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Our Daily Thread 1-13-18

Good Morning!

And a Happy Birthday! to Kizzie!

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Anyone have a QoD?

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And now that Saturday has turned to Sunday, a Happy Birthday! to Pauline as well!

 

108 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 1-13-18”

  2. I set my alarm for 6:00 today. Saturday is the one day of the week I don’t normally wake to an alarm, but tomorrow I will need to be up at 5:00 to get to church by 7:00 for choir rehearsal before 8:00 church. There was an extra rehearsal set up for tomorrow morning because we had quite bad weather on Thursday night, which was supposed to be our second and final rehearsal.

    The choir director didn’t cancel rehearsal, but emailed the group and gave each of us the option of staying home and telling us of the newly-scheduled Sunday rehearsal. I chose to opt out of going Thursday, as roads were snow-covered and slippery, and I am 11 miles from church, with country roads that aren’t as well-maintained to travel being part of that distance.

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  7. ¡Feliz cumpleaños, Kizzie!

    It’s also my son’s birthday. He’s 34 today. And the young family in our church has a boy who turns 1 today. Nothing unlucky about this 13.

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  14. I injured myself this morning. Remember last Saturday’s flowers with the apples? I took the arrangements apart this morning and decided to throw the apples into the woods behind my house for the critters. I was flinging them from my back door and so proud of how far I was throwing them. That is until I hit the door knob with my right hand and injured my right thumb. I thought perhaps I broke my thumb. I know it isn’t broken but Lord have mercy it sure does hurt.

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  15. Since 6:45 this morning: I wish I was a Catholic. How come the little kids get to do stuff and I don’t? (They were headed off to coffee with dad, she went with him and other sixteen year old yesterday) You don’t like me. I wish I was in school. I don’t want to do school. I want to brush my teeth. I won’t brush my teeth. I told dad I would not scream at you today. I have a headache. I want something for my headache. I don’t want water. My arm hurts. My stomach hurts. I am tired. I want to go for a walk……….

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  18. Perhaps you should tell her she is Catholic? Of course, don’t take advise from me. I grew up dealing with an alcoholic. It was easier to tell her what she wanted to hear or agree with her when she was ranting and raving.
    Sarcasm is my default.

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  19. We did tell her she was a Catholic. And we told her she could take Catholic classes in nine months if she would stop threatening to kill herself and screaming at me. This morning I told her she did not want to be a Catholic or she would do what it takes to become one. She is playing Joyful Joyful on the piano now.

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  20. The counselor and doctor told us this is who she is and she won’t be getting better. All we can do is stand firm and let her rant, maybe find a job for her somewhere. We are working on that.

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  22. So sad to read of her worsening mental state, Mumsee. It must be so difficult to keep patience. For sixteen year old, too, to be so tormented must be exhausting. I know what it is to not be able to control the symptoms of a chronic illness, but to be unable to control the symptoms of a
    chronic illness of the brain is so much more difficult, since we identify ourselves so much by what we think and speak.

    There was a rather good blog post I read about speech just this morning: https://myonlycomfort.com/2018/01/12/what-is-your-name/

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  25. Every human body is so different. All those drugs affect everyone differently. Doctors take educated guesses. Most do the best they can. I would never allow anyone to tell anyone that there is no hope for a change. God, alone, knows that.

    It is one thing my BIL was always told. That does not inspire anyone to change what is in their control. It is too easy to not try. That is human nature. Does he still have his condition? Yes. Has he matured and grown in many ways? Yes. Is he still mature in many ways? Yes. It can be exasperating for sure. Sometimes it is difficult to tell what is immaturity and selfishness or what is a symptom of an illness he cannot control.

    Those drugs are powerful and usually have to be tweaked even when the underlying illness is known. With teens it is even more of an issue, so I would not hesitate asking for some tweaking.

    My heart goes out to you, mumsee, and to her and the rest of the family.

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  27. Schizophrenia affects the areas of the brain that control decision making and problem solving, which is why symptoms of the disease include poor problem-solving and impaired judgement.
    I’ve though about this in connection to dementia, but it applies to other diseases of the brain as well. The brain is the outlet, so to speak, of the spirit. Yet, it is as much a physical organ as the heart or lungs or liver. There are many things that can malfunction with these other organs, producing different symptoms, but generally, unless the person is very ill indeed, the malfunction of the heart or lungs, etc. does not affect how we communicate that which is in our spirit. But when the brain malfunctions, the very outlet is endangered. The person is still there, but becomes hidden or distorted by the malfunctioning gateway.

    My great uncle, who now has dementia himself, once related an incident when his wife was dying of cancer and her brain was beginning to be affected. One day, she did not recognize him. The next day, she announced, “I’m back” and she recognized him again. The incident resonated with me, because I had seen a similar thing happen with one of the patients in the nursing home. When I encountered this patient, he was immobile and speechless from Alzheimer’s, only crying out wordlessly if he was moved. The staff said he had been that way for years. Once day, we could tell from his temperature that he was ill. His chair had been parked next to the nursing station. He suddenly spoke, slowly and painfully, but understandably, “Nurse, help me.” The nurse I was with looked at me and said, “In all the time I’ve been here, I’ve never heard him speak.”

    We accept the distortion of the person that happens with dementia, since we understand that the brain ages along with the rest of the body. We accept the distortion of the person that happens in a younger person from brain injury, since we understand that trauma can damage any part of the body. We accept the distortion of the person that happens from a birth defect, since we understand that sometimes development in the womb goes wrong. Yet it is much harder to accept the distortion of the person that happens at a younger age from developing a chronic disease of the brain.

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  31. That is a busy bird in the header. I am always amazed when considering how rapidly they beat their wings.

    We had our big church meeting today. The church name vote came down to Bridgepoint or Toco Hills Community Church. We will find out in the morning the final vote.

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  33. It was almost a fifty-fifty split on the name so it was combined to Bridgepoint Church at Toco Hills.

    Two of the older men were angry over the name choices and walked out of the meeting. One said he would not vote if the word Baptist was left out. The other wanted to retain part of our former church name but without the word Baptist.

    It is getting so much colder here. Miss Bosley is staying close.

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  35. Yeah, “Community Church” sounds like something for people who go to church because they have to tell their mom they went to church this week. It’s vague and says nothing about what kind of church it is, which suggests it doesn’t believe anything. I wouldn’t even consider attending a church with such a vague name. I mean literally, I wouldn’t even consider it–it wouldn’t cross my mind to try it.

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  39. I attended my first service at a Baptist Church a couple of weeks back. Apparently it was the very first one, since it’s named First Baptist Church of Phillipsburg.

    Perhaps they meant it was the first one in Phillipsburg…… 🙂 It says it’s “An Independent, Bible-teaching Baptist Church” so I don’t know about affiliations, like Chas mentioned.

    It was a very nice service, and so were the people.

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  40. Now I’m bored. Everyone is sick, me the least, so no church this morning. The girls are still in bed but I thought me and ‘Liz might go, so I got up. Now I’m wide awake. I thought about going out and taking some pics, but it’s cold. 🙂

    So I guess I’ll just head over to the News thread and rile Ricky up. 😀

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  41. Sometimes people accept way too much bad behavior from those with physical or mental issues. Teachers who deal with handicap students see ‘spoiled’ children quite often. They sometimes insist on other behavior and are rewarded by getting it. Vice versa is also true at times. The difficulty is to have the wisdom to know what is possible. The Christian has the advantage of prayer.

    As in all relationships, we will make mistakes. The Christian has the advantage of repentance and forgiveness then.

    Makes me wonder why anyone would not want to be a Christian. 🙂

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  42. K, there are ill-behaved younger people with mental illness (I do not include the personality disorders, i.e. narcissistic personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder, etc., when speaking of mental illnesses, since the personality disorder are thought to be much more due to dysfunctional upbringing than actual organic brain dysfunction) certainly, but we need always to look deeper and farther than the behaviour, even with healthy children and adolescents. At Christmas, my six year old nephew often did not answer when spoken to, wouldn’t sit still for half a minute, often deserted his plate of food at dinner, and knocked over his small cousin on one occasion, but he did it all with absolutely no malicious intent, as he was concentrating on something with all his might and being abstracted, forgetting to eat, and constantly moving were how he concentrated. Beyond being required to apologize to his weeping cousin, which he did very contritely, he was not made to suffer consequences, because his behaviour had no evil attitude behind it. Despite all that squirming and absentmindedness, he and his ten year old brother were the ones who completed that puzzle with me – I often felt like we were conducting a circus rather than putting a puzzle together, but we finished it and they both learned a lot in doing it. Many would label my young nephew as inattentive and heedless, but he is really paying very close attention to the things that matter to him – his mind is a whirlwind of facts that are amazing to him and he wants to keep straight, as I realized when I would find him having yet again pulled out the timeline that accompanied the puzzle to gaze at the dates (he can read numbers better than letters), the edges of the paper having got slightly torn or crumpled. He will eventually learn to keep his concentration within bounds, but to squelch him now would destroy his interest in learning.

    With sixteen year old, she is undoubtedly going through that restless phase of young adulthood that most young people go through. If you look at Mumsee’s post recounting sixteen year old’s rant, you might notice something – it could be the inner mental commentary of any teen girl of that age. But most would keep it to themselves, only allowing their most pressing issue to surface into actual speech. I can still remember those whirling tornadoes of emotion and thoughts that would come with the shifting hormones, but I was able to keep it under control, because although I did suffer from some kind of mental difficulty (I had every symptoms of an anxiety disorder), it did not affect my ability to recognize that to express all of those emotions and thoughts would make me look crazy and I had enough sense of my own dignity to not want to do that. It is the disease that prevents the adolescent in this case from having that same instinct to preserve her own dignity. If we were honest, our thoughts, if emblazoned to the world, would often look much the same – James Joyce’s stream of consciousness technique of writing hit a nerve precisely because people recognized that was often how they actually thought. Few of us would care to have our unfiltered thoughts shouted from the housetops. Schizophrenia is actually quite unusual in teenage girls, as women tend to develop the disease later on than men, often in their thirties. So, there is little precedent for understanding the adolescent woman who also has schizophrenia.

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  43. Kathaleena, that is why we don’t want her in the public school, where they just want to be her friend and put up with all sorts of shenanigans. There is a group called Opportunity Unlimited around here that is supposed to help the mentally ill, developmentally delayed, etc. They take them places, maybe help them keep a job, and so forth. The counselor told us about them but when I asked her if she would put her child there, she was hesitant and mentioned that the employees were minimum wage and had smartphones. Other people don’t have the same goals and hopes for her that we do. But we will have to lower our hopes and get her involved in something as she cannot continue creating havoc in the family.

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  44. Roscuro, I do see it as a lot of unfiltered thoughts pouring out. However, she can control it in public so she can control it at home. It is nice that she feels safe enough to let it go here but it is not nice for the family to have somebody continually pressing through the boundaries. Her desire is to be as free as other sixteen year old. Other sixteen year old can look for cars, get a job, keep himself busy. She cannot.

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  45. Mumsee, most teens can keep their hormonal havoc under better control outside their home and their parents and siblings are the ones who get the brunt. For that matter, most humans – other than small children who have not learned the difference between outside and inside behaviour – do the same. That is why wise counselors advise the woman or man in love to watch how their beloved treats their own parents and siblings before deciding if they can live the rest of their lives with them. It is not that sixteen year old doesn’t need to learn how to behave better to her family, it is more that she is not really that different than most her age, only her disease distorts and exaggerates what would be perceived as a normal phase to be worked through (including setting necessary boundaries) with another teen. In saying that, I’m not really speaking to you, who have probably thought all of that, but to all who are witnessing a mental illness from the sidelines.

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  47. Right now she is in her room, happily singing. She is singing about younger sister stealing a knife and killing sixteen year old with it, having the sheriff come by and tell her not to do that, then stealing a knife and killing eleven year old. I do not recall having similar thoughts as a teen.

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  48. On the subject of church names, when Pastor A came to my family church, he suggested removing the Independent that came before Baptist in the church name, since we were no longer affiliated with the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) movement. In the U.S., many of the IFB church carry the name of First Baptist, but not so much in Canada. Individual IFB churches are only as good as their pastor and board of deacons, and unfortunately, there are a lot of rotten apples, as in the case of the First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana: http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/January-2013/Let-Us-Prey-Big-Trouble-at-First-Baptist-Church/ (I would prefer the Christianity Today article on the same topic, but the paywall got in the way and the facts are all here).

    My city church is a nondenominational church in affiliation with other churches of the same origin – a theologically orthodox offshoot from the Salvation Army. The church itself is named after its founder. That could seem idolatrous, I suppose, but no idolatry was meant, as in a city that in certain areas seems to have or have had (judging from the buildings) churches every three city blocks and often closer – there is one corner where a Presbyterian and a Baptist church, both towering neo-Gothic structures (sadly, only the front facade of the Baptist one survives), stood opposite each other – naming the church after your founder might be the only unique identifier left.

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  49. Mumsee, you drew on a different body of childhood experience for your adolescent thoughts. The incident of the playmate molesting me when I was a preschool aged child was one that came back to haunt my thoughts in ever shifting guises during my adolescence, whether it was to worry that I might be homosexual since it was a girl who molested me, or to fear that the incident proved I was never a Christian (my chief anxiety during adolescence was concerning my salvation), since it had happened after I made a profession of faith as a child – and on and on my thoughts ran. It took five long years from age twelve to seventeen, to work through all the fears of my adolescence, and even now, the echoes sometimes reverberate. I barely remember actually living during those years, my anxieties so consumed me. That was only one such negative childhood experience to draw upon. Sixteen year old has more and of greater magnitude.

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  50. It’s a real struggle for me know know how much Carol is capable of and how much of what she does is controllable, should she just “try.”

    I had a very long night’s sleep last night, guess I needed it. I’m up and showered in time to get to church, but just barely. I still need to feed the dogs. But I feel so much better and (very) rested.

    The journal I keep is organized (loose-leaf) by months so I’m able to put in entries for several years running under each month. I like doing that because I can see what was going on last year at this time and the year or two before as well. I was flipping through it last night to see all the house projects as they unfolded. Seemed like only yesterday with each angst-filled entry. 🙂

    No word from the stucco guy which leads me to fear he may be flaking out on me.

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  51. By the way, in saying that, I am not discounting the disturbing nature of the thoughts she is having. Those who lack a filter on speaking their thoughts may also be in danger of not being able to control their actions either, and boundaries for the safety of others do need to be set. But while her speech patterns seem out of control, there is a terribly logical source for the underlying content of the speech. Schizophrenia has often been accurately described as a shattered mind. While it is definitely a physical disease, it is thought that stressors upon the brain’s coping mechanisms is what first brings the symptoms of the disease to the forefront. The early childhood of sixteen year old would have splintered my mind and life into fragments too small to be regathered. What she may need more than anything, is to come to the point where she can speak of what is past, not to compare it to the present, not to condemn the past, not to use it to distort the future, simply to acknowledge that it has happened. When I finally could do that, without condemning myself [ATI’s burden of their brand of forgiveness, which meant absolving the offender of guilt, acknowledging that one should bear some of the blame, or risk the charge of being bitter clouded my judgement for a long time], clearly and calmly understanding the evil of those who abused my playmate in order that she would know to do such things, I was able to leave it in the past as of the past, only bringing it forward to better understand others. But I had to do it as an adult, as a child does yet have the knowledge of the cost of the wounds they have received.

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  52. Aj @ 7:55. It was the first Baptist church to be established in Phillipsburg. Same as “First Methodist”, , “First Presbyterian”, etc. And it tells you everything about affiliation.
    That is they are not SBC, or any other organized body.
    There were lots of those in Texas, but I noticed that they affiliated with each other, thought they would say they didn’t.

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  54. Right, Peter. However there is the affiliation. And they have a convention and president.
    But no person can tell a Baptist church what to do.
    But, though I’m not certain of the conditions, they can prevent a church from saying that it is SBC.
    our church FABC/Greensboro, teaches from SBC literature, we support the mission efforts, etc. We get our pastors from the seminaries, (But we don’t have to.) etc. .

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  55. If, for example, FBC Podunk, SC came out in favor of homosexual marriage. It would become an issue. “You can’t do that!”
    Yes they can.
    But they can lose fellowship with the SBC.
    First Presbyterian Church of Hendersonville, NC did that.
    That’s why I used this illustration.
    They were not “Kicked out”, they voted to leave their convention because of their position..
    The convention, I think, supports same-sex unions. .
    ,That’s all I know about that.

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  56. Roscuro I was molested as a child. I had an alcoholic mother. While I might have wished she were dead I would have never thought to kill her myself.
    I am not making excuses for this particular 16 year old but you and I both know she had chemical imbalances probably going back to in utero and she certainly had different life experience than we did before arriving at the Nest.
    You nor I are equipped to say what is or isn’t going on here. I mean this in the most respectful way I can say it.

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  57. Monday morning here. We have a meeting at school later. Time to figure out school. My house is sorta in order. I have not gotten out any of the clothes that I packed up before I left. I spent yesterday cooking some food to have ready and in the freezer.
    Foggy morning here, my view is gray.

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  58. Happy Birthday Pauline!! 🎂
    Jo is it satisfying to be getting settled in your home away from home once again? When does your semester begin again? Praying for His peace to settle over you as you focus once again on His little ones placed in your care…we miss you here in the USA!! Blessed to have internet communications!! ♥️

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  60. Regarding church names –
    For a while we attended a Baptist church that had taken the word Baptist out of the church name, although they maintained the denominational tie for purposes of supporting missions. The reason given, as I remember, was something along the lines that unchurched people would be less likely to want to visit a “Baptist” church, while people new in town looking for a Baptist church would have no trouble finding out that the church was in fact a Baptist church. People who are not Christians don’t understand the differences among denominations (a lot of people who are Christians don’t understand them either!), and are likely to make wrong assumptions based on the denominational names.

    I used to live in an area where there were three churches, all side by side (though with a larger gap between the second and third) on one street, and I used to try to imagine what someone with no knowledge of denominations would make of them. One was the Church of God, and the second was the Church of Christ (I forget the third), and I could just imagine someone’s assumption that God and Christ must be two different deities, that they would have separate churches side by side like that.

    I’ve read that surveys have found that people associate denominational names with churches that are rigid and old-fashioned. I don’t remember whether that was part of this church’s decision to take “Baptist” out of the name, but it wouldn’t surprise me. At that time they were focused on being a “seeker sensitive” church, so they wanted unchurched people to feel as comfortable as possible coming in to see what they were about. They talked about Jesus as our Forgiver and Leader rather than Savior and Lord, because they felt that people understood the idea of forgiveness and leadership, while salvation and lordship are “churchy” words that people may associate with religion without understanding them. People who have had bad experiences with churches in the past may also be turned off by churchy words, but not necessarily be closed to the gospel message when used with words that are part of their ordinary language.

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  61. We finished Romans today (after, we think, about 6 years). The congregation applauded. 🙂 Well done.

    Up next will be a sermon series on the 10 Commandments (our pastor believes the rapid changes in our culture make this study of God’s law especially important in our day) to be followed by a series on the church — what it is, what it should be, what worship should look like, and why (in our pastor’s word) “the gates of hell seem to be holding strong” in our our own present era due, he believes, to the relative weakness of the contemporary western church.

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  62. That is weird going to Google today and having it come up with a Doodle with the mouseover text “Happy Birthday, Pauline.” When did they start doing that? I appreciate the Happy Birthday wishes from people I know, and from companies I buy from that give me special offers. But I really don’t need a search engine wishing me a happy birthday. Even though it does remind me that I need to update our church’s calendar (which is done in Google Calendar, and why I’m logged in on this PC – on the PC in the other room there’s no special Doodle today).

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  64. Ah yes, the “seeker sensitive” era. So interesting to see surveys now reporting that people, including many young people, crave the historic liturgical churches rather than those that mimic the world.

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  69. dj, we are starting a study on the church, too. That is highly appropriate given our current status. We began in Acts 1 today.

    This is a difficult time for me cranking up on the work at the same time needing to make large chunks of time commitments at church. A person who had planned to work in the office has cancelled so more is on me. This will truly be a year for me to learn to juggle. And of course, I am still needing time to prepare healthy foods.

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  70. Thanks, Nancyjill. Yes it does feel good to be in my own little home where everything is mine. Please pray as I need to register my phone, but can’t get the new sim card to work. Mostly because I need to update my drivers license in the town nearby where I do not feel safe and do not want to drive there. If I could find someone to take me, a guy or a couple, that would be best. As it is, another young single wants to rent a vehicle and have me drive. Yikes!
    This country is not safe.

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  71. She is complicated but she is human.

    Mumsee, that is a concise summary of what I was seeking to express. It is good to be understood.
    In what I said was no wish to minimize the enormity of the challenges you face. The pain of one mentally ill person can be too much for many people to witness, and you have several with various disturbed mindsets who are part of your life. To have a condition as severe as schizophrenia to deal with on top of all the rest must seem overwhelming. Sometimes, other help must be sought, other people must take on responsibilities you cannot. But you and she both need hope. As part of our readings about schizophrenia, we had to read the words of Dr. Patricia Deegan, who earned her degrees after her diagnosis with schizophrenia. She closed her essay, ‘Recovery as a Journey of the Heart’, with these words:

    We must help the students of today to understand that people with psychiatric disabilities are human beings with human hearts. Our hearts are as real and as vulnerable and as valuable as yours are. Understanding that people with psychiatric disabilities are first and foremost people who are in process, growing and changing is the cornerstone of understanding the concept of recovery. We must not let our heart grow hard and calloused toward people with psychiatric disabilities. Our role is not to judge who will and will not recover. Our job is to create environments in which opportunities for recovery and empowerment exist. Our job is to establish strong, supportive relationships with those we work with. And perhaps most of all, our greatest challenge is to find a way to refuse to be dehumanized in the age of managed profit, and to be bold and brave and daring enough to remain human hearted enough while working in the human services. [Link: http://ltc-ead.nutes.ufrj.br/constructore/objetos/Patricia%20Deegan%20-773_recovery_journey_of_the_heart.pdf%5D

    I wasn’t thinking of what Dr. Deegan said when I wrote all of the above, but Mumsee’s summary recalled her words to mind.

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  72. I recently discovered this beautiful song and thought you might enjoy its beauty even though you cannot understand the words. It is in Hindi, but I found a translation of the text (the backstory of the music video, is that the song is in a romantic film about a young man who was in the depths of despair, when he met a spirited young woman who changed his outlook on life. She is going to marry someone else, but he is remembering her example of living life to the fullest as he goes about his daily life):

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  73. What caused us to have a specific dream is often a mystery, but sometimes we can pinpoint the reason behind a certain dream. I had a dream last night, and its cause is not a mystery.

    During that month-plus when Hubby was hospitalized, he and I exchanged texts and Facebook private messages throughout each day, which was a wonderful way to keep in touch between visits. Our messages were about all sorts of things, along with a lot of lovey-dovey stuff, and playful banter. But when he was put on the morphine, several days before his death, he was too “out of it” to continue those messages, and he didn’t want us visiting much, either.

    I felt so lonely during those days, missing our loving communication and feeling cut off from him, waiting hopefully for him to be “fixed” and off the morphine. Then he died, and there was no longer any chance of any more communication, at least on this side of eternity.

    I very much miss talking with Hubby. Nightingale and I talk a lot, but there are things that he and I would have talked about that she wouldn’t “get” in the same way if I shared those thoughts with her. This was something I’d been thinking about in the last couple or so days.

    That brings me to my dream. Hubby called me on someone’s landline, which surprised me that he reached me there (wherever that was). In the way you know things in dreams, I knew that he had been in a different state (I’m thinking maybe it was Rhode Island) working for a few months. His voice on the phone was weak, as he was sick, and he said that he “shouldn’t have done” something, and it seemed to me that he was referring to taking some kind of strong medicine for a cold or something. Then his words turned to confused gibberish, and his voice faded away to nothing and the call was ended.

    Then I felt an urgency that I needed to text him, to see if he was okay. But I couldn’t find my phone! We were looking all over (suddenly back in our own home), but I could not find it. I had a sense of urgency bordering on panic, needing to find my phone, to text my husband. (Apparently, in dreams, you don’t think of the obvious solutions, like borrowing your daughter’s phone. 😉 )

    Shortly after this dream, I awoke with that feeling lingering, then quickly realizing that Hubby is gone and I can’t text him with anyone’s phone. Such a sad feeling.

    Sometimes I “talk to him” into the air, knowing he can’t really hear me, but wishing he could. Then I switch to talking to God about whatever it was.

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  75. Remember the Orthodox lady on the WMB who explained that they don’t exactly pray to their saints, but that they ask the saints to pray for them? Although I don’t believe in that, I understand that thought a bit more, as I have wanted to ask Hubby to pray for our daughters, or for some other situation.

    One time, I asked God to tell Hubby that I love him and miss him. I don’t know if it works that way, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.

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  77. HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAULINE
    I have heard of pastors preaching through the Bible. I never knew what they did with Song of Solomon.
    I heard one say that it represents Jesus’ love for the church.
    That takes lots of imagination.

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  78. Kevin – You mentioned Random Name the other day. He and I had developed a friendship in emails, and I often commented on his blog. Then he stopped doing his blog. He popped up here briefly to say that his daughter was concerned that he had Alzheimer’s, and that he had been tested. I’m pretty sure he said that the results were that he was in the first stages, but he didn’t believe (or want to believe – who can blame him?) the results. He also mentioned forgetting how to get into his email, which explained why he hadn’t replied to one from me.

    It makes sense that he was developing some form of dementia, as he had grown increasingly bitter and caustic, while losing some of his humor. Very sad. Praying he will turn to the Savior before it is too late. And for his family. (Random Granddaughter must be at least a teenager by now.)

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  80. Chas, I have found in the Hindi love poetry some of the context for Song of Solomon. We in the West are a very stodgy lot when it comes to expressing romantic love. But listening to the imagery of an eastern culture singing about love was a revelation about Solomon’s songs. I find it fascinating to think of, that amidst the Hebrew Bible’s stirring narrative, awful pronouncements of sin and the law, thunderous prophecy, and poetry exploring every facet of seeking for the God who made us, there are very passionate songs of the love of two humans, man and woman, for one another. But the God who created humans made them male and female, and I view the inclusion of those songs as underscoring the fact that He who made the first marriage pronounced it good.

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  82. Perhaps I should say, that the English speakers in the West are stodgy, as I have a feeling that the French, and the Spanish, and the Italians would have something to say to me on that score. Nevertheless, having read love songs in the Romance languages when I studied opera and classical music, I do not see the same imagery as in eastern love songs, including Solomon’s. There is more restraint in the Europeans, less delirious delight. Shakespeare’s love sonnets are beautiful, but they are very well rounded rhetoric as well.

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  83. I’ve heard about Song of Solomon being about Christ and the church, but the language is too sensual for that imagery to hold. It is nothing more than a beautiful love poem.

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  84. Kizzie, since time is nothing to God, I think He continually hears the prayers of His children. I like to think that my mom’s prayers for me and my family are echoing in God’s ears. I can’t see Him not listening to our prayers once we die. Does this make sense? I believe that your hubby’s prayers for his girls, you, and the Boy go on even though he is no longer here on earth to utter them again.

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  85. Cheryl, the best reason for us to not be a community church is that the nearby PCA church, just on the other side of our large shopping area from my church is Intown Community Church.
    http://intown.org/
    I think the PCA churches were the first in our area to leave off the denomination. I think Bridgepoint may be associated with other churches around Atlanta which are Bridgepointe woth an “e” on the end. At least we have the location to give the sense of the main focus of our outreach. We are definitely still SVC. Our area is growing by leaps and highrises so there are many to reach right where we are. All the leaders will be going through doctrinal training from the beginning. I am on the Discipleship team because of working in the church library/media center. We have a lot of good resources to share, probably even some you might approve of such as John MacArthur, R.C. Sproul, and others.

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  87. Kare – I believe so, too. I have often wondered if Hubby did have an inkling that he was not going to make it (I strongly suspect he must have had, at some point), and I’m sure that if he did, he would have poured out his heart to God for us. I don’t know if this is amiss to say, but I almost feel like his “covering” continues on us here on Earth, from the prayers he prayed over the years, and especially any last prayers he may have prayed.

    Then again, there are times when I am painfully aware of my new singleness, not having my husband’s loving presence and care anymore. (No offense intended to our singles here. I am not ashamed to be single, but it is a shock to my system and sense of self after having been a married lady for 31 years.)

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  88. And perhaps the Song of Solomon can be viewed through both lenses, or all of the above.

    https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/song-solomon/

    _____________________

    … First, this book celebrates marital, sexual intimacy enjoyed as God’s good gift. It elevates erotic love with dynamics of care and tenderness, associated with the depths of transparency, intensity, and delight between husband and wife. …

    Second, it extends and promotes intimacy within marriage by affirming recreational and ministerial sexual intimacy and not only procreational sexuality. …

    Third, the Song of Songs is countercultural. It powerfully presents sexuality to be enjoyed within a relationship that is defined by God. It is covenantal, monogamous, and heterosexual. Any other definition of marriage will destroy a society. …

    Fourth, it attacks today’s resurgence of neo-paganism, which declares the spiritual as good and the physical as evil. When God made man – male and female – and the marriage covenant, He declared that both the spiritual and physical are “good.” …

    Finally, while one must refrain from allegorizing the text in its entirety in order to promote spiritual meaning, it is valid to see how Christ is being presented. Ephesians 5, while defining the marriage relationship between man and woman, also declares that the marriage covenant is a proper way to understand the relationship between Christ and His bride, the church. …

    The Song of Solomon obviously has much pastoral use in the issues of marriage and biblical sexuality. Yet, its glorious and ultimate use is to point the people of God as the bride of Christ to our glorious, majestic, and intimate relationship with the Bridegroom, Jesus Christ. Our gown is spotless, our relationship pure by His blood, righteousness, and promised presence. With Him there are more than ten thousand joys.
    _____________________________

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  89. Kizzie, as a single I am not offended. I was just thinking in my illness, while trying to figure out how to accomplish my daily tasks without taxing my weakened strength too much, of how much having someone beside me to help where I am failing would be a blessing. Of all the pains you are going through, the pain of your new singleness is the one I can most relate to.

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  90. And then there are those of us who have to care for an afflicted spouse when we ourselves are afflicted in some manner. There is twice the load or more if children are involved. I have known two ladies whose husbands had MS while they were raising children. I can not imagine the burden on those ladies. That is not to say it is easy being single or a widow, but only saying that we all look on the rosy side of what we don’t have instead of viewing the thorny side.

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  91. I do not think Solomon’s songs are just love poems, as if their sensuality makes them lesser portions of Scripture. Proverbs says that the opposite of lusting after the strange woman is to “rejoice with the wife of thy youth.” Rejoice is a word used to speak of the delight we should take in God and that God takes in us. I once, in my younger days, foolishly and somewhat pettishly said, during a discussion with a friend who is now in her seventies and always been single, as she discussed how what we are in this present life is not who we always will be, “But in the resurrection there will be no marrying.” She looked at me, paused, and said, “But we will not feel the need of it then.” For the longest time, in my immaturity, I felt that those words meant that we would lose the feelings associated with marriage, but now I understand that rather, those feelings, which shift and can be fleeting now on earth, will be fully realized. Oh, I don’t mean anything blasphemous by that, nothing of the darkness of the Gnostic cults, rather we will find that to see the Lord and to know him as we are known will be the culmination of all earthly delights, including those of marriage.

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  92. I never forget the wise words of a friend’s mother who told her, “There are a lot of things worse than having Miss on your headstone.” That is true. My friend was engaged to a young man who she did not know was on psych meds. He went off of them and then she realized what he could be like. Quickly the engagement was broken. It was sad, but had they married it could have been a horrific tragedy.

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  93. I know that Janice, but to quote from another book of Solomon’s “Two are better than one, and a threefold chord is not quickly broken.” My mother suffers a great deal of physical pain – it is increasing, as every time I go home, she seems to need to lie down to let the pain ease more often – but I see how my father’s presence is a motivating factor to her, to keep moving even when it is excruciating, even if it is just to feed him dinner. I have seen others with her condition, withered away with the pain, reduced to sitting in darkened rooms where one must speak in a hushed voice, their immobile joints fused because they have avoided the pain of moving them. She finds the strength to face the future out of her love for her family – yes, the Lord is the ultimate focus of her life, but He is the one who gave her her family.

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  96. Janice, your last post reminded me of the saying my grandmother repeated to my mother, when my mother bemoaned her singleness, “It’s better to be single than to wish you were.” My mother didn’t like to hear it and she only recounted it to us to illustrate that she knew how we felt.

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  97. Janice, my husband has been sick most of the last couple of months and he offers very little companionship right now. It has been nearly two months since he went to church, so I either go alone or (like today) stay home (we still have ice). But I didn’t marry just to see what I could get out of it, and as I minister to him, I am glad he is not alone in this time. For the last two weeks, for instance, part of my task each day has been to stay up till midnight so I can wake him and let him take his medicine. I’m a night owl and would often be up till midnight anyway, but not everyday. But the blessing of two being stronger for being together sometimes means that I am the one who is “giving” and not really “getting.” That’s why we vow “in sickness and in health.”

    God is the one who said “It is not good that man should be alone.” He gives grace to those who are alone, and the apostle Paul even said that is is some people’s unique calling. But I don’t think it is harsh to say that God created us for a “norm” of marriage and that it does often feel like something is missing if we are alone–especially if we have already known the blessing of having a companion. In the Christian world in particular, we tend to think in terms of couples and families, and it is hard to be outside that norm, especially in the years from roughly 30 to 65, when most of our peers are married.

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  98. I have enjoyed my birthday, thank you all for the birthday wishes. We got lunch at Culver’s (my favorite fast food restaurant) since we had to get our son to a jazz clinic at the high school at 2. Then I did some computer stuff and read some. My husband and I just finished making a batch of “glop” – the vegetable mix we feed our diabetic dog along with chicken and turkey. We had been using my 30-year-old food processor, and I had been getting increasingly frustrated with it because it kept getting piece of carrots caught between the shredding blade and the housing and we spend more time clearing those pieces out than shredding carrots. So I got a new Cuisinart food processor, and it is so much nicer to use! I suppose that’s partly because I spent more to get a higher-end model than the Sears model I got 30 years ago, as well as whatever improvements there have been in technology in 30 years. I’m not sure I would have felt comfortable spending the money on it if we hadn’t gotten a nice Christmas gift (money) from one of the churches my husband serves, but my husband insists it’s an investment, and it certainly makes the every-five-days glop-making easier. (Five days worth is how much fits in my largest mixing bowl.)

    For Christmas I had already gotten myself a new Cuisinart egg cooker (to replace the old one that started leaking all over the counter). It makes very nice 3-egg omelets. I have to work a bit on the poached eggs, figuring out how long to cook them (i.e. how much water to use, which controls the length of the cook time) to get the consistency I like. Hard-boiled came out very nice. I haven’t tried soft-boiled yet.

    I also got myself a new can opener to replace the Pampered Chef one I’d been using for 16 years and had gotten pretty dull. (Can you tell I find it hard to replace old stuff if it still works although not very well?) The new one (not Pampered Chef, some brand I had never heard of before but I got it at Office Max, of all places, along with the Cuisinart egg cooker) works so well – and it even works either left- or right-handed.

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  101. Cheryl, did you see my comment about our nearby Community church? The name I submitted personally was Intercession Church. In checking out that name, it appears to be used mostly by Episcopal churches. The name of Intersection Church had been discussed and when I told Art, he suggested to me the name Intercession. I liked that and put it in for consideration, but it did not make the top six chosen by the Leadership team.

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  105. I gave up on my phone and took it to the helpdesk.
    I drove out to the bank by Aviation with my aide, Wendy. The road was so bad that at times one front wheel was a foot higher than the other one! I will not be driving that road again. And then the guy at the bank did not have the account number for the DMV. I decided to be wise and give up on renewing my PNG license. It is legal here to drive with your US license for 3 months, so I will wait for the next school break at the end of the term.

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  106. I am impressed, Jo, that you could drive in that terrain. It sounds like you need Donna’s jeep!

    We did not get home until almost ten last night from the office. We will leave between 7:30 and 8:00 a.m. to go back.
    This would be a good time to be able to say and see the results from, “Beam me over, Scotty!”

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