But I have received everything in full and have an abundance; I am amply supplied. Philippians 4:18a
Our third sale was a complete and total success. And it was totally God's hand that did it. It was supposed to rain and we didn't get a bit of rain. I thought we had too much to stuff to possibly get rid of in one sale. It almost all sold-- we just had a few things to take to the thrift store. At 11am, no people came for 30 minutes or so and I thought weren't going to get many more customers. We prayed, and the LORD sent wave after wave of people. What a blessing. When we counted up the money at the end of the day, we made $945.42! Unbelievable! We've made about $1500 just from these yard sales so far. How amazing. What started out as a house cleaning project has turned to a rich blessing from God. Sometimes I start to doubt the timing of this adoption, or I get impatient with the process and I wonder if this will really happen. But God has really fit all the pieces into place to get us this far, and I am confident that He knows what He is doing.
I will give You thanks with all my heart;
I will sing praises to You before the gods.
I will bow down to your holy temple
And give thanks to you for your lovingkindness and Your truth;
For You have magnified Your word according to all Your name.
On the day I called, You answered me;
You made me bold with strength in my soul.
Psalm 138:1-3
Monday, February 28, 2005
Friday, February 25, 2005
Birds of a Feather
I'm a third generation bargain-shopping, dumpster-divin', yardsale-hopping junkie. And I found a link for folk like me-- you would like this link too, Mom. www.yardsalequeen.com Very funny and somewhat Fly Ladyesque. But seriously, you can get some good deals at yard sales. Just last night I pulled a pearl necklace, a pair of blue sparkly earrings, and a several dress shirts for Brian out of the pile of stuff people donated for the sale. And I didn't have to pay a penny for them! :)
Forecast
"Tut, tut, it looks like rain."
--Christopher Robin
Jordan, on the other hand says: "Stinky Pete." Yep, it is true. The forecast is calling for rain tomorrow and that is when we're planning our yard sale! We have an ad in the paper and spent all last night shuttling things out of storage at the church to our house. I can no longer reach my dining room table. I certainly hope we're able to have the sale. I am ready to have my house back.
--Christopher Robin
Jordan, on the other hand says: "Stinky Pete." Yep, it is true. The forecast is calling for rain tomorrow and that is when we're planning our yard sale! We have an ad in the paper and spent all last night shuttling things out of storage at the church to our house. I can no longer reach my dining room table. I certainly hope we're able to have the sale. I am ready to have my house back.
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Tired
That is so inconceiveable, but completely true. I slept all day Sunday and quite a bit of the day Monday, and had 8 hours of sleep last night. I just can't get over the fatigue that comes with this endometriosis sometimes! My body must be doing something to fight this stuff.
Well, the LORD is guiding us once again... It looks like Brian has a post-seminary direction. He is looking into Ph.D. programs with the aim of teaching at the graduate or undergraduate level, and although nothing is settled, things are falling into place. We'll see what happens, but we are very excited to have a goal instead of several equal options. Right now, Brian is working on finding a dissertation topic and is touch with some folks at various schools. The dissertation pretty much decides everything-- where you go, who you study with, what new languages you need to learn. So I'll let you know when he decides on something!
The third yard sale is this weekend, and there is still much to do. I hope that God will strengthen me to get what needs done taken care of. I have more stuff to pick up, items to price, a permit to get, ads to place, and the actual set-up and take-down. I'm hoping that this will be the last yard sale, at least for a while. Now that the semester has begun, we are very busy.
I pray that the LORD would grant me contentment. In terms of my health, my vocation, our post-Knox plans, and our family situation, there is so much inside me that wants to speed up time and get to a resolution. But I would rather learn to be still and worship God. I'm just so antsy! I'm like a little kid in church during a long pastoral prayer-- ok, ok, let's get on with it. I know that I will miss our church, and Knox, and our friends and family terribly when this season is done. It isn't like me to hasten to meet to change but here I am with my arms open wide, trying to speed up time. The funny thing is, I know I'll bawl like a baby when the time to leave comes. I can't figure myself out.
Well, the LORD is guiding us once again... It looks like Brian has a post-seminary direction. He is looking into Ph.D. programs with the aim of teaching at the graduate or undergraduate level, and although nothing is settled, things are falling into place. We'll see what happens, but we are very excited to have a goal instead of several equal options. Right now, Brian is working on finding a dissertation topic and is touch with some folks at various schools. The dissertation pretty much decides everything-- where you go, who you study with, what new languages you need to learn. So I'll let you know when he decides on something!
The third yard sale is this weekend, and there is still much to do. I hope that God will strengthen me to get what needs done taken care of. I have more stuff to pick up, items to price, a permit to get, ads to place, and the actual set-up and take-down. I'm hoping that this will be the last yard sale, at least for a while. Now that the semester has begun, we are very busy.
I pray that the LORD would grant me contentment. In terms of my health, my vocation, our post-Knox plans, and our family situation, there is so much inside me that wants to speed up time and get to a resolution. But I would rather learn to be still and worship God. I'm just so antsy! I'm like a little kid in church during a long pastoral prayer-- ok, ok, let's get on with it. I know that I will miss our church, and Knox, and our friends and family terribly when this season is done. It isn't like me to hasten to meet to change but here I am with my arms open wide, trying to speed up time. The funny thing is, I know I'll bawl like a baby when the time to leave comes. I can't figure myself out.
Thursday, February 17, 2005
Nurturing a Godly Desire
If I am confident of anything, it is this: God uses trials in this life to make us long for eternity with Him.
God made Adam alone and showed him all the creatures of creation before He created Eve.
The Lord waited thousands of years before He sent the promised Messiah.
I think God makes us wait on things so that we will learn to trust Him, to instill in us a spirit of thankfulness, and to give us greater joy when those godly desires are fulfilled. When we are weak and lowly, He is magnified. When we can't bring our will to pass, we learn to trust Him. When He brings things about in His power, we are awed by His might and overwhelmed by His love. May He grant us patience and confidence in Him as we anticipate His work in our lives and His glory in eternity.
God made Adam alone and showed him all the creatures of creation before He created Eve.
The Lord waited thousands of years before He sent the promised Messiah.
I think God makes us wait on things so that we will learn to trust Him, to instill in us a spirit of thankfulness, and to give us greater joy when those godly desires are fulfilled. When we are weak and lowly, He is magnified. When we can't bring our will to pass, we learn to trust Him. When He brings things about in His power, we are awed by His might and overwhelmed by His love. May He grant us patience and confidence in Him as we anticipate His work in our lives and His glory in eternity.
Friday, February 11, 2005
Why Not In-Vitro?
"A couple whose frozen embryo was accidentally destroyed at a fertility clinic have the right in Illinois to file a wrongful-death lawsuit, a judge has ruled in a case that some legal experts say could have implications in the debate over embryonic stem cell research.
Their doctor said one embryo looked particularly promising, but the Chicago couple were told six months later the embryos had been accidentally discarded. " --Taken from a Miami Herald article on Sunday, Febraury 6th (www.miamiherald.com)
There is one one reason why not. How careful will be if they don't realize they're holding your babies? To them, those petri dishes hold genetic matter, not children. And you can't trust someone with that mindset with your babies. You don't know what happens behind closed doors. There are some genetic tests that doctors use to determine which embryos will be healthiest that actually kill some of them.
Cryoperservation is another reason not to pursue in-vitro. I read that 50% of children die in the thawing process. 50%! How on earth can people who claim to want children so badly be willing to kill half of them?? I asked my doctor if he could do in-vitro with 3 eggs and implant all three. He refused, saying that was not how the procedure was done at his clinic. Harvest, fertilize, then freeze or discard.
Selective Reduction. If a a woman has 6 embryos implanted, and 5 of them survive, the doctors will choose the 3-4 "weakest" and abort them. How can that be healthy for the child or children that mother decides she is going to carry? You would think she would at least have concern for that if she somehow fails to realize that these are all her children!
I do not believe there is anything fundamentally wrong with a doctor taking sperm and an egg from a married couple and using that to help them get pregnant. That seems to be part of man's God-given mandate to subdue the earth. But we are not allowed to subdue the earth for our own pleasure and ends. We can't violate God's commands in our subugation of creation. But unfortunately the vast majority of doctors in reproductive endcrinology do not fear God. They do not value life. It is incredibily ironic and tragic that doctors trained solely to help bring life into the world from dead wombs, doctors of life and hope, are also doctors of death.
Brian and I considered in-vitro very strongly when we found out that we couldn't concieve on our own. We are excellent candidates for it, since I am only 24 and have a perfectly healthy uterus. But we couldn't find a doctor who shared a commitment to life and we decided that was a risk that we just couldn't take. Even if we could get a doctor to agree to our stipulated way of doing things (which would difficult, because it could make their clinic sucess rates drop, which would lead to less business) you just can't trust someone who differs that greatly from you. Not in a matter of life and death. It would be like hiring a sociopath to babysit.
I strongly encourage anyone interested in in-vitro to check out embryo adoption. This is a great christian ministry dedicated to thawing out these little ones and giving them a shot at life. Their web-site is www.snowflakes.org .
Their doctor said one embryo looked particularly promising, but the Chicago couple were told six months later the embryos had been accidentally discarded. " --Taken from a Miami Herald article on Sunday, Febraury 6th (www.miamiherald.com)
There is one one reason why not. How careful will be if they don't realize they're holding your babies? To them, those petri dishes hold genetic matter, not children. And you can't trust someone with that mindset with your babies. You don't know what happens behind closed doors. There are some genetic tests that doctors use to determine which embryos will be healthiest that actually kill some of them.
Cryoperservation is another reason not to pursue in-vitro. I read that 50% of children die in the thawing process. 50%! How on earth can people who claim to want children so badly be willing to kill half of them?? I asked my doctor if he could do in-vitro with 3 eggs and implant all three. He refused, saying that was not how the procedure was done at his clinic. Harvest, fertilize, then freeze or discard.
Selective Reduction. If a a woman has 6 embryos implanted, and 5 of them survive, the doctors will choose the 3-4 "weakest" and abort them. How can that be healthy for the child or children that mother decides she is going to carry? You would think she would at least have concern for that if she somehow fails to realize that these are all her children!
I do not believe there is anything fundamentally wrong with a doctor taking sperm and an egg from a married couple and using that to help them get pregnant. That seems to be part of man's God-given mandate to subdue the earth. But we are not allowed to subdue the earth for our own pleasure and ends. We can't violate God's commands in our subugation of creation. But unfortunately the vast majority of doctors in reproductive endcrinology do not fear God. They do not value life. It is incredibily ironic and tragic that doctors trained solely to help bring life into the world from dead wombs, doctors of life and hope, are also doctors of death.
Brian and I considered in-vitro very strongly when we found out that we couldn't concieve on our own. We are excellent candidates for it, since I am only 24 and have a perfectly healthy uterus. But we couldn't find a doctor who shared a commitment to life and we decided that was a risk that we just couldn't take. Even if we could get a doctor to agree to our stipulated way of doing things (which would difficult, because it could make their clinic sucess rates drop, which would lead to less business) you just can't trust someone who differs that greatly from you. Not in a matter of life and death. It would be like hiring a sociopath to babysit.
I strongly encourage anyone interested in in-vitro to check out embryo adoption. This is a great christian ministry dedicated to thawing out these little ones and giving them a shot at life. Their web-site is www.snowflakes.org .
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