Treasuring God in Our Traditions: A Recommendation

I'm starting to feel a little like Granger from Fahrenheit 451 piling up books in our house while everyone else lines their walls with 60 inch plasmas. We don't own a TV and its quite peaceful not having one. Wyatt has been reading voraciously and I have been picking up speed as of late.

Wyatt found me a nice hard backed copy of Treasuring God in Our Traditions by Noel Piper at Half Price Books. If you haven't been to a Half Price Books, you should go now if there is one in your area. We are lucky to have 7 stores nearby. Its become a line item in our monthly budget ringing in on average around $100.

I love a deal as you may know, so I usually browse the Clearance section and Wyatt heads straight to the Religion section. Some great finds so far: Synopsis of the Four Gospels, Church Dogmatics by Barth, Michaelangelo the Painter and other large print art books for $1, 3 Presbyterian Hymnals for $1, and several classic kids books $1 and last but not least...Your Best Life Now (Joel Olsteen). I am working on acquiring all the Canonical books for our home school. I'll post a list on that in the near future.

Now onto Treasuring God in Our Traditions (Read it free here). The best thing about this book is Noel's examples from her own life and practical ideas for developing your own traditions. She walks through the everyday traditions and also the especially traditions like Easter, Christmas, and Birthdays.

One anecdote that stuck out to me was John Piper singing to one of his sons the same short hymn every night since his son was just a baby. His son later remembered the red light from their German apartment he used to see while John sang and walked the halls with him when he was under 2. Its a good reminder that the everyday traditions we do with our children are being absorbed even now and are important to establish early on.

I am excited to take from her example's of creating traditions for Advent and Lent during the Christmas and Easter seasons. I did not grow up with these, but appreciate their meaning now and importance of developing these in my own families life. She also laces the book with family recipes, which I plan to try! Look for blogs on our family traditions in the near future.

Thought for the day: You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them. Ray Bradbury

Suffering and the Resurrection

It's Friday, but Sunday is coming. I went into labor on Good Friday unexpectedly as I guess most people go into labor unexpectedly. My hour had come and with it much, much pain. The number of verses in the Bible that compare sufferings to the pains of childbirth is astounding. They jump out at me now as I read the Bible daily because I can feel them.

Labor was incredibly painful for me possibly intensified by PIT and no medication and an end I did not want. I don't think I thought of the birth that was coming from the labor, the joy that was coming from the sorrow, the Resurrection that was coming after the Cross. John 16:21 When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.

I am very thankful that a week after Easter, I heard an incredibly powerful message by Gary Habermas. It was one of those times when you hear something at the exact moment you need it. I was still questioning why things happened the way they did and wallowing in the pain of my labor experience intensified by hormones.

Dr. Habermas gave an address on the resurrection unlike any I had ever heard. It was incredibly applicable to our lives and deeply moving because of his own story of unexpectedly losing his wife to cancer at a young age. ***UPDATE: This is the message I heard*** It builds as it goes, so I highly recommend that you listen to his message in entirety on Suffering and Doubt (HERE...click play Jutebox)

Where would you be if it weren't for the resurrection of Jesus? Gary was asked by one of his former grad students during his worst kind of suffering he could imagine (his wife suffering and dying of cancer), "Did God raise His Son from the dead?" God watched while his Son died the most agonizing death you can think of. Do you expect better than Jesus received, God's only son? Should we suffer less than Jesus?

Another key take away from his message that he says is what you will spend thousands of dollars for modern psychologists to tell you---The most painful thing that will happen to you is not what occurs to you, its what you tell yourself about what occurs to you. After that message, I did not feel anguish over my c-section again. I stopped telling myself negative things about what happened. Instead I counted my blessings one by one. I acknowledged that the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh, blessed be the name of the Lord. I took hope in the resurrection.

Quote for the Day: "This is a world where we suffer and a world where we dont always know why things happen. But this a world where there is a resurrection and a world where there is a heaven." Gary Habermas

I Cancelled Our Netflix Subscription Today

A Land Rover nearly side swiped me today after doing a ridiculous U-turn on a busy road. Wyatt told me to honk at people so they realize that they are doing something wrong. So I honked and the teenage boy driving the vehicle flicked me off and threw a piece of gum out of his sun roof onto my car.

The more fruit I see from wealth the less I desire it. I don't want to make decisions now that will have my daughter cruising carelessly in a BMW and treating people disrespectfully. I don't want to take a step down the road that gives us a mortgage payment indenturing us to a company. I don't want to selfishly pile up money in a 401k to have it drop 50% in one year.

I thank God for a renewal of my Spirit. For reminding me His Word should be directing my living from how I spend my time to how I educate my children to how I spend my money. I was listening to a talk on Sarah Edwards given by Noel Piper today that you can find here. She was the wife of Jonathan Edwards, a great Puritan preacher and theologian to say the least. I am humbled by her example of raising children and managing a household.

As a result of these things, I decided to cancel our Netflix subscription. Ten dollars a month certainly isnt breaking the bank and I do enjoy foreign film and documentaries...but I don't have the time for it. Looking forward to more transformation by the Word.

34 Weeks and Still Kicking

Wyatt's Nikon D70 conveniently broke last week, so we upgraded to the Nikon D80 just in time for maternity and baby pictures. Hopefully I will have some more shots up soon after he plays around with it a bit more. Tae Kwon Do is a good stress reliever in the final weeks of pregnancy. Actually I am just recreating scenes from inside my belly for Wyatt.

Two Sweet Desserts from your Pantry

I have been posting delinquent for quite some time. Blogging hasn't been a high priority with moving, working full time, and getting ready to have a baby in 8 weeks. I have had a few recipe successes that I wanted to share and record for myself for future use.

I am always looking for incredibly easy recipes that can be made entirely from your pantry and are delicious...so if you have any send them my way. The Pioneer Woman has an out of control blog that posts step by step photos of each recipe she does. She posted Baked Fudge a week or so ago that takes about 5 mins to assemble and uses just eggs, sugar, cocoa powder, flour, butter, and vanilla. The result reminded me of Roy's Chocolate Souffle I posted on several several months back except with much less leg work. I highly recommend this for an instant chocolate fix. I would also like to give a shout out to the PW's homeschooling blog if your interested in that kind of thing.

A friend posted a link to a recipe on Williams-Sonoma on Facebook, so I decided to check out the site. It has an awesome database of recipes that I wasn't aware of! Shortbread is one of my favorite cookies because it is a perfect accompaniment to my favorite beverage tea. This recipe takes 5 minutes and is great for a last minutes dessert using only butter (of course), confectioners sugar, sugar, vanilla, flour, and salt. Check it out here: Scotch Shortbread. I am looking forward to trying some of their seafood recipes in the near future.

I'm not big on kitchen gadgets, but I saw the Misto listed as one of the must have items for the kitchen in some magazine. It essentially pumps to spray any oil you like. Mine is stocked with olive oil, since I now spray it on veggies, meat, bread instead of the drizzle I used to do. You can get one on Amazon or Bed, Bath, and Beyond. If you do get one, the trick to keeping it in top notch shape, is to release the pressure on can after each use. My baked fudge timer went off, so I have to stop blogging. Bon Appetit.




Thought for the Day: We are living in a world today where lemonade is made from artificial flavors and furniture polish is made from real lemons.
~Alfred E. Newman