Author Archives: Barbara Harper

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About Barbara Harper

https://barbarah.wordpress.com

Laudable Linkage

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I saw some great things around the Internet the last couple of weeks. Let me know if you find any of them useful!

Supernatural Love at Femina. We all need it. This is a great delineation of what it looks like, how to apply I Cor. 13 in everyday life. It’s geared toward moms, but of course the chapter and many of the principles listed could be applied in multitudes of ways.

Strength For a Weary Mom at girltalk.

Defining Success as a Parent at The M.O.B. Society. I love this site! I wish there had been something like it when my guys were small.

Confession Is Not Propitiatory at My Two Cents. It’s not how hard we confess that appropriates our forgiveness. Amen.

Thinking About Immigration Missiologically at MissioMishmash.

Davis Bunn and Writer’s Conferences. Maybe some day…

And on the crafty front:

Gifts Bags From Newspapers.

And a neat idea for storing fabric (HT to Lizzie).

And a couple of funnies from icanhascheezburger.

funny pictures of cats with captions
see more Lolcats and funny pictures

funny pictures of cats with captions
see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Have a great Saturday!

Friday’s Fave Five

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

I have multitudes of favorite things this week — or two weeks, actually, since we were moving last week and I wasn’t able to participate then. I don’t know if I can condense it to five — we will see!

1. The move went relatively smoothly. My husband’s company paid for movers, but we hadn’t contracted with any yet because we wanted to wait until we officially closed on the new house. Then when we did start calling them, it looked at first like none would be available the week we wanted to move, but one came through. Then we had several phases of moving: Wed. the movers came and packed; Thursday they loaded the truck and then we drove to TN that evening; Friday they unloaded in TN; Saturday Jim rented a U-Haul and drove back to SC to move Jason and Mittu into our old house while Jesse and I stayed here and started unpacking; Sunday he loaded up his mom’s things from her assisted living place and brought her here to TN, and then we moved her into her new place. Moving three households in one week seems absolutely crazy, but it had to be done, and everything worked out pretty much as planned and went fairly well. A few mishaps, but nothing major. Even though there is still a lot to do, it feels a little more relaxing because we can do it at our own pace now.

2. My new house! I could make a FFF just about it. I already wrote about it here, but to make a subset fave five, some of my favorite things about it are that it is one level — no steps except for a couple at the front and side doors; the kitchen/dining area has a more open feel than our old house; the kitchen has many more cabinets, much more counter space, a walk-in closet pantry, and lighting over all the counters; a garage (we’ve never had one before! And garage-door openers! So far I still get a little thrill pushing that button!); our master bathroom (only the second time in 31 years we’ve had one); pink floral towel racks left in the master bathroom by the previous owner as well as a pink and green striped rug; walk-in closets; quiet neighborhood….let’s see, I think that’s more than five already.

3. Two neighbors have come over to introduce themselves. One brought produce from her garden, the other brought home-made jelly. Both invited us to their churches. It’s nice to be welcomed!

4. Jim’s mom has adjusted really well to her new place. We had wanted to set up her room as much as possible like her old one, but we couldn’t because it is arranged so differently. But she doesn’t seem to mind. Jim and I had a meeting with one of the ladies in charge this week (we had met before, but this time we got down to the nitty-gritty details) and we’re really pleased with how they handle things and the attention they give her. She came out for lunch while we were there and saw us and came over, then one of the residents came over and welcomed her and invited her to eat at her table. When I visited her yesterday, she exclaimed how nice everything was and how good the food is. 🙂 So far there doesn’t seem to be much confusion, except the first day she went down the wrong hall. This facility is a very small, homey place, and so far we’re really pleased.

5. Jim’s relocation package included a bit of money for “incidentals,” and since we went from one and a half bathrooms in the old house to three full bathrooms in the new, we needed some new towels. I got some to match the pretty towel racks in our bathroom:

So that’s five already, and I haven’t even mentioned yet that Jesse had his first experience with the youth group here and enjoyed it, that a dear friend agreed to take the ladies’ group in SC, at least on an interim basis, and they had their first meeting Monday night and did fine. It’s a blessing to know I am leaving it in good hands. And I have mentioned my GPS before, but it has been invaluable in finding our way around a new town.

So it has been a very good if very busy couple of weeks. School starts for Jesse next week, and though he is a little “weirded out” by the thought of starting a new school — he had been in the same Christian school from K-5 through 10th grade, so this is his first time to be “the new guy” — I have every reason to believe he’ll do fine, and I am looking forward to settling in to a new routine.

Flashback Friday: Back to School

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Mocha With Linda hosts a weekly meme called Flashback Friday. She’ll post a question every Thursday, and then Friday we can link our answers up on her site.

The question for this week is:

Did your family have any back-to-school traditions when you were growing up? Were you generally eager or reluctant to start school? Was buying school supplies a big deal or did you order them through the school? Were there any school supplies you particularly loved? Did you take your lunch or buy it at school? Brown bag or lunch box/thermos? Does the first day of school from any grade stand out? Did you ride the bus, walk, or go by car to school? Do you remember how early or late school began/dismissed each day? Did you go to kindergarten? Half-day or whole day?

I LOVED school, and I loved getting new school supplies and getting them all set up and ready — in a cigar box in elementary school, then graduating to those clear zippered pouches that fit into one’s 3-ring binder. There is just something about a new box of crayons, packages of new pens and pencils, etc. In fact, seeing all the neat new school supplies out in stores has made me wish I needed them! They have some really fun, cute stuff these days. I remember carrying books and such back and forth in a book satchel — something like modern day “messenger bags.”

We didn’t really have any rituals or traditions associated with starting school. We just bought supplies at the store.

We varied between taking and buying lunches. I do remember that the little cartons of milk only cost 5 cents, and I seem to remember even 3 cents in early elementary school. I loved the hard plastic or metal lunch boxes with matching thermoses. I don’t remember what any of mine looked like.

We varied walking, riding the bus, or having someone take us to school depending on where we lived at the time. My most memorable rides involved my grandfather, the one I have mentioned with the distinctive laugh. My mom must have had a job requiring her to be there early at the time, because I remember my grandfather taking me to someone’s house where I had breakfast and then rode to school with them. Almost every single morning in my grandfather’s car we heard “Mairzy Doats” and “Mr. Lonely” on the radio. I don’t remember the people whose house I went to or what they looked like: I only remember that the mom required us to drink the milk left in our cereal bowls, which I thought was really gross.

The only first days of school that stand out are from high school: one was on my August birthday, which I thought was atrocious since school used to start after Labor Day in September. And the other was either when I started high school or when we moved to a new school when I was in jr. high — I don’t remember anything about the day, but I remember my mom picking me up, asking about my day, me shrugging my shoulders and saying something noncommittal like “It was all right,” and her saying she thought of all the kids I’d have the most to say, and I had the least. We talked about nearly everything, so it was unusual for me not to bubble over with all the details about the day. I don’t remember why I seemed to have not much to say that day!

Kindergarten was not required when I was of age, so I started right in with first grade and did fine.

I eagerly anticipated school most years — new books and the glories within, new teachers, seeing old friends. I loved learning (most of the time.)

I wasn’t able to do last week’s flashback because we were in the throes of moving, but it had to do with what we wanted to be when we grew up. I went through various stages, wanting to be a movie star :roll:, teacher, psychologist, writer, but underlying them all was the desire to be a wife and mom, and I am so glad the Lord gave me that privilege. That encompassed a little bit of teaching and psychoanalyzing. 🙂 And I’ve had various opportunities to write a little bit — maybe He will give opportunity to expand on that. After boxes are unpacked!

Book Review: A Matter of Character

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Daphne McKinley is a single heiress in 1918 with a secret: she writes melodramatic “dime novels” about adventures in the Old West based on true-life stories as told to her by a family friend. She doesn’t need the income, but she writes for the joy of storytelling.  She writes under the pseudonym “D. B. Morgan” for two reasons: she doesn’t want to embarrass her family, who might feel such novels were beneath her, and she feels her books might not find a publisher if it were known she was a woman.

Unbeknown to her, Joshua Crawford, the real life grandson of the main character in Daphne’s stories, is on his way to Bethlehem Springs to search out the reclusive D. B. Morgan and make him apologize and correct the defamation of character of his grandfather.

Daphne and Joshua are both in for the surprise of their lives!

I found A Matter of Character by Robin Lee Hatcher a delightful read. It was fun to get a peek at the kinds of decisions an author wrestles with in regard to plot and characters, and I appreciated Daphne’s personal struggle with the responsibility and weight her words carry even in fiction.

A Matter of Character is the third and last and my favorite of Robin’s “Sisters of Bethlehem” series, though it could easily be read alone.

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

“David encouraged himself in the LORD his God”

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This is a sentence that has intrigued me often, and I have been mulling over it from time to time for several weeks. That might have something to do with the fact that we’ve moved away from our two oldest sons, and though we keep in touch, it is not the same as hearing what goes on in their everyday lives and helping them put life into perspective or quietly praying when the time isn’t right for motherly advice. I want them to continue developing this habit and skill of encouraging themselves in the Lord.

As Christians we are supposed to encourage each other, but sometimes there is no one at hand to talk to, or sometimes another person doesn’t really understand, or even if they do understand and do try to help, it’s ineffectual if we do not take their wisdom and encouragement in for ourselves.

The passage that this verse comes from is I Samuel 30. David had been anointed king earlier, but he was not the acting king yet: in fact, he was in hiding from King Saul, who wanted to kill him. While David and his men had been away from their camp, Amalekites had swept in, burned everything, and taken the women and children captive. David’s men spoke of stoning him out of their distress over their families. And at that point, “David encouraged himself in the LORD his God” (verse 6b).

How did David encourage himself? Verse 7 says he asked the priest for the ephod and inquired of the Lord what to do.

We don’t have ephods these days — though sometimes that seems like it would be nice when we need a direct answer as to what to do next! But we have the whole word of God and the continually indwelling Holy Spirit if we’re Christians. One of the many reasons it is so important to read and hear the Word of God regularly is that, as we take it in, we get to know our God and His character better, and the Holy Spirit can then bring back to our minds the truths we’ve learned (John 14:26).

David wrote in Psalm 63 in an earlier situation (I Samuel 23:14, according to the reference notes in my Bible), “My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips: When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches. Because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice” (verses 5-7). All through his life you find him inquiring of the Lord or going back to what he knew of God’s character and His word. Near the end of his life he passed this same encouragement on to his son, Solomon: in I Chronicles 28:9 he told him, “And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the LORD searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever,” and verse 20, “Be strong and of good courage, and do it: fear not, nor be dismayed: for the LORD God, even my God, will be with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee, until thou hast finished all the work for the service of the house of the LORD.”

May we all encourage ourselves in the Lord throughout our lives.

The Week In Words

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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.

Just a further note — if you’ve posted a quote on your blog this past week, feel free to link it here as well. You don’t have to save it for Mondays. :) And please do read and comment even if you’re not posting quotes.

Here are some quotes that spoke to me this week:

From the Elisabeth Elliot e-mail devotionals, this taken from her book A Lamp For My Feet:

How can this person who so annoys or offends me be God’s messenger? Is God so unkind as to send that sort across my path? Insofar as his treatment of me requires more kindness than I can find in my own heart, demands love of a quality I do not possess, asks of me patience which only the Spirit of God can produce in me, he is God’s messenger. God sends him in order that he may send me running to God for help.

Sometimes the very circumstance in our lives that we’re chafing against is the one God is using to work something necessary into our hearts and characters that we would not learn or develop any other way.

That goes along with something I read at Washing the Feet of the Saints:

In a recent conversation with a delightful young friend, we considered what it means to die to self, particularly in the ordinary tasks of every day life, and to live sacrificially in our home and community to the glory of Christ.

The “dying” this young lady referenced was a simple household chore that had nothing to do with family/elderly caregiving, but it’s application was obvious. My friend lamented that it should be easier to put her desires and contentment aside for the benefit of other. “But then it wouldn’t be dying,” I countered.

That last line really hit me between the eyes. Thanks, Patricia, for that perspective.

From the August 4 reading from Our Daily Walk by F. B. Meyer:

The best way of increasing our knowledge of God s infinite nature, is by the reverent study of His Word. It is a flimsy religion which discounts doctrine. What the bones are to the body, doctrine is to our moral and spiritual life. What law is to the material universe, doctrine is to the spiritual.

This reminded me of some of the truths I wrote a few years ago about the importance of learning doctrine when we read the Bible rather than just looking for warm fuzzies. The warm fuzzies fly away like dandelion seeds if they are not based on the bedrock of doctrine that we can rely on no matter what the circumstances are.

Then from today’s reading of Meyer’s devotionals:

From Act 7:2-5, we learn that the Call to Abram to go forth, which originally came in Ur of the Chaldees, was repeated in Haran, after his father’s death. Probably Terah delayed his son’s obedience. Let us help our children to realize God’s call, even though we be left lonely on the other side of the river.

This was particularly potent as we just moved away from our oldest two sons and daughter-in-law and are experiencing those pangs of realization in everyday life of their absence. I have read more than one missionary biography in which a well-meaning Christian mother who was active in missionary support balked and resisted when it came to her son or daughter going to the mission field. I do not know if any of mine are called to the mission field yet, but I do not want to stand in the way of any of them doing whatever God’s will is for their lives out of a desire to keep them close to me.

If you have some family-friendly quotes you’d like to share, please leave the link to your “Week In Words” post (not just to your general blog) with Mr. Linky below. Of course, it is fine to just leave a quote in the comments section if you’d rather. I hope you’ll visit some of the other participants, too: this is a small enough meme so far that it is not hard to visit around with others who love to glean quotes from their reading as well.

(Mr. Linky is now closed for this post. Please see the newest Week In Words post to add links.)

The Week In Words Participants

1. bekahcubed 2. e-Mom @ Chrysalis

Powered by… Mister Linky’s Magical Widgets.

We have Internet!

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Woot!

Well, the main desktop that I use isn’t connected because we need a certain cable. But my husband is letting me use his little notebook.

Still way too much to do to play for long, but it’s nice to know I can take a break online here and there!

The bathrooms and bedrooms are mostly set up and I am working on the kitchen today.

I just have to tell you this — the new house had a washer, dryer, and refrigerator, but we were going to bring our own from the old house, swap it out with what was here, and then take them back to SC to the old house for the kids to use. But when we got here and started to disconnect the washer and dryer here, we discovered the dryer was a GAS dryer! Somehow we had missed that before. So we swapped the other appliances out, but, of course, not that one! I didn’t know they made gas dryers. I also have a gas oven (yes I DID notice that was gas beforehand…), which I haven’t had since I was a kid, so that will take a bit of adjusting, but probably not much.

Going to a new W-Mart in a new town is an experience — especially when it is the TN tax-free weekend. That place was horrendous. Thankfully Ingles was laid out almost just like the one I was used to.

Looking forward to getting back to regular blogging…some day!

In Tennessee..

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…at a hotel. All our worldly goods will be delivered tomorrow, Lord willing.

Everything went fairly smoothly in the packing and loading process. Pulling out furniture uncovers all of one’s housekeeping sins…and a few found items that we didn’t know were lost…

After the house was packed up, good-byes said to Jason and Mittu, 😦 and we pulled out of our subdivision in separate cars on our way to TN, Jim called me on his cell phone and asked if I unplugged the iron. 🙂

I told him I hoped the movers did before the packed it. 😀

Jesse and Jeremy saw the house for the first time tonight — they seemed to like it.

More…when I can….

Packing up…

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(Photo courtesy of stock.xchng)

The movers come on Wednesday, and there are some things my husband wants to pack up himself before they come. Among those things are the electronics…like my desktop PC.

So I probably won’t be blogging for several days.

Over the next few days the movers will pack our things up, load them on their truck, deliver everything to our new house, and we will move Jason and Mittu to our house here  (the one we’re moving out of — they are going to live in it, keep the grass cut, do some repairs and painting to help us get it ready to sell. etc.) and move Jim’s mom into her new assisted living facility. Then, of course, we have to unpack the stuff in the new house. We won’t have Internet access there until some time over the weekend, but things will be pretty hectic for a few days anyway.

If I can borrow someone’s laptop during quick breaks here and there, I might pop in here or stop in over at your places. But if you don’t see me, know that I am thinking about you and looking forward to everything getting back to normal — or settling into a new normal — whatever normal is. 🙂

I so appreciate your warm thoughts and prayers during this busy, hectic, major transition in our lives.

So for now I am going to make like a tree and leave..

Or make like a banana and split…

See ya round like a donut…

Later, Gator…

The Week In Words

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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.

Just a further note — if you’ve posted a quote on your blog this past week, feel free to link it here as well. You don’t have to save it for Mondays. :) And please do read and comment even if you’re not posting quotes.

Here are a few I’ve read in various places:

Seen on Diane‘s Facebook status:

“I think sometimes a lot of the wear and tear on our lives is from fighting the circumstances that God has allowed to come into our lives.” Nancy Leigh DeMoss

I think that is probably true. It’s not usually surrender that’s the problem as much as the struggle against surrender.

Also seen at Diane‘s:

“It takes grace to give grace, takes hope to give hope, takes love to give love. I can give these to you because Christ gave them to me.”-Paul David Tripp

I can only minister to others what I have received from Christ.

Seen at girltalk:

When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now.

Insofar as I learn to love my earthly dearest at the expense of God and instead of God, I shall be moving towards the state in which I shall not love my earthly dearest at all.

When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased. 
~ C. S. Lewis, Letters of C.S. Lewis (8 November, 1952)

So true!

And I am so thankful for this truth expressed in the Heidelberg Catechism (which I had not heard of before) shared by Chris Anderson at My Two Cents:

Question 60: How are thou righteous before God?

Answer: Only by a true faith in Jesus Christ; so that though my conscience accuse me, that I have grossly transgressed all the commandments of God, and kept none of them, and am still inclined to all evil; notwithstanding, God, without any merit of mine, but only of mere grace, grants and imputes to me, the perfect satisfaction, righteousness and holiness of Christ; even so, as if I never had had, nor committed any sin: yea, as if I had fully accomplished all that obedience which Christ has accomplished for me; inasmuch as I embrace such benefit with a believing heart.

Special note for next week: we’re moving this week, and I am not sure when we will have Internet access and when my desktop PC will be set up and ready to use. If I can set up The Week In Words next Monday, I will, but if you don’t see it here, that means I wasn’t able to, and you can hang on to those quotes for the following Monday.

If you have some family-friendly quotes you’d like to share, please leave the link to your “Week In Words” post with Mr. Linky below. I hope you’ll visit some of the other participants as well: this is a small enough meme so far that it is not hard to visit around with others who love to glean quotes from their reading as well.