You wanted to come to Moscow anyway, right? The chimney of Idaho has been on your bucket list for ages, and we all know it.
Now think what a good reason you have to come! You can come to the Femina shindig, hit the Fall Con, and generally whoop it up. It’ll be all kinds of festive, and you should definitely be here for it.
When we visited Prague in May, the first thing we did was hike up to the castle. On the way up those countless flights of stairs, we passed this little stair-side bakery, and then, being wise tourists, we stopped, backed up, and bought ourselves these little delicacies.
We have been keeping ourselves busy with this and that, and then that and this. A little more of that. A squirt of this. Some summer projects, barely any knitting. A little gardening, a little painting. A lot of trying to clean, not much decorating. A lot of sidewalk chalk. A lot of bikes. A lot of Blaire climbing. A little down time, a lot of busy.
A little cutting garden. Four children with clippers, one with fistfuls of gravel. A lot of color, a little usable flowers.
When men gather round and start talking shop, you can bet it’s not about pregnancy and childbirth. But when women have a moment to talk to one another, whether it’s on facebook or actually face to face, that’s often the subject. And I’m not complaining. This is as it should be. We talk about what we are doing, and young moms are having kids, so that’s the biggest topic on their minds.
When the men talk about whether it’s better to drive a Ford or a Chevy, I’m betting that it would be pretty rare for any of the men to get their feelings hurt. But when women are talking about how much weight to gain or whether to use cloth diapers, feelings can be right out there on the line, being crushed by every toe that steps on them.
So here are a couple of cautions for us all. If you are a young mom looking for input on any issue under the huge heading of mothering or childbearing, be wise. Be prepared to receive lots of advice and opinions that you may or may not agree with. Some may even be positively fruity. Don’t take it personally. Don’t take Continue reading ‘Talking Shop’
My last post was about how to get the goop off from those drive-by mud-splatterdashers, and some of you have asked for help on how to quit being the guilty party. So here’s a go at it.
If you are regularly “letting people have it” and feeling awful about it, then this might be your besetting sin. A besetting sin is one that has you beat most of the time. God has made provision for us all in Christ, and He can give us the victory over these things, but it means we have to give it our attention. It’s not going to just go away quietly.You have to attack it.
The Bible teaches loads and loads of stuff on sins of the tongue. One of these very convicting verses is this: Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. This means that whatever comes out of your mouth is exactly what you have in your heart. Ouch! So the first thing to do is own this. The source of all the mud that you spray all over people is the mud in your heart, which means you have to go to the source of the problem to fix it. You can’t bring anything out of your mouth that isn’t in your heart. They are inexorably Continue reading ‘The Mud Splatterdashers’
Sometimes (well, let’s be honest, often) we find ourselves begrimed in spiritual sin. We’ve told a lie, broken a promise, passed on some gossip, snapped at our child, or committed some other sin(s). Sin is falling short of God’s standard of holiness. And if we are used to keeping short accounts, we feel pretty sick about unconfessed sin. It’s awful. And we go to God to get cleansed. We repent. When we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Forgiveness is like taking a wonderful soapy bath on the inside. Forgiveness cleanses, and we feel clean.
But there is another way to get grimy. Sometimes you may be standing too close to someone else when they are spewing out sin all over the place. It could be at the office where all your co-workers are gossiping and backstabbing and taking the Lord’s name in vain. It could be at school where your classmates are lying and cheating and being disrespectful. Whenever we are in the presence of other people’s sins, we can get soiled. It’s kind of like walking too close to the curb when the big truck drives by and spatters mud all over you. You didn’t actually commit the sin yourself, but you were in the danger zone and got covered with mud. You need a bath.
Sometimes this kind of spiritual dirt makes you feel like you have sinned yourself. But the truth is, someone else did. Maybe your boss blew up at you and said all kinds of rude things that were not true, and there you were, getting covered with mud. Maybe your friend unloaded on you, spilling out all her bitterness toward the world, and now you feel yucky. You may Continue reading ‘Two Kinds of Dirt’
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