You know that hilarious song in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado where the Lord High Executioner sings about all the people he’s got on his list who won’t be missed? You know, “people who eat peppermint and puff it in your face,” and “children who are up in dates and floor you with ‘em flat,” and “the idiot who praises, in enthusiastic tone, all centuries but this, and every country but his own.” It always concludes with “they’ll none of them be missed.”
Well, I realize that the era is most likely responsible for the oversight, but I’d really like to know why the people who make mattress pads with kleenex for the sides were not mentioned. They would not be missed. Also, whoever it was that dreamed up that horrific removable plastic yucka-do thing on the base of toilets that covers the screws. Seriously, not missed.
But on a brighter note – something that can give us hope that these grievous things will be remedied someday – have you all seen the new flat bottomed taco shells? Talk about progress! They stand up by themselves, fill easily, and clearly do not take any more work to make. Brilliant. Also, a big shout-out to the great minds behind the Clorox Toilet Wand. I don’t want them to think that we don’t appreciate the thought that went behind keeping us from needing to touch toilet brushes. Gone are the days when you have to put that wet grody thing somewhere. What a victory.
I snapped this through the screen from my bedroom window….can you see the bright red breasts on the robins at the top? Today this view is totally whited out because of a full-scale, on-and-off blizzard. But these birds showed up for a couple of days last week, and a large puddle below our house was full of mallards. There’s no denying it: spring will come.
My husband has started preaching through 1 Samuel, and just so you know, you can listen to sermons here at our church website. Or if you want to skip having to click a button, just go here. I meant to post some highlights from last week’s, but like so many blog posts, they are on my brain, but they never get out from rambling around in there and on to the page. But now I’m determined to give you the three main points of this week’s sermon.
1. We cannot peer into hearts to see who is born again. But the Bible says the works of the flesh are manifest (drunkenness, etc.) and the fruit of the Spirit is also manifest. We don’t have to look into hearts because we can see the actions. So if someone calls himself a Christian, but is carousing around town, it is not peering into his heart to be concerned about his spiritual state.
2. The sons of Belial are not Belialites, as though they belong to some political party. They are sons. There is a covenantal connection. So the bottom line is, “Who’s your daddy? Is it Christ or is it Belial?” Your baptism says who your Father ought to be. How does your life match up?
3. God loves the gospel, and He loves the gospel story. He has promised that His gospel will prevail in the earth. He is always either pouring the champagne, in times of great blessing, or He is shaking the bottle. Sometimes in our unbelief, we wonder why He doesn’t pop the cork. But if we believe His story, He will be soon pouring it out again. Hannah had the faith to believe, even when she saw God shaking the bottle. We must believe and ask God to pour it out now. This is His pattern. This is the arc of the story that He loves best. He has been doing this from the beginning, and He will keep doing it until the end of the world.
P.S. If you are a parent of little people, you might want to listen to the two sermons on Parenting Young People that are listed as well. Oh, my, yes. They were wonderful.
I can’t say enough about these brownies. Really. Brownies are right up there with chocolate chip cookies in terms of personal preferences and biases. I think that brownies disappoint eager audiences just as often, even if they don’t have that old “it’s actually a raisin” trick that cookies do. Sometimes they look like they will be perfect but deliver a bit of a chalky pasty bite that brings a person down. Sometimes they just leave you with a meeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhh. But these brownies will not. They will remind you why brownies were dreamed up in the first place. They are worth the time on the treadmill. They are worth making, worth eating, and worth wiping off five chocolate faces and 50 mudgy fingers. They stand behind the brownie promise and deliver. These brownies are it. Try them, really, do. No one will mind.
Continue reading ‘Brownies worth doing business with.’
This morning I was thinking about all the games my folks used to play with us kids. My memories make it seem like Dad played with us every night after work while we lived in Germany on the base where he served. Sometimes it was “hide the button.” We would close our eyes while he hid the button somewhere in plain sight in the living room. We were completely delighted with that one!
Then there were the “tricks” he would do with us, balancing us as we stood on his hands (he was lying down on his back on the living room floor) and lifting us up over his head. We had lots of versions of that one, and I’m pretty sure we kids thought we could have joined a circus, we were just so talented. Grab-bag was a big hit. Mom and Dad would write down funny things on little slips of paper and put them all in a hat. Then we would take turns drawing one out. We had to do whatever it said. This usually entailed singing a silly song, telling a joke, or doing some amazing stunt like three somersaults. These games were quite big doings in our little lives.
Mom was the one who made the parties happen. My birthday parties were always extravagant, full of games for all the kids, prizes for the winners, and a birthday cake that could have been a cover of a cookbook. She took a cake-decorating class, and we reaped the benefits. Our birthday cakes always had coins wrapped in foil inside, which she put in after the cake was baked and before she frosted it. A quarter, a dime, a nickel, a penny, and a button were the prizes, and I remember all the kids eagerly pounding down their cake with the hope of finding some treasure in there. The coin-in-the-cake tradition lives on in our family. Mom was my Brownie troop Continue reading ‘Simple Fun’
Just a quick yoo-hoo to let you know that a winner of the iphone cover has been selected over yonder at the Fortnightly Purse! (Plus a sneak peek of my fabric line!)
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