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
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
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
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?
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.
Thursday Thirteen: I could teach lessons in grocery bagging
I have never worked in a grocery store, but I have shopped in them for over 30 years and I know what bagging issues cause problems by the time a shopper gets home. I know sometimes it’s busy and there is a long line at the check out and the mentality is “just get them bagged up and outta here asap.” That will usually make for problems. I have bagged my own groceries before when no one else was available and I know it doesn’t really take a lot of extra time to bag thoughtfully. So if I could teach Grocery Bagging 101, here would be some of my key points:
1. Do not put raw meat in the same bag with things that will not be cooked, like produce and lunch meat and cheese. Personally I prefer raw meat be put in its own bag all alone. I don’t know why, with all the warnings about raw meat right there on the label, it’s packaged in a way that blood leaks out. We don’t stand for leakage with any other product, why raw meat? Some companies are changing their packages, and I hope that trend spreads. But meanwhile, we don’t want to cross-contaminate bloody meat with fresh foods.
2. Don’t put soft things (like bananas and bread) in the same bag with hard things (cans). The soft things will get squished or bruised.
3. Not too many items are packaged in glass any more, but don’t put glass bottles in the same bag together. They clink together when the bags are picked up and can break. We had a glass bottle of apple juice break in the back of our car once. Not fun.
4. Don’t put a lot of heavy things (i.e., cans) into one bag, even if you double bag them. What a healthy 19-year-old guy can easily move from the check-out to the cart and the cart to my car takes more effort for me to move from my car through two rooms and up seven steps to the kitchen.
5. On the other hand, I’ve had multitudes of bags with just one or two items in them, and that’s a waste of resources.
6. Don’t put anything cold in the bag with anything that might be damaged by condensation (i.e., cardboard boxes). Condensation does occur even on a short drive home.
7. It helps to have frozen foods packaged together — they keep each other cold.
8. The same is true with refrigerated items.
9. I don’t necessarily want to trade life stories or become best friends over the canned green beans and paper towels, but I don’t want to be totally ignored, either. A friendly greeting or some kind of acknowledgment does wonders. (Incidentally, I feel the same holds true on the other side of the counter. I hate to see customers chatting on cell phones all through their checkout.)
10. On the job in front of customers is not the best time to gripe about your job, boss, coworkers, customers, etc. It’s not the best time to flirt with the cute cashier, either.
11. If you can’t talk and work at the same time — work. 🙂
12. If you are sent to retrieve something (say, a package of something was broken open and you are sent for a replacement), if you don’t know where the item is, ask someone right away rather than roaming around looking while the customer and checkout line is being held up waiting for you.
13. Smile! 🙂 Act like you enjoy your job, even if it is “just” a grocery store job, and it will do wonders for your customers, your coworkers, and yourself. And your boss will notice.
I hope this doesn’t sound like just the rantings of an grouchy customer. You may see hundreds of customers a day (and many of them can be less than fun, I know — I have worked in retail sales), but they only interact with a handful of workers. If they have a negative experience with any one of them it reflects on the individual and the business. Plus industriousness, attention to detail, and some amount of people skills will serve you well in any job.
You can join in Thursday Thirteening here at the T13 Hub.
Alphabet Soup
I saw this over at Joyful Notes and thought it looked like fun!
A is for age: 50
B is for burger of choice: The ones my husband grills
C is for car you drive: Chevy Grand Caravan (Make that Chrysler, as my husband lovingly corrected me. I don’t know much about cars. 🙂 )
D is for your dog’s name: Suzie
E is for essential item you use every day: Deodorant and toothpaste!
F is for favorite TV show at the moment: Lost
G is for your favorite game: Word Twist (on Facebook)
H is for hometown: probably Greenville, SC. Our time there was the longest I have ever lived in one place, and going back there feels like going home.
I is for instruments you play: None. 😦
J is for favorite juice: orange
K is for what you’d like to kick: Excess poundage.
L is for last restaurant you ate at: Monterrey’s Mexican Food
M is for your favorite muppet: Grover
N is for number of piercings: None
O is for overnight hospital stays: Seven separate stays, more than one night each stay.
P is for people you were with today: Jim, Jeremy, Jason, and Jesse.
Q is for what you do with your quiet time: Read, computer
R is for biggest regret: Dating a guy for four years who was definitely not the right one
S is for status: Married to my wonderful husband, mom to 3 boys young men.
T is for time you woke up today: 7:30 a.m.
U is for what you consider unique: The Bible.
V is for vegetable you love: potato
W is for worst habit: munching, wasting time
X is for x-rays you’ve had: oh, my, let’s see…several on teeth and chest, one on ankle, several on spine (worst was myelogram on spine — they inject dye then tilt you up and down)
Y is for yummy food you ate today: chocolate chip cookie.
Z is for zodiac sign: Don’t believe in ’em. 🙂
Let me know if you play, too!
(Photo courtesy of the morgue files)
This and that
- Do you ever feel that, once this event or that obligation is over, then things will get back to “normal” and you can get other things done. And then on the horizon is the next event or obligation. And then you begin to wonder if maybe this is normal? 🙂
- Thanks for all your thoughts and kind words in regard to my mom yesterday.
- We had a nice day yesterday, with lots of great food and plenty of leftovers for lunch today! Jim had suggested going to a park, but I felt the parks would probably be crowded yesterday. Yet reading about all the folks who went somewhere yesterday almost makes me feel maybe we should have. I’m not a fan of packing up food just to go cook it somewhere else just to eat outside…and with the kids being older, there’s not the fun of letting them play on the playground or watching them feed ducks, etc. I wish we had done one of the suggestions on the link about observing Memorial Day that I posted yesterday — finding information about one person who gave their life for our country and reading about him or her to the kids, to personalize what we’re observing. But I didn’t see that early enough to prepare for it. I hope to next year.
- Jesse just finished school Friday, so this feels like the first day of summer vacation to me. I haven’t quite fathomed that my youngest is now a high school freshman! :O
- Jesse is (im)patiently waiting for me to get done with the computer and came to see if I was nearly done. While waiting he was bent over reading what I was writing, and I whispered, “I don’t like people reading over my shoulder.” He said, “I wasn’t reading over your shoulder. I was reading beside you.” Smart aleck!! 😀
- I love the more laid back pace of summer (especially not having to set the alarm clock!) but it always takes a few days to adjust to everyone being home and the higher noise level and the loss of solitude. None of the rooms in our house closes off from the others except the bedrooms and bathrooms, so from here in the sunroom where the computer is or the living room or kitchen, I can hear the cartoons or video games from the family room. Plus one of my sons is just loud!! And constantly making noise!
- Everyone is traveling somewhere over the summer — a couple of them out of the country! — except me. I’m a homebody who doesn’t like to travel, so I don’t mind at all being the one to “stay by the stuff” and “keep the home fires burning.” I will probably say more about those travels after they occur. I don’t think any cyberstalkers are paying attention to me, but, still, I’d rather play it safe.
- I need to sit down and make a list of things I want to get done this summer. Much as I like the more laid-back pace, it is very easy to just drift through the days and get nothing of consequence accomplished.
One of the biggest changes for us will be that my mother-in-law will be moving here from Idaho to stay in an assisted living facility. She can’t live alone any more and all the family is leaving the area there one by one. We don’t want her in a facility there because we wouldn’t really know how she is doing — she is one who says everything is “fine” because she doesn’t want anyone to worry, no matter what is going on. Plus there would be no one there to visit her. Out of all her kids, our family has the most time available, plus the cost of such facilities is much lower here than out in CA where Jim’s brother is.
At first she did not want to move at all, understandably. She’s been in ID some 35 years or so, I think, so this is a big change, not to mention not being able to live independently any more. I am hoping and praying that it will not be too traumatic for her.
My husband visited several facilities in the area and found one he liked a lot. He went last week to make arrangements and sign papers. He took pictures to send to his mom, and asked one of the residents if he could take a picture of her garden area to send his mom. She readily agreed and said, “Tell her we’d love to have her!” The people there seem friendly, happy, and open, so that helps a lot. The administration seemed great and answered a lot of questions we had. The whole set-up seems really good. I think once she adjusts to the changes and gives it a chance, she will do well, but it is going to be an adjustment period for all of us.
One of the biggest adjustments for us will be that we have never lived near family. It has always been “feast or famine” in that regard — either far apart with occasional letters and phone calls, or a big trip with everyone visiting for several days. So just the time factor and the social obligations of having family nearby is something we’re not used to. Jim said we probably shouldn’t try to go over every day — that probably would not be good for us or for her. But we plan to pick her up for church on Sundays and then have her spend the day here, and I am sure we’ll be over several times during the week. We’ll juts have to play it by ear for a while. I’d be less than honest if I didn’t admit I am a little apprehensive about several factors, but we fell this is what the Lord would have us do, so we can trust for His wisdom and grace.
With these new changes I am contemplating whether I should lay aside some of the other things I am doing, particularly a couple of the other smaller ministries at church. That’s one of the things I need to sit down and think through. Maybe we’ll just see how it goes for a while.
Well, Jesse has been very good and patient, and I need to let him have his “turn” at the computer now. 🙂 Have a good day!
Remembering Mom
This Memorial Day happens to coincide with what would have been my mom’s 71st birthday. She passed away in December of 2005. I wrote more about her here, so I won’t repeat all of that. But I just wanted to pause and pay tribute to her memory.
My mom and me:
Before my wedding:
My mom and step-dad:
Mom, I miss our phone calls and your love and thoughtfulness. I’m looking forward to seeing you again.
Memorial Day
Any nation that does not honor its heroes will not long endure.
~Abraham Lincoln~
A good history of Memorial Day is here, and a great article about ways to observe it is here.
GOING TO THE GONE
A checklist for Memorial Day
by Greg Asimakoupoulos
May 23, 2008
Go look in on your children still asleep
within their bed.
Remind yourself they’re safe and warm
because of some long dead.
Go for a walk through cemeteries
lined with little flags.
Take time to ponder homebound heroes
flown in body bags.
Go stand between those granite stones
engraved with names and dates.
Imagine all who died defending
our United States.
Go on and kneel beside a marker
offering a prayer
with gratitude for those who gave their lives
defeating terror.
Go home and count your blessings
from the hands of those now gone.
Then vow to the Almighty that their
mem’ry will live on.
The following note applies to this poem: Copyright 2008 Greg Asimakoupoulos. Permission is granted to send this to others, with attribution, but not for commercial purposes.
Also found here.
Hat tip to A Thinking Man’s Thoughts.
(Graphic courtesy of Anne’s Place)
Stray Thoughts 
