Installation of a green bathroom!

We’re moving up in the world with the addition of a third bathroom with two toilets! I can’t tell you how excited we are about this and what a great job my husband has accomplished. Not only is it a needed addition but it will also be green. All waste will be composted naturally instead of wasting water on flushing and holding the waste in a cement tank for permanent  storage. The waste will return to the land.

The bathroom will complete as soon as we install a permanent door. Right now we are using a tarp for the job. The boys find it exciting and Petra has decided to be generous and let it be their bathroom and not hog it all for herself. I happily grin each time the boys use it as I know I’m saving money on my water bill.

So without further ado…

If prosperity preachers were truly Christ.

As I listened to this in whole hearted agreement with John Piper, his statement about WHY don’t these preachers go into the hospital emergency rooms or cancer wards or places like this if they are such servants of Christ hit me like a ton of  bricks. In all the years that I used to follow this line of prosperity gospel I don’t know why it never crossed my mind. A religion of selfishness and greed in the name of Christ.

¹BUT UNDERSTAND this, that in the last days will come (set in) perilous times of great stress and trouble [hard to deal with and hard to bear].²For people will be lovers of self and [utterly] self-centered, lovers of money and aroused by an inordinate [greedy] desire for wealth, proud and arrogant and contemptuous boasters. They will be abusive (blasphemous, scoffing), disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy and profane.

³[They will be] without natural [human] affection (callous and inhuman), relentless (admitting of no truce or appeasement); [they will be] slanderers (false accusers, troublemakers), intemperate and loose in morals and conduct, uncontrolled and fierce, haters of good.

⁴[They will be] treacherous [betrayers], rash, [and] inflated with self-conceit. [They will be] lovers of sensual pleasures and vain amusements more than and rather than lovers of God.

⁵For [although] they hold a form of piety (true religion), they deny and reject and are strangers to the power of it [their conduct belies the genuineness of their profession]. Avoid [all] such people [turn away from them].          2 Timothy 3:1-5

Happy Birthday To Me!

In celebration of my 36th birthday I’m going to post 36 things about myself.

1. I am a sinner, born totally depraved  just like everyone else.
2. I believe in Christ through no merit of my own.
3. Nothing good have I done save by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
4. I rejoice that my name has been written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
5. Once again, his grace and mercy have sought me and bought me.
6. I am not my own but the servant of the Lord.
7. On my best day my works are nothing but filthy rags.
8. I do not do the things I want to do &  find myself doing the things I hate.
9. My faith is a gift from God.
10. I am co-heir with Christ.
11. God removed my stony heart and has  replaced it with a heart of flesh.
12. Am being equipped with everything good so that I can do His will.
13. God is working through me to do that which is pleasing in His sight.
14. I bless the feet of those who brought me the Good News.
15. I’ve been called according to His purpose.
16. The law has condemned me.
17. Christ has justified me.
18. I am sanctified by His word.
19. I am a new creation, the old has fallen away.
20. I reap what I sow.
21. I have been blessed with every spiritual blessing Christ Jesus.
22. I am redeemed by His blood by his lavish grace.
23. I was chosen before the foundation of the world was laid.
24. When I heard the gospel I was sealed by the promised Holy Spirit.
25. In Christ I have obtained my inheritance.
26. Called to hope.
27. I’ve been made known the mystery of His will.
28. I get the do the good works He has prepared for me to do.
29. My flesh will always be at war against my spirit.
30. The Lord is my strong tower and refuge.
31. I am delivered from the dark domain.
32. I was created for His own glory.
33. I was created by Him.
34. I have been reconciled.
35. He will present me one day holy and blameless.
36. So you see, I can not boast of myself  but only in Christ.

Still Here…

For those of you holding your breath and waiting anxiously for me to blog don’t despair for my personal health or anything like that. Once again writer’s block has struck. I think it is connected to have a new baby as I remember that I went through something like this after Malachi. All my genius is going into making rich baby milk and the rest of it is being driven off by having to wake up two or three times a night. And while I’ve become very good at giving excuses lately I’ve really been very busy with carrying on the basics of life in a large household.

I really have lots of genius things to say  but I just can’t form my thoughts. Like how I read Sam Harris’s book called Letter to A Christian Nation and it got me all riled up to respond to his atheist rubbish and then I discovered that Douglas Wilson already had with his book Letter from a Christian Citizen, which is now on my must read list and since Wilson has done all the work already I don’t have to. Recently, I’ve discovered that you should NOT read C.S. Lewis while very sleepy at night as it has a numbing effect on the brain after reading the same paragraph six times and still not understanding exactly what it was he just said I put it down and promptly snored. Finally Alive by John Piper has been a very good book about the new birth. The first time I’ve read something doctrinal on the subject from the correct point of view. It has been most enlightening.

Grammarland by M. Nesbitt has been a very charming book that I’ve been reading to the children. I purchased it from Yesterday’s Classic after discovering them through Ambleside Online. It is on grammar usage and has been a very fun read aloud learning experience. I’m looking forward to the other books purchased from there. A few months ago I was delighted to find a book called Bible Characters written by D.L. Moody and some others. Just short commentaries on the life of certain figures in the Holy Bible and we’ve been reading that out loud as well.

Emma Rose is becoming a very chubby bundle of sweetness. She is starting to share her smiles with us as she approaches her six week mark tomorrow. The children are going to have her truly spoiled and she probably will never be happy as an adult unless there is someone to entertain her.

This week we’ve been preparing for our annual Blackshear Birthday Bash by tidying up the house and catching up with minor projects that I put off while I was pregnant. And now you know I’ve not been translated like Enoch or gone off in a chariot of fire like Elijah or fallen down dead like Sapphira and been carried off.

Swaddle That Baby! (Colic Revisited)

Last night, almost by instinct, I picked up my sweet Emma Rose who was fussing with her colic and bound her up in her blanket – a full swaddle. She immediately quieted right down and seemed very content. The difference was amazing. As a matter of fact, I held her facing away from me in a transverse position (her favorite position “in utero”). In twenty minutes she was totally asleep. She slept through the night too. Hmmm…. I really hope this isn’t a one time thing. I’m doing it again tonight!

Curiousity always gets the better of me and I looked up swaddling babies with colic and found a few interesting links.

Colic Baby Boot Camp (about swaddling)

Swaddling Calms a Colic Baby

Colic in a breastfeed baby…

It appears that Emma has a small issue with colic. I can almost set the clock by it for the last week as it happens exactly from 10:00 at night to 11:00 or 11:30. It is really strange because she will stop crying as mysteriously and suddenly as it started and go right to sleep. I’m really not sure what to do for her and it is easy to get frustrated because she seems to think she is hungry when I know that she is definitely not.  Jerry seems to be able to comfort her the best if he puts her on his chest while in bed.

I’m coping with it fairly well by distracting myself and just realizing that I can’t sleep while she fusses. Last night I read while she cried and tonight I’m blogging. The first couple of nights were terribly stressful because I was exhausted from a bladder infection and then sleep deprived by a screaming baby and I had not put 2+2 together yet and realized that this was/is colic. (after all, breast feed babies are supposed to not get that right?!)

Oh ya, and such helpful advice from breastfeeding websites…”here is a list of foods you should stop consuming to see if it helps.” If I did it their way I would be a dried up skeleton since the list is so long that I would officially have to stop eating to avoid them all. The first night I thought it was because I ate beans, the second garlic, the third…. well you get the idea (and don’t point your finger at the milk). So just calm down (I’m telling myself) and realize this is normal and it is okay to not be stressed when she cries.

(p.s. – Jerry is sleeping on the couch so he can energize for work and I’ve always been the night owl anyway although as I’ve gotten older my definition has changed)

Emma is beginning to wind down now…last night she went straight from screaming to totally asleep in one second flat. I checked her breathing while be very careful not to wake her and sure enough she was fast asleep. Then she was a little sweety and did not wake until 4 hours later to nurse.

P.S. – Emma is now suddenly asleep just like last night and I’m going to sign off.

And the persimmons says…

For those of you who have read Persimmon Traditions and wonder what the persimmon seed holds this year…it is a spoon again. I’m going to stock my pantry with canned goods and candles.

Why we couldn’t find the hornet’s nest…

The Hornet's Nest

It has taken us weeks to find this hornet’s nest. We knew we had one in the vicinity because Jerry, Christian, Jericho, and Elias were all stung while standing in about the same spot. I spent a lot of time watching from my kitchen window for bug activity in the area but without success. I walked carefully around the spot where they were stung trying to find a “brown” hornet’s nest in the tree. We looked at the ground as well knowing sometimes they build in holes there. Nothing…*sigh*

So I prayed for the Lord to show us where that nest was located. A few days later (on Sunday) Jerry and I were enjoying a cup of coffee on our swing in the back yard and I was watching some bugs busily flying back and forth. It occurred to me these where the hornets and I started looking closer. I watched their flight as they headed for the tree and suddenly the nest appeared out of nowhere as if the “invisible” shield they had around it melted and the whole nest now was obvious to plain sight.

Simeon’s conversation with John Wesley

The following  is from John Piper’s blog, original article here: http://ow.ly/qRpS

Today, 250 years ago a great pastor was born, Charles Simeon. He was called to Trinity Church, Cambridge in May of 1782. And he endured fruitfully there through much fire for 54 years until his death November 13, 1836.

Simeon never married. He “had deliberately and resolutely chosen the…celibacy of a Fellowship that he might…better work for God at Cambridge” (Moule, Charles Simeon, 111).

His greatest influence was probably through sustained biblical preaching for 54 years. This was the central labor of his life. In 1833, he placed into the hands of King William IV the completed 21 volumes of his collected sermons.

He tried to be conciliatory in doctrinal disputes. Here is an example of how he conversed with the elderly John Wesley:

Sir, I understand that you are called an Arminian; and I have been sometimes called a Calvinist; and therefore I suppose we are to draw daggers.  But before I consent to begin the combat, with your permission I will ask you a few questions.  Pray, Sir, do you feel yourself a depraved creature, so depraved that you would never have thought of turning to God, if God had not first put it into your heart?

Yes, I do indeed.

And do you utterly despair of recommending yourself to God by anything you can do; and look for salvation solely through the blood and righteousness of Christ?

Yes, solely through Christ.

But, Sir, supposing you were at first saved by Christ, are you not somehow or other to save yourself afterwards by your own works?

No, I must be saved by Christ from first to last.

Allowing, then, that you were first turned by the grace of God, are you not in some way or other to keep yourself by your own power?

No.

What then, are you to be upheld every hour and every moment by God, as much as an infant in its mother’s arms?

Yes, altogether.

And is all your hope in the grace and mercy of God to preserve you unto His heavenly kingdom?

Yes, I have no hope but in Him.

Then, Sir, with your leave I will put up my dagger again; for this is all my Calvinism; this is my election my justification by faith, my final perseverance: it is in substance all that I hold, and as I hold it; and therefore, if you please, instead of searching out terms and phrases to be a ground of contention between us, we will cordially unite in those things where in we agree. (Moule, 79ff.)

“Wearing” Emma

"Trying on" Emma in my home made baby wrap.

I have tried many baby carriers over the years and have always been left unenchanted by the shoulder and back aches that they would bring after about five minutes of wearing the contraption. Yet I kept seeing these beautiful woman in third world countries seemingly carrying their babies simply with one piece of cloth and look like it was a piece of cake. Fascinated I began to look up baby wraps on Google and came across a plethora of web pages devoted to the subject. Goodbye shoulder and back aches! If you aren’t thrifty with material or sewing you can buy a Moby Wrap from a store online but they are $40.00. I paid pennies for mine because I found the material at the local mission and there are still good deals on material (dollar a yard stuff) that will work great and save about 35 dollars and shipping and handling.

Here is where I found out how to make one.

Here is instructions on how to wear your baby in it.