Back in the Saddle Again

…Or something like that anyway. I’m back. And I have something to say:

I HAD A WHITE CHRISTMAS!!!

There’s still snow on the ground. I love snow. We don’t get much here in the south/Midwest/whatever. When I lived in Oregon, we got lots. So this was a treat. I’ll post pictures later.

I’ll be posting more about my Bible Memory Challenge soon.

Until then, have a merry day!

Takin' a break :)

Hey folks!!
The silence around here has been very boring and monotonous hasn't it? It's gonna be that way until somtime after Christmas. I've been busy and I'm going on a blog break. So, if I don't comment on your eloquent and cute posts, it's because I am just not reading them, not because I don't like them. ;)

I hope to have lots of pictures, articles, inspirational quotes, and an update on my Bible Memory Challenge. I hope to scale it down some so more can join me.

So, my blogging "fast" is gonna be hard, but necessary.

Have a very MERRY Christmas!! God bless you!

Melinda

Merry Christmas? A Friend's Thoughts

I thought my friend, Kaylene, did a good job expounding on a topic I had thought seriously about writing on.

I highly encourage you to read it to be inspired, stimulated, or otherwise. ;)

Here is an excerpt from an email I received today that echoed some of Kaylene's thoughts in a round-a-bout sort of way:

"If it bothers you that the town in which you live doesn't allow a scene depicting Jesus' birth, then just get rid of a couple of Santa's and snowmen and put in a small Nativity scene on your own front lawn. If all [Christians] did that there wouldn't be any need for such a scene on the town square because there would be many of them all around town.

"Stop worrying about the fact that people are calling the tree a holiday tree, instead of a Christmas tree. It was God who made all trees. You can remember Jesus anytime you see any tree. Decorate a grape vine if you wish: Jesus actually spoke of that one in a teaching, explaining who He was in relation to you and what each of our tasks were. If you have forgotten that one, look up John 15: 1 - 8."

Here are some ideas on how to "celebrate Christmas" this year:(This is not my list, but an edited version of a list I saw)

1. Instead of writing protest letters objecting to the way Jesus' birthday is being celebrated, write letters of love and hope to someone who needs it.

2. Visit someone in a nursing home. You don't have to know them personally. They just need to know that someone cares about them.

3. Instead of giving your children a lot of gifts you can't afford and they don't need, spend time with them. Tell them the story of Jesus' birth, and why He came to live with us. Hold them in your arms and remind them that Jesus loves them.

4. Pick someone that has hurt you in the past and forgive him or her.

5. Did you know that someone in your town will attempt to take their own life this season because they feel so alone and hopeless? Since you don't know who that person is, try giving everyone you meet a warm smile; it could make the difference.

6. Instead of nit picking about what the retailer in your town calls the holiday, be patient with the people who work there. Give them a warm smile and a kind word. Even if they aren't allowed to wish you a "Merry Christmas" that doesn't keep you from wishing them one.

7. If you really want to make a difference, support a missionary. (note from me: Check out Voice of the Martyrs.)

8. There are individuals and whole families in your town who not only will have no "Christmas" tree, but neither will they have any presents to give or receive. If you don't know them, buy some food and a few gifts and give them to the Salvation Army or some other charity which believes in Jesus and they will make the delivery for you.

9. Finally, if you want to make a statement about your belief in and loyalty to Jesus, then behave like a Christian. Don't do things in secret that you wouldn't do in God's presence. Let people know by your actions that you are one of God's.

"Don't forget; God is God and He can take care of Himself. Just love Him and do what He has told you to do. He'll take care of all the rest. Check out the list above and get to work; time is short. He'll help you, but the ball is now in your court. And do have a most blessed Christmas with all those whom you love."

"God needs no defenders." A.W. Tozer

If you don't agree with me, dats okay. I can handle it.

Yes, I am celebrating Christmas. We have the house decorated. We're having Christmas parties. We're remembering Jesus' birth.

I just don't expect the world to agree with me. The Bible says the world s me. I can handle that, 'cause God is for me, and He's all I live for.

Have a Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday! ;)

Bible Memory Challenge

I’ve been challenged.  I was reading my Bible one day and a thought popped into my wee brain…I need to memorize more Scripture. 

Scripture memory was a daily part of my school days.  My mom always had each of us memorize a portion of Scripture before any other school subject.  She wanted to be the most important part of our schooling. 

Sometime after “finishing” (I never “officially” graduated. Just finished.) school, I slacked off.  I haven’t consistently memorized since.  (The only time I did consistently memorize since then was at EXCEL, but that is beside the point since I had to there, it wasn’t an option.)

Now, I believe that Scripture memorization isn’t mandatory, but very, very valuable.  But, belief without actions is, uh, well, null and void.  Wanting to do something without every doing it is, uh, worthless.

“Aspiration is as effective as the amount of muscle put behind it.”

I’m going to start memorizing.  Again. But this time, I’m going to ask you all to join me and help me and one another. 

Kaylene’s doing a read your Bible in 6 months challenge.  That’s challenging. 

My challenging challenge? :)

1000 in one year.  That is approximately 3 verses a day, 21 verses a week. 

If you would join me, leave me a comment. For bloggers, save my picture and add it to your blog with a link to this post. 

Think of it. Next year, you and I will have 1000 precious promises from God stored in our hearts. 

I hope you’ll join me, ‘cause I’ll need some support. 

Weeping and mourning...

Kate decided her vengeance was eliminating the sound again. Just thought I'd let you know...I want a new computer...RIGHT NOW! But then, I don't have the money to buy the one I want. Well then, if I can't have a new computer, I gotta go. There's a bunch of blessings waiting to be counted. :)

I'm learning...slowly. ;)

I have an amazing computer…

I thought since I’d mentioned it yesterday that I would tell you a little bit about my wonderful mischievous computer.  Now, before I start, I’ll let you know I am very grateful for my computer (whose name is Kate).  Kate was given (did you hear that? Given…) to me from my dad…when he got his new HP laptop. 

Kate is a Dell desktop with a mind very much of her own.  <Please don’t make fun of me for naming my computer. Please?>  Jonathan, my brother, and I don’t really care for all the Dells we have dealt with.  Maybe they are good computers for some people, but some of the ones we have worked with have given us headaches.

Some of Kate’s grievous and besetting offences:

1.  Dad had all his tax programs (he’s a tax accountant.) on my computer, plus a bunch of payroll and bookkeeping software.  I cleaned up some, but being I help him and do our family’s bookkeeping I had to leave some on.  They make Kate creep so slow.

2.  Kate has a Celeron operating system. Bleck.  Celeron is like off brand chicken noodle soup. Economical.  Inexpensive. Affordable.  But filled with eyebrow raising annoyances.  Wikipedia’s description of Celeron?

  “…The Celeron brand will often have less cache memory, or have advanced features purposely disabled. These missing features have had a variable impact on performance. In some cases, the effect was significant and in other cases the differences were relatively minor. Many of the Celeron designs have achieved a very high ‘bang for the buck’, while at other times, the performance difference has been noticeable.”

Humph. 

3.  Kate didn’t like XP, so she crashed it and reverted to classic. Um.  For a girl who was used to sharing her brother’s snazzy Vista HP, classic was a little antique feeling. But I managed. Randomly, she decided it wasn’t so bad, and XP works once more. 

4.  The sound crashed on Kate.  I couldn’t listen to anything. If someone sent me a video, I had to lip read, or watch it on someone else’s computer. Awful.  To make it worse, Kate invented the headache-causing-nauseating beep to inform me that 1) I had received an email, and 2) I had requested an impossibility.  Well, randomly, the other day, I noticed the beep had stopped. And wondered. And tested. And sure enough had sound again. 

5.  Kate has untold numbers of weird habits such as crashing internet windows, running like a snail at annoying times, popping up senseless error messages, and other pesky grievances. 

I like Kate despite all this.  She definitely sees my worst. I show her mine.  So, we get along, right? :)  My keyboard is dying, a bunch of the keys squeak, the “PPPPPPPPPPP” key sticks, and it just is about to go in the trash.

I’m not sure what will come of this post, maybe Kate will crash in protest. Who knows.  She is so quirky. 

I better get. I have some stuff I’d like to do. 

 

 

I found this picture on Kate.  I have no idea who that piggy-tailed, hatted, twirpy girl is. I don’t think I’m related to her at all.

Puppy pictures...lotsa. :)

For very raw, unedited videos taken on my cell phone, click here. Enjoy!

On Real Life and Normalness

I’ve not been posting an awful lot lately.  Most of this is due to the fact that December is a tremendously busy month of the year.  Some of it is because I have had other important things to do.  Still another issue is that I want to post puppy pictures as well as other pictures and my computer is not the fanciest nor efficient computer on the block and I have to post picture posts from my brother’s computer. 

<this special computer is deserving of another post. It has a total mind of its own. It is quite proud of that fact too.>

But lately, that has not been my main excuse.  My late excuse is me.  I have been so “me having a bad day” me as of late.  I’ve been so needlessly dramatic, unnecessarily silly, unexplainably grumpy, none excusably complaining…etc. 

I know.  It’s awful.  I wanted to tell you so that you would not have the illusion 1) that I was perfect and happy and wonderful, or 2)  that I believed that I was perfect and that is all I blog about, perfect little wonderful me.

I’m soooo normal.  Here are some examples of my normalness the last few days. Warning, these are raw, hard facts, proceed with caution.

1.  Getting upset over people laughing at me. (A youngest thing.)

2.  Complaining at God for unchangeables. (Wait a minute, wasn’t I the one that just wrote an article on gratefulness? Whew.)

3.  Instead of counting my blessings, pouting about life and making others suffer because of my pouting.  (NO, I couldn’t have been the one that wrote that article. Absolutely no.)

4.  Scorching rice.  When I was standing there over the stove stirring something else. Brilliant.

5. Waiting until the day of orchestra practice to practice my violin. And getting upset that I was rusty.

6.  Complaining about a project that I was told to do that had been sitting there for months waiting for me to do it.

7.  Going around the house looking like a scarecrow. Literally.  No, you aren’t getting a picture. But for the record, I don’t live in my nice clothes, with makeup on, and my hair perfect.  And well, yesterday, um, I sorta looked like a “harried housewife” as mom called me. Ugh. Not even going there. 

8.  Burning muffins because I was preoccupied with something else. 

9. Getting up late. (and staying up too late.)

10. Starting meal prep way to late, making meals late, making various peoples unhappy.

So, uh, there you have it. Me. This week. Normal.  Too normal. BUT. God is good.  I thank Him today for Lamentations 3:21-24.

“But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:  The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.  ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.’”

My brother and I are planning on taking puppy pictures later today. So, I will post them when I get ‘em. 

Just a side note...

I submitted a condensed version of my gratefulness article into www.ylcf.org last week. And, a notice from them today made my day. They said they published my article on the blog today. I'm published, folks. For the first time.

Have a lovely evening! And, yes, I will post puppy pictures soon. Maybe even a video. Who knows.

Movie Review: The Mysterious Islands

It’s the 200th year anniversary of Darwin’s birth this year, if ya didn’t know that.  It is also the 150th anniversary of his book, The Origin of Species.  I cringe at the damage his influence has brought to the whole world. 

     Vision Forum was building up our suspense about a new movie release about the Galapagos Islands.  Jonathan (my brother) and I were sort of eyeing The Mysterious Islands when it came out, so it came as a pleasant surprise that last week they sent us a complimentary copy.  I guess it was since we order wholesale from them for our history business.

       We watched it Thanksgiving weekend.  It was worth it!  I was not disappointed.

Some highlights were:

1. The question and answer approach to evolution questions was great.  Such as, “can you be a Christian and believe in evolution?” and others.  I enjoyed hearing and learning new concepts and answers to tough questions.

2. The footage was awesome.  They had some great cameras/camera operators.  The thrilling and stunning views of animals on land in and in the water are captivating.  They were able to get so close to the animals on the island.  It made me want to go myself.

3.  Dr. John Morris is one of my favorite creation scientists. I first heard him speak at the History of the World conference in Hampton, VA.  So, I was excited to hear he went on the trip and enjoyed hearing his perspective.

4. Learning about the devastating consequences of those who followed Darwinian theology was revealing.  I’ve heard of Hitler, but the direct link from an admirer of Darwin’s writings to Margaret Sanger was surprising…and saddening.  Jonathan and I learned about the appalling goals of Sanger in 2007 due to a history hunt.  Her schemes of eugenics, birth control, abortion, and “women’s rights” are scary, racist, and evolutionary.

I could go on and on, but, you should just watch the movie yourself! You can buy it here.  I think it is a movie every Christian should watch to strengthen their faith in God’s Word.

The BEST Marie-Madeline Giveaway ever!

Ok, ok. So I know I keep posting about Marie-Madeline Studio's giveaways. But their having a really super duper one this week. It is a quilt giveaway!
Garden Party Quilt

Darla Quilt

Aren't they pretty? I love the Darla quilt. So...I'm asking you to tell me if I was the one who referred you over there, 'cause I get more entries if you do. :) So, let me know!

Hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Attitudes of the Heart: Gratefulness

     Since it is Thanksgiving week, I thought I’d write an Attitudes of Heart installation on gratefulness. Wow. I don’t feel at all adequate to write on this. I was seriously convicted of my complaining, unthankful heart. I pray God uses this to bless you and inspire you as it did me. 

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“Thou that hast given so much to me give me one thing more, a grateful heart: not thankful when it pleaseth me, as if Thy blessings had spare days, but such a heart whose pulse may be Thy praise.” George Herbert

A Grateful Heart toward God

     Lord, give me a heart whose pulse may be your praise, because I am indebted to you! Gratefulness is realizing we have more than we deserve and expressing our utmost thanks to God. It is more than a mere “thank you,” it is heartfelt worship and praise to a God who has richly poured out His blessings on us.

     A grateful heart is full. It is overflowing with praises for everything at all times. It is so busy worshipping God, it forgets selfish wants and wishes. Like a perfuming wafting up to the throne of God, is a thankful heart singing praises to God in the midst of trials.

“I will give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify your name forever. For great is your steadfast love toward me, you have delivered my soul from the depths of Shoel.” Psalm 86:12-13

A Grateful Heart toward Others

     Ok. God is perfect and extremely full of blessings, but others are human. They sin. They stomp toes. They make us mad. However, despite all their errors, there are many people God has placed in our lives who deserve our thanks.

     People like thankful hearts. There is a sweet perfume that a grateful person leaves behind them. Besides smelling good though, it is necessary to have a thankful heart toward others.

     Parents, teachers, pastors, leaders, godly men and women, and others all have invested in our lives some way. A complaining, unthankful spirit leaves those who invested in us feel as though they wasted their time, energy, and efforts. It is our duty to express our gratitude to them.

     When we sacrifice our comfort to bless and encourage those who have benefited us, we show them our thankfulness. Showing gratefulness is more than lauding a person’s praises for a throng. It is whispering our gratitude in the tempest or standing by them in their time of trial. True gratefulness acts more than it speaks.

“When we choose the pathway of worship and giving thanks…there is a fragrance, a radiance that issues forth out of our lives to bless the Lord and others.”  Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Attitudes of a grateful heart

1. Humility- it realizes we have been given more than we deserve
2. Joy- it maintains cheerfulness by counting it’s blessings
3. Contentment- it is satisfied with its present place
4. Submission- it surrenders completely to the present trials

“Thankful people are refreshing, life-giving springs, while unthankful people pull others down with them into the stagnant pools of their selfish, demanding, miserable ways.”                 Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Attitudes of a complaining heart

1. Pride- it thinks it deserves more
2. Despair- it counts the problems and lives in pessimism
3. Complaint- it grumbles about every trial and circumstance
4. Rebellious- it resists God’s best

“Pride slays thanksgiving, but a humble mind is the soil out of which thanks naturally grows.”     Henry Ward Beecher

Practical ways to show gratefulness

1. Praise the Lord at all times. Sing to God, even when you don’t feel like it.
2. Read the Psalms. They’ll cure the blues. :) Pray the Psalms to God from your heart.
3. Instead of complaining during trials, thank God in them. Sometimes not even praying about the trial, but praising Him for some other blessing changes your focus.
4. Express gratefulness to others on a regular basis. Write notes. Make phone calls. Hold their hand and look into their eyes. Let them know you noticed and care.
5. Count your blessings. Write down the things you’re grateful for.
6. Live out your gratefulness. Find ways to bless others and be a continual blessings to them.

“Thanksgiving has a great curative power. The heart that is constantly overflowing with gratitude will be safe from those attacks of resentfulness and gloom that bother so many religious people.”                                                                                                                              A.W. Tozer