I have
I have an aunt that is (probably) dying (we've thought that before) and my parents are driving from Florida to Michigan...the kicker is that my dad had a cataract removed yesterday and he's planning on driving the whole way (what...I've got one good eye...)
My photoshop project...
Fix this.
I think I'll be a little busy for a week or so...
I was in Seattle last weekend and visited Mars Hill Church - twice, in fact.
The first thing that I was not prepared for was the size of the building - it was smaller than what I expected and very plain. What is going on at Mars Hill is NOT about the building.
The second thing I was not prepared for was the lack of warmth. Nobody greeted me, nobody shook my hand. Nobody said "hello". I am prepared to state that (because of the demonstration that had been planned) it is very possible that I have no idea the stress these people had been under, with their pastor under attack for the Biblical beliefs that their church teaches. Being prepared for a demonstration that was only called off a day or two ahead of time, a visitor might have been warmly greeted on any other Sunday.
But I think it might be more than that.
The third thing I was not prepared for was the video-Mark. I did not know ahead of time that the 11:00 sermon was a tape of the 9:00 sermon - Mark Driscoll drives from one church to another so that he can preach at two sermons less than 2 hours apart, at two different churches. It was sort of strange (the video). The screen was at floor level and was life-size, so if a photo had been taken, you might not have known that it was a picture of a picture.
Looking around, I asked if there was warmth here. The people seemed like they had been taught to sing, but not to worship. No smiles, no animation (this was before I know it was a video sermon).
The sermon was not like I would have expected the real-life Driscoll to be - he seems a little (well, a lot) on the hyper side.
When asked, the sound guy said that Pastor Mark would be preaching live at both the 5:00 and 7:00 service, so I went to the 7:00 service Sunday evening.
I am so glad that I did! There was such a difference!
Raised hands, here and there, smiles, doors were opened, warm greetings.
Yes, the real-life-Pastor Mark is very animated while speaking - very different than the video.
After the service, people stood around in groups with coffee, chatting and being part of the community. The evening service was the Mars Hill I had expected.
My question is this: do people who intentionally go to a video-sermon (when the pastor speaks live right before and two other different times) go expecting something different than a person who goes expecting a live sermon?
What motivates a person to attend a video sermon when the real thing is easily available?
Is that what made the difference in attitude?
Leila F., born abt August, 1919.
My mom's favorite hobby is working on our family tree (we have records back to the 400's - no, I didn't leave off the "1"). So it's a rather massive project.
She was looking online through old census information and discovered the census that was taken shortly after my grandmother and grandfather married (my dad's parents). On this 1920 census, there was listed a Robert Brown (my grandpa), Julia E. (my grandma that I'm named after) and a daughter, Leila F. - aged 5 months. The census data was dated January, so Leila would have been born around August of 1919.
Here's what we know. My grandparents were married in April of 1919. Their house had not been built yet and they lived separately (she with her parents, he with his) until the house was finished in August.
Was my grandma pregnant when they married? There would have been few reasons to marry, if a couple was not ready to live in the same house.
Consider the name - Leila F. My grandma had a sister, Leila. My grandfather had a sister, Flora. Did my dad have a sister, named Leila Flora?
My dad has six siblings that are buried in the same cemetary about 2 miles from the house that I just wrote about. Four of these siblings, two brothers and two sisters died years before my dad was born - they were four of the first five (maybe five fo the first six) children that my grandmother bore.
My aunts and uncles that I never knew were Robert, Jordon, Marilla and Lydia.
Robert was first born, born in late 1920 and died at 5 months old in 1921. Whooping cough; highly contagious.
Did Leila suffer the same fate, at the same time?
My grandmother never recovered from the deaths of her first four children - maybe her first five children. Lydia was 6 when she died and my Aunt Marian remembered her.
My grandparents would not (WOULD NOT) talk about these babies. They forbid their other children even to talk about them. My dad was an adult before they even had grave markers.
Where these babies are buried, the cemetary has blocks of four plots each. My grandpa's parents (mygreat-grandparents), my dad's uncle Jim and the four babies are buried there.
Nobody ever asked why there were 7 people buried in 8 plots - and the office to the cemetary burned down in 1952, so there are no records of who lies where.
As I said, my dad was an adult before his siblings had grave markers. He told me tonight that it was my Aunt Marian that basically harrassed my grandpa into putting markers on the graves - thirty years after the first one died. Dad said, "Grandpa did it but Marian got it done."
Is there a fifth child buried there? If they died at the same time, would Jordon and Leila been buried in the same grave?
My dad thinks so. And he wants to know.
On the other hand, it was my grandma who wrote out the first family tree books in her own hand, and didn't include Leila.
I asked my dad how he felt about the possibility of another sibling and he's excited - he wants to know.
And - most of all, I think - if there's another sibling, one that he never knew he had, he wants there to be another grave marker. He wants the world to know that there's a child that was loved and who died.
A child that was mourned by a mother and father who never fully recovered.
I lost my first five babies before they were born.
I cannot imagine holding those five living, breathing little people and losing them so early in life. Grandma and Grandpa went to the cemetary, but never visited that plot. They are buried nearby, but across a little lane, in another section. I have two aunts, an uncle and a husband buried in that section. Twenty yards away, I have two aunts and two uncles who died as children. Now, I believe I have three aunts and two uncles buried there.
About five years ago, the four grave markers that my grandpa put there in the 1940's were worn and mossy. My dad replaced them with stones that match their parents markers.
He's ready to buy another.
Is he right?
Name above all names! Alpha and Omega, beginning and end.
(From the Tennessean)
"We need to forsake the Christendom model," Camp said. "The most basic Christian commitment … is that we say we believe in the Lordship of Jesus. But, if we claim that, how can a Muslim or Jew trust us, if we say Jesus is the Lord of all Lords?"
Jesus is Lord of all lords!
Rick Warren visits Syria.
Jesus is Lord of all lords!
The College of William and Mary remove the cross from the Wren Chapel.
Jesus is Lord of all lords!
The pope prays with an Islamic Cleric in a mosque.
Jesus is Lord of all lords!
God damn us all if we forsake the preaching of the Word, if we abandon proclaiming that Jesus is Lord of all lords.
Early Christians didn't cave when facing Ceasar. But some seem to be caving from within now.
Camp tells us that Jews and Muslims won't trust us if we say, "Jesus is Lord of all lords!"
Tha's okay. They don't need to trust us - they need to trust Jesus! The Lord of all Lords!
In the same article in the Tennesean, it says,
Allah, the God Muslims worship, is the same God Christians and Jews worship, and the Quran recounts the same biblical stories of Mary and Jesus, he said.
Pay close attention.
WE DO NOT WORSHIP THE SAME GOD.
The God that I worship because fully God and fully human. The God that I worship gave His very life to save His people. The God that I worship died a horrible death - to give me life.
I do not worship the same God that they do.
And I do not pray with Muslims.
(photo from reuters.com)
This is one of my projects in my Adobe Illustrator class - it's very basic but the program is fun.
(there are way more dots on this than there are on the real project - I had to do some weird things to get it to upload)
(Next semester is "Web Design Fundamentals", using Dreamweaver)
Will I miss the opportunity to tell the story to our children?"
~ Ann Voskamp, Holy Experience ~God is so good! He has delivered us!
But let us not forget that in order to be "delivered", we need to have something to be delivered from. That doesn't mean that we have to dwell on the bad times - and most human beings do have bad times...
It means that we use the bad times to glorify God, every bit as much as we use the good times.
When the Isrealites were fleeing Pharoh, how welcome it must have been to see the waters part...when they were thirsty in the desert, how sweet the water that came gushing out of the rock must have tasted...when they were hungry, how nurishing the manna.
And at the end of their desert time, how precious the Promised Land!
Each of us has a "desert". And for each of us, that desert is a different experience.
For some of us, it's illness, or the illness of a loved one. Perhaps a spouse or a child. For others, it's living as a Christian with a spouse or children who are believers. Some of us are caring for aging parents. Some of dealing with infertility or the loss of a child. In the midst of the desert, it can be hard to see the oasis. The rest that God has prepared for us.
But it is there. God will not lead us into our desert and abandon us - oh no! In the midst of our desert, He will part the waters for us, He'll send water gushing out of the rock, He will feed us and sustain us!
And in the end, there is the Promised Land.
In the desert time and beyond, there is great opportunity!
Will we recognize the parted waters, the streams from the rocks, the manna? Will we glorify God by telling others? How will we do this?
One of the "gushing waters" that we experienced during my husband's illness was a hockey game. One of the men from our church was the general manager of the local hockey team. He stopped by our house and said that he didn't know what else to do...so here are four tickets to the playoff game. Because it was what he could do - it was such a precious gift!
Another "manna" time of feeding came from the surgeon that Art had. He came and sat for a while and read Scripture and prayed with us. The first time he stopped by, it was unexpected. It was the first day and I had not been home to get anything so I was looking for a passage in the Gideon Bible in the hospital room. I knew what I was looking for, but not where it was. This doctor asked what I was searching for and he pulled an electronic Bible out of his pocket and found the passage.
People now ask me once in a while what they can do for somebody in the middle of one of these desert times. I tell them to do what they can. Even a little gift, if from the heart, is precious and will be remembered. A hockey game or a pizza delivered, homemade muffins or taking the kids to McDonald's.
It is all remembered...and the stories of the goodness of God will be passed on.
If you are going through a desert, don't overlook the manna - and pass it on.
A couple spoke briefly at our church this morning; Tim and Angie Sliedrecht.
Oh yes...and Avalien (Dutch for Evelyn).
This couple will be going to serve God in Soroti, Uganda in January (God willing; they only have 75% of their pledge at this point). Angie's sister is also married to a missionary, also working for the same organization and they have been praying that they would at least end up in the same country...
God answers prayers! Not only are they in the same country, they will be in the same city!
Not only are the in the same city, they are going to be living in the same building (the families will be sharing a duplex).
The organization that they are working for is "International Teams". We saw a short video (click here to see the one we saw, Soroti, and others) and there is a huge need. They are pressed militarily, AIDS takes a massive toll, and the native ministers that are currently working there have only a secondary education - if that. One of the things that will be happening is the education of ministers.
If God is leading you to support a missionary, this is a good team, a good organization and a good place to send your money.
Lost 3 3/4 pounds and hit the 10 pound lost mark!
(that's three boxes PLUS three sticks)
This is at Union Station in downtown Chicago...we missed the train and had to eat Ben & Jerry's while we waited for the next one.
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I get a couple of devotionals in the mail daily and one that showed up today was by Woodrow Krull from "Lessons on Living". The title is "Death of a Child". The email says to pass it on, so I pasted the whole thing under the fold.
I saw that the parent of the child was David, so I was thinking that the child would have been the one by Bathsheba.
But the "child" is a grown up; Absalom. The love of the father is a steadfast love that never falters, even in the face of betrayal.
The devotional starts:
The late Joe Bayly wrote about the death of the
young from firsthand experience. He lost three
children: one at 18 days, after surgery; another
at 5 years, with leukemia; the third at 18 years,
after a sledding accident complicated by mild
hemophilia. Joe said, "Of all deaths, that of a
child is most unnatural and hardest to bear." He
did not underestimate the grief of parents. "When
a child dies," he added, "part of the parents is
buried."
Twenty-one years ago, the day before Thanksgiving, I discovered that I had "lost" a child. Her twin had died early on and I had lost two other babies before, but this one hit me hard. I know the pain of losing a child, although I had never met this one.
David lost two children. One at birth, the other as an adult.
Woodrow tells us that God also knows the pain of watching a child die. Even knowing that the resurrection was coming, what did God feel as He watched Christ die that death?
What do we feel, as move into this Christmas season? Do we feel the excitement of the shopping, the decorating, the lights?
Do we remember that there truly is "a reason for the season"? But in the end, that reason wasn't a baby in a manger - the reason for that first Christmas was a horrible death on a cross.
For us, for those who believe, this is the reason that Jesus came to dwell among men.
...continue reading