What I did this Week: a book and a birthday

  Sunday afternoon, when I went to take a picture of my combats next to the log pile for artistic purposes, I also took a picture of the family cat because he is cute.

 

  Monday evening, I made tapioca pudding just because.

 

  Tuesday, my little brothers and I made slime. Little brothers are no good if having them means you can't be a big kid too.

 

  Wednesday, I started reading A Tale of Two Cities again and realized again my love for the book, for Charles Dickens, and for Sydney Carton.

 

  Thursday, my fifteen-year-old brother turned sixteen. So for his birthday we went to see Ant-Man, and I have not had so much fun at the movies all year. But Star Wars: The Force Awakens hasn't come out yet, so there's still time.

 

  Friday, I ate ice cream.

 

   And today I made Indian food.

 

And for once I took a picture for everyday this week.

late some nights.

  Late some night I am the cynic. In the light of the sun I can believe that God is good. I can see the world will be made new.
  But late some nights it seems the world will crumble. It seems that God ought to give up on us in our failures and let the justice we deserve come down.
  Late some nights humanity does not deserve to be saved so I ask, "Why bother?" The bad are bad and the good are worse because they lie through their teeth as they live as hypocrites.
  Late some nights I lie, wondering what the point of creation was if all it does is throw God's blessings back in His face. Could the earth just cave? Could the sky just be torn apart? Would not it be better if it all went away?
  Late some nights in my broken bitterness all that is left is for me to wonder that three-letter burden to my intellect: why?
  But in the morning I wake up and in the morning I see. God knows better than to merely do away with. God takes my broken, bitterness and He heals it. He does more than make acceptable, my Jesus makes all things new.

Hero

  

  God does not ask for heroes: He asks for humble, willing hearts. And that is a terrifying thing. God asks for us to surrender our all, to die to ourselves, to be willing to give up every little essential should He say we must.
  That means God can call any of us. Whether it be for us to do the little hard thing or the big hard thing. We who are called by Him and called to be open, called to be broken. Heroes are not born, they do not declare themselves to be among the mighty. Heroes happen. They are those who were willing and ready at the right moment.
  Some certainly seem born to be heroes. But there are so many others who have greatness thrust upon them. At the end of the day, heroes are not always the great among mankind, they are simply those who laced up their boots and said, "Here I am Lord, send me."

What I did this Week: food and stuff

  This week was not particularly eventful.

  Monday I made pizza bites.

 

   Tuesday, not much happened. But I snapped this picture of my brother riding the heights of maturity.

 

  Wednesday morning, I woke up a decent hour and made waffles.

 

  Thursday called for some upholstery work.

 

  Friday morning I mopped the floor and for a glorious thirty minutes it was clean.

 

And so went my week.



Rain

Today somehow felt more like October than August.

 

Who

   Humans like labels. Even the most independent among us like to identify with their fellow, fearless souls. I consider myself independent, and then I identify myself with all kinds of groups. I am a sister, a daughter, a nerd, a fundamentalist, a conservative. I call myself an extensive reader, a want-to-be writer, a music-lover. I count myself  non-denominational, despite the fact I go to a Baptist church.
  There seems in mankind, the innate desire to identify. To be a part of a tribe. To belong somewhere. That desire is God-given, placed in man so they can find their identity in their relationship to their Creator.
  As a Christian, I know that ultimately my identity is found in my Savior. I know that I am a child of God, saved and redeemed by the blood of Christ. That is how I should identify myself. It is from my relationship with Christ that I should derive my worth.
  Labels are easy. They are visible, tangible. The labels we apply to ourselves on earth are not necessarily bad, but they do not affect the essence of our being the way we often think they do. More often than not, we let the labels we apply to ourselves control who we are. They do not, however, change who we are before our Creator as human beings.
  The Westminster Catechism eloquently and truthfully states, "The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." We as people have a tendency to use our personalities and our circumstances to define us; not the fact that we are human beings created in the image of God with the purpose of glorifying our Creator.
  Not all are going to live their lives to glorify the God who made them. Many, in fact, will live in flagrant disobedience to Him and His commands. And that is how they will ultimately be defined. That is how everyone will be defined: by whether or not that were a child of God. Who we are is based on who we are before God, and that alone.  

What I did this Week: Summertime

  So as I've blogged earlier, I made lemonade on Monday.

 

   Tuesday, I baked cookies.

 

 

   Wednesday, a friend and I went and got snow-cones, and they were delicious.

 

 

  Thursday, another friend and I re-decorated my chalk-board wall. Now it looks better then it did.

  Friday night my brothers and I stayed up and watched The Fellowship of the Ring. I did not take any pictures of us watching the movie because I was to busy quoting along and then crying.

  And this evening my brother made the bat-signal. As I've said before, nerdiness runs very deep in my family.

 

And so went my week.

"If it doesn't break..."

Love is the most powerful force of all.

No greater joy, not greater grief comes from anything other than love.

Anger hardens the heart.

Love breaks it.

Without love we will die; our souls and then our bodies.

We were made to lose our hearts in others.

Naturally, they will break, because others are fallen.

But there is no great privilege than to break our hearts.

 

 

 

sight of the season.

While it is summer still, let us drink lemonade.

What I did this Week: A Shirt Story

  This past week, I did not take enough pictures to make a worthwhile What I did this Week post. So instead, here is a shirt I made over the course of this past week.

  Monday, I cut out my fabric.

 

   Tuesday, I sewed in the pockets.

 

  Wednesday, I sewed the front and back together and Thursday I sewed in the sleeves.

 

   Friday I hemmed it.



 





  Today I sewed in the placket and collar.

 

   And since we all know plaid was the color of the nineties, here's a lovely, grungy self-portrait.

  And there's another plaid shirt for my clothing arsenal. 

 

And that seems like a great Segway into what I am going to say next. DC Talk was hands down the greatest band of the nineties. They never should have taken a hiatus, end of story. Well, this week TobyMac released a song featuring his fellow, former DC Talk members. And it is good, so listen up.

  

 

  Spring is the season of life restored. Growing afresh, shining an innocent new face on the world. Summer is the time of life in full. Burning hot and moving forward. Lazy slow, perhaps, but never stopping.
  In spring we notice life more because it is not so common and we have missed it so long. Come summer, so often a body fails to notice the world, completely saturated in living. The pulsating warmth of life oft goes unnoticed until it fades away. Nothing is left but the memories of leaves and the visages of raw earth.
  While summer lasts it is fire. Green, wild and all-enveloping. Seemingly eternal while it remains. And yet it passes and leaves only memories its sultry enveloping beauty..

gift.

The privilege is given.

To choose good.

To fight evil.

To know what is right and what is wrong in the swirling grey of life.

Often I forget that.

I get caught in the drudgery of living and I forget to fight.

That this life is a battlefield.

That I am a soldier.

That this life is a war.

Life a tragic wonder.

It hurts so, so bad.

And yet it is so, so beautiful.

The sun kisses the horizon, the ocean crashes into the shore.

Hearts break, hearts are mended.

People are condemned, people are redeemed.

Each beauty, each tragedy is a brush-stroke on the Creator's canvas.

And in His goodness He has given me to the privilege to live for Him.

To fight in His battles.

To knowingly glorify Him.

And may I never forget that gift.

 

What I did this Week: Late Again.

  Last week I downloaded Window 10, and I don't care for it. Once I was finally used to the quirks of Window 8.1, they gave me another set of quirks to deal with. So I re-opened Internet Explorer, and I will be using that instead of Microsoft edge for my internet perusing

  Anyways, Sunday, I read The Council of Elrond which is a chapter in The Fellowship of the Ring. Anyone who has read the Lord of the Rings will understand what an accomplishment this is. Long though it may be, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

 

   Monday evening, I made cinnamon rolls for dinner.

 

 

   Tuesday evening, I started to made pumpkin bread without checking to see if we had any eggs. When it came time to add the eggs to the batter, I opened the fridge and found we had none. So I walked out to the chicken coop in the backyard, opened the door, and found four eggs waiting in the nest. And that goes to show just how much God cares about me and my petty little problems.

 

 

   Saturday, I weeded the garden. And surprisingly I enjoyed myself.

 

And thus went my week.