Bloggy love

Posted on December 8, 2007 by Barbara Harper

No photo hunt post today — the theme was “long” and I just couldn’t come up with anything — and have a really busy day ahead anyway.

So I thought this would be a good time to take care of some long over-due bloggy business.

My good blog friend Alice gave me the “You’re an Amazing Blogger” award weeks ago. No, Alice I didn’t forget — please forgive me for taking so long to respond! Thank you so much!

What usually holds me up in acknowledging these things is figuring out who to pass them on to. In some ways I could give them to everyone, but I don’t think that’s what’s intended. I don;t want to leave anyone out — I appreciate everyone who comes here. But to narrow it down a bit, some of the bloggers I consider amazing are:

Dawn at 4:53 am. A Christian crafty lady, she displays a sweet spirit and sense of awe and wonder at God’s creation. And I like her craft entries, too!

Melli at Insanity Prevails. She has a way of making everyday life always seem like such an adventure. I love her enthusiasm and cheerfulness. Even in hard times she traces God’s hand in it and relies on His strength.

Lizzie at A Dusty Frame. I admire her honesty and the evidence of grace and God’s strength as she deals with being a temporary single mom while her husband is incarcerated. The lessons of faith her family has been learning have been a joy to witness.

Karla at Karla’s Cottage. She’s one if my favorite crafty bloggers, and I’m so glad she shares what she’s working on. I am amazed at how much she can get done in a short time!

Then, more recently my good blog buddy Jen gave me a couple more awards. Thanks so much!

One was the Blog Buddies award. There is a sense in which everyone who comes here is a blog buddy. 🙂 But I’d like to pass this on to few whom I feel I know a little better:

Alice at Hello, My Name is Alice.
Diane at A Watered Garden.
Susan at By Grace.
Bet at Dappled Things.
Ann at From Sinking Sand.
Jen at Joyful Notes.
Rita at The Jungle Hut.
Laurel at Laurel Wreath Reflections.
Susanne at Living to Tell the Story.
Cindy at Notes in the Key of Life.
Janeen at Our Story.
Jewel at Down In My Little Valley.
Kim at Life in the 10/40 Window.

Jen also passed on the me the Tough Blogger award for being “a tough blogger who is true to yourself.” Thanks, Jen!

This is kind of a hard one to pass on as my brain is scrambled right now and I can’t think of any blogger I know who isn’t true to themselves.

And jen also gave me the “Nice Matters” award (thank you!). I passed that on to several folks a while back.

In other bloggy news — at some point in the near future I think I am going to move my awards and links and maybe my blogroll up into the “About Me” section at the top right. I think it would make my sidebar look neater. And, though I love the awards, I fell a little funny about displaying them all there — don’t want to seem like I am bragging on myself. 🙂 So if you have blessed me with an award and don’t see it on the side, either I am busy with Christmas stuff and don’t have it up yet or I will have moved it. It may be after Christmas before I get to that, though.

Thanks, dear blog friends!

Show and Tell Friday: Surprising Picture Book

Posted on December 7, 2007 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.“

This was a souvenir we bought the first time we visited the Biltmore House in Asheville, NC. It’s a reproduction of a Victorian-style book and not an actual antique, but I love the poems and illustrations.

This has an added feature of what’s called “Surprising Pictures.” There are pictures throughout that look one way at first…

but then you pull a little ribbon, and the picture starts to change…

into another picture.

Maybe it’s leftover girlhood — the title does say Surprising Pictures for Little Folk — but I love this. 🙂 It’s also fun to bring it out to show children who come over. I keep it put up and handle it very gently while showing children so it stays in good condition. But little ones, especially, are fascinated by the changing pictures. I love that part, but I also love the Victorian-looking illustrations and poems.

Soup-tacular

Posted on December 7, 2007 by Barbara Harper

It must be recipe week in the blogosphere, between Shannon’s call for quick and easy recipes on Wednesday and BooMama’s Soup-tacular today. Fine with me — I like finding new, good recipes! And I love soup when the weather’s cold.

I posted this first one a while back, but I’ll repost it here so as to have all these together:

I love potato soups, and some day I am going to make a completely-from-scratch one. But in the meantime this quicker version does nicely. I found it in a Quick Cooking magazine (now called Simple and Delicious) (one of Taste of Home’s spinoffs). It’s quick, it’s easy, and it’s good.

Corny Potato Chowder

4 bacon strips, diced
1/2 c. chopped onion
1 can (15 oz.) whole potatoes, drained and diced
2 cups milk
1 can (14 – 3/4 oz.) cream-style corn
1/2 tsp. garlic
1/8 tsp. pepper

In a large saucepan, cook the bacon and onion until bacon is almost crisp; drain. Add potatoes; saute for 2-3 minutes. Stir in the milk, corn, garlic salt, and pepper. Simmer, uncovered, until heated through. Yield: 4-6 servings.

I use the already-cooked-just-microwave bacon (we don’t use bacon very often, so that works well for us), then just mix all the other ingredients together and heat through. I don’t use that much onion either — more like a tablespoon of minced onion. And I use garlic powder rather than garlic salt and just add a few sprinkles of salt. I also buy the already diced canned potatoes. And I just use 1 cup milk — I like more stuff and less broth or liquid in soups.

Quick Vegetable-Beef Soup

1 lb. ground beef or ground turkey
Minced onion
Garlic powder
1 cup Minute Rice
1 can tomato sauce
1 can mixed vegetables
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

Brown the meat and onion and cook the rice according to package directions. Drain the meat and add rice, tomato sauce, vegetables, and Worcestershire sauce. Simmer til heated through. We like to serve it with crackers or corn muffins. You can use frozen (or even fresh!) vegetables if you choose — you would just need to cook them longer. This soup is also good for adding leftover vegetables.

Chicken Ramen Noodle Soup

2 packages chicken-flavored ramen noodles
1-2 cups cooked chicken cut into bite-sized pieces
Minced onion
1 can mixed vegetables

Prepare the ramen noodles according to package directions. Add cooked chicken, vegetables, and minced onion to taste; heat through. As with the above recipe, you can use frozen or fresh vegetables if you prefer.

Chicken and Rice Soup

2 cups cooked, diced chicken
Minced onion
1 tsp. garlic powder
2 cans chicken broth or 2 c. water and 2 tsp chicken bullion
1 cup Minute Rice
1 can mixed vegetables
Salt and pepper to taste

Do you see a lot of similarity between the last three recipes? 🙂 Just mix these ingredients and heat through.

I make Turkey Bone Soup the same way, except I take the bigger bones from the turkey, boil in a big pot of water for about and hour, remove the bones, run the broth through a strainer to get out any little bits of bone or gristle, then proceed as above, only using leftover turkey instead of chicken. It’s one of my favorite leftover turkey dishes.

All of these are fairly adjustable: you can add more or less of any of the ingredients according to what you like and what you have on hand. In most of them I like to sprinkle a little frozen corn in with the mixed vegetables.

Laying down life

Posted on December 6, 2007 by Barbara Harper

One of the things that continues to surprise me is just how far selfishness still has its roots in me.

An incident yesterday and a quote I saw this morning, among other things, brought it all to the forefront again. Someone called yesterday and the conversation got off on the wrong foot right off the bat when I said hello and heard voices, but no one answered. We’d been getting a lot of either political calls or calls where someone hung up as soon as we answered, so I figured it was one of those kinds of calls. When they finally spoke, I was irritated and it showed in my tone. It was someone I knew, but she hadn’t realized someone had picked up the phone, so she was talking to someone else with her. Then she told me about a problem resulting from an apparent oversight on my part, though I hadn’t gotten the information that I needed to take care of anything. Then, you know how sometimes people will talk and forget a detail like a name or what day something occurred, and then they get sidetracked trying to remember that detail when it doesn’t really have anything to do with the conversation? Well, that happened with this lady, and I was busy, still holding in one hand the things I’d been taking care of when the phone rang, and irritated in general, so I just interrupted and said, “Well, that’s not important,”and proceeded to discuss what we needed to do to take care of the situation.

Yikes!

My whole tone and demeanor indicated a lack of love and concern and a selfish preoccupation. Instead of being helpful and kind, I let it be known that I was bothered.

Then this morning on girltalk, Kristin shared a quote from a book by J. I. Packer. I’ve not read anything of his, but this quote struck me:

“The Christmas spirit does not shine out in the Christian snob. For the Christmas spirit is the spirit of those who, like their Master, live their whole lives on the principle of making themselves poor–spending and being spent–to enrich their fellow humans, giving time, trouble, care and concern, to do good to others—and not just their own friends–in whatever way there seems need.”

This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. John 15:12-13.

I’ve long believed that laying down our lives is not just martyrdom, not just physical death, but rather the everyday serving another by sacrificing our own time and attention for them. I’ve long believed that my schedule is in God’s hands, that even interruptions are allowed by Him, may even be His divine appointments for the day. That struck me full force one day when I realized the healing of the woman with the issue of blood took place while Jesus was on his way to heal Jairus’ daughter. Imagine how Jairus felt after he’d found Christ to come and heal his daughter who was dying, then this woman interrupts, then he receives word that his daughter has died (Luke 8:41-56). Yet Jesus reassures him that she would be made whole — and she was. He brought her back from the dead, and how much more glorious the whole situation was in the end.

In fact, if you study the life of Christ, He was constantly interrupted. He rose a great while before day to pray, and people came seeking him out. People were constantly wanting His attention, yet you never see Him ruffled, short-tempered, irritated, bothered.

I’ve known these things — but I often fail at living them.

By love serve one another. Galatians 5:13b.

I do want to serve others. But I tend to want to do it in my own way, at certain times or through certain events. If I listen to a conversation or fill a need, then I want to pat the other person on the head and say, “OK, I’ve served you for a while. Leave me alone now so I can do what I want.” That’s hardly characteristic of Christ.

And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved. II Corinthians 12:15.

Most of the people with whom I have to do are very loving in response. I generally don’t have to worry about expending time, energy, and care on people who don’t love me — so how much more willing should I be to “spend and be spent” for them?

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it. Mark 8:35.

Lord, forgive me for thinking that my time, energy, schedule, resources, and everything else are my own. Help me to remember it is all Yours, and I am here to serve You, not live for myself. Help me to truly love You with all my heart and soul and mind and strength and to love others as You have loved me — sacrificially, unselfishly, continually. I need Your grace, because my natural bent is to be self-centered, to serve occasionally and often with the wrong motives. Help me to lay down the bits and pieces of my life every day rather than trying to grasp back enough for self. Help me to serve and love on Your terms and not my own.

Booking Through Thursday: Out of print

Posted on December 6, 2007 by Barbara Harper

The Booking Through Thursday question for this week is:

Do you have a favourite book, now out of print, that you would like to see become available again?

Yes, I do, though I am guessing they are off the beaten path from the other participants. 🙂

One of my favorites, originally read about 20 years ago, is Sometimes I Prefer To Fuss by Verda Peet. I found a used version earlier this year and reread it (and reviewed it here.) The author and her husband had been missionaries to Thailand for thirty years, and the book is a humorous, honest, and poignant look at missionary life. The title comes from the truth that God’s grace is sufficient for whatever we’re dealing with, but sometimes we choose to fuss instead.

Another missionary book I read years ago is Never Say Can’t by Jerry Ballard, a missionary to Cuba and Panama. All I can remember about it is that he didn’t have much of any self-confidence and felt he had little talent, but he determined that he would never say “I can’t” in the face of any task (in fact, he and his wife wrote those words on a slip of paper and buried them). He went on to be marvelously used of the Lord, trusting in His sufficiency and not his own.

I’ve read most of Elisabeth Elliot’s books, one I’d like to read again that’s out of print is Twelve Baskets of Crumbs. If I remember correctly it’s along the lines of Keep a Quiet Heart — just her thoughts various subjects. There is one particular piece she wrote about widowhood that I have looked for in her other books and old newsletters and can’t find, and I am wondering if it was in that book.

I think I first discovered Richard Armour through a poem in a book, then I searched the web and found he had written lots of books — over 60. He was a professor of English who had a regular newspaper column called “Amour’s Armory,” and many of his books are poems or short essays from that column. Most of his work is humorous in the style of Odgen Nash, but there are some sweet and winsome ones as well.

From his book Richard Armour’s Punctured Poems: Famous First and Infamous Second Lines comes these treasures:

“To err is human, to forgive divine.”

Followed by

“Some errors I forgive, though quickly. . . . Mine.”

From “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“Water, water, everywhere;”

Followed by

“The plumbing badly needs repair.”

From “Marmion” by Sir Walter Scott

“Oh, what a tangled web we weave!”

Followed by

“The webs to spiders we should leave.”

I wrote a review of his book The Spouse in the House here.

I’d love to see all of these books come back into print because I feel they’d be both interesting and beneficial. I have found all of them on amazon.com — and even ordered a couple this morning! Other BTT participants have listed other good sites for finding out of print books as well.

Updated to add: I thought of another one. Years ago I was fascinated with a book titled Charlie’s Victory by Charlie Wedemeyer. He was an athlete and coach who developed ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). By the end of it, he was an inspirational and motivational speaker — even though he couldn’t speak. It was a wonderful book. I gave my copy away to a friend who is paralyzed, but I’d love to read it again. Two things remain in my memory from this book: one was during a particularly bad night when he finally said his family would be better off without him. His wife said, “I’d rather have you this way than not at all.” Later, when he got to the point where he couldn’t breathe on his own, he was rushed to the hospital where doctors tried to tell his wife it was time t let him go. A nurse told her about portable ventilators. When she asked the doctor, he was angry (!) Finally they found someone who would put her husband on a portable ventilator, and he was able to travel and do many things. So many people regard ventilators as a death sentence or as signal that that’s enough, but for many people, a portable vent can give them enough help to lead a wonderful life — though not ideal and not the life they would have chosen, I know personally people who are paralyzed and on a vent who lead full, active, happy lives.

Works-For-Me Wednesday: What Do I Fix?

Posted on December 5, 2007 by Barbara Harper

Shannon’s “Works For Me Wednesday” today is a themed one, asking for quick, easy meal ideas for “those nights” — like when you’re not feeling well, or errands took longer than expected and you have something to attend at church or for school that night, or you get back from baseball practice late and everyone starving, etc. I am really looking forward to getting a lot of ideas today!

I try to keep a couple of quickie meals in the freezer for those times. One is Banquet chicken nuggets and chicken tenders and Ore-Ida frozen french fries (I like the Pixie Crinkles best, but we try different kinds for variety). Pop them in the oven for about 10 minutes while you rustle up a vegetable side dish, and you’re set. I also love Contessa brand chicken fried rice — add a little oil and microwave (or stir-fry) long enough to heat through. Wonderful!

But frozen stuff can be expensive and take up a lot of room in your freezer plus increase your sodium intake exponentially. So we can’t do that too often. Though I’d have chicken fried rice once a week if I could.

Other quickie staples are:

Grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup
Tuna sandwiches and some other kind of soup
Wraps: tortillas with a squirt of honey mustard, topped with a slice of ham, turkey, and provolone and a little lettuce or baby spinach leaves, then rolled up.
English muffins sliced in half, spread with Miracle Whip (or your favorite condiment), topped with tuna which has been drained and mixed with a little Miracle Whip (plus anything else you might want to add) and cheese (we like to do a few each with different kinds of cheeses. We always have American and cheddar and sometimes Swiss, provolone, or Monterrey Jack). Bake in about a 350 oven until cheese melts, serve with tomato soup or macaroni and cheese or carrot sticks or whatever
English muffins sliced in half, spread with pizza sauce or spaghetti sauce, topped with pepperoni and provolone or mozzarella cheese, baked until cheese is melted and edges of muffin are slightly brown. (I don’t usually have pizza sauce or spaghetti sauce in hand, but I open a can of tomato sauce and add [right in the can] minced onion, garlic powder, oregano, basil, and Parmesan cheese and stir, and it works just fine. I prefer it, in fact, to the jars of sauce).
Canned crescent roll dough unrolled and separated into wedges with pepperoni and provolone or mozzarella placed on the wide end; roll up, bake until browned, serve with pizza/spaghetti sauce or ranch dressing for dipping.
Breakfast for dinner: scrambled eggs are pretty quick. I add ham lunch meat to mine and sprinkle with shredded cheddar cheese when it’s done.
My kids like hot dogs cut up into tomato sauce and warmed through, served with macaroni and cheese and a vegetable.
Fully cooked link sausage links (like kielbasa or other varieties) cut up into barbecue sauce, heated through, served with macaroni and cheese and green beans. Though I like the bottled barbecue sauce on other things, it seems a little strong or harsh for this, so I make up my own with 1 cup ketchup, 1/2 cup vinegar, minced onion, 2 Tbs Worcestershire sauce, 1 Tbs mustard, and garlic powder: mix together, add sausage, and the sauce will thicken as it cooks.

I have a friend who sometimes will brown 5 lbs. of ground beef all at one time with onion and then separate it into five portions and freeze it. Having the meat browned is half the battle: just thaw for a few minutes in the microwave (if you’re making something like a soup or casserole. you probably could just thaw it enough to break it up and let the rest of it warm through in the dish you’re cooking).

My very first works-for-me-Wednesday entry (and one of my most often searched-for posts) was about chicken tenderloins. Love those things because you can take them straight from the freezer to the oven or microwave. Several ideas for using them are here and here.

Tuna is one of those things that no one gets real excited about, but the family does enjoy it when they do eat it and it does stop hunger. 🙂 Here are my quickest tuna meals:

Quick Tuna Casserole

2 1/2 cups Minute Rice
1 can tuna, drained
1 can cream of chicken soup
Shredded cheddar cheese

Prepare rice with 2 1/2 cups water according to package directions. Mix in tuna and soup, top with cheddar cheese, and microwave for 3-4 minutes.

Tuna Tetrazzini

1 pkg. (7-8 oz.) angel-hair pasta, cooked
1/4 c. (1/2 a stick) butter or margarine
1/4 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 c. chicken broth or 1 c. boiling water + 1 tsp. chicken bouillon
1 c. milk
1 T. snipped parsley (optional)
1- 1 1/2 tsp. minced onion
1 small can tuna, drained
Grated Parmesan cheese

Melt margarine in a glass casserole dish in microwave (about 1 minute). Add flour, salt, and pepper; blend well. Add broth and milk gradually, stirring constantly. Cook uncovered in microwave 4-5 minutes on high, or until thickened; stir after 2 minutes, then every minute (a wire whisk works great to make sauce smooth). Add onion, parsley, and tuna to sauce; mix well. Mix in cooked pasta. Heat uncovered in microwave 3 minutes on high. Stir mixture well and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Microwave uncovered on high 3-5 minutes. Makes 6-8 servings.

I’m one of those weird people who actually likes spam (the food, not the junk). I sometime like to cut it in slices and fry it, then make a sandwich with it. This casserole is a comfort food from my childhood:

Spam Casserole

1 can Spam or Treet
1/2 box rotini (or other) noodles
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can cheddar cheese soup
Margarine

Cut spam into cubes and brown in melted margarine while noodles are cooking. Drain noodles, add soups and spam and stir well: Heat through.

And here’s another fairly quick favorite:

Country-Style Eggs

4 slices bacon
2 Tbs margarine
6 ounces frozen hash browns
1/4 cup chopped onion (or about a tablespoon minced onion)
6 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
Dash pepper
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese

Fry or microwave bacon: crumble and set aside. Put margarine, potatoes and onion into an 8-ounce round glass cake dish or pie plate. Cook uncovered in microwave on high 6 minutes or until vegetables are tender, stirring once. Mix eggs, milk, salt and pepper. Flatten potato mixture and pour egg mixture over the top. Cover with waxed paper and microwave 6-7 minutes at medium-high or until egg mixture is almost set, stirring once. Sprinkle bacon and cheese over egg mixture: microwave uncovered 1 minute at medium-high or until cheese just starts to melt. Remove from micrwave oven and ket stand 5 minutes. Cut into wedges. Makes 4-6 servings.

Optional: you can add 1/4 cup or so of chopped green pepper to cook with the potatoes and onion mixture, though why anyone would want to do that, I don’t know… 🙂

I’m hungry already. I’m going to be drooling by the time I read the other posts…

Photo meme

Posted on December 4, 2007 by Barbara Harper

I found this fun-looking meme at Gabi’s World and Mindless Chatter of a Busy Mom.

Here are the rules:
Type the answer to each question into Google Image Search. Then, pick an image from the 1st page of results.

1. Age at next birthday

2. Place I’d like to travel

Ireland

3. Favorite place:

4. Favorite objects

5. Favorite food

and

6. Favorite color:

and

7. Nickname

Growing up I was

but now I’m

8. Place you were born

Let me know if you’d like to do this, too, so I can see what you come up with.

Time Travel Tuesday: Bad hair day?

Posted on December 4, 2007 by Barbara Harper

My Life as Annie’s weekly Time Travel Tuesday question for today is:

We’ve all had them… the worst haircut or hair mistake ever! It didn’t just go away either… Travel back to that tragic day that your hair went wrong. What happened? How did you deal with the problem… did it take a long time to work it out or grow it out?

I’ve only occasionally had what I would consider a good hair today. My hair is straight, fine, limp, lifeless, and resists most efforts to do anything with it. I’ve had some success with permanents (though I have never understood why a temporary hair treatment is called a permanent…), but I also lose a lot of hair when I have one, and since my hair is thin in the first place, I don’t want to risk it becoming even thinner.

So, besides static electricity making me look like Medusa or a simple walk through the house making me look like I’ve been out in the wind, I couldn’t think of any more serious hair disasters, until I remembered one day in college…

Our school, being a liberal arts university, would have occasional Shakespearean plays or classical music concerts that students were required to attend. These were dress-up affairs and considered to be prime dating occasions. Once toward the end of my sophomore year one of my roommates and I had no dates for an upcoming play and arranged to go together. For some reason I decided to try to curl my hair with the hot curlers that were used a lot at the time. After getting all dressed and ready to go, I took the curlers out as the last thing before we left — and one got stuck in my hair. The curlers had little prongs to keep them from sliding around, and somehow those caught in one strand of hair and got hopelessly tangled. We would get demerits if we were late to the play, so we were frantically trying to get that curler out without ripping out my hair. Finally after several minutes we got it disentangled, I ran a comb through my hair, and we dashed off as fast as we could, forgetting all the dignity of the occasion, and found our seats just in time. As the house lights began to dim for the beginning of the play, my roommate turned and looked at me and said, “And it didn’t even curl!!” All that effort and frustration to no avail. All we could do was laugh.

Bliss….

Posted on December 3, 2007 by Barbara Harper

…a fresh-baked brownie spread with peanut butter…..

Psalm Sunday: Psalm 56

Posted on December 2, 2007 by Barbara Harper

1 Be merciful unto me, O God: for man would swallow me up; he fighting daily oppresseth me.

2 Mine enemies would daily swallow me up: for they be many that fight against me, O thou most High.

3 What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.

4 In God I will praise his word, in God I have put my trust; I will not fear what flesh can do unto me.

5 Every day they wrest my words: all their thoughts are against me for evil.

6 They gather themselves together, they hide themselves, they mark my steps, when they wait for my soul.

7 Shall they escape by iniquity? in thine anger cast down the people, O God.

8 Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?

9 When I cry unto thee, then shall mine enemies turn back: this I know; for God is for me.

10 In God will I praise his word: in the LORD will I praise his word.

11 In God have I put my trust: I will not be afraid what man can do unto me.

12 Thy vows are upon me, O God: I will render praises unto thee.

13 For thou hast delivered my soul from death: wilt not thou deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living?

I am glad that a warrior such as David was could admit that he was afraid. He had very real enemies after him off and on throughout his life; he hid for his life in caves; he fought victoriously against his foes, foes who not only battled him physically but who “wrested his words” (v. 5). Even though he had much more reason to be afraid than I have had, verse 3 has been a comfort to me many times. When fear come, I can dwell on them — which doesn’t help, and, in fact, only make things worse — or I can turn to God in faith.

God not only cares for and delivers us from our fears: He keeps track of our wanderings and our tears (v. 8).

It’s interesting that David says, and repeats, “In God I will praise his word, in God I have put my trust; I will not fear what flesh can do unto me.” Sometimes we want God to just remove fear from us, and sometimes He does, but this indicates an act of the will. David chooses to place his faith in God, and he chooses to praise Him. I don’t get the idea that this just means He will praise God after he is delivered from his enemies, but also that as he wrestles with his fear, he chooses to praise God and exercise faith instead of focusing on his fear.

Verse 13 seems to expand David’s trust beyond just the immediate need for deliverance from death by his enemies, but to his need for God’s grace to keep him from falling as he walks before God each day. This is another verse I have prayed and leaned on often.

For more thoughts on this Psalm or to add your own, see Butterfly Kisses.