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Our Daily Thread 4-10-15

Good Morning!

It’s Friday!!!

Today’s header photo is from Cheryl.

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On this day in 1790 the U.S. patent system was established. 

In 1825 the first hotel opened in Hawaii. 

In 1862 Union forces began the bombardment of Fort Pulaski in Georgia along the Tybee River.

In 1865, during the American Civil War, General Robert E. Lee issued his last order. 

And in 1963 129 people died when the nuclear-powered submarine USS Thresher failed to surface off Cape Cod, MA.

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Quote of the Day

“A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will in time produce a people as base as itself.”

Joseph Pulitzer

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 Today is Brian Setzer’s birthday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvXjbsEoKyA&feature=player_detailpage

And one more. 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ck6sGWn99jQ&feature=player_detailpage

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Anyone have a QoD?

44 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 4-10-15”

  1. Most people aren’t happy when the oversleep, but agree two nights of not sleeping I was very happy when at 6:08 Mr P asked me if I needed to get up. Unfortunately I was having coffee with Mumsee, worrying about getting to the airport and realizing it was only Thursday and I wasn’t supposed to leave the Nest until Friday. Well at least when I stumbled to my own kitchen the coffee was already made.

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  4. Some of you have expressed concern about my online relationship with YF. So here’s the update on that matter:

    Back in February, although I had already greatly limited my commenting on her posts, I shared an article along with a brief comment on one of her posts. Her reply to me not only greatly misrepresented what I had said in the past on that issue, but her wording was very insulting of my intelligence. I decided at that point that I was finally “done with her”.

    But this past weekend she came back from a Facebook fast with a vengeance. I could ignore the pro-abortion posts, the anti-conservative-or-Republican-or-Libertarian posts, etc. but now she is sharing posts that mock & attack conservative Christians. She also wrote about the Indiana religious freedom law, referring to Christian business owners who don’t want to provide their services to same-sex weddings as “douche bags”, “horrible people”, & some terms using bad language.

    She also writes about how Jesus is all about love while spewing contempt bordering on hatred for her fellow believers who disagree with her.

    I just couldn’t sit by & ignore this. I did at first, but it gnawed at me. I felt it was my responsibility as an older sister in Christ to address this. As I wrote & posted my comment, I prayed that her heart would be open to hear from the Holy Spirit. Unfortunately, her reply to me showed that her bitterness & self-righteousness have blinded her heart & mind. And I finally washed my hands of her.

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  5. That is difficult, Karen. We can only pray for such people’s hearts to be softened, eyes to be opened, ears to be unplugged and minds to be renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit and the reading of scripture. Also, that they do have someone they do admire to give them a dose of reality and truth that finally penetrates.

    Jesus lived among many yet managed to still speak the truth in love. I cling to that reality. I know he did not mince words either. We are promised persecution like those prophets of old and Jesus, himself. No wonder we are told to continue doing good and pray for our enemies. We need to remember. Psalm 37 also comes to my mind often.

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  6. I sound like a broken record that folks would love to play in CA. The sky is darkening, thunder is nearby and raindrops are falling…AGAIN!

    Karen O, thank you for more explanation of situation with YF. Despite her own ID as a Christian, she obviously is not. Her stupidity shows in not researching those things about which she spouts off. She may or may not ever see the light. You have done your part with her. Step away, as you have, and pray for God to bring another influencer or situation into her life to guide her either gently or abruptly into true belief and following Jesus.

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  7. Karen says”
    “And I finally washed my hands of her.”
    Karen, you need to do that. You are doing neither of you any good. And you appear to have enough problems that you don’t need to create more. I don’t know your common relationship, but it is hurting you and doing her no good.

    I got off Facebook entirely.
    I recommend it.
    They keep sending me e-mail that my son wants to be my friend.
    My son says he is not on Facebook.

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  8. I agree, Karen, there is no reason to think she is a believer. You aren’t her older sister in Christ, but a believer she knows. Can’t you just de-friend her so she doesn’t rile you? Keep your interactions with her to when you see her in person and you can look her in the eye.

    I told AJ I wasn’t sure this photo was good enough to be a header photo, it just happens to be the first time I’ve ever seen a male and female flicker together. (Naturally, the male is the one with the mustache.) I also sent him other, prettier photos of other things.

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  9. Time is short before the tax deadline. Husband stayed all night at the office again. I had bought a box of 8 Chick-fil-A nuggets to supplement his meal last night so I had 4 before bed and 4 for breakfast. Did not want to waste them, ya know?

    Brother has been dealing with downsizing again. He is with a contract company. They let some of the contract sales force go yesterday, and the all of the main company employees on this pharma drug which brother has not seen them do before. Things are getting tight. He hated to see so many he knows lose their jobs since it has happened to him so often. Very stressful to not know if he would be receiving the 3o’clock call of doom yesterday.

    Son has his own stresses going on with major presentations this week. What can I say? When it rains in GA it seems it is raining all over the world except for in CA.

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  10. Cute little birds!

    Poor Janice’s husband! Only a few more days … I have a co-worker who has a lot of complicated and expensive medical items to report this year and she’s still trying to pull everything together, she told me she’ll probably wind up just filing for an extension.

    Karen, you did what you could — It’s not “coincidence” when our paths cross those other other specific people & you’ve tried to confront YF by speaking the truth in love. I commend you for that, you’re braver and less prone to snapping than I am. 🙂 Engaging is never easy or “safe,” but Christ gave us His example and our efforts in those areas bring glory to Him while also challenging our own faith and thinking. Good for you, well done. And who knows, your words and your biblical attitudes may have impacted someone you don’t even know who has silently read them.

    But I think you’re probably right at this point, time to shake the dust from your feet. She’s a tough one and not likely to turn any time soon. She’ll probably wonder what you’re up to if you vanish. 🙂 I’m pretty good at “scrolling by” the anti-Christian diatribes I see on FB from time to time (some from a couple so-called “liberal” or mainline Christians, and, yeah, I roll my eyes a lot), but there also is a way you can “hide” someone’s comments without unfriending them. She may drop you, however 😉

    It’s easy to broad-brush condemn FB, I suppose. And FB certainly isn’t for everyone, I know — but it is for some, including for many Christians whom I’ve seen make wise use of it. I have no doubt that God uses all of these means at times to reach or influence the lost.

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  11. I’m beat, I worked until 10 p.m. last night, standing out at the fishing boat docks with about a dozen TV news vans, firemen, police & rescue crews to cover the car that plunged into the water. What a sad story.

    I slept like a rock, but now I ache and am punchy-tired still — and today’s another day off and I’m going to the Pet Expo, my friend will be here in just a little over an hour. I’ve had a shower and am trying to wake up with some coffee.

    Otherwise, I’m no where near ready …

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  12. I just received an unexpected call from son who said he had a really dumb question. I told him really dumb questions are allowed here. He asked if the little thread on the back of his new sports coat is suppose to be there. I said no, it is just there to keep the flap in place while it hangs in the store. Now I ask you, isn’t it great that old moms still have value? It made my day♡

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  13. I found myself using the piles of fishing nets and buoys that sit all along the pier as a “table” to jot notes while on the cell phone … Thankfully another reporter was out there with me, one of our newbies — and our cop reporter was a the office taking our calls & texts and putting the story together from there.

    Covering these things is hectic and labor intensive, though, especially after a long day already in which I wrote 2 stories. And it’s a good thing I had my lightweight parka in he Jeep, turned out I needed it when that sun went down and it got pretty cold on the water.

    Ha, and re-reading my comment about YF probably not “turning” anytime soon, I thought to myself, yet again, “Ah, But God …. “) Pray for her, wish her well, and see what God in his grace may yet do in her life.

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  15. I just started reading a new book called “Thriving in Babylon: Why Hope, Humility and Wisdom Matter in a Godless Culture” — it uses the example of Daniel to explore ways in which Christians should be living amid the declining culture.

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  19. Those are pretty birds in the header, Cheryl. The picture brought a smile. 🙂 I’m looking forward to more of your photos.

    Good for you, Karen, washing your hands of YF. And I agree with Kim’s recommendation above, if you have not done so yet, and with Janice’s and Cheryl’s assessments that YF’s saying she is a Christian does not make her one, or a sister in Christ. I see no evidence of the fruit of the Spirit that would clearly identify her as belonging to Christ.

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  21. Nice day yesterday, getting together with my duet partner for the second time. Our first practice two weeks ago was a little rough, but yesterday’s session went quite well. We were more together rhythmically, and struck a much better balance acoustically, with the melody parts playing more prominently, and the harmony parts not overshadowing, but complementing the melody.

    We also talked about what we would wear for the piano show, so we are coordinated in that respect, as well. 😉

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  22. On my way home yesterday, I stopped at the library and found an interesting book on the New Non-fiction shelf: [brief]: make a bigger impact by saying less, by Joseph McCormack.

    A great (and concise, not surprisingly) read so far; I had read to page 81 by the end of the day yesterday. 😉

    A lot of it so far has focused on brevity in the corporate setting, but I’ve found much useful advice for my work in teaching my piano students. It is always a challenge to keep a thirty-minute piano lesson thirty minutes, and use the time well. (Not talking too much, but finding the right balance of time for playing time versus instructional time, and stating as concisely as possible what I’d like the students to accomplish.)

    I like to also give the children a little time to talk about what is on their minds, too, remembering that I’m not merely teaching music, but am teaching humans. I don’t want to be all business all the time.

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  26. Mentally exhausted. I have asked for help on something 3 times and swore I wasn’t going to ask again. I swallowed my pride and asked again. I was insulted with a “I haven’t used that program since high school”. Well if you would have helped me with the program you DO use one of the THREE times I asked for help I wouldn’t have had to go back to an old program that I know.

    What kind of career would let me deal with men only? I obviously don’t play well with women.

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  27. Gusty winds and small hail on the radar now. Well, it is a change from rain 🙂
    With all the rain, the spring flowers have not been as pretty as usual. I guess a little hail will just make them extra frilly.

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  28. National Weather Service has issued a severe thunderstorm warning. Duh! Look and listen, as the sky gets darker and darker, and I could do that report myself. I need to get away from this window. It looks really bad!!

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  29. My husband and I went to see McFarland USA this afternoon. It has been in the theaters a while and may not be around much longer, but anyone who is debating whether or not to see it, it’s great. He was more interested than I; I wouldn’t seek out a sports movie. But it really is much more of a movie about culture and relationships, and it’s based on a true story, and is excellent. If you have any interest in Mexican culture or music, or Spanish, or what it’s like to live cross-culturally, you’ll really enjoy it. Our Spanish-loving girl would really love it.

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  30. Good day at the Pet Expo where I saw a magnificent — biggest ever — Maine Coon cat named Ben Cartwright in the cat show tent.

    Later I was slimed real good by a drooling St. Bernard. Sweatshirt & jeans hit the washing machine as soon as I got home.

    I bought 2 catnip toys some for Annie, picked up some free sample dog biscuits for Cowboy & Tess — and we got free samples of a new Simple Green cleaning product.

    We always enjoy browsing through all the new (and not so new anymore) pet products — everything from plug-in running-water water bowls to sealy-posturepedic dog beds that are much better than my old mattress.

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  31. Re Mr. and Mrs. Flicker in the heading, I don’t really like taking photos at an angle through the window in our library, since the glass distorts a bit if it isn’t a straight shot. Anyway, I love flickers, and I was taking photos of Mrs. Flicker, especially hoping to get that virtually-impossible photo of a flicker in flight. (I love the flash of yellow under their wings and tail.) Well, she suddenly went running (not flying) across the yard, and I followed her with the camera, and lo and behold the camera soon included two flickers in the view. So I got several shots, and then he ducked under the fence into the next yard and she flew away (but I still didn’t get the flying shot).

    Last summer a pair (likely the same birds) hung out in our yard. It was obviously part of their territory, since I saw a female a lot and I saw a male a lot. And I once saw the female doing a territorial display with another female, and I saw the female feeding a young male. But somehow I never saw the male and female together. (I think I saw two in the yard at the same time once, but they were at the back of the yard and not really together, and I didn’t see if they were a male and a female.)

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  32. Whether or not YF is a Christian, saved by the skin of her teeth, or not is something I go back & forth on. If you read about how she describes her love for Jesus, you’d think she is, but then reading the other stuff makes me wonder.

    In her last comment to me, she wrote something that makes me shudder a bit. In reply to my saying that it is not fair that some of the handful of Christian business owners sued for not providing their services for same-sex weddings have lost their businesses (rather than merely having a fine to pay or something else not so draconian), & that one elderly lady is at risk for also losing her savings & her home, she wrote:

    “I do not actually give a fig if terrible people face repercussions for being [@#$%&s] with a bolstered superiority complex to other people. I don’t. Does it make me a bad Christian? You know what, it might. But that’s between me and God and isn’t anybody else’s earthly concern. I’ll have the conversation about my intention and indignation at the disgusting things people do with Jesus.”

    It was that last sentence, thinking she could justify her attitudes to Jesus’ face, that made me shudder. (I replied that the Bible tells us to exhort & encourage each other, & that yes, we are indeed each other’s earthly concern.)

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  33. Another of YF’s statements made me kind of chuckle, though, when it hit me what she meant. Explaining why she posts those anti-conservative-Christian posts (which often claim that it is liberal Christians who really read their Bibles, & other holier than thou type things), she implied that she is fighting evil & injustice by posting those things.

    Yes, she really thinks that sitting at her computer, furiously typing & clicking away on Facebook, is “fighting evil & injustice”.

    To that, I replied, maybe not as graciously as I could have, “Posting on Facebook is not doing a dang thing about anything. You may think you are ‘educating’ people, but if you want to truly do that, posting an explanatory article, or politely & calmly writing your own thoughts, would be much more effective. People do not learn anything nor choose to mend their ways by being attacked & mocked.”

    And since she invoked the name of Jesus, & what He preached & taught, I reminded her of Jesus’ own words on the subject of marriage…

    “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?”

    There has been no reply to that.

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  34. Block her from you FB. Defriend her. Disengage. If I had your address I would dig out my copy of Safe People and mail it to you. She is NOT a safe person for you. She is toxic. I don’t know all her issues, but I do know two things.
    Hurt people hurt people.
    Time heals all wounds and wounds all heels.

    It will take a while, but I promise that she will take up less and less of your thoughts to the point she will hardly matter.
    And another thing since I seem to be on my soapbox. Quit scheduling your family events around what the McK’s are doing. The is enabling Chrissy and giving her more permission to hurt you. That leads me to the third thing I know.
    We teach people how to treat us..

    I paid 75 to 100 an hour to one day be able to tell you those things.

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  35. I’m reminded of this passage from Matthew 7 when I hear about YF:

    21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

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  36. I remember holding onto some more socially liberal political ideas when I was a newbie Christian and was still sorting things out (though I don’t think I was angry as YF seems to be).

    I also think when Christians are new to the faith (don’t know if she is or not, but if she’s still young she may be) they/we can be, shall we say, less than humble and even a tad self-righteous. The fear of God is sometimes quite alien to new believers who are so full of bombast that they can be hard judges of those who have walked for a much longer time in the faith (and who realize their own spiritual frailty and need to seek God’s grace, not his justice).

    A few years walking in the faith and honestly seeing our own attitudes and motives typically cures all that self-righteousness that fast enough, of course. 😮

    Ultimately we can’t know another’s heart. But I do try to give grace to those who claim him but aren’t acting very biblically for whatever reason. Perhaps they aren’t believers. But maybe they are and are still very immature and tied to worldly thinking. In either case, the prayer is that they will be drawn more and more to Scripture and (more and more) will be humbled and taught by Christ and God’s Word.

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  38. Karen, I am sorry for the turmoil that is surrounding you at this time. Take YF off your news feed. I have several friends and relatives who are extremely liberal.
    If their posts offend me, I take them off the news feed. That way, if I really am interested in them, I can still contact, or see family pictures. I generally do not engage in verbal battles with those who do not share my viewpoint. I have found that to be non-productive. I try not to put down others thoughts and beliefs. What I do try to do is reflect God’s love. What do they see from me that would make them want to change their beliefs to mine?

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  39. 6 Arrows – Just last night or this morning, I thought about that passage from Matthew 7, & I prayed that God would bring her to repentance so she never has to hear that.

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  40. This is just a random thought I had recently: One (emotionally) dark night, I struggled to let go of a fear, & trust God completely with the particular situation. I had the thought that if I ever lost faith or turned away, I would be an atheist. Either the God of the Bible is real & true, or there’s no God at all. I couldn’t believe in a generic, impersonal god.

    But of course, I have not lost my faith, nor am I turning away from God (which many of you believe is impossible for a true believer to do anyway). 🙂

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  41. Goodnight, all. A long day of babysitting tomorrow, & I have a cold. Hoping the day goes as smoothly as possible with a crazy four-year-old boy. 🙂

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  43. Praying for you sweet Karen…that you might have a restful sleep tonight and awaken refreshed…knowing our precious Lord has everything well in His Hand…rest in Him…
    I worked all day getting home around 7….I opened my computer only to see that my nephew posted a photo of himself and his boyfriend who said “yes” to his proposal of marriage….I don’t know how it came to be on my newsfeed as I had “hidden” his friendship so that I would not see his postings….most of my family members sent “congratulations” to him…I am heartsick…I love him…yet, he is an “in your face, you had better accept and affirm my lifestyle or you are a fake Christian bigot”….I do not engage with him…I pray for him….he professes to be a follower of Christ… 😦

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