I have to admit the book started out a little slow for me. The first few chapters went back and forth between John and Laura, with some detail of their current situation provoking memories of their courtship, and, though interesting, it seemed a little formulaic and almost boring. But just about the time I was ready to pronounce deep disappointment in the book, new information and twists were brought in and the action picked up, and then I was caught up in the story and wanted to keep reading.

Some of the events that the reader might be most tempted to pass off as handy miraculous plot twists are in fact true!

I had said of one of Dan’s previous books that it would make a good Hallmark movie, and I think this one would as well.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

The Week In Words

Posted on May 30, 2011 by Barbara Harper

Welcome to The Week In Words, where we share quotes from the last week’s reading. If something you read this past week inspired you, caused you to laugh, cry, think, dream, or just resonated with you in some way, please share it with us, attributing it to its source, which can be a book, newspaper, blog, Facebook — anything that you read. More information is here.

In honor of Memorial Day:

Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it. ~ John Quincy Adams

Seen at Semicolon:

“I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?” ~ C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

This reminds me of Job’s response to God’s questions.

From a friend’s Facebook:

“Lose your cool, lose your cause; before you speak, take a pause.” – Matheny

Wise advice!

Seen at Challies:

Satan, like a fisher, baits his hook according to the appetite of the fish. ~ Thomas Adams

From an Elisabeth Elliot e-mail devotional:

It is the mark of a mature man that his sense of responsibility takes precedence over his own feelings. It is a mark of godliness that he acknowledges God’s care of all men, not only of himself.

If you’ve read anything that particularly spoke to you that you’d like to share, please either list it in the comments below or write a post on your blog and then put the link to that post (not your general blog link) in Mr. Linky below. I do ask that only family-friendly quotes be included. I hope you’ll visit some of the other participants as well and glean some great thoughts to ponder.

Don’t forget to leave a comment, even if you don’t have any quotes to share! 🙂

We look for the Saviour

Posted on May 28, 2011 by Barbara Harper

So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. Hebrews 9:28.

The heading of my Daily Light reading for today is “We look for the Saviour” from Philippians 3:20, and all the rest of the verses had to do with looking for the Lord’s appearing. After reading and pondering the verses for a while, the difference between what they instruct and what Harold Camping and those like him advocate is clear. Some years ago when there was another prediction of the supposedly exact date of the Lord’s return, some people actually sold all their property and went to some hillside and waited before being sadly disappointed. But Scripture nowhere teaches that response.

Really, most of the New Testament gives instruction about what we’re supposed to be doing til the Lord returns. The Bible does say we’re strangers and pilgrims on this earth and our eventual home is in heaven. But there are some verses that tell us specific things to do in anticipation of His return.

The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. Titus 2:11-14

1. Denying ungodliness and worldly lusts

2. Live soberly, righteously, godly

3. Look for His return while actively living here

4. Be zealous of good works.

We, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless, And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation… Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness. But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.II Peter 3:13-15a, 17-18.

5. Be at peace with Him.

6. Be without spot and blameless, and be diligent about both of these.

7. Be glad for His longsuffering that gives more people a chance to be saved.

8. Beware of error and falling from steadfastness.

9. Grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample. (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.) For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Philippians 3:17-20

10. Follow the Bible’s teaching.

11. Don’t live for earthly things, even though we partake of them.

12. Remember our conversation, manner of life (citizenship, some translations say), is in heaven.

If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Colossians 3:1-5

13. Seek those things which are above.

14. Set your affections on things above.

15. Mortify (put to death, or, as the NASB says, consider as dead, echoing Romans 6 about reckoning ourselves dead to sin and not yielding to it any more) our sinful tendencies.

16. The rest of the chapter tells of things not to to and to do.

Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. I John 3:2-3

17. Purify ourselves.

And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. Acts 1:7-11

18. Be His witnesses (Matthew 28:18-20: Make disciples and teach them what I have taught you.)

He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD hath spoken it. And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the LORD; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation. Isaiah 25:8-9

19. Rejoice!

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on May 27, 2011 by Barbara Harper

Welcome to Friday’s Fave Five, hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, in which we can share five of our favorite things from the last week. This has been a wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God blesses us with. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.

Love the new banner!

Here are a few favorites from the past week:

1. My son’s testimony about God’s provision of a job. Then the day he heard he got the job, his car died. God worked it out that they were able to get a new car trading in both old cars and getting a decent interest rate after some checking around for options. Though I hate that they have another payment to add on to their responsibilities, it’s good to have a reliable car under warranty with good gas mileage since they’re driving more here than they were in SC. Though they’ve had a difficult year, God is providing and things are looking up for them.

2. Chicken chimichangas from a local Mexican food restaurant. Love those! I’ve thought about trying to make them from scratch at home — but these guys do it so well.

3. School’s out! No more alarm clocks! Most days, anyway.

4. My mother-in-law’s bird feeder and a bird book. My husband had gotten her a bird feeder for Mother’s Day, and she has enjoyed so much watching the visitors. We didn’t know what all of them were, so I ordered a bird identification book for her this week which she was delighted with as well.

5. My blog returning to normal. I don’t know if any of you noticed, but for most of the week my blog format was messed up — the grey from the sidebar background was extending all the way across the blog and the widgets were not right and half of them migrated to the bottom of the blog. The WP techs worked on it and it finally got back to normal last night. (Evidently there were some unclosed HTML tags in the widgets — they didn’t seem to cause a problem til I downloaded Firefox 4). It feels so clean and neat now! It wasn’t the biggest of blog problems, but it did bug me, and I am glad to have it fixed.

Have a great weekend!

My Mom’s birthday

Posted on May 26, 2011 by Barbara Harper

Today would have been my mom‘s 74th birthday. She passed away 5 1/2 years ago.

So far this day isn’t as weepy as some of her previous birthdays have been, though I have been a little moist-eyed a couple of times. The first year or two I couldn’t even go near a Hallmark store the weeks leading up to Mother’s Day. The first year I accidentally wandered into one in April looking for something completely unrelated to Mother’s Day but was undone by all the Mom stuff in the store and had to leave.

There are still moments when I am unexpectedly blindsided by grief or by missing her, but they don’t come quite as often. One day I came across something that would have been a perfect gift for her and was lamenting that I couldn’t give it to her when it hit me that, where she is now, she’s seeing things so much greater than earthly perishable gifts.

She had been so dreading retirement, fearful of going crazy or being bored to death at home alone so much (she was never the homebody I am), I kind of hate that she missed the birth of the blogosphere and Facebook: she would have loved both.

I started out today, though, thinking that I just didn’t want it to be a sad day. Though I miss her, miss sending her gifts and talking on the phone, miss telling her about what’s going on in our lives, today I just want the comfort of remembering her.

And I pray for many in my extended family who are grieving her loss as well today, many whose own relationship with the Lord I’m not sure of, that this reminder of death and loss and grief might be used of God to help them see and deal with their own need of Him so they’ll have His forgiveness and help and grace here and now as well as when their time comes.

Missing something? No, I don’t think so after all.

Posted on May 24, 2011 by Barbara Harper

When we were preparing to move last summer, I unearthed a whole stack of family-oriented magazines from several years back. In more recent years I had marked and torn out what I was interested in (or checked and bookmarked the article online) and then passed it on to a friend, but this stack must have accumulated and then been forgotten before I started doing that.

I brought them with us to look through as I had time and just got to them last week. Many had turned-down corners noting something I wanted to consider doing with my own sons. I started looking at the dates of the magazines: many were from the time my youngest was in his toddler to preschool to early elementary years.

At first I started to kick myself and feel really guilty that I had never done all these neat activities with my children.

But then, I thought, “Now, wait just a minute!” We did do lots of things together:

We sat on the floor and made Lego creations.

We read books. Lots and lots of books. We made regular trips to the library and every library day afternoon was spent in happy reading all the new treasures.

We built tracks and loops for Hot Wheels cars.

We did puzzles.

We colored and painted.

We made various Play-Dough creations.

We had a multitude of Little People sets, thanks to my mom, and played seemingly endless scenarios with them.

We played untold rounds of a game called something like Memory Match (like Concentration from my childhood), Hi Ho Cheerio, Sorry, Candyland, and other games.

We took walks.

We went to the park.

We visited friends.

We played in the sandbox.

We blew bubbles.

We went to the zoo.

Even going to the grocery store was considered fun at certain ages.

We may not have done some of those neat unique activities in the magazines, but we did a lot of fun things and spent a lot of time together. I’ve thought to myself that I hoped that my lack of keeping up with baby books as I would have liked was due to my actually spending time with my kids.

Were those magazines a waste, then? I don’t think so. I did use some ideas over the years, but even the ones I missed using had a positive influence. Just like visiting a craft store or craft show or craft blogs sparks my own creative juices even if I never do the specific crafts I see, I think family magazines and idea books and these days mommy blogs can inspire my own goals with my family. But they need to be kept as an inspiration, a creativity-sparker, a supplement to our own real lives, not a burden, a guilt-producer, a competition against other moms and kids, an addition to an already crowded schedule.

As long as we’re spending both quality time and quantities of time together, nourishing our relationships, learning and growing, we don’t have to worry that we’re not keeping up with whatever everyone else does. Attentive time together is what matters most.

This post will be linked to “Works For Me Wednesday,” where you can find a plethora of helpful hints each week at We Are THAT family on Wednesdays, as well as Women Living Well.

Book Review: Lady in Waiting

Posted on May 24, 2011 by Barbara Harper

Lady in Waiting by Susan Meissner caught my eye when both Susanne and Quilly highly recommended it.

It’s a dual story of two Janes. Jane Lindsay’s husband unexpectedly walks out on her, and she is stunned. They had been married twenty-two years, and she thought everything was fine. Giving him the space he says he wants, she occupies herself with her antique business, confiding in her friend, who urges her to see a counselor, yet trying to keep the situation from her meddlesome mother. She finds an unusual, very old ring in the binding of an old book, a ring that happens to have her name engraved inside it, along with a phrase in Latin. Intrigued, Jane tries to learn who her namesake might be.

Lucy Day becomes the new dressmaker to a very young Lady Jane Grey and assists her for the next several years, becoming as close a friend and confidant as their two different stations will allow. Lady Jane’s entire life seems to be under the control of others, and as events unfold and political forces begin to swirl, Lucy fears not only for her lady’s happiness, but for her life.

Both Janes seem to be victims of their circumstances and the choices of others, but both find, as the back of the book says, they each have “far more influence over her life than she once imagined. It all comes down to the choices each makes despite the realities they face.”

Lady Jane Grey is one whose circumstances I could never remember, though I thought she came to an untimely end. But I am sure that from now on I’ll remember her story. Though Lucy and the ring and Jane’s possible love interest are all fictional, Susan Meissner paints a realistic portrait of the kind of person Jane might have been.

I could empathize with Jane Lindsay’s situation as well and wanted to defend her against everyone else and cheered her on in her journey. Though I appreciated the way the author ended with a glimmer of the future rather than neatly tying the story up, I didn’t want my time with Jane to end: I wanted to see what happened down the road!

Susan Meissner did an excellent job weaving the two stories together and bringing out the theme. Different points or subtexts keep coming to mind from the story even after finishing it. This is the first of Meissner’s books that I’ve read, but it definitely will not be the last.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

What’s On Your Nightstand: May

Posted on May 24, 2011 by Barbara Harper

The folks at 5 Minutes For Books host What’s On Your Nightstand? the fourth Tuesday of each month in which we can share about the books we have been reading and/or plan to read. You can learn more about it by clicking the link or the button.

It’s been a busy month, but I’ve been able to get some good reading in.

Since last time I finished:

A Novel Idea: Everything You Need to Know about Writing Inspirational Fiction, reviewed here. Probably a must-read if you’re thinking of writing Christian fiction.

Women’s Ministry in the Local Church by Ligon Duncan and Susan Hunt. Hope to have a review up soon.

Leaving by Karen Kingsbury, first in a new series with Bailey Flanigan from previous series.

Love Finds You in Camelot, Tennessee by Janice Hanna, a fun romantic comedy but with some depth as well, reviewed here with Leaving.

Words by Ginny Yttrup, destined to be one of my top ten books of the year, I believe, reviewed here.

Lady in Waiting by Susan Meissner, reviewed here. ~~Just finished this one yesterday and hope to review it soon~~. Loved it.

Currently reading:

The Deepest Waters by Dan Walsh.

Up next:

The Judgment by Beverly Lewis, second in The Rose Trilogy.

Mine Is the Night by Liz Curtis Higgs.

The Judgment is the last of my Spring Reading Thing list unless I want to add more of the non-fiction I was considering. But I have a whole list of recommended books to choose from as well.

The Week In Words

Posted on May 23, 2011 by Barbara Harper

Here are a few that stood out to me this week:

I saw this on Lisa‘s Twitter sidebar:

“When you labor to show yourself righteous so that God will accept you, you are not submitting to God’s righteousness.” -John Piper

Paul says he wants to “be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (Philippians 3:9). There are whole systems built on laboring to be righteous to “gain” God’s acceptance, but even those of us who should know better tend to fall back into that mindset sometimes. I am so glad God’s righteousness is by faith.

Seen at Challies:

There can be no victory where there is no combat. —Richard Sibbes

I tend to want victory without having to expend the effort of combat, and it just doesn’t work that way.

And I hadn’t realized it t first, but these quotes might seem to be opposites. How can we expend victory by effort (or combat) if spiritual victory is by faith? Well, the first quote deals with the righteousness we need to stand before a holy God and not be condemned but rather approved, and Christ’s righteousness is the only kind that will suffice. That we receive by faith. We can’t earn it or work it up on our own. With that righteousness we can stand before a holy God without fear. But working that out into our everyday lives is what we call sanctification. Even that is accomplished by faith, and yet there are times God asks us to act on something in faith. In some of Israel’s battles in the Old Testament, God fought for them in unusual ways; in others, they had to actually take up sword and spear and shield and go to battle, yet they had no victory unless God enabled them. So even though my standing before God and his acceptance of me is by faith, in everyday battles, like, say, eating right and getting exercise, I still lean on Him for grace and strength, but I still have to expend effort: my body isn’t going to exercise itself, God isn’t going to exercise it for me, and I am not going to have any victory in weight loss without expending some effort at it. Someone once said “God will help you with your math homework, but He is not going to do it for you.”

I know many of you already know these principles, but I just felt I needed to explain further for anyone who might be confused by those two statements.

In another vein, this struck me from Warren Wiersbe’s With the Word, p. 293, commenting on Job 21, particularly Job’s “friends” trying to tell him that his suffering must be because of sin because God prospers the righteous:

If comfort and wealth are evidences of holiness, our Lord was not holy, for He had little earthly comfort and wealth, and He died a terrible death on the cross. Perhaps you need to examine your own “logic” and see if you are thinking like God or like the devil (Ps. 1:1; Matt. 16:21-28).

I don’t know how the “prosperity gospel” people miss things like that.