pamela – Page 88 – The Welcome Home

a brief update

I’m happy to share that the list service that helped me with The Welcome Home messages in the past will also be helping me with the new: Letters To My Sisters email letter subscriptions.

This, from our website…
letters header small

More Information here.
Letters To My Sisters will be much like The Welcome Home
messages I used to send to subscribers.

And as for our friend’s wedding… well, it was so beautiful… more on that later! This morning found us sort of dragging and slow. After the mountain of table linens and towels is conquered, I’ll post a note and some pictures. I’m grateful for the many who prayed us through the week, through the baking, through the storm and electrical outage… and then for all who helped us with the wedding and reception. God is so faithful and careful with us – each one.

link for spanish to english translator

If your spanish (or other language, for that matter) skills are not sharp and if you need to have something translated, click this link: http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en

I received a letter this morning and wanted to be sure of the precise translation. Now, it’s a word-for-word translation and so doesn’t “read well” but you’ll get the gist of the matter. I only say this for impersonal letters… getting the gist of something is not the same as getting the literal intended meaning. Many things get lost in “translation.”

This wasn’t intended to veer toward Bible translations or interpretations or paraphrases… but I see some similarities and the extreme liberties taken these days.

upcoming subscriber letters

Dear Sisters
Are you feeling alone and in need of inspiration for the task the LORD has given you as a wife, mother and handmaiden of the LORD? Are you in a place that seems difficult, without mentors or encouragement for the narrow path ahead? Perhaps you are what might be called a “first generation Christian” and perhaps you’ve had few role models or godly examples of just how to be a loving mother, how to live and dress modestly, how to care for and love your children or what it is to be a keeper at home. You simply may be looking for some sweet kindred fellowship from someone who’s walking along the same narrow path and can share in the joys and laughter, tears and sorrows, highlights and low-points of marriage, motherhood and homemaking and keeping. That’s the reason for the writing and sending of Letters To My Sisters. I know I sure need inspiration and encouragement for the tasks at hand and I pray the LORD will use experiences and inspiration to be that for others.

If you received TheWelcomeHome messages I used to write and send to subscribers in the past, these letters will be in much the same format.

If you would like to receive Letters To My Sisters, you may subscribe and the letters will come by email to your inbox.

To *subscribe, please email http://freegroups.net/groups/letterstomysisters/

blessings,

a few slices

This has been a week where things just don’t go how I thought they might, or how I hoped they wouldn’t (yes, I thought about that wording ~wink~). Things are actually coming together so nicely. Wedding cakes are baked and frozen… ready and waiting for me to frost on Friday and assemble on Saturday. As the wedding day for our friends draws near and we’re making much ado about everything — it seems like just yesterday this wedding was a long, long way off.

In the midst of all the hustle and bustle, Wes and I made a quick run up to Canada today to see our new friend in the dental business and ~~lavished him with spending money for Christmas~~ had more dental work done — more stuff that can’t be seen but mattered a lot and bcz we drive so far, I make two appointments and sometimes more for the same day (yes, 6 fillings — I’m a glutton for punishment!). One phrase I don’t know if I like hearing… it goes something like this: “At your age, old fillings begin to fail and crowns, too.” They went on to tell me this is the best time to have them replaced. You know… I was thinking: You’re right. What was I thinking. This is exactly what I want to be doing right about now. So.. drill away! In the end… I was happy to know I could say: see you next year!

When we returned home, our children had lots of cleaning and decorating surprises for us. I’ll just say that it’s been many, many years since we’ve had traditional decorations—some years, very few decorations at all—well, by comparison, we sure do, now! It’s really quite fun and a neat change of pace. What’s most important, and the best part of all, is that *they* are sooo pleased and enthusiastic! So… nothing’s the same and everything’s better and the days are sweet around here. This is what I want them to remember and treasure in their hearts… that home is/was sweet.

This next bit came from Jenny… very funny and, like her, I laughed out loud at #9. I’m pretty sure I often fit in that category.

CHRISTMAS CAROLS FOR THE DISTURBED

1. Schizophrenia — Do You Hear What I Hear?
2. Multiple Personality Disorder — We Three Kings Disoriented Are
3. Dementia — I Think I’ll be Home for Christmas
4. Narcissistic — Hark the Herald Angels Sing About Me
5. Manic — Deck the Halls and Walls and House and Lawn and Streets and Stores and Office and Town and Cars and Buses and Trucks and Trees and…..
6. Paranoid — Santa Claus is Coming to Town to Get Me
7. Borderline Personality Disorder — Thoughts of Roasting on an Open Fire
8. Personality Disorder — You Better Watch Out, I’m Gonna Cry, I’m Gonna Pout, Maybe I’ll Tell You Why
9. Attention Deficit Disorder — Silent night, Holy – oooh look at the kitty – can I have a chocolate – why is France so far away?
10. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder — Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle,Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells , Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells…

O, and one more neat thing…

The aprons we’ll be selling in our “soon to be launched” online store have come in and they are wonderful! We’re closer by the day to linking TheWelcomeHome.com store. Also… several women have signed up to receive the weekly online letters that I’ll begin sending in January… sort of like the Welcome Home letters I used to send. So… bizzy, bizzy, bizzy — and joyful, too!

This week’s great honour…

I’m grateful to have the great privilege of making the cake for our precious friend’s wedding this weekend. It is with great joy and honour that we anticipate this wedding for Andrew and Gen. As we make plans for their wedding and reception and all the details that need to be taken care of, I’m continually asking the LORD for guidance and strength that each detail and need will be met and filled and that we will be used of the LORD to contribute what’s needed to make the day a delight to them and a blessing to all who attend.

So… I’m having cake decorating dreams. I only wish I had videos of the ones where the cake looks nothing like anything I would ever be capable of making… but in the dreams the cakes look fabulous. And the equipment I have in my dreams is incredible! It’s sort of feeling like anticipating a birth: all the dreams are of labours and babies and amazing feats one could never accomplish without the blessing, presence and guidance of the LORD. So the wedding!
I will post pictures when it’s all said and done. Only the groom has been told of the plan for the cake… the bride does not know the plans for what the cake will look like – nor its shape or design. I hope I get it right. ~smile~ If I keep drinking too much coffee… it might not have nice lines though.

I cracked up when I got this one… someone must’ve had a not so hidden message for me!

drink coffee

Gleaning from the field of the LORD

God is good all the time…. ALL of the time, in all places for all time: God is the great I AM.

When I traveled a bit north to join other sisters in the LORD at a wonderful Titus2 meeting this past Thursday evening, I wasn’t actually aware at that point what the next few days would bring — and yet, the LORD, in His mercy, ordered up the days and provided all that was needed — I see that so well now. We had unexpected guests stay with us for a few days and many “things on the docket.” I pray the LORD will use all the events, conversations and times we spent together to help me grow in faith and apply what I was to glean and to discard or set aside whatever else for another time. I wish I’d worked more diligently to keep Titus2.3-5 in mind so that as each event happened I might have asked: how can this or that be used to help me love my husband, love my children and be a keeper at home? How can all of these things be sorted and applied that I would take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ—and more, how can I cast down imaginations and every high thing… In all I want my life to be a living sacrifice—and if that’s true (and it is), what can I take and use from the days just spent?

It seems that when there are multiple events, and varied ones at that, much of the “good things” are buried and over days must be decompressed, revisited and sorted out. That’s what this week seems to hold, I suppose. And as I work at the many things that need to be done this week, I pray to not let go of what I had in my hand last week or that if the needful of this week fills my basket, I don’t just dump it all. ~wink~

The LORD continues to teach me to trust in Him for the ordering of the days and as I had particular plans that had to be altered or put off, I saw that I needed to fully rely on Him and trust that His will was being done and I sought to be obedient to that. I was overwhelmed by either what was going on at the moment or by thoughts of things that needed to be done. In a few different moments of weariness, I didn’t retain the necessary guard to guide my thoughts and words and I found myself murmuring over unimportant things or being touchy about words and opinions and needed to just remember (1Thessalonians) prove all things and hold fast to the good. And now… as I look back I say: omygoodness, and aren’t we just closing out the study of 1Corinthians? Aren’t we just studying about bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things,enduring all things — suffering long and being charitable? O, how dull of hearing I am.

I share all this bcz I can see that for women – surely myself included, the mind is, or can be, quite a messy battlefield at times. At yet another gathering — this time, hundreds of believers at a memorial service last night, I was talking with a sister in the LORD and after talking of floods, rain and snow and God’s care and provision through each, we compared that to ways the enemy comes in like a flood to attempt to thwart what God is doing in and through a life. I hadn’t seen this sister in the LORD in quite awhile and she was asking me about letters I used write and I told her that I hadn’t done them in quite some time. I explained that it was ironic that she was asking about them and shared that I was intending to begin sending them out again very soon. I told her I’d allowed the enemy to thwart the work that had been ongoing and she shared that she, too, had done a similar thing regarding ministry the LORD had given her to do. She had listened to the lies of the enemy and had backed off from some important things and she and I both concluded that there will be people who will not like us, not agree with us but that we cannot be derailed or flooded out by their thoughts toward or about us. Rather, we must weigh what is said against what God has said and search out the truth and obey His leading and be forbearing with those who disagree with us and just continue traveling the path the LORD has set before us.

Many good things are covered up — covered up by lies of the enemy, by busyness, by poor planning, by “weariness in well-doing” or even by more good things! As I sort out the good things and sift out the difficulties and lift out the needful, I pray to share the blessings of the LORD as these are and have been wonderful days. So, again… I want to glean day by day from the field of the LORD.

more stunners

You know… you just couldn’t make this stuff up.

Could this scenario be coming soon to a church near you?

Incredible. Really, incredible. Here’s one… the Granger Community Church event. How about a U2charist ?
Really, I couldn’t make this up.

You’ve heard me say many times, if I keep shaking my head like this, it’s going to come clean off. And, there are some who probably wish that would happen and I’d stop talking about all the incredible, blasphemous things going on.

Turning to the local Christian music station this afternoon and hearing a song about the grinch, “You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch.” One of my daughters commented, did they run out of meaningful Christmas carols?

Thanks…

for the comments and personal letters regarding this blog.

I’ll get back to writing about stuff from the home-front and slices of life. And there’s much to say – much to write. But, mygoodness, there is so much going on that it seems it begs to be revealed. At least that’s how it seems to me, anyway.

So, for now… the links on this blog have apparently been restored, I’ve corrected a bunch of dead links on the ACH website (a seemingly never ending activity) and added some new articles and modest clothing sites along with suggestions for stuff to do. We’ve got a full plate—probably very much like you: many things need to be done before the day’s over and we fall into bed to rest up for the full days ahead.

But thanks for dropping by to read. I know it’s a downer to keep reading about the incredible activities of factions in the church. It’s hard to not comment—really hard. May the LORD help us all.

O, church… watch and listen.

Can’s sleep tonight. I don’t know if I had too much coffee or read too much or listened to too much today. It’s probably a combination of the three… but… sleep eludes me tonight. So much is going on!! I am completely astonished—really. I say to myself over and over… how bad are things going to get. What will things look like when they get there? It’s amazing to me the incredible break-neck speed at which things are hurling concerning the state of affairs in the church today and all that’s going on.

Concerned with temporal things, seduced by the arrogance of witty inventions, robed in carnality and swaying to the beat of the world, the church is gorging on spiritual junk food, getting fat and growing broad on fizzy-sweet, provocative and seemingly sumptuous faire. All the while cancer is spreading, eating away at the heart and mind of the sick, grossly inflated body. Anesthetized by seductive messages, the pain of the slow death is masked and the damage pervades and has begun to saturate the body, dull the thinking and blind the eyes.

Really. This is the state of the church in America.
The gimme-what-I-want and tell-me-what-I-want-to-hear and let-me-dance-at-my-own-pace-to-the-beat-of-my-own-drum church…
The: Yes, I know it’s not all about me. I know it’s all about what I think about me and what I think about what I want and how I am going to get it.
That’s a lot of the church.

Consider a book that’s coming out in the Spring of ’07. Here’s a write up of the book: “Sex God – Exploring the Endless Connections between Sexuality and Spirituality” – if you didn’t read The Velvet Elvis book by the same, you might not presently be as alarmed as you will be when you do read or learn of the contents of the book. And if you don’t know what’s being said and taught in the paradigm-blaster churches around the country and what’s being shipped around the world, then you are in for a stunner at what you’ll encounter. When you click links on the biggies websites… you’ll be nothing short of amazed—well, maybe not as amazed as you would be were you to actually attend the ‘services’ offered. So I’d suggest attentive awareness.
That, or you might be pulled into the abyss of misinformation and delusional teachings. “Go carefully” is an admonition I read fairly often. It becomes more apropos with each passing day.

Grief. LORD, how long?

O, that men would praise the LORD for His wonderful works…
O, that men would turn from their ways and acknowledge the LORD.

As I mull over the things I’ve been reading and listening to over the last several days, I’m thinking: What?!?!?! I ache over the profound effect of the great departing of the truth and faith in God—

If you’re listening to what’s being said, you’ll hear a tremendous outcry and tremendous outpouring of sudden empathy for the plight of millions. A sudden call to responsibility for the problems of the world (as if they recently came to be and that *no* believer has ever heard about this problem called poverty, homelessness or aids).

Poverty is not the world’s greatest problem. And disease is not the second greatest problem. No. They great problem of the world is that the world is separated from God and that more and more man serves gods of his own creation and even the “church” is turning its back on God. I started out writing an entry on the fallacy that the church needs to be one of the legs of the three-legged stool that ends world poverty and aids and yada, yada, yada.

I wrote a long bit last night and I’ll post it in a bit — suffice it to say, it’s not the responsibility of the church to “end world hunger.” Noble as doing so might seem, that’s not the job of the church. Jesus gave the great commission and it is this:

All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”
Matthew 28.18-20 KJ

The headlines today are as ridiculous as the content of the news articles themselves. Truthy stuff at that. The more you see stuff the less apt you’ll be to reject it—or at least that’s how you’re supposed to react, anyway; that’s the dialectic praxis.

As Christians slowly slide into the ~~pews~~ multi-purpose chairs of the void of understanding in buildings ignorant of biblical Truth, and as society continues to feed on truthy stuff, we’re all going to suffer more and more the consequences of a people who have turned their backs on God. I grieve today how sickening the ways of society have become and continue to decline. A headline reads: “Mary Cheney and Partner about to become Moms.” Sad. Sad that women have so lost their way –they don’t even know. Sad that men have so lost their way that they don’t know what they’re supposed to do or who they’re supposed to be and both and given into sin to the point they’re immersed in delusion—aided by a deluded society, people that have to defend the sinful actions of others in order that their personal acts of choice may be preserved. Those two women are no more married than two plates or two spoons or two chairs—or two men. And, sadly, the sire of the child is not even acknowledged—no one gasps that TWO WOMEN are becoming moms. The truthiness of the deal is that they are parents. They are not parents… yes, she’ll likely bear a child, but they are not a married couple and cannot create life. They are not the parents of a child—not in a strict sense—though they will go through the motions of attempting to parent the child. And the watching world doesn’t gasp?
May God help us. What an affront to all those who’ve sought to walk honestly, morally and faithfully and with reverence: obeyed the commands of the LORD. I’m sorry to all those who’ve kept and cared for their babies, who’ve persevered and seek to honour the LORD. To those who’ve not gone the way of lies and destruction. I’m sorry to all the mothers who love the LORD, love their husbands and love their children—the women who are learning to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. T2.3-5 May their lives be blessed and not lived in vain.

So then… for whatever reason, God is allowing a life to be formed within Mary Cheney. Dialectic praxis says: she’s a good person, she deserves to be happy, she has a right to do what she wants. I guess I could just go along and not point out the fact that no matter what they say, they’re not married — that they are not both going to become Moms—not in the truest sense of the word. But then, to just go along to get along would be akin to joining and perpetrating the lie. Truth is, that one is pregnant and the other shares the same address and they say they are partners. Okay. Businesses do that. It seems it’d be so easy just to go along with it all and not make waves, not comment on the blasphemous state of affairs and not be grieved over the vast darkness of our land and arrogance of sin. Wouldn’t it be so right to just accept everyone, peacefully coexisting with the evil in the land—you know… can’t we all just get along?

I pray the LORD’s will be done. Then the opening of a Reuter’s piece: “Leaders of the Conservative Jewish movement opened the door on Wednesday to the ordination of gay rabbis and the recognition of gay marriage, but made it clear the more orthodox in the faith may go on opposing such liberalization.”

O, how I pray: the LORD’s will be done.