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Femina - encouragement for Christian women

Author: Nancy Ann

Happy Sabbath

11 / 17 / 0711 / 17 / 07
By Nancy Ann | Filed under Uncategorized | Tags: Sabbath Living

Things are quiet at my house! My son’s family is visiting my daughter’s family at Oxford, and that makes a grand total of nine children and five adults all under one roof (my niece Brooke is visiting the Merkles as well). They will be celebrating Thanksgiving together and have invited a family from Australia to join them.

They were surprised last year to find out that the British (at least some of them) view our Thanksgiving as an anti-British holiday. That surprised us all. My daughter explained that it had nothing really to do with the British, but all to do with thanking God for His provision. But because the first to celebrate were English people who were leaving town for higher ground, I can see why it could be misunderstood. At any rate, my transplanted kids will be roasting a turkey and serving it up with all the trimmings, some of them carried over in a suitcase.

But here on this side of the ocean we are awaiting the arrival of our twin grandbabies. We will gather today around our table to celebrate the arrival of yet another Sabbath, and who knows? Maybe next Sabbath our twins will be here! Or, perhaps by the first Sabbath in December. Either way, the anticipation is growing. Read More

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Look for Your Duties

11 / 15 / 07
By Nancy Ann | Filed under Marriage

As we go through our Christian lives, year to year, all kinds of different situations arise. Could be big blessings, bigger than you imagined. Could be difficulties, trials, and unexpected challenges. Could be both. In all these things we should look for our duties as Christian women. Are you grieving? How should a Christian woman grieve? Did you just inherit a million dollars? How should a Christian woman manage such wealth? Are you lonely, busy, sick, or exhausted? What are your duties? This is a very helpful perspective to adopt in all God’s dealings with us.

If you are childless, what are your duties? First of all, you are called to be a helper for your husband. That is what God says every husband needs, and you are uniquely suited to be that helper for your own husband. So, what kind of help does your husband need? How can you assist him in accomplishing what God has called him to do? Think about this. Maybe you even need to talk about this with your husband.

You can safely assume that he needs emotional support, your admiration and respect. He needs to know that you appreciate him and are grateful for all he does. He needs a home, an oasis that is a comfort and recharger. He may need your input, feedback, ideas, and a zillion little things to make his work go more efficiently and effectively. You know Read More

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Be Fruitful

11 / 15 / 0711 / 15 / 07
By Nancy Ann | Filed under Marriage

From time to time I talk with married women who are eager to be fruitful and multiply, but God has not yet blessed them with children. It can be difficult and confusing. Questions arise like, “Am I barren permanently?” or “Is God punishing me?” or “Why are we not having kids when everyone else seems to do this so effortlessly?” So I’m going to begin a few posts on this tender subject.

First a few observations about the modern mindset. Frequently, newlyweds practice birth control for the first year or two because one or both are in school or because husband’s job needs to get on a more solid footing, or simply because they have been told that they should wait a year so they can “get to know each other.” Whatever the reason for the delay (and they may have entirely valid reasons), there is an assumption of fertility, that they’ll be able to have babies whenever they desire. And though they may not realize it, this attitude can border on presumption. You just don’t know how fertile you are when you get married. You may be diligently preventing conception not knowing that you are one of those women who may have a harder time conceiving.

I always advise women to stay off the pill, not because I am an expert on the effects of the pill, but because I’ve talked to lots of women who have had a hard time getting Read More

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Sabbath Prep

11 / 3 / 07
By Nancy Ann | Filed under Uncategorized | Tags: Sabbath Living

Gearing up for the Sabbath feast is vital if you are going to pull if off. By gearing up, I mean figuring out what’s cookin’ sometime during the week, and then gathering all your ingredients and safely tucking them into your house before Saturday morning.  Saturday morning, as we all know,  is going to fill up with lots of other things.

This week I am making beef burgundy, one of my faves. We are planning on serving it at the Church Feast this January, so a group of ladies on the planning committee are doing some sample runs at it, checking ingredients, measuring exactly for the recipe we’ll be handing out to all our volunteer cooks.

So I got all my stuff ready yesterday so I could dive in today. Doesn’t seem to matter what kinds of time-saving tips I use, it still takes a couple hours for me to prepare. But it is well worth it.  Nevertheless, I have to start early, avoiding the rush, so everything is in the pot and the mess is cleaned up.  Doug puts on some jazzy music for me, and I have a Read More

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Mickey’s Scones

11 / 2 / 0711 / 2 / 07
By Nancy Ann | Filed under Uncategorized | Tags: From Me

My friend Mickey, who was the first protocol teacher we had at Logos, had me over for coffee (many years ago now) and served up these delicious scones. Rachel, who is 34 weeks along today with her twins, is serving these tomorrow at a baby shower she is hosting in her home. (This is probably the last social event she will host for at least a few weeks….but it’s hard to keep a party-girl from throwing a party even with a house full of little ones.)

But before I give you the recipe, I need to reflect briefly on the difference between the American and the British scone. The scones I’ve had in America are quite tasty, but when we were visiting the Merkles in Oxford last January and again in March, I “experienced” the scone as something entirely new.

We had been hiking hither and yon through the streets of Oxford with the children (who were skipping merrily along the narrow sidewalks), through colleges, museums, and the Read More

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A Little Social Grace

11 / 2 / 0711 / 2 / 07
By Nancy Ann | Filed under Uncategorized | Tags: Practical Christian Living

Some years ago when my kids were heading into the junior-high years at Logos School, we started thinking what we could do in lieu of “the prom” that is so characteristic of high schools. Those years (the poetic stage) are when students start caring about how they present themselves, and we wanted to work with the grain, not against it. And because we were deliberately trying to establish an alternative to the dating culture, we started scratching our heads about what we could do that wasn’t a prom, wasn’t dorky, and was an event that our kids would be excited about.

About that time a friend told me about a school that had a program they called Protocol for their high-school students. They taught a week or so of intensive manners and then planned an event for the students where they would have an opportunity to apply what they had learned. This sounded like the perfect thing for us to imitate at Logos, so we began to figure out how we could do something similar. Read More

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