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Noodles and Roy are smelling all the candles we bought to give as Christmas presents - to decide which one to give to who. Noodles keeps trying to lick the ones he likes. It’s quite cute
We gave Noodles a bath the other night (because he got into 2.5 lbs of coffee, but that’s another story), and he’s quite a bit thinner than he was when we got him. He only has about 4 more lbs to lose (he’s lost about 12), and then he’s off the diet food and on to some hypoallergenic blend.
Pictures of Noodles:
In the animal shelter (May, 2006):
At our house-warming party (July, 2006):
In his bath the other night (December, 2006):
He’s quite slim!
During our last-minute shopping yesterday, we had several discouraging experiences that threatened my Christmas spirit. The one that really got me thinking was a bumper sticker I saw:
“Republicans Are People, Too. Mean, Selfish, Greedy People”
This was very interesting, especially in light of a recent study on America’s generosity that I had been reading about. Dr. Arthur Brooks wrote a book entitled “Who Really Cares?” and was on 20/20 talking about it. Here are some of the statistics:
Americans are 3.5 times more generous than the French, 7 times more generous than Germans and 14 times more generous than Italians.The American working poor are the most generous by a rather large margin. Conservatives give 30% more than liberals. He adds, “And incidentally, conservative-headed families make slightly less money.” Of the top 25 states where people give an above average percent of their income, 24 were red states in the last presidential election. And the most generous of all are those he calls “religious” - they give 18% more at blood drives and 400% more to the homeless.
Another interesting quote from Brooks: “A person who goes to church every week and strongly rejects the idea that it is the government’s responsibility to redistribute income will give, on average, 100 times more money to charity each year than a person who never attends a house of worship, and strongly believes that the government should reduce income differences between people.” 100 times!
Since “conservatives” do tend to be Republicans, I’m not sure I can agree with the above bumper sticker, especially since I know some really great Republicans
I wanted to post a picture of a house nearby that gets all decked out for Christmas. First of all, this house is huge and without all the decorations, it looks like a castle. Have a look:
This house is huge, first of all! Look at how small this person is compared to the house:
Here are 2 more pictures:
It’s pretty crazy because the house is on a busy street and everyone slows down to take pictures of the house.
Merry Christmas to everyone!
In the mornings, I try to daily spend some time with God. Today, I read from a little booklet called “Our Daily Bread”. The Scripture was Psalm 27.
To me, it served as an amazing reminder that we have so much to be thankful for.
“The LORD is my light and my salvation - whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life - of whom shall I be afraid? ” v. 1
It’s a psalm of King David. We know that he went through many trials. But in this psalm, he’s reminded himself of God’s goodness. He’s reminding himself that if God is for him, who can be against him?
“For in the day of trouble He will hide me in His shelter; in the secret place of His tent will He hide me; He will set me high upon a rock.” v. 5 (AMP)
“Although my father and my mother have forsaken me, yet the Lord will take me up [adopt me as His child].” v. 10 (AMP)
A quote from “Our Daily Bread”:
“So let’s look more closely at the psalmist’s hope. His expectation was not necessarily deliverance from bad circumstances but the hope of seeing ‘the goodness of the Lord.’ That’s something we can see even in times of trouble.”
“I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.” v. 13 (NIV)
And in the end, he strongly believes that no matter what happens, he will choose to see the goodness of the Lord while he still lives.
Thanksgiving is an opportunity to remember all the gifts we have in our lives. It would be very easy to look around and see plenty of things we want that we don’t yet have. Often in life we walk around with the “glass half empty” mentality rather than the “glass half full” mentality. We can get stuck in the rut of constantly asking God for all the things we don’t have rather than remembering to thank God for all the things we do have. Of course, God wants us to be honest in our prayers and He does want us to ask for those things we need, but we have to remember to not get those focused on what we lack that we forget all the good gifts God has already blessed us with.
We have a lot to be thankful for. No matter what trials we are facing today, no matter who abandons us or what enemies we face, we can praise God for life, for breath, for all His gifts, and for His promise that He works out all things for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28). We can thank Him that when we wait on Him, He always comes through.
“Wait and hope for and expect the Lord; be brave and of good courage and let your heart be stout and enduring. Yes, wait for and hope for and expect the Lord.” v. 14 (AMP)
Roy & I went away for the weekend to a conference, and while we were gone, Noodles got into some fancy European dark chocolate in our roommate’s room and ate 16 pieces.
I was so scared he was going to die. It’s amazing how attached I am to that cutie pie.
Thankfully, the dogsitter misunderstood our instructions on food and fed him twice as much as he was supposed to get. Since his food is high-fiber, I think it absorbed all the chocolate. She also fed him some burnt toast. Since it had been so long since he had eaten the chocolate, it probably wouldn’t have helped to make him throw up. And our vet won’t even talk on the phone unless you pay $50. (Of course, we would have paid the $50, but we were in NY and my cell was barely working, so the dogsitter went on the internet and it was highly likely he needed to eat like 10 times that amount of chocolate to be anywhere near toxic.)
Noodles seems fine, though hilariously (is that a word?), he is visibly fatter. I’m not kidding
Tomorrow is Election Day! Please, everyone, get out and vote. And make sure to pray before you do.
Here in Massachusetts, we have some ballot questions. I understand the 1st one and know how I will vote. I also understand the 2nd one, but I don’t understand the ramifications of it. And the 3rd one I’m totally confused about. So I’m going to go look into those.
Here’s a picture of Noodles from my friend’s camera on her computer:
A recipe for you:
All-Natural Whole Wheat Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 can pumpkin
1 egg or egg substitute equivalency
1/3 cup oil
1/3 cup honey
1/3 cup sugar (I use a raw sugar rather than white sugar)
1.5 teaspoons vanilla
2 5/8 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup wheat germ
3.5 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/3 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
.75 teaspoons nutmeg
3/4 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup walnuts
It’s a pretty standard cookie/bread/muffin/whatever shape you want it to be in recipe. I just mix the dry stuff and the wet stuff separately, and then combine them and cook them at 350 degrees until they’re done.
I love these cookies. I could eat them for every meal.
The world has been talking a lot about for forgiveness lately after the tragic deaths at the Amish schoolhouse. So many are amazed in particular at the humility of the grandfather of one of the girls who was killed.
But I’m not really surprised or amazed at all. Because I recognize the power of forgiveness and the freedom it has brought me in my own life.
People often think of justice first, forgiveness second. Forgiveness without justice seems unfair to people, even impossible. And forgiveness without justice also just seems unfair.
We can usually think of 100 reasons not to forgive. They probably sound something like this: He should learn a lesson. I don’t want to encourage irresponsible behavior. She needs to learn that actions have consequences. I was wronged - he needs to make the first move. He needs to ask for forgiveness. How can I forgive if he’s not even sorry?
We can usually think of 100 reasons not to forgive before we remember the one good reasons to forgive: because we have experienced the ultimate forgiveness through Jesus’ death and resurrection.
In the New Testament, the most common word translated as forgiveness means, literally, to release, to hurl away, to free yourself. On the flip side of that is resentment. It means, literally, “to feel again”: resentment clings to the past, relives it over and over, never allowing healing.Philip Yancey wrote this in “What’s So Amazing About Grace?”: “Not to forgive imprisons me in the past and locks out all potential for change. I thus yields control to another, my enemy, and doom myself to suffer the consequences of the wrong.”
What that Amish grandfather demostrated is really a very simple truth: our lack of willingness to forgive only hurts us.
“The first and often the only person to be healed by forgiveness is the person who does the forgiveness…..When we genuinely forgive, we set a prisoner free and then discover that the prisoner we set free was us.” Lewis Smedes in “Shame”
It’s been a while since I’ve posted here! That’s because my life has been incredibly busy in the recent days. But there’s a lot I want to share with you.
Since it’s the beginning of the school year, it’s also sort of the beginning of the ministry year, since the church where Alive in Christ meets has a lot of families and college students. So for the past 3 Sundays, I’ve spent quite a bit of time at the church. I’ve also been helping with music at the church that Roy & I attend.
I’ve also attended several seminars over recent months. Just last week, I saw both Stormie Omartian and Steve Arterburn speak. Steve was hilarious, and Stormie was inspiring. Roy & I also attended a friend’s wedding and a family birthday party that actually had a performance by an Elvis impersonator. Quite amusing
I don’t know how many of you have heard of XXXChurch.com. They are starting a new campaign to raise awareness about and find help for pastors who struggle with pornography addiction. I get e-mail updates from them, and today they shared that a professional pornography photographer gave his life to Christ a week ago. Praise God! He immediately called up Playboy and resigned, and just last night, he found a good-paying job in a completely different field. He ended his blog post by saying, “This is, of course, much less than I’m used to making. But it will allow me to take care of my son. Try telling me that God’s not helping me.” Amen to that. His name is Donny. Please keep him in your prayers.Also, keep those affected by all the school shootings in your prayers.
This news story today caught my eye:
Fugitive polygamist sect leader caught near Las Vegas
I remember when this story “broke”. I watched a video of one of his teachings. Now it’s especially interesting to me because I’m reading this book:
I picked it up for free at a yard sale this weekend. So far, it seems like a very fair depiction of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The author is very clear to distinguish the FLDS from the Latter Day Saints that we call Mormons. It’s also a very interesting historical perspective on all that surrounds the beginning of the Mormon church.
I don’t generally read this type of book, but I’m enjoying it quite a bit!
As I mentioned, I was in New Orleans recently. The reason I was there was to take part in a protest at the American Psychological Association’s convention.
I and approximately 40-50 others were there to ask the APA to uphold its right to client self-determination in all cases. This is a tenet of the organization, but they don’t seem to allow it to be applied to those who have questions about their struggles with same-sex attraction. I’m not much of a protestor (anymore) and I always try to stay out of politics (I commented more on this recently in my comments in the entry “Stuff”). After I received the invitation to attend, I thought about this quite a bit and Roy & I prayed about it and discussed it. We decided that it would be good for us to be there. As the day approached and I continued praying, I felt more & more strongly about being there. There were several times in my 6+ years of counseling prior to becoming a follower of Christ when I brought up questions and doubts about my sexual orientation to my therapists. My doubts were always silenced. My counselors told me that I was born gay and that I should accept myself as I was. I tried, but ultimately decided I would be happier either being celibate or possibly one day married to a man. I know that my therapists meant well, but I can’t help but wonder how my life would have been different if one of them truly allowed me to voice and explore my questions.
There are some other good blog entries about this here & here.
I also got to see some sites and hang out with some friends while I was there, which was very cool.
As a general rule, I really try to distance myself from politics. I feel that to be involved in most political arenas could cloud Alive in Christ’s mission, which is why I generally steer clear of most things that could be viewed as “political”. But I realized not too long ago that my life will always be “political”, in some sense of the word. Just the fact that I lived as a lesbian for 10 years and now live as a married, heterosexual woman is a political statement I can’t avoid. I don’t know if that makes sense or if I’m voicing it quite clearly, but it’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about. If I form thoughts that have more clarity than that, I’ll be sure to post them here
I’ve returned from the Land of Christian T-Shirts, also known as a Christian music festival called SoulFest. Officially, I was there to share a ministry display booth with ReCreation, another Exodus member ministry. While there, I got to take in some great music and read a lot of T-shirts. I’ve never seen so many Christian T-shirts in my life! I think it was even worse than last year. Some of them were clever, but most were just sort of silly and some offensive.
This shirt is is my least favorite:
While I understand the message they are trying to share with it, I definitely don’t think it’s the most effective way to reach someone who is pro-choice.
Some of the shirts made me wonder if the wearer only wears the shirt at Christian gatherings, like “Satan is a freakin’ idiot”. Would they wear that to the grocery store? At a certain point, I wanted to create my own Christian T-shirt. If I did, it would say, “does you life speak as loudly as your T-shirt?” and on the back it would say, “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” 1 John 3:18
On another topic, I got to see some cool bands. My favorites were definitely KJ-52 and John Reuben. It was really cool because they got to perform on the Main Stage, and it was packed! Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures of KJ-52 because I forget to bring the camera and had to have Roy bring it. But here’s John Reuben:
Why does he always have such funny looks on his face?
Chris Tomlin was also cool. Here’s a very bad picture of him (because we were so far from the stage):
I also got to have some great conversations with people. I went around to booths of other ministries and talked to people. A few wanted to hear more about what we were doing and even asked for literature. I also had some good conversations at our booth. Some were pretty random, but still good. It was a good time.
I also got to learn about some organizations that are doing great work. It was interesting because our new roommate (who is 18) was saying that she was concerned that her generation was not passionate about anything. I can see why she might be concerned about that, but I met some very passionate young people. Here are some of the organizations:
The Amazing Change (an organization with a campaign to raise awareness in the UK and US about modern-day slavery, and to help to free the 28 million modern-day slaves)
You should also plan on going to see the movie about William Wilberforce that is coming out next Spring.
Stand True (a pro-life organization)
Blood:Water Mission (an organization started by Jars of Clay with the purpose of building wells in Africa for people/communities living with HIV/AIDS)
To Write Love on Her Arms (a campaign to raise awareness about self-injury and offer hope to those who struggle)
I also need to post about our recent trip to New Orleans, but that will have to wait until later!