Marketing Dinner

When last night at 5pm I didn't know what we were going to have for dinner, I pulled out my biggest silver mixing bowl and tossed in some ingredients. A few of my children walked by and wanted to know what I was cooking.   I honestly didn't know, because I was improvising with the 7 ounces of steak from yesterday's dinner.  I told them I was making "Happiness".  In retrospect, that does sound a little arrogant, but who can argue with a dish called "Happiness"?  Jane was pleased to help stir "Happiness" and her joy increased as I handed her eggs to crack, milk to pour, and cream cheeses to soften.  "Happiness" was becoming a frittata, but I was reluctant to tell my children.  With cheddar cheese, croutons, salsa, black-eyed peas, pepperoni, and chopped steak, "Happiness" was getting more eccentric and nearly ruined in my children's eyes.  I poured it in two glass pie pans and slid it into the oven.  Who knew you could bake happiness without sugar?  Alex, wanting to eat soon, asked when "Happiness" would be done, I philosophically told him when sadness was all gone.  Somehow that wasn't quite true,  when I pulled out the perfectly browned frittata 30 minutes later there was still immense sadness in the world.  However, a slice of happiness was served for dinner and changing its name helped it to be received with more thankfulness.   After a long day any mom could appreciate their kids saying, "Thanks for the Happiness."  Go on and market dinner.   If your kids are anything like mine, they are opinionated consumers and a product's name makes a big difference.

The Red Solo Cup

 

Sometimes the best gifts come in red solo cups. 

 

Aren't they gorgeous?

 

 

 

I want to be the wax

My ambition is simple.  Make me like the red Gouda cheese wrapper.  I want to be pliable in the light of the Son.  I want the Son to reshape the way I think so that I am kingdom molded. 

I want to let the gospel so impress me that I see the daily miracles God continues to bring about.  Make me a red wax arrow pointing to his Majesty.

I want to engage life before it happens and count myself blessed by God though my heart melts with fear, because his sure doesn't.  I want to live in God's presence and remain soft and trusting when life's rats have eaten up the cheese and all that remains is the wrapper.    

How beautifully Spurgeon said," The same sun which melts wax hardens clay."   

It is such a profound truth.  God has remade this once brittle clay which cracked when God's work was "absent" or (to stay in the same metaphor) when God's sun shone "too hot".  I have been where I extrapolated the evil that befell me and tried to make a better god in my image.  A wish granting god who with a 30 second chime removes the tears, the heartaches and the destruction.  When God didn't work the way I figured he should, I became sullen and angry.  How clay-like I was.  I was sun-baked and foolish.  Jesus already completed the victory on the cross.  Our faith should be fixed in what he did...we can't make a whole new gospel when we don't see him working. 

The truth of the matter is that when I look back, it was God who bore my faith through the shadow of doubt.  He persevered on my behalf when I couldn't.  He was always working.  Thank you, Jesus.

I delight in the fact that who I once was I am no longer.  The little clay god I made is broken shards scattered at my feet.   God has done what he can only do.  He is the great alchemist who takes worthless clay notions and changes them into gleaming wax, shaped by His hand.

9 Exuberant Years

the birthday girl

 

 

Wet head beauties

I have never met a nice dogcatcher

You may have just assumed that the post's title means...

All dogcatchers I know are mean.

But what if it meant?

I have never met a dogcatcher...Therefore, I have never met a nice dogcatcher.

Usually we take statements at their face value rather than start critical thinking.  The world is full of misleading information.  If we neglect to teach our children how to discern meaning in a confusing world, we make them vulnerable to those who would try to sway their convictions. 

Colossians 2:8 exhorts us: "See that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human traditions and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ." 

The belief that there is absolute truth is essential for logic.  A worldview without Christ is a worldview devoid of reason, because in relativism all notions are equally valid.  

I am so thankful that God is Truth.  I am so thankful that His Word is our authority. 

Colossians 2:2-4  "My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.  I tell you this so no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments."

So how do we teach our children sound judgment?  We lead them back to Christ.  We encourage them to know God better.  We don't encourage them with words alone, we live it out for them.  True knowledge and wisdom are gained by spending time with Him who is All-knowing and Wise.  We don't want the academic, heavy-head kind.  We want the faith-filled, tender heart kind. 

If we want wise children, if we want children that are not waylaid by the schemes of the devil, then Christ better be the focus of our eyes.  When we seek to know the Mind Maker, it is the natural outworking to have our minds transformed.  May we commune with God who delights in revealing the mystery of himself to us.

Forbid us, Lord, satisfaction in a substitute for Your Presence. Make known to us kingdom knowledge versus sham intellect.  Let us not morph back into an overly analytical people, but grant us the desire to move into obedience just because You say so.  May You speak 3 John 1:4 over this family, "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth." 

And Lord, catch the mongrel dogs that wish to maim and destroy the work you have begun in us.



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7 Years Richer

the birthday gal