40 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 5-15-18”

  1. Morning all. Welcome to my day. Finished making cookies with all of the children. Now tomorrow is our field trip where we will take cookies to different departments. I asked the class where we should take them. They mentioned CTS, computer technical services, where one dad works, so we will go by there. Then someone said autoshop. We have never gone there and it is a bit of a walk. This may be a trip of endurance! Then to the clinic and finally to the store where we will get a tour, including walking into the freezer with some children who have never experienced cold before. Then I will buy them each an ice cream cone. Fun and tiring times.

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  2. First!
    A belated bonne anniversaire to The Real, and a thank you again for this blog.

    I was away at clinical yesterday. Yet again, I forgot some things. The good news is, I didn’t forget the same things as I did the week before, so I am learning from my mistakes. The bad news is, I am really not happy with myself about what I forgot. Sigh… you can’t go back. So, that means I have to go forward.

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  3. I see Jo snuck ahead of me. Hi Jo! Hope your field trip tomorrow goes well.
    It is almost hot enough here for ice cream. I had to bring out the fan in order to sleep last night, as the attic had heated up in my absence. This morning, the first thunderstorm of the season hit. It is a gentle thunderstorm, just rolling in the distance, with a pattering rain.

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  5. Morning!! 41 degrees and the air is incredibly fresh after yesterday’s rain. Just north of us in Parker they received 4-6 inches of hail…the plows were brought out to clear their roads….we don’t want that form of moisture! 😳
    How fun for you and your kiddos Jo! End of the year activities are so exciting for the kids. We saw a group of 1st graders on Friday in Castle Rock visiting the Fire Station…all well behaved, singing songs as they marched down the street. It caused everyone to stop and smile at their exuberance!

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  6. We had a calm, uneventful night. Sprinkles of rain in the evening. No wind. There is no smoke in sight right now, but with a high of 29C and a northwest wind, today will be interesting. I’m going to take the dogs to work with me along with our loaded SUV. Husband will go to the fire briefing in the park with his loaded work truck and then come back to our place and finish prepping hose lines and perhaps catch the cat and take him to a friend’s home. I think I’ll have the camp’s site manager come out with the camp truck and trailer to take our quad, lawn tractor and some tools out for us. Our outbuildings are not as well insured as our house is.

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  8. DJ, you asked yesterday about thoughts regarding the recent events in Jerusalem and how it related to religion. I am replying on this thread, since my reply has to do with history and religion, not with current politics. Kizzie linked this World article on FB, which is the background for what I’m going to say as part of what I say here was also said on FB: https://world.wng.org/2018/04/miracles_and_myths#.WvoEM8-axB4.facebook

    In mentioning the Peel Commission of 1937, the article neglected to mention what came before that commission. There had been express promises made in first 1915 and 1918 (i.e. both before and after the Balfour Declaration) to not only the Arabs in Palestine, but also the rest of what was known as Syria (encompassing the modern states of Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine) that they would be given independence WWI. The Arabs of Syria had been subjects of the Ottoman empire, but there was a growing movement toward independence (fueled by an Arab cultural renaissance that began in the Christian Arab population), and that movement had allied itself to the Allies. But France and Britian reneged on their promise (both countries had issued a joint proclamation that the Syrians wishes regarding their government would be respected) with the French occupying what is now modern Syria and Lebanon. The French were the ones who severed Lebanon from the rest of Syria, and they further subdivided Syria into relio-political lines which are still being played out in the current conflict – for example, the French divided the Alawite minority into the north west into their own province, and the current president of Syria is Alawite.

    The British occupied what was then called the Palestine Mandate and is now the divided land of Israel and Palestine (contrary to popular Western legend, Palestine was long known as the area between the Jordan and Mediterranean, as the traditional abode of the Philistines (see Joel 3:4 in the KJV). The Peel Commission was only the latest in a long line of commissions and papers to be offered up by the British Mandate in a belated effort to smooth over their outright betrayal of their promises to the Arabs. By 1937, the peasant farmer Arabs of Palestine had been dispossessed of some of their most fertile land, bought by the Zionist settlers from landowners living in Lebanon. The Arabs had every reason to not listen to what the British had to offer, since they had no reason to trust the British. It is not so straightforward, good vs. bad, as the West, and specifically Western evangelicals, would like to pretend it is.

    I wrote a research paper on the effects of the peace treaties of WWI had on the Middle East, specifically the area then known as Syria and Mesopotamia, and now known as Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria. One of my most valuable resources, which contained extensive reproductions and translations of the full documentation surrounding the promises made to both Arabs and the Jewish Zionist organization, was a book called The Arab Awakening and it was written by a Lebanese Arab Christian, who had been there when all of this had taken place. This man, George Antonius, had been a part of the British Palestinian Mandate (a civil servant in the ministry of education). Two Arab Christian brothers edited a Palestinian nationalist newspaper, known as Filistine, while an Arab Christian woman, Matiel Mogannam, founded the nationalist Palestinian Arab Women’s Association in the 1920’s. As I said, the Arab nationalist movement, which existed in all of historical Syria, had its roots in a cultural renaissance that began in the Arab Christian population in the 1800’s, after Western Christians helped Arab Christians develop an Arabic printing press and educational institutions.

    As the World article notes, and I have read this elsewhere, there is a hardline orthodox Jewish core in Israel which is actively hostile to Christians, whether they are of Arab or Jewish descent. The Christian communities which have been shattered by the terrible events in Syria are the descendants of those who fomented Arab nationalism in the decaying Ottoman Empire, allying themselves with the West. When ISIS terrorized Syria and Iraq, many of the Christians fled behind Kurdish lines, yet when Turkey began to bomb those same Kurdish lines, the West turned a blind eye. When Ted Cruz made that speech about the need to support Israel a couple of years ago to a conference for Arab Christians, the conservative media decried the Arab Christian’s reaction and sympathized with Cruz, who had walked off stage, ignoring the fact that Israel is no friend to the Arab Christians in other parts of historical Syria. There is a real sense, when one reads all that has gone before, that the Christians of the West turned their backs on the Christians in the East in order to follow a new interpretation of Biblical prophecy.

    The early church did not believe it was necessary for Israel to be reformed in order to facilitate Christ’s return. In fact, the early Christians believed that the dissolution of Israel was in judgement for the Jews rejection of Christ. Justin Martyr, circa A.D. 150, in his Dialogue with Trypho who was a Jewish philosopher that Justin debated with about whether Christ was the Messiah:

    Accordingly, these things have happened to you in fairness and justice, for you have slain the Just One, and His prophets before Him; and now you reject those who hope in Him, and in Him who sent Him—God the Almighty and Maker of all things—cursing in your synagogues those that believe on Christ. For you have not the power to lay hands upon us, on account of those who now have the mastery. But as often as you could, you did so.

    Lest you think that Justin Martyr was being anti-Semitic, know that Justin bears the surname Martyr because of how he died and that he was delivered up to his death at the hands of the Roman authorities – as it was illegal to be a Christian at that time – by the philosophers with whom he would debate. He was simply stating the truth about the Jews at that time in the Roman Empire. Do not forget that the Jews are reported in Acts as stirring up trouble against Paul in the cities in which he preached, even causing him to be stoned and left for dead (Acts 14:9). What happened to the Jews in Europe after the joining of the church to the state was shameful to the name of Christ, but the history of European Antisemitism does not negate the equal truth that, as the Epistle to Diognetus notes:

    By Jews they [Christians] are treated as aliens and foes, by Greeks they are persecuted; and none of their enemies can state a ground for their enmity.

    We are to love our enemies, and certainly, I bear the citizens of Israel and other Jews no ill will, nor do I think that Israel should cease to exist; although, I do think Israel’s methods (one of their former Prime Ministers, Ehud Barack has warned it is becoming like apartheid: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/ehud-barak-warns-israel-on-slippery-slope-to-apartheid-1.5486786) is neither just nor honourable, as Israel could have absorbed the conquered Palestinian territories after 1967, but they didn’t want the Arab to become a majority in Israel. But those are considered opinions about a temporal matter, while what one thinks about Jesus Christ is of eternal importance. The evangelical movement is extremely naive about considering Judaism, and by extension, Israel, to be some kind of spiritual ally to Christianity. Make no mistake, those who reject Christ cannot be allies to the Kingdom of God, no matter what their ethnic origin.

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  9. Good Morning. I am at the office. I went home early yesterday to miss some bad weather. I didn’t quite know what to do with myself. Mr. P even commented on it. I mainly opened and closed the door for dogs.
    We shall see what the day holds. We are less than 24 hours now until Grandpa starts keeping M. He will have her Tuesdays through Saturdays. That means Mimi will have her Saturday.

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  10. For those not familiar with redbud, that is the main focus of the photo above. I had to crop the photo enough to take out the “no trespassing” sign at the left. 🙂 I wasn’t trespassing; it was taken from the road, and I avoid taking photos of any manmade objects if I can. Anyway, redbud is a welcome sign of spring, not as good as dogwood, but lovely.

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  11. Wow, how many hours a day will the Adorable be visiting?

    We moved to Hawai’i before my daughter could walk so she had little memory of weather. While visiting the mainland when she was about three or four, she sat in the grocery cart when I stopped in front of a line of freezers to buy ice cream or something.

    She began running her hands up and down her arms, shivering and saying, “I’m so hot! I’m so hot.”

    I laughed. “You’re not hot. You’re cold.”

    “I’m so cold, I’m so cold. What is cold?”

    Similarly, I was going out one evening shortly before we moved. She was nearly five and asked me what that white thing was on my arm.

    I looked down, puzzled, and finally said, “my sweater?”

    “What is a sweater?”

    I laughed again. “You poor baby; you’re going to have a hard time living on the mainland.”

    She’d never seen squirrels or dandelions before either–and both enchanted her when we spent that summer driving across the US visiting friends and hunting a new post-Navy place to live.

    Enjoy the freezer, Jo!

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  12. Redbud trees are lovely when they bloom. We have one in our front yard. I really like your photo, Cheryl. It would be nice on a calendar with a Bible verse.

    The red bud tree has another common name related to how the twigs have a zigzag form and how it may have been the tree that Judas hung himself from. The Judas tree is another in the family group.

    Here is a really good YouTube about redbuds that talks about how the flowers (but not seeds) are edible.

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  14. It is funny how there are all manner of North American plants named after different Biblical events or said to carry Biblical significance, when in fact the plants bear no resemblance to anything that grows in the Middle East. The redbud is native to Eastern North America. Judas would never have seen such a tree.

    Speaking of Judas, I have a QoD. I was pondering the other day Acts 1:18, Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out, and wondering how it aligned with Matthew 25:6, And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself. My thought is that ‘this man’ who suffered such gruesome end in Acts 1 is not Judas, since Judas did not purchase the field, the chief priests did:

    And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood.
    And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter’s field, to bury strangers in.
    Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day.
    Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value; And gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord appointed me. (Matthew 27:6-10)

    But what think ye?

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  17. Roscuro, they purchased it with money he gave them, so indirectly he purchased it. And I have heard that he hung himself, but his body fell, thus we have two different accounts of how he died.

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  18. Mumsee, the tree called the Redbud, or Eastern Redbud, is the cercis canadensis native to Eastern North America, and has been called the Judas tree: http://ontariotrees.com/main/species.php?id=2074. But there are other plants, such as the Jerusalem artichoke, which is also native to North America, that I was also thinking of. Other non-Middle Eastern plants with Bible names or associations are the medicinal Solomon’s Seal and its poisonous relation Lily of the Valley, the houseplant from Africa called Crown of Thorns, the Mexican native Poinsettia used at Christmas which has a Bible legend surrounding it, and the East Asian Rose of Sharon.

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  19. The jacarandas are blooming here – LA is usually awash in purple, though I haven’t noticed them as much this year, wonder if they’re not blooming as full as they usually do?

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  20. Yes, the redbud. I got a seedling from our pastor’s yard (they have several) and planted it in our front yard at our old house. It grew into a beautiful tree. Our new house needed something more than the oak trees, so I got another. It has leafed out, but it will be another year or two before we see the flowers. Dogwoods are in bloom now, too.

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  21. Yes, a lot of people come up with ways to remember the details of the Bible and that is called memorial. As long as they are not worshipping said items, should be fine. I was just pointing out that the Judas tree, siliquastrum would have been in their area.

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  22. Phos, Judas was paid for betraying Jesus. When he tried to return the money, it was not accepted because it was blood money. Hence, it legally belonged to Judas. I see no problem between these two accounts.

    WRT your previous post. Interesting historical summary. I mentioned before, I am reading a book by David Jeremiah called What in the World is Going On? Interesting book about prophesy. I have two serious differences with Jeremiah:
    1. He believes in a pre-trib rapture. He follows Schofield in believing that Christians will not be in the tribulation. He has some strange work-arounds in his book. I say, “that is easy for us on the corner of Washington and Fifth to say we won’t be persecuted, but it’s already happening. See a man who is tripped and hanged on a utility pole to die. He watches his wife be gang raped and killed and the killers say they will raise his children to be jihadists.” Sow me a worse example. It’s happening in the middle east now.
    But Jusus says clearly, Matt. 24:15 “When you see the abomination…..” And Matt 24:29, “Immediately after the tribulation……”
    Dr. Jones, my SS teacher in H’ville, believed that all the promises God made to Israel accru to the Church. I disagreed with him but didn’t make it an issue. Neither of us will live to see the result of this theory.

    Also, Jeremiah seems to think that the battle of Gog and Magog will occur during the turmoil of the end times. However, there is only one mention of Gog & Magog. Rev. 20:7f says that this will be after the millennium. Only one battle of G&M. He needs to do this to bring Russia into the fight. But there is really no fight. It was God’s judgment.
    Same for Armageddon. It isn’t a real battle.

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  23. Here’s another more thorough piece on the Jerusalem issue from Religion News Service:

    https://religionnews.com/2018/05/14/some-christians-and-jews-hail-embassy-move-to-jerusalem-as-key-to-a-biblical-plan/

    ______________________________________

    JERUSALEM (RNS) — When American and Israeli officials inaugurated the first-ever U.S. embassy in Jerusalem Monday (May 14) in a festive red, white and blue ceremony, more than 100 evangelical Christians, including former U.S. congresswoman Michele Bachmann, were on hand.

    So were scores of American Jews, including Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, many of them Orthodox.

    President Trump’s December 2017 decision to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem has spurred criticism from those who believe the decision will impede a broader peace settlement in the Middle East by denying Palestinian claims to the city. It has also brought fears of increased violence. (As of this writing, at least 58 Palestinian deaths have been reported along Israel’s border with Gaza in protests against the embassy’s relocation.) …

    … For religious Jews, too, moving the embassy from Tel Aviv represents a step toward redemption and the coming of the messianic era. “Certainly, when the world’s most powerful nation establishes its embassy in our eternal capital, we see the further realization of the ancient prophecy of how we have come home to rejoice in this ancient city,” said Rabbi David Stav, founder of the Tzohar rabbinical organization in Israel. …

    … Which is not to say that all religious leaders are rejoicing at the embassy move. The vast majority of Holy Land Christians identify as Palestinians, according to the Pew Research Center, and, like their Muslim counterparts, want East Jerusalem to be the capital of a future Palestinian state.

    In a Dec. 6 letter to President Trump, leaders of local Holy Land churches, from Catholic and Orthodox to evangelical, pleaded with the president not to relocate the embassy.

    “We are certain that such steps will yield increased hatred, conflict, violence and suffering in Jerusalem and the Holy Land, moving us farther from the goal of unity and deeper toward destructive division,” the leaders said. …
    ______________________________________

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  24. Another perspective from Rich Lowry……..

    https://nypost.com/2018/05/14/jewish-dreams-of-jerusalem-as-israels-capital-go-back-thousands-of-years/

    “Jewish dreams of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital go back thousands of years”

    “King David conquered the city in 1,000 BC and made it the capital of the kingdom of Israel. His son Solomon built the First Temple. “He who has not seen Jerusalem in her splendor has never seen a desirable city in his life,” declares the Babylonian Talmud. “He who has not seen the Temple in its full construction has never seen a glorious building in his life.”

    But Jerusalem would repeatedly be captured and the Temple destroyed (first by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar and then by the Roman Emperor Titus).

    The story of the Jewish people is one of loss, memory and faithfulness and persistence. Psalm 137 recounting the Babylonian captivity avers, “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.”

    The Jewish people never forgot. In one of the miracles of our age, after long centuries of exile punctuated by genocide at the hands of the Nazis, they re-established Israel in 1948, and then gained control of all of Jerusalem in 1967 (prior to that, when Jordan held East Jerusalem, Jews couldn’t visit the Western Wall).

    The notion that the City of David isn’t the capital of Israel was an impolite fiction, honored by the United States and the West for fear of provoking Arabs hostile to the very idea of the Jewish state. Its prime minister, parliament and highest court are based there, and it’s unimaginable that Israel would ever agree to any peace deal that didn’t recognize it as the capital.”
    ——————–

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  26. We’ve been evacuated so I have the dogs with me at work. Husband has the cat and is doing his job talking to landowners (of which we are some). The winds have shifted and are sending thick smoke and the fire right to our area.

    I’m not concerned about our things – we’ve taken out what we could – the rest is just stuff.

    Please pray for safety for those who are working the fire.

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  27. King Abdullah of Jordan is still the guardian of the Christian and Muslim sites in Old Jerusalem. He is the great, great grandson of Sharif Husain of the Hejaz (the region of Arabia around Mecca and Medina), who was the figurehead for the Arab Revolt which allied with the British to drive the Ottomans out of historical Syria. The British representative, McMahon, in Egypt promised Hussein that Syria would be allowed to be under Arab rule in what is now called the McMahon-Hussein correspondence in 1915-1916. Hussein’s son Faisal, led the Arab army which became the right flank of the advancing British forces from Egypt into Syria.

    Faisal made it to Damascus, and a Syrian parliament was formed, which was modern enough to debate, in 1920, whether women should be given the right to vote. Both Muslim and Christian Arabs were representatives in the Parliament. But it was short lived, as France, under the Treaty of Sevres, was handed Syria by the Allies and they forced Faisal’s government out of Damascus, despite warning from the American King-Crane commission that the will of the people of Syria was to be ruled by one of Hussein’s sons. The British, no doubt feeling guilty for their betrayal, installed Faisal as king of Iraq, but his government never got out under the shadow of being associated with the treacherous British. Faisal did not live long enough after Iraq was granted independence to establish his kingdom and his grandson was assassinated in the first of a long line of bloody coups that finally ended with the iron fist of Saddam Hussein.

    But Sharif Hussein had another son (he actually had four) who was also involved in the Arab Revolt, Abdullah. The British gave him the region of the Transjordan, now known as the Kingdom of Jordan. It is his great grandson, also named Abdullah, who now rules Jordan, one of the most tolerant and liberal of the Arab nations, although it always balances on a diplomatic knife edge between Israel and the Arab world – King Abdullah the First was assassinated in 1951 while visiting the Dome of the Rock by a Palestinian extremist who was unhappy with his willingness to work with the West (at that time, Old Jerusalem and the West bank were part of Jordan).

    Sharif Hussein and his sons were in a unique political position in the Middle East of the end of WWI. They were Hashemites, a tribe that claimed descent from Muhammad (hence the reason Hussein was Sharif of Mecca), but they were also very sophisticated and tolerant in outlook, working with Christian Arab nationalists as well as their fellow Muslims. Hussein was even willing to consider the Zionists’ requests for a place to live in the new Syria he hoped to create. The chief rivals of the Hashemite clan in Arabia was the house of Saud, and the Saudi clan was closely associated with the ultra-conservative Wahhabists. After the British reneged on their promises to Hussein, thus discrediting him in the eyes of the Arabs, the house of Saud were able to push him out of Mecca and Medina, expanding their kingdom to its modern borders and establishing the ultra-conservative regime which has ruled until the present day.

    King Abdullah is the guardian of the Holy Places in Jerusalem because of something that American commission I mentioned earlier also warned about:

    Millions of Christians and Moslems all over the world are quite as much concerned as the Jews with conditions in Palestine especially with those conditions which touch upon religious feeling and rights. The relations in these matters in Palestine are most delicate and difficult. With the best possible intentions, it may be doubted whether the Jews could possibly seem to either Christians or Moslems proper guardians of the holy places, or custodians of the Holy Land as a whole.

    The reason is this: The places which are most sacred to Christians-those having to do with Jesus-and which are also sacred to Moslems, are not only not sacred to Jews, but abhorrent to them. It is simply impossible, under those circumstances, for Moslems and Christians to feel satisfied to have these places in Jewish hands, or under the custody of Jews. There are still other places about which Moslems must have the same feeling. In fact, from this point of view, the Moslems, just because the sacred places of all three religions are sacred to them have made very naturally much more satisfactory custodians of the holy places than the Jews could be. It must be believed that the precise meaning, in this respect, of the complete Jewish occupation of Palestine has not been fully sensed by those who urge the extreme Zionist program. For it would intensify, with a certainty like fate, the anti-Jewish feeling both in Palestine and in all other portions of the world which look to Palestine as “the Holy Land.” (Link: https://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/The_King-Crane_Report)

    It is that shrewd observation of the American commissioners King and Crane which has been behind the policy of the West in regards to Jerusalem. As a Christian, I am not concerned with the Christian Holy Places in Jerusalem – even the King Crane commission mention the fractured rivalry between the Catholic and the Eastern churches as they constantly jockey for possession of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (my professor said the churches partition the church between them so thoroughly that there is a ladder that has been leaning against the wall for years because they cannot agree who should take it down), but there are billions from the Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox, the Coptics, the Assyrian and even Protestant denominations who do consider the matter of grave importance. As G.K. Chesterton said, “Don’t ever take down a fence until you know the reason why it was built.” Very few American evangelicals today know why this particular fence was built.

    The city of Jerusalem is merely significant from a historical perspective, not a spiritual one. I sympathize with neither the Muslims, the Christians, or the Jews in their struggle over its Holy Places, since they are all engaging in idolatry. But as a citizen of a country built from varied immigrants who practice freedom of religion, I also do not sympathize with the desire to build a state for only one ethnic and religious group. I would be happy to see an Israel that included the Palestinian Arabs as equal citizens (the Arabs who are citizens in Israel are denied proportionate representation in the Knesset). After all, if we are going to compare modern Israel to the ancient kingdom, then it is a matter of Biblical fact that the Jews have always had strangers living among them, even outnumbering them. Yet, those same strangers also often assisted them, whether it was the Midianite Hobab, Jethro’s son, guiding them in the wilderness, or Jonadab the Rechabite (a descendant of Hobab) helping Jehu purge the house of Ahab, or the Canaanite Nethinim who returned with the exiles and helped rebuild Jerusalem, or Rahab, or Jael, or Ruth… the list is long. For both good and ill, the Jews have always lived among Gentiles, even in the land of Israel.

    The very first king of Jerusalem that is mentioned in the Bible was not a descendant of Abraham, Melchizedek. As DJ’s quote mentions, the Jews who want Jerusalem to be their capital are hoping for a messiah, having rejected the One who was after the order of Melchizedek. The Jerusalem which is below, Paul warned, is in bondage with all her children (Galatians 4:25). The new Jerusalem of Revelation is only for those who trust in Christ, whether Jew or Greek, bond or free, male or female. Making Jerusalem the capital of modern Israel may answer the ambitions of the Zionists, but it is a hollow triumph, because it will not last for eternity.

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  31. The new flower is from my (old) backyard, possibly a fruit tree, but a tree whose identity I didn’t know. I finally got some decent photos of it my final spring in the yard; either it hardly bloomed at all, or all the petals blew off, or the lighting was wrong . . .

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  32. It is red grass season here. A very tall grass that blooms red in May. You can look across the valley and the hills are red. It always causes me and many others trouble with allergies. I have been taking turmeric for my allergies, thanks to Mumsee’s suggestion. As things started to get worse in this red grass season, I decided to take three pills a day instead of two for the month of May. I was on yard duty on Monday and looked across to the red hills and realized that I was breathing freely and my eyes did not itch. What an improvement. Thanks, Mumsee.

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  33. Praying for you and those in your vicinity, Kare.

    Catching up again on the blog, as I decided to take the afternoon off, with out-of-the-routine things going on this morning and evening. (Fourth Arrow took her driver’s test this morning — and passed! — so there was a lot of waiting around at the DMV to get the license application processed. And tonight I’m going to take Sixth Arrow shopping for a nice outfit for her to wear to her piano competition on Saturday.) So I thought this afternoon would be a nice time to catch up with what’s going on with all of you.

    Good to see Ann on one of the recent threads. If you see this, Ann, know I’m praying for you. I hope the Lord brings full healing with your health challenges.

    Nice to hear from Yapamom, too. Congratulations on finishing homeschooling, Yapa!

    Janice, thanks for asking how I’m doing. Mostly pretty well, though the pace of life has been busy lately, and it sometimes tires me out. Sunday morning I was a bit under the weather — headache mainly, and fatigue, but nothing contagious — and stayed home from church, but felt well enough to go visit my mom and dad that afternoon, which I’d wanted to do for Mother’s Day.

    Also, I don’t think I told you all that the polyp in my nose (mentioned on a prayer thread several weeks ago) is taken care of now. Thanks for your prayers.

    Hubby finally seems to be making some progress with his hip. He’s walking a little faster now, with less of a limp, and I haven’t heard any screams of pain or his agonized cursing for a week or a little more now. He’s got a corn on the bottom of his “good” foot, though (right hip pain means he limps heavily onto his left foot, where the corn is, so that’s frustrating to him, but the corn isn’t as painful as the hip was).

    He’s still putting each foot on a step before moving to the next step when navigating a stairway. Toddler-style. One foot, other foot…go to next step. One foot, other foot…next… It’s the only way he can get up and down stairs reasonably comfortably.

    Again, I’ll say thank you for the prayers. There were some pretty dark days here for a while. When one family member suffers chronic pain, it pervades family life in a way I hadn’t comprehended before.

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  34. Oh, I was going to mention, with the discussion on Unbroken, that I recently read Don’t Give Up, Don’t Give In: Lessons from an Extraordinary Life, by Louis Zamperini and David Rensin. An excellent and motivating read. I think a lot of you would enjoy this book. I know I did.

    “Champion. Survivor. Hero. Legend. Completed just two days before Louis Zamperini’s death at age 97, Don’t Give Up, Don’t Give In shares a lifetime of wisdom, insight, and humor from one of America’s most inspiring lives. Zamperini’s story has touched millions through Laura Hillenbrand’s biography Unbroken, soon to be a major motion picture directed by Angelina Jolie. Now, in his own words, Louis Zamperini reveals, with warmth and great charm, the essential values and lessons that sustained him throughout his remarkable journey.”– Provided by publisher.

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  36. Spent the afternoon sitting in a county courtroom on an eviction case involving a very popular and iconic restaurant that’s in the path of our soon-to-come waterfront development. Back tomorrow for hopefully the final testimony and a ruling by the judge (it’s thankfully a non jury trial).

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  37. 6 arrows, glad the nose is good

    Kare, more prayers, stay safe, humans and animals alike — as you said, stuff is stuff

    Roscuro, agree, political not spiritual

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  39. DJ, if we ever finish our kitchen, having that destroyed would be upsetting 🙂

    I am back at home. The winds shifted yet again, taking smoke and flames away from our home, but towards other homes. It is a beautiful evening here and the dogs are enjoying their freedom outside after being cooped up in an office all day.

    Thank you all for praying. Husband is still out working – not fighting the fire (I don’t think) but doing the supporting work.

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  40. 😦 Hubby sat down wrong at work, taking his supper break — he’s still having a difficult time sitting for very long — and ended up in severe pain again. 😦 He called me, asking if I could bring an ice pack from home, but before I got out the door, he called again, saying he found one at work.

    He’s hurting all over again (well, from the hip down, at least), and is terribly discouraged.

    By the way, in case I haven’t made it clear, that cursing I talked about above and previously is not at all typical of him. It’s in deep contrast to the way he’s normally dealt with pain here and there over the years, and is very much a sign that this pain is far beyond what he’s ever experienced before.

    I only mention it to point out his strong need for prayer that his pain would be relieved.

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