Wholehearted living somewhere in the middle of all my years.
Aging parents, grown kids, and grandbebes everywhere!
Married to my love and lifelong best friend, Dave for 33 years now. We raised 5 kids and lived to tell about it.
My life's mission is to declare the great faithfulness of God to the next generations, especially those in mi familia!
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Oh, my goodness, sweet-pea – I have loved you like crazy for 6 whole years now! You have gotten sweeter and more lovely each year.
You are such a wonderful big sister to Amelie Belle and Bailey Sophia! Aren’t they so blessed to have you? And you are a fun cousin to the K-kids and the Powers boys and to baby Eva – how lucky are they? And I love that you are such a wonderful daughter for your mommy and daddy and look for ways to honor them. Goodness, you are a delight!
But wow, oh wow, oh wow! You are my grandbebe, my sweet six-year-old grand-girl. You were the 5th of all the ones I will ever have and I just think you are turning into one of the most amazing little women ever born.
I love you my darling, beauty queen. I love your heart and your spirit and face and those eyes. You have my heart forever.
Now I bless you ~
May you continue to grow in the grace and admonition of the Lord. May the source of your life always be Jesus, for He is your righteousness, your sanctification, and your redeemer. May you always walk in the freedom that comes from knowing Him and be full of the joy He has promised for you. And remember – His presence is where you will always find the fullness of that joy! Stay blameless and innocent no matter what the rest of your generation does, Averi Jadyn, because you were born to shine as a light in this world. So sparkle and shine, sweet girl, for Jesus all the days of your blessed, beautiful, whole and holy life! I bless you in Jesus’ Name! And I seal it with a kiss. :)
Kiss*-Kiss*, Birthday Girl! {Love, Nonna!}
NOTE: Averi had a Disney’s FROZEN party, in case you couldn’t tell. Her mommy posted a bunch more pictures and ideas on her blog, if you’d like to take a look. {CLICK HERE}
We have already used up the first 41 days of this “new” year. We have 324 left. I have 8360 goals on my to do list and haven’t even written down my resolutions yet…
When I think of time in chronos-mode, I freak out a little. *!*!*!*
“Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Ps. 90:12
I don’t want to just live in some crazy pre-occupation with my own goals and dreams or New Year’s Resolutions and self-imposed disciplines to the point that I miss something simple and sweet, or that I end up just zooming past the things of real importance. I am a crazy list-maker and I hate the thought that I could make thousands of lists of admirable things to do and to be and totally miss the sweetness of the life God actually planned for me before I was even one day old (see Psalm 139).
“For David, after he had served God’s will and purpose and counsel in his own generation, fell asleep [in death] and was buried…” Acts 13.36
Obviously, I am past the halfway mark in the days I have left in life. How far past that mark, we don’t really know. I’m not being morbid-just realistic. But what I do know is that I wish to possess, before I am gone forever, a heart of wisdom, some lasting treasure I can leave behind that will bless the people I love who remain. And geez-Louise, I HOPE part of my eternal epitaph will be that I served God’s will and purpose for my generation while I lived – not my own or anyone else’s!
“One generation shall praise Your works to another, And shall declare Your mighty acts.” Psalm 145.4 NKJV
Coca Cola made this commercial.
Wow. They did a good job. You have to read the subtitles, but do. Watch. Listen to an old man with fresh wisdom. I’ll add the script below again.
This is a true story. In these hard times we bring together the oldest man with the youngest baby.
Hello Aitena. My name is Joseph Mascaro. I am 102 years old. I am a lucky guy. Lucky…for having been born. Like you. For being able to embrace my wife. For having known my friends and for having been able to say good-bye to them. For still being here.
You will ask yourself what is the reason I have come to visit you today. It’s because most people will say to you what a bad moment you’ve chosen to come in to the world. We’re in crisis, that’s not a good thing…Well, it’ll make you stronger. I’ve lived worse moments than this one. But in the end, you’ll remember only good things.
Don’t waste time with nonsense. There’s plenty of it. And go and find what makes you happy while you can since time slips away very quickly.
I’ve lived 102 years and I’ll happily live a few more. Because I promise you that the only thing you won’t like about life, is that life will seem too short. You’re here to be happy.
And while, yes, we live for much more than the fleeting happiness an ice-cold Coke can buy us (does my churchy-upbringing roar as loudly in your ears as it does in mine?), I think the observations of a man who has lived all the years he was promised and then some ring pretty similarly to the writer of Ecclesiastes. The “teacher” in the Bible concludes that life isn’t about the pursuit of contentment through what we accomplish career-wise or through the accoutrements of wealth and fame. It doesn’t come through pleasure-seeking, and there is even futility in seeking knowledge. We just try so many things and in the end, there is so much of all we have toiled and strived over that just doesn’t matter.
He seems to suggest we should go, before we’re too old. to enjoy life (the word “joy” is in there). And eat, because bread was made for laughter, one translation expresses it (and feast for strength not for drunkenness, btw). Drink, enjoy, do, work hard (whatever work you do – do it with all your might) and give generously, open-handedly. Ecclesiastes says to always be clothed in white and always have your head anointed with oil (the anointing of the Holy Spirit) which is a reminder to strip off the black clothes and ashes of mourning and sorrow. And to wear the clothing of celebration and new life – that is how to live!
Good things I want to do everyday
I really want my everyday list to be so lofty that it is actually, physically impossible. Yes. I admit it. If I told you what I really always try to put on the list (and fail so miserably at), you’d see, like I am finally seeing, it is too much. I am only human, with limited hours in a day. You, too. But maybe I could manage a list like this, every day:
Be kind.
Sing my head off.
Love deeply – because why else?
Worship God with all I’ve got.
Dream big.
Smile like crazy.
Laugh ’til I cry.
Encourage a friend.
Give grace.
Share joy.
Create beauty.
Pray without ceasing.
Cultivate courage.
Work hard.
Rest easy.
Enjoy life.
But ~ the conclusion when all has been said and done – is to love God and keep His commandments. {Ecclesiastes 12.13}
It is really the final word on the matter of this little thing called {abundant} life. The BEST question I ever ask myself, the one that keeps me on track is not, “What time is it???” but rather: “What is this time for?” Try that on for size.
Go. Read Ecclesiastes. In one sitting. Because it will only take about 35-40 minutes at pulpit-reading pace. And there is wisdom there.
It is like we are living in the Disney Frozen movie! Perhaps partially because today I’ll be fashioning a 3-foot “Olaf” combination cake/Rice-Krispie-Treat for Averi’s 6th birthday celebration and there just happens to be a 4′ backdrop painting of Olaf here, too, courtesy of Grand-poppa! So besides actually being beyond-believable COLD, Olaf is hanging around my house.
And I don’t like football anyway – how did I get sucked in to that horrible game? But Payton Manning seems like an honorable athlete. Here is a win, though – my friend Pearl carved a snow sculpture in her front yard before the game. Cool, huh?
So Donald Miller opened {this} can of worms the other day
“I Don’t Worship God by Singing. I Connect with Him Elsewhere.
“It’s just that I don’t experience that intimacy in a traditional worship service. In fact, I can count on one hand the number of sermons I actually remember. So to be brutally honest, I don’t learn much about God hearing a sermon and I don’t connect with him by singing songs to him. So, like most men, a traditional church service can be somewhat long and difficult to get through.
“So, do I attend church? Not often, to be honest.”
And when I read it, I thought, “You crazy guy – do you know what you’ve done???” Because it doesn’t matter how many years of perfect gold star attendance pins you’ve earned, if you’re not showing up regularly now, there will be trouble!
His post got more than 400 comments , a follow-up post from Mr. Miller, himself and several other bloggers chiming in on the topic. These two are thought-provoking responses I read (but oh my goodness – there are many more out there):
“…Miller, like so many others, has said, “No thanks. Doesn’t work for me.” And in this sense, I don’t blame him. But his solution is no less tragic. His new liturgy will orient his life around himself or around his work, and these masters will be as cruel and disappointing as any mega-church or celebrity pastor has ever been.”
Jonathan Leeman (The Gospel Coalition) wrote an open letter, “Dear Donald Miller” and made some strong points without just launching an attack, thank-you!
“And here’s where the rubber meets the road: I don’t know how we can say we love and belong to the church without loving and belonging to a church.”
I will tell you I have stood firmly on both sides of the topic, depending on whether I was full-time church staff, honestly. Yes, honestly. I can make a great case for the importance of the Body of Christ not neglecting the regular gathering and meeting together for the purpose of encouraging each other (Hebrews 10.25-26). But I have also been a part of local churches that could have been summarized, when I finally got honest with myself, with Paul’s cutting words to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 11.17)
“Your meetings do more harm than good.”
Now you know I was born a church girl. You know my very first sentence, spoken freely and repeated with glee hundreds of times was, “I’m gonna go to church!” And I think we (me, too) especially, us Western-Church types have botched it so badly. We have made a law of church attendance, idols of pulpit-people and rock stars of worship bands, practically enacting a shunning if some one doesn’t thrive on a steady diet of programs and personalities. We’ve beat people with the church-attendance-is-the-test-of-righteousness bat or we’ve produced slick services meant to entice and lure them in with our “cool.” And maybe we have missed the point completely of the gathering – meaning we may actually be doing things wrong to begin with?
“His intention was the perfecting and the full equipping of the saints (His consecrated people), [that they should do] the work of ministering toward building up Christ’s body (the church…
From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.” Ephesians 4.16
Nonetheless, while I find myself in a church-search currently, these words by Anne Ortlund in her book, Love Me with Tough Love, compose a life-guiding question (one I have asked myself many times over many years) in light of the way the New Testament describes what the Church was, and how it worked at its’ inception. And the answer to it is important – way more important than just where you are on Sunday mornings at 9 o’clock!
“Have I placed myself so deeply within a living, functioning local body that I myself am functioning in all these ways, and so living as a well-rounded, healthy, contributing member of the Body of Christ?”
Something to think about, yes?
Retweeted by Jeanie Rhoades 02.03.14
T. S. Harris?@T_S_Harris· Feb 3 “The animated Church inhales God’s power and presence and is then able to exhale the embodiment of the risen Christ.” @lensweet #mrinow
Tara asked me to make Kai’s 1st birthday cake. She had no real cake design in mind (how unusual!), she just mentioned that there would be lots of colors and balloons and that it should be “fun.”
There was to be a “small” cake just for Kai, his first indulgence in sweet cake, and a bigger one for the guests (most of whom were doing Paleo, anyway, so not much cake going on). Kai, it turned out, was NOT a fan, which I reported previously {here}.
I decided to do rainbow-colored cakes using a basic vanilla recipe, with a cream cheese icing. Very simple, stacked and pretty plain. The beauty, of course, would be when we cut inside the layers: voila – an explosion of color! But on the outside, very plain indeed.
Kai’s cake baked in 6″ pans, 6 layers (purple-blue-green-yellow-orange-red, bottom up) and was about 6″ tall. The guest cake, also 6 layers, was baked in 10″ pans and was about 8″ tall.
Since the inside was going to be such a color explosion, I decided the outside, with that delicious cream cheese icing, did not need a bunch of embellishments or fancy-tip and bag decorating. But it needed something….what was it?
I shopped for toys and looked in cake decorating sections at all the stores. Couldn’t find anything exciting or cute. Boo. I came home with a very small blue-sparkly #1 candle and that was about it. Except…
I had just purchased a multi-pack of craft foam at Michael’s for the grands, very fortuitously…
So, I cut 2″ x 2″ squares of various colors and textures of craft foam, which is a DREAM to cut, btw! Then I just cut rough letters out of them, basic shapes. If you wanted a certain style, I am sure you could draw it on first, but I just did very basic cuts in all caps and didn’t cut out centers. Then I cut some balloons (I did draw a circle using a lid for these and then left a little “triangle” attached) and fashioned a 8″ tall #1 with contrasting colors of the foam.
With the hot glue gun, I attached each letter to a white stir-stick (the ones you use for stirring coffee). I did the same with the balloons and the #1.
After simply spreading the icing on the cake, I was able to just stick the letters and other shapes right into the cake. SIMPLE!
The cakes turned out cute and adorned until they could be cut into to reveal the real wow factor. And I was thinking I just enjoyed the change from dragging out the all the usual cake decorating equipment. Also a great alternative if you don’t have that stuff – you can still produce a great looking cake in whatever theme and colors you’d like and even personalize with a name or message very easily!
Since I didn’t capture the actual process that day, I thought I’d replicate it yesterday to show more of the actual steps and seriously – I produced this little “hello” in five minutes flat!
I bet you could even cut scalloped edging to wrap the whole bottom of the cake. This craft foam is so versatile!
Select your foam colors and patterns
Cut some letters and shapes
Hot glue or tape to a stir stick (cocktail pics, skewers or disposable chopsticks would work, too)
Muriel Blandings: I want it to be a soft green, not as blue-green as a robin’s egg, but not as yellow-green as daffodil buds. Now, the only sample I could get is a little too yellow, but don’t let whoever does it go to the other extreme and get it too blue. It should just be a sort of grayish-yellow-green. Now, the dining room. I’d like yellow. Not just yellow; a very gay yellow. Something bright and sunshine-y. I tell you, Mr. PeDelford, if you’ll send one of your men to the grocer for a pound of their best butter, and match that exactly, you can’t go wrong! Now, this is the paper we’re going to use in the hall. It’s flowered, but I don’t want the ceiling to match any of the colors of the flowers. There’s some little dots in the background, and it’s these dots I want you to match. Not the little greenish dot near the hollyhock leaf, but the little bluish dot between the rosebud and the Delphinium blossom. Is that clear? Now the kitchen is to be white. Not a cold, antiseptic hospital white. A little warmer, but still, not to suggest any other color but white. Now for the powder room – in here – I want you to match this thread, and don’t lose it. It’s the only spool I have and I had an awful time finding it! As you can see, it’s practically an apple red. Somewhere between a healthy winesap and an unripened Jonathan. Oh, excuse me…
I thoroughly enjoyed it again. It isn’t the greatest of all Carey Grant movies, but it has some of the greatest moments. :) Borrow from your local library!
Wanted: Anyone who owns at least 40 acres, a house with good bones, a barn or two plus an assortment of interesting out-buildings, a couple of horses and some farming equipment (a great big tractor is a must) want to trade me for a suburban house in a small city just 20 minutes from the heart of Denver? Comes with a few garden squares, a pool pad, 3-car garage, and really {extraordinarily} nice neighbors.
Thought I’d ask just in case I am living in your dream – because YOU are living in mine!
The beautiful firstborn, Tara, and her handsome husband, Dave, will be doing a concert for lovers far and wide on February 12, 2014 at The Madcap Theater in Westminster (near The Promenade).
Skip the crazy crowds on the 14th and get your love fix on the 12th. TICKETS HERE
They’re good. They’re really good (and fun and cute) and I am not just saying that because they are, you know, my loveable kiddos. I have requested my fav love songs…let’s see if I wield any true power, haha.
Here is a late night vid they recorded in their music room a few years back {at the momma’s request}.
Dave Madden played Reuben Kincaid on the Partridge Family 1970s TV Show
If you have been around this blog much, you know I loved my Partridge Familywhen I was a pre-teen/barely-teen.
So my sister actually texted me words of comfort about the passing of Dave Madden yesterday, the actor who played the Partridge family’s longsuffering manager on the TV sitcom from 1970-1974. He died the same day as the Professor from the 1960s show I loved to hate, Gilligan’s Island (Russell Johnson-he was a gorgeous man).
Reuben
Oh my goodness. Reuben Kincaid up against the impish, red-headed 10-year-old Danny Partridge just made the show so funny. I was hoping to find a short clip of one of their conversations and this was the shortest I could find. And yes, it still does actually make me smile, probably even laugh.
I really think this musical-family show was his best-known role, but for many years following the end of The Partridge Family I recall hearing Dave Madden’s distinctive voice in commercials and voice-overs. Here is a Partridge Family song featuring Mr. Kincaid. I really want to own that orange, floral-print dress. I do!
Farewell, Reuben Kincaid. Thank-you for all the laughter. Rest in Peace, Dave Madden. Rest in peace.
We are not static. We are not just standing still. We see ourselves: growing, going forward, whole, healed and changing for the better on good days. On the not so good, we feel like we are one step forward, 2 steps back, like we’ve lost footing, we’re not where we should be, want to be, like changes we didn’t want have been imposed on us, upsetting the settled lives we had planned so carefully. We judge ourselves everyday, don’t we?
2 Corinthians 3.18 “And we all, with unveiled faces who contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His very likeness in ever-increasing glory.”
David C. Cookjust released the first video session of Staci Eldredge’s Becoming Myself series. In it, she says we long for change in us because we are meant to have it. She says our very dissatisfaction with our weaknesses reminds us that they are not our destiny and that God promises to transform us – in ever-increasing glory.
How intriguing is this?
“What if change is simply Me unveiling who you really are?”
You know how certain people in churches (preachers) complain that other people in churches (slackers) will go to football games and scream and yell and cheer when their team (the Broncos) are playing for 3 or 4 straight hours? Then they’ll tell you (with grave disappointment) that you need to be cheering for Jesus because He made the ultimate touchdown when He came to earth to die for our sins.
No? You’ve never heard that? Oh, must just be my tribe (aka my own particular people-group/slice of ecclesia-pie), I guess.
Anyway, especially back in the days when a true test of righteousness (or “churchianity” perhaps) was going to be about whether you attended the Sunday night service on Super-Bowl Sunday, the topic would come up.
{I may have even used this particular brand of “worship-motivating” my-pious-self in times past, *gulp} Shhhh….don’t tell.
If the speaker was really fired up, he might add, with a slight hint of disdain, “There aren’t three people here who would stay for a three-hour sermon, let alone get on their feet and shout,” hoping, I am sure, that the whole crowd would suddenly erupt in cheers and actually start acting like they were at a football game, doing some sort of spiritual wave.
A few vigorous “amens” would shoot back to get points with the pastor, those Sunday-night-faithful-head-bobbers letting their fellow-pew-dwellers know, Well, I’ll never stay home to cheer sports teams on a Super Bowl Sunday night when I can be here cheering for the Son of God!. Uh-huh!
Since Sunday night services have gone the way of sawdust floors and dinners on the ground, we have all been set free from that particular law of sin and death associated with cheering on our football teams so zealously and then failing to do the same for the pastor, er, for Jesus on Sundays. Whew, thank-goodness!
Just in case you missed it, the Denver Broncos had a good Sunday. They won a play-off game which means they’ll face their arch nemesis this week to see who goes to the super bowl. The devil is coming to town in the form of a man named Tom Brady and his merry band of Patriots, and all true Coloradoans loathe him with a passion.
Home runs
I don’t really even like football and I don’t understand a lot of the details (I DO know getting home runs is important….JUST KIDDING, simmer down. I know they’re touchdowns). Please don’t bother trying to explain it to me, I’m fine with the little I know. I know enough to cheer for the guys wearing the right colored uniforms…usually. Sometimes I do have to ask Dave which uniforms we are cheering for that day. But I digress.
Sunday’s game was right here in the Mile-High City. That works in the home team’s favor, generally, I think. One thing the fans did really well was make a lot of noise. And when our team was doing great, it was “joyful noise” and happy cheering, for sure! But they also made some strategic noise and LOTS of it when the other team had possession of the ball. From what I could tell, it made it very difficult for the opposing QB to execute a good play against {my} team, (go, Broncos!). And so, in the case of this particular game, a certain quarterback actually threw a bit of a fit and his team got a penalty for holding up the game.
Now, I know this is a little simplistic because I don’t totally understand the game, so I am going by what the talking heads were saying, but, think of it – the Denver Broncos, the team – they are on the field doing everything they know to do in the face of their opponents who have come to crush them. And maybe that would be enough. But then these crazy fans in the seats become so loud, so uproariously vocal and physical, clapping their hands, stomping their feet – they actually send the opposition into a state of extreme confusion. The thunderous roar of the crowd threw the “enemy” off his game. The fans in the stands were so loud – they confused and confounded the plan of the opposing team! How cool is that?
The Bible is actually full of incredible stories of sound and noise being part of winning battles. The sound of Judah sending up praises at the front of a battle meant a victory at the end. And who can forget the Walls of Jericho, a city God promised to His people? They marched around that city once a day for 6 days, then on the 7th day, they marched, but the priests started blowing those ram’s horns and the people were told to SHOUT. They did and those walls came down, God’s promise was theirs!
“So the people shouted when the priests blew the trumpets. And it happened when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat. Then the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city.” Joshua 6.20
There are other examples in the Bible where just a thundering sound or some major noise caused enemies to flee. Like the story in 2 Kings 7 of the lepers who were starving to death and decided to just go to the enemy’s camp and ask for food, figuring they were going to die one way or the other. But God caused such loud noise to surround their entrance, the sounds of many horses and chariots reverberating throughout the valley, that the Syrian army just took off as fast as they could, leaving their camp and supplies and food intact. That is crazy! That is a win!
And I was just thinking, maybe, as the Body of Christ, we should be watching out for each other, for those times the opposing team, aka “the enemy of our souls,” comes marching in to our home field. And maybe when we see the thief coming to steal, kill and destroy, when we see a strategic offense being mounted against “our team,” aka our brothers and sisters in the Lord, our family from the Household of Faith, well, maybe we should just start yelling and screaming and stomping and shouting the house down. Maybe we could be making some holy battle-noise to drive the devil back, confuse and confound his plan against one of our people!
I was thinking I’d like to be a person like that, a person who will stand up for others facing huge obstacles by making such a fuss, resisting so decidedly that the devil runs the other way, flees like a frightened chicken.
Well, don’t be surprised if I start screaming like a banshee the next time I see the enemy picking on you. I am, after all, a Pentecostal preacher’s daughter. I should try to put that to good use, shouldn’t I? I’d even show up on a Sunday night to be a part of something like that!
