A Great Quote

“It matters not how great the pressure is, only where the pressure lies. As long as the pressure does not come between me and my Savior, but presses me to Him, then the greater the pressure, the greater my dependence on Him.” J. Hudson Taylor

He Hears You. He Sees You

I am sitting in my office experiencing a miracle. I just got flowers from my sweet, sweet husband.

Although that is wonderful, it's not the miracle.

Just this morning I was drifting back to sleep after my husband left for work and I prayed, "I sure would like to get some flowers today Lord" as I went to sleep.

When I got up I was feeling frustrated that I have been sick for so long. I went into work and talked to our administrative assistant about how I was feeling then went into my office and began working while listening to my 'worship' playlist. One of the songs was saying 'how good you are to wash over me' and I closed the door so that I could lift my heart in worship and surrender to the Lord. While the door was closed and I was telling the Lord that he is good and worth it all and that I receive what he wants for me, there was a knock on the door. It was one of our front desk volunteers with a big smile on her face saying I had a delivery.

As I was walking to the front desk I remembered my sleepy prayer and thought 'surely not!' then took a few more steps and thought 'it can't be flowers'. The whole way to the front desk (I work at the back of the building) I was arguing with myself. Then I got there and it is the most beautiful arrangement of orange (my favorite color) lilies and coral tipped yellow roses from my sweet husband with a note saying 'sorry you're not feeling well. I love you!"

I am in awe that my Abba was listening to my self pitying self this morning.

I am in awe that he loves me this much.

I am in awe that he knows that in my heart I've been asking if he was listening to me pray for healing, even though he has so faithfully shared with me what he is doing my character through this extended illness.

I am in awe that he would use my wonderful husband to bless me so much and to remind me of the many, many blessings in my life in spite of sickness.

His love reaches to the heavens and to my bedroom and to my office.

The McRib Conspiracy

My sweet hubby is on a diet that involves shots and 500 calories a day. I blogged about it but deleted the blog out of respect for the diet and my hubby.

ehem

But I will say that we are convinced that McDonald's brought back the McRib right now out of pure spite.

And I just fell in love with a sandwich from another blog. Of course, it is a grilled ham, cheese, pickle, and potato chip sandwich.

Oh. My. Goodness.

And I have never wanted to bake bread so much in my life.

A Sign

This is profound to me.

How many times do I think I'm in a situation

when I really am the situation?

Commercial for Someone Else's Blog

Have you seen Hyperbole and a Half? It tickles my funny bone more than anything I've seen in a long, long time. As in, just thinking about it kind of gives me a flashback of my stomach hurting from laughing so hard and makes me smile and chuckle. I think it probably says alot about my weird sense of humor but I am completely okay with that.

Go check it out.

Hidden in Christ

I don't know about you but I struggle with believing what people say about me too much. If I'm not careful I find myself evaluating everything I do and say and plan by whether certain people will be impressed or like it or like me more because of it. I think it comes from being a good girl growing up. Or else it caused me to be a good girl growing up.

But it has turned into idolatry.

If people praise me, I find my ego getting inflated.

And it can be pretty scary how inflated I can become.

If people doubt me or (gulp) don't like me I can begin to doubt all of my motives and dive into this spiral of self improvement and self doubt that is exhausting and dizzying.

What is the answer? Yesterday I found this verse that really spoke to me. It is Colossians 3:2-4 and it says "Set your mind on things above, not on things that are on the earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you will appear also with him in glory."

That's what I want. I want to be hidden in Christ, knowing that whatever he says about me is true. Whatever he convicts me of he will give me the power to change. And then when he appears in all of his glory, I want to be right there with him.

Wasted Time

Today I had a 9AM, an 11AM, and a 3PM appointment on my schedule. It was already going to be a slow work day but I planned to use the time to get some paperwork done.

Around 11 my 11AM appointment rescheduled to 1PM. They were at the doctor's office. Cool. I totally get that. Doctors appointments take all day for some reason. We are sliding into managed health care apparently. A little before 1, the client knew that appointment also wouldn't happen due to the doctor time warp.

Hmmmm . . . what to do, what to do until 3? I had completed my paperwork so I was a little bit um . . . sleepy . . . so instead of taking a 5 hour energy, I took a 15 minute power nap in a counseling room.

Then I started thinking about my 3PM appointment. It occurred to me that she is normally an every other week session and she came last week because we had to cancel the week before. Did she know she was supposed to be at my office in 20 minutes? So I texted her a 'confirmation' text and . . . sure enough . . . she was planning to come next week. Thanks mono for messing up my calendar.

So, I got my stuff together and headed for the casa, thinking about all of the wonderful crafty things I could have done with the day if I had known I was finished at 10AM. GRRRR . . . a personal pep talk was required. I reminded myself of all the paperwork I gotten done and patted myself on the back and began thinking about what I would make for supper since I had more than 3 hours until it needed to be ready.

I decided on chicken pot pie with fall leaf cut outs for the top layer. I cooked the chicken breasts, made the white sauce, and texted my hubby to ask him to get milk on his way home if he wanted cereal in the morning. That's when he reminded me that he had a work dinner tonight. My teenager-still-living-at-home was eating with friends. And I had 3/4 of a Little Ceasar's cheese pizza left from lunch.

So finally I gave into the sulk that had been brewing since around lunch time and sat on the couch, eating cold pizza, drinking a coke (which I'll regret at 2 in the morning), and watching reruns of the Mentalist. I seriously don't know what else I could've done with what was left of the day.

Job and the Greatness of God

During the past month I spent some time in the book of Job. It wasn't because I thought I was going through the same thing (ha!). Actually, it was just a 'coincidence' that I started reading through the Bible chronologically and Job 'just happened' to be the book I was supposed to read.

I have read Job more than once and it has always bothered me. If you haven't read it lately, here is my paraphrase:

paraphrase - an explanation of something that is probably filled with mistakes that you would not have made if you knew Greek and Hebrew.

One day God was holding royal court and all of the angels were coming to be seen by Him. Even Satan came and when God asked him where he had been (as if He didn't know) Satan said, "wandering around on the Earth." Then God asked Satan, "Have you seen my servant Job? He is the best man down there."

S-C-R-E-E-C-H!!! HOLD IT A MINUTE!

Here's what I want to know - Why did God have to go and point Job out to SATAN, of all people (ahem, angels)?

Seriously!

The whole book kind of makes sense to me if you leave that part out. See, after this conversation, Satan (not God) goes and takes everything from Job that he owns and kills everyone in Job's family except for his nagging wife, who he probably left for spite. Then Satan goes back to God and God SAYS THE SAME THING to which Satan says, "of course he still serves you, you won't let me hurt his body" and God gives Satan permission to take everything except Job's life. Notice, he didn't tell Satan he had to leave Job's wife alive. See Job 2:9 to see why I think Satan left her alive. Then Satan gives Job a disgusting and painful physical malady that itches and hurts so much he scratchs himself with broken pottery (sorry, I know it's gross).

After this, Satan is finished with Job but then Job's friends start in on him. They spend most of the rest of the book telling Job he brought this on himself by sinning so much. Job defends himself and makes some really good points like the wicked prosper so you can't say that suffering shows that you are wicked. He does cry out to God, asking to know why all of this is happening but he also asserts that man cannot know the mind of God and that anything God does is good. I think one of the most amazing verses in the book is Job 19:25, where Job says, "I know my Redeemer lives and at the last will stand upon the earth." and then he says "and I will stand before Him. Wow!

Finally, close to the end of the book, God shows up. Whew! Finally, we are going to get an explanation for why all of this stuff has happened to Job, right?

Wrong!

God never tells Job about the angel parade or his conversation with Satan. He basically says to Job, "Who are you to question me?" and then tells Job about His greatness.

At the very end of the book, God blesses Job with a lot more than he had in the first place so that the end of his life was better than the beginning. He has more kids and they are beautiful, talented, and good. He has more money and more favor with everyone. He has a blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed life at the end.

Really, this is just a frustrating story to me as a person who loves God and knows God is love. I don't just mean that as a religious phrase - 'God is love'. I mean that I know God and He really IS love. He loves me (and you) SO MUCH. Spend any time with Him and you know that is true.

Here is what I have come to believe about what this book means and why God put it in the Bible. I don't know if it is what I will believe in a few years because I am learning all of the time. Maybe one of you will say something to me about this post that will change my mind, but for right now here is what I think about Job:

I think this book is about how AMAZING God is and that one point of this book is that it is worth even THAT MUCH pain in our lives for God to get glory. God got glory from Job worshipping Him and submitting to Him even when Job had lost everything. God got glory when Job said, "I don't know why this is happening but God is still God and He is still good and someday I will stand before Him because I am still His." And just God getting glory was worth the whole thing.

Worth losing his kids.

Worth losing everything he had ever worked for.

Worth losing his self esteem.

Worth losing his standing in the community.

God was worth it.

Why? Because God made everything. He cares for everything. He knows everything. He is powerful beyond description. He is more nurturing than any mother ever was. He is in control even when it seems like He has lost control.

And Satan was wrong. He thought that people only love God for what He gives them. But God knew that Job LOVED Him and God knew that God is worth being loved THAT MUCH. And that truth was so TRUE, so ACCURATE, so CORRECT, that it was worth everything that Job had to go through to say it.

A Little Bit of Crochet

I finished a couple of crochet projects while I was sick and thought I'd show you.

This is the baby blanket I was working on during the cruise. It is for the newborn son of a dear friend of our family's, Aaron Kunzler. Aaron was in our youth group when our son was a baby and he and Nelson, our son, had a special friendship that has lasted all of Nelson's life. His son was born in the middle of August and I am FINALLY well enough to go get my hands on that baby! The blanket is in the washer getting ready to take it to meet the little guy and I hope I get to see him this week. The pattern for this blanket is available on Lion Brand's website here.

This afghan was improvised from a v-stitch prayer shawl pattern and I love the yarn I used! It is Lion brand Homespun Prairie and it is my favorite yarn in many of their colors. It looks so ugly on their internet page because they take such a small swatch but is such a beautiful yarn with many different colors that self stripe. Here is a swatch picture from my afghan.

I know some people really like to use natural fibers but I like acrylic for afghans because it is easy to wash and can be really soft. This yarn has a great weight that stitches up really quickly.

I am almost finished with my crocheted bag that I mentioned in an earlier post. I'll post pictures of it when I'm finished.