Archived posts from November 2007
This morning I watched the light come into the world. I watched the sky turn from black to grey and become fully light. The sun had risen, once again right on schedule, once again proclaiming the faithfulness of God. It was light out, I knew the sun had risen, I could once again see everything clearly. But the sun, although obviously present, was not visible. The color of my world was not bright and warm, but cool and grey. A cloud cover totally obscured the sun. Although it was there, it was not obvious.
I don’t mind cloudy days. I can handle a few cloudy days in a row. But too many will produce a longing for sunshine, a melancholy that will not be shaken. There is even a malady, Seasonal Affective Disorder (S.A.D. for short) acknowledging that too many cloudy days will create a sad, depressed mood. And when the sun does finally pop out of the clouds after several days of cloud cover, it creates a thrill and an exclamation, "The sun’s out!" I always think a trumpet fanfare should accompany that appearance.
There are many things that make a book "good". Was it entertaining? Did you learn something? Did it encourage you? But perhaps the biggest test is—How long did you think about it afterwards?
"Fallen" by David Maine was an interestingly creative piece of fiction that initially intrigued me because of the subject matter—Adam and Eve. It’s a little amazing that there have been so few attempts at fictionalizing their story, considering the importance of the story to all of us. I stumbled across this book on the internet and ordered it.
What a horrible name for the day after Thanksgiving... leave it to the retailers to take the focus off a day of thankfulness to a day of frantic shopping!
I have never been Christmas shopping the day after Thanksgiving. I REFUSE to! I don’t like shopping that much anyway, but my kids... being kids...
...were excited about the middle of the night craziness. As I was heading off to bed about 10:30 Thanksgiving night, Aaron and Philip, ages 21 and 15, were making plans to go to Best Buy at 3:30 am to meet some friends, just for the fun of it. The store would open at 5 am, but they needed to get in line. Of course, Aaron explained, if it worked out, there was a hard drive he had been looking at that was regularly $300, on sale for $100.....and he had a gift card for $50. He and Sarah had driven by at 8:30 and seen a crowd gathered at the front doors. Some of them had tents! (On an asphalt parking lot? Bet that was comfortable.)
I woke up HAPPY today! And I didn’t have to get up any particular time, so I laid in bed for LONG time, just being happy, thinking happy thoughts, being thankful! That made me even happier!
Yesterday, we made an hour long trek down to South KC to Uncle Larry’s house, Brian’s dad’s brother. There was a big houseful of people, the cousins, grown up now, carting little cousins along with them, two sets of grandmas and grandpas, a spare friend or two. We had a delightful meal, and then visited all day long, way into the evening, until we all realized how tired we were and that we still had the trek home.
I get together on Monday nights with a small group of girls for prayer in the Upper Room. It’s a little group, anyone’s welcome to come, and there are several who come from time to time, but generally it’s just a handful. Tonight is the night, and I’ve been looking forward to it! I’ve missed the last two weeks being in Paris and a bunch before because my baby boy was playing football on Mondays. So tonight’s the night!
I love my prayer times with my sisters in Jesus, particularly when those times occur in the Upper Room, the prayer and worship chapel at our church. I can almost always count on coming away with much more peace and much more joy than I had previously—a glow that lingers throughout the night and into the next day. There is something special about being with my like-minded dear sisters, a fulfillment of that promise that Jesus made, "Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in their midst." It’s very different from praying alone, although that’s vital. There’s also something very special about that place, a "thin place", a place set apart for nothing but prayer and worship.
It is very very early on Saturday morning, and I’d gone to bed late with the pleasant feeling of knowing I could sleep late, and my bed was warm and cozy. So why am I standing outside in the dark in my robe and slippers, shivering in the 28 degree weather, after only four hours of sleep? Because I want to look at stars.
The night is very clear, the moon a fat sliver, and the stars are out in abundance. I stare at them for some time. So far away, farther than I can even comprehend. They speak to me of a world far bigger than I am, and remind me of a Creator who placed them in the heavens eons ago, who spoke them and everything else that is into existence.
