I read all the posts my friend cara puts on her blog and i’m extremely woeful of my lack of things to post. i had a good weekend… anniversary celebration with jj on friday, wedding with friends from ou on saturday, pizza and cards with my folks saturday night, breakfast with one of my youth kids on sunday AM and lots of napping and lounging today (with an attempt at cinnamon rolls with spelt flour that i believe failed miserably).
a note about the spelt flour. it’s healthy for you. better than wheat- not as heavy. but you can’t used it in a cinnamon roll recipe or anything that in general is designed to be unhealthy for you at its core. muffins? maybe. a good wheat bread? sure. cinnamon rolls? no. just accept the sugary fact along with the melted butter and sugary goodness that you intended when you decided upon cinnamon rolls as your baked good.
i wish i had more thoughts. i might later. i’ve been pondering palm sunday today and wondering why i feel like i missed something… maybe after some reflection i’ll post again.
Author: Michele Minehart (Page 306 of 311)
aleena was born at 1 am today- sharing a birthday with my mom. everything went ok, sarah’s doing good. i can’t wait till i get to visit with this new little niece of mine!! i must say a highlight of the whole experience is my saintly mother-in-law and her sheer love for sarah and this new grandbaby. it’s so exciting to see. its very different from the grandma marj love that i’ve seen thus far… it’s hard to explain. but it’s beautiful.
it’s also straight up crazy that this thing, that for 9 months has only been an idea- “the baby”- is now a person. she’s got personality, she’s got life of her own. crazy. now, when it comes to the nature/nurture debate, i seem to fall pretty heavy on the nurture side- i feel we are products of our environment. but yet little aleena is not just some lifeless piece of clay ready to be molded, though surely her experiences will shape her. she’s very much a distinct creation of God’s own work. amazing.
i just sent kristy an im yesterday asking if we really can imagine things we’ve never seen. for instance, when i call people for work i try to imagine what they look like. i was imagining one man yesterday and then it struck me that he looked distinctly like larry hays, a friend from 7th grade. i thought, “is it even possible for me to create in my head an image that has not been influenced by the other things i know?” i don’t think it is. or, if it is possible, it’s a gift, which is probably why i’m jealous of most artists.
but the crazy thing is, God does this on a daily, if not hourly basis. he creates, not just based on what he knows, but on what he wants to give. wow, i’m having a deja vu moment, because that phrase came to me in a dream earlier this week and it’s just coming to me. crazy. but back to it. God doesn’t have Larry Hays on the brain when he creates Aleena. He creates Aleena based upon himself. isn’t that phenomenel?
i feel the need to explain my deja vu phrase, “God creates, not just based on what he knows, but on what he wants to give.” its like, God’s creativity isn’t hindered because he’s made 867 children this way, so the next one will be like it. God doesn’t fall prey to the “its just the way it is”. instead, he loves and creates because it’s what he does. not in the “i don’t want to give you a nose, so i won’t” kind of way, but more like when a little child paints a picture and i suddenly have blonde hair instead of red, because that’s what the kid wants to give me. it’s how s/he sees me. it’s like an unhindered view of true beauty. that’s what God has.
man, i wish i had an artistic spirit.
open season. today was the first run of spring. it’s march, spring must surely be coming- the snow was even starting to melt. it was a good day for a run.
I must say, however, it was a very different run than what i’m used to. it’s been nearly 5 months of running indoors on a treadmill. in many ways this run was easier- i run faster on a treadmill, for longer, so i was barely tired when i got home (good news for the may 3rd quatro miler). on the other hand, it was much harder. some of it was dodging the not-melted patches of snice (snowy-ice mix, you know). some of it was not thinking about how cold my toesies were from not being able to dodge the last huge 3 mile puddle. some of it was worrying about how much mud roxanne would bring home with her. and last but not least was avoiding the spray from the semis going too fast down sandusky ave (i felt very “Forrest Gump” as i wiped my brow).
but the better runs are always outdoors. the challenge for me today was getting me out the door. i really wouldn’t’ve (it’s officially a word!) if Kristy hadn’t called me and told me i had to.
So as i ran, i was thinking- as is my custom- mostly about some of the reading i’ve been doing. today’s was a huge hunk of Joseph’s life. i’ve been stuck in jacob’s life, but finally yesterday emerged into Joseph and his technicolor dreamcoat. specifically how his brothers sold him to egypt but God watched over him and all but handed over the entire kingdom of egypt to joseph. this is because joseph was a dream-reader and new a famine was coming, so he saved grain during the years of plenty (probably a whole other post, btw).
so my first question was, “why did God give the message to the egyptians, rather than the israelites?” yes, i know, it has something to do with Joseph and “God’s plan”- but that’s the easy way out. throughout the rest of the story, God always gives the isrealites the inside scoop of what’s coming, but this time he told Pharoah. and Joseph became all but an egyptian- complete with egyptian wives.
From this question emerges my sympathy for jacob. he spent most of his live wondering around, working off 2 wives (one of which he didn’t even want) and trying to get back home to Cannon to live in the promised land of his father. he finally gets there. life is good (except for the heartache of loosing joseph, of course). he’s ready to die a semi-happy man.
but God brings upon a famine and joseph gets the whole family to move to Goshen (which is also a township in ohio). WHY??? WHY DOES JACOB HAVE TO GO? why does God do this?
he was living in cannon, the land of his fathers, the land which GOD HIMSELF promised him he would possess. it’s been good to him up to this point- great livestock, lots of money- when they move to goshen, they are rich. they’re just grainless.
but then i think about jacob. he’s ready to die a semi-happy man. he did a few notable things, one being that he turned his life around from the liar he started out to be, but probably doesn’t live up to the standard of grandpa abraham.
so this is my pondering: was cannon too comfortable? i haven’t gotten to this part yet (recently), but i think we’ll see a little bit of that after the exodus- the land flowing with milk and honey becomes a little to cushy and the people of God forget where they’ve come from.
i wonder if that’s the case here with jacob. life was a little too good.
it’s like spending too many months on a treadmill. the run outside will do you good. it works a few different muscles (specifically when you get to those hills!). it makes you consider other elements.
obviously, this could have great personal implications. but my life hasn’t been “cozy” lately, so i’ll take it a different direction. how’s life been for the Church? are we experiencing Cannon? i don’t really think we can honestly say we’ve endured much persecution (when you put it on a scale with underground house churches in asia). i wonder if maybe we’re living in comfy land, running on a treadmill with no wind or puddles to think about, but all the time we should be getting ready for a tougher run outside.
or better yet, let me take it this route: what about america, land of the free, home of the brave. aren’t we mostly a land flowing with milk and honey? what might that mean? (yeah, that was only partially a question).