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Our Daily Thread 7-24-13

Good Morning!

On this day in 1849 Georgetown University in Washington, DC, presented its first Doctor of Music Degree to Professor Henry Dielman.

In 1866 Tennessee became the first state to be readmitted to the Union after the U.S. Civil War.

In 1956 Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis ended their partnership.

In 1969 the astronauts on the Apollo 11 splashed down safely in the Pacific  Ocean.

In 1974 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that President Nixon had to turn over subpoenaed White House tape recordings to Watergate prosecutors.

And in 1978 Billy Martin was fired for the first time as the manager of the New York Yankees. He would be fired 2 more times as well. 🙂

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Quote of the Day

“The dearest friend on earth is a mere shadow compared to Jesus  Christ.”

Oswald Chambers

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This song was released today in 1965.

And this movie opened in New York City in 1978, starring Peter Frampton, the Bee Gees, Earth, Wind, and Fire, as well as Aerosmith.

Too funny. 🙂

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Anyone have a QoD for us?

45 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 7-24-13”

  2. JaniceG and Donna, I chuckled at your posts yesterday about Neapolitan ice cream because I don’t like it to this day. My son and I have a running joke about it because he does like it (but his wife and I do the grocery shopping together for both families and also pick the dessert for our big Saturday family dinners). So in the process of putting our apartment in the basement, he (who is a plumber) suggested a white shower, a brown sink, and a pink toilet. He insists that he can get all three.

    p.s. I also still don’t like ice cream in a cone due to the ice cream making the cone soggy

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  3. Fun to see you have California girls, sorry won’t be listening to it, but Donna, Michelle, and I are all California girls so this must be in our honor. I still like that I was born in 49 in California, so a gold rush girl.

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  8. No, Chas, it was today, you guys get confused with your days! We always begin our terms on a Wednesday. Gives folks time to fly in on Mondays or Tuesdays. It went well. The kids are so in awe of being in Kinder that they were mostly quiet. I almost lost my voice as I explained so many things. And also played games like ” I’m looking for a friend, i’m looking for a special friend whose name is___” and it is whoever my feet are next to, which sometimes is nobody, makes them laugh. The kids sit in a circle while I walk around the outside.

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  9. Good morning, everyone! Y’all are up and at ’em early today! I’ve been up for about an hour, drinking coffee and trying to come to. I’ve been struggling with insomnia for about a month now, but actually slept for about six hours last night, which is more than I’ve been getting…

    I’m super excited this morning b/c I’m meeting my sister (the one who’s been in Africa) in San Antonio today. We’ll be spending a couple of nights at a hotel, just the two of us. It’s been a very long time since we’ve spent time alone together, due to responsibilities of raising children, etc., and I’m really looking forward to our visit. They have decided to return to Rwanda indefinitely, where they are serving with Samaritan’s Purse. I miss her terribly, as we were extremely close as children, but I’m so proud of what she and her husband are doing. There is a terrible shortage of doctors in Rwanda and her husband is filling a desperate need for trained medical personnel in Kibogora.

    Jo: I’m so glad yesterday went well. I could never be a teacher for small children as I simply don’t have the patience for it. But, I have great respect for those that do. It is truly a gift. I still remember my own kindergarten teacher with fondness.

    As for ice cream, Blue Bell Chocolate Chip is my favorite flavor, followed closely by Blue Bell’s Tin Roof. I’m not a fan of neopolitan, though my youngest child enjoys it.

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  12. Love the Beach Boys!!! When I was a kid, my dad would sing “…and she’ll have fun, fun, fun, ’til her daddy takes the T-bird away…” He was always singing fun songs, many of which he made up as he went along. He did this so often, that when I was little (maybe four or five), I seriously thought he spent his days at work making up songs to sing to me! He now does this with my youngest, and she delights in it as much as I did. Good memories! 🙂 My dad turned 80 July 3. My mom has planned a fairly large birthday celebration for him on August 3 (she wanted to wait for my sister to be home). I’m glad we’re doing something special to mark the occasion. My dad’s a pretty special guy.

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  13. annmsw, I live in Ukarumpa, Papua New Guinea where I am a missionary school teacher. However I am from northern California. It is now 10:18 pm on the 24th here. So I wait up til 9pm for AJ to post. Not hard at all to be first. 🙂

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  14. Yesterday on the prayer thread I said that I needed to get my act together and figure out my next step professionally. Karen told me that God provides until He provides.
    Last night at Bible Study we tackled the 16th chapter of Genesis. We discussed the different aspects of it. When Abram prayed and told God he had no heirs he did not mention Sara. Sara handed over her slave Hagar which was common custom and could have claimed the child as her own. Abraham took Hagar as a wife, not a concubine but handed her back to Sara as her slave. Hagar left but an angel of the Lord sent her back. Ishmael means God hears. It is the second time we see a husband listening to his wife and not praying for God’s wisdom, then wondering what went wrong. We talked about the hurt Sara suffered from not having a child. We talked about how Jewish tradition treats Sara.
    As we were wrapping up the class and doing prayer requests I mentioned needing to figure out what to do next and that a friend had told me God provides until He provides. My priest said this is exactly what this chapter is about. God provided Ishmael until He provided Isaac. It is all in God’s hands.
    Thoughts?

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  16. Janice, I didn’t decide, he did. He did a better job than I would have. I would have made all straight lines because it facilitates mowing. His plan looks better, but harder to keep.

    Kim, “God provides until He provides”. I would like to comment, but I have been blessed beyond measure. I don’t expect everyone to be that fortunate. Paul says, I Cor. 6:3 that we shall judge angels. I can’t wait to put in a good word for mine.

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  17. Jo, Now you haveme confused. I figured that you were always fourteen hours ahead of us, no matter what day. But you have to cross the international date line to get there. So, it’s always tomorrow. And to you, we are yesterday.??????

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  19. QoD- A previous owner landscaped our yard and put various flowering plants such that we get flowers from May to July, and occasionally later. There is a miniature rose bush (miniature flowers, that is) that sometimes blooms in December if it’s not too cold. We did add a couple of lilac bushes and three trees. One is a red bud that we transplanted as a seedling from a friend’s house in 2010, who was planning on putting a fence where several of the trees were growing wild. It is now about eight feet tall and has little reddish-purple flowers in the Spring (thus the name). One is a walnut that I let grow from a seed that fell in the yard. I was mowing one day and saw a two inch tall tree, so I decided to mow around it and see if it would grow, marking it’s place with a stick so I wouldn’t forget it was there. That was in 2004. Now it is a 20 foot tall shade tree. The other is a maple that I let grow in the same way in 2011. It is only three feet tall now, but far enough from the house that when it is full grown, it won’t fall on the house. Maples are known for their falling limbs in strong winds.

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  20. Kim, We discussed something similar in our WIC bookclub in which we’re reading “Knowing God” (J.I. Packer). I think there’s real tension in situations like you mentioned. Since Abraham sinned by taking Hagar (the sin was not believing God would fulfill His promise), Ishmael was the product of sin. So it’s hard to then say that God “provided” him. But then God promises that all things work together for good, so He brings good out of sinful situations, although it’s never His first choice of “best” for us. In the case of Ishmael (and his descendants) it’s hard to see how any good came of it, but I’m sure it did/will since He promises us it always does.

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  22. Paul says,
    Romans 8:28
    And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

    We should not infer that all things work together for good. Some things are just bad.
    We should not infer that there will not be tribulations. There might be hard times.
    We do know that, in God’s timing, things work according to God’s plan for His people.
    I can attest to that.

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  23. Your Southern Small Town Humor for the Day:

    Lawyers should never ask a Georgia grandma a question if they aren’t prepared for the answer.

    In a trial, a Southern small-town prosecuting attorney called his first witness, a grandmotherly, elderly woman to the stand. He approached her and asked, ‘Mrs. Jones, do you know me?’ She responded, ‘Why, yes, I do know you, Mr. Williams. I’ve known you since you were a boy, and frankly, you’ve been a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, and you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You think you’re a big shot when you haven’t the brains to realize you’ll never amount to anything more than a two-bit paper pusher. Yes, I know you.’

    The lawyer was stunned. Not knowing what else to do, he pointed across the room and asked, ‘Mrs. Jones, do you know the defense attorney?’

    She again replied, ‘Why yes, I do. I’ve known Mr. Bradley since he was a
    youngster, too. He’s lazy, bigoted, and he has a drinking problem. He can’t build a normal relationship with anyone, and his law practice is one of the worst in the entire state. Not to mention he cheated on his wife with three different women. One of them was your wife. Yes, I know him.’

    The defense attorney nearly died.

    The judge asked both counselors to approach the bench and, in a very quiet voice, said,

    ‘If either of you idiots asks her if she knows me, I’ll send you both to the electric chair.

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  24. Re landscaping: ours is a combination of things that were here when my family bought the house, things my husband’s first wife planted (including a good number of trees), and things our older daughter has planted or transplanted. Who did what, I’m not quite sure, except for the trees. For now I let gardening be our daughter’s task /joy, but I have ideas in my mind for things I want to plant someday. (I don’t have a green thumb, so I’m happy enough to let someone else take care of it while she’s willing, but her days at home are numbered and it will be my job soon enough.)

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  25. My WWI book has 45 chapters planned out. For each chapter, I have an Oswald Chambers quote that is my spiritual backbone for that chapter. I could now give you 45 pithy quotes, but I’m to provide a couple which might help put things into perspective:

    “Beware of allowing yourself to think that the shallow concerns of life are not ordained of God; they are as much of God as the profound.”

    “God does not give us overcoming life; He gives us life as we overcome. The strain is the strength. God never gives strength for tomorrow, or for the next hour, but only for the strain of the minute.”

    “Whenever you obey God, his seal is always that of peace, the witness of an unfathomable peace which is not natural, but the peace of Jesus. Whenever peace does not come, tarry til it does or find out the reason why it does not.”

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  26. I was 10 years old on a family trip across the United States outside of Hartford, CT when this California girl heard that Beach Boys song for the first time.

    It made me feel much closer to home, even though I have never been one of those cute girls with a tan and a bikini . . . 🙂

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  27. I agree with Linda about Ishmael.

    Sara thought she knew what God did (keep her from getting pregnant) and what He wanted them to do (use her servant to provide an heir). She was right that God could have given her a child, but wrong in what he wanted them to do. We are often that way, too. The results, instead of making things better, made them worse for Sara. The whole situation (of her own making, with Abraham’s foolish help) was a thorn in her side. The reverberations are still going on. God knew all that before any of it happened, of course. It will all fill His purpose in the long run. Still, a whole lot of trouble would have been avoided if Sara and Abraham had been more patient and trusting of God.

    The lesson for us seems to be patience and faith that God will provide in His good time. Better to wait than have a counterfeit blessing, which turns out to be no blessing. Of course, this all assumes we really know what God has said!

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  28. Our yard has a few trees and plants left from the previous owners (1983). Many of the trees have been cut down because they become hazardous. Mostly we have plants purchased from a nursery or things we transplanted that people gave us. When my parents moved to a different home at retirement my father did not want the two Japanese Maples in the front yard. My husband did a big digging being careful not to damage the roots. Those two trees survived and sit between our house and the neighbor’s. When my parent’s neighbor saw my husband getting the trees he came to investigate thinking they were being stolen.
    🙂

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  29. Just listened to a deep theological discussion between 8 children, ages 9-5, concerning the proper way to say your evening prayers. Should your feet be under the covers or not? Interesting to hear their perceptions..;-)..The things you can hear around the kitchen table…

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  31. I was looking through some Sunday School lessons that I have taught. I happened to run across this from a lesson I taught on 20 Oct. 1991.

    “To sum up the series: Why I believe the Bible is true
    1. There is an inner witness between the 66 books.
    2. Prophesies fulfilled.
    3. God seems to honor it. “That the Scriptures may be fulfilled”. (Matt. 5:7, Jn. 10:35, 13:18,)
    4. Not the kind of thing a man would write. (No clear heroes but Jesus. Life as it is.)
    5. I have never had an error or contradiction of scripture pointed out to me. (Some scientific accommodation to the age. e.g. We still say the Sun crosses the sky, the four corners of the earth, etc.)
    6. We would expect God to reveal himself this way. A Word made available to mankind.
    Man often presumes to judge scripture. Rather, it’s the other way around.”

    That, verbatim, from the notes. I spoke to the points. Concerning #4. In teaching Jonah, I commented that if I had been writing that about myself, you wouldn’t have chapter four.

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  32. QoD

    Nothin’. House, sidewalk, grass. 3 flowers still bloom in the Spring from when my Gram planted ’em decades ago. That’s it. Nice straight lines, nice green grass, that’s it. I swith the cut direction every mow. That and trimmin’ with a weed whacker and my landscaping is done.

    Looks like Yankee stadium too I might add. 🙂

    Simple to maintain, nice to look at. Nice straight lines is the trick.

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  34. Ann, my dad always walked around the house singing, too. My dad always addressed me with a nursery rhyme and song. Many songs, new and old remind me of him. He could do some interesting revisions on the words, too. Good memories, indeed.

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  36. Hi Chas, about the day. The first three hours of each posting day, we are on the same day. When AJ posts it is 7am there and 9pm here on the same day. But I quickly go a day ahead.

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  39. Well the Pasadena kid and her family landed yesterday and it’s been fun and crazy….the Kentucky kid arrives tomorrow with his family…we are all gathering here and will have a big ‘ol family picture taken by my daughter’s friend the photographer….this should be interesting! While they are all out sight seeing…I am home cleaning, cooking and now relaxing….just had a huge thunderstorm move through…the forest smells so fresh…now I will prepare for them to descend upon the premises and tear this place apart again!!

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  44. Oh, we sometimes have epic meltdowns in the newsroom. Tears, yelling, lots of bad language. It can be a volatile bunch.

    But I was out of the office most of today, gathering info for a story I’m writing on our town’s upcoming anniversary celebration. I interviewed a descendant (who’s actually been a long-time source, he was a deputy city fire/homeland security chief who retired early just a few years ago) of what is one of the longest-standing immigrant families in town. And lucky for me, he’s been doing the research and has all these amazing original documents from his great-great grandparents who came from Italy in the late 1800s. Passports (or what passed for passports back then), “identity” papers, land deeds, photos; just some amazing stuff.

    A photographer was with me so she did some video at the house while we talked and then we wound up on a caravan following behind him to visit the historic cemetery where all his ancestors are buried (had to break in, but Shhh, don’t tell); the fishing memorial where their family’s fishing boat is listed as the first known one to work out of the harbor; and the old family house near the harbor.

    As for “God provides until He provides,” I’d definitely agree with that one as well. I feel like I’m in a life/career period now that I don’t really like very much (for lots of reasons. But I keep reminding myself that God is providing and is doing something during this time — and that it is important for me to KEEP remembering that He’s doing something for my benefit and to be alert to the lessons and opportunities that come with these uncertain periods we go through in our lives.

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  45. Michelle, love that quote about God giving His peace. i have felt that many times as confirmation of where He wants me to go or what He wants me to do, or not do.

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