Always in love with Amy!

Today is the day that the last girl came to us from the STORK.  We always celebrate that day.  My dad. Used to lament the day they said it was a boy.  I don't know why exactly, except that he didn't grow up with boys and his daughters had spoiled him rotten to listening.  We never questioned his authority.  We always trusted his word in spite of ourselves.  Amy celebrated daddy more than us all.  What a daddy's girl she was.  No girls ever enshrined their dad like we did, what ever he did or said.  We believed he was always right.  We just did.

Dad found Amy's Achilles heel for accomplishment was money and he used it for a really good purpose in her life.  In some ways he was like a mad scientist in child rearing perspectives.  He had all power and he used it to the best of his ability.  He made a lot of mistakes, but he had a great intention. I for one, love how Amy turned out and I love the love that she showed to my dad, all the way until the end.

When I walked into the room she was still talking to him and asking him questions.  No dad, don't leave us, I still have questions, she was saying. Tone boy was on the floor, exhausted, but Amy was focused on her dad.  She is really a great woman!   Happy birthday my Amy!

Come and Worship

  Angels, from the realms of glory,

Wing your flight o'er all the earth;

Ye who sang creation's story,

Now proclaim Messiah's birth:

Refrain:

Come and worship, come and worship,

Worship Christ, the newborn King.

Shepherds, in the fields abiding,

Watching o'er your flocks by night,

God with man is now residing,

Yonder shines the infant Light:

Sages, leave your contemplations,

Brighter visions beam afar;

Seek the great Desire of nations,

Ye have seen His natal star:

Sinners wrung with true repentance,

Doomed for guilt to endless pains,

Justice now revokes the sentence,

Mercy calls you, break your chains:

Saints before the altar bending,

Watching long in hope and fear,

Suddenly the Lord, descending,

In His temple shall appear: 

Come and Worship!

I didn’t grow up with this Christmas Hymn.  I remember when I discovered it the first Christmas in Trinity.  I felt that I couldn’t plumb the depths of its’ splendor in my studies.  Who wrote such observations of the reality of the wonder of what had happened at Bethlehem and how it impinged upon me in my sinful status.  I was in awe of such a beautiful word painting and explanation of what happens each time we meditate on the birth of the SAVIOR>…

Angels

You had a job when you proclaimed the creation of the earth.  Isn’t this a more amazing occurrence?  Could you ever have thought that God would come so low and condescend to save sinners?  Would you have written in the sacrifice of the only begotten?  Isn’t it a wondrous redemption? Doesn’t God write the best stories?  It is your turn to observe.  It is your turn to see what an amazing love that God has for His creation and especially for his people.  You told the birth and now each year as earth celebrates you must wonder at the accomplishment of the continual work that snowballs into a crescendo of AWE?

Don’t just come to the celebration!  WORSHIP God for his mighty works?

I learned a great lesson about that this past Lord’s Day!  We had come late and I was disappointed.  I was about to consider myself as having worshiped for the attending upon the Word, because it was “good eats” as usual.  I almost missed the worship to defer to my guests my dearest daughters had almost made me miss the Worship!  

Where's my antacid, TUMS? too good.

Last night was a simply fabulous FLA Christmas dinner.

It was held at FireBirds at the mall.  How many times have we past that beautiful restaurant and not even looked at it?  I can’t count how many times.  I would go back again, even though there is a very limited course to choose from.  They have a one page menu and the ambiance of like a TGIF or something.  Their prices were okay, although I didn’t have to pay, I was conscious.

I didn’t eat all day, except for tastes of the lunch and week processing of the veggies and fruit that were about to go bad in the house.  I tried to make a broth of the zucchini and celery and asked your father to get me a bag of Godiva chocolate chips because they were on sale at HT.  I was going to mix them into my Chobani to see if I could make the delightful confection that I always am in quest to find in my ice cream substitute desire.  Something to take the taste completely out of my mouth…I am almost there with this find.  I only tasted it, so I was starving by the time 5:30 pm overtook me suddenly.  I cleaned most of the kitchen(you know how a working Kitchen stays) almost clean and almost dirty!

I was starving and dressed up and I did my hair and felt a little like Lucille Ball in Yours Mine and Ours, minus the eye lashes.  I wasn’t trying to catch anyone but myself, if you know what I mean.

We were presenting our secret santa gifts.  I got a 25 gift card to Red Lobster, maybe we will go on my birthday, or maybe we will wait for everybody to come home to use it. 

They had coconut shrimp for appetizers and Ms. Janet is always late, so I ordered one to share and the other appetizers that were going around, were a lobster dip with corn chips and a steak and pepper egg roll.  I had a little of each, except the peppered steak.  I was still starving.  

As we conversed about work and life, I was convinced that there was no way that I was leaving this place without eating the cheesecake.  I was starving!  I had eaten 3 tiny pieces of bread and a lot of water. Their bread was okay, but too crusty to cut without making a huge mess all over. (everybody knows a lady doesn’t spray bread and sesame seeds all over the table just because she is so hungry)  I could have picked up that little loaf that was beautifully brought to the table on a cutting board with a very, very sharp knife and bit it.  If I would have, I am sure that the few teeth that I have would have broken trying to bite through that very tough crust.  That is why the very, very(did I say very?) sharp knife.  Ruth would have told me to put the knife in my bag to take home.  “Your knives can’t even cut sliced bread”, she would have said.  Did you get a new knife sharpener, she asked me and you better think about getting something to open jars with, I noticed that you are having problems opening them lately.  See, aging is not fun, is it.  Shut up, Ruth, I said to myself as I argued with my hungry self, whether to act like my mother with the dainty slices of bread or like Ruth and put the knife in my bag…

Mrs. Janet, as usual was over an hour late and I was still so hungry after 3 tiny pieces of bread that I had managed to carve off of that tiny loaf on the table.  We are twice the size company that we were last year.  More people, more complications, but still as fun to look at the growth of this little baby company becoming a real daycare center.

They had ribs and steak and noodles and chicken this and the surf and turf had bacon in it, I wasn’t going to make any unusual requests that might delay my entre’.  I was drooling imagining the Sesame encrusted Salmon.  I know that I will like that.  I thought I was the only one who put sesame seeds on my Salmon.  

Your father came back 2 hours after he dropped me, as requested and we had just ordered.  He said, “I’ll be back” like Schwarzzenegar and left.  I was starving!  I ordered the desired entre and fried spinach and portobello mushrooms, which I thought would be maybe 6 or 7 tiny mushrooms in a sauce.  I got it anyway.  Oh my goodness! It was delish!  My Salmon was fat and plump and not fried, but crispy with a sufficient amount of sesame seeds to make even a sesame seed glutton like me happy.  I tried not to drop one of the seeds on my lap.  Waste not want not, Said Grandma Monica.  I am certainly not wasting those sesame seeds, even though my conscience was smiting me for burning that entire soup that I spent the day working on, zucchini and celery broth.  Oh well you can’t win em all, I said to myself.  “sorry Grandma!”

Camille would have been proud of the way I ate the bread, and I didn’t cut myself on those super sharp knives that were tempting me to steal them.  Ruth was angry with me that I was too siditty taunting the hair, too much.  Monica was sucking her teeth that I had wasted the zucchini, to get to this occasion and why didn’t you wear something more showy and ornate.  Christmas only comes once and you didn’t tell anybody that it was your birthday.  Sorry Grandma.

Did I say I miss them terribly in this season of the year?  It has been many, many years since I have seen them all together and I still navigate my life with those three stars bearing down on me constantly, but never more than when it is birthday time!

Did you have to make such a mess trying to combine the spinach with the sauce on the salmon? It was all over your face. The mushrooms can’t fit on the fork with the other items, why are you trying to get it all in your mouth at one time?  Okay, most of it made it… The stuff on your chin isn’t going to make your colleagues despise you any more than they already might.  Okay?

3 bites and I was stuffed, like a Christmas Turkey!  NOOOOO!  I want cheesecake!  I am not stuffed, this tastes too good.  Just one more bite. Okay now, I am too stuffed.  I have to stand up not to, spit up.  Okay.  I will not get to taste the cheese cake tonight.  But I am happy.

Call Ben,  He came.  Got home fell asleep, etc. etc.

Uh OH, How did that knife slip into my bag?

Until the day breaks let us think...

Making them mind.

Dec 4

Children need a variety of methods to make them mind.  Do not exasperate them”. The use of one method exclusively definitely hardens the conscience to the other forms of listening.  Their minds turn off from one or the other.  We must intersperse entreaty with command and illusion, Etc.   different ways for them to know that it is in heir best interest to do as they are told.  They aren’t dogs and the tone of voice that is strong commands should be reserved for the sharpest of corrections.  Yeah should be taught  to gentle speech as much as gentle touches.   Don’t hit and don’t yell without serious cause or serious consequences!

Mary Mary quite contrary how are your children fed….breast fed, hand fed, spoon fed, pouch fed,  does it really matter?

Is your dog hand fed? Does it matter? Habits of politeness and habits of culture used to matter a good deal. Perhaps not so much anymore.  But I think it should…

I was behind the times about the pouch feeding craze.. My first pouch feeding mommy must have thought me a barbarian not to have known how to hand such a pouch to the baby and let them at it.  I laugh to think what I said, I am not familiar with pouch feeding.  She had to show me the way to open it and it took a week before I felt comfortable handing it to baby.   I couldn’t write about it at the time.  I felt ignorant.  I felt old. Etc,etc.   

I was and still am an advocate of breast feeding, if you can.  Children can thrive on lots of different kinds of foods, but the physical bonding that happens with breast feeding is immeasurable.  It is the most human of sympathies that forms between mom and baby.  No one can break that between you.  You actually feel together for that small moment of time in the world.  Learning to know that biting causes pain to another and that mother is human, are lessons that go with you and are initiated at the breast.  There are many lessons to baby and mommy.  

The story of Mowgli is the story of a child left to the wolves to rear and to  socialize.  A wild child has never felt the swaddling of being in the arms and looking eye to eye when fed.  The possibility of this child growing into a socialized human, might be slim.  The lesson of wildly training children is the anticipation of a break down in culture.  A dog eat dog world where social mores are passé and biblical mores are a myth.   We start at the breast.  God says can a mother forget her nursing child?

If her breasts are aching and there is crying going on in the next room, will she walk out of the door hardened to the cry of her little one?  She might.  But God is not like that.  He tells us. Try to imagine the depth of care that this is… Far fetched indeed, because we have instructed women to quench the call of their children for their own pursuits and acceptance.  There is no winning in that kind of culture.  Babies are crying mothers are crying and we are wondering why?  Where is the sanity of it?

Spoiled? Perhaps the children are?  Talked to.  Expecting personal considerations and real relationships in this short life. Definitively.

Mowgli or Romulus and Remus

The rearing of little wolves might be a necessity to a developing culture, but it certainly isn’tGods letter of intention for us. We were meant to be human. We were meant to be able to imagine the love of a really devoted mother who could never forget us and thus reason from scripture about her more intimate Eternal counterpart.  We were meant to love God and our mothers and not devour the earth, as wolves might be wont to do.

Thank God for Dr. Bacha

Infant care in this season.  Care for infants should be considerate if you want considerate children , although this is no guarantee still emulation should win the day ordinarily.

Especially if they’ve been sick they need more attention, more food and more sleep…  Sanitizing surfaces is a very important remembrance and helping them process what they are feeling it might be feeling is also important.  Motherhood is being demeaned and diminished, but I don’t think it an accident that people call people who are repugnant sons of you know what’s?  That isn’t an accident,  if you act like a female dog, so will they for certain.  Self controlled and uncomplaining attitudes are prayed for and difficult when mothering.  There is much to make you sullen and cross.  You aren’t the center of attention and much aching of your body can make you negative.  Optimism is key!  Thank God for my dear baby doctor who continually helped me to look to nest week for an end to the stinging breasts.  It was Gods blessing.  He sympathized like no one else did.  Everybody tells you to suck it up, mom included.  He stuck his finger in baby’s mouth and said, that must really hurt.  All I can tell you is next week it won’t hurt as bad.  That was enough for me. I was able to endure for the long haul and become a real advocate for nursing, after awhile. Don’t think that it is going to be easy and automatic. Sometimes it is, but it wasn’t for me. A naturalist Doctor helped me amazingly and I thank God every day that he was in my life!

Thank God for Fred Hammond

I love that God knows my language is music and gave Fred Hammond the pen to write the truth of God’s love directly into my heart!

I am sure that I would be bereft in my knowledge of the truth of God’s love, were it not for someone who has language that is mine to express it to me.  I have studied the Puritans and it nearly killed me.  I couldn’t see God’s love anywhere in their writings.  I saw laws and rules and promises to some and not to others.  I saw God’s holiness and unapproachableness.  I felt completely left out of the promises of God in the study of the Puritans.  I am nearly sure that the angels were shaking their heads in that time of history saying “how did they get that out of looking at the God that we know?”

Fred is certainly a CH Spurgeon to my soul.  I couldn’t see God for all of my study of Him.  I went far and near and I found many wonderful people of God who were blessed to be truer Christians for the study of the Puritans.  I told God, I don’t want to be deceived, please guide me! and I believed that he had my steps ordered, but if it wasn’t for the trumpet of Fred Hammond in the underlying background music of my study of what does the Lord require. I would have missed him completely.

Thank God for Him and the beautiful expressions that helped me to see God in my journey through the darkness of the caverns of grief that God led me through with the lantern of an auditory eye.

I think many children suffer from the darkness that I have suffered and I do hope that there are many other men and women who can speak their languages of faith.

Amen.

Eye Liner!

The Lord Promises to beautify the meek with salvation!

As I attempt to make myself presentable to my public. So as not to look like I was awake all night, I cover the circles of age and the darkness of the circles with a color.  May this be paling in the light of the beauty of the salvation that was purchased for my soul, by the crimson flow of my Savior.  He has made me glad.  He has made me trust Him to beautify my soul as I am trusting this pencil to beautify my eyes. 

Thank you for full and free access to the beauty of my beautiful Savior.  May my soul's eyes see the truth more clearly on this your day and Glorify you with the children of God all over the world and the Saints in Glory!  May I see the truth of the Angels and Saints winning the victory On Earth as it is in Heaven.  For the Glory of God in the Lord Jesus Christ and for the benefit of His Church! Amen

Eye Shadow?

  Hebrews 10:1 

For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.

Of what use, Cosmetic

Eye Shadow

Turn my eyes upon your law, Oh God!  It is a shadow of the good things to come and not the image of the things.

We would seek the showers of blessing from attempted obedience to you~

You are faithful and we have fallen again and again from the purposes that you have had for us.  And yet your mercy is there and free for us to receive.  The beauty and purpose of the law being on the outside of the real, may we see in truth the purpose of the real relationship that you sought to draw us into.  We seek to be truly attached to the vine and not deceived by our own impulses or by other peoples schemes.  May we see and give to God the glory of the reality of loving Him and serving Him in truth!  

Christ’s sacrifice has given us the means to truly know and Love God and the world with our might.  Strengthen us for that purpose, Oh God.

For the good of your church and for the good of the world that we live in.  In Jesus’ Strong Name, Amen

His Wings

The Hacker's Revenge!

The problem of crying?

Victory in the cry?

Defeat in the cry?

I was enamored by a youngster who held in every tear of her cry, until the last point in the match, last year.  I identified with her at each point in the match apart from the tears, the winning and the humility.  YOU have so much to be proud of!  Naomi got that from her win last year.  I do hope she has a chance to replay that match with a successful defeat.  

We who know the sport, know that she played phenomenal tennis.  She played the game that we all have been trying to figure out against the giant woman, who has dominated with her great game for a generation.  we love her, also, but we have said what would I have done to try to beat her.

Ruth used to say everyday “Youth is wasted on the young!”   She was saying if I had your game today, this is what I would have done to beat that giant.  It didn’t sound like that to us as youngsters.  It sounded like I did what you do much better than you do.  I hope that is not how I sound.  Nevertheless the hindsight that is 20/20 when applied to racquet in hand prevailed last year and the temper tantrum that Serena played out on the court brought a torrent of tears that are incomparable to the tears that her 15 year old opponent cried this year at the OPEN.  

My life was changed at that match!  I saw the combination of cultures cutting through the dominions that have crushed us for generations.  I could hear Bud Collins dissecting the cultures of that dear child and showing me the Japanese, Haitian, African/American parts of her emotional composure in that amazing match.  It was a monster that brought out the infant temper tantrum in the Queen of the Courts.  I haven’t come to that maturity to have a tantrum when I am afraid of a monstrous ability.  

We have seen many of the DNA combinations working to the best of their ability on the tangles of the game of tennis to come to a victorious end in a fortnight.  It engages us.  It challenges us.  It convicts us. 

Why can’t you overcome your life challenges in a lifetime, like she does in a fortnight?  That is the question that we ask ourselves, at these matches, when we give ourselves the privilege to watch it.

Bud used to give us a good expression of our griefs at not having the opportunity to do what these superhumans do.  He said as a Hacker you can do what you can do to feel the thrill of overcoming.  He used to go under the hood and show us some of the underworkings of the skills that we were observing.  50 years of playing and changing with the game gives you a birds eye view of the mechanics of the sport.  He held our hands through these matches.  He knew how to unnerve the victor to look for the enemy coming over the next hill and he could comfort the victim with a challenge to ie. lose the weight or grow in the game to become the victor that he knew that they could be.  I miss him much.   But I am afraid of this politically correct generation who can’t see the dynamic of culture and advancement that is built into the psyche of every person and show us how to inculcate it into our own games.

{He said, pretend you are a conquistador, like RAFA and go on the court.  See if it doesn’t  take your game up a notch!}  That is not racism!  That is owning up to the reality of the racial realities that we can all take hold of on the courts, if not in other portions of our lives.  Thanks Bud!