On Superbowl Sunday Morning...

Today I read an article, written by a Christian man to his eight year-old daughter, explaining what she needed to know before she could watch the Superbowl. His points were: This isn't as exciting as Americans think it is, don't ever wish you were a guy and that you could play this game, don't emulate the women you will see on the screen, and avoid men who are attracted to such women.

I liked this article, but wonder if any Christian men ever read that and thought about what THEY should get out of it. Do they know that I will be sitting in a church pew this morning, praising God with all of them, and wondering if they are attracted to the harlots on the television. Do they know I would avoid them if I knew that was the case? Do they know I will be wondering if they would be willing to explain why they can watch that, but would be upset if I were to become a pro cheerleader, or a model for a sleazy chip ad?

Do they know I respect my dad for choosing to love his wife and play with his kids instead of embracing this part of American culture?

Do they know I would cheer even louder than all of New Orleans, if I knew they embraced today for what it is outside of the Superbowl? Do they know I'd cheer for them?

For My Oregon Friends...

            I've decided to dedicate this post to pictures of Ohio things.  Here is a crash course on life in the Buckeye State.



Bugs here are huge! That's one of the first things you need to know.



It is never cold in the summer. Even if it's cloudy, it's hot. If it's cloudy, it's worse.

 



Snow is almost always on the ground in the Winter. However, there will be surprisingly warm days here and there.

Spring, like everything here, is done with great passion, and makes up for the cold of Winter.

 

The weather in Spring is still spontaneous, and rainstorms are violent. This is tornado, season, after all!

 

 

This is the view out my window during a Spring rain.

Tap-root type plants grow well here. We harvested hundreds of tomatoes off of these few plants. Soybeans are common here, as well as corn.

 

This is a soybean field.

Ohio may be land-locked, but Lake Erie is beautiful!

Another crazy storm. We have one or two a week in the Summer.

Ohioans are very patriotic, and almost every town has a giant firework display on the 4th of July.

The sky here is always beautiful, but I like it best early on Summer mornings.

 

 

Rabbits make nests in our yard!

Another view out my window. I don't have much of a view in the Summer. It's like a jungle!

Ohioans are crazy about football. It's impossible to avoid it, so Tim and I have embraced it. Go Bucks!!!!!

Chick-fil-A is one of the best things here! This is an Oregon friend of mine, when she came to visit.

We live in an Air Force town, and I have spent countless hours at the USAF Museum! Residents and visitors alike love the museum.

There are some nice rivers here, and we like rock-jumping!

Again, the SKY! This was taken standing in our neighborhood creek!

Our neighborhood is really nice. It is mostly flat, old, and full of trees!

There are lots of water towers around. This is our neighborhood one.

This is my church, Covenant Presbyterian.

Here's the outside, in Winter. It's right next to Rico's Hair Salon!

There is a lot of demolition going on in this area, unfortunately.

Airplanes are ALWAYS in the sky.

Cardinal is the state bird of Ohio.

This is our house, the day we moved in.

 

 

That's all I have for now! More may come later!

 

 

 

 

 

Random Thoughts and Thanksgivings..

Lately people have been asking me about my dad's job search, and whether there's any news. It is kind of sad and boring to always have to tell them, "no, nothing yet." However, things have been going on inwardly that have nothing practical to do with possibly moving, but I find them interesting.

First off, I miss my Oregon friends more than I have in a while. I don't know if this is because I keep thinking about the possibility of moving back, and that makes me want to see them, or if it's God's way of making me like the idea of moving. Who knows, but either way, I feel like I should pay more attention to posting things for my Oregon friends!

College. Wow, I don't even really want to think about it anymore! I'm glad to be in high school for now, and while I had been eagerly planning for my further education, everything has become so up in the air that I'm happy to wait and forget about college.

MAF! We have some friends who used to work at the Nampa, Idaho HQ for Mission Aviation Fellowship, and someone there asked me to be a social media advocate for MAF. I am THRILLED!! And just think--if we moved to Nampa (where my grandparents live)...

Tonight we're going to a meeting about planting another OPC in the town I live in. There's one in Vandalia (which we attend), and one in Beavercreek, which is about the same distance from our house. The Vandalia one, Covenant Presbyterian, may plant a new congregation here in Springfield this year or next. How exciting! Will we be here for it?

I've been shopping for a Bible, and discovered that its really complicated. I don't ask for much, just NKJV, a normal color cover, and wide margins would be a luxury. However, there are so many Bibles to wade through, the Patriot Bible, the Spiritual Warfare Bible, the Surfer's Bible, the African-American Woman's Bible. What about a...Bible Bible? This is such a first-world problem. I'm thankful that I can buy a Bible at all.


550. Bible shopping
551. Days off school
552. Tim playing guitar
553. Fun plans
554. Happy days
555. DK swallowing for the first time in a year, and how he may be able to lose the feeding tube soon!
556. Being loved even when I fail. Miserably.
557. The Bible verse S sent me... BLESSED are they...
558. It's a balmy 9 degrees out
559. S's jokes
560. The strong, yellow soap we have
561. "Spring is coming soon"
562. Mom's smile and hug today

Thanksgiving 531-550

531. Conversations with F, and how she always makes me laugh!
532. Conversations with my cousin, and that she might come visit us this summer!
533. Remembering things that happened this summer, and how wonderful they were
534. Friends being nearby
535. The chance of seeing S soon
536. God never being surprised by what is going to happen
537. School to do, even this much
538. Charles G. Finney, and how even he was part of God's plan for the world
539. Preterism and postmillennialism, and all they mean for my life
540. Church tonight
541. Dad being home
542. The rain last night
543. The warmth outside
544. Watching End of the Spear
545. Nate Saint and Jeremiah Small, and how their stories were different in a good way
546. Esther O., and how I can miss her because I like her a lot :)
547. TB, and how this little boy has blessed, challenged, and cheered me
548. Being called to let things go
549. Knowing the right thing to do
550. Strength and grace to do the difficult things

Thanksgiving 511-530

511. The note from Joel, and the hilarious difficulty of answering it.
512. Rachel finding the note I was supposed to deliver but lost, and the laughter about that
513. Being loved
514. Patient friends
515. Writing assignments being easier after reading a rhetoric book
516. Cruising through school after a lot of hard school days
517. Normality
518. Dad eating lunch with us!
519. Playing for church two weeks in a row, and NOT being nervous!!!
520. Sarah getting everything figured out, and OK
521. Having a favorite book sitting by my bed :)
522. The kids at church who smile and follow me around
523. The jokes at elder class last night
524. Tiny snowflakes of which you can just see the detail
525. Not being "snowed in". HA!
526. Hugs for a cuddly Hosea
527. The music for an upcoming concert
528. Mom's "holstein" sweater!
529. Always having pictures
530. Rousseau getting some things right, and how now I can understand our current political affairs better

On Wassup...

My dad was laid off from his job on Wednesday. They escorted him out of the high-security part of the building, and he came home to begin searching again. Four years ago, this month, my dad was laid off in Oregon, and after 11 months of searching we moved here to Ohio. Then the blame was on the recession; now the blame falls easily on whoever is making (or not making) decisions in Washington, and making military contractors' jobs unsure. That's easy. Easy to point at them and say, "you did this."

But they're not ultimately the ones who killed my dad's job. God did. God took my dad's job from him, put him on the unemployment list, and made us wonder where we'll live in the next year. God hurt our economy, God put unwise men in charge of our country. And He did it sinlessly!

I don't want a God Who allows bad things to happen.

"Darn, well, I'll allow it this time."

I want a God Who plans the bad things that happen–perfectly, sinlessly.

It is no comfort to say that God allowed my dad to lose his job.

"It might turn out OK."

It is a comfort to know that God made this happen. Because He is perfect, sinless, and all-wise, the things that He plans that hurt us the most can only be for His glory and the ultimate good of His church.

So He can move us, bend us, break us, kill us, and yet He is GOOD.

Now to believe this enough to be happy about this turn of events....

On When School is the Last Thing on Your Mind..

There are days like today when socks won't match, and Dad comes home early from work, and there's news that makes you reel.

But it's an adventure. And more than that, it's a story being written by a perfect God.

That's what I'm learning today.