Thai Chicken in Coconut Milk

Next weekend I am preparing a gourmet luncheon for the students attending our daughter's photography class. The menu is: Thai chicken in coconut milk; rice; tomato chutney; spring garden salad with tangy bacon dressing. Sounds good, doesn't it? I think I could really get into catering fancy meals. We will be serving the class at my home on depression glassware (chop-house plates, salad plates, fruit bowls and dainty cups and saucers for tea or coffee.). Mmm, mmm, mmm!

Hallway of Memories

This past fall we visited Colorado Springs for an annual nationwide meeting of home school leaders. My mom worked at St. Frances Hospital in Colorado Springs during WWII so we decided to see if it was still in existence. It is, but most of it sits unused. This is a picture down one of the hallways my mom must have walked many times during those years. It was an eerie feeling to visit the empty building that was likely full of memories for my mother. I could almost hear the soft tapping of her nurse's shoes on the marble floors.

Table set for Resurrection Sunday Dinner.

Sanctifying Power of Suffering

In Sunday School we are talking about the sanctifying power of suffering. Oh, yeah! When we are tempted to pray with all diligence for the easy life--adequate money, excellent health, hosts of friends, to be smarter than a fifth grader, etc.- then we would do well to remember that the suffering allowed/sent into our lives by the Most High God, the Chief Shepherd, the Lord of Hosts, the Bread of Life, the Lover of our Souls is allowed/sent for the purpose of conforming us to the image of the Son. Yet I/we pray with perseverance to be released from the suffering not caring that it is working in us a kind of glory. Shame, shame on me.

I have never considered myself a sufferer, but I have had some pretty hard knocks in life. Most of my own doing and one can hardly blame God for those. But what niggles my brain is the fact that God may send (has sent?) to me suffering, not of my own doing. Well, to be honest, I'm not too keen on that idea. And yet, I have to say, I want to be like Jesus (I want to want to anyway!), but I fall far short...far, far short.

Even so I have this comfort knowing that the Christ who began a good work in me will complete it and someday-and this a good part--I will be free of suffering after it has done its good work in me. And the best part is that someday I will never sin again.

With trepidation and resistance mixed with a bit of whining I say, "Dear Lord, bring on the suffering if this is what it takes."

And I will trust You. I will trust You. I will trust You.

Someone is sitting in my pew

Wouldn't you know that in both Sunday School and worship service the pastors have been speaking about humility and how we ought to think of ourselves. How the cross walk is really a life of never-ending denial of self.

Pastor Monty preached about how apart from God and His Spirit we are not really in our right minds. He referenced the Gadarene demoniac that Jesus healed. AfterJesus had driven out the demons from this man, he was once again in his right mind.

When we think too highly of ourselves we are not really in our right minds.

Thinking too highly of ourselves leads to pride. Romans 13:4 states, "I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned." Wrong thinking about self invariably leads to pride. Pride.

How are you doing with that? Try a little test: the next time you walk into a full or filling room, whose seat are you looking for? The little old lady with the cane? The hard-of-hearing gentleman? The family with the little kiddoes? Not me. I'm looking for my seat. My pew. Pride.

It seems just a little suspicious that these issues, the cross life, the daily denial of self, ought to be the subject of discussion in Sunday School and in church. And God is definitely in on it because this Sunday, just to prove a point, when we walked into the sanctuary someone was sitting in our pew. Our pew. Pride.

How should we think of ourselves? Pastor Monty directed us to Romans 1 to find out what the unsaved mind is like.

1. We are depraved
2. We are filled with evil
3. We are haters of God
4. Our minds are darkened
5. We are worthy of death
6. We are enemies of God

I don't think we want these traits to be a part of our character anymore. I'm trudging along but I'm not there yet. Sadly, too often I am still looking to see if anyone is sitting in my pew.

_____________________________
"Looking to the cross drives away conceit." Pastor Monty Loudenslager

Pleasure in God

Our recent Sunday School classes have been enlightening and deeply thought provoking. We've been studying the pursuit of God and the ultimate pleasure found in this pursuit. A couple Sundays ago we discussed the general contemporary church's response to sin which seems to fall under three catagories:
1. Portray sin as so ugly and unappealing that we will choose not to pursue it
2. Come up with a lengthy list of dos and don'ts, taboos and such
3. Consider the yearning to sin as the problem

From personal experience and from reading of the lives of others, clearly none of these are fully effective against sin. The answer: to make the pursuit of God so pleasureable that earthly pleasures will pale in comparision.

Other thoughts:
1. Holiness ought to be pursued because it leads to joy.
2. Pursuit of God leads to superior pleasure.
3. Low-grade daily addictions rob us of true pleasure in God alone. (daily addictions include but not limited to...eating, t.v., computer use, exercise, shopping etc.)

(Many of these thoughts are the product of the speaker's reading Jonathan Edwards' works: Personal Narrative and Youth and the Pleasures of Piety.)

I ran across this quote for a project I was working on and I'm posting it here because I've always thought that just because someone is viewed as an 'expert' or just because someone has a lot of letters after their name this does not mean they have a corner on the truth. Oooh, I've met too many in lots of fields that believe this. So here's the quote:

Our research has yielded (and we have systematically catalogued and footnoted for the first time) thousands of examples of expert misinformation, disinformation, misunderstanding, miscalculation, egregious prognostication, booboos, and occasional just plain lies. And based on our preliminary findings we can say with some confidence that the experts are wrong without regard to race, creed, color, sex discipline, speciality, country, culture, or century. They are wrong about facts, and they are wrong about theories, they are wrong about dates, they are wrong about geography, they are wrong about the future, they are wrong about the past, and at best they are misleading about the present, not to mention next week.

Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky, "Introduction to the Original (1984) Version," The Experts Speak: The Definitive Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation, rev. ed. (New York: Villard, [1984] 1998, xxvii.

I can almost see you nodding your head and hear you saying "You got that right!"

Just a little reminder to each of us that summer will come again, the sky will dazzle us with blue, the zephyr will kiss our cheeks, the birds will sing for pure joy, and we will smell the rich earth beneath our feet.

Morning has broken, like the first morning.

Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird.

Praise for the singing, praise for the morning,
Praise for it springing fresh from the Word.

Turquoise waters...emerald islands

Okay, so I've never physically been to the Caribbean. Nevertheless I have mentally traveled there on several occasions via James A. Michener's book, Caribbean. I recently reread this stirring tale, due primarily to the recent earthquakes in Haiti. If you want to know the history of this island and other tales of this once-Spanish, once-English Lake, pick up Michener's book.

Following completion you will have a much greater understanding of the why's and wherefore's of the great saddness that hovers over Haiti...without end.

And its profound need for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Cobalt blue skies...and no complaints

Okay, so I'm back blogging. I tried the whole facebook thingee, but I didn't really like the inaneness of it. Chit chat about this and that for all the world to read didn't really appeal to me. Call me old fashioned. And no offense meant to any facebook friends.

We are in the midst of another North Dakota winter. And I am making every effort like E.B. Pusey (1800-1882) to "Allow thyself to complain of nothing, not even the weather."

Most days I'm doing okay, but I have to admit that I am imagining an early, warm spring with months of warm summer days which do not end until well into November. It's a dreamy thought.

A Time to Every Purpose

A word of encouragement to home school moms or anyone in need of support.....

I recently watched a movie that caused me to reflect on the goals of our lives, the unheralded duties and responsibilities, the unending tasks and the sometimes misunderstood reactions to life’s happenings.

I’m not much of a movie watcher, but this feature filled my thoughts for some time. And the bottom line, I think, is that , as prudent Solomon stated in Ecclesiastes, “To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven.”

One of the closing lines of the movie was the recitation of a dream. The character stated he had dreamed of flying--flying so far into the heavens that he reached where the blue met the black. From there he could see that everything that happens in life is for a good reason. Perspective.

So I thought about the stick-to-it-tiveness required by home schooling parents. During those early years of instruction there is generally a great deal of enthusiasm and zest for learning, by both parent and child. As the years progress and the learning becomes more difficult, the hormones more prevalent, and the world’s siren call more strident, it can become a sheer act of courage and discipline to continue. But I believe, continue we must. Perspective.

For the home schooling mom there can be many things that lure her away from her primary tasks. Most are good activities, useful projects, and beneficial causes. But if God has called you to home school you must consider that maybe this is not the season of your life for the extraneous.

Women have been sold a lie, straight from the Pit, that they must be allowed to ‘do their own thing’, ‘look out for number one’, ‘take care of themselves first’, and a host of other selfish eulogizes. That’s not to say that there isn’t a time to draw away and rest. Even our dear Lord Jesus took time away from the crowds. But if you are called to home school your perspective must change considerably.

It is essential that the activities of a home school mom must equal the season of a home school mom’s life. It may mean that hobbies (I’m still waiting to begin quilting; so far not enough time.), fun times with friends, even church responsibilities, may need to be put on hold.

Let’s face it, if you are home schooling plus responsibly managing your home and providing for the physical, emotional and spiritual well-being of your husband and children plus maintaining your own personal devotional and Scripture memory time, there really isn’t much time left over. To pursue self interests, something would have to be sacrificed. Again, it would be a matter of ones’ perspective.

I have struggled with this for decades. Jesus said that in order to be His disciple, a follower must every day deny self, take of his cross and follow Him. It is very hard to deny the flesh and the world’s enticements. It is a daily struggle and sometimes these enticements are really good things. But they are not for you; not at this season of your life.

If you are home schooling then you are in a season of your life that doesn’t allow for much else. It is okay. Elisabeth Elliot in Keep a Quiet Heart states:
What I long to help [women] see is that if homemaking and mothering are the tasks God has assigned to them at present, it will be in the glad offering up to Him of those tasks that they will be truly “creative” and find real fulfillment.

Sage advice was offered by Elizabeth Prentiss many years ago:
If you could once make up your mind in the fear of God never to undertake more work of any sort than you can carry on calmly, quietly, without hurry or flurry, and the instant you feel yourself growing nervous and like one out of breath, would stop and take breath, you would find this simple common-sense rule doing for you what no prayers or tears could every accomplish.

I have seen so many wonderful home schooling moms over the past two decades who have simply run themselves ragged trying to do everything. Their perspectives are out of whack.

Paul in his letter to the church at Thessalonica counseled the following:
...aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own business, and to work with your hands...so that you may live properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.

Dear sisters, you cannot do it all and God has not called you to do it all. If you are a wife, mother, homemaker and parent educator, your plate is full. Stop feeling guilty about the things you cannot do and do the things you must with reverence and gratitude. Maybe now is not the time for your favorite hobbies or fun activities. Soon enough these years will pass and you will move into another season that will allow you more flexibility in your life.

Our dear Lord Jesus through His blessed Holy Spirit will give you all that you need to persevere...and to do so with joy. The more we learn to depend upon God, the greater the peace in our lives. The more we understand that “to everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven”, the greater will be our satisfaction in doing the unknown, sometimes unappreciated, often tedious, responsibilities. There is great joy to be had in being faithful in all things...even the little things.

Thomas a Kempis prayed, “O Lord, how entirely needful is thy grace for me, to begin any good work, to go on with it, and to accomplish it.”

Rejoice in the here and now. Remember that everything that happens is for God’s glory and our good. Enjoy this season of your life.