The Bible over Food

"Send us Bibles. Don't send us food. We don't need food; we need the Word of God," I heard the sweet voice of an Indian man on the radio say. Then the voice of many men sang behind him, "Amen!"

These men truly understand that Jesus is the bread of life (John 6:35). They are hungry, but they understand that it is better to be undernourished physically than to be malnourished spiritually. They would rather have a shriveling stomach than a shriveling heart.

I live in a country with stores so full of food it can take an hour to get through the store and fill your cart.  You can drive the food home in your air conditioned car and stuff your freezer and pantry until the doors barely shut.  I do not know want in this area of life, but I often have want in my spiritual life. 

Yet I have seven Bibles in my home and a book self full of commentaries and a lap top with wireless Internet where I can search for even more study materials and sermons and can read the Bible in any translation I want. I do not know what it is like to not have a Bible. I have never had to choose between a Bible or food.

How dare I ever go a morning without a healthy portion of God's Word filling my heart and then walk through the day in darkness without my lamp, so that I stumble and disgrace my God.  How dare I go a day without meditating on God's Word in such a way that I become transformed into the likeness of Christ.  How dare I let my Bible collect dust when my brother's and sister's across the globe are crying out for the nourishment of their soul, while I cry out for nourishment like a blind woman with Thanksgiving dinner before her and starve.

How foolish. I will put relationships and entertainment and work and sleep and chores and meals before spending time with God in His Word.

Teach me, O LORD, to follow your decrees; then I will keep them to the end. Give me understanding, and I will keep your law and obey it with all my heart. Direct me in the path of your commands, for there I find delight. Turn my heart toward your statutes and not toward selfish gain. Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your word. Fulfill your promise to your servant, so that you may be feared. Take away the disgrace I dread, for your laws are good. How I long for your precepts! Preserve my life in your righteousness. Psalm 119:33-40

One can only find contentment in the Lord.

Do Christians Ignore the Fossil Records?

Are You up for the Challenge? Watch the 180 Movie.

Ray Comfort positions abortion in a way that enables people to think critically about the issue, and many even change their minds on abortion within seconds.  Are you up for the challenge?

Pro-Choice to Pro-Life . . . in Seconds! New Documentary Premires Tomorrow

The 180 documentary premieres tomorrow.  Watch it at http://www.180movie.com/.

A Year with Miss Scruffy

Miss Scruffy has been in our lives for a year.  She has now been a part of our family more than with any other family.  Her first owner passed away, so she was brought to a shelter.  Her second owner broke her back right after she took Scruffy in and had to have a friend bring her right back to the shelter.  When we adopted her, we hoped we weren't next in line for a disaster.  Turns out the dog isn't cursed; she has only brought us happiness. 

Well, that's true for me.  Michael says she's not a real dog--she's small, doesn't devour her food immediately, doesn't understand toys, and she's shy around men.  She wouldn't go near him her first few months in our home. But I can tell he's got a soft spot for her in his heart.  His eyes sparkle everytime she jumps in his lap.

Here is our first year with Miss Scruffy:

Our first family photo.  This is us at the shelter.

Miss Scruffy's first morning with us.

She loves car rides.

And has her own seat belt.

I used to lovingly refer to her as our third couch cushion
until we stopped allowing her on the couch.

She checks my messages.

Modeling for me.

Our first family Christmas photo.

She decided she liked her cousin's big bed better than her own.

Driving my mom's van.

Chilaxin'

She likes to people watch from the balcony.

What a fun year!

Do Christians Ignore Science?

The heavens proclaim the glory of God.  The skys proclaim his craftmanship.

Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known.

Psalm 19:1-2

Are Christians Irrational?

See for yourself:

Trying to Learn Some Apologetics

I just finished listening to my pastor's study on Christian apologetics. I love that my God is not only my Savior from sin and hell, but He is logical.  Our faith is logical.  Contrary to popular belief, Christians do not have to leave their brain at home when they go to church.  Well, I'm sure some do, but we don't need to!

I want to eventually have some of this apologetics stuff ingrained in my brain, so that I can share it with my sceptic friends when I share Jesus or with my Christian friends when they have legitimate questions about how we can believe what we believe. My poor little brain is having a hard time processing all this great information. I believe repetition and teaching is the key to knowing and understanding new material, so I am going to keep listening to lessons like my pastor put out and reading books on the topic.  It's time to go listen to Pastor Lance's study again.

Here is a link to all of his lessons on Sermon Audio.

He used I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist by Norman L. Geisler and  Frank Turek as part of his study.

 

Here are some other great books and websites on Christian apologetics that I love:

 

Answers in Genesis: http://www.answersingenesis.org/
Ravi Zacharias International Ministries: http://www.rzim.org/
Summit Ministries: http://www.summit.org/resources/research/category/apologetics/

Quilt Fort

Michael and I did not drive far to get to our Labor Day vacation destination. We stayed in a fort built in our living room.

Michael said he never built a fort out of quilts as a child, and he still hasn't built one.  I did most of the work.  He did hand me some clothes pins and was a good sport once it was up.

We had a mild disaster while I was assembling the east corner. The structure collapsed, and the books and tile coasters I used as weights nearly fell on his face! He survived, but this incident may not have happened if he he had been doing more draping of quilts over chairs and less reading of Star Wars.  Just goes to show ya--sometimes manual labor can be more beneficial to society than having one's nose in a book.

Scruffy enjoyed the fort before we did.  She took a nap while we took a lunch break.

We had to push her to the back of the fort so we could get in.  She promptly fell back to sleep.

Then we laid down on our pillows and turned on Gremlins. I thought it seemed appropriate to watch a campy kid movie. 

This was my first time to watch the flick.  I would no longer categorize it as a kid's movie.  As a child, I would have freaked if I saw little monsters blendered and nuked to death, and worse, I would have become mortified of Christmas trees, one of my favorite Christmas traditions.

However, the movie was campy and so was our living room.

I got this idea from my friend Laura at Minty Fresch.  It proved to be a fun indoor date.

What creative dates have you had indoors?

A Productive Day

Yesterday I tried out some of the projects I've found on Pinterest.

I made tons of cookies using New York Times best cookie recipe. I made a couple revisions because I wanted to use ingredients I already had...I'm frugal like that.  I used semi sweet chocolate chips instead of chopping up bittersweet chocolate, and I used all purpose flour instead of pastry flour.  (I was unaware until now of all the types of flour that exist.)

  

They still turned out yummy.  Perhaps someday I'll try the actual recipe.

By the way, this recipe makes about eight dozen cookies. I had to store quite a few in my freezer. They're good frozen, too, you know. And that way you'll be more apt to eat just one because it takes longer to eat it.  Learned this trick from a good friend.  That is probably how I should eat these from now on.  I got a stomach ache last night from eating too many, and the hubs said he didn't feel sorry for me.  Sad.

I also made homemade laundry detergent.  This was easy and should have a nice impact on the apartment supplies budget.  This homemade detergent costs about one cent a load.  Compare that to the 23 cents a load that All has been costing me.  Cha-ching!

The Ivory soap was cheap, but I suggest choosing a different soap. I'm afraid we may be mistaken as citronella tiki torches for awhile. Ivory smells very lemony.

It was also time for a new soap dispenser, so I made one out of a mason jar I had.  The pump of my last soap dispenser broke, so I bought a new pump, but that pump didn't fit the old bottle.  I was still stuck without a soap dispenser until I found this tutorial on how to make one from a mason jar.  I already had all the supplies, and this turned out to be the easiest project I did all day.

I did some of my usual projects, too--crocheting and copyediting. I'm a crafty, frugal nerd, and I had a crafty, frugal nerd kinda day.  It was nice.

I don't know what's yummier--those cookies or all this yarn.

I am going to try out amigurumi for the first time with this stuff. It's so fluffy I'm gonna die!

Mirror Wall

I finally decorated this empty wall.  All I've had up there was the clock for the last year or so. The other round mirror is an antique that I wasn't sure what to do with, and the two rectangle mirrors my mom gave me because she didn't know what to do with them.  So I found them a home.

I painted the frames off white and then lightly painted over the white with silver.

The bird was a wedding decoration. I like how peaceful he looks sitting up there.

Ah, that wall looks much better.