Brokenhearted

God has a response to the movie Brokeback Mountain:
God is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. He can make something beautiful from broken lives, even if all they have to offer Him is their brokenness and pain and confusion. I have a dear friend Sue who can testify to that. She was just such a wife. She and her husband brought the rags of their lives and laid them at the cross and God has made something beautiful from them.
Contrary to popular opinion, God loves strugglers and reaches out to them before they reach to Him. And no one who comes to Him will He send away.

How to spell worry

Worry is also spelled,' not enough money.' Not enough for the bills or extras or that vacation I want. Maybe not even enough for the basics as I look into the future. The trouble with the future is that you can't see what will happen.
So you worry and get a bad case of the 'what ifs'. What if the car breaks down? I don't have extra to get it fixed. What if my daughter needed braces? How will we afford that? Or to get closer to home, "What if The insurance goes up on the new car beyond what I alloted in the budget? How will I adjust of the increases in the health insurance after the first of the year? And why did the Post Office have to raise the price of stamps NOW?"
Then I read this thought and had to share it:
'Read your money, don't count on it.'
So what does your money say?
"In God we trust".
So do it. Count on God, not your money.
Matt 6:27 could be translated," who by worrying can add one penny to his bank account?"
So I refuse to let worry rob me of the joys of life. Instead I am going to read my money and do what it says. How about you?

Cemetery

We have had a variety of pets of the years. We felt that they taught about life and birth and death. We had a lizard who kept having his tail bit off by the cat. He finally committed suicide by slipping into the toilet.
Then there was the famous, to us, garter snake who was forever getting out of his tank and just appearing in the most unexpected places. If Ruth came home and he was 'out' she would stand on her bed and holler until he was found. He, too, had an untimely demise when we had him outside at the garage sale, hoping someone would love him and take him home. Seems he got too hot and just died.
We had the parakeet who did marvelous tricks on his swing. That is , until the day he got the wire in his beak and out the other side. Jon had to carefully remove it and we were all shocked that he lived. But he never did tricks again.
But, in the end most all died and we would have a funeral and bury them in our backyard.
Perhaps, the most tragic was the death of our Irish Setter, Freedom. Because she lived up to her name and refused to stay home when we were gone, we have to chain her. One day she was tortured by the nasty cat next door and she tried to get at him by jumping over the fence while still chained up. In the process she hung herself, to the great dismay of us all. We buried her too in our backyard, though now I realize we should have had her cremated before we did so.
All this about our previous animals came to me because we seem to have a houseful again. We are bird sitting for a friend. And we had already, our faithful dog, Buddy and our new Beta fish, Mr. Tumnus. I hope that no funerals are in the immediate future.
One final thought on funerals:
Just as we had our own animal cemetery, believers should have a cemetery in which to bury the faults and failures of their fellow believers. Just as our pets were numerous, so are the faillngs of others. As the new year approaches, let's vow to use that cemetery often.
Chew on that for awhile.

Did you know?

Don’t they have anything better to do? Who? Those guys who stay up all night and create ways to destroy my computer. Viruses, Spy ware and other ways to slow down, freeze or otherwise annoy my computer and thus me. We were down for over a week. I hope someone had their fun from all this because I sure didn’t and had to pay besides. UGH! Now I have three anti- spy ware programs as well as my anti- virus protection .
Did you know that just like the computer hackers or whatever they are called, the Evil One and his henchmen sit up all night thinking up ways to mess up my day tomorrow. Perhaps it will be a snide remark someone makes that sticks in my craw. Maybe it will be an overriding temptation to say something less than encouraging. Or it may just be a shopping binge I can’t say no to. It may be a sight or sound that triggers a previous hurt that I thought I had forgiven and now comes back to haunt me. You get the idea.
Peter said it all when he said:
Be on the alert. You adversary the Devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, firm in your faith.
Paul said to have your armor on all the time. That consists of the truth, Jesus' righteousness,the peace of God, salvation, faith and the spoken word of God.
So be forewarned and make sure you have your anti- devil ware up and running. You are going to need it. Trust me.

Check it out

No I am not still buried under cookie dough or video games after my grandson left. We have been battling a nasty computer 'bug' called winfixer 2005. If I can get on the net it kicks me off in record time. We have an expert working on it so hope to be up and running soon.
At first it seems like a friend- would fix glitches and freezes. But further investigate on the net proved otherwise.
Makes me think about how Paul said that the believer should examine the Bible daily to make sure what others, including your pastor.
So check it out. Signing off for now and not sure for how long.

Traditions

As our girls were growing up we have many Christmas traditions. Some familiar to us all, like putting up the tree. We always told the Christmas story in anew way or got a new book about it. We made Christmas cookies and frosted them, though more got on the girls than the cookies.
We had the annual trip to select the right tree and cut it. Ruth has written about that often and I can't beat her story. The upshot was that no one could agree and Jon finally had to decide and that made us all mad ours did NOT get picked.
Then trying to get it in the stand and up straight. Fortunately, Jon had never been one to use colorful language for this might just be such a time.
We always let the girls trim the tree- no theme tree for us.
When the girls moved out we felt lost. But soon we have the 'little guys' to take their place. The manger scenes as new to them and the story fresh. One year we even did a puppet show using finger puppets. We added an annual watching of the Best Christmas pageant. And they decorated the tree as unusual as their Moms. I loved taking them to the live nativity scene. As tiny ones, they each were sure that the angels were real. Maybe they were!!!
This week two of those boys are arriving for a long weekend. I have cookie making planned, the Best Christmas Pageant to view, and the Christmas lights to drive by.
I am delighted to add a viewing of the Chronicles of Narnia to our list of traditions. After all, the White Witch is set on preventing Christmas from coming! Enter Aslan, aka The Lion of Judah.
So the next few days will be full of nostalgia and fresh memories for next year. Back when I get a rest.

The candle

Another thing I love about Christmas is getting new candles to burn. Well I thought they were to burn. We do have quite a few new ones. We got a new double wick from a friend in mulberry. We brought home to small ones in decorating votive holders from Pacific Grove. I have a fun snowman holder for melts I got for my birthday last year and put in the sugar cookie scent. We even moved the Boston fern out for December and purchased a very large red candle to sit tall on the white cement pedestal.
What good are candles if you can"t burn them and enjoy the fragrances? So I was busy lighting them when Jon said,
" Don't burn those."
"Why"?
"I got them so you have them for your party next week and I don't want you to burn them up before then."
I grumbled under my breathe, "But some of them are huge." But I remember that a soft answer turns away wrath.
"Thanks for decorating with that in mind. I will observe your suggestion."
Remember this song about Jesus shining out of your life?
This little light of mine.
I'm going to let it shine.
I guess it had better be my life and not my candles.

The wisemen

As I was growing up I remember my brother singing the Christmas song slightly altered:
we three kings of orient are
Smoking on a rubber cigar
I didn't realize the silliness of it then and probably he has forgotten now.
This song was the center of our Christmas decorating on Saturday. Jon loves to celebrate Jesus' birth and goes all out. We have several nativity scenes and we love to get them out and display them.
A favorite of mine is a wooden one my Sister by love had made by someone at her church. We always put them on the piano and this year Jon added a garland of greenery to the set up. As I walked by, I did a double take. There was only one wise man. I asked what happened. Seems that the other two were having a problem with their heads. They needed to be reglued and Jon did not want to take time now, so he just reboxed them.
I went crazy.
" How can we only have one wise man? "
" Well we are, so get over it!"
"Listen to this: Who ever heard of 'we ONE king of orient are'....?"
" I am not putting them back."
"Well, I am not having only one king. We can put the other ones away too. Besides, they were not at the manger anyway- but came when Jesus was about two years old."
So we settled on a compromise. There are no wisemen in our display.
But real wisemen still seek Jesus today. Are you?

The pillow

I am taking a survey and I want honest answers. How many pillows do you have the you can't sleep on and use for company, to fill pillow shams, etc? We seem to have more than our share. And as you may guess, we have just gained another
About ten years ago I acquired a buckwheat pillow and loved it. I loved it so much that when it got left at a motel I had them mail it back at my expense.
Then six years ago I developed herniated discs in my neck and switched to a cervical pillow with memory foam. Jon took over my buckwheat pillow, though he had teased it was a bean bag when I was it's owner. He claimed I crunched every time I turned on it.
Since the accident, Jon has had extra neck pain and we decided to get him a new pillow. Our first attempt was a memory foam on sale 50% off. At $49.00 it was expensive but we felt if it made a difference it was worth it. Well, he did not make it one night. I had to take it back.
The next day we were at the Chiropractor for our scheduled visit and Jon tried and selected one of their pillows. It was cheaper at $38.00 and that was that. Or so I thought.
Bedtime brought his mumbling about why had I left the plastic on it. How could he possibly sleep when it crunched? Silly me. I kept quiet though I knew if he took it off we probably could not return it. I should not have been so skeptical. Right?Wrong! Of course he hated it and we can't take it back so we now have another useless pillow.
Who knew there were so many shapes, sizes and depths of pillows. One size does NOT fit all.
What is the goal of a pillow anyway? It is to support the head of a sleeping person. Could be a shoulder, a lap or memory foam. The purpose is the same- rest. That got my mind going. Where did Jesus talk about pillows? Two passages came to mind:
In one Jesus said,' the Son of Man doesn't have a place to lay his head. In a word, no pillow or permanent home.
In the second passage He said," Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest." I thought about Jesus as my pillow, my support for my head, my thinking so I can relax and gain spiritual rest. And ,unlike physical pillows ,he fits all weary souls.

Yet another car story

Jon is recovering from his medical procedure but he has been home for a couple of extra days to get his strength back. Last night as I was headed to Bible study he told me to take the new car. Knowing how he felt when I drove it on Tuesday, I was surprised.
I said, " I don't want the stress of worrying about someone hitting it while I am gone."
Jon replied," That is silly. You should not feel any pressure from me. I know that you will drive carefully. Take it."
I took the line of least resistance since I was already late. Really it drives so easily and the sound system is much better that my car. Actually that is not saying much since I only have a radio and the car is 14 years old.
As I was driving along ,I realized that I have come to feel that the good car belongs to Jon and the funky car is mine. In reality that is how they get driven but Jon doesn't act that way. It is all in my head, as though I don't deserve the good car!
Then God reminded me that every good and perfect gift comes from Him. How quickly I had forgotten how he had provided this new car despite so many obstacles. So I happily drove along, singing my heart out in praise to the Great Provider.