Author Archives: MzEllen

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from a reader on another blog:

1. why don't you, with all things, trust in god?
2. not knowing god's mind, how do you know that you are not working against god's will by working against obama's policies?
3. you say, "without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head," so if god is both merciful and just, does that mean michele's disease is deserved?

1- why don't you, with all things, trust in God?

Just as Ruth trusted God, she also acted.  God has ordained the end (His will), He has also ordained the means (human action).

Christians act - to the best of their ability - to abide by God's will.  Do we get it wrong sometimes?  Of course, but God is still in control and God will use our mistakes to teach, chastise or punish.

I knew a woman who sat at home and said, "I just trust God to provide for my needs"...we said, "well, trust God, but get off your butt and get a job."

Trusting God does not mean stay idle and let Him do all the work.

2. not knowing god's mind, how do you know that you are not working against god's will by working against obama's policies?

There are Christians working on both sides of the political fence, so somebody has it wrong.  I believe that (most of the time) if both factions are working against each other they generally meet somewhere in the middle.  If President Bush had ben a conservative (vs. a Republican), we would have had a divided government and things would have ended up a little prettier.

But let's look at some of the policies and what Scripture says.

On taking care of those who cannot take care of themselves:

“If one of your countrymen becomes poor and is unable to support himself among you, help him as you would an alien or a temporary resident, so he can continue to live among you. Do not take interest of any kind from him, but fear your God, so that your countrymen may continue to live among you…”
—Leviticus 25:35-36 (NIV)

What about those who can take care of themselves but still do not work?

For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, If any will not work, neither let him eat. (1 Thess 3:10)

What about managing money?  The Bible says a lot about stewardship and investing wisely - with a government of the people, I think this would include the government.

On abortion:  There does seem to be a difference between early and late term "causing of a miscarriage".  The unborn is called "a child" throughout the Bible.   I can understand a mother being driven to feeling the need to have an early term abortion and Roe v. Wade will be with us for a long time.

BUT>>>late term abortions (elective) and partial birth abortions may not be with us.  These are the abortions that I'm vocal about.

And once a child is born, I believe that they are "human" and should be given medical care (even if that care is only paliative.)

So..

  • stewardship and wise investing and spending
  • death of infants
  • care of those unable to take care of themselves
  • the "not care" of those who won't...

The rest is all "opinion" and operating under what we believe is best for our country and the conservative's belief is just as valid as the liberal's (and vice versa - holes can be poked in both sides)

3. you say, "without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head," so if god is both merciful and just, does that mean michele's disease is deserved?

Deserved?  Or useful?

Not the same thing.

Even an evil thing can bring about great good.  Joseph was sold into slavery and God said, "they meant it for evil, but I used it for good".

John Piper wrote a piece, "Don't Waste Your Cancer".

In it he says,

It will not do to say that God only uses our cancer but does not design it. What God permits, he permits for a reason. And that reason is his design. If God foresees molecular developments becoming cancer, he can stop it or not. If he does not, he has a purpose. Since he is infinitely wise, it is right to call this purpose a design.

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Cancer does not win if you die. It wins if you fail to cherish Christ. God’s design is to wean you off the breast of the world and feast you on the sufficiency of Christ. It is meant to help you say and feel, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” And to know that therefore, “To live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 3:8; 1:21).

So it is not that Michele deserves cancer...but all of life is of God and even what Satan means for evil, God can either stop it or not...and He will work it for good.

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Uh...yeah.

What were Sarah Palin's choice?  What was the situation?

Read here from Peter Andrew (HT: Hot Air) from legalnewsline.com:

The problem is the two choices she has to pick from are justices who don't align with her conservative views.

Alaska's judges are selected using the Missouri Plan, which combines election and appointment in choosing the judge. The Alaska Judicial Council selects the nominees from which the governor can then make an appointment. As one conservative Web site explained, "she's boxed in tighter than Florida Gov. Charlie Crist."

A total of six judges applied, but only two were elected by the Judicial Council, Eric Smith, considered very liberal, and Morgan Christen, who is viewed as more of a moderate. Christen and Smith were rated with scores of 4.3 and 4.5 out of a 5 point scale used to elect judges by the council.

Out of two choices, she chose the one she felt would make the best judge.

My advice would be to make political hay:  Palin would force her "radical" beliefs on the country by appointing only the most conservative judges!!!

Really...because Morgan Christen is soooo conservative....

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Campaign for Liberty...(Ron Paul)

The U.S. Constitution is at the heart of what the Campaign for Liberty stands for, since the very least we can demand of our government is fidelity to its own governing document.  Claims that our Constitution was meant to be a "living document" that judges may interpret as they please are fraudulent, incompatible with republican government, and without foundation in the constitutional text or the thinking of the Framers.  Thomas Jefferson spoke of binding our rulers down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution, and we are proud to follow in his distinguished lineage.

It makes sense that I'd like this site...back in 2007 I posted a quiz that put Paul as my best match.

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Buyer's remorse?

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5 ways that you'll know the recession is over...

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Lower wages, here we come...

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If you like fantasy books, but don't like the sex that goes along with a lot of them...

here's a Mormon mom who took up writing...

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"Theology" but Steve Timmis (Resurgence Blogs)

Theology Is for Life

We’ve compounded the problem by seeing theology as the articulation of abstract and often difficult intellectual concepts. But the only theology worthy of the name is applied theology: theology that is worked out at street level in the messiness of life. Election is not a doctrine to be discussed only by professionals in the comfort of a study, but by a group of believers so that they are humbled and thrilled by God’s choice. Total depravity isn’t just something to be argued over in a lecture room, but faced up to by a group of saved sinners as they cry out to the Holy Spirit to open blind eyes. Calvin was right in a number of things, not least when he said, “Doctrine is an affair, not of the tongue, but of life.”

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From Steve at Triablogue

It’s striking to observe that, by his very own reckoning, Dawkins’ religious doubts coincide with the exact time in life when he encountered a pedophile priest. Inside the body of an aging Oxford Don is an angry 9-year-old who’s still lashing out at Christianity in the person of a long-dead Latin teacher.

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more and more...

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I read an article today that makes a few political predictions that I found interesting and makes a commitment to rethink her political views if the predictions are wrong.

The author's predictions:

So, here are my foreign policy predictions:

At the end of Obama's first four-year term:

1. The US will still have an active military presence in Iraq.
2. The US will have attacked at least one more country that poses no direct threat to us. (I'm not even going to count his early air strikes on Pakistan.)
3. Military spending will have increased.
4. US citizens will be no safer from terrorist attacks. I say this because I believe the (sadly all-too-accurate) perception of the US as an imperialist warmongering nation will persist. I realize this one is open to interpretation. I would just ask you to honestly ask yourselves at the end of these four years whether this is the case.

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What I do predict is the following. By the end of Obama's first term in office:

1. More than 1% of US adults will still be in prison. This number will very likely be even higher than it is today, and the black and Hispanic portion of that population will not have decreased by any significant amount.
2. We will still suffer from the kind of police abuse that is becoming more and more common: military-style raids on unarmed civilians in their homes; the shooting and tasering of unarmed citizens; and police and judicial corruption leading to the jailing of many more innocent people than can be acceptable under any system. The militarization and aggressive behavior of police forces will probably become worse before they get any better. This is another one that is somewhat open to interpretation. I would ask you to rely on your own honest judgement regarding whether you believe things have really changed in this area.
3. "No-Fly" lists will still be in place, and there may even be more restrictions on travel.
4. There will be more restrictions on gun ownership and the right to self-defense.
5. The police tactics and suppression of dissent at the 2012 RNC and DNC conventions will be just as brutal as they were in 2008.
6. Government surveillance of US citizens will continue (remember that bill Obama voted for that gave immunity to the telecoms companies that assisted with this in the past?),

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My prediction: By the end of Obama's first four years in office, the US economy will be in much, much worse shape than it is now. Specifically:

1. The US will have massive inflation. The dollar will lose at least 50% of its value against most goods and services, and certainly against the goods and services most people use every day. This is a very conservative estimate. It will probably be much worse.
2. Unemployment in the US will be worse than it is now. It will be at least in the double digits.

 

I'm going to post the article in its entirety in June of 2012 and look at the predictions and see how they play out (assuming that the inflation thing doesn't rule out my blogging.)  (first unplanned difficulty...wordpress won't let me publish that far ahead...so I'm setting it to publish in Decempber of this year and will edit the date stamp accordingly.)

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Sock of the Week - check.  Next week's "official" sock is nearly done (you'll see it next week)

On the spining front...

I bought a bag of alpaca fiber - the animal's name is "Juan" and the color pathway is called "blue sheen".

Here's Henry spending quality time with Juan's long, silky hair...

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alpaca (Juan) on drop spindle.(the fiber spun onto a drop spindle - it's counter intuitive, but the lighter the spindle, the finer the thread; I think because it spins faster.
Juan's wool in ballThis is how fine it's spinning up.  This is a single ply thread - when all the fiber is spun, two balls will be spun together with the spindle going in the opposite direction of the single ply - this is called "worsting", making worsted yard.
SDC13756

My first experience with spinning was with sheep's wool
after worsting and washing
SDC13778
Close up
sheep wool in hank closeup
wound into a ball
sheep wool in ball
and being knit into a scarf with a cable twist
spun sheep wool being knit into scarf

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Okay...so we have a few hundrend billion dollars (this time around) on the basis that it might stimulate the economy, but nobody can really say for sure.

But conservatives are supposed to prove that borrowing from future generations won't work before opposing the spending package.

Shouldn't it be the job of those who want to spend the money to prove that it will work - before committing to trillions in national debt?

My son's car blew its clutch.  It will cost $600.00 to fix it...and it might work and it might not - it's a 22 year old ford that he paid $400 for.

It's his job to convince me that fixing the clutch will make the car drivable.

It's not my job to convince him that it won't work.

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will have me on track to make 26 pairs of socks in a year.  So far, I'm on track (4 pairs finished so far).  Handmade socks seem like a very nice gifts to give "somebody who has everything".

Meanwhile, spinning is challenging, but fun...so I think I want:

SILK FIBER FUN KIT: treat yourself to 9 types of silk and silk blend fibers: Tussah silk roving, dyed Tussah silk, cultivated silk cocoons, Bombyx silk slivers, 100% mixed silk fibers, throwsters waste, cultivated silk hankies, Tussah silk noil, and Bombyx silk caps. 100g total. Each kit is presented in a beautiful 7"x9"x2" handmade box produced by a family cottage industry in India. A great gitf!

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Q. How does President Obama avoid the accusation of putting earmarks into the budget?

A. Have his name edited off the earmark.

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Factcheck.org on Obama's speech

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John Samson (Reformation Theology) visits Mars Hill Church (Seattle)

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MommyLife:  Conservatives seeking divorce and settlement

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A review of "The Shack"

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Where religion meets politics

The Obama administration may rescind the "conscience rule"

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The Wall Street Journal on the Obama/Ayers connection (from 2008).

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Andrew Bolt on "the most sweeping ethics reform in history . . ."

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It occurred to me, as I was reading the first chapter of "Atlas Shrugged", that there is a similarity between the "John Galt" question and the current issue of people leaving the organized church.

I read about the railroad worker in chapter one, who was whistling "Halley's Fifth Concerto".

He didn't stop doing what he had been doing.  He was still writing, he had only left the system.

Many of the people leaving the church...they don't stop loving God.  They don't stop serving Him.

Many of them feel that it is the church that doesn't want them.  They might be too single, too divorced, too strong, too weak.  Too egalitarian, too complementarian.

They are not stopping doing what they are doing...they are only leaving the system.

I'm not saying that it's a good thing...it's not.

But I understand.