Tag Archives: blogging

Laudable Linkage

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Laudable Linkage

Some of the great reads found this week:

Why I Didn’t Deconstruct After Church Hurt, HT to Challies. “As we think about church hurt, wisdom teaches us not to elevate every pain into a five-alarm fire (Proverbs 10:12). Not every disagreement, disappointment, or conflict is spiritual abuse or what’s now commonly called ‘church hurt.’ But sometimes, a leg really is broken. The alarm is warranted. I’ve felt the flames. I’ve got the scars too.”

No Chance of Survival: How a Deadly Plane Crash Yielded a Growing Spiritual Harvest, HT to Challies. This is a long piece, but amazing and touching.

Fight the Subtle Seduction of Self-Reliance, HT to Redeeming Productivity. “My devotional exercise asked, ‘What do you look to for your deliverance?’ Essentially, in what are you placing false hope for salvation? While I don’t trust in standing armies or military might for deliverance, I still felt the implied rebuke. I was drawn inexorably to a simple conclusion: I’m my own war horse. I trust in myself.”

Understanding Therapy Culture from Different Generations, HT to Challies. “As a pastor’s wife and a Marriage and Family Therapist, I’ve had the privilege of sitting across from people from every generation: Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z. Each generation carries unique stories, pain, and questions about healing. While mental health awareness has made significant progress, I’ve noticed something concerning: though the conversation has shifted, many still carry a heavy load just in a different form.”

How and Why to Begin Scripture Writing, HT to Challies. “Almost seven years ago, I began a new way of spending daily time in the Word: I started copying Scripture (verse by verse or book by book) by hand. Over the years, I’ve done this both instead of and in addition to a Bible reading plan. . . I can honestly say that Scripture writing has completely transformed the way I approach the Bible and how I interact with God’s Word.” Rebekah includes some downloads for keeping track of what passages you’ve written.

To the Single Lady at the Wedding, HT to Challies. “A soft and discreet whisper of a lie crept in, ‘You are missing out.’ It seemed so faint, but soon it was blaring throughout my thoughts. One of my best friends recently got married. Attending a wedding as a single in the later part of your 20s hits differently than when you are a spry and young college graduate. When you are younger, time nor the future possibilities do not seem to be as narrow. As the years chip away, so does the hope.”

One for the Substackers to Consider as well as anyone who charges for their content: “Do people support you in order to receive exclusive content or do they support you because they appreciate you and the content you write? In other words, does putting the paywall in place necessarily increase reach, impact, and/or monetization? And is it possible that Christian readers think differently about this than non-Christian ones?”

J. C. Ryle quote

The goal of the Gospel is to rescue you, transform you, and redirect you. J. C. Ryle

Assorted Stray Thoughts

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Stray Thoughts

Occasionally I have several thoughts I want to share, but each is not enough for a blog post. Some are lighthearted, others are more serious.

First of all, I want to apologize if you see a pop-up box when you comment asking you to subscribe. I *hate* when a pop-up comes up in the middle of the screen and you can’t read any further without dealing with it. I have not seen this on my own blog, but I have on other WordPress blogs, so I assume it happens on mine as well. I just spent some time scouting around to see if there was a way to turn this off, and I couldn’t find it (if you know of a way, please let me know).

I also dislike when I follow someone’s link to a blog or article where I am asked first thing to create an account (even a free account) in order to read further. Honestly, if the first thing I encounter on any blog is a pop-up, whether it’s for subscribing, creating an account, buying a book, getting a free download, or turning off ads, I’m likely to just close the site and move on. How do I know if I want to subscribe or create an account when I have not even had a chance to read anything there yet?

For sites that want you to pay to subscribe, I think those site owners are wise who allow a certain number of free reads per month. I might be more likely to subscribe if I read there and find a lot I like. But not if I can never get past the first pop-up.
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From the time I first learned what an introvert was, I knew I was one. Reading about introversion, like Susan Cain’s Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, helped me understand myself a great deal.

I’ve run across some Instagram accounts for introverts, but I find I can’t read them regularly. Reading them occasionally, I’ll nod my head and appreciate that someone else knows how I think and feel. Some have comics that are funny and apt. But if I read them all the time, I find myself resenting the demands of life that draw me out of my introversion. I think the point of learning about introversion (or extroversion, if that’s you) is not to make the people who know us or the world around us conform to our preferences. Every source I’ve read on introversion says we need to step out of our comfort zone sometimes. Understanding my bent and needs helps me do that. But if I was constantly filling my head with cute memes about wanting alone time, that would be my focus.
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Sometimes I’ll read that blogging is considered dead (often, ironically, in a blog post). I have not found that to be the case. There are scores of good blogs out there that I would like to keep up with but can’t.
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Sometimes I see a writer attribute our tendency to be over-busy as pride–as if that’s how we “keep up with the Joneses” these days, or as if it’s the trendy thing to talk about how busy we are. But I don’t know anyone who truly feels that way. Most super-busy people that I know would desperately like not to be that way, but they don’t know what to cut out. As we’ve developed labor- and time-saving devices, we’ve added more and more things to be done.
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I have not seen any Christmas items in stores yet (though I have seen Halloween things), but they seem to be displayed earlier each year. Early last fall I stopped by Cracker Barrel because I had seen something in the beachy section that I decided I wanted to get. But when I went back, the whole beachy section was gone and Christmas items were out. I wonder if retailers ever consider that they might lose sales because their Christmas decor edges out other things a shopper would be more likely to buy in the late summer or early fall.

I also wonder if anyone really buys Christmas stuff in August? I admit, if I needed something, I might look early in order to benefit from a greater selection. I like to buy Christmas cards early, but otherwise I try to avoid the temptation of the Christmas aisles. I have more Christmas decorations than I have room for–I don’t need to add any more.

One exception was when our church used to send presents to our overseas missionaries by way of surface mail. We’d have to send packages to some countries in October in order for them to arrive by Christmas. So it was nice to get wrapping paper and such then. After the Post Office did away with that rate, it was too expensive to send packages, so we just sent cash offerings to the missionaries’ accounts. That was more efficient, but I missed the personalized packages.
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Do you ever do this? A while back, I was intrigued with the word “adorn” in Titus 2:10, which speaks of adorning the doctrine of God our Savior. I pondered how we do that. Isn’t God’s doctrine perfect as is? How do we adorn it? As I began to study and thought about writing a post about the topic, I found I already had. 🙂
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I’ve gotten frustrated lately with Facebook removing a couple of my posts. I’ll receive a notification that they removed a post with a note to “Click here to see why.” I’ve clicked there, but then I am taken to a page that says everything looks good with no problems. There’s no explanation and nothing to click to appeal. One post had photos of teenagers I wasn’t related to, so perhaps that was a privacy protection thing. But the other contained two reviews of study books on Isaiah. All I can figure is that their sensor bot picked up on the name of a certain country not popular in the news media (which I am avoiding naming in case that was the problem), even though the subject was thousands of years ago.

I wouldn’t mind so much if there was an explanation and an opportunity to appeal. They really need to not let these things be done by AI.
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Since my husband retired at the end of last year, we went on Medicare in January. I am not a fan so far. For one thing, a blood thinner I am on for atrial fibrillation (since afib can cause blood clots) jumped from $10 for a 90-day supply to over $500. What sense does that make, that when your income goes down, your prescriptions go up? I talked to the cardiologist about alternatives, and we found one that was *only* $150 for 90 days–and it’s at a different pharmacy than we usually use because it’s cheaper there.
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Since I’ve been sharing some frustrations, I’ll end with some things that made me smile recently:

Our gastroenterologist’s office was decorated for summer in a luau theme, with this sign on the bathroom door:

High tides, good vibes

This was from a restaurant we went to a few months ago:

Turning vegetables into bacon

I was looking at the evening reading of Daily Light on the Daily Path a while back, and thought it ironic to see an ad about cremation after a verse about being made from dust . . .

And lastly, this text exchange with my husband:

Text with Jim

To be fair, there were only two left, and I had one the night before. So technically this one was his. But I thought it was still in the refrigerator and he might not want it. 🙂

And yes, sometimes we do text each other from different rooms in the house . . . 🙂

And that’s probably enough stray thoughts for one day.

Blogging for God’s Glory in a Clickbait World

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Blogging for God's Glory

In Blogging for God’s Glory in a Clickbait World, Benjamin Vrbicek and John Beeson propose this definition of blogging for God’s glory: “Blogging for God’s glory means . . . first, to have our motivations aligned with God’s, and second, to pursue excellence in the craft, including theological precision, beautiful prose, visual appeal, and the edification of readers, all drawing from the best industry practices” (p. 14).

First they deal with aligning our motivation with God’s. That’s often the most difficult part to maintain. Usually a Christian blogger begins by wanting to share posts that glorify God and help others. But “our own motives . . . are always layered and mixed” (p. 3). And though Christian writing instructors tell us not to worry about the numbers of those following, liking, and sharing our posts, those who want to move from blogging to publishing a book are told agents and publishers will look at those numbers and won’t consider taking a writer on unless those numbers are high. It’s a continual but necessary struggle to keep our focus on writing for God’s glory and purposes and trusting Him with the results, even when it doesn’t seem like many people are reading.

The authors apply the goal of writing for God’s glory into the everyday nuts and bolts of writing. Write with the reader in mind rather than anticipating accolades. Know your why, what difference you want to make. Serve others, not yourself. But that doesn’t mean never talking about yourself: Paul wanted to proclaim “not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord” (2 Corinthians 4:5), yet 2 Corinthians is “Paul’s most autobiographical letter. He shares much of his own story not because he is narcissistic, but because he knows the church is struggling to trust him and he needs to build rapport” (p. 22).

“If we have any hope of offering others wisdom, listening to God must become a primary and ongoing habit.” We can’t share what we haven’t first taken it. That doesn’t mean every blog post needs to exposit Scripture or be a devotional, but it should still be “subject to God’s truth and ought to reflect His light” (p. 31).

Then, “Christian writers must labor not only to write what is true but also write in a manner that adorns the truth” (p. 38). We need to focus on building up, not tearing down. That doesn’t mean we never share what’s wrong, but we do so with discernment and with the purpose of helping.

The authors give helpful advice with the mechanics of blogging: discerning how much time to give to it, in connection with your other obligations; setting a schedule that works for you; dealing with writer’s block; engaging social media; blogging costs, platforms, layouts; using photos without plagiarizing; networking; monetizing; and more.

They include several appendices. One is a compilation of several bloggers’ answers to the question of whether blogging is dead. One is a glossary of blogging terms. One is a collection of sidebar quotes in the paper version that wouldn’t work in the e-book formatting.

A few other quotes that stood out to me:

Where can you offer yourself to your audience for the sake of proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord? How can your life become a bridge for the gospel to travel? What work has God done (or is doing) in you that will encourage others? (p. 22).

Don’t feel compelled to chase whatever is hot. Be true to who God has made you to be (p. 23).

Blogging ought to grow us in holiness. When we blog for God’s glory, the discipline of writing becomes integrated into the web of our spiritual disciplines (p. 29).

It is not the size of our platform that assures us how far our words will reach, but rather it is our trust in a God whose word never returns void (Isa 55: 11) (p. 32).

Writing comes down to making and remaking slight improvements to achieve better clarity and aesthetic; writing is the pursuit of marginal gains, insignificant by themselves but significant in the aggregate (p. 37). (I loved the illustration they used here of an eye doctor trying different lenses, asking each time which is better.)

So why should we worry about getting the tone and the content right when we know fewer people will read an article if we write with discernment? We bother because God is God, and on the day of judgment we will give an account for every careless word we have ever blogged (Matt 12: 36) (p. 42).

I think this book is an excellent resource, especially when we need to adjust our motives away from the manipulative and self-focused approach of the world and remind ourselves of our real purpose: glorifying God. 

Laudable Linkage

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Here’s my latest set of interesting reads discovered this week.

The Courage of Confession. “The gift of repentance only comes to the penitent heart, providing the courage of confession. Yet instead of coming to God in sorrow and humility, we come bearing an armload of excuses for our sin, finding true confession and subsequent forgiveness difficult.”

The Gospel of Self-Forgiveness, HT to Challies. “Can you point me to one example of someone forgiving themselves in the Bible? There is no category of self-forgiveness in the Bible. And that is a freeing truth! Your shame and guilt is not dependent upon your ability to forgive yourself.”

See Me, HT to Challies. “We all have a need–a craving–to be noticed. And in the noticing, praised. Esteemed. Wanted. Loved. But too often our parents disappoint us. And our friends become our competition.”

Squinting for the Glory of God, HT to Challies. “Your greatest weakness may be the kingdom’s greatest asset since it can become an occasion for God to flex his might.”

Your Past Does Not Have to Be Your Future, HT to Challies. “Are you on the sidelines because you messed up? Have you checked out because something went wrong? Do you believe you are damaged goods because of your failures?”

Encouragement for Fainting Disciplers. It’s hard when you work with someone to help them come to know the Lord and grow in Him, and then they suddenly seem to lose interest. This article offers some help for that scenario.

Do you have trouble commenting on my site?

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A couple of long-time blog friends have been unable to comment on my blog, even though we’ve commented on each other’s sites for years. That made me wonder if others are having trouble commenting as well.

I do hear from some of you regularly. (Thank you!) So some comments are getting through. But there should not be any problem commenting at all.

If you can’t leave a comment here, would you email me and let me know? And it would be a big help if you could tell me exactly what kind of error message comes up when you try to comment. Any details you can give me will help when I take this to WordPress support.

There is a link in my sidebar under my picture that says “Feel free to email me.” Click on that phrase, and you should be taken to your email server. If that doesn’t work, I’ll expand my email here so bots don’t pick it up. Just take out the words in parentheses and write it like a normal email address: barbarah06 (at) gmail (dot) com.

I’ve had difficulty myself commenting on some WordPress blogs that make me log in every time I comment now. I get a message saying I need to log in because I am using an new email address, even though I have commented on these sites for years with the same email address and web site. So maybe WordPress has some kind of glitch.

But I’d like to let WordPress know exactly what’s going on with commenting problems here so they can look into it.

Thanks for your help!

February Reflections

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Once again the end of the month is still a few days away, but there will probably be other posts between now and then. So I thought this might be a good time for my end-of-month post.

February is when winter starts getting old. However, the month has its highlights. One is my daughter-in-law’s birthday. Another is Valentine’s Day, which we celebrate as a family. Another is that the daylight that has been steadily increasing since the winter equinox finally becomes enough to be noticeable.

This year we had the added benefit of the Olympics in February. I rarely watch sports on TV except when the Olympics are on. We watched mostly figure skating, but caught some skiing, bobsledding, and snowboarding as well. One night when we were looking for something from the Olympics to watch while eating take-out, all we could find was a curling match between the US and China on the NBC app. There’s a reason curling is only shown in clips in prime time! It’s not the most exciting sport to watch, though I am sure a lot of strategy is involved for the players.

My favorite Olympic moments: Nathan Chen’s gold medal free skate program, Lindsey Jacobellis and Nick Baumgartner’s win in the mixed snowboard cross (with the two of them being among the oldest Olympic competitors), and Shawn White’s last run and then closing interview with Mike Tirico.

Home and family

A couple of organizing projects had been tugging at me since before Christmas without the chance to do anything about them. I finally got to them this month. It would be too long and boring, probably, to tell all about them. But one involved getting things I only use once or twice a year, like seasonal cookie cutters and pumpkin-carving tools, out of a kitchen drawer and into the pantry. I didn’t take “before” pictures, but here are the bins in the pantry afterward:

And here’s the drawer, the deepest one on the kitchen. Imagine it with most of the stuff in those bins in here in plastic bags. It seemed whatever I wanted in here was always at the bottom of the drawer. I’m so much more pleased with it now.

I used to post Timothyisms, funny little things my grandson would say. He still says cute things, but I don’t think to write them down. He likes jokes now, so I collect them and share them with him. My favorite recent one: Why don’t anteaters get sick? Because they’re full of anty-bodies. 🙂

Jason just took this picture of Timothy and me last week. He’s only 8 (next month), but is almost as tall as I am!

And, yes, he’s in the making-funny-faces-for-the-camera stage of life. 🙂

Creating

February was a banner month for card-making, between Valentine’s Day and a couple of birthdays.

Going in chronological order, this was a card for a friend’s birthday. Only . . . I had the date wrong. I had it on my calendar and gathered a few things together and made her a card. Then the night before, I thought maybe I should check the church directory and make sure of her birth date. And I discovered it was in July, not February! I decided to go ahead and give everything to her since she’d probably get a kick out of it. We could almost call it her half-birthday. 🙂 Plus, I didn’t want to have to keep up with the things until summer. As it turned out, when I dropped the things off at her house, she had had a very draining couple of days. So an unexpected non-birthday gift was a day-brightener.

She likes blue-green and sunflowers. The flowers here were multi-layered stickers.

Here are the Valentine’s cards:

This one was for Jim:

The heart and EKG-type readout were done with the Cricut. The original idea I had seen for something similar to this said, “You make my heart beat faster.” Since I have afib, I thought that might not be the best wording. 🙂

This was for Jeremy, who likes foxes:

The fox here is a puffy sticker. I used a heart-shaped punch for the cut-out and did the wording for the sign on the computer. Everything else is scrapbooking paper.

When I saw this, I couldn’t resist it for Jason, even though it meant downloading and printing a file rather than cutting and pasting. 🙂

If you are not familiar with these characters, they are from the Mandalorian. I don’t know much about Star Wars and haven’t even seen all the movies, but we loved this series. Jason especially like the fatherhood theme in it. “This is the way” is something the Mandalorians say repeatedly. This was designed by Karen, which she generously offered as a free download. It’s designed with multiple cards on one page that can be cut out and distributed to kids’ friends. I adapted it for a single larger card.

This one was for Mittu:

The cupcake was made with the Cricut, the hearts with hole punches, and the words with stickers.

This was Timothy’s:

It’s also Mandalorian-inspired, designed and generously offered free by Mandee. And she even included a link that explained how to download this into the Cricut to be cut there, so I learned a new facet of the Cricut. I hadn’t thought about Baby Yoda when I was at Hobby Lobby buying supplies, and I was relieved to have just the right shade of green paper among my stash.

This was for Jesse. I just liked that paper for him, as he likes red but doesn’t like overly mushy cards.

The “love” and “hugs” were stickers.

Finally, this was for Mittu’s birthday. She likes sunflowers and purple, but until now I had not seen paper that combined the two.

The “Happy birthday” and sunflowers by it were stickers. The rest was from a scrapbooking paper set.

Watching and Listening

As previously mentioned, the Olympics took up most of our viewing time this month. Though I enjoyed them, I’m kind of glad they’re over.

We’re still watching The Amazing Race and the Holderness family podcast/video recaps the day after each episode airs.

Around the World in 80 Days wrapped up on PBS. As I said last month, though no film adaptation is going to be exactly like the book, they rewrote too much of this one. Really, I felt they just hijacked the characters and main story arc to write their own program, adding in modern-day dilemmas and sensibilities. But . . . if I stopped comparing it to the book and just took it as it was, I enjoyed it. My husband had never read the book and enjoyed the series a lot. I tried to resist saying “In the book it was like this . . .” too often, but I did let it slip sometimes.

All Creatures Great and Small on PBS Masterpiece Theatre finished its second season this last Sunday. I’ve only read the first book in Herriot’s series, and that was a long time ago, so I am not sure how much was changed between book and film. But I loved this series–so heart-warming. I’m looking forward to their third season.

Jim and I watched the old movie The Guns of Navarone one night. Another night, we watched Good-bye Christopher Robin, kind of a sweet and sad telling of A. A. Milne and his family: how he came to write books about Christopher Robin (his real son’s name, though he didn’t go by it in real life), how the fame affected all of them. I knew that Christopher had liked the fame at first and then resented his father’s sharing of his life later on. This might be a cautionary tale for those who write about their real-life children. In the film, Christopher eventually overcomes his resentment when he realizes the comfort and joy the Pooh stories gave people in their childhoods, the memories of which brought comfort to them even as adults. I had Christopher’s book, The Enchanted Places, in my Kindle app and immediately started reading it, hoping he came to a similar conclusion in real life. Pooh was a big part of my children’s growing-up years, though we were more familiar with the Disney videos and toys than the original books. But Pooh and Christopher Robin and the rest will always have a soft spot in my heart.

One other series I watched was on PBS was the two-part A Very British Romance, tracing romantic rituals through English literature. Pluses: the literature, courtship history, host Lucy Worsley’s dressing up as some famous literary heroines, some elaborate original Valentines. Minuses: the feminist lens through which much of this was processed, the looking down on virtuous heroines and equating virtue with weakness, the amplification of sexual liaisons or reading into books more sexuality than was originally meant. Since I recently listened to The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow, where Mary Bennet read much of Thomas Carlyle, it was interesting to hear more about him here.

Reading

The Olympics cut into my reading-before-bed time. But here’s what I managed to finish this month:

  • Half Finished by Lauraine Snelling (fiction). A group of friends starts a UFO club, not for exploring extra-terrestrial life, but for finishing unfinished projects while fellowshipping with each other. Relationships form and people band together to help each other through the sorrows and joys they encounter.
  • The Road Home by Malissa Chapin (fiction). A woman running from her past encounters a recipe box in an antique shop. An attempt to return the box to the owner’s family leads to a road trip in a pink Cadillac and the story of another woman who tried to hide truth. A very good debut novel.
  • Framley Parsonage by Anthony Trollope, the fourth of his Barsetshire Chronicles (classic fiction, audiobook). A young vicar trying to get in with society’s elite gets into trouble. The village matron’s son falls in love with the vicar’s sister rather than the beautiful but cold society maiden his mother had picked out for him.
  • The Middle Matters: Why That (Extra)Ordinary Life Looks Really Good on You by Lisa-Jo Baker (nonfiction). Lisa-Jo discusses the impact of our middle years in eight areas: our bodies, marriage, parenting (which gets two chapters), in a breezy chatting-with-girlfriends style.

I’m currently reading:

  • 100 Best Bible Verses to Overcome Worry and Anxiety (still. Almost done.)
  • Be Successful (1 Samuel): Attaining Wealth That Money Can’t Buy by Warren W. Wiersbe
  • IBS for Dummies by Carolyn Dean and L. Christine Wheeler
  • The Enchanted Places: A Childhood Memoir by Christopher Milne
  • The Small House at Allington by Anthony Trollope (audiobook)
  • Just 18 Summers by Michelle Cox and Rene Gutteridge

Next in the queue: The Four Loves by C. S. Lewis, Another Gospel?: A Lifelong Christian Seeks Truth in Response to Progressive Christianity by Alisa Childers, The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope, Wiersbe’s “Be” book on 2 Samuel.

Blogging

Besides book reviews, Friday Fave Fives, and Saturday Laudable Linkage, I had these posts on the blog this month:

  • Ways to Disagree Without Tearing Each Other Down. Disagreements are inevitable, even among those we love best. But we can disagree graciously and constructively without belittling each other.
  • Don’t Let Truth Become Cliche. If some parts of the Bible seem trite or overly familiar to us, the solution is not to scale back on our Bible reading. I share some ways to refresh our view and renew our love for the Word.
  • Does He Still Love Me? Sometimes it’s hard to comprehend God’s love for us when we continue to mess up. Maybe that’s why Paul prayed the Ephesians might “know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge” (Ephesians 3:19).
  • What Can We Know for Sure? Some say there is no absolute truth, even in Christianity. But, though people will argue about some things until we get to heaven, God has given us core truths that we can know for sure.

Incidentally, I noticed a while back that I had passed the 5,000 mark in posts. I’m at 5,059 now in 15 1/2 years of blogging.

As we wrap up February and turn to March, we look forward to my husband’s birthday early in the month and Pi Day (when we eat pie on 3/14). Then the calendar is pretty much free until mid-April. I hope to dig into some writing then.

I’m aware of the news, though I don’t mention it much here. I figure it’s mentioned plenty elsewhere. There’s not much we can do about any of it except pray, but that’s the biggest, best, most important thing we can do. Among my prayers: wisdom for our leaders (1 Timothy 2:1-4), that events will cause people to turn to the Lord, “that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you” (1 Kings 8:43), that those suffering may know “The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you” (Psalm 9:9-10).

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)

15 Favorite Posts from 15 Years of Blogging

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I mentioned in my end-of-July post that I forgot my blogging anniversary until WordPress sent me a reminder. It’s been fifteen years!

Often in the past I’ve done something special to observe my blogiversary. Since it caught me off guard this year, I didn’t have anything prepared.

I had been pondering ways to bring some of old posts back to the forefront, since they were published before I knew some of you. Then, voila! The idea came to list fifteen of my favorite blog posts to commemorate my fifteenth year of blogging. There won’t be one from each year—that would have taken too much time to search out. But these were either fun to write or were special to me in some way.

So here we go, in no particular order:

  1. Coping when a husband is away. This is my top-viewed post of all time. I had no idea it would touch such a chord. My husband had to travel heavily for at least half, maybe as much as two-thirds of our 41-year marriage. Though I didn’t like it, I am thankful God used what He taught me to help others.

2. How Not to Become an Old Biddie. After seeing examples of different kinds of older ladies, I realized I needed to start working on what kind of older lady I want to be now. (Related: Why Older Women Don’t Serve and Ways Older Women Can Serve.)

3. With All Our Feebleness. Reflections on serving God with physical and other limitations.

4. My Ebenezers. In 1 Samuel 7:12: “Samuel took a stone . . . and called its name Ebenezer; for he said, ‘Till now the Lord has helped us.’” “Ebenezer” means “stone of help.” In this post, I listed some of my verbal “Ebenzers,” commemorations of the Lord’s special help in my life.

5. Having Devotions When You’re not Feeling Very Devoted. We’ve all been there, I’m sure. (Related: When There Is No Hunger for God’s Word.)

6. Strong Women. What feminine strength means and doesn’t mean, with literary and Biblical examples.

7. Encouragement for Mothers of Small Children in the area of trying to find quiet time with the Lord.

8. The Back Burner. The stuff on the back burner is all the more flavorful for its time sitting and simmering. So with the things in our lives we have to set on the back burner: they’ll be all the better for the wait.

9. Why Read? Why Read Fiction? Why Read Christian Fiction? Every reason I could think of for reading all of them.

10. Can Frugality Go Too Far? Even good traits can be carried too far.

11. It’s Not For Nothing. Caregiving can seem monotonous and futile when the patient sleeps most of the time, can’t speak, and isn’t interested in food, as was the case for my mother-in-law her last two years in our home. These were truths that encouraged me. (Related: Remembering the Loved One Who Has Forgotten You.)

12. Manufactured Spirituality. Routines and programs can help us spirituality, but sometimes we focus on them to the detriment of real spirituality.

13. The Quiet Person in the Small Group. How not to torture your introverts.

14 Going to a Church with Problems. They all have them, even the ones in the Bible. (Related: What You Miss When You Turn Your Back on Church.)

15. Myths and Maxims of Ministry gleaned over many years. Myth #1: “Since this is being done for the Lord, everything should go smoothly.” Nope!

These are the posts that floated to mind. If I had actually searched every year’s posts, I might have had a different list. But there’s probably a reason these are the ones that came to mind.

As you’ve noticed, I cheated stretched my numbers a bit. Sometimes I couldn’t decide between a couple of posts on a similar topic, so I included one as “related.”

I’ve noticed that I should probably go back and edit some of the older posts. One of the tendencies my first critiquer at a writer’s conference pointed out was “long, convoluted sentences” that should be broken into two sentences (or three or four). Hopefully some day I can correct those in my older posts.

Thank you so much to all of you who read and comment. Without you, this would just be an online journal. Nothing makes me day like hearing that something here has blessed and helped someone.

(I often link up with some of these bloggers)

February Reflections

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February seems to have flown by—and not just because it’s a shorter month. It’s been a busy month, but a good one.

Valentine’s Day is always a fun for us with some special treats. We celebrated our daughter-in-law’s birthday last weekend. We closed on the rental house that my son and daughter-in-law had been renting. My husband is so relieved not to have an extra property to take care of. My youngest son found an apartment and will be moving next month. I’m excited for him but also facing the reality of an empty nest.

February is also the time of year when winter starts getting to me: the sky is often grey, the cold seeps into my bones, and I long for spring. Thankfully we’ve had some sunshine and temperatures in the 60s this week. We still have several weeks of winter, but each day brings us closer to spring! My daffodils are blooming already!

Creating

February is a big card month for us!

Early in the month we celebrated my youngest son’s 10,000th day of life. This was the card I made for him:

It took me a while to figure out what to do—I haven’t seen any other 10,000th day cards to get ideas from. 🙂 I printed off a February calendar and had a stencil with the shape for the saying.

Then I made a card for each family member for Valentine’s Day. I had seen several variations of this idea on Pinterest and knew I just had to use it since my husband is a scientist.

I cut out the beakers using Cricut. I tried various background papers, but they made the card look too cluttered.

This was for my oldest son, Jeremy, who likes foxes:

I used a stencil for the heart. I printed off the sayings or captions and inside sentiments from the computer since my handwriting is not good. I cut out this one with decorative scissors and then outlined it in black. I had the hardest time finding the right fox. I have several stickers and looked up clip art, but none of them looked just right. I had some wooden cutouts, but I wasn’t sure if the glue would be strong enough to keep it on, especially as this one had to go through snail mail. Finally I got the idea to scan the fox cutout and print it, and that worked pretty well.

This was for Jason:

The bear was from a scrapbooking paper collection.

This was for my daughter-in-law, Mittu, who likes purple:

I printed out the tree from some free clipart I found online, then used a paper punch on various scrapbooking papers for the hearts.

This was for Timothy, my grandson:

I had seen an idea using the moon on Pinterest, and then saw this moon and stars design on the Cricut.

And this was for my youngest son, Jesse:

I had seen several variations of this idea on Pinterest using typewriters. But since he types via computer, I used that. I cut the computer out with the Cricut and positioned the caption behind the computer “screen.”

And finally, my daughter-in-law also likes sunflowers, so I was looking to use them somehow for her birthday card. In looking for something else on the computer, I stumbled across a file that I had purchased on sale some years ago from Karla Dornacher using sunflowers. Since Mittu also has blue in her home, this seemed perfect. So it wasn’t exactly handmade, except that I printed it off and cut it out. But I liked it, and I think Mittu did, too.

I just checked Karla’s site, and she doesn’t seem to carry this exact collection any more. But she did use the sunflower design in this printable card set.

I made one more birthday card for a friend. But when I double-checked to make sure I had the right date, I discovered her birthday was in June! I thought I saw somewhere recently that it was in February. Oh well—the card is now safely tucked away until June.

Watching

I’m still working my way through the Lark Rise to Candleford series while using my exercise bike. Jim and I really enjoyed the new PBS series of All Creatures Great and Small. I was sorry to hear the story had been changed from the original—but we did like this version.

Reading

Since last time I completed:

I usually read much more fiction than nonfiction, but that hasn’t held true this month.

I’m currently reading:

Blogging

Besides books reviews and almost weekly Friday Fave Fives and Laudable Linkages, I’ve shared on the blog this month:

As we turn the calendar page to March in a few days, we’ll have a busy couple of weeks with my husband’s birthday and my youngest son moving. But life should settle down a bit after that. I hope. You just never know.

How was your February? Any signs of spring yet?

(Sharing with Grace and Truth, Faith on Fire,Hearth and Soul,
Senior Salon, InstaEncouragements, Shannan’s What I’m Into)

Laudable Linkage

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Here are several good reads recently discovered:

Don’t Overthink It Book Club. Linda is hosting a three-week book club on Sunday evenings to discuss Anne Bogel’s book Don’t Overthink It. I just finished chapter four this morning, and the book is proving very helpful so far. At the moment, it’s on sale for the Kindle for $1.59—don’t know how long it will be at that price.

Be a Truth-Lover. “Your love for truth must be greater than your party, your political pre-commitments, and your agenda.”

He Is a Jealous God. “If the United States of America ceased to exist tomorrow, would that be the end of our belief in the God that we claim to hold so dear? Or do we have a faith that extends beyond the bounds of country, of comfort, of confidence in the systems of this world?

A Call for Content Creators to Cultivate Discernment, HT to Challies. “But beautiful language, by itself, does not encompass all that it means to write well as a Christian. Christian writers must labor not only to write what is true but also to write in a manner that adorns the truth.”

Remembering God’s Faithfulness in the Face of a Detour, HT to Challies. “How about you? Do you trust God’s faithfulness to deliver again in the midst of your daily detours?”

Five Key Questions for Setting Gospel-Shaped Goals, HT to The Story Warren. “It was an apt senior quote for the young perfectionist, who keenly felt her failure to ‘obtain all this,’ who knew how short she fell in every area where she longed to succeed. Sadly, that seventeen-year-old senior, who had only been a Christian for two years when she chose Philippians 3:12 to mark her life, didn’t fully understand the dynamic of grace and goals.”

Stupid and Wise People. “There will always be those with whom we cannot agree or come to a compromise. We cannot control their actions but we can control our own reactions and choices.”

Your Work Matters More Than You Think, HT to Challies. “God puts his people in some surprising places. The testimony of Obadiah can encourage Christians who have been called to serve God in dark places for His purposes.” I enjoyed this contrast between Obadiah and Elijah.

A Blog about Blogging, HT to Challies. Good overview for Christian bloggers in particular.

Tookish Bagginses. Lessons from hobbits. “Because nowness and not-yet-ness overlap and intermingle. God made us out of dust, but he also breathed eternity down our lungs. We’re a walking marriage of the sacred and the profane— the eternal and the ordinary. We’re Bagginses with the blood of Tooks who’ve been to Mordor and back again.”

This is as good a time as any for my occasional reminder that links here do not mean 100% endorsement of the blog or blogger they come from. Some of these are from blogs I read regularly, but others are from posts I happened upon or saw on other’s blogs.

Finally, to end with a smile: a cat interrupts a UK parliamentary live call:

Blog Birthdays and Musings

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Blog birthday and brand musingMonday marked my blog’s 14th anniversary.

And just like any other adolescent, it’s wrestling with what it wants to be when it grows up. 🙂

When I first started blogging, bloggers were like neighbors visiting over the back fence. Blogs—at least the kind I ran into—were chatty and varied. Some were fun, some were serious, some were inspirational. But my favorites were a combination.

Then blogs became Business.

And now, while learning all I can about publishing to be ready when I get my book finished, I find writers are encouraged to develop their “brand” so readers know what to expect from them. Readers who like Amish fiction, for instance, don’t want to pick up their favorite author’s new book only to find they’ve switched to science fiction.

I see the wisdom in developing a brand. But I think it’s possible to make a brand too narrow. If someone writes only about finances, I know I can seek out their books if I have a questions about finances. But I don’t read about finances often. I love WWII fiction, but I don’t want to read only WWII fiction. I love writers like Kristy Cambron, who writes historical fiction, but in a variety of times and places. I’m told it’s hard to drum up a whole new audience if you write both fiction and nonfiction or different types within each. But I think some of the audience would follow a favorite author into different forays. I’ve read books in a different genre because an author I liked crossed over to it.

So as I consider what elements I’m passionate about and what might make up my brand, these come to mind:

  • I want to encourage women to develop their own relationship with God.
  • I want to encourage women in their walk with God in whatever stage of life they are in.
  • I want to encourage women to get into the Bible for themselves, not as an end in itself, but to get to know God better. My book-in-progress is on this topic.
  • I want to encourage women to look at everything through the lens of Scripture.

I’ve written a lot about having a quiet time with God in His Word, but that’s not all I write about. I’ve written a little about marriage, parenthood, becoming an “older” woman, caregiving—not as an expert in any of those fields, but sharing what I’ve learned along the way. Occasionally I’ll ponder current issues and try to view them through the truth of God’s Word. I love reading and love sharing good books I’ve found. When I did a blogging preference poll a couple of years ago, people’s preferences about what kinds of posts they liked best varied.

When I saw that well-known Christian blogger Tim Challies called himself a generalist, a light bulb went on in my mind. Maybe that’s what I am, too!

I’ve tried to narrow things down a bit, yet not too much, to hopefully present to a future publisher. If I needed to sum it up in one sentence, it would be that I want to encourage women in their walk with God. I don’t know if that’s catchy or original enough, but that’s my desire.

By the way, although I have women in mind as I write, I don’t mind if men read along.

Thank you all for being here. I didn’t know, when I started blogging, that I’d make so many dear friends that I’ll likely not meet in person until heaven. Your kind comments encourage me and make my day.

I’d love to know what you think about author and blogger “brands” or anything else I’ve mentioned here. Do you read or follow those who write in particular niches, or those who write generally?

(Sharing with Recharge Wednesday, Let’s Have Coffee)