It's an old photo, from when it was very new. It means a lot to me. My daughter and I took a Greek class together (so the letters are Greek). My son designed it for me.

But the deeper meaning is what it is. What I am.

There is a "thing" going on about labels.

This tattoo - it says "Christ". And it's all about Christ on the cross. There is no room there for me, for my works, for anything that I can say or do to earn what Christ has done to me and for me.

People ask about it. I point them to Christ on the cross.

There are others that identify with Christ on the cross. We (generally) call ourselves "Christians". There are other terms. "Bond-servant of Christ" is one of my favorites - we are either a slave to sin or a slave to Christ and I have been bought with the precious Blood of the Lamb.

One of the reasons (that I've read over the last few days) to use the term "Christian" is that it identifies us with the body of Christ (the church). That (to me, anyway) smacks of a couple of the folks I work with that says something to the effect of "of course I'm saved, I was baptised in the Catholic church". If somebody asks me what makes me a Christian, it's not because I'm part of the church. I'm part of the church because I belong to Christ.

Belonging to the body means more than identifying with the church. Yes, the bride is beautiful, but it's not because of the people in it - it's because the people in it are covered by the Blood.

Back to the tattoo. My class swims two or three times a week, so a variety of folks see it. Somebody asked me if I'm a Christian. My answer is not a simple "yes". My answer is more than that.

I don't point the people that ask about my tattoo at the church. I point them to Christ on the Cross.

Belonging to a church doesn't save you.
Having a tattoo doesn't save you.
Wearing a cross around your neck doesn't save you.
Claiming the label "Christian" doesn't save you.

It takes so much more. It takes Christ on the Cross.

This was a sentence that was mispoken by the pastor this morning as he snitched a grape from a visual object lesson. I'm sure he meant to say, "These grapes have seeds in them."

That very little slip of the tongue has such very big possibilities!

There are a few different ways of looking at it.

You could say, "Those pesky seeds just get in the way of everything." Or (as Pastor Dave said), "I hope I don't choke on all those seeds." (He was talking about real seeds, though) This is a way of taking the fruit that God gives you in life and hoping you don't choke on the little bits of trouble that come along with life.

Next, you could say, "Ok, there's a few seeds, but look at all the nice fruit around them." This is a good attitude - looking around the touble in life in order to focus on the good that God has sent.

But there's a third way.

What happens if a fruit doesn't have seeds? (At least in the days before "seedless" fruit), the species would die out in a fairly short time. It's the seeds that continue life.

It's the same with trouble in life. A life without trouble may be pleasant, but it doesn't bring much growth.

We can look at troubles in this life in these three ways.
We can complain that the troubles interfere with life
We can look around the troubles and see only the good in life

Or we can embrace the troubles (this does not mean look for trouble). We can accept and embrace "growth opportunities" that God gives us in the middle of the trouble. We can let ourselves grow and prosper spiritually.

We will have troubles in life. It is how we react to them that will tell the world the kind of "Christ-follower" we are.

A dear friend that I trust believes that it's not time for us to leave our church just yet. So that's where we're going this morning.

I have a mid-term on Tuesday, as well as a small paper due.

The paper: Using Aristotle's "Four Causes", write about the process of making a salad.

The mid-term covers the philosophies (not biographies):
Confucious
Buddha
Plato
Socrates
Aristotle
Thomas Aquinas

Other than that, it's a pretty slow week.

Oh...and watch old seasons of 24

It's a "sensory issue". Folks out there who know about this "thing" in my head might know what I'm talking about.

I have times (last night) when I feel like I want to crawl out of my skin. The skin on my feet especially is overly-sensitive. I feel every little wrinkle in my sheets and I end up having to remake my bed from the mattress up (three times).

This is not helpful for a good night's sleep.

Right now, all over the place, I'm seeing many
places were problems pop up when discernment
takes a "backseat" (to "love", to "relationships",
to "socializing").

Biblically - there is a difference between those
who follow a false religion and those who follow
a "heretical offshoot" (my term) of real Christianity.
Biblically, they are treated differently. The lost
are lost. The warnings to false teachers are very
bold and very firm and very dire.

my mind doesn't often remember things from this time - but today it did.

This post isn't about the time, or what happened or the relationship with my husband.

This post is about my relationship with my dad. There are times when words just don't say what you need to say and Dad and I are like that a lot.

It was the drive past the cemetary that triggered these memories. I drive past this cemetary almost daily, but today I took a different road and it went along a side of the cemetary that I don't usually see. It was the "new part", with the empty space - the unused plots.

Five years ago my husband was dying and my dad didn't know what to say. What can you say?

What he did was hand me an envelope. In the envelope were the deeds to a cemetary lot (well, half a lot, which is two plots). It's half of the lot where my mom and dad will be buried. This is a very small cemetary and there is no space left in the "old part", where my grandparents, two of my great-grandparents - let's just say lots of relatives.

I have a cousin who had been wanting to buy these plots; we're a close family and she wanted to plan to be buried next to Grandma.

What my dad did I think bothered her. But it also sent a message:

I may live far away, I may not be planning on moving back. But I'm family - and my dad was doing what he could to take care of me.

The cemetary plots were his way of telling me that he loved me and wanted to take care of me

Rewind to 1987

Some things are just hard to say - you can say them, but sometimes words just aren't enough.

My son was born, early and tiny - he was in NICU. My mom and dad drove 170 miles every day until I was out of the hospital (they bent the rules for moms with babies who had to stay so I was there a couple of days longer than I had to be). They were both still working full time, so it wasn't easy on them. But they did it.

I told my dad, "The only way that I can truly tell you how I feel about you is to name my son after you."

I still don't have the words that can adequately express - but hopefully every time my dad thinks about my son...he knows.

This week's Carnival of Beauty is "The Beauty of Order". I have to look to the Lord for order, since I tend to have not very much of it on my own.

Our God is a God of order.

And our God has a plan. Sometimes part of the plan is for us not to be in on the plan.

I've been reading in the Old Testament and have been struck by how specific the Lord was when He gave directions and how He ordered (organized) His people. In Numbers, instructions were given to Moses...The glory of the LORD was connected with cloud (remember, pillar of fire by night, cloud by day)

A couple of books later, in Numbers:
On the day the tabernacle, the Tent of the Testimony, was set up, the cloud covered it. From evening till morning the cloud above the tabernacle looked like fire. That is how it continued to be; the cloud covered it, and at night it looked like fire. Whenever the cloud lifted from above the Tent, the Israelites set out; wherever the cloud settled, the Israelites encamped. At the LORD's command the Israelites set out, and at His command they encamped. As long as the cloud stayed over the tabernacle, they remained in camp. When the cloud remained over the tabernacle a long time, the Israelites obeyed the LORD's order and did not set out. Sometimes the cloud was over the tabernacle only a few days; at the LORD's command they would encamp, and then at His command they would set out. Sometimes the cloud stayed only from evening till morning, and when it lifted in the morning, they set out. Whether by day or by night, whenever the cloud lifted, they set out. Whether the cloud stayed over the tabernacle for two days or a month or a year, the Israelites would remain in camp and not set out; but when it lifted, they would set out. At the LORD's command they encamped, and at the LORD's command they set out. They obeyed the LORD's order, in accordance with his command through Moses.

What an example of the LORD's leading! Not that the Israelites were a prime example of trust - in fact I remember describing them as "whiners". But in this, they simply waited and didn't move until the LORD told them to.

What a hard lesson to learn - wait and obey.

Earlier in the Bible, it tells about organization in travel. I'm not going to do all the "cutting and pasting", but if you want to see how specific it was, read here.

Our God is a God of order.

It is a hard lesson to learn - God has a plan and part of His plan is to not let us in on it. Order our lives; wait and obey is a factor in everything.

I read a book on the “imprecatory Psalms” a few weeks ago.

Can we, as Christians, pray for the destruction of our enemies? If we follow the pattern of the book of Psalms, it would appear that we can (and should). Yet it doesn’t seem to mesh with the “Law of Love”.

The author of “War Psalms” said (in a nutshell) that if we believe that it is God (in the Trinity) speaking through Scripture and if we believe that Christ is the Word, then we can reasonably read the Psalms (particularly the Messianic Psalms) as Christ looking forward to His human life.

Reading the imprecatory Psalms in this way – and looking forward to the “holy week” and Easter season – we can perhaps see the author’s point.

Read this, thinking Christ in during His last week and His trial.

Manda and I visited a church this morning (Tom has a long work day) and I have a lot of thoughts.

1) the church has beautiful stained glass
2) the church has a real pipe organ - I love pipe organs
3) the church has some very friendly people
4) there was a lot of Scripture read before the sermon
5) they sang beautiful old hymns
6) the church is CRC.

but...
(there was no choir loft)
5) the pastor was not "animated"
6) the pastor was "tied" to the pulpit - that's where the microphone was
7) the pastor read the Scripture the sermon was based on once at the beginning, but I don't remember any connecting Scripture.
8) the prayers were written out in the bulletin
9) the pastor gave (LOTS) of examples, etc., and did connect them to the Scripture.
10) the pastor gave (LOTS) of anctidotes, and did connect them to the Scripture
11) the pastor gave (LOTS) of stories, and did connect them to the Scripture
(Do you think I'm after more expository teaching?)
12) the congregation appeared to be more heavily weighted toward the older end of the scale.
13) I saw very few young people/teens
14) I saw one (1) person raise their hands during worship (not me)
15) there was no choir loft (my commitment to my friend)

A couple other thoughts:

On my old church: The whole FirehouseFamily thing was a result of (or at least brought to a head by) work trips to New Orleans. This had not clicked with me (don't know why) but the Christian Reformed Church has a great organization in place called CRWRC. In my previous (married) life, I worked with the American Red Cross and in our county they worked very closely with CRWRC, so I know that this is a great and effective organization.

Sunshine went outside the denomination (with its established connections) and ended up with a relationship with FirehouseFamily.

Why? My friend (and I) think that it's because they are deliberately distancing themselves from denominational ties with the CRC.

The other thought.

It's been a while since I've been in a church without powerpoint. That's not a good thing or a bad thing...just a thing.