Arise, my soul to meet the challenge of the day!

I am praying for you and for me to rise to the challenge, today! Somedays this is easy. Somedays we are limping through, with little vigor and expectation. I pray that God will give great joy in His presence today. This is hard to find, if one is not in the presence of God on a regular basis.

We have seasons of life where this is the most important thing to us. Then, we have deceptions that whisper of its lack of importance. I needn't prioritize worship so highly, these deceptions whisper and if heeded, they yell. Help us Lord to shake off the guilty fears. Help us to see the importance of worship as our most important love interest.

If we put this in our pocket then when we pull out our priorities they will fall out in tact. If not it cuts the connector of our priorities and they fall out all over the place. Scattered priorities aren't pretty and sometimes we can't get them back together for a long while!

God grant us the presence of mind to know how important the worship of God is and give us the determination to keep it the highest of all in our hearts and mind. In Jesus' Name, Amen.

Leading us through the mist!

It was a slightly misty morning.  I am more happy to take the babies out on a misty morning, than on a heat advisory morning.  They looked at me like it was snow to the rooftops, the babies did.  The very same babies that love to go outside on a sunny day, were afraid of the mist.  Not all two year olds, they had learned a fear of the mist, similar to my problem with the fog.  It took ten minutes and they were completely engrossed in this new and wondrous element.   The bubbles mostly fall to the ground and few of them fly.

We stomped the bubbles, instead of chasing them.  The clothes were soaked by the time we got inside and the shoes were sopping.  We overcame a huge fear of mist, I hope.

Baby Brother must learn to respect his elders?

I was grieved in my spirit by the tone of voice that Ezra used with Enoch in trying to get into the car. I understand that he was trying to expedite the process, but the tone would have gotten him a swift bop, had he been born into my family.

I know that there are verbal ways to establish this truth into the soul, but grown-up brother doesn't defend his respectful position, as he ought, in my opinion. Another elder or larger person would have taken offense to the tone of talk and perhaps this is a reason that he isn't doing better in school. Perhaps there are no decorum rules of respect in his heart and mind at all.

"What's it to ya! Get out of my way! So what!" If these are his defense mechanisms and outbursts, he may get a black eye or 2 to help him understand manners. I hope not. I hope that there is a way to civilize this little barbarian, before life has to.

Coup de Tat-- My Queen Deposed!

The beauty of the Spaniard was my only comfort, as I watched the vanquishing of my "reigning" Queen Serena! I am in Tennis agony, as it were. She has sat upon her throne, virtually unscathed, until yesterday.

A thorough spanking it was, in straight sets. It sent my good woman, though probably not dispondant, for she made a very good showing; she better get some practice sessions in, before their next meeting, which will probably be at Wimbledon.

Garbine is a wonder on the court. Her legs don't seem to have to be on the ground when she makes contact with the ball. She seems to have overcome the nervous choke that beat her, last year at Wimbledon. So the season has much to anticipate in the possible complete wall of protection from the breaking of the absolute record, which seemed totally inevitable, last year, to the unchallenged real Queen of the Modern Tennis Era!

The good thing is that the Queen may not retire this year and we may have some time, to watch her get back up on her throne, this season.

Happiest Mothers Day!

Where are my scissors?

A Soft Word Turns Away Wrath

How many times have we discussed this?  Why is it that you find it necessary to holler about stuff like where your scissors are, etc.?

A gentile North Carolina girl learns to discuss matters in a soft tone.  They indirectly touch at the emotion of the situation, without resorting to the guttural nature of hollering.  I say, they save the guttural for the tennis courts.  These are the same women who find strength in grunting at their backhand crosscourt shot.

I find this a guttural practice, myself.  Still, I can see the effectiveness of evoking an intimidation response from your opponent.  You stand there and say, is that going to be a harder ball to return?  You really do, but if it's not followed by power, it serves the opposite purpose.  It serves to create an anger and intensity that it wasn't supposed to,  at least in my heart.  The intensity that it produces is not usually an easy one to overcome.

Anyway, keep it down in the morning about your, stupid scissors. Would you?

Learning to appreciate the Bodden eccentricities

I am so glad that you asked me about our family dynamic. Mu, Ruth and her sisters and friends and my mother's life and then my sisters' love dynamic is a history that I really don't want you to forget, even if you are far from experiencing it first hand. We are always inebriated by something. I had never really thought about that aspect of our family. I have done some to keep myself from being a chemical dependent, but I still carry the family habit of overdoing it. Religion and worship are something to do and overdo and we do that too. The Bible says, "do not be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit..." It is as though God saw our family love experience and allowed that verse to be penned so that we could translate our love talk from alcohol to the Holy Spirit. Let the bottles on the table that we consume be the Holy Spirit. I remember walking into Aunt Ju's house and she said did you hear Larnelle's new song. We drank that bottle together and rejoiced together as though we were drunk. I wish that for you and your sisters and brothers. Don't be a distant bunch. Enter each others' lives and dance through your seasons in the Holy Spirit. Don't think that the solution to chemical inebriation is stoicism. It is Holy Spirit giddyism. I love you for listening to my story of driving Ruth's drunk self home.

I hope you didn't take our talk, last night...

as dissing motherhood?

I love getting to talk to you as a grown woman. You have a way of challenging my thinking and getting me to say things I probably would never say to anyone else. That is the joy of mother daughter discussions. I was 25 starting out as a mother. I am grateful for a wonderful church home and great husband to assist this endeavor. It still was the hardest thing I have ever done.
My sister Amy helped me to see that when you have alot of children, people think you think it is easy. They minimize what you say, if they have had a hard time, in some cases. It is not easy, in the best cases. It is difficult and takes a committed relationship and Christ's intervention at all stages, to give strength and guidance. We had some of the best!
We had some of the best preaching and instruction. We had some of the best fellowship with people of the same ambitions. We had some of the best discussions with each other about what we wanted and we still fell short.
Aging is about looking back and seeing where the resources were spent wisely and unwisely. Issues of women and men's roles and child rearing guidance was the greatest treasure anyone can ever have. We say to ourselves, where did we spend it?

For, I suffer a woman not to preach, nor to usurp authority...

Embracing the power of the womanly dominion of the spiritual warfare is a mighty thing, daughter. Don't you see how very tempting it is to snatch the scepter of authority in the church and the home from father and husband and preachers and pastors and take them unto ourselves as though they belong to us. Oh, how we moan that we weren't called to lead in such ways!

Motherhood, sisterhood and wifing are such strong responsibilities that God has called us to undertake, that He had to undergird our calling with strong prohibitions to taking up other "callings". You are called for a purpose to glorify God in your body. A woman's body, a sensitive and spiritual body for God's glory. Working and clearing and cleaning and praying and fighting the spiritual warfare, for the glory of God! We knead the words and precepts of God, deep into the souls of our near and dear and pray for the increase and like the ground we, either are fruitful in our dealings or fallow. God help us be fruitful for Christ's sake! Amen.!

Christmas 08