Wordless Wednesday: When Can I Get a Puppy?
August 27, 2008 at 7:30 am (wordless wednesday)
Tags: puppy, wordless wednesday
Phantom Honking
August 25, 2008 at 10:02 pm (Just Life)
Tags: car remotes, honking car, parenthood
Want to win a free book? Follow this link to my review and leave a comment.
Our car has one of those unlocking remote control key fob dealies (yes, I do believe that is the technical name for them.) and for months our mackerdoodle has loved it. We didn’t really notice until she got teeth and could hit the lock button repeatedly with them. With our car, as with most, hitting the lock button more than once causes the horn to honk momentarily. It was when Jonathan and I went to our front window to see who was honking at our neighbor that we realized the insistent beeps were coming from our car, in our driveway, and being caused by our daughter’s enthusiastic chewing of the remote thingy.
Turns out, enthusiastic chewing of remote control key fob dealies isn’t recommended. Here’s how we figured it out:
This evening, after the mackerdoodle was comfortably fast asleep for the evening, our car began to honk. The remote control key fob dealy was sitting in my purse, occasionally releasing a burst of whatever signal it produces, entirely on its own. Jonathan tried several tricks to stop the signal from reaching the car, but that just seemed to make it mad. Finally, he pried the key fob open and removed the battery.
Once more, I encounter things I never expected on this road called “motherhood.”
Wild Goose Chase by Mark Patterson
August 25, 2008 at 6:56 am (Book Reviews)
Tags: book review, Christian book, giveaway, Mark Batterson, Wild Goose Chase
***If you read the entire post, there’s free stuff at the bottom. I know. Sweet! ***
This weekend we drove across the state of Georgia to attend the kick off of a new church plant. We didn’t do it because we thought that what our life needed after the first week of school was a weekend of driving, we did it, because we are excited to witness other people being excited about the gospel of Jesus Christ. We were not disappointed.
We met a group of people for whom “church” is not a noun, it is a verb. They consider the enormity of the sacrifice of Christ far too large to be limited to a couple of hours tucked into one morning a week. From a group of just 4 single guys, this gathering of believers has grown to almost 50 people because their passion for the pursuit of Righteousness is contagious and people want to be a part of it.
That is what Mark Batterson’s newest book Wild Goose Chase is all about. While I’m not wild about the title, I have fully enjoyed the opportunity to read and review this book.
In Wild Goose Chase, Batterson reflects on a trip he took to the Galapagos Islands, where he observed a myriad of God’s creatures in their natural habitats. After returning to his home in Washington DC, he then visited the zoo. It wasn’t the same. In Mark’s words he was “ruined for zoos” and he began to wonder why Christians were more like animals in a zoo than those in the wild. This leads to my favorite quote in the book: “. . . Jesus didn’t die to make us safe. Jesus died to make us dangerous.” I wrote in the margin of my book ” dangerous to culture, dangerous to the world.”
The book is about a whole hearted pursuit of the things of God. Using the biblical examples of Nehemiah, Moses, Abraham, Peter, Paul and (not Mary) Jonathan, he illustrates what he believes to be the things that keep us caged up and failing to passionately pursue our God-given passions. He calls what most of us live “inverted Christianity.”
“Instead of following the Spirit, we invite the Spirit to follow us. Instead of serving God’s purpose, we want Him to serve our purposes.”
I’m sure that Wild Goose Chase will be compared to Wild at Heart by John Eldredge, but I think a better pairing would be Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper. Take Wild Goose Chase as an appetizer to reveal the things that may be chaining you to the things of this world, and give you an appetite for the excitement of God ordained passions; then follow that up by devouring the full meal of Piper’s Don’t Waste Your Life and in the end, I don’t think you will waste yours.
Batterson is certainly not reformed in his doctrine, and he doesn’t offer up the hearty exposition that an author like Piper, or C.J. Mahaney may present. I wouldn’t recommend this book as the sole word on the subject of living a passionate Christian life. But if you have been thinking to yourself: “this is it? This is the abundant life Jesus saved me for?” this book is a great place to begin looking for the right questions in order to find the right answers.
Fortunately, you have the chance to win a FREE COPY of the book. The publishers very thoughtfully provided a fresh book, so that I didn’t have to give y’all the one I wrote all over and highlighted and dog eared.
You can win a copy of Wild Goose Chase by leaving a comment on this post.
On August 29 at 5 pm I will have random.org draw a name, and that lucky person will receive a free (fresh, unmarked) book in the mail. You get a second entry if you link back to this post from your blog. (Just leave a 2nd comment with the link back)
“What Was That?”
August 24, 2008 at 7:56 pm (Marriage)
Tags: flat tire, Marriage, sanctification, trials
In our 13+ years of marriage, Jonathan and I have been on A LOT of road trips! We’ve covered thousands of miles of highways, Interstates and back roads in our journeys - sometimes just the two of us, and sometimes with van loads of teens. In all of those miles we’ve had our share of car trouble, and documenting the many church van break down stories would make a small book in itself. But what we have never before experienced is a tire puncture.
Until today.
We drove across the State from west central Georgia, to south east Georgia, to celebrate a church plant official kick-off. We left Saturday morning at 9 am and arrived there just before noon. The in between will be another post, but we left there Sunday afternoon at 1:30, with an ETA to home being around 4:30 pm. In the middle of I-16, we both said: “What’s that noise?” and Jonathan pulled the car over.
Our front passenger side tire was completely flat.
Jonathan changed it in the rain while mackerdoodle played in the back seat - just happy to have been unbuckled. Once changed out, we could only drive 50 MPH on the cruddy stock spare, so our home arrival ended up being a little extended. . . to 7:00. In the end we took almost twice as long to get home as we did to reach our destination.
In most of our 13+ years of marriage this would have been a recipe for total smack-down between me and Jonathan. But today it was a testimony to the continual sanctification the Lord is working in both of us. The Lord has promised us that he will not give us more than we can handle. I can only conclude that it the Lord had determined we needed longer before handling a flat tire than before becoming parents.
Can I Just Say?
August 22, 2008 at 9:15 pm (Thoughts and Musings)
Tags: veepstakes, politics, vice president, election 2008
I am a very political person. I love politics and current events and international diplomacy and all of that stuff. I enjoy hypothesizing about the different political strategies and “arm chair quarterbacking” the campaigns. Politics is my spectator sport, and I’m a super fan.
But if I hear the phrase “VEEPstakes” one more time I’m going to scream. I just want the election to be finished already. And when a candidate says that he’s going to announce his V. P. pick by text message (seriously? isn’t that a little middle school girl? Anyway.) before a rally on Saturday, I assume he means minutes before, not days, or even weeks.
So if you’re waiting for that text message, just put down your phone and go out and live your life, because whenever you’ll get back, there will be hours and hours of election coverage on every cable channel until November. That will include AT LEAST 72 hours of re-runs of the “VEEP” announcement. So you really won’t miss anything.
That Elusive Goal
August 20, 2008 at 9:11 pm (Baby Stuff)
Tags: colds, parenting, sleep
Before we were parents, Jonathan’s oldest sister and her husband were speaking to us about their journey as parents.
“You won’t sleep for the first 6 years.” They said. “But after that it gets a lot better.”
We laughed and later that evening assured each other the OUR experience as parents would surely be different. Six years was a long time to permit sleep disruptions, we thought.
Well, here I am with a one year old mackerdoodle, repenting of my ignorance. Mackerdoodle was sleeping through the night this summer - then came a double ear infection and strep throat. We got that straight, and returned to regular routine, and she was sleeping through the night again - then came a common cold.
Last night she would wake up crying because she couldn’t breathe. The crying made the runny nose worse, which made the breathing harder, which made the crying harder . . . you get the point. At three in the morning, I was holding her, while Jonathan suctioned her nose with one of those blue nose bulbs. Just typing it makes me gag a little.
So I figure I may get some sleep again in five years or so. Just like Jeanine said.
The Love of a Mother
August 20, 2008 at 12:10 pm (Thoughts and Musings)
I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it, but I have nose issues. I can handle blood, puke, urine, feces, mucus, but have anything come out of a nose and I gag, or vomit.
I only mention it because a lot of people told me it would be different with my own daughter.
Mackerdoodle has developed her first runny nose.
It isn’t different with my own daughter. I’ve just learned how to wipe and gag at the same time.
Portable Tranquility
August 19, 2008 at 7:19 pm (Thoughts and Musings)
Tags: peace, reading, waiting
Today I had to visit the local Verizon headquarters. It’s a long story - okay it’s not. I washed Jonathan’s phone
but a friend had just upgraded, so they gave us their old one and I was having it activated. It’s not a long story, it’s an embarrassing one.
I entered the store, signed in at the little touch screen, and sat down to wait. But I didn’t wait alone. I took the opportunity to open Sarah, Plain and Tall, a book I had been meaning to read for years, and read it completely through. It’s not a big book, but during my wait, I was no longer caught up in the inefficiency of a Customer no service zone. Instead, I was transported into a different time and place where I made new friends and saw new sights. I lived a month with a family and got to know them, as they got to know each other.
The book ended before the wait did, and the little bubble of peace ended with the closing of the back cover. I sat there, wishing I had brought another book to make the wait palatable.
Back in the Classroom Again
August 18, 2008 at 7:58 pm (Thoughts and Musings)
Tags: school, back to school, Christian education, teacher, Christian teacher
Well, today was the first day of our new school year and with new additions over the weekend, our student body has grown by 58%. When you have a small student body it doesn’t take much to make those percentages look impressive; nevertheless, I think we may be on the up swing and for that we praise the Lord.
I know this may be a controversial thing to say, but I am proud to be a Christian school teacher and I want to mark today by including a few sentences about why.
Just before the people of Israel took possession of the promised land, they gathered, as a nation, to hear the Lord’s commands to them.
“4Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” Deuteronomy 6:4-9
These commands, given to the nation of Israel corporately, continues today for the Church corporately, which is spiritual Israel. Christian education is one expression of corporate obedience to this command and that’s why I am proud to be a Christian school teacher.
