I think I’ve found a time portal

Posted on June 4, 2008 by Barbara Harper

A strange phenomenon has been occurring. I look at the clock one moment, and then I look again in what should be 5 minutes, only instead the clock shows an hour…or more…later.

There must be some type of time portal through which stray minutes or hours are lost. Some alternate parallel universe must be extracting more than its fair share of time, which is going to disrupt the parallelism of the universes and seriously damage the space-time continuum.

That has to be it. I must locate that portal.

I think it is somewhere near my computer….

Wordless Wednesday

Posted on June 4, 2008 by Barbara Harper

More Wordless Wednesdays can be found at 5 Minutes for Mom and the WW hub.

OK, I’ve had about enough

Posted on June 3, 2008 by Barbara Harper

No, make that more than enough.

Enough what, you ask?

Enough of hearing the phrase, “Oh my God.” You hear it everywhere, but especially all over TV. The other day I heard the “oh my” in a high voice with God’s name in a low, guttural, drawn-out voice. On blogs and Internet forums it has been reduced to OMG. And then there are those who say “Jesus Christ” or shorten it to “Jeez.”

Why does this bother me?

Because I worship God and regard His name as high and holy.

He sent redemption unto his people: he hath commanded his covenant for ever: holy and reverend is his name. Psalm 111:9.

Not unto us, O LORD, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy truth’s sake. Psalm 115:1.

Praise the LORD; for the LORD is good: sing praises unto his name; for it is pleasant. Psalm 135:3.

Let them praise the name of the LORD: for his name alone is excellent; his glory is above the earth and heaven. Psalm 148:143

The name of the LORD is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe. Proverbs 18:10.

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6.

But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name. John 20:31.

For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Romans 10:13.

And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment. I John 3:23.

He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. I John 5:12-13.

Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:9-11.

That’s only a small smattering of what the Bible says about the name of God. One of the ten commandments is “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain” (Exodus 20:7).

What does it mean to take God’s Name in vain? Well, according to Dictionary.com “in vain” means:

a. without effect or avail; to no purpose: to apologize in vain.
b. in an improper or irreverent manner: to take God’s name in vain.

Using God’s name as a lower purpose for which it was intended is using it in vain. That certainly includes using it as an expression of surprise or disgust or anger or silliness or as just a filler in the blank spaces of conversation.

By the way, I believe this also applies to euphemisms of God’s name: gosh, golly, gee and the like. If you look up the definitions, all of these have their origins as an alteration of God or Jesus. But even though people might quibble about that, I think we can agree that using His actual name as an interjection is using it in vain.

Yes, I know this is not a Christian nation and not everyone believes in that name. But it seems that there could at least be a modicum of respect for it. I would never say, “Oh my Allah” or “Oh my Buddha” even though I do not believe in the Islamic religion or Buddhism. Think of the outcry there would be if people started doing that! Why should not the Christian God have at least that much regard?

“I Remember Laura” blogathon

Posted on June 2, 2008 by Barbara Harper

Quill Cottage is hosting an “I Remember Laura” blogathon on Mondays through the month of June in memory of Laura Ingalls Wilder, author if the “Little House” series of books. Each week will focus on a particular theme: this week is quilts, week 2 will feature buttons, week 3, family recipes, and week 4, books and music. There will also be an art swap going on each week in connection with the theme: Click on the picture for more information.

I don’t remember when I was first introduced to the “Little House” series. I must have read some of them as a child because I was familiar with some of the stories, and in me early married years I bought and read the whole series and thoroughly loved them. I think I have read them more than once and probably will again.

This week’s theme is Quilting Memories, and participants can be found here. I appreciate that in Laura’s time girls were taught needle arts at an early age, and I wish that trend continued. It was a necessity then: there were no Wal-Marts in which to but inexpensive bedding. But besides the necessity, it was a way to teach industriousness, neatness, and even math skills. Years ago I read a quote from an unnamed pioneer woman that went something like, “I make my quilts warm to keep my family from freezing. I make them beautiful to keep my heart from breaking.” That resonated with me. We can kind of romanticize pioneer life in our minds, but it had to be bleak at times, starting completely from scratch, knowing you had to focus on the essentials first before beautifying (we went through this with our fixer-upper of a first house. It got discouraging having to deal with the roof and electricity and hot water heaters before ever getting to painting, wallpapering, and decorating. I can imagine this feeling was multiplied in pioneer days). There would have been the hope and excitement of what was to come, but there had to have been long, tiring, bleak days along the way, especially during the winter. So quilts and other needle arts were also a way to beautify the home and exercise creativity.

I am afraid I don’t come from a family of crafters, much less quilters. I took one adult ed. class in quilting but never really went on with it from there. I love and admire quilting, though: I remember going to one quilt show and just being in awe of the detail, creativity, and work involved.

Besides looking “homey,” quilts are also a great way to incorporate a color scheme into a room. That is what I had in mind with this store-bought quilt from Wal-Mart several years ago. Our bedroom in our previous home had pink, blue, and green wallpaper which the previous owner had installed. Those colors are my favorites, and all the wall decorations and such we collected during that time were in those colors. When we moved and I needed to replace our bedspread anyway, I could find bedding in several different combinations of two of those colors, but not all three in any one set, until I found this quilt.

I just realized that one of the pillow shams is missing in this picture. 😳 For some reason my husband’s came apart and we’ve just been using regular pillow cases.

And even though this isn’t quilted, this is a bedspread crocheted my my great Aunt Dot: it is the only thing like it I have passed down from family:

And even though this isn’t part of the theme this week, another of the needle arts Laura and her sister Mary had to work on were samplers. In our early married years my decorating preferences leaned toward the early American style (possibly even as a result of reading Laura’s books, I cant remember), and it was in that time frame that I started this sampler.

Back to quilting: the only other items I own that relate to quilting are a pillow I did in that one class I mentioned, which I don’t think I have any more, and these Paula Vaughn prints my husband bought for me years ago.

It’s hard to tell from this photo, but each print focuses on one aspect of needle arts. The third one features a quilt.

I have always wanted to make a quilt like this one, but I honestly don’t know if I have the skills. 🙂 Quilting tends to be more exact than a lot of other crafts I do.

Quilts are prominent in many of Paula’s designs, and this combines quilts and cross stitch in this gift my sister made for me several years ago.

Shepherd of Love

Posted on June 1, 2008 by Barbara Harper

Jesus and the Lamb by Katherine Brown

Shepherd of love, You knew I had lost my way:
Shepherd of love, You cared that I’d gone astray.
You sought and found me, placed around me
Strong arms that carried me home;
No foe can harm me or alarm me,
Never again will I roam!
Shepherd of love, Savior and Lord and guide,
Shepherd of love, Forever I’ll stay by Your side.

Shepherd of love, Contentment at last is mine;
Deep in my heart, There’s peace and a joy divine.
The future’s brighter, burdens lighter,
My cup runs over each day;
Your grace supplied me, now provides me,
All that I need for the way.
Shepherd of love, Savior and Lord and guide,
Shepherd of love, Forever I’ll stay by your side.

(I don’t know the author and couldn’t find it online. Does anyone else know?)

Prayer Request

Posted on June 1, 2008 by Barbara Harper

Heather‘s daughter, Emma Grace. whom many of you know, appears to be in heart failure or rejection of her transplanted heart. This family has been through the mill with Emma’s illnesses and Heather’s cancer and I am sure they would appreciate all the prayer they can get.

Book Review: How To Say No to a Stubborn Habit

Posted on May 31, 2008 by Barbara Harper

How To Say No To a Stubborn Habit (subtitled Even When You Feel Like Saying Yes) by Erwin Lutzer has been republished under the title Winning the Inner War: How To Say No to a Stubborn Habit. My copy was published in 1994: I don’t know if anything has changed other than the name.

It could just as easily be titled How To Overcome Sin and Resist Temptation, because that is basically what it is about. One of the most compelling chapters is the first one: “Why So Much Temptation?” Lutzer discusses that troubling question reasonably and plausibly. Other chapters include “The Freedom of Living at the Cross,” “The Power of the Holy Spirit,” “The Renewing of Your Mind,” “Living With Your Feelings,” “The Taming Your Will.”

I have read this book through at least once before: I think I probably have more than that. I have been making a few notes from it for myself at my other blog, I Corinthians 10:31, which was originally started to chronicle my weight loss (I wanted that separate from this one because I had seen other bloggers’ blogs start talking about dieting and weight loss and having that end up the only thing they blogged about. I don’t kniw, maybe you need to be that obsessive to be successful. But I just wanted to keep that journey separate from this blog, though I do mention it from time to time). After the first seven pounds, though, I got off track and never got back on. That is one reason I wanted to go through this book again.

One of my biggest problems is dealing with feelings. Though I know we live by faith, not by feelings, a part of me still felt that, when I prayed for grace in dealing with this or any other “besetting sin,” a part of the answer would come by way of changing my feelings and desires. But often we must obey in spite of our feelings, and they will catch up later.

I enjoy Lutzer’s style. He is very reasonable, logical, and readable, with very clear and compelling illustrations. For instance, in illustrating the concept of reckoning ourselves “dead to sin” (confusing because we don’t feel very dead to it), he likens it to living in an apartment under new management. The old landlord may come around and demand payment, but we don’t owe him anything any more. Or, in illustrating how, when we decide we are going to get rid of a bad habit or resist a certain temptation and then can’t think about anything else, he writes to try not to think about the number 8. All of a sudden that’s all you can think about! But if you think of the number 1,000, divide it by 5, multiply it by 10, etc., then your mind is off of 8. So also it is not enough for us just to try to remove this one habit or sin in our lives: we have to replace it, preferably with Scripture, prayer, praise, singing a hymn, etc.

And though Lutzer is very firm in instructing about what must be done, he doesn’t rant and rave and wag a finger in your face. He gives simple and clear (though not easy) instructions based on God’s Word and derives hope from the same Source.

Erwin Lutzer is the pastor of Moody Church in Chicago and has a radio program called Running to Win. I hear part of his program if I have the radio on after I drop my youngest off at school, and this is the only book of his I have ever read, so I don’t know if I might have any disagreements with his stand on anything, but I agree with everything in this particular book. It is quite edifying and I would recommend it highly.

Saturday Photo Scavenger Hunt: Self or part of self

Posted on May 31, 2008 by Barbara Harper

PhotoHunt

Theme: Self or part of self | Become a Photo Hunter

Well, we’re supposed to show a picture of ourselves or a part of ourselves today. Brace yourselves!

😀

Seriously, though, I spent an inordinate amount of time looking through digital photos. Some of my family members have neat artsy shots of an eyebrow or part of their faces, and I almost used one of theirs. I almost used a picture from when I looked a lot better younger. But I clicked around on a few of the photo hunters that had already posted Friday night, and I really enjoyed getting to see people I have been interacting with for months. So in that spirit, I am posting the regular size of the picture over in my sidebar. It’s from Mother’s Day ’06.

The Saturday Photo Scavenger Hunt is sponsored by TN Chick.

Show and Tell Friday

Posted on May 30, 2008 by Barbara Harper

Kelli at There’s No Place Like Home hosts “Show and Tell Friday” asking “Do you have a something special to share with us? It could be a trinket from grade school, a piece of jewelry, an antique find. Your show and tell can be old or new. Use your imagination and dig through those old boxes in your closet if you have to! Feel free to share pictures and if there’s a story behind your special something, that’s even better! If you would like to join in, all you have to do is post your “Show and Tell” on your blog, copy the post link, come over here and add it to Mr. Linky. Guidelines are here.

I’ve made some progress on my cross stitch project. The last time I showed it it looked like this:

Now it looks like this:

I still have to do a mop and bucket to the left along with the caption underneath, but the end is in sight!

I found this lamp in a catalog a few years ago and I really liked its uniqueness. I don’t remember how much it was, but I do remember it was very reasonable.

It really aggravates my family, though, that if you touch it in just the right way, the little pieces fall out. We’ve been talking about securing them with plasti-tak but haven’t yet.

I know, I know, there is red there, and I have said I don’t like red — but it looks like kind of a dark pinkish red to me. 😀

The lamp is in the family room, which also has a mantle. Here are a few of the things there:

These are the only Willow Tree figurines I have, which is fine, because I don’t have the space for another collection. But I love these because of the father, mother and boys, since I have boys. There was another one of just a boy holding a heart which I also thought of getting since we have three boys. My guys think these look really weird. 🙄 I love the graceful beauty of these pieces. The little plaque in the middle was given to me by a secret sister from our ladies group at church a few years ago.

For more Show and Tells or to join in click n the button above.

Booking Through Thursday: What is Reading, Fundamentally?

Posted on May 29, 2008 by Barbara Harper

The Booking Through Thursday question for today is:

What is reading, anyway? Novels, comics, graphic novels, manga, e-books, audiobooks — which of these is reading these days? Are they all reading? Only some of them? What are your personal qualifications for something to be “reading” — why? If something isn’t reading, why not? Does it matter? Does it impact your desire to sample a source if you find out a premise you liked the sound of is in a format you don’t consider to be reading? Share your personal definition of reading, and how you came to have that stance.

Well, I think all of them are reading (except audiobooks. That’s listening. I like doing that sometimes, too, though). Dragging your eyes across a page or screen to understand words and derive meaning from them is reading in any format. So this seems a bit of an odd question to me.

On the other hand, I used to lament that my sons weren’t the readers that I had hoped they would be when we read multitudes of books when they were little. But then I realized my oldest son does read all the time — not the classics I love and would like to share and discuss, but multitudes of things online and on his PDA. It’ still reading. He’s just more interested in newsy and techie things.

So to me it’s more a matter of just preference. I love curling up on the couch with an old-fashioned real live book, especially a classic or fiction. I do read more on the computer than I used to. I don’t have a PDA, and there are times I would like the portability and compactness of it, but I don’t think I could stand to read very much for very long on that tiny screen.

Booking through Thursday is a weekly meme around the subject of books. The hostess poses a question which participants answer according to their own thoughts and opinions on their own blogs, linking back to the BTT site, which can be found by clicking on the button above.