A Thanksgiving Prayer

To continue my list of favorites, the following is a prayer that I keep on my fridge and pray it often. And, I am going to spare you commentary!

A Thanksgiving Prayer

Oh, God, when I have food, help me to remember the hungry;
When I have work, help me to remember the jobless;
When I have a warm home, help me to remember the homeless;
When I am without pain, help me to remember those who suffer;
And remembering, help me destroy my complacency and bestir my compassion.
Make me concerned enough to help, by word and deed, those who cry out for what we take for granted.
Samuel F. Pugh

"For when I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me..." Matthew 25:35

Another Favorite

Since I mentioned how the Doxology is one of my favorites, I thought I would follow the trend and mention some of my other favorites this week.  (Also, I am running low on riveting, awe-inspiring, laugh-inducing anecdotes that will leave you sitting on the edge of your seat and asking for more. - Oh, wait a second - I never had those! lol!  Well, anyway...)

Here is a favorite verse of mine.  I have many favorite verses for many reasons, but this verse I come back to when I feel like my heart is being pulled in the wrong directions.  There are some gray areas that don't have definitive prohibitions in the Bible, but what is the wise choice for me? 


"Everything is permissible"--but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible"--but not everything is constructive." 1 Corinthians 10:23

Another version replaces the "but not everything is constructive" with "but I will not be mastered by anything."

I have hung this verse on my fridge or in other places where I feel I need the reminder.  It is one that I know by heart and that has changed my heart many times when I have wanted my own way.

This verse is followed by an even harder verse to practice sometimes.

Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others. 1 Corinthians 10:24 


I am okay with being good to others in situations when it is clear that I should be.  Sure, I will be kind and talk to the homeless person when I am serving them in the mission, but do I treat them with the same love and care when I see them out on the streets?  Oh, and there are so many situations like this for me.  Times when I do the right thing when it is expected of a "good person" or a Christian, but what about when it is outside of the bounds of just what is needed to be labeled "good" by our culture.  Am I willing to to go past cultural expectations to do what God calls me to do? 

This reminds me of a situation this summer.  I took my kids to the pool.  They were playing in the shallow end when a couple entered the pool.  They were being pretty loud and obnoxious and the man had few teeth and they were in their clothes, instead of bathing suits.  I really wanted just to move as far away from them as possible.  But my son, who has little to no social inhibitions, started talking to them - a lot.  When he learned the female couldn't swim, he took it upon himself to teach her.  They were more than willing to have the social interaction and were being pretty boisterous about the entire exchange.  There were not many people in the pool and I felt the eyes of all those who were on us.  I began to feel very embarrassed and was wondering what people must think of us and of me as a mother - letting my kids interact with people who clearly had no social etiquette.  I even tried to tell Elias to leave them alone and let them swim more than once.  Then all of a sudden, my heart became terribly convicted.  I cared more about what the other people in the pool thought than by letting my son be kind to someone.  It wasn't like he was in danger.   I was right there with them and everyone's eyes were on us anyway, so it wasn't like they could get away with anything without someone seeing.  So, I decided that I would let the interaction continue and that I would not just allow it, but I would interact too.  It was just another lesson that I have learned from my kids.

Hmmm, didn't plan on sharing that story.  I was just going to give you my favorite verse and call it a day.  But, if you know me, I am very rarely a woman of few words!

The Doxology - AMEN!

Some days I just want to belt out the song that is known as the Doxology. I don't know why, it just feels right. It was my favorite part of the service when we attended a United Methodist church.  At the end of every service it is sung.  Today is one of those days!

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
Praise Him all creatures here below.
Praise Him above, ye Heavenly hosts
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Amen.

Thanks to all the soldiers

I have a friend whose husband has just left for a deployment that will ultimately take him to Kuwait (well, he's my friend too, but you know what I mean!).  I have been thinking of them and praying for them and all the other families who had to say goodbye from our region yesterday. 
Even though I blog, I also still keep a personal journal as well.  The following excerpt is from an entry in my personal journal on the day I left for Peru.  It has been on my mind today and decided to share it.

It was hard to leave the kids this morning...When I was on the train shuttling to my gate, there was a young soldier riding with me.  His face was solemn as he talked to the lady who was riding the train with him.  He said he wanted to get breakfast before he boarded, because he didn't think he would be able to eat on the rest of the flights over.  The way he said it made me think he didn't mean it was because food wouldn't be offered, but because he didn't think he would be physically able to handle it.  I am assuming he is being deployed somewhere, probably somewhere outside the states.  I followed him as he walked in that straight-backed, determined gait that soldiers often keep, even when it isn't required.  As I studied his back and his sober glances to his companion, I realized how selfish I am to be worried about leaving my kids for a week for a trip I chose to take.  This man may be facing the ultimate of unexpectedness and he has little choice at this point.  Since then I have seen several other soldiers in the airport and I have had to fight the urge to stop them and ask them where they are going and if I could pray for them.  Maybe I should.  I wish I would have thanked that young soldier on the train this morning, because even if he wasn't going overseas, he was serving our country.  He is serving for me and my family... Airports are interesting places.  We are here for different reasons, from different places, and arriving somewhere where we will part ways, probably forever, but for a few minutes or hours, we share common ground.

He does it again!

This post from Shaun Groves is a great description of how I have been feeling since returning, the transformation that is still in development and I hope is for a long time.

Then there were 3...

Well, Josh has succumbed to the cold that has visited our house through me.  The jury is still out about whether Bella is going to get it.  She sounds a little nasally, but she always does around this time of year and she isn't showing any signs that she is feeling bad - yet. Josh is plugging through, going to work as usual, but he is definitely moving slower and is a little grumpy about it!
Elias is home again from school, but he is in that stage where he no longer wants to be laying down and stuck in the house, but he still has a cough and sounds sick.  If I didn't care about the other kids in school getting sick from him, I would have definitely sent him today. 
I will be glad when we are all well again, but I am thankful that it is only a minor illness. 
We watched "To Save A Life" last night.  It was a movie that made me think yet again about how trivial we make serious things in life.  About how we spend so much time thinking about entertaining ourselves and finding our own success and happiness, sometimes at the expense of others, even in the church.  I would love to feel like I had never been on the offensive side - that I had never ignored or judged anyone, but I know too well that it isn't true. I am still digesting it and I hope that I won't forget about it anytime soon. It is one of few Christian films I have seen that shows a realistic view of what it means to have a relationship with God and have Christian fellowship, even with the American church's faults and foibles.  If you haven't seen it, I would strongly encourage you to watch it.

Doogie's Blog

I was driving home from the grocery store last night and was thinking about the blogs I have been reading lately.  Out of the blue, a scene popped into my head of Doogie from Doogie Howser, M.D. sitting down at his computer at the end of each episode.  Could Doogie have been the first blogger?  Just because I was curious and know that you can find pretty much anything on the internet, I googled "Doogie Howser's Journal" and this is what I found.  An actual blog of all of his entries.  Now I don't know if they are completely accurate, but they look about right.  - And I have no idea who had the time or the desire to make a blog from a t.v. show character's musings from 2 decades ago (ouch!  2 decades ago!  I am old!). I had forgotten that all of them were one to two line entries (something I would find next to impossible!).  

...And now, not only has someone taken the time to recreate Doogie's blog, but I have taken the time to look for it and blog about it...Now who is more pathetic?