Skipping Church

It is often a struggle for me to find clothes that still fit that I consider to be suitable for church. That is the biggest source of frustration for me on the weekends. Lately, I have been hoping for a reason to stay home, besides “I can’t find clothes that fit.”

I am so glad I resisted the overwhelming urge to stay home this morning. It is so nice to get together with my church family! Almost as soon as I get there, I ask myself why I think so little of them that I assume they’ll think less of me because I look like a slob.

There was someone else in Sunday School who didn’t want to come to church this morning but her husband made her come. He thought it would be good for her to get out while he stayed home with the sick kid. I felt ashamed when she said why she hadn’t wanted to come. She said she didn’t want to come this morning because this is a very hard time for her. Today is the anniversary of the day her -4 months preborn little girl was pronounced dead several years ago. I remember when that happened, but I hadn’t made the connection with Valentine’s Day, which was the week before we heard about the baby. Our Sunday School class had a Valentine’s activity which she and her husband had attended and everyone thought she was so cute and pregnant looking. We were excited for them as they had not been able to have children the old fashioned way. I’m glad she came today so that we could tell her how much we love her. She’s one of those people who is direct, outspoken and witty. Rare is the person who does not like her.

In Sunday school today, we talked about Colossians 3:5-11.

Colossians 3:5-11 (New International Version)

5Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.^[a] 7You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. 11Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

It’s interesting that Greg Laurie’s “The Ten Commandments” series relates to pretty much the same thing.

The service was pretty good, too. The choir sang a medley of old stuff which my Grandma used to sing. Some of it was exhilarating.

You know, some worship teams just about drown out the congregation. At our church, it’s the other way around. At our church, the only difference between the congregation and the choir, for the most part, is the number of voices. The singing is great. People sing like they’re happy to be there. (Probably because they are!)

The sermon was from Genesis 22.

“How Do We Worship God By Faith?”

I. Learn to focus on God’s promises, not His explanations.

Abram set out on his adventure without knowing when God would fulfill his promise to make him into a great nation. He didn’t do it in Abram/Abraham’s lifetime, but He did do it. He is faithful.

II. Focus on God’s power and not our own resources.

2 Corinthians 12:9

9But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

III. Focus on God’s purpose, not my own desire.

I can’t remember how he expounded on this but I will say that I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard people say that if someone’s good at something, they should be allowed to do it.

See? An alert reader applies that to a number of situations that we can do but shouldn’t necessarily be allowed to do. I could eat a half dozen cream filled doughnuts. Should I? Only if I want to spend the rest of the week with my head in the toilet!

God has a plan for us and we need to be willing to give up our own desires in case God has something better in mind. Since we mere mortals aren’t all-knowing, we need to consider yielding our wills to Someone who is.

In Conclusion, when we do those things, we develop a greater love for God as well as a greater dependance on Him as we watch Him work in our lives and through us and are able to rely on Him more because He is faithful.

Well, it has been a short afternoon and it’s almost time to head back to church. The Pond, Down Gilead Lane and Adventures in Odyssey are on tonight. I’m tired and it will be nice to come home, put my pajamas on, wrap up in a blanket and listen to our shows. See ya later and have a great night!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Cool Outer Space Stuff

I just “StumbledUpon” some cool space photos and sounds this afternoon.

Sights:

The Panther Observatory.  Click “Gallery”.  My faves so far are of the moon.

Hubblesite.org

Cosmotions    Time lapse photography of the sky. Cool if you have broadband and don’t have to wait all day.

A Solar Eclipse  Very interesting!

The Hale-Bopp Comet  - More on Hale-Bopp

Sounds:

Listen to Space Sounds.  Kinda weird but interesting.

 Other stuff:

Anatomy of a Black Hole  This is a cool animation about how black holes form.

Cool Cosmos: The Infrared Universe  A very infrared resource

A Delayed B-day Party

Wow, it has been a while since I pulled my camera out of the bag! I’ve been suffering withdrawals. It was necessary to suffer for a while, though. Something else took precedence. And it was snowing. I’m kind of sick of taking pictures outside when it’s snowing and I lack creativity inside. The outdoors has plenty of creativity in it so all I have to do is pull the trigger.

Search Engine Terms

Bic Pens vs. Papermate Pens - Definitely Bic. Papermate, though it writes a little more smoothly, tends to make a gloppy mess on the part of my hand closest to the paper. I find myself needing a piece of scrap paper or a tissue to occasionally roll the glob of ink off the tip of the pen. Bic does this too now and then but not nearly as much. The other thing about Bic is that it’s most likely to write. If you have to skimp on school supplies or your home pen and ink stash, don’t skimp on pens . Anything but Bic ball point pens falls short.

“thin mints” allergies - I can’t have those either. Or Peppermint Patties, Snickers, Milky Way, and Three Musketeers because of the eggs. Now chocolate’s an issue because of the dairy. There must be a way to make those without eggs; I just don’t happen to know what that is.
I just realized there’s a Girl Scout cookie called thin mints. I was thinking of these. Here’s an egg free, gluten free recipe for Mock Thin Mint Cookies.

Tips on making eggless cakes - Ener-G Egg Replacer does a good job with cupcakes though I have yet to make a good egg-reciped cake without eggs.

Crazy Cake meets the need for chocolate cake without the eggs. It’s dense and moist and yet more like cake than pudding. (I’ve made my share of cake-turned-pudding.)

Making a regular cake without eggs requires a lower temperature and longer baking time. It may take some trial and error so don’t try making an egg free cake for the first time when you’re having company for dinner. I made one and took it somewhere and it was a total flop. I was so embarrassed!

Baking powder and baking soda are leaveners. If you’re having trouble getting your cake to rise, try adding a little more baking soda one quarter of a teaspoon at a time. You’ll know on first taste if you’ve added too much. Ask me how I know.

Unless you’ve perfected the applesause for oil substitution with regular cake, you’re probably not going to want to try that at the same time as the egg substitute. If it turns out, you need to know what it is that “worked” so you can tell people when they ask. On the other hand, if it turns into pudding but it was the applesauce, you wouldn’t want to add extra baking powder if a little less applesauce would’ve done the trick.

Edited to add one more thing that showed up on the search string list:

what is socially deprived - Socially deprived, in certain governmentally influenced minds, is anyone who does not spend the majority of their time confined to a room with people their own age. Somehow, spending the majority of ones childhood away from people of various ages, interests, nationalities, education levels and so on is *not* considered socially deprived. So there ya go.

Edited for clarity