Thank you

Posted on July 7, 2009 by Barbara Harper

Thanks to those who prayed and encouraged me regarding speaking to our ladies’ group Monday. It went fairly well, I think. There’s always the rethinking (“I forgot to say this…I shouldn’t have said…I hope someone wasn’t offended by that…I went on too long…”). I didn’t “feel” too nervous, but my body did react nervously, and that distressed me. But once I got started it was better. I tell myself every time I do something like that that it’s the LAST time I ever will. But I want to be open to what the Lord would have me do. I just hope it’s not public speaking. 🙂 Thanks again! You were a great help.

One of the ladies took a few pictures. I won’t post the ones of the other ladies since they may not want that. 🙂 Here’s one of the neat refreshments and decorations the hostesses provided:

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And me speaking:

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I’ll be glad when today is over…

Posted on July 6, 2009 by Barbara Harper

At a few of our ladies’ meetings at church through the year we have different ladies give their testimonies of how they came to the Lord and came to the place in life they are in now. I love those meetings, love hearing how the Lord has worked in people’s lives. Several weeks ago it occurred to me that I had never shared mine. I had spoken once before about living with TM, but that was it. So, I thought, I won’t schedule myself in, but if I come upon a meeting for which I have nothing else or if a speaker has to cancel out, then maybe I’ll do that.

Our ladies’ meeting for this month is tonight. As this particular date loomed ever-closer and I kept asking different ladies to speak, one by one they declined for various reasons.

Usually once a year we have a “fun night” when we go bowling or play games or something, so I thought about doing that tonight. But then I considered that if the Lord had put it in my mind to share my testimony, then maybe I should do that. So I went ahead and put it in the bulletin and everything.

I guess it’s too late to change my mind and play games, huh?

Fortunately most of what I would say I have written out here on the blog in various places. I just need to pull it together and go over it and pray about what to include, what to summarize so I’m not keeping them til their eyes go all glassy or they fall asleep at the tables.

If you see this before the end of the day and feel so led, I’d appreciate your prayers for the following:

1. That the Lord would remove nervousness, especially the physical manifestations thereof.

2. That He would guide me in what to say. I tend to get overly bogged down in details (as you may or may not have noticed…)

3. That my focus would be on glorifying Him and sharing what He’s done in my life. Sometimes one can get caught up in the thrill of telling a story, and there are a few of those exciting stories in my life. But I don’t want it to be just a neat story.

4. That it would somehow bless and help those listening.

Thank you!

Happy 4th and catching up

Posted on July 4, 2009 by Barbara Harper

Glorious 4th

Happy Independence Day! I’ve always loved this quote from John Adams’ letter of July 3, 1776, in which he wrote to his wife Abigail what his thoughts were about celebrating Independence Day, with his original spellings:

The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.

No guns or pomp or illumination here today — Jim is grilling hamburgers later on and we’ll have Grandma over and maybe get into a rousing game of Scrabble. 🙂 Often we’ll flip back and forth through whatever TV channels have a patriotic concert going on. I hate that we can’t have fireworks in our city limits–we used to get a few specialty ones like little tanks that shot off sparks while it rolled down the street and such. In past years we’ve made it out to some of the bigger displays in the areas, but somehow we didn’t this year. I don’t really like the heavy traffic, but I do enjoy the fireworks. We did go to an Army band concert last night in a downtown park.

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I chuckled at how they described their concerts as “missions.” I guess in the military everything is a mission. It was a great night for it — clear and not too hot. There was a nice breeze after the sun started going down. We got a kick out of watching one older man with a walker really getting into the music — standing up much of the time, clapping or moving his hands in time to the music. It was the first time we had been to an event at this park, and we enjoyed it.

It’s been a whirlwind week. I had the ladies’ ministry newsletter/booklet due this week, and Jesse headed for camp on Monday for the week and Jim was out of town the first part of the week, so I thought it would be a great time of quiet to dig into it. But somehow Monday and Tuesday ended up being consumed with errands and other tasks. I was praying the Lord would give me a really good day working on it Wednesday, and He did. It’s really neat how I was writing something that had been on my mind for several weeks, and then this week in my reading from a devotional book and Bible study book, there were sections on the very topic I was writing about that contributed to my thinking and rounded out that section (thank you, Lord!). Thursday was pretty much taken up with Grandma’s birthday, and then the Lord gave me another good day to finish it up Friday. I was really hoping that would be the case and I wouldn’t have to work on it today — I wanted to be able to do family stuff today.

I didn’t get to the computer last night to “play” until evening yesterday, so I figured it was probably too late for the Friday Fave Five. I caught up with some of your blogs then, but it will probably take me a day or two to catch up with everyone.

There’s more “news” but this post is way long already, so I’ll leave you with a few scenes from Grandma’s birthday.

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Jesse was at camp and Jason was working during this and the band concert, but Jesse got home today and Jason gets off early tonight, so we’ll all be here for dinner.

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Concentrating hard on the Scrabble board. We have to tone it down a bit because she fusses with us over words that don’t make sense to her, like xi and xu. But sometimes when you can play a high-point letter in a way that makes two words at one time using a double or triple space, it’s just too good to pass up. 😀

Ladies’ Luncheon ’09

Posted on April 27, 2009 by Barbara Harper

Thanks to those who prayed for the ladies’ luncheon. Everything went very well!

I had mentioned before that a lady in my church knew of someone who did a one-woman dramatic interpretation of one of my all-time favorite books, Evidence Not Seen by Darlene Deibler Rose. It is about a young missionary wife in the Philippines at the time the Japanese took over during WWII. Her husband and most of the other men in their compound were taken captive, then later the women were sent to a separate prison camp. At one point she was accused of being a spy and put on death row. This might not sound like a cheery ladies’ luncheon topic — but the main emphasis in the book is the triumph of faith — how God met her needs, physical, spiritual, mental, emotional, through all that she experienced. As I told the ladies, I don’t think Darlene would have wanted anyone to exalt her, or even her faith, but she would have wanted them to see the One she had faith in and to know that He could meet all of their needs, too.

It would take too long to tell of the connections between people involved — and most of you wouldn’t know them, anyway — but the Lord did open doors for this young lady to come and present this drama for us. The same lady who told me of her volunteered to do the “leg work” for the program part, talking to the drama coach at school about using props, etc. That was a blessing to be able to just turn a major portion of the luncheon over to someone else! I’ve never been able to do that before.

The title of the book comes from Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” I wrestled for a long time with whether to use that as our theme verse or I Peter 1:7: “That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.” That verse was certainly manifested in Mrs. Rose’s life as well. But I went with Hebrews 11:1 since it really was the theme of her life.

I chose a rose as the motif, since the author’s new last name after she remarried after the events of this book was Rose, and pink, because I like pink roses, and gold to represent the I Peter 1:7 passage.

Here is one of the tables:

One of the centerpieces a little closer up:

This may sound silly — but one of the things I was most pleased about was the little gold curlicue things in the vase. I got the idea from some more extensive gold swirly things around a candle at a bridal shower recently. I was going to borrow the whole idea, but candles of the size I needed and amount I needed would have been too expensive. As I wandered around Hobby Lobby, I noticed the flower stems were on sale half price, so I went ahead and got the roses, then also found these curly things on stems in kind of an orange-red color. I tried spray-painting them gold, and thought they came out great.

At one of our ladies’ meetings we worked on these bookmarks as favors:

The base of it looks brown here, but it is gold. We decided they’d look best laminated. Our church has a laminating machine, but…it just didn’t work on these. The plastic peeled right off. The gold card stock was a little heavier than usual, and our machine is old. It has to warm up to 250 degrees to adhere, and it got there, but when I ran these through the temperature dropped to 245. I was kicking myself because I could have laminated these the week before, but I didn’t think there was any hurry — I figured it would only take me an hour or so to do. An hour and a half later with it still not done — and the day before we were to decorate — left me very frustrated. I took them to Office Max, and they were able to laminate them, and at not too bad a price, though one way they tried it didn’t work because of the thickness. But we finally got them done, and I loved how they turned out.

Moral of the story: do as much as you can as much ahead of time as you can even if you think you have plenty of time.

We often have a heavier, dinner-type meal (baked chicken or something similar), but I saw on the caterer’s menus an assortment of wraps, and decided to try that this time along with a broccoli salad (which I had never heard of, but it included bacon and shredded cheese, and you can’t go too far wrong with those 🙂 ) and a fresh fruit tray and brownies. I thought everything tasted great.

We had a lot more volunteer help to set up and clean up, so that was a blessing. I mentioned cheerful helpers as one of my five favorite things last week. I don’t know if people realize just how much of a blessing that is when they just pitch in, and then do so with a smile. And my dear husband and oldest son agreed to help in various ways, being there for the caterer to set up while we were in the program and then helping put the pulpit and chairs back on stage afterward.

I had stopped in at the rehearsal after we decorated the night before where the two sound men from church were working with getting the lights and sound cue recording all coordinated. Everything came together really well, and the young lady did a tremendous job with the program. I should have forewarned people to have tissues handy. 🙂 There were several things that spoke to my heart again even though I have read the book a number of times. I was really glad the banana story was included — if you’ve read the book, you know what I am talking about; if not, I’ll let you discover it. It’s one of my favorite parts.

Usually we have some type of little game and door prizes, but I really wanted to give away some copies of the book this time. We had enough in our budget to give away 20. I love getting good books, especially the kind that feed your soul, into other people’s hands.

On a personal note, we had invited my mother-in-law, but she is really uncomfortable in social settings. Whenever I would mention it, she would start out saying she didn’t think she would go, but I would gently try to reassure her that it was in the same building where we have church and we would eat where she had joined us for a church dinner once, so it wasn’t all unfamiliar territory. I also mentioned here last week that a lady at church had begun going to see her once a week or so, and my mother-in-law really likes her and communicates well with her. I asked this lady if she would mind sitting with my mother-in-law since I would have to be up and down and wouldn’t be able to be with her all the time, and she very graciously agreed. When my husband reminded his mom of the luncheon the night before, she almost went into a panic, but he reassured her again. I wasn’t going to try to insist that she go if it was really going to be traumatic for her, but I felt if she would step out of her comfort zone, everything would be ok and she would enjoy herself. And she did — step out and enjoy herself, both. I was very proud of her!

And for me…I tend to get so nervous the day or two before these things, even though everything is going well. I have asked the Lord to take that away, but I guess it is just part of the package, and I just try to ignore it and carry on. Once we get started I am more or less fine: it’s just the time previous that my body reacts nervously in ways I’ll spare you the details of. There were some problems along those lines, but everything turned out ok.

All in all, everything came together very nicely, and the Lord’s help was evident in every way, from the ideas to the people and things needed, to good health for all involved (especially during allergy season!) and most of all in the program itself . Thank you again to those who prayed!

And even though I immensely enjoyed it…I am glad it’s over. 🙂

Catching up

Posted on April 20, 2009 by Barbara Harper

Last week was spring break for Jesse. Jim took the week off to start on one of our biggest and most needed projects: painting the house. This is the “before” view:

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The shutters on the left of the house are faded; the shutters on the right are peeling. We didn’t know that the ones on the left were made of plastic until Jim took them down and piece of it broke off. The ones on the right were made of wood.

With a split level, there are odd little places with pieces of roof sticking out from the rest of the house and little patches of paneling. I was inside the “sun room” at the back of the house when Jim and Jeremy were on a little section of roof to paint the wall above that and below the main roof. I took this picture from inside the sun room looking out at them.

Yes, Jim is climbing a ladder on a roof. Yes, I did pray for safety a lot during the week!

Jeremy and Jesse working in the front:

This is the contrast of the new color on the left and the old one on the right:

I was a little alarmed at first because the new color looks more yellowish (though not so much in this picture) when I was trying to avoid a yellow tone. When I told Jim’s mom we were painting it off-white, she said, “Ecru?” Unfortunately there are scores of tints and shades in that color family! But when I look at a wall of the new paint by itself it doesn’t look yellowish, so I think it’s fine. Better be! It’s too late to change it! I was just frustrated with myself in my color choice, but it will be fine in the long run.

Jim working on the front:

More prayers for safety!

Jeremy did most of the shutters and gutters:

While I was walking around taking pictures, I thought the view of the sky through the dogwood tree was pretty:

This is the view this morning — the lighting is a little different because the previous pictures were taken on a sunny day and it is overcast this morning. The old is on the left, the new on the right:

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I like it. It looks a lot lighter and brighter.

When I was looking at colors, I didn’t even think about the area around the windows, but changing that from dark to light makes a lot of difference.

Jim was frustrated that he lost two days of painting due to rain at the beginning of the week. He used the time when it wasn’t actually raining to do some prep work, cleaning and scraping. He had mercy on Jesse and didn’t make him work as much as he could have so he could just relax some over spring break. Jesse did get to have a friend over one night. Jason doesn’t get a spring break from his school and had a heavy week of homework, so he wasn’t able to help much. I felt bad that I didn’t contribute more. I am no good on a ladder: one of the residual effects of TM is balance problems. I did have some extra time on Saturday and offered to help Jeremy with the shutters or gutters, but where he was set up on the patio there wasn’t much room, and he was enjoying listening to his iPod while working and didn’t really need or want help at that point. I did provide lunch and dinner. 🙂 I don’t usually make lunches for all of us: years ago when the kids discovered the joys of sleeping in, they woke up at different times and ate at different times, and if I made them each something to eat whenever they got ready, I would have been in the kitchen all day. So they usually make their own lunches. But this week they usually took a lunch break all together, and I figured having a meal ready was the least I could do. And, of course, I’m the chronicler and photographer. 🙂

The greatest majority of it is done. The wall on the left and a little patch of siding on the right is all of the “big” stuff, and Jim will have to rent a ladder to reach the peak (at least I think and hope he is planning to. He did mention the possibility of putting a ladder on top of the van. :O ) They also need to do the doors. But there is some tedious little stuff left, like the wood parts on the window panes. We’ll just have to fit that in as we can.

Today everyone is back to school and work. I sure enjoyed not setting the alarm clock last week. Funny how 6:30 is “sleeping in” these days!

This Saturday is the ladies’ luncheon at church. We got the favors mostly done at the ladies’ meeting last week, and I have a pretty long to-do list before Saturday, but, though it is going to be a busier than usual week, it doesn’t feel really pressured and overwhelming. Even so, there is a little underlying feeling of nervousness that seems to be a part of planning any event, even though things are going well and there’s nothing to worry about and it is all in God’s hands anyway. I just try to ignore it and carry on. 🙂 But I’d appreciate your prayers that everything go well and especially for the lady doing the presentation of Darlene Diebler Rose’s Evidence Not Seen as she prepares. I’m praying that neither of us is adversely affected by the pollen that is so prevalent this time of year!

I was playing around with StumbleUpon last night after noticing in my blog stats that someone viewed one of my posts via Stumble. I clicked on the link, but it didn’t show me what page was viewed: it just took me to a page saying someone had viewed one of my posts, which I already knew. I had already signed in with them but just hadn’t done a lot with it. I looked around and read several things. I didn’t know if I could “stumble” any of my own posts, and I tried it just to see if I could. I was astounded this morning to see that the posts I had stumbled had all received over 90 views just since last night via StumbleUpon, and one, When there is no hunger for God’s Word, received over 2,000 views! I guess it works!

I think that about catches us up with the goings-on here. This will be a busy week preparing for the ladies’ luncheon; next week I’ll have the ladies ministry newsletter/booklet to do; Jason graduates in May, and his fiancee and future mother-in-law are coming for that, so there are some house projects I’d like to get done before that. Jesse has a sports banquet coming up as well as a piano recital and choir concert in May. Then when his school gets out later in the month, I’ll have a breather for a while — until Jason’s wedding in August!!

Laudable Linkage

Posted on March 21, 2009 by Barbara Harper

Hmm…I was trying to come up with a more interesting title than just…”Interesting links.” But I’m not sure that’s “it” either.

At any rate, here are some interesting (looks like I need to get out my thesaurus) things I’ve found this week.

Quilly’s Barefoot Weather made me smile.

Crystal’s A life poured out for others convicted me.

I don’t remember how I found this, but Encouraging Caregivers is a blog that seeks to do just as its title says by one who is a caregiver in her home. Though my mother-in-law doesn’t live in our home, we’re actively involved in her life and care, and I’ve found much here to be helpful. A couple of the many good posts there: Things you can do to encourage yourself and Life with Mom.

Brenda’s Blog from Paraguay has some great, great advice for short-term mission teams. I was thankful that the mission trips my sons have been on were led by people who had been on the mission field, and this echoed much of what they were told. You might pray for Brenda — she’s just found out she has breast cancer and will have to come home to the US for treatment.

I’m not familiar with the blog All you have to give, but from a link somewhere (I forgot to note where) I found this great post on fasting.

I LOVE Anita’s creative space.

Just for fun, I did go head and look up “interesting” at Thesaurus.com: “appealing, entertaining. Synonyms: absorbing, affecting, alluring, amusing, arresting, attractive, beautiful, captivating, charismatic, compelling, curious, delightful, elegant, enchanting, engaging, engrossing, enthralling, entrancing, exceptional, exotic, fascinating, fine, gracious, gripping, impressive, intriguing, inviting, lovely, magnetic, pleasing, pleasurable, prepossessing, provocative, readable, refreshing, riveting, stimulating, stirring, striking, suspicious, thought-provoking, unusual, winning.” I think many of those adjectives apply to many of these links. 🙂 Not “suspicious,” though. And I need to look up what “prepossessing” means (the dictionary can keep me occupied for hours…)

Hope you have a great Saturday. I need to do laundry (again), make a smallish trip to the store, restock the missions closet at church for visiting missionaries tomorrow, and attend a baby shower. And then maybe jump into any of the 101 other things that need to be done around here. Or maybe not. 🙂

Stray thoughts here and there

Posted on February 21, 2009 by Barbara Harper

Here are some other people’s thoughts that have blessed, encouraged, instructed me, and made me think recently:

Why we need the arts.

Herb Cookery: Vintage Tip Sheet.

Being vs. doing.

Mothering, chores, and consequences. Favorite quote: “…one theme that seems to keep coming up in some of the episodes we watch, and that’s women feeling as if they’re hopeless about getting their children to do chores. ‘They never clean up! They see me cleaning, but they never help, and finally I give up because it’s not worth the hassle and arguments they give me!’ Where did women ever get the idea that they were this hopeless? They are the MOTHERS. They can make their children clean up.”

10 good reasons to exercise hospitality. The posts linked to there are good reading as well. This is an area where I fall short consistently.

Valentine’s Day Single.

Reassurance for parents of young ones. Quote: “…the first few years are the hardest, if you do them right. Picture discipline like a pyramid: you discipline a lot in the first few years, and then when they’re older you don’t have to do very much. What’s required gets smaller and smaller because they internalize good morals (and hopefully a relationship with God).”

Raising sons, raising heroes. Quote: “I’ve been wondering lately,though, about the wisdom of always counseling my guys to avoid risks. Truth is, there are plenty of times in life that you need a guy around who is bold enough to take a risk. To do something.”

20 tips for living on one income.

Write as you read — different approaches to Bible study and getting more out of devotions.

A vision for women’s ministry. Quote: “Women’s ministry is not about women’s rights or about women’s feats, it’s about expressing our love for Jesus and His church – his body.” — Mrs. Susan Hunt

What we call “traditional” gender roles. Quote: “Far too often a couple who claims to be following the Scriptural model for gender roles are actually following a cultural tradition without any foundation.”

Collected thoughts for the new mom.

Fabric boxes.

My son pointed me to the This is why you’re fat blog (that sounds funny…he shared it because he thought it was interesting, not because he was hinting that I was fat…), a site showing “deliciously gross food,” like this Deep fried cupcake with chocolate syrup and sprinkles, the Bacon Cheese Pizza Burger, which uses pizzas as the top and bottom of a burger, or this Bacon-wrapped meatloaf with a layer of macaroni and cheese.

Some of it is pretty gross — some of it actually looks good — but only in small portions!!

Have a great weekend!

Interests and Issues

Posted on February 17, 2009 by Barbara Harper

Gina at Chats With an Old Lady is running a series on Titus 2 women, sharing testimonies of women who have emphasized the Titus 2 characteristics of an older woman teaching and being an example to a younger one. If you don’t have someone like this in your life, perhaps these testimonies would give you an idea of the kind of person to look for and pray for. Some of us need to get used to the idea that we’re supposed to be on the other end — being a Titus 2 woman to someone — and these will give us some idea how to do that.

Those of you who pray, I’d appreciate your prayers for the talks in Washington about the auto industry bailout. I don’t pretend to have any idea what the best course of action would be, but this concerns not only the auto industry but also myriad other industries that contribute to it. Some of the big car companies are some of the biggest customers of my husband’s company, so anything that affects the “big” business affects his as well.

Frank Sansone brought my attention to something I had not heard of: the fact that President Obama has nominated David Ogden for the position of Deputy Attorney General. This is alarming because of Ogden’s record on pornography, as delineated in the article article: David Ogden and the New Pornographers: Why the Senate Should Reject His Nomination:

In addition to making it harder to prosecute those who sell images of child molestation and rape, Ogden has sought to ensure that pornography can be easily distributed and readily accessed in almost any medium or location. He has fought cases in Puerto Rico to allow Playboy to broadcast explicit programming on TV. He represented Philip Harvey, a man who runs the nation’s largest mail-order pornography shop out of North Carolina, in his attempt to deflect a Department of Justice investigation of his business. Completing a sort of multi-media grand slam, Ogden has sued to allow sexually-explicit content to be transmitted over the phone. Taking this quest to its absurd limits, he has even claimed in court that there is a constitutional right for pornography to be kept in firehouses. Ogden’s position is good for the industry groups he has represented but bad for female firefighters who could be subjected to humiliating and harassing images in the workplace. With an equal disregard for the comfort and protection of children, in 2000 Ogden sued to allow pornography to be accessed in public libraries

Albert Mohler has some additional thoughts here. I hope you will contact your senators to reject this nomination.
The Common Room rightly describes as “Deeply disturbing, heartbreaking” this news and these clips from Palestinian children’s programming glorifying hate, war, and antisemitism.
I’ve been saddened and even sickened by the ramifications of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. Sherry at Semicolon has a good summary of it here. The main purpose of it is to keep our children from being poisoned by lead in toys — a good and worthy goal. But it has spun off into senseless mania. Retailers, thrift shops, and others are having to do away with multitudes of children’s books even though there has never been a known instance of someone getting lead contamination from a book. The Headmistress has been blogging about this for days — I would encourage you read even a portion of the info. there on it. It is absolutely mind-boggling.

Finally, I have also been greatly frustrated at the push for the economic stimulus package. Again, I know very little about what would be the best thing for the economy, but what frustrates me is the push to get it voted through before it could even be read. On a local radio interview with my state senator, Jim DeMint, he said he was trying to get them to delay for a week so they could take and read the thing, but that didn’t happen. It’s just irresponsible to push for a vote on something when very few have any idea of the specifics, and I have heard the bill contains some alarming policy changes. One of President Obama’s campaign promises was that the people would have five days to view any bill once it reaches his desk before he signs it. I hope he keeps that promise, but it would be nice for lawmakers to have at least that long to study a bill before signing it.

Sorry to be so depressing. 🙂 I am not feeling depressed — just bothered. I started to look for something cute or funny to end up with, but I decided to leave this post as is to encourage our alertness and prayers for our country and our world.

Stray thoughts…

Posted on February 10, 2009 by Barbara Harper

I have a dentist’s appointment this morning (ugh!). It’s just a cleaning, but there is still a sense of unease. I am a little concerned about the root canal I had last time. A few days after it I was eating a little mixed fruit cup, of all things, and inadvertently bit down on something hard in a piece of peach — right on that tooth — and it left an indention there. So I am hoping they are not going to say I have to have anything done with that. (Back from the dentist — everything is fine with the tooth. 🙂 )

Jesse’s last regular basketball game is today. To be in the playoffs they have to win, and by a good margin. This team beat them at their last meeting by twice their score — 34-17, I think. So this will be a challenge! They have a good strategy, though, so there is some hope. Win or lose today, they’ve done a great job and pretty steadily improved.

We had a wonderful ladies’ meeting last night. A lady gave her testimony who is a very quiet lady — you’d never know she was such a dynamic speaker! Her husband is a pastor, but they are in between ministries right now, looking for the Lord’s leading. They’ve been in our church now for a year — much longer than they had ever thought they’d be in a state of waiting — but they are still actively serving however they can. At last year’s ladies’ luncheon, her mom told me it was so nice her daughter could just come and enjoy since she usually speaks at them. I thought, “Aha! Someone I can ask to speak some time!” Then I heard she was a real dynamo at VBS last summer. She kind of wove her testimony in with something the Lord had laid on her heart, and He wonderfully used it.

Plus…I have been thinking and praying about the upcoming ladies’ luncheon in April…but just wasn’t set on anything yet, and I was starting to get a little panicky and really hoping to have at least a theme this week. This lady suggested a lady she knew who does dramatic readings and did one recently based on Evidence Not Seen by Darlene Deibler Rose, a tremendous book. My first thought was that it might work better for a regular ladies’ meeting, since the luncheon doesn’t usually have a missionary focus. But then I thought, since we usually have more people at the luncheon than at a regular meeting, it would have a wider audience there. Then this morning, more ideas of how to incorporate this into the luncheon came to mind — so this might be what we do! Maybe that’s why the Lord hadn’t given me any other ideas yet. I’ll try to make contact later today and see if this lady has the date free and then go from there.

Normally when planning for the luncheon, I like to have the verse for it first. Usually just in the course of regular devotions or while praying about the theme, a verse will stand out, and after further prayer and thought, then theme ideas, favor ideas, special music, etc., all just flow forth, and that, to me, is kind of confirmation that that’s the way we should go. I like to have the spiritual emphasis first rather than a cute or clever theme that we then try to dream up a spiritual basis for.

Well, I was going to share some interesting links I’ve seen lately, but since I have rattled on thinking out loud and ended up with rather a long post already, I think I’ll save them for another time.

Happy Tuesday!

Whose life is it, anyway?

Posted on January 8, 2009 by Barbara Harper

It’s interesting how God brings something to my attention just as I need it. I had just been chafing under an area of service to another, a particularly minor service, when Michelle’s post about serving the Lord with gladness convicted me. That led me to thinking about serving one another in love. Then last night in Joy and Strength I read the following:

Let every one of us please his neighbor for his good.
ROMANS 15:2

Let us consider one another.
HEBREWS 10:24

LOOK around you, first in your own family, then among your friends and neighbors, and see whether there be not some one whose little burden you can lighten, whose little cares you may lessen, whose little pleasures you can promote, whose little wants and wishes you can gratify. Giving up cheerfully our own occupations to attend to others, is one of the little kindnesses and self-denials. Doing little things that nobody likes to do, but which must be done by some one, is another. It may seem to many, that if they avoid little unkindnesses, they must necessarily be doing all that is right to their family and friends; but it is not enough to abstain from sharp words, sneering tones, petty contradiction, or daily little selfish cares; we must be active and earnest in kindness, not merely passive and inoffensive.

There is no author listed for the quote: under it is just “LITTLE THINGS, 1852.”

Selfish as I am, I have to be frequently reminded my life is not my own. It’s His, and often serving others is serving Him.

Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour. Ephesians 5:1-2.