I have a mountain of work to climb up over this week. Have to deal with the fact that the house is full of stuff brought up from the flooded basement and we can’t walk without tripping and crying. That means filling bags and bags of stuff to give and throw away. Have to put the children in the way of cleaning their rooms lest they go in one night to sleep and are unable to escape in the morning... Read more
I lay awake from midnight to three am listening to the ice fall out of the sky. It thunked down, bouncing and pinging. I’m sure if I was up in a fancy ski lodge with a cup of fortified cocoa and an elegant pair of woolen socks I would have thought it was pristine and mesmerizing. Lying awake half the night listening to it and fretting about all the work you’re going to have to do tired–when the weak winter... Read more
We get to have a new furnace today so that will be nice. As for the scene outside the window, I can’t think of anything less nice, except maybe chunks of ice barreling down from the sky. Getting the children to consider putting on a sweater and a pair of socks the last few days has been well nigh impossible. They just stand and look at me blankly when I suggest it, and when I command it because we are... Read more
one Plowing through Job in the last remaining days of my bible reading plan. Job crosswayed with Isaiah and John. So Job lost everything yesterday and Jesus was crucified. And today Job was struck from his head to his foot and Jesus rose. And in Isaiah the Phonecians are a mess. Really disturbed, again, how it is God who draws Satan’s attention to Job. I can see why Jesus would tell us to ask God not to lead us into... Read more
{pretty} Look how beautiful my house at home in Africa is right now! Miss it lots. Specially as apparently the temperature is going to fall into the 20s here over the weekend. [picture by Miranda Jemphrey] I hope most, if not all, of the many rooms The Lord is preparing for me look like all the rooms in this house. The cool floors, the thatch, the water jars, though not the snakes and termites and scorpions. {happy} We indulged in... Read more
My poor mother set about to make a cake yesterday–a lemon Starbucks loaf, but in a bunt pan, doubled, so that it would turn out big and fat. She even went to the store to buy the lemons which turned out to be complicated and horrendous because of the person in front of her purposing to pay in pennies, thereby freaking out the poor checkout lady who didn’t recover well and put all the lemons in between the bags and... Read more
Slowly emerging from a post weekend stupor. Feel like I worked solidly from Last Tuesday through till Sunday without pausing for breath or to put on a better pair of shoes. Dreamt just now that I was lecturing someone about the human capacity for work. “With each child,” I explained to someone whom I pretty sure I know but whose face has disappeared with the dream, “you will be able to work so much harder.” I think I was waving... Read more
one We’ve been trying to finish watching Ben Hur for nearly a whole month. And we had to re-rent it each time. And every time the internet caused Matt to resort to frantic profanity, except the one section when a friend happened by unexpectedly and providentially and showed us how to make the internet go farther, as it were. And every time we turned it on, all the children would start shouting at the screen. One of the loudest, most fraught movies... Read more
The children are gently squabbling in the kitchen over their vats of sugar cereal. Matt is uploading the sermon and class from yesterday. I’m trying to recover from the day’s Bible Readings which included the King of Israel killing all the sons of Ahab, all the friends of Ahab, all the people who ever even knew about Ahab (possible hyperbole but not too far off) and then every single man in Israel who identified as a worshipper of Baal. From... Read more
one My mother is working on the making of fancy pancakes (crepes) for breakfast with the girls (the boys are at Man’s Bible Study) giving me time to “workout”. Fortunately I remembered that I haven’t blogged in like four days so the “workout” will have to wait. She has a tiny special pan for each girl and she is teaching them how to pour in the batter, swirl and then flip the pancake. And she does it all calmly without... Read more
Preventing Grace
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