Waterers and fear of mud

My pastor used a metaphor today that caught my interest. His illustration was in relation to non-christians… saying that we aren’t responsible for making the plant grow, only to plant and water the seed and leave growth to God. 

Now, I’m not so sure we even are responsible for planting. The seed is either going to be there, or it isn’t, and I don’t think we can put it there is it isn’t. 

But the more I think about watering, the more I think that’s exactly what we need to do. But not only towards the “seeds”, but also towards the plants when bigger. The same nurture that helps a seed also helps a plant thats wilting from the summer heat.

God plants, God grows, we help water his plants until their time has come for harvest. 

But going back to the seed focus, I think it also bears pointing out that the mud that sometimes results is supposed to happen.

I think sometimes I’m overly scared of the mud. Scared the ground isn’t ready to instantly absorb and readily use the water, and so it going to be messy.

I need to water anyway. 

If it’s a plant, the water will eventually seep its way in. If it’s a seed, no telling how deep it might be hidden. 

And if it’s just a hardened mud puddle, well, it has bigger issues than just a little more wet in it’s life. 

Cabinet

This cracked me up…. because I could so easily see this happening from the operator’s side… and if you work at a cabinet store and get this call, what else are you going to assume? 

 

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1027656.ece

A TEENAGER called directory inquiries to book a taxi but ended up having a cabinet delivered – because she asked for a “cab, innit”.

The 19-year-old Londoner wanted a taxi to take her from her home to Bristol airport, and first asked for the number using the Cockney rhyming slang “Joe Baxi”.

When the baffled operator told her she could not find anyone listed by that name, the teen snapped back: “It ain’t a person, it’s a cab, innit.”

 

The operator then found the nearest cabinet shop, Displaysense, and put the girl through.

She then spoke to an equally bemused saleswoman and eventually fumed: “Look love, how hard is it? All I want is your cheapest cab, innit.

I need it for 10am. How much is it?”

The sales adviser said it would be £180 and the girl gave her address and paid with a credit card.

The next morning, the company delivered an office cabinet to her home in South London.

The girl then called back in a fury and Displaysense finally realised the mistake.

The firm, of Bishop’s Stortford, Herts, has now apologised and refunded her cash after the mix-up two weeks ago.

Marketing manager Steve Whittle said yesterday: “We thought it was a joke at first but the girl was absolutely livid.

“We have suggested that maybe she should speak a bit clearer on the phone.”

Nature 2; Kid 0

For some reason my daughter’s power struggles have gotten worse than usual as of late. 

But, now she’s started picking on an opponent she’s sure to lose against.. the forces of nature.

Round 1: the kite. You can’t fly a kite with no wind. It doesn’t matter how much you pout, or how big of a fit you throw. Nobody can change this. Wind is wind, it’s there or it isn’t. 

Round 2: hot stove. Yes, my 6 year old actually deliberately stuck her finger on a hot stove. 10 seconds after my mother told her not to…. and just because my mother told her not to. Needless to say, hot burns, whether or not you are trying to defy authority in your contact with it. 

 

I thought kids were supposed to get over the don’t touch the stove thing by the time they were like 2 or so….  but I guess not. Or at least not mine anyway. 

I have to wonder if she has figured out yet that when she takes on physical laws, she’s not going to change them just by sheer stubborness. 

Hide the kitchen sink

Ok, I’m easily amused…. I just noticed that when you hold your mouse over the button to show or hide the extra row of icons in the editor here, it says “show/hide kitchen sink”

At least someone has a sense of humor. Wonder how late in the night that code was written.. LOL

Tacos and Tava

The other day my daughter was pestering for taco bell, so we grabbed dinner there, and I decided to try their bacon club chalupa. 

I was impressed! I actually decided to hit there again the next day, and add guacamole… very yummy.

Then I came home…. and I made a mistake. I checked the nutrition stats. Almost 500 calories each, almost 300 of which are from fat! YIKES!  (and that was before the guacamole)

Um… yeah, that will cure a budding addiction really fast!

 

In a much better choice, I’m also really liking the bottles of tava… particularly the brazillian named passionfruit one (the orangeish one). Much better… 0 calories. Still not the best thing in the world…. but compared to those tacos? I’m allowing it. LOL

 

 

Discouraged, courageous, encourage. Words.

Joshua 1:9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” 

 

This verse caught my attention the other day. One of several times in a row Joshua gets told to be couragoeus. 

But what caught my attention first was the word discouraged. Discouraged is a good word. 

Ok, well, really it usually isn’t a good thing. But as a word, it’s useful. I found myself noticing how many times I’ve used other words to try and replace it… disappointed, frustrated, depressed, hopeless, annoyed…. but really… sometimes what it ought to be called is just that. Discouraged. 

 

So after this though, I ran into the word courageous once again. And I couldn’t help but notice the similarity… half the word is the same.

I’m not an english teacher…. and I know just enough about using greek references in strongs to make myself look like a doof…. but same base of a word to me usually means a relation. 

 

So maybe courageous is when you have what you lack when you are discouraged? Would make sense. 

And what is that? Well, I’m gonna look at the word and say its courage. But then, courage is another word I don’t use much. To me, it basically has the same meaning as bravery (using it as a noun). 

 

The next day I went to a prayer meeting, and someone had randomly used the word encourage. Ah ha! More courage based words… this totally sidetracked my thoughts for like half an hour. 

Discourage, encourage…. easily enough opposites. And words I understand fairly well. One takes away, one adds… but what is it that they add or take away? 

Again, looking at the words, I’m going to say courage. But that’s not the way I use the word courage. Though, it’s hard for me to put into words what it is that they effect…. outlook? positive feeling? mood? hope?

Passion i suppose comes the closest. Discouragement being a drop in passion from a disappointment… encouragement being an increase in passion from, well, an encouragement.

 

But if you take that word passion, and you take it back over to the word courageous…. it seems to work well there as well. The courageous warrior is usually the one so passionate about whatever hes fighting for that it pushing him on.

Maybe I misunderstand courage. Maybe its not so much the bravery (that you don’t have the fear)…. maybe its actually the passion of your cause outweighing the fear. 

 

Not a clue if there is any linguistic basis for this. But it makes the verse a bit more meaningful to me. I suck at being brave… and even at pretending to be. But passion? That I can work with. 

“Trust again”(?)

This is a song that Michael sang several times on the cruise last summer, most of the time with the members of Leeland and their family on stage. Actually, I don’t think Michael sang, it was actually Leeland’s mom singing most of the time.

I don’t know if she is the “she” from Texas he says wrote it or not, but that’s my best guess anyway. For that matter, we’re trying to figure out the name of the song too.. best guess being Trust again, second guess being Love in his right hand, and about 3 other guesses… LOL  

Anyway, it’s a really cool song, and several of us were googling lyrics after the cruise with no luck… but apparently it’s going to be on his next album! Yay!  (The music was from a chapel service he did recently that was available to download)

 

Trust again (I think is the title anyway…) song in mp3

He accepts you at your worst

He is looking for the best

Jesus loves you

Jesus loves you

 

He will never ever leave

He will never ever forsake

Jesus loves you

Jesus loves you

 

He is proud of who you are

And he has faith in who you’ll become

He’s not like us

He loves you just because

He’s not like us

He loves you just because

 

 

Broken hearted

Do you want your healing?

Trust again

There is love in his right hand

 

Broken hearted

Do you want your healing?

Trust again

There is love in his right hand

 

 

He believes your dreams are true

And what a plan he has for you

Jesus loves you

Jesus loves you

 

When you want to walk away

He is asking you to stay

Jesus loves you

Jesus loves you

 

You will never be alone

He’s made your heart his loving home

He’s not like us

He loves you just because

He’s not like us

He loves you just because

 

 

Broken hearted

Do you want your healing?

Trust again

There is love in his right hand

 

Broken hearted

Do you want your healing?

Trust again

There is love in his right hand

Devil with hayfever, and my foot in my mouth

Tonight was the monthly prayer meeting at our church. 

Which went well, but I managed about 3 rounds of kicking myself for saying stupid things.

 

First round was before things even started…  the leader tossed tissue boxes around, and one of the guys teased that he didn’t get one. Insert my smart alerk remark “He has long sleeves on, he’ll be ok.” 

Two people laughed. Unfortunately, a few didn’t… and it got an “eww” reaction that wasn’t good, and was ignored by others, including the guy. Now considering that he started the teasing, I figured he would have had a response, so I dig a bit deeper into my hold by commenting to the lady next to me something to the effect of “aww, no reaction…”, which he overheard, looked up, said “i heard it.” in a sort of tone that just screams “how stupid”. 

 

Now, the reason the leader was spreading out the tissue boxes before the meeting was because he was already needing one to wipe his eye. So, as things hadn’t even started yet, and I’ve been driving nuts by allergies this week, I assumed he was probably getting hit with the same…. especially as this was repeated throughout the evening. 

At one point during the meeting, he made a comment comparing new Christians to seeds being blown by the wind, to hopefully grow roots and grow into strong trees to bear fruit. 

So, the sarcastic comment comes to my mind that with Christians being blown in the wind, this would make the devil the one with the hayfever. I was smart enough to at alreast not say this at the time.

I did however come up to the leader afterwards and say it to him with about 6 people in earshot, however, I prefaced it by saying something assuming he was battling allergies…. something to the effect of “if it makes you feel better on your eyes…”

And so his reply was “Oh, I don’t have allergies… I just weep in the presence of the Lord sometimes.” 

Oops.

Now, to be fair, he was wiping his eye before it even actually got started…. but still… 

 

So then the conversation actually did continue… and he asks me “where (i) am at tonight”, basically asking what my thoughts were during the meeting. I admitted my mind was kind of milling around on a tangent, he kinda makes it clear he still wants to know, and what proceeded to come out of my mouth probably made his regret he asked. It made no sense, even to me! The concept makes sense, but takes some explaining and some backing up, which I tried to do, which made it even worse. 

He eventually rescues me with “Well you’ve come for several months, so I’m like, she must be getting something out of it”. 

I’m not sure if that was supposed to be a good thing, or an odd thing…

 

 

And they wonder why I’m so quiet and usually don’t say anything during the meetings! I keep my foot in my mouth enough before and after that my sock needs a break to dry out!

 

 

Wish filled birthday plans

Not too long ago, I was thinking hard about whether or not I wanted to do the cruise this summer. 

It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s that I got to thinking about what else I could do with the money. 

 

It was then that I started a list… “things I want but can never justify getting”

As expected, it was a decent sized list. But something unexpected became really quickly obvious…. 

Not a single thing on the list at that time was over $100. Most were under 25. 

How pathetic is that? That these things that I want, many I’ve wanted for a while, are so cheap, and yet, I can never justify paying that much for myself. Even moreso when I realize how quickly I would probably get an item costing the same for my daughter if she wanted it then just come up with a way for her to earn it from me. Yes as a single parent budgets are sometimes tight…. but really? 

 

So I sat on this list for a few months. I’m still planning on doing the cruise, that is, if I can find my lost bank card in time to get my last payment in by the deadline closing in. I’ve added a few more things to the list… but still, only 2 are over the 100 mark (lasik and portable hot tub are a bit further off dreams). 

But this week, a decision came to me. I’m going to buy the items. Not all at once, but gradually. 

But then came a second thought. 

We were at a local park where someone was having a birthday party, and I mentioned to my daughter how when I was little we had mine there once or twice when the weather was still warm in October. This got me thinking about the last few years where really nothing gets done for adult birthdays in my family, and usually they just get cash if they get anything. 

 

Connecting the two…. I’ve decided that this list is now my birthday list. But a bit differently, it’s going to be my personal list. As in, my gift to myself. With the exception of the two big ticket items, I can literally buy my entire list for less than I spent on my daughter’s gifts for her. Enough of the “cant afford” on things that I really could if I wanted to. It’s a significant numbered birthday this year anyway, so I’m going for it. 

 

I suppose this probably sounds really odd to anyone else… but to me, right now, this makes perfect sense. And in a way it sort of flies against everything I’ve done towards sorting wants from needs on expenses. 

But at what point do you stop and give yourself the freedom to get something just because you want it? Not because it benefits anyone but you, but just because it would make you smile? 

I guess its sort of a quality of life vs numbers in the checkbook thing. 

 

Even just knowing that my new yellow lab webkinz will be waiting for me in the closet till October comes is enough sometimes. Cost? $12. Benefit to me? How much is my enjoyment really worth to me? 

Maybe not enough sometimes.

Warming up

I’m warming up a bit to the new system here.

 

While I still liked the old “write” page better, I have to admit for simple posts the new layout more direct.

 

But I think what I’m actually liking the most is the new dashboard. However, I would reorganize the sections a bit. I could do without the “right now” post counts and such being at the top with such infrequently used info as what theme I’m using with how many widgets. I really could care less about that stuff 95 percent of the time. 

But I do like the preview of the stats and such on the front page, where I can see them without having to stop and think to actually click for and look for them. Though, again, lower on the page would have been my ideal location for them.

 

 

Though, in any case, I seriously don’t get the posts I’m seeing on people switching from wordpress or considering doing so just because of the changes. I mean, yeah, its a change, but really? It takes that little to throw you? Most of the features are still availible, just sometimes slightly moved around. 

 

However, they did fix the safari bug on postings! Yay!