June 24, 2006 · 4:45 am

Whatever is True…

I’m too tired today to say anything coherent, so I’ll just quote some food for thought…

Philippians 4:4-9 (NRSV):

4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.

4:5 Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.

4:6 Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

4:7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

4:8 Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

4:9 Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.

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June 22, 2006 · 2:35 pm

Only what is useful for building up…

I’ve been contemplating what to write about today… yesterday I had the notion that today I was going to just pickup where I left off and write about Ephesians 4, which was the next chapter in line. I’m reading through the Bible right now, I started with the New Testament this time and am currently in Ephesians. I try to read through the Bible every once in a while, and it’s been quite a while since I have.

I’ve found though, that blogging about it makes me want to stop and do a more in depth study of what I read. That would slow me down considerably right now, but I really want to get through the New Testament, so that I can read through the Old Testament again, and THEN go back and do more in depth studies. So… I think I’m just going to do my reading, and write about whatever happens to strike me each day until I’m done reading through. Then after that I’ll start doing some actual studies.

I haven’t actually decided whether to do chapter by chapter studies, or topical. I’m more inclined to do topical studies left to my own, but if I did chapter by chapter I’d have a commentary by the time I was done, and that could be kind of cool to have…

I’ll have to think about it more while I’m reading through.

In any case, I read Ephesians 4 today. The passage that struck me the most is
Ephesians 4:29-32 (NRSV):

4:29 Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.
4:30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption.
4:31 Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice,
4:32 and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.

That’s the chunk that struck me the most (I’m sure I say a lot that’s not “useful for building up”).  I really need to remember that on a daily basis :)

Okay that’s all I have time for today, I need to get to VBS (it’s the last night). I think I’ve decided that if I do a topical study when I’m done reading through the Old Testament, I’ll start with Ephesians 4… lots of good stuff here that too often gets missed on the way to chapters 5 and 6 (which cover things like the relations between husbands and wife/masters ans slaves, and putting on the armor of God).

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June 21, 2006 · 1:21 pm

A root with which to tap…

I’m reading ephesians today, and since I’m too lazy to go get my regular Bible out of the car, I’m reading from my old King James Version bible. It’s funny how nostalgic it is for me to read the KJV… it always brings up memories of sunday school lol.

In any case, here’s some encouraging scripture for those of you who are saved:

Ephesians 3:16-19 (KJV)

16 That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;
17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
18 May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;
19 And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.

We too often forget that love has to be our root… that without a grounding in love, we miss out on the greater things. It’s too easy to get caught up in our day to day lives and forget that our goal as Christians should be to stand out from the crowd “And they will know we are Christians by our love”, as the song goes.

1 Corinthians 13:4-6 (NRSV) says of love: Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.

I honestly can’t think of a single person I’ve met that’s ever come close to meeting all of those requirements on a regular basis, but that’s the goal…  If love is to be the root and the grounding of our faith, then we all need to strive to become more loving every day — and not the sappy “can’t we all just get along” or “happy happy joy joy” kind of love, but the real thing.

Paul defines love not as a feeling, not as an emotion, but as a state of being, as a pattern for living that we must aspire to — not as an afterthought, but as a foundation.  This is one of those things we can spend our entire life working on, and never perfect, but the effort will not be in vain.

Chapter 4 is so full I’m going to save it for tomorrow’s post…

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June 20, 2006 · 4:24 am

Change of direction…

I was supposed to have spent my evening tonight helping at VBS… I reminded myself of this several times yesterday, then still completely forgot about it today… at 2:30am I finally realized what day it was…

So a few hours ago I was sitting there stewing about how worthless I am, when it dawned on me that if I were actually worthless, Christ wouldn’t have bothered dying for me, but since He did, and since He’s perfect and all, it must be that I’m just not living up to the potential He saw in me.

So… in an effort to get myself back on a more useful track, I am going to make a concerted effort to stop rambling about pointless things, and use this blog as a tool instead.

If you’re actually reading this, and this subject annoys you, this might be a good time to switch over to http://storyblox.livejournal.com, which is my business blog, as this blog will probably be filled other things that will annoy you in the future.

If you’re reading this, and you aren’t severely annoyed by now, drop me a note and let me know :)

I will be making an effort to post on a daily basis (or close to it) from here on out… and I will make it a goal to “set my thoughts on things above” in each post.

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· 1:46 am

Had Enough of Ebay Seller Fees

I finally took the plunge and closed my ebay store… I’m tired of paying monthly fees for nothing… I was going to close up shop a while ago but they dangled that carrot of search results for store items showing for every search and my sales actually made it worth it… for about two weeks, until they went back on that whole thing without warning and for no good reason (well, I’m sure they figured they were losing sales, but they didn’t give that as the reason, they made up some crap about it being better for the buyers the old way).

Anyway, enough rambling. My ebay store is now officially closed, and I’ve taken down the links, but I will still sell stuff once in a while in the old fashioned auction-style format, unless I get tired of it and give it up entirely.

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June 12, 2006 · 7:44 am

The Killdeer Chicks Hatched!

Took long enough :)

More pics behind the cut…

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June 10, 2006 · 5:44 am

Crazy Animals…

Okay all of the animals on my property are nuts…

A killdeer laid it’s eggs in the middle of my driveway (see previous entry), and screetches at me everytime I go outside.

I have a very strange little mockingbird that likes to sit on the post next to my glass doors and sits there staring and chirping at himself (cheep… cheep… cheep…) at regular intervals until I finally get annoyed enough to chase him away and hang something on the window so he can’t see his reflection.

Another bird ran beek first into the same glass door the other day, apparently not realizing it was there… the bird was stunned for a while but finally flew off… I’m going to have to find something to leave there permanently.

I have a rabbit that loves to sunbathe in my back yard, and spends endless hours staring at the lettuce in my garden. Most recently, the rabbit has decided to hang out under my back porch, which is like a tiny, low deck. The rabbit, though, being either crazy or stupid, can’t seem to walk underneath said porch without banging it’s head repeatedly. So it took me two days to figure out that that banging is the rabbit’s head hitting the wood repeatedly.

And for the past two days, a certain cardinal has been standing at one of my doors (back door yesterday, front door today) chirping constantly while staring in the window at me… it keeps this up until I walk over and open the door, at which point it flies away and leaves me alone for a while.

I’ve always attracted weird and crazy friends… but weird and crazy animals is a new one lol.

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May 23, 2006 · 11:15 pm

Eggs on the Rocks

I have this silly little killdeer (bird) that keeps screeching at me every time I go out my front door, go down the driveway, mow the yard, get my mail, or do anything else in my front yard. Yesterday my parents were here and we finally figured out why.

I knew the bird had to have a nest somewhere, but I’d never figured out where. Turns out she’s been watching me for a while trying to figure out where to build her nest, and she finally did it…

Right smack-dab in the MIDDLE of my driveway! Apparently she figured out that my tires never actually hit that spot, and while I mow the yard, I never mow on the gravel. I think she liked the two different layers of gravel too (there’s small gravel under the bigger rocks), because she didn’t have to do any extra work.

Here’s a picture :)

I’m hoping now that I harassed her by taking pictures, she’ll see fit to move the eggs out of my driveway so the UPS truck doesn’t run over em before they hatch!

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May 18, 2006 · 5:44 am

Pokey the Patchwork Puppy

This is my latest creation. He’s done free-form with no pattern, 100% hand-sewn. I can only sew a seam or two at a time, and he’s got 38 patches, so it took me a couple of months, but I had fun.

I’ve been told he looks a little like a sheep or a bull, but I maintain his puppiness lol.

He can be purchased on Etsy. If he doesn’t sell I’ll probably lower the price weekly until he does.

He’s listed on my Etsy shop.

Next in the line will be a snapping turtle.

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May 10, 2006 · 5:05 pm

StoryBlox(tm) LJ Account Added

I just finished setting up a separate StoryBlox™ account on LJ.

http://storyblox.livejournal.com/

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