lazy afternoon

Hanging out with my older kids today while all three of my little ones are asleep (well, at least Isaac is in his room - I'm not sure he's been asleep.  This could be a very bad thing).  This summer is going to be LONG if I don't start feeling better, but I'm hoping I figured out part of the problem today.  Heart racing and extreme fatigue, esp. in the a.m.  Literally, I get out of breath if I stand up and I've been having lots of headaches.  Randy mentioned today that I needed to drink more because it might be low blood pressure.  Just read online that I totally have symptoms of mild dehydration, which makes sense because I drink very little.  PRAYING that this is the solution!!  NEED ENERGY!!

If God puts it on your heart to pray, please pray for the Africa trip and for Como.  Sensing that maybe the enemy is stirred up right now in our neighborhood and this Uganda trip will be a major life changer for the boys going.  Some of you probably saw on the news this weekend that a man drowned in Lake Como (right across the street from our house) on Saturday a.m.  Just jumped in and started swimming and was gone minutes later.  Ms. Murray and her great great grandson watched them pull his body from the lake when they went down there to feed the ducks.  Two deaths in two weeks.  I'm kind of hoping you don't see Como on the news anymore this summer!

I actually have a summer "plan" for the kids this year because otherwise we don't do so well.  After two days of attempting to be organized (this is SO hard for me), things are going okay.  My main goal is to make sure that our home is characterized by more praise, prayer, the Word, and listening to God this summer.  We've prayed and listened the last few days as a family and it's already making a huge difference.  When one of my kids hears that they are supposed to stop whining or love their sibling from the Holy Spirit instead of just me, it has a much bigger impact!  Speaking of that, character training wears me out.  I have enough junk in my own heart that God is refining and getting rid of.  Trying to focus on character training with SIX other people is EXHAUSTING!  I guess this is good for Randy - I don't have much time to focus on his character issues (as if he even HAS any)!  LOL!  The other thing I want us to start doing as a family is talking about Jesus/sharing the gospel more (ANY would be more for me!  ha!).  I actually told my kids this the other night so when we were grocery shopping in Walmart yesterday, McKenna whispers in my ear that I should tell the checkout lady about Jesus.  Thanks for keeping me accountable, God!!  I didn't go ALL out, but I did ask her if there was anything we could be praying about for her.  Why are we all so afraid to talk about our greatest treasure?  That's another blog.  I would sort of prefer for God to leave that part of life alone!!  But I love that He doesn't want us to quit growing! 

great movie

We watched this new movie last p.m. called Faith Like Potatoes. GREAT movie! SO encouraging to your faith! I will say, though, that the friend who recommended it didn't tell me about one fairly graphic death scene (involving a little boy) that I would say your kids should NOT see (when the farmer gets on the tractor with his niece and nephew, fast forward if your kids are watching - I really regretted that my kids saw it. It was pretty hard on them because it reminded them or the recent death of Connor, their cousin). It allowed us to have some good conversations with them, but they had trouble sleeping that night.
Other than that, it was a great family movie and a true story - you've got to watch the documentary at the end.
Off to start another day with my kids home!

think I'm getting cynical

I just wanted to stomp up and down and throw a fit today as I attended my kids' last recitation - (it was the last day of school!! yea!) Anyway, every time I sit through anything at their school I am struck again at the injustices of education. It's just not fair that my kids get to go to this great school and learn all sorts of amazing things all year and three of our Mighty Men were retaking the TAKS test today because they failed the math part the first time. If they don't pass, they have to take summer school (during the time of the Uganda trip). If they don't go to summer school, they don't get to pass their current grade. It's just NOT FAIR!!
What is up with my three year old? Suddenly, he's becoming quite mischievious again and making mess after mess after mess! The other day I let him take a nap in my room and there is a window behind my bed. He walked up to the back door crying hysterically and I couldn't figure out how he got outside. He fell out of my window after opening it for fun. Can I just say that it's about 5 feet off the ground? The kid didn't have one scratch and I told him God had protected him (he fell on his head on top of the tomato plant). Isaac, Isaac, Isaac! I'll post pics later of field day and last day fun - we're taking Luke, Josiah, and McKenna on a "date" tonight to celebrate the end of school! They did a fantastic job during a tough year!

TV Part 2

Is it scary that I have so many posts that take more than one day? Is it also scary that I'm wanting to send all my children to watch TV right now so that I can write about why we should all stop watching it? LOL!!! PBS and dvds really are one of my favorite "babysitters". Sigh. Power of God. Need the power of God!! Here is some more of that John Piper section from his book, Don't Waste Your Life:
"Since we all live in a world created by television, it is almost impossible to see what has happened to us. The only hope is to read what people were like in previous centureies. Biographies are a great antidote to cultural myopia and chronological snobbery. We have become almost incapable of handling any great truth reverently and deeply. Magnificent things, especially the glory of God, as David Wells says, rest with a kind of "weightlessness" even on the church.
It is one of the defining marks of Our Time that God is now weightless. I do not mean by
this that he is ethereal but rather that he has become unimportant. He rests upon the
world so inconsequentiallly as not to be noticeable. He has lost his saliency for human
life. Those who assure the pollsters of their belief in God's existence may nonetheless
consider him less interesting than television, his commands less authoritative than their
appestites for afflunece and influence, his judgment no more awe-inspiring than the
evening news, and his truth less compelling than the advertisers' sweet fog of flattery and
lies. That is weightlessness. It is a condtion we have assigned him after having ndged
him out to the periphery of our secularized life....Weightlessness tells us nothing about
God but everything about ourselves, about our condition, about our psychological
disposition to exclude God from our reality.
We have lost our ability to see and savor the complexities of truth and the depths of simplicity. Douglas Groothuis explains the connection between this weakness and television:

The triumph of the televised image over the word contributes to the depthlessness of

postmodern sensibilities....One cannot muse over a television program the way wone

ponders a charactoer in William Shakespeare or C.S. Lewis, or a Blaise Pascal parable, or

a line from a T.S. Eliot poem, such as 'But our lot crawls between dry ribs/to keep its

metaphysics warm.' No one on television could utter such a line seriously. It would be

"bad television" -- too abstract, too poetic, too deep, just not entertaining....[Not only

that] but the images appear and disappear and reappear without a proper rational

context. An attempt at a sobering news story about slavery in the Sudan is followed by a

lively advertisement for Disneyland, followed by an appeal to purchase panty hose that

will make any woman irrestistible, etc., ad nauseum.

Therefore the man who stands before God with his well-kept avoidance ethic and his protest that he did not spend too much time at the office but came home and watched TV with his family will probably not escape the indictiment that he wasted his life. Jesus rebuked his disciples with words that easily apply to this man: "Even sinners work hard, avoid gross sin, watch TV at night, and do fun stuff on the weekend. What more are you doing than the others?" (see Luke 6:32-34; Matthew 5:47)."

Youch!! Yeah, I know John Piper can be rather direct. But the guy loves Jesus! And I might add that he raised 5 children without a TV in the house. Is he worse off for such a decision? Doubtful. Here's the other thing that got me thinking about all this TV stuff again recently. We rarely watch primetime TV. Mostly because we literally do not have time (who can feed, bathe, and do homework with 6 children and have ANY time for TV?). But a couple of weeks ago, Randy was gone for a board meeting and I decided that the kids and I would watch "The Biggest Loser." It's an inspiring show, right? I mean, really, it is in many ways. That p.m. I watched it for 2 hours with my kids. The following week was the season finale and so of course I HAD to see that and planned my entire evening around it. I got irritated with my kids when they interrupted and sat there for THREE hours watching all this DRAMA - and I'm sorry, but I find the name "reality" show really funny! - and for what?! We finally had to turn the TV off every time a commercial came on. I realize that some of you are probably saying "Have you heard of Tivo?? But does that really solve the problem? I guess I was just struck after that whole experience of how quickly we get pulled into a world that is not reality and how MUCH it impacts - and I think I would go as far as to say controls - us and how we think and believe.

Okay, I think I'm done with that for now. I have one more woman who has written this great book about books for kids - she has some great comments about TV and its impact on us and our kids, but that's for later! Kids are going bananas!!

from sad to offensive? :)

Okay, I should really just find some cute pics of my kids, post those, and be done (because, really, I should be in bed).  But I just got off of Facebook and I am once again pondering TV, its control over our culture, and cultural relevance.  I'm always a little bit (okay, a lot) bothered by how many people's status updates have to do with the latest tv show, etc.  Is this really what brings unity to us as a culture?  Just know that I'm sure this will offend someone, but that's really not my purpose.  Just wondering if maybe we, as believers, need to be shaken up a bit.  

If you've been in my house, you know that I LOVE books (we actually have a "library" and going to a bookstore is like going to a liquor store for an alcoholic - I can easily get carried away)!  I'm excited that so far my children share that love - just wish I had more time to read!  :)  Anyway, I think this whole post is an attempt to remind myself of why I don't want to succumb to the video/tv trap this summer when my kids are home.  It's so much easier (and I've been giving in to it way too often recently because I haven't felt so great), but is it worth the sacrifice?  I pray that instead, we'll be in the Word of God and in some good books.  I have a couple of quotes that I go back to when I think we're nuts and I'll get to those in a minute.  First, here's my brief testimony of how the absence of tv has changed our lives.  It used to be as normal as breathing.  I and my college friends could always talk about the latest happenings on "Days of Our Lives".  I remember in medical school we would have "ER" nights at our apartments and we all kept up with the latest drama.  "Oprah" gave us lots to talk about.  It actually did unite us.  For some reason that I cannot remember (the mercy of God), we decided (I'm sure my husband was the initiator on this one) to not watch tv for 6 months when I was pregnant with McKenna.  We've never been the same.  In all our years of marriage we've never paid for cable.  People think we're crazy, but I can honestly say that we've never regretted it.  Once we got away from it for an extended period of time, we were both shocked to see what we had been tolerating for years and years.  That's not to say that there haven't been seasons in which we watched it more than others, but we haven't watched it in the same way since.  And I can confidently say that in those seasons when I was watching it more (usually while nursing), it did nothing to truly nurture my spirit.  I will also say that it takes VERY little time to get sucked back in and to start rationalizing what I'm taking in.  We are all hopelessly sinful and easily deceived - need LOTS of grace!!  

And what about being culturally relevant.  This is a question I also think about a lot because if you aren't into the latest reality show, you're pretty much out of the loop in many conversations ( I will say that our closest friends don't watch tv much either, so we forget we're weird sometimes).  This has also come up recently because of some conversations with my daughter in which she's telling me that she's kind of weird in her class at school (she goes to a Christian school) because she doesn't watch all the shows that her friends watch and so she feels left out.  Hmmm.  I guess my question is this:  Did Jesus watch "Dancing with the Stars" so that He could participate in the conversations around Him?  Again, I want to reiterate that we're covered by grace and having been there ourselves (and knowing that we're totally missing some big revelations in our own lives), I'm not trying to say that I don't understand how it happens.  But I think it's okay to graciously and lovingly say to believers that maybe we're being controlled more than we think by a box that has become a huge consumer of our time and of our hearts.  Here's part of one of the quotes I was talking about earlier (more later; I have GOT to go to bed!!):

TELEVISION, THE GREAT LIFE-WASTER (from Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper):

Television is one of the greatest life-wasters of the modern age.  And, of course, the Internet is running to catch up, and may have caught up [this book was published in 2003 - I'm afraid I'm proof that he may be right about the Internet].  You can be more selective on the Internet, but you can also select worse things with only the Judge of the universe watching.  TV still reigns as the great life-waster.  The main problem with TV is not how much smut is available, though that is a problem.  Just the ads are enough to sow fertile seeds of greed and lust, no matter what program you're watching.  The greater problem is banality.  A mind fed daily on TV diminishes.  Your mind was made to know and love God.  Its facility for this great calling is ruined by excessive TV.  The content is so trivial and so shallow that the capacity of the mind to think worthy thoughts withers, and the capacity of the heart to feel deep emotions shrivels.  Neil Postman shows why:  "What is happening in America is that television is transforming all serious public business into junk....Television disdains exposition, which is serious, sequential, rational, and complex.  It offers instead a mode of discourse in which everything is accessible, simplistic, concrete, and above all, entertaining.  As a result, America is the world's first culture in jeopardy of amusing itself to death."

I'll write more tomorrow after I get more sleep!!  :)

     

I wish I had more or better words...

Imagine (you won't have to try too hard on this one) that you're watching the news and you see a brief report about a murder that occurred at a corner convenience store in a rough part of town. It was a 29-year-old woman who was chased from her home by her ex-boyfriend and shot down as her 10-year-old son looked on. If you're like me, you might think about changing the channel because you're tired of hearing about all the sad stuff in the world or you might even, for a millisecond, enter into some sort of sympathy and think "how sad."
The face of the news story about which you find yourself somewhat indifferent changes, however, when the people have names and you know them and they live in your neighborhood. Friday p.m. one of our 10-year-old Opportunity Camp kids, Craig, witnessed the murder of his mom, Candelyn, as she ran from her ex-boyfriend. She was shot 4-5 times and he followed her into the store (while also trying to protect his baby brother). The guy hit Craig on the head with the butt of the gun, but praise the Lord, didn't shoot him. Josiah's old basketball coach, Jerome, who works at the community center across the street from the store heard gunshots and herded all the kids that he had just released from the center back inside. He then went into the store and held Craig's mom as she died. I just have no words. Tonight there was a candlelight vigil in the store parking lot and we went. It's a surreal feeling to be in this place, this community, that is so broken, and yet the name of Jesus was proclaimed over and over again tonight. Randy and I both commented that it's hard to know what to think or how to feel. I could have wept and wept. But I'll tell you one thing. There is something incredibly beautiful about how people experience community here. It just doesn't happen in "white" suburbia. There were probably around 300 people or more in that parking lot. The whole community knows about what happened. One person will start singing a spiritual or whatever and almost everyone joins in(except us white folks who've never heard the songs in our lives :)). It's just not like the culture I grew up in and it's beautiful. I don't know. I'm rambling. This is the second death of an Op Camp kid's mom that we've seen in the last month. The other mom was my age and died in her sleep from some unknown cause. The mom this weekend was 7 years younger than I am. Sobering. Entering into people's suffering. Jesus did it all the time. I want Him to live His life through me powerfully. Not so much there yet. Our pastor was talking today about how, at the end of the day, the question about "what would Jesus do (WWJD)" isn't enough. It's not about imitation (because we just can't do it); it's about the manifestation of His life in and through us. (Col 1 - Christ IN you, the hope of glory). Life by the Spirit - it's the only way that "works", but it's so much harder because there just aren't a clear-cut set of "rules" and I'm such a rule follower! ha! It's just a different way of looking at life and people. So the question tonight (had I been so focused) would not have been "what would Jesus say to Craig right now?" The question would have been "What is the Spirit of Christ doing right now and what is He speaking right now that needs to come out of my mouth?" One is relying on my own power to figure things out and one is relying on His power, wisdom, etc. Just so you know, I didn't ask either question. I just hugged that sweet little boy. I know this is the heart of God; I'm just saying that I'm longing to live life by a life other than my own! Every once in a while, I get it. More often than not, I miss it because I'm just not connected to/focused on Him.
God bless Craig and his family. Bless them to experience Your tangible presence. Bless them to know that you're there weeping and mourning with them. Bless them to know that You never change and that in the midst of suffering You are beautiful.
I'm going to go watch the news now. 2 or 3 channels were there again tonight. Curious to see if they completely left all the Jesus talk out. I'm sure they found a way.

Please Pray

OK, if you're reading this  blog I need you to pray.  D is 15 years old, and he as a ticket to go with us to Uganda in one month.  The problem is that he doesn't have a passport.  We need his dad, who is in prison, to send paperwork to give custody to D's grandmother so she can apply for a passport.  They went to court last week, and he still hadn't sent back the paperwork.  All I know to do is pray.  Please pray that we will get the paperwork quickly.

Thanks,

Randy

My Wife--A Haiku

Mom of seven kids;

Wife of a difficult man;

She deserves a prize.

Again, the haiku fails me as a method of communication.  So little can really be expressed in 17 syllables.  I think I'll try a poem that's a little more free-form.

Mom. . .

. . .I don't wanna get up.

. . .can I have a snack?

. . .can you wipe me?

. . .where's my blanket?

. . .I'm hungry!

. . .waaaah!

. . .I love you.

. . .can I have a snack?

. . .I didn't hear you.

. . .Mommmmmm!

. . .do I have to?

. . .I'm hungry.

. . .waaaaah!

. . .DDjjjj! (Malachi)

. . .Owww!

. . .He hit me!

. . .can I have a snack?

. . .can you wipe me?

. . .wayo's my unduwaya? 

. . .I need to go potty.

. . .I don't want to take a bath.

. . .Where's my toothbrush?

. . .I'm hungry!

. . .I don't wanna go to bed.

. . .Can you tuck me in?

. . .But I don't want Daddy to tuck me in.

. . .Can I have a drink?

. . .Goodnight Mommy.  I love you.

. . .Mommmmmmm!

Easter pics from Midland (yes, I'm going back a few weeks)

decorating eggs at Nana and Papa'a house

Easter baskets on Sunday a.m.

fun cousins ready for the big Easter egg hunt at Grandma's house!

Sweet cousins, Emily and Allison

Moriah found lots of eggs!

More Easter pics

Aunt Jill and Uncle Cary (they loaded the eggs with some special surprises - Josiah made some $)!
Uncle Ben and Aunt Trisha!
Malachi figured out the Easter egg hunt thing quickly and thoroughly enjoyed the chocolate!
The three 11-year-olds (soon-to-be-12!):  Ashley, Annie, and McKenna
A bunch of really cute cousins!

Luke and his buddies dressed up for their Egyptian "feast"! Yes, those are all boys!

the kids at the CCS Fun Run!

My gift for Mother's Day was flowers and the creation of a flowerbed! (Photos by Luke)

More random pictures and Happy Mother's Day

First attempt...sort of indicative of the morning...:)
Second attempt...in which we fool all of you into thinking we're the second Brady Bunch!

I'm actually blogging right now because I'm confined to my bed while my children make me breakfast in bed.  :)  I am a blessed woman.  My children are amazing.  I wouldn't trade my life for anyone else's (okay, most days I wouldn't)!  I could write some long post about the blessings and challenges of motherhood, but I don't feel like it right now!  LOL!  I will share this link, though, for those of you who feel like having a good cry today [WARNING:  You seriously might not want to watch this if you're pregnant.]  I heard this couple last p.m. on a Focus on the Family radio broadcast and it ripped my heart out.  The husband is the lead singer of Selah and their family's story is beautiful and painful.  

...Okay, it's after church now - they brought me breakfast and then it was get-ready-for-church time!  As I was saying, this is a beautiful sad story.  I prayed for this momma and my sister-in-law, LeeAnn, and all the other moms who are hurting today.  The link is http://www.heartlink.org/.  (Sorry, don't know why this didn't automatically create the link - but there's the address)!  She also has a blog that follows them in their journey, but I couldn't read it last p.m. - if I cry too much I get these horrible headaches!  :)

Now I'm sitting here blogging while my sweet family makes me a STEAK lunch!!  Bluebell AND steak were on sale at the grocery store last p.m. so Randy didn't even have to get cheap steaks for the kids (which was his original plan, handed down from his own parents who used to give "tube steaks" [aka HOT DOGS] to their six children while they ate the real thing!  LOL!!).  I'll post more pics after lunch when they're cleaning up the kitchen (I wish it was Mother's Day every day)!!

Loving the Poor - Part 2

So as not to leave anyone hanging on the whole "loving the poor" thing, I'll list the verses that RB talked about concerning people who do love the poor. 

**Luke 12:33 - Sell your possessions and give to the poor.  Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in Heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. [Jesus]

**James 2:5 - Listen, my dear brothers:  Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?

**Isaiah 58 - [This is much too long to type here, but it is one of the most amazing blessing chapters on loving the poor.  And it has proven true in our own lives - we have seen healing that we never thought possible!]

**Deuteronomy 15:7, 10-11 - If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother.  Rather be openhanded and freely lend him whatever he needs....Give generously to him and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to.  There will always be poor people in the land.  Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land.  [Interesting to note here that in the American church, a common reason proposed for going ahead and not dealing with the poor is this verse (which Jesus also quoted):  "the poor will always be with you".  We've actually heard that before as a reason to not engage the situation because we can't fix it anyway.]

**After he talked about this, he also went through examples of people who loved the poor throughout the New Testament.  Included Jesus, Paul, Peter and the apostles, Zaccheus, the church in Acts (I didn't take notes on all the scripture references for these, but there's no doubt it was pretty essential.  Giving half of his possessions to the poor was Zaccheus' first proof that he had been saved when people questioned Jesus eating with a "sinner").

There are many more verses concerning the poor, which would make one think that maybe it REALLY  matters to God.  He hates injustice.  My approach most of my life has been to think about it for a minute and then to decide to ignore it because it's overwhelming and what could I do anyway?  John Piper points out that you can ALWAYS pray (like when you're watching the news, etc.).  And Randy said the other night that the world is different than it used to be.  It literally takes 5 minutes to send money anywhere in the world.  And our seemingly little contribution can change lives.  To give a little perspective, the average person in Uganda makes around $350 a YEAR!!  Our wealth goes a long way in most places in the world.  

The thing that overwhelms me now is my lack of compassion, even after having my eyes opened quite a bit.  I weep now over things I didn't used to cry about and I have faith that God is slowly giving us His heart for people, but the truth is that when a kid shows up at my door and just wants to hang out or whatever, most of the time I wish he would go away and let me get back to my own "plan".  It's still really hard to engage.  When Jesus said that the entire law could be summed up in this "Love God and love other people", it sounded really simple, but it's EXTREMELY hard (and not just with the poor - with everyone!  :))  People just need to be loved.  No one wants to be a "project" or given handouts, really.  They just want someone to notice them and look in their eyes and love them.  I would honestly rather not have to do that on most days.  Without Christ, I'm hopelessly selfish.  I have been confronted with this over and over and over again in the past several years (esp. having so many children)!  But the beauty in this is that it MAKES you have to depend on Him or give up!  Life by the Spirit/abiding in Jesus  is the only hope.  My flesh produces absolutely pitiful results.  Thank you, Jesus, for Your life and Your grace!

Some Random pics and my husband, the preacher

D'Leeland and his buddy, Webster came by to show off the horses. There are so many entertaining things about our neighborhood - bet you didn't know there are some stables! My kids were terrified of the horses! :)

my little Moriah - she loves posing!

Don't let him fool you. He looks like he's cleaning up, but his main goal in life is to destroy!

If you had asked me 10 years ago if I thought RB would be teaching/preaching, I probably would have said no. I love God. He works through the things in which we find ourselves weak and then HE gets lots of glory. (He will also be preaching again in church on May 31st!). My husband really has turned into this amazing teacher (it is definitely one of his spiritual gifts) and I was amazed again last p.m. at his wisdom and insight. He was asked to teach at our CORE training school last p.m. about the poor, injustice, and racism. I was humbled by the message and my eyes were opened in a fresh way to the Word of God again. I'm sure this is going to be one of those multiple day posts, but I just have to share some of the things that he did because it was so powerful. I was totally convicted - again. He began by talking about how in our culture we have compartamentalized (SPELLING??) loving the poor and made it something optional (much like sharing the gospel, but that's a post for another day - how have we convinced ourselves that that is not for everyone? that it's okay if we rarely, if ever, tell people about Jesus?). He made the analogy that if you came in to see him as a doctor, he wouldn't tell you to digest your food or to grow hair. That's a natural part of what your body does and if it's not doing that, then you are sick and need healing - there is definitely something wrong. So it is with loving the poor. Loving the poor characterizes your life if you're a follower of Jesus. It doesn't save you, but it's one of the fundamental proofs that transformation has taken place. It was NEVER addressed in the Word as something optional or as an "add-on". It is pretty central from Genesis to Revelation. Something about seeing all the following scriptures together last night (and there are MANY more that he did not mention) did something to my heart and opened my eyes to things I'd never noticed before. First, he went through several scriptures that talk about people who do NOT love the poor. His stated goal last p.m. was that he would make everyone "greedy" to love the poor because of the great blessing that comes from it. Keep that in mind as you read the first set of scriptures (the next ones I'll put on here are the ones about people who DO love the poor and what God promises). I'm going to type them out and then I'll write more later. I've got my sweet little people running around and need to get off this computer!

**Jeremiah 5:27-29 - "Like cages full of birds, their houses are full of deceit; they have become rich and powerful and have grown fat and sleek. Their evil deeds have no limit; they do not plead the case of the faterhless to win it, they do not defend the rights of the poor. Should I not punish them for this?" declares the Lord. "Should I not avenge myself on such a nation as this?" [interesting to note here that they weren't oppressing the poor; they were apparently just ignoring them - the description of this nation sounds uncomfortably familiar - youch!]

**Jeremiah 22:15-17 - [This was said to Jehoahaz, son of Josiah] "Does it make you a king to have more and more cedar? Did not your father have food and drink? He did what was right and just, so all went well with him. He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?" [I didn't even know Josiah took care of the poor]

**Ezekial 16:49 - [Why did God destroy Sodom?] "Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy."

**James 5:1-5 - Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. [RB pointed out here that the day of slaughter sounds like it's for them - they have made themselves fat and they themselves are the cattle that get slaughtered]

**Luke 18:24 - Jesus looked at him and said, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!"

**I John 3:17 - If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?

**Luke 11:39-41 - Then the Lord said to him, "Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? But give what is inside the dish to the poor, and everything will be clean for you." [WHAT? I had NEVER noticed THIS before!! Jesus' solution to getting rid of their wickedness was to give their greed (become generous) to the poor! Giving to the poor was the starting place!]

I'll continue later! I need to say that there's lots of grace, but I also believe that this is something that God is really wanting us to get. RB said last p.m. that this is not something he wants to add to anyone's "to do" list; he needs to become part of our "to BE" list! And all of it is ABSOLUTELY impossible without the life of the Spirit living through us. This is really comforting because I can speak from LOTS of experience in trying to do it in my flesh - it DOESN'T work!!

we all need a lot of grace...

One sad and one funny story:
Let's start with sad. Last p.m. I'm sleeping while RB is reading in bed and the phone rings around 10:45. He doesn't get it in time, but caller id says is it Tarrant County Jail. This could be a couple of people we know, but no one leaves a message. About an hour later the doorbell rings. I go and peek out the peephole and realize that it is one of our Mighty Men (yeah, 14-years-old, out by himself at midnight in the cold rain). We brought him in and he had some weird story about not catching a bus because the bus had a wreck. He had stolen a bike to ride over to our house so he could use the phone and get home (he lives about 20-25 minutes away). Poor kid - his language is deceit and so we have no idea what really happened. Randy took him home and dropped off the bike back where he supposedly "found it abandoned". We're assuming that he had been picked up by the police for whatever reason and that he was the one calling from the jail. Sigh. I was praying last p.m. that the truth would just start coming out of his mouth without him even thinking about it! I really can't believe how the Mighty Men really are turning into MEN! A couple of them are beginning to tower over me! Love those guys - need to pray more.

Okay, here's the funny story, perhaps the most pitiful hormonal moment I've ever had in my life. I would say that last week was pretty awful. I had NO energy, still nauseous, and my family is lucky that they ever got anything to eat! One of my extreme aversions right now is ground beef - not sure why, but texture and smell get me. Because I hadn't made dinner once again, my sweet husband made this interesting ground beef/noodle/velveeta concoction on Thursday p.m., which I ate. I also ate it for lunch on Friday because we had nothing else in the house due to the fact that I hadn't gone grocery shopping. So on Friday evening when he was on his way home, he called to ask what I wanted him to pick up for dinner (I would like to say that I finally went to the store yesterday - we'll be eating this week) and I told him Rosa's sounded good. He comes home with 2 pints of beans, 2 packages of tortillas, and 1 pint of...GROUND BEEF!! I was SO hoping for some CHICKEN!! When I realized he got ground beef, I said out loud to everyone, "I'm not going to cry about ground beef" as I start spilling tears right there in the middle of my kitchen. Moriah was really concerned and kept asking why I was crying. The boys were just watching me, not sure how to react. And then my husband, who was trying to be sympathetic and very apologetic, just lost it and burst out laughing. My boys followed his lead and soon I was laughing AND crying hysterically over a pint of ground beef. Randy explained to our kids that only a pregnant woman could pull off such a feat. God bless my poor husband and kids! :)