Sometimes our children do something – some little thing that really isn’t such a big deal. Maybe they were unkind to a sibling, but with just that little extra edge that tells you they have a deeper issue afoot. Sometimes it is in their eyes when they don’t apologize very sincerely. Sometimes it is that things just don’t seem all that great. This is what my husband calls the fudge ribbon of sin. Like the fudge in a new carton of ice cream, you may see only one little thin stripe of fudginess across the top, but the stuff is really all the way through.
I love this image because it reminds me of how I ought to pursue the problems that our children are having. Think of someone scooping ice cream: those little tiny scrapes off the top are as far away from the manifestation of fudge as they can get. Every time they scoop, they breathe a sigh of relief that it came out vanilla. They are scared of the fudge ribbon. Continue reading ‘Fudge Ribbons of Sin’
Here are my birthday people! Aren’t they great?
I don’t think they even spoke to me until 9:30 0r so today. Playing, playing, playing! This morning they noticed that the new toy dragon had a red tip on his tail. Blood. What do you do when you have a bleeding injury? Band-Aids! I found them under a table in the living room – one tail bandaged successfully, thirty seven (or so) failed attempts stuck to the floor, little papers blowing like tumbleweed through their western village. Honestly, I just can’t imagine why I don’t get more done around here!
Here is a wonderful post from my husband on Advent. And here is a whole series of readings for the Advent Season composed by various ministers in the CREC and compiled by our friend Randy Booth.
And here is a picture of the Christmas jammies I’ll be handing out a little later this evening to fifteen grandchildren! Babies on top, next the five boys, and finally the stack of ten girls’ jammies!
A few years ago I began sending out an email newsletter for ministers’ wives, and now I have a mailing list of over two hundred of you from all different parts of the country, as well as from overseas, and from many denominations. I have been rather sporadic about this letter, but I am getting ready to send out a December edition. So, if any of you ministers’ wives out there (or elders’ wives) would like to receive this, now is the time to send me your email address, and I will happily add you to the list. (Also, if you old-timers have changed your email address, please let me know and I’ll update my list.)
If you leave a comment here, I will have your email address automatically. Some of you have asked for back issues, and I have dropped the ball on some of your requests, but not on purpose! I am hoping these missives will find their way into a book some day, and then they will all be in one easy place. Meanwhile, I am happy to receive any of your requests for particular topics to be addressed in future newsletters.
Hello to all you patient and generous Femina readers! I am assuming that you are all bustling around with flour on your nose and struggling to find room in the fridge for one more thing, knocking the extra boxes of butter out on your toes as you do so. Good for you! I am about to start that part of Thanksgiving myself, but before then I just wanted to pop in and say, “Guess what is being released on Black Friday?!” A book – by me!
I don’t think I need to tell you that I don’t always have things together. This book, lest you be fooled by the Martha Stewart cover, does not pretend I do. This book is not about a hoax, that life with kids is the smoothest thing since boxed pudding. I don’t do that well. It is about loving the little years: loving the mess, loving the fussy days, mortifying the flesh through blanket forts. Love, not in an ethereal emotional way, but in a very real, sacrificial, and laughing way.
The day after Thanksgiving my book will be released (coincidentally on my 30th birthday), and then two days after that, the twins turn three! So, how are we celebrating all this excitement? What can we possibly be doing to prepare? Well, we are doing what we always do: getting behind on the laundry!
Before I get started in the kitchen, I wanted to take a minute to reflect on what it is we are doing out there in the kitchen up to our elbows in pumpkin pie and all the rest. We Americans are blessed to have a national holiday devoted to Thanksgiving, and it’s a wonder that it is still recognized. The obvious question that such a holiday should provoke is “Thank whom?”
Though Thanksgiving is not a day on the Christian calendar, it is still a very happy providence that He, our good and gracious God, arranged to have us Americans thank Him for our manifold blessings by sitting down at a table once a year and rejoicing together around an abundance of food! My memories of Thanksgiving stretch back to the shining white table of my mother with Dad standing at the head carving the turkey. Mom’s crystal and china and silver were polished and sparkling. We children were dressed up in our Sunday best. I can see it now!
Mom always started the day before Thanksgiving by making the cornbread for the dressing and simmering the turkey neck and giblets for Continue reading ‘The Powerful Impact of Pie’
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