dear pineapple: you do not intimidate me. anymore.
For my entire life – until this week, pineapples either came in a can, on a buffet or on a plate a restaurant server placed in front of me. “Real” pineapples were impenetrable. I mean, look at it. In my mind, in might as well have been a coconut. Or a big rock.
Then, I watched a devotional video by Lysa Terkherst on youtube. She voiced my same reservations about pineapple, and then casually proceeded to cut one up without any trouble at all. Where’s my “easy” button? So, ever the “good idea stealer” I passed up the container of cut pineapple at Sam’s Club, priced at $6.98 and bought myself a “real” pineapple for $2.98.
I cut off the top and bottom. And I didn’t need a chainsaw or a hedge trimmer, just a knife:
Then, I cut along the core:
Then sliced off the outside:
Took five minutes, tops. That was Wednesday afternoon. By Thursday evening, we were out of pineapple. Same thing happened to the pineapple my dad brought over for lunch on Sunday. Gone by Monday evening.
Ready for a pun? How easy is it to get my family to eat fresh fruit? Easy as PIneapple.
Find more helpful kitchen tips at Kitchen Tip Tuesdays hosted by Tammy’s Recipes! Check out MY past Kitchen Tip Tuesday posts HERE
Find more ideas over at Works for Me Wednesday, hosted by Kristen at We Are THAT Family. MY previous Works for Me Wednesday posts are HERE.
Works for Me Wednesday posts prior to February 2009 are archived at Rocks In My Dryer.
two minutes with God: Jude 1:20-21
a Quote:
“. . . daily prayer and religious readings and churchgoing are necessary parts of the Christian life. We have to be continually reminded of what we believe. Neither this belief nor any other will automatically remain alive in the mind. It must be fed. And as a matter of fact, if you examined a hundred people who had lost their faith in Christianity, I wonder how many of them would turn out to have been reasoned out of it by honest argument? Do not most people simply drift away?”
from Mere Christianity
my Prayer:
Lord, I don’t ever want to drift away from you. I don’t want to ever forget you. And yet, as I pray this so sincerely, I also know, without a shadow of a doubt, that in the not too distant future, I will forget you for an entire day. I will, out of the blue, probably with no definitive cause, go through an entire day without devoting even one moment of thought to you. So I pray that you won’t let me forget for two days in a row. Because it could lead to three. And then I’m the prodigal. Again.
Thank you for your Word. Thank you for my propensity to journal. Thank you for teaching me how to abide. Please help me to stop rambling on and on during my prayer times and abide MORE. Thank you for my love of reading. Thank you for the writers who draw me closer to you through their vulnerability and frankness. Thank you for your Holy Spirit, moving in me to bring me back into fellowship with you when I’ve forgotten you again.
Thank you for your stubborn love.
the Word: But you, dear friends, carefully build yourselves up in this most holy faith by praying in the Holy Spirit, staying right at the center of God’s love, keeping your arms open and outstretched, ready for the mercy of our Master, Jesus Christ. This is the unending life, the real life!
Jude 1:20-21 (The Message)
This was dual published on my Pragmatic Communion blog.
to highlight or not to highlight, that is the question.
For nearly two years now, I’ve really wanted this book:
It’s The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics
But it’s been priced at $49.99 and I’ve been too cheap pragmatic to buy it.
But.
PinkGirl came home from play rehearsal with a coupon/fundraiser deal from Borders, making it just over $30! It came in the mail on Thursday. And then I had a decision to make.
Do I mark it up? Do I highlight it? Make it MINE? Or do I leave the $50, coffee table sized book in pristine condition? And why would I leave it unmarked? Am I going to resell it someday? Seriously. It’s a giant C.S. Lewis book, ya know I’m not gonna sell it. But still. I couldn’t decide. I opened it up, perused the table of contents for Mere Christianity, turned to chapter 11, entitled “Faith.”
“That is why daily prayer and religious readings and churchgoing are necessary parts of the Christian life. We have to be continually reminded of what we believe. Neither this belief nor any other will automatically remain alive in the mind. It must be fed. And as a matter of fact, if you examined a hundred people who had lost their faith in Christianity, I wonder how many of them would turn out to have been reasoned out of it by honest argument? Do not most people simply drift away?”
In case you haven’t figured it out. The above text is currently highlighted in MY new, giant book.
Not for resale.
crazy woman singing in the van singing WHAT? “Like Incense”
Beautiful new praise song this week: Like Incense
“May my prayer like incense rise before You, the lifting of my hands as sacrifice
Oh Lord Jesus turn Your eyes upon me, for I know there is mercy in Your sight
Your statutes are my heritage forever, my heart is set on keeping Your decrees
Please still my anxious urge toward rebellion, let Love keep my will upon its knees”
For more beautiful music, check out Then Sings My Soul Saturday every Saturday hosted by Amy at Signs, Miracles and Wonders.
two minutes with God: 1 Corinthians 1:10
a Quote:
“Instead, make it your goal to love those who disagree with you. Go for the love, not the win.”
“We don’t always have to agree to get along. Our verse today says, “Let there be real harmony.” In an orchestra, there’s a big difference between unison and harmony. If all the musicians played in unison all the time, the music would get pretty boring. It’s the harmony that creates beauty in music, with different players playing different instruments and different notes, but all under the same direction of one conductor. The goal of each musician is not to play louder than the others or to finish the piece first; the goal is to ‘be of one mind, united in thought and purpose.‘”
from Better Together: What on Earth Are We Here For? Devotional and Journal
my Prayer:
Lord, please help me find harmony with the cranky person I have to work with today. Please bless me with patience and a calm temperament. Please remind me to pause and respond instead of react when he speaks condescendingly and sarcastically. Thank you for the discernment you’ve already given me. Thank you for showing me that source of crankiness has little to do with the work, and more to do with his fear of losing credibility with our mutual client. Please break down our pride – both of us, so that we can work together, bringing the best of both of our capabilities to solve our client’s problem. Regardless of whether he is a Christian, please open his mind and make him receptive to this idea of combining our knowledge openly with the common goal of serving. Please let my freakish love of harmony cross over from my music to my work today.
the Word: I beg of you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to stop arguing among yourselves. Let there be real harmony so that there won’t be splits in the church. I plead with you to be of one mind, united in thought and purpose.
1 Corinthians 1:10 (LB)
This was dual published on my Pragmatic Communion blog.
Friday Funnies: Jamie Kennedy should never be a lifeguard.
Wait for it. At the 50 second mark.
Need a few more chuckles today? Check out Friday Funnies hosted by Homesteaders Heart!
If you’ve got time to hang out for a few minutes, check out what else makes me laugh: Pragmatic Compendium’s “laugh!” category.
one minute with God: Proverbs 31:15
a Quote:
“People who think big picture recognize that there are a thousand different efforts to which thy might make a contribution. But they also know that there are only a few of those efforts in which they can make a maximized contribution on the basis of their giftedness.”
“One can drive a car from New York to San Francisco in any of four or five speeds indicated on the gear shift. But the drive is best done in gears meant for speed and fuel economy. To drive the distance in second gear would mean engine wear, fuel waste, and slow speeds. In my life there are things that I must do in second gear. And there are things I can do in overdrive . . . I must find a way to slough off the low-gear activities and embrace the overdrive ones, because they are in the core of my giftedness.”
from the book Guilt Free Living
my Prayer:
Lord, I just I can’t do everything I want to do. I know it’s not even a matter of doing everything I want to do, but just not doing any one of them well. I literally can’t do everything I want to do. As much as I pray for a longer day or that some researcher somewhere would invent a pill that would provide the benefits of sleep, I know that the limitations of a 24 hour day and the fact that my body needs sleep are by your perfect design.
Please help me to identify and remove responsibilities – and even the things I enjoy – that are outside your will for my life. If I don’t have the discernment or courage to remove them myself, Lord, I pray that you will. I freely offer all of them up to you. Please remove the chaf from my life, no matter what the consequences.
Lord, please help me with the responsibilities that remain in my life. Please show me how to delegate tasks that take me so much time to complete that I become inefficient, wasting time I should be devoting to the things I do well. Help me to ignore the pride that stands in the way of asking for help. Help me to remember that even the woman in Proverbs 31 had help.
the Word:
She gets up while it is still dark; she provides food for her family and portions for her servant girls.
Proverbs 31:15 (NIV)
This was dual published on my Pragmatic Communion blog.
one minute with God: 1 Corinthians 14:22
a Quote:
We want to know what extraordinary deed we can perform for God sometime in the future – the ephemeral “will of God” that we seek to discover. But it is not the big things we want to do with such bravura but the little things we do every day that constitute His true will. God wants us to practice daily obedience. Such obedience requires attentiveness to God in our present circumstances”
“. . . spiritual grown does not require replacing daily tasks with more “spiritual” duties; rather, it depends on changing our attitude about our mundane work.”
“Routine engenders fortitude in the face of difficulty, gratitude to God for the ordinary blessings of life, love for people whom we are serving, joy in doing a job well done.”
The Will of God as a Way of Life: How to Make Every Decision with Peace and Confidence
my Prayer:
Lord, thank you for my ordinary life. Thank you for the routines that, when I pay attention, are evidence of overwhelming blessing. Loading the dishwasher full of dirty dishes is evidence that my family is well fed. Paying the electric bill is evidence that our home is a provision safety and comfort. The hours I spend driving my children around is necessary because I HAVE two wonderful children. When I pick up my husband’s dry cleaning it shows we are thoughtful of one another after 20 years of marriage. All these, and many other mundane, routine tasks are in my day because of your blessings. Thank you.
Please, Lord, as I pray for you to allow me to serve you more in a faith based speaking ministry, please let me spend my days faithfully serving you right where I am NOW. I’m where I am today because you want me here. Please don’t let me miss opportunities to serve you today because I’m focused on something in the future, which may not even be your will for my life.
the Word:
But in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue.
Ephesians 3:17-19 (NIV)
This was dual published on my Pragmatic Communion blog.
two minutes with God: Ephesians 3:17-19
a Quote:
“One of the most important life-changing prayers we can pray for other people is that they will really know God’s love in a powerful, personal way. Paul did not pray that people would love God; he prayed that people would know and have Revelation of God’s awesome love.”
“When someone tells you about a Biblical principle or spiritual truth, that is a piece of information. But when God helps you understand it, it becomes revelation.”
The Power of Simple Prayer by Joyce Meyer
my Prayer:
Lord, I pray for revelation of the depth of your love today. For myself, for my family, for my friends and for that person I will never meet. Please bless me with a deep understanding of your perfect and limitless love. I don’t ever want to take it for granted, not fully comprehending the depth and breadth of your affection for me. Please help me to remember that every blessing – and every trial – is evidence of the fullness of your love for me.
the Word:
. . . so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:17-19 (NIV)
. . . And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God
Ephesians 3:17-19 (The Message)
the Lyrics
“How deep, how deep is your love? How strong, how strong is your love?” Healing Is In Your Hands by Christy Nockels
This was dual published on my Pragmatic Communion blog.
two minutes with God: Philippians 2:15
a Quote:
“Moral authority is the credibility you earn by walking your talk. It is the relationship other people see between what you say and what you do, between what you claim to be and what you are . . . There is an alignment between conviction and action, belief and behavior . . .
Nothing compensates for moral authority. No amount of communication skills, wealth, accomplishment, education, talent or position can make up for a lack of moral authority. We all know plenty of people who have those qualities but who exercise no influence over us whatsoever. Why? Because there is a contradiction between what they claim to be and what we perceive them to be.” Visioneering: God’s Blueprint for Developing and Maintaining Vision by Andy Stanley
my Prayer:
Lord, please help me to be blameless today. For even one minute of today. Please help me to represent you well. Please help me to be honorable. Help me to be a woman of my word today, Lord. Please fill me with an awareness of your Holy Spirit and remind me include you in every conversation, every action, every thought. If you are with me every minute, I stand a chance of being blameless. I want to be a credible witness for your grace and glory today. I want to be trustworthy. Please help me.
the Word:
. . . so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe
Philippians 2:15 (NIV)
This was dual published on my Pragmatic Communion blog.
crazy woman singing in the van singing WHAT? “Glory to God Forever”
Loving the new praise song this week: “Glory to God, Glory to God, Glory to God Forever. Take my life and let it be all for you and for your glory. Take my life and let it be yours.”
For more Saturday music, check out Then Sings My Soul Saturday every Saturday hosted by Amy at Signs, Miracles and Wonders.
two minutes with God: 1 Peter 4:10-11
a Quote:
“Where is God leading today? What are the priorities that need to be addressed? Who needs my attention? What do I have to learn? Where might be the landmines in the day’s journey? What needs to change? In asking these questions, I hope to tune my soul to the voice of God so that I will be conscious of His guidance throughout the day. With increasing frequency this actually happens.” A Resilient Life: You Can Move Ahead No Matter What by Gordon MacDonald
my Prayer:
Lord, please bless me with discernment today. Show me what I need to see, whether I want to see it or not. Lead me where I need to go, give me the words I need to speak and, please Lord, give me an awareness not only of your faithful presence, but an awareness of the needs of others that I so often miss even when they are smack in front of me. Allow me to serve you today Lord, even if I never get to know how you do it. Please allow me to be your hands and feet and voice. Please use me right where I am. Please allow me to be a witness for your grace and glory today.
the Word:
Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.
1 Peter 4:10-11 (NIV)
This was dual published on my Pragmatic Communion blog.
two minutes with God: Ephesians 4:12
a Quote:
“What if power comes from empowering others rather than dominating them?” The Friends We Keep: A Woman’s Quest for the Soul of Friendship by Sarah Zacharias Davis
my Prayer:
Lord, please bless me with the motivation and wisdom to recognize opportunities to encourage those I interact with today. In those opportunities, help me to equip someone by showing me how to freely and graciously share any knowledge, skills or talents you have already blessed me with. Please don’t allow me to miss any opportunities due to my attention to self-focused goals, indifference or the sense of being needed or admired that can stem from knowing, understanding or being able to do something better than someone else.
Help me to remember how much I don’t know, don’t understand and can’t do. Help me to remember all the people who have helped me, and those who continue to help me. Thank you for those people in my life, Lord.
the Word:
. . . to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.
Colossians 3:12 (NIV)
This was dual published on my Pragmatic Communion blog.
two minutes with God: Colossians 3:12
a Quote:
“Jesus understood that the deadliest sins – resentment, arrogance, judgmentalism, lovelessness – are ones we can commit without lifting a finger.” Everybody’s Normal Till You Get to Know Them by John Ortberg
my Prayer:
Lord, please bless me with patience and kindness today. Please bless me with empathy and compassion for others. Please don’t let me hurt anyone as a result of my neglect or indifference or pride.
the Word:
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
Colossians 3:12 (NIV)
consistent intentional solitude.
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.
Ecclesiastes 3:1
Summer is over.
The loss of solitude at the beginning was nearly instantaneous. A shocker and familiar at the same time. A living flashback to before PinkGirl started school. Kid duty every waking moment and sometimes more. Most of my prayers were short and in fragments. I seriously missed consistent, dedicated time spent with the Lord. I seriously missed the time to read. To think.
School’s been back in since Thursday and yesterday was my first day back to routine. Some quiet time, some reading, a cup of coffee in my favorite ceramic mug instead of a travel mug, a workout – I even got some work done! And now, a blog post! Even with a forgotten homework delivery and a horrendous traffic jam during after-school pick-up, this day was great! Top it off with an evening that included a flat tire for FirstHusband and needing to replace the broken lock on the front door?
No stress. No matter what happens, I handle things better after a little solitude and prayer.
I’ve said it before. There are seasons of prayer. Sometimes, my days allow for moments alone and I can choose to spend some of that time with God. Sometimes, my day barely allows for a shower and that’s the only solitude and prayer time I get. Sometimes, my day doesn’t even allow for the shower so I pray while I’m driving a kid somewhere or while I’m loading the dishwasher, cooking dinner or cleaning something.
Summer was a good reminder of what it was like when the kids were little and I had to carve out time for solitude. It was also a hearty dose of empathy for other moms in that situation right now. It was lots of fun. And lots of driving. Summer day camps for kids, sometimes with less than two hours of unfragmented time between drop off and pick-up. And those bits of time were most often spent frantically getting stuff DONE.
But Summer was a season, as were the years when I had small children at home all day, every day, and the years I spent working full-time while going to college, and the years I spent working like a crazy woman when I first started my business. I had to learn and have again been reminded that when the seasons of my life are such that my solitude and prayer time are encroached upon by my daily responsibilities, I have to do two things:
First: Not beat myself up over it, because by doing so, I waste time I could be praying and spending with God.
Second: FIND pockets of time, multitask prayer with chores that don’t need active thought, and consciously include God in my every day moments and conversations, because He is with me WHEREVER I go. (Joshua 1:9)
Thank you God for reminding me that one of the things I really need to get DONE is time alone with You. I need to actively carve it out wherever I can get it.
Lord, please bless me with an unquenchable thirst for intimate fellowship with you. Please bless me with the courage to listen to the truths your Holy Spirit reveals to me during these times of physical stillness and silence.
“To bring some solitude into our lives is one of the most necessary but also most difficult disciplines . . . As soon as we are alone, without people to talk with, books to read, TV to watch, or phone calls to make, an inner chaos opens up in us. This chaos can be so disturbing and so confusing that we can hardly wait to get busy again . . .
. . . Intuitively, we know that it is important to spend time in solitude. We even start looking forward to this strange period of uselessness. This desire for solitude is often the first sign of prayer, the first indication that the presence of God’s Spirit no longer remains unnoticed . . .
. . . As we empty ourselves of our many worries, we come to know not only with our mind but also with our heart that we never were really alone, that God’s Spirit was with us all along . . . “
The Only Necessary Thing: Living a Prayerful Life
by Henri Nouwen
peel me a grape. again.
I posted this as an audio clip and wrote a dedication to FirstHusband on our 20th wedding anniversary, August 11th, but here’s a youtube version.
Peel Me a Grape is one of “our” songs (really, after 20 years, how can we have only ONE song?). The lyrics are so completely opposite of the mini-van driving, pragmatic woman I am and the kind of relationship we have, that they make us laugh. And laughter all wrapped up in sultry? That’s romance for us. We both loved it from the moment we heard it.
Need a few more chuckles today? Check out Friday Funnies hosted by Homesteaders Heart!
If you’ve got time to hang out for a few minutes, check out what else makes me laugh: Pragmatic Compendium’s “laugh!” category.
and
For more Saturday music, check out Then Sings My Soul Saturday every Saturday hosted by Amy at Signs, Miracles and Wonders.
peel me a grape.
20 years today. One of the best decisions I ever made!
FirstHusband gave me a cruise for an anniversary present. I gave him this: (the vocals are all me)
Download: Peel_Me_A_Grape_Julie_Stiles_Mills.MP3
Cause anyone who knows me, knows how much I need mink coats, cashmere and bon bons. umm. hmm. I must admit. I do love the line “never outthink me.” And tonight the line “chill me some wine” will work.
We first heard this song 8 years ago in a little piano bar on the Disney Wonder. It stuck with both of us – in a “this is our song” kind of way. But then again, we have framed lyrics by Jimmy Buffett hanging on our bedroom wall:
“It’s those changes in latitudes,
changes in attitudes nothing remains quite the same.
With all of our running and all of our cunning,
If we couldn’t laugh, we would all go insane.”
We are some kind of romantic, huh?
We relied on PinkGirl set up our romantic anniversary dinner in her own special way and then she invited us to the family room for a dance. She played the CD and since the accompaniment sounds exactly like the Diana Krall version, FirstHusband didn’t know it was me till the vocals started. He asked two questions: “Who is this?” immediately followed by “Is this you?”
Happy Anniversary, babe. Today you are FavoriteHusband. Maybe even tomorrow too.
crazy woman singing in the van singing WHAT? “You Are Good.”
New praise song this week.
“Lord You are good and Your mercy endureth forever!!”
For more Saturday music, check out Then Sings My Soul Saturday every Saturday hosted by Amy at Signs, Miracles and Wonders.
7 Quick Takes 08.06.10
1. Whoever told PinkGirl about Steve Urkel – that was totally uncalled for. Very uncool.
oh. it must have been a Full House ratings crossover week. We watch DVR’d Full House (but fast forward through the DeGrassi promo commercials).
2. It seems that my freakish, overachiever, perfectionism has worked against me once again. I tried a little too hard to read the charts at the eye doctor, resulting in the doctor thinking I could see better than I really can, causing him to give me a lower than acceptable power for my contact lens readers. I can see to read on the computer and books and while I can see entree names on menus, the descriptions are blurry, along with the text on my phone, food nutrition labels and price tags. Reading newspaper print? Not happening. BUT – it is LIBERATING to read without being tethered to reading glasses, which I have been for the last 5 years.
I’ve watched FavoriteSon put in and take out his contact lenses so much over the last few years, the adjustment to contact lenses actually been no problem for me! I’ve tried my first pair for a week and I’m going back Monday, at which time I will tell the truth about the ease with which I can see stuff the doctor asks me to read. Hopefully, my second trial pair will be the perfect strength.
3. I’m kicking the crud out of our debt, one dollar at a time. Our church is offering a multi-week Dave Ramsey course called Financial Peace University, but amazingly, I got the entire course on 13 audio CDs for FREE on paperbackswap.com! Somebody listed it as a book and it only cost me TWO credits!!! Already listened to the first two CDs. Saved myself the course registration fee and all the time I would have spent driving to and from church for the classes. Not to mention the fact that I can get through the material faster than one lesson per week and I can listen anytime I want!
4. We’ve been asking God to bless our efforts to save money and pay off debt and we paid so much extra on our debt this month that our checking account was running dangerously low. I was worried about overdraft protection kicking in – which is kinda COUNTERproductive the whole debt reduction goal.
Then we found nearly $200 we forgot about from the used school uniform sale in May, FirstHusband found $20 on his nightstand and received a forgotten and unexpected travel reimbursement for $75!
In addition to all that, out of the blue, one of my clients had a nearly firm-wide, major network printer meltdown on Tuesday and I’ve spent the last three days on client site. Unexpected compensated work!
Thank you GOD!
5. Which do I like the least? Network printer work vs. dental work? hmmm. I’m not sure. But, it appears (knock on a printer) that the problem is solved, the solution is set up and tested and ready for firm-wide roll-out next week.
And it’s always tremendously affirming when, after I get stuck on a problem and the heavy tech hitting IT guys are called in, they get stuck in the same place I do. It’s also affirming when, after the IT guys are called in, they still want my help.
The firm administrator described my approach to problem solving and research as “tenacious.” Some might call it “annoying” or “exasperating.” It’s that freakish, overachiever, perfectionism thing again.
6. I finally lost my personal trainer. I knew it was coming. She’s been a law student and she finally graduated, took the bar and is now moving on to the next exciting stage in her life – sans me, I’m sad to say. (But EXTREMELY happy for her.) It’s an adjustment, working out with no accountability and I’m not entirely sure I won’t be hiring an new trainer, but for now, I’m doing . . . okay. I was up to three hours per week of strength training with her. Since we stopped meeting, the strength training has been inconsistent. I actually worked out MORE during the week of our cruise than I did any other week since she left me. I’ll really be able to tell after school starts and I get my routine back.
I worked out yesterday morning and this morning and while I really don’t like working out first thing in the morning, I can honestly say that every. single. minute. of the rest of these two days, I was SO glad my workout was already behind me.
7. PinkGirl is auditioning for a local production of Seussical the Musical tomorrow and parts will be announced on August 16 – NINE painfully long days later. If I were to receive a penny for every time I hear the questions “Mom, do you think I got in?” and “What part do you think I got?” during these next nine days, I would become a millionaire in less than one of them.
She wants every singe part. Kind of a problem.
Join in with your own 7 Quick Take Friday post at Conversion Diary hosted by Jennifer!
Objection #4: God isn’t Worthy of Worship if He Kills Innocent Children.
I don’t understand suffering. It’s going to be the first thing I ask the Lord about when I finally see him face to face. But whenever I hear about it, observe it, experience it . . . it sends me searching for reasons I can make sense of.
“‘What makes you think children go to heaven when they die?’ I asked.
‘Isaiah 7:16 talks about an age before a child is morally accountable, before the child ‘knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right.’ King David spoke of going to be with his son who dies at birth. Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.’ which indicates they will go to heaven. There’s a considerable amount of other scriptural support for this position as well.’”
The Case for Faith
by Lee Strobel
I don’t know what would have happened in Emmit Trapp’s lifetime. I don’t know if he would have come to know God or rejected Him. But if I believe my Bible – and I DO, that sweet little boy will have eternal life with God in heaven. I don’t know what has happened or what will happen in the lives of his family, but I CAN pray that this tragedy will bring his family closer together and closer to God. If that little boy went to heaven early and someone comes to Christ because of it, I’ve got to believe God’s plan is better than mine. Because my plan puts that little boy at home with his family. My plan says they won’t suffer grief, be plagued with “what if” or have to face tomorrow without their little boy.
I’ve got to believe that God knows something I don’t.
And no, I do NOT judge Emmit’s mother or his family. Because there, but for the Grace of God, go I.
Welcome! If you have time, peruse my topics & my “little known facts” page to see if we have anything in common, or find out what I do for fun & work by viewing my singing and speaking samples.
Feel free to steal my ideas, ponder my musings, disagree with my rants, jump on my bandwagon, read my favorite books, comment, email me, or just lurk. Whatever works for you.
Most Recent 10- everything matters.
- fragments of a Mother’s Day weekend.
- the foundation of my work ethic. “Would you like fries with that?”
- I don’t want to sing a solo.
- “Discovery Day” is right.
- Jesus said turn the other cheek. He didn’t say I had to stand within smack radius.
- Mythbusters question: Who packs a car better, a man or a woman?
- you see the big hat too . . . right?
- I’m going to stop being discouraged and be awesome instead. True Story.
- five minutes of crazy.
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Fitness Log: May
May Totals as of 5/21
HIIT Incline Miles: 4.5
HIIT Incline Minutes: 90
Strength Training/Yoga Days: 1
2 Min., 10 Sec. Planks: 3
Days Supplements Taken: 2
Fruit Servings: 2-
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