52 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 8-23-19

  1. Evening, Chas.
    Glad to be at the end of Friday. Next week on Monday is the National Day of Repentance and then Friday is our annual Sports Day. So only three academic days. A bit of an unusual week.

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  2. Good morning! Good coffee!

    We just finished up Bible study in the book of Daniel. My spellcheck/autocorrect said the Book of Denial.

    Since Wesley got back from his trip to Switzerland he now has a new concept of what s mountain is. He said that Lookout Mt., where he lived for four years while at Covenant College now seems like a big hill.

    We watched a movie that was very appropriate to the subject. Has anyone seen the movie The Englishman Who Climbed a Hill and Came Down a Mountain? It is a really good movie about determination, community spirit, working together.

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  3. Morning! It is a beautiful day in this forest and the air is fresh!
    Continuing to lift you up in prayer Chas. Sleep is good!
    Coffee with friends this morning. It will be a time of encouragement, laughter and tears. Life with these ladies, meeting weekly for the past 30 years, has been one the greatest blessings of my life. Summers are always off for us due to vacations and other commitments so we look forward to the end of summer so that our meeting schedule rights itself! 😊

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  4. Strength and weakness from yesterday: God calls each of us to our own ministry and service. He does not call us to compare ourselves with others. If we each go about the business of what God has put before us to do, we won’t have time to worry about how others are performing.

    In my case, what I do is a bit unusual. Way too often I hear that I am a saint. The only response of course, is that yes, I am. My adoption into His family through the Blood of the Lamb has made me one. And I am to go about the business that God has ordained for me. I am not to want myself in another’s position. Nor do I. I would not do well in any of the shoes I see around me but my own, and that is all through the strength God gives me to work out His purposes. What others think of me is irrelevant.

    In your case, Kizzie, we want our children to admire us. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. But keep your eyes on Him and you will be fine. You do a fine thing to help your daughter with her child. Use your extra energy to pray for daughter (I know you do) and to ask God for His continued direction in your life and His peace in knowing you are doing what He has called you to do, not what your daughter has called you to do or what other people (including me) think you ought to be doing.

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  5. Concerning prayer and God hearing: what about 1 Peter 3:7?

    You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.

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  6. Chas, sometimes antibiotics can make us feel tired, too. Next week will be better.

    Janice, the Book of Denial. Lol. I’ve spent some time camped out in that one.

    I have two stories to jam out today and we’re also talking about doing some more chain wide homeless stories next week. There’s this constant pressure for “dailies” — what do you have for tomorrow — but then also pressure to do bigger pieces. It’s hard for me to do both.

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  7. That’s not a hammerhead shark, is it? I can’t quite tell from this angle.

    Regardless, I’m going to tell you a true hammerhead shark story.

    I didn’t realize until years later that Pearl Harbor is the hammerhead shark nursery of that part of the Pacific Ocean.

    The second week we were in Hawai’i, I enrolled my older sons in sailing lessons–such a deal 4 hours a day, five days a week for a month! I think it was $150 each, which was a total bargain even in the Dark Ages.

    They had a wonderful time. Each afternoon, they went out on little sailfish sailboats and learned all about sailing. Their favorite part was heeling over and falling into the water! They then learned how to get back into the little boats and sail away.

    Each evening at dinner, they compared stories about how many times they had fallen in.

    The younger boy, 11, also had the distinction of running his sailboat into a WWII Japanese submarine tied up to the submarine museum.

    The shore patrol was called in, Japanese tourists took a lot of photos, and he escaped prosecution being only a “novice sailor.”

    Anyway, just the other day he commented the wildest fall off of a boat happened when he landed on a shark.

    WHAT???

    “Yeah, it was weird, but I just got back on the boat and the shark swam away.”

    I’m not sure I would have allowed their water sports over the four years we lived along Pearl Harbor’s shore, to have continued had I realized predators of the deep lived out there.

    Of course, how would a hammerhead shark even bite you? Much less see you?

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  8. Ah yes, the joy of ignorance. My children kayaking themselves from the Ft Gordon reservoir campsite to the swimming area. What is a water moccasin again?

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  9. Water moccasins–Michelle trembles.

    A friend grew up in Texas and was terrified of the water because of water moccasins. For that reason, he enlisted in the submarine service.

    As they were swearing him in, someone ran up, “Mr. Johnson, Mr. Johnson, your eyes.”

    He put down his hand. “What about my eyes?”

    “They’re not good enough for submarines.”

    “I’m not joining the Navy.”

    The detailer: “Oh, we’ll get a waiver. The Navy’s got glasses that will fit under the emergency masks.”

    They swore him in. He didn’t get the waiver. The Navy had mercy, however, and put him on a new construction ship so he didn’t have to go to sea.

    One of our outlaws grew up in North Carolina and tells the story of boating on a lake with friends when he was a teenager. One of the boys jumped off into the water and landed in a water moccasin nest.

    Just typing that is making me cringe. The boy didn’t survive. It was terrible. Our outlaw doesn’t go near the water.

    Thanks, Mumsee. I think I’ll go pray now. 🙂

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  10. And here’s the latest retort from our FB page administrator to a commenter (who dared take another position on homelessness):

    ~ Opinions based on facts is a factual assertion. An opinion based on disproven concepts is a false opinion. Facts remove opinions from the field. And there are repercussions for expressing one’s point of view.The government can’t punish you, but there are social consequences for being incorrect, false or *!’* (Racist, sexist, etc.). There is no law that protects you if one is a (bad, he used another word) human being and one’s own words point to that. Glad we could have this chat. I hope it has educated you ~

    Insufferable.

    Makes me not want to post anything on that page anymore, even though it’s pretty much the ‘go-to’ FB news site for the community. I can only guess that his latest snarky foray into participating in his own page will draw some serious complaints to those who put him “in charge” in the first place.

    And from @TheBabylonBee:

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  11. Michelle, one of my eagle books has a story (by the photographer) about his being dropped off at an island that is approachable by boat only for a few minutes at high tide, so he was dropped off to stay overnight and photograph eagles, to wade to shore from the dropoff point, and he would be picked up at the same place the next morning.

    As soon as he had been dropped off and moved toward the island–when it was too late to alert the boat and too late to get back to it even if he’d been able to contact them–he found out the whole island was a seething mass of rattlesnakes, and apparently the rattlesnake breeding is what drew the eagles. He spent the night in a tree, inside an eagle nest, and I think he stayed awake all night in fear the eagles would fly to the nest and attack him or he would fall out of the tree. He survived, but it was one of the spookiest accounts I have ever read. Your briefer one tops it. I’ve never seen a water moccasin, but somehow a snake that is more “at home” in water than I am is far creepier to me than a rattlesnake. I grew up around rattlesnakes, and know how to operate in rattlesnake territory. A snake that swims? No thanks.

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  12. Jumping in before reading today’s comments to reply to a couple comments from last night. . .

    Cheryl – It’s not that I want Nightingale to necessarily think that I am strong within myself, but that I would like her to see God giving me the strength to do the things I’ve done. Some of the things I’ve done or gone through have been really hard on me, but I did them nonetheless, thanks be to God. But she doesn’t seem to see the strength it took, and thus how God helped me.

    RKessler – Yeah, you do sound like Nightingale there. 🙂

    I do eventually put one foot in front of the other and do the next right thing, but sometimes (often, maybe?) I have an emotional reaction before I get to it. :-/ But the point is, I do get to it.

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  13. Mumsee – (re: your 10:09 comment) – I agree. And I believe that I am exactly where God wants me to be, doing what He wants me to do.

    Years ago, a friend from my old church noted that my low-key life would bore her, and her extra-busy life would wear me out, but that we were both living as God intended us to.

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  14. Peter. Thanks for the funnies. Some weren’t funny. But Trump playing the media was.
    I’m in for the football selection. I’ve already chosen the Gamecocks over the Heels.

    Donna. Have fun with Daniel. It’s a very difficult book because of various interpretations. That is: How you look at it.
    There were many godly men at Southwestern Seminary who believed that there was no unfilled prophesy in Daniel. I, and many others, believe that much of Daniel is yet to be fulfilled. That is, remaining prophesy.

    One of the more interesting passages to me is not in Daniel, but the 12th chapter of Zechariah. It describes a battle that has not happened yet. And for which the world is ripe. With one exception: I don’t see how it can happen with the Sixth Fleet .in the Med. I don’t believe they would allow it.
    But the world is ripe for it.
    And Chapter 13 describes the conversion of Israel
    Leastwise, that’s the way I read it.

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  15. Kizzie, I hope you did not miss my point that she knows you are strong, but gets frustrated because you don’t approach things the way she does. I rarely get irritated with those who are truly weak and incapable. Don’t get the wrong message here, I am notadvocating that my personality is the right way.

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  16. Hi everybody. It’s been a busy week for me, and eventful.

    First, though, here’s a little frivolity — a song that popped into my head today.

    (You really only need to listen to the first three lines, though…)

    I bought me a cat
    and my cat pleased me
    I fed my cat under yonder tree…

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  17. Except the words I’m singing, instead of those, are:

    I bought me a grand
    and my grand pleased me
    I said, “My grand’s got 88 keys.”

    🙂

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  18. “What is a water moccasin again?”

    Well despite popular belief, it’s not a type of shoe. 🙂

    I once busted my favorite fishing pole defending myself from one trying to get out of the water unto the rock I was standing on, an idea I of course, was against. He did get the message though and eventually left/died (not sure went under and disappeared), but I miss that pole…. 🙂

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  19. You got a piano, 6? 🙂

    Annie Oakley had to defend the homefront territories today from a cat interloper in our backyard. Quick squirmish and the neighbor cat skedaddled under the back fence. He/she was later seen walking along the top of the fence, Annie lying in the dirt on our side, tail twitching, sending out warnings. Time to grab the old fringed jacket out of the closet.

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  20. Kizzie, what I’m trying to communicate (probably poorly) is that the Gospel isn’t “You are weak and God will give you strength.” It’s Christ crucified for us. Your daughter isn’t going to look at you and say, “I’m so weak, and Mom is strong, and the difference must be Jesus.” That’s a dead end. But it’s OK that it’s a dead end, because that isn’t the Gospel, anyway. Jesus said others would know we are Christians because of our love. And the Law takes our sin and makes a way for us to be forgiven.

    Your daughters need Jesus because He is the only Way to have peace with our Creator, whom we have offended by our sins. They don’t need Jesus because they are weak or lonely or anything else–though God may indeed address those other issues, too. Trying to present an image of strength (or any other kind of virtue) to be an advertisement for the Gospel can set us up to begin to think that we are the message, when in fact Jesus is. Jesus Himself said that our love is part of the message, so I think that’s valid. But our strength or any other potential virtue isn’t, that I can tell.

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  21. Yep, I bought a baby grand piano. 🙂 Also, an artist bench, grand piano lamp, and some heavy-duty hardwood coasters in which to rest the piano legs’ casters.

    It’s a used instrument, but not old in grand piano years — only 16 years old. It’s in very good shape — the dealer doesn’t buy any used instrument that hasn’t been well-maintained. Plus, after a customer purchases a used instrument from them, they do a full regulation and tuning, and spiff up the exterior, too.

    There is another free tuning done, in the buyer’s home, 5-6 months after purchase, and they offer a 5-year warranty (10 years for new instruments).

    Their customer service is awesome, and they give piano teachers a discount, as well.

    Their guy who does all the prep work between purchase and delivery is on vacation right now, so it’ll be about 3 weeks before the piano graces my living room. 😉 (It’s usually about a 2-week process ordinarily.)

    The piano will come the week of my birthday. My birthday present to myself. 🙂

    Glad to have the recent influx of new students to my studio since May. A lot quicker to add to the funds already saved when there are four students instead of one. (And I have one, maybe two, other possible students to come, too. One potential family has been in contact with me twice in the last week, and I know a piano teaching friend of mine mentioned my name to one of her families who didn’t get registered for her fall semester on time, resulting in her and the family not being able to sync times to keep him on her studio roster. I haven’t heard from them yet, though, and there might be any number of our local IMT group who also have studio openings that might accommodate that student, so he’s more of a long shot than is the family who’s contacted me twice recently.)

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  22. Other good news on the student front is that my most recent student, who started the beginning of this month, is going to start 45-minute lessons next month. Plus, my current 45-minute-lesson student is upping to 60-minute lessons in November, when we’ll begin working on contest music.

    So just those two students increasing 15 minutes each is like gaining a whole new (30-minute) student.

    A nice blessing.

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  23. We just got our school pictures here. Well, I mean that they were posted here so we could access them. The photographer took the class photos from a distance and you couldn’t really see the faces of the children. So I downloaded them and did a lot of cropping. A few of them are really good, but the ones taken on the steps in front of the auditorium, well, what can you do. Now I have posted them on facebook. Others may not know how to crop photos. Not sure if I will post the preschool pictures.

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  24. Cheryl – Thank you. Come to think of it, “strength” is not listed as a fruit of the Spirit, although self-control comes close, and I do at least have that in most areas of my life. I think. 🙂

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  25. I should remind myself that people do not see us the way we think they might. Nightingale treats me very well, in general. She does seem to have a lot of respect for me, and I know she thinks I am a very sweet woman (her words). I’m pretty sure that translates into being loving.

    Also, being sensitive (too much so at times), I may be interpreting her passing moods as more than they are. Like her father, she can seem annoyed or angry at one point, and several minutes later the mood has passed.

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  26. It means that an agent is bullying my agent and making demands that are out of line with the situation so I had to get involved. Not only is she her on broker, she is also the seller.
    Demanding 500 dollars a day until it closes.

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  27. Kizzie, there is a verse I often quote to my mother regarding the passing moods of people, and what they say to or about you in those moods: “Do not take to heart all the things that people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you. Your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others” (Ecclesiastes 7:21-22).

    Today was one of those days. I will be glad to be finished with orientation. The power dynamic of nursing means being the novice is always somewhat crushing.

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  28. Normally this guy posts jokes, but this one is not a joke.

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