43 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 2-19-16”

  2. Good Morning…oh Ann…is your DMV anything like ours? If so I guess you will be spending 6 hours of your day waiting your turn in line! Take a good book and earplugs…and keep an eye on your ticket number and the next one to be called on the monitor 🙂

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  3. NancyJill: actually, our DMV office allows one to get in line over the phone and texts you when it’s your turn. You can hold your place in line for thirty minutes once they text you, which gives you the freedom not to wait at the DMV. It’s a huge improvement over the old protocol.

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  4. In case anyone is interested, I asked my LCMS Pastor what he thought of the “Israel” link I shared the other day. This is his answer “I think the article points out some very important things theologically speaking. Really, the synod has never taken a position on “Standing with Israel” but I think it is safe to assume that many in the LCMS who have conservative leanings politically would do just that. However, I do not believe that Israel, or Jews today, are the chosen people. Christ is Israel of the Bible reduced to one, that is actually one of the points of Matthew’s gospel. Paul routinely asserts that he questions whether any Jews would be saved outside of Christ, see Romans and Galatians. Really though, what we believe as Lutherans, regardless of LCMS political posturing, is that the Church is Israel because the Church is in Christ, that Christians are God’s people because they have been baptized into Christ. It wasn’t until after WWII and the horrors of Nazi Germany that people in the church decided we had to treat modern Jews and Israel as if they were the same as the OT people. In actuality if you read the OT like Jews today you read it wrong. It cannot be understood without Christ or without the NT. The point I am making is simply that the Israel of today is not the Israel of the OT, neither are the Jews today the Jews of the OT, Paul went to them and they rejected that message, they rejected Christ. Politics intrudes into theology too much for my liking and this is one instance where the church forsakes its heritage for the sake of not wanting to look anti-Semitic”

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  7. Sometimes it is the simplest things in life. I don’t know why when I wake up at 4 in the morning my husband is snoring and I can’t go back to sleep, so I get up, go to the sofa, and read. The big mystery is why, when I go back in the bedroom for something he has quit snoring and the room is quiet.
    This morning I went back to get Amos just as the sun was rising. I put him out the back door by himself. Usually he and Lulabelle go out together, but she had been out at 4:30 and had gone back to bed. Amos was out for a while without wanting in, so I stood at the sun room door watching him wander around and sniff things in the back yard. I must have stood there for about 10 minutes drinking my coffee and watching him. Sometimes you can actually feel your heart swell with love and happiness over the simplest thing. 🙂

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  9. I thought I would share the highlights from yesterday from Dr. Elko. Interesting fact he brought out. Cell phones are the causes of most divorces these days. The men look at their phones, answer emails, etc –not unplugging from work and the women feel ignored, get dissatisfied, and things fall apart. (Women do the same things with their cell phones, but men have tougher skin)

    BE WHERE YOUR FEET ARE…

    YOU LIVE IN VISION OR IN CIRCUMSTANCE

    I AM NOT LOOKING FOR BLESSINGS TO COME INTO MY LIFE,
    I JUST WANT TO BE A BLESSING TO SOMEONE.

    KEEP CARRYING THE WATER UNTIL IT BECOMES THE WINE

    TALK TO YOURSELF….

    LET GO OF YOUR NEED TO BE RIGHT….

    ALIGN EXPECTATION WITH REALITY….

    THE TOOL FOR 2016 IS YOUR TONGUE…

    YOU EITHER PITCH OR YOU CATCH (Gus to Auburn players))
    OHIO STATE wore wrist band when they played Bama & won –
    ERO – EVENT RESPONSE OUTCOME

    SO WHAT – NOW WHAT ???? Bama after Ole Miss game

    (If someone is ugly to you)

    GO BE FRUITFUL & MULTIPLY YOURSELF….

    IN 2016, I WILL NOT LET THEM TURN ME INTO THEM…

    In Bible CHRIST SAID – OFFENSES, THEY WILL COME!!

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  10. Good morning, at least here in Atlanta where the sun is shining and the weather is mild.

    Art told me this a.m. that I did not have to fix his lunch because the girls (3 in the office today, and all grandmas) wanted to get pizza. I said I had to fix his lunch because he can not have pepperoni pizza…way too much salt. He looked frowny but knew I was right so I fixed his lunch.

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  11. I pulled more honeysuckle vines off the azalea bushes in the yard yesterday. I later had to take aspirin, and today I have extra stiffness. Some of the vines are woody and about half an inch in diameter because they are old. Only by pulling with all my weight could I get some uprooted. I am figuring out the best ways to get them out. I was thinking that if I hired a young person to do this that they would not care about the difference between the azalea plants and honeysuckle and they would take out both at the same time. You know what that old saying says, “If you want something done right, DIY!”

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  12. Michelle, I am learning to do Zumba with honeysuckle vines. They make great dance partners, and I don’t have to pay to be in their class! Ever heard of Fred Honeyvine Astaire? He never steps on my feet.

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  13. Last post for awhile today! I have to get ready to go to a memorial service at church. Our congregation is really dwindling as we lose some of the most precious and active members. 😦

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  14. Ihave ten pages of this sort of thing.
    QOD. It is often said, and it’s true.
    “The Jews were looking for a political/military Messiah”
    I have never heard anyone ask “Why”
    WHY?

    Why should there be an Israel?

    God makes an unconditional covenant with Abraham. Gen. 15:18 “In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.”
    God made a promise to Isaac and excluded Ishmael. Gen 17:21
    God promised the land to Jacob. Gen. 28:13-15. Excluded Esau.
    God renewed His promise. Gen. 35:12 “And the land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee (Jacob) I will give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land.”
    Everlasting covenant: Ps. 105:8f 8He hath remembered his covenant for ever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations.
    9Which covenant he made with Abraham, and his oath unto Isaac;
    10And confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant:
    11Saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance

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  18. We had to tackle the honeysuckle taking over my dad’s, now my trailer with a chain saw! My BIL cut and my sister and I pulled it loose from around the shrubs. It was literally starting to encase the house.

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  19. Oh, well, chocolate pudding pie sounds a lot better. 🙂

    I had my honeysuckle removed during the scorched-earth tree trimming event last fall. I miss it but it was growing all around the top of the house, onto (and into) the chimney … the humming birds loved it, though, and its presence and bird-attraction powers provided Annie with hours of viewing pleasure from inside the window. 🙂

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  20. Regarding Israel, I believe that God still has a special plan for them. No, they cannot be saved without Christ, but I believe that many of his promises and prophesies to Israel have yet to be fulfilled completely. God keeps his promises. The church has some of the some promises, but not all. The current country of Israel is secular, but gathering Jews back to the promised land is part of the fulfillment of prophecy. I am convinced that Jews will experience a revival in the future like none we have ever seen.

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  22. Jews for Jesus is active in Israel. There are Christians who are there who actively work to spread the Good News.

    As for the honeysuckle that I was observing from the distance, it is still up in a tree and looking pretty wild and odd since I cleared it out from under that area. I just don’t have what it takes to get it down from high places.

    The memorial service was quite nice with two sons speaking about their dad. He was 87 and he and his wife had been married 67 years. She is a WMU leader. I loved the way one son used a long string of adjectives he thought of to describe his dad. Such sweet people.

    Donna, I had oatmeal with cinnamon, raisins, unsweetened applesauce, and vanilla yogurt swirled in it. I really like that combo.

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  25. Mumsee, I think she is talking about dance partners! Some think they are dancing with the stars when they are really just dancing around the honeysuckle vine.

    One day my neighbor saw me pulling at the vine up in the tree, and I think he was frightened for me because the tree looked a little dead, and he thought I might break off the limb and clobber myself. My dad did have to go to the hospital once when helping a neighbor cut down a tree, and a limb fell and hit him in the head.

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  27. Standard breakfast: oatmeal, plain yogurt and applesauce with cinnamon. Lately, with Lent, I’m drinking chai tea.

    Goulash for dinner with most of the fam. Apple crisp for dessert but chocolate pudding pie would be good if not for the aforementioned Lent.

    Home to write this afternoon, then chaos reigns for the next ten days or so.

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  28. If anyone is interested, Publisher’s Weekly is offering a free four part webinar, on Self Publishing 101, with some top notch people in the industry doing a panel discussion. If you are interested and can’t locate the registration link on the website let me know and I will try to get it to you. I am on their newsletter list so that is how I got the offer to sign up.

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  29. I like plain yogurt with my oatmeal, but when son was home I bought vanilla for him. I have not yet gone back to plain, but I have been thinking I need to do that. Sometimes I add chopped walnuts if I have them.

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  31. I believe my bougainvillea stump may also be sprouting, but I will keep cutting it out. It should never have been planted right next to the house.
    Off to have my breakfast of scrambled eggs with bits of ham and cheese.

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  37. Chai could also be coffee so it makes sense to differentiate. It is just the spices added that make whatever chai. Now Bengal Spice. That is tea. But is it really tea, it has no tea in it. But the box says it is tea.

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  38. Donn, nine year old has many highlights in his days, but he is rather oblivious to the days of the week. But he seems to know when Wednesday rolls around and Slylock Fox shows up in the Wednesday paper. I forgot to give it to him this week, for whatever reason. But I pulled it out of the stack a few minutes ago, handed it to him, and said I had thought of him. He looked at the paper with a puzzled expression, until he acutally looked and saw the familiar Wednesday layout and immediately broke into a huge grin, whipped it around to the kids section and ran off to have his sister read it to him. You brighten people’s day with the newspaper. He also likes the comics, the outdoors section, the political cartoons, etc.

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  40. Long day at work but fun…we moved to a new location and now we are sorting out boxes whilst waiting on customers!
    I had oatmeal for breakfast too….in the form of a cookie 🙂
    We have dear friends who were missionaries in China for many years….when Dawn heard someone say Chai Tea she laughed…she said “do they know they are saying tea tea…as Chai means tea? Silly Americans 🙂

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  41. Grrrr. I am mad at Donald Trump for how his vulgarity & bigotry is reflecting on Republicans, conservatives, & Christians.

    A couple comments I recently read:

    KK – “The Bigotry of the Republicans is evident in the support of Donald Trump. He’s given them the license to come out from beneath their rocks and publicly declare their hatred.”

    AH – “Yes I have experienced that today myself. A few years ago, the redneck constituency had enough shame to at least keep their bigotry quiet. Today, it was unleashed in the name of Jesus, the Bible and guns.”

    Then today, a post implying that Christians are disgusted by the pope’s remarks questioning Trumps Christianity (supposedly the same Christians who have been questioning Obama’s faith for eight years). The tagline under the post:“Christian conservative stupidity.”

    There seems to be an assumption that Republicans in general, & Christians in general, are Trump supporters.

    Okay, rant over. (I could have saved this for tomorrow’s Rants & Raves, but it was on my mind.)

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  42. Just got home from having dinner with a delightful young lady and her beau, (they’re 25 & 27). She used to be our neighbor and was a mommy’s helper for me at twelve. She lost her dad a couple years ago. I am very fond of her. She had a difficult childhood but never became bitter.

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  43. Donn / Dinna / here.

    Nice newspaper story. 🙂

    I had a bunch of stuff to haul in tonight — lots of dog food and ‘me’ food. Soup and figure. Otherwise known as yogurt.

    But I guess I’m not making much sense again.

    Long day.

    I’m tired.

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