FFH

"You take the Wheel, I will work the radio..."

I think that if Jesus were driving my car, I would't be listening to the radio.

Anyways, hope one and all had a very merry Christmas. Nothing wonderfully fantasmo is happening in my life and the 'rents are visiting this week, so check back after the new year b/c I'll not be posting again until then.

In the mean time, check out this quick and easy recipe for Chicken and Orzo - this is what we'll be feasting on for supper tonight:


TOMATO CHICKEN

6 chicken breasts, remove skin
1 lg. can crushed tomatoes
1/2 bottle Italian dressing (lite)
1 pkg. onion soup mix
1/4 c. white wine (optional)
Cooked Orzo

Remove skin from chicken breasts. Mix tomatoes, dressing and soup mix together. Pour over chicken. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 1/2 hours covered. Prepare rice and use tomato mixture over orzo when serving.

Abortion

I know it's Christmas and we're thinking about all things bright and beautiful and wonderful, but today in a little online studying I came across this Message on Abortion and it made me want to weep - it's kind of graphic, so don't read it unless you want to feel torn up inside.

Just makes me so sad - that's my little Eliora - I can't imagine not wanting her to live - seeing her little squirming 8-lb body and wanting her dead. I just cannot fathom anyone having that desire.

I can't really say much about this, just read the message if you want a dose of reality.

Pink

Well, my faithful readers....my family....today I did an awful thing. But I must justify myself. You see, today I made a purchase that will forever mar my image in your eyes. The non-conformist, earth-tone girl, yes, for the deal of $1 that she could not pass up....I bought a pink shirt.
There, it's out, deal with that thought as you must, but the part of me that can't pass up a shirt for a dollar won out over the part that would never wear pink.

Well, it's been a while since I've talked of what Eliora is up to...

The past week it's been an adventure in cookie making. While I roll and cut dough for gingerbread men, she manages to get completely covered in flour from head to toe and sneaks about a cookies worth of dough that I tried to get back out of her little hand, but she has quite a death grip when it comes to cookie dough. She likes to pick out the cutter to use, but doesn't understand that we don't need to use all the cookie-cutters, and ended up throwing dough, flour and cookie cutters all around the kitchen. What a mess. But she giggles away uncontrollably so I can't get upset with her, just having good old-fashioned fun.

Also lately she loves to take things and throw them away. Bits of paper or pellets that didn't make it into the stove...whatver. Yesterday she got a little too excited that she could open the trash can lid herself and started "throwing away" her toys....had to explain as best I could that toys don't go in there. One day I'll tell her that she cried about not being able to throw away her toys...

"I used to be the perfect parent....then I had children."

"My parents used to know nothing...then i became a parent and now I know nothing and they know everything."

Oh so true! Eliora is my little humbling experience and I love her and praise the Lord HE has given me such a blessing in both her and Lukas.

Merry Christmas my faithful readers...

May your days be filled with the Peace that only comes from the

Prince of Peace,

Jesus Christ.

What' is going on?

I feel like screaming, like crying, like throwing up! I'm angry, I'm sad I'm a bundle of emotions and I feel helpless to do anything - anything!!!

Why are the teenagers in the churches in this area so weak? How can they swear right and left and think nothing of it? How can they watch the filth on TV and laugh? How can they sleep around and not feel guilty?

WHAT CAN I DO ABOUT IT???????

I'm praying, Lord, yes, I'm praying. But I want to take them all under my wing, I want to open the WORD and share with them what I've learned the past two years - how GOD has changed my life through HIS WORD! That the Gospel is "The POWER of GOD unto salvation!" And that salvation will change you because of that POWER!

These kids think they are saved because they prayed some prayer a million years ago (as I at age 8, age 9, 10, 12, 14, 16.....) but they are lost because they do not know TRUTH!

Watched a video recently (thanks rach & jeff) about witnessing using the 10 commandments. After all they are a "tutor (schoolmaster) to lead us to Christ." Galations 3:24. Do the teens in today's church know the purpose of the 10 commandments or do they (like I did) think they were how OT people were saved - by keeping them? And as a result think they are obsolete? Yet when you look at yourself in light of them, you see what a wretched person you are. I put things before God - there's #1, I make God who I want Him to be - that's idolatry, #2, I steal, I lie, I want what others have, I look with lust...on and on we've all broken them and we're all sinners on our way to hell - do we really see our position before Christ as we truly are? We are lost without Christ, we are fully deserving of punishment for even one sin because way back in Genesis 2 God told Adam and Eve that the day they ate of the tree, they "would surely die." No one can keep the commandments perfectly - not in the OT, not now, not ever, only Jesus. If we saw ourselves continuously as wretched sinners snatched out of the pit of Hell by a merciful God - would we fail to constantly give Him thanks and live in light of that?

Oh, Lord, open their eyes before it is too late!

War

This is not going to be a very spiritualy encouraging post, just some thoughts as I try to sort out the realities of war. I hate to even think about war, it's fine fought somewhere else. I like to picture people fighting in a big field somewhere, not venturing into villages, leaving the innocent untouched. But that is not the reality of war. Some men struggle for power and notoriety, others seek revenge, others believe they are fighting on the side of God - their god.

Then reality hits me - our country is at war at this very moment. Someone's son, someone's daughter is scared to death and fighting for his or her life at this very moment. That is reality. Generations have passed since war was fought on our soil. Since men, women and children had to run for their lives - flee their homes, their towns, to...well, to somewhere else...never safe. But that is what is going on in Iraq - people fleeing, women trying to protect their children, fathers fearing for their families and soldiers fighting a war that seems to have no end.

I'm not for or against the war. I'm not informed enough to stand behind anything, I don't really understand it all. Perhaps I'm just a product of my generation - distancing myself from it all so it's not reality. If I don't know what's going on I don't have to feel for the people, I dont have to feel helpless to do anything. I can just ignore it and go on with Christmas shopping, fashion news and worrying about what kind of cookies to make.

Sounds so shallow, doesn't it? But then tonight the cold hard reality of war breaks back in and I remember....I remember my friend who lost her husband back in 2001 - her husband of only 5 months - because he was a soldier on his way to Afganistan and got bombed. I remember my father, that he fought in Vietnam while people my age back home protested a war they didn't understand and didn't care about the men when they returned - men who were young like them and without a choice to fight or not, men who also didn't understand it all but were fulfilling their duty. I remember a young man afraid to be in large groups of people - afraid and always watching his back - even when he's home, because the sights and sounds of war never leave his mind. I think of a woman trying to raise 3 children while her husband is in Iraq for a year - then trying to come together again when the year is over and it's like he's a total stranger. I think of the men who killed themselves when they returned from Iraq last year to find their wives had deserted them.

War is an ugly thing. I don't care what they're fighting for - if it's your son out there dying, you've got to decide if you believe in the cause or not. I guess there are times that no resolution can be found in my mind. Nothing can justify all the death and destruction. There are real people, with real families, real children, dying every day.
I've got to let that sink in. But I don't know what to do about it.

Egypt

I don’t want to leave here
I don’t want to stay
It feels like pinching to me either way
The places I long for the most
Are the places where I’ve been
They are calling after me like a long lost friend
It’s not about losing faith
It’s not about trust
It’s all about comfortable
When you move so much
The place I was wasn’t perfect
But I had found a way to live
It wasn’t milk or honey
But then neither is this

I’ve been painting pictures of Egypt
Leaving out what it lacked
The future seems so hard And I want to go back
But the places that used to fit me
Cannot hold the things I"ve learned
And those roads closed off to me
While my back was turned

The past is so tangible
I know it by heart
Familiar things are never easy to discard
I was dying for some freedom
But now I hesitate to go
Caught between the promise
And the things I know

If it comes too quick I may not recognize it
Is that the reason behind all this time and sand?
If it comes too quick I may not appreciate it
Is that the reason behind all this time and sand?
-Sara Groves Conversations/Painting Pictures of Egypt

Glorious Appearing

"...We should live soberly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for that blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works. "

Titus 2:12b-14

Glorious Appearing "Lit. 'the appearing of the glory' This will be our salvation from the presence of sin." (note from MacArthur Study Bible)

I've often felt rather unworthy to be in the presence of saints who just cannot wait for the Lord to return. It seems so foreign to me - so abstract. Yes, as I told my sister when she asked what I thought of the possibility that we could be raptured before Lukas and I got married, that's fine because in my head I know that in Heaven I will not care about being married or anything that gives pleasure on earth, I know that. But it's one thing to know and another thing to really know - you know?

But today that verse and the note stood out to me "...salvation from the presence of sin." I nearly jumped out of my chair. THAT's IT! That's what I so long for more than anything else - and that's what will culminate in the Lord's return.

On that day I will bow at the feet of Jesus and worship Him completely in "Spirit and in Truth." with nothing holding me back - no sinful thougts, no distractions, just worshiping my savior because that is my purpose.

Here on earth I don't struggle (as some dear ones do and I'm not making light of this) with pain or with tremendous sorrow over human events, the Lord has not yet brougth those things into my life. And some people look forward to Heaven for relief from those things. That is wonderful, that will be there. But I often wondered - where's my zeal? Don't I want relief from all that? Yes. But the thing that I struggle with most is that lingering sin in my flesh. Those times when I've just "mastered" something and BAM I fall again...ugh!

But in Heaven there is no sin, there are no "issues" that need to be dealt with - there are no questions of who is right or who is wrong, there is no need for "self-esteem." All true believers will worship the Lamb who they battled to love completely on earth and can now love completely in Heaven.

Yes, Heaven will be a "wonderful place, filled with glory and grace" as the old hymn says. There will be the mansion of gold, and jewels, and streets paved with gold, but we will not look at those and marvel, we will look upon the face of Him who died for us and tears of joy will stream down our faces as we realise eternity has just begun.

"He who testifies to these things says, "Surely I am coming quickly."

Amen! Even so, come, Lord Jesus!"

Revelation 22:20