Tea

Fresh mint tea made from freshly cut mint leaves grown right in my own apartment :-)

Yummmmm

Thoughts

Here's a taste of what's been running through my mind recently:

Why do wives feel their husbands have to meet their needs? Wasn't it the woman who was created to be the "help" mate? Now, I'm not a wife so I'm not speaking from experience - though I don't think experience is the deciding factor in this matter. Seems to me the Scripture is pretty clear. Wives are to consider their husband more important than themselves - Phil. 2:3; submit to their husbands - Eph. 5:22; and excercise true agape love in their relationship - which happens to include suffering long, being kind, not seeking her own way, bearing all things, and more - I Cor. 13.

Yeah, there are Scriptures directing the husband to love his wife and live with her in an understanding manner and be the leader and so on, but if you're a wife, that's none of your business. That's God's business. Your responsibility is to do YOUR part - not to "encourage" him to do his part.

In general, seems to me, most wives ought to shut up and love more and expect less. Probably would result in happier, more responsive husbands. . . . just a thought . . .

Poland - Short Term Missions . . . . my next vacation???? Worth considering . . .

Our spiritual leaders deserve a LOT more respect than we give them. 1 Thess. 5:12-13, "But we request of you, bretheren, that you appreciate those who diligently labor among you, and have charge over you in the Lord and give you instruction, and that you esteem them very highly in love because of their work..." Notes on this passage:
1. Paul doesn't give the leaders noted in this passage a title - indicating the work is more important than the title.
2. "diligently labor" - the greeek infers "work to exhaustion" Anyone who knows someone in ministry knows this is so very true.
3. "among you" - infers involved leadership, not detached.
4. "have charge over you in the Lord" - These are not self-appointed leaders, but those God has called to ministry.
5. "give you instruction" - to direct/correct/change the flock to holy living.
6. "esteem them" = obey them
7. "very highly" = exceedingly; superabundantly; overflowing
8. "in love" = "agape" - it's not a matter of personal liking, it's unconditional love; also indicates cultivating an intimate relationship with knowledge that leads to esteemed recognition.

How well do you know your spiritual leaders? How do you show your "high esteem" and appreciation of them?

That's all for now :-)

Husband 1.0

Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow down in overall system performance - particularly in the flower and jewelery applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5, and then installed undesirable programs such as NFL 5.0, NBA 3.0. and Golf Clubs 4.1. Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes
the system. I've tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.

What can I do?

Signed, Desperate

____________________________________


Dear Desperate:

First keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an Operating System! Please enter the command: "http: I Thought You Loved Me.htm" and try to download Tears 6.2 and don't forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update. If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewellery 2.0 and Flowers 3.5. But remember, over use of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0, or Beer 6.1. Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do, DO NOT install Mother-in-law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background, that will eventually seize control of all your system resources). Also, do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0 program. These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We recommend Hot Food 3.0 and Lingerie 7.7.

Good Luck
Tech Support

NBC cancels 'Book of Daniel'

I received this email letter today - nice to have a little good news delivered :-)

Dear Deborah,

NBC's anti-Christian program The Book of Daniel has been cancelled! Your efforts, combined with those of hundreds of thousands of other AFA Online supporters, had an impact. NBC's decision to pull The Book of Daniel shows the power of the pocketbook. NBC didn't want to eat their economic losses. Had NBC not had to eat millions of dollars each time it aired, NBC would have kept The Book of Daniel on the air. Because of your efforts, the sponsors dropped the program. NBC then decided it didn't want to continue the fight. Even an impassioned plea by Daniel's producer Jack Kenny could not match your participation. "Ordinarily, I would never ask anyone to do this, but the AFA and bullies like them are hard at work to try and prevent you from seeing these beautiful shows, and that is censorship—pure and simple. And that is both un-Christian and un-American," Kenny wrote. His attitude is typical in today’s society. Non-Christians telling Christians what is Christian. People like Kenny don't want people like you to have a voice. They want to deny you the right to get involved. You are supposed to sit back and take the trash. And when you do speak up they call you names. This shows us that we don't have to simply sit back and take the trash, but we can get involved and fight back with our pocketbooks. I want to thank the 678,394 individuals who sent emails to NBC and the thousands who called and emailed their local affiliates. Thanks for caring enough to get involved!

Sincerely,

Don
Donald E. Wildmon, Founder and ChairmanAmerican Family Association

Bountiful Blessings!

To quote a well-known angel, "I bring you glad tidings of great joy!" Although my news is not nearly as wonderful as the birth of our Savior must have been - it's still pretty cool!

Dad got a job!

Not only did he get a job, but God gave him the best job I can imagine Dad ever wanting to have - here's the perks:

1. Stress free environment - the place he's working for is a family-owned business and they all seem to be pretty easy-going, kind folk!
2. Pay is sufficient to allow them to move out!! They're not rushing to it, of course, they want to find just the right place (I'm confident God already has their new home set aside!).
3. The company will pay for the fuel for his truck. Since they don't have a company truck to offer him, they figured this was fair :-) We'll take it!

And the best news . . . . drum roll please . . . . .

It's at a golf course - and, yeah, he gets as much free golf as he wants! :-) That's my dad's absolute favorite sport and this is the best excercise for him!!!

Dad's gonna be the guy that keeps everything running out there (no, I don't know the name of the place, sorry . . .) so he gets to use his mechanicing skills in an evironment he loves.

God is better than good - He's over-the-top awesome! Thank you, Lord, for your kindness and generosity!

Can You Pass??

This was fun! Let me know what you score. I got 21 right :-P

Citizenship Test

Very interesting questions. How well would you do if you took a citizenship test? Try this one out - it is educational and fun. 24 out of 30 is considered a passing grade. It's reported 96% of all high school seniors FAILED this test ... and if that's not bad enough, 50%+ of all individuals over 50 did too! Now for the test ... Click on the link below.

www.toast.net/games/Independence/page1.asp

Fortunately the correct answers are given ... after you are graded.

Home From The Holidays

Hello all,

There's tons to share, but I need to be brief tonight since I need to play catch-up on some website work for my brothers church - http://www.gracebiblecs.com/.

I learned so much on my "vacation." Life has really changed now that my earthly family has gone in such different directions. I never realized how much till this last Christmas. That was difficult for me as I'm not a creature who enjoys change - though change seems to be the one constant in life. It's a good thing, really - a sign of growth. Since God's character is really the only existing constant, change keeps us reliant on Him in so many ways.

Here's a taste of what God's been showing/teaching me since my last post:

Luke 15:11-32 (a.k.a. "The Prodigal Son") isn't really about the Prodigal son at all. Yeah, he's ONE of the key supporting characters, but the key figure is the FATHER. Read it through again and look for what the Father does. Dr. MacArthur recently did a few sermons on this parable that have really opened my eyes to what this parable reveals about the character of our Heavenly Father. Putting the story into it's historical context has given it whole new life and meaning for me. Everything the Father does demonstrates amazing humility, mercy, grace, kindness, and an indescribable, unashamed (or "shameful" according to the religious folk of that day) lavish love. I'll definitely be putting together a nice long post on this one - it's astounding!

I Thess. 5:8-11. It doesn't come out directly in the passage, but while discussing this in Bible Study I was struck with the correlation of spiritual warfare and physical warfare. Warriors through out history fight for many reasons, but generally it came down to loyalty to one's sovereign, protection of their honor, and - here's the clincher - protection of the warrior's own family. Why do we pray? Why do we arm ourselves with memorization of Scripture? Why do we obey the Word and confront sin & encourage one another? Why do we fight the good fight? Why are we not to be weary in well doing? Because we are protecting our family! Not our physical brothers & sisters - our Spiritual family. The church! When we fail to do all that the Lord has commanded, we weaken the defenses that protect our family against the enemy. Definite food for thought!

I Cor. 13:5 "Love. . . is not provoked. . . "
Pastor Tom Patton takes this little phrase apart in 3 astounding sermons - EVERYONE should listen to these! They are life-changing and relationship-changing. I'm considering writing out his sermons as posts they are SO convicting and challenging. Love is a VERB - and it's one that calls for total sacrifice of SELF! All of his sermons on this chapter are well worth listening to, but the one's on not being provoked and on forgiveness have struck me hardest.

Well, that's all I have time for right now. More in the days to come :-)