Underlined Bits

“None are more exposed to slanders and insults than godly teachers.  This comes not only from the difficulty of their duties, which are so great that sometimes they sink under them, or stagger or halt or take a false step, so that wicked men find many occasions of finding fault with them; but added to that, even when they do all their duties correctly and commit not even the smallest error, they never avoid a thousand criticisms.  It is indeed a trick of Satan to estrange men from their ministers so as gradually to bring their teaching into contempt.  In this way not only is wrong done to innocent people whose reputation is undeservedly injured, but the authority of God’s holy teaching is diminished. . . .

[T]he more sincerely any pastor strives to further Christ’s kingdom, the more he is loaded with spite, the more fierce do the attacks upon him become.  And not only so, but as soon as any charge is made against ministers of the Word, it is believed as surely and firmly as if it had been already proved.  This happens not only because a higher standard of integrity is required from them, but because Satan makes most people, in fact nearly everyone, over credulous so that without investigation, they eagerly condemn their pastors whose good name they ought to be defending.”

                    ~ John Calvin, Second Corinthians, Timothy, Titus and Philemon (Grand Rapids, 1964), page 263, commenting on 1 Timothy 5:19.

The misbehavior that makes gospel ministry difficult is the very thing that makes gospel ministry necessary.

We're Leaving Town!

Here is where I'll be this time tomorrow...


Come to Whitestone from Kevin Cowell on Vimeo.

http://www.whitestoneinn.com/

We'll have the lake view room - more than a 180 degree view, through large windows.  Every morning, gourmet breakfast.  Every evening, dinner prepared by their on site chef. 

 See the turret?  That's our room.  Looking out onto the lake.

Another place you can stay at Whitestone - you can see a glimpse of the lake.

I'm packing as we speak...

Thank you, Harvest Church!  An extravagant gift, with no strings attached!  To think...we get to go just the two of us!  Ya'll know us well, that's for sure.  Tim and I love, love, love being alone together.  We never get to be! 

Thank you, Sarah and Jonathan, for taking over Pickle Duty.  (Our youngest is having to save money to pay for his car insurance before he can drive.  He'll have it soon - just not tomorrow.  Sarah and Jonathan have graciously stepped in to let Isaac stay with them, let Justin and Hannah have the house to themselves, and cart Isaac to basketball practice and to his part time job.)

And thank you, Justin and Hannah, for being on dog duty and bird duty and mom-gets-to-come-back-home-to-a-clean-house duty.

Ya'll are the best.

And it so rocks to be me.

PS.  I may or may not post while we're gone.  Honestly, blogging relaxes me, so I may take my laptop with me, if I can sneak it by Tim, who would probably rather have me 100% to himself, no laptop...but hey...he'll get 99%.  More'n enough for any man.  More'n he can handle.

::smile::

And yes, baby, you are all the man I can handle.  Together, we make a mighty fine pair - all that....uh...."handling each other".

Everything You Never Wanted to Know

I'm having an egocentric day, perhaps.  I'm in the mood to tell you....things.  About me.  Some of which I seriously wonder if I've ever told anyone but Tim or my closest home-girls, and maybe not even them.  So if you are as interested in my story as I am in your stories (and I truly am - 99% of the time, when you are physically with me at lunch or dinner or whatever, the conversation will be about you, and I'd be asking you all sorts of stuff) then just keep on reading, because you are about to be amused.

Or deeply concerned for me.

Where to start?

1.  I was a bed-wetter until the age of 13.  It was pure, unmitigated awfulness.  I had all the traits of a  disturbed child - heard "voices" in my head, thoughts of suicide (only thoughts!) anger issues, the whole bit.  And bedwetting.

What changed?  I lie not...it was the active grace of God in my life, and the charismatic renewal in the 70's.   My parents left a somber, dead denominational church (and I do realize denominations are not all dead) for a charismatic church, and I began to be bathed in the presence of God every Sunday.  I did have several supernatural spiritual experiences as a child - for example, I remember receiving ministry one evening, being overwhelmed by a sense of pure love and power, and that was the end of the voices in my head.....forever.  Literally, the night before, I had heard them, and that night I slept in quiet peace, and not one time, ever again, have I been tormented like that.  No voices.

Unless I'm just messin' with ya.  I joke about hearing voices now.

2.  I taught the Bible for the first time when I was 17 - to about three hundred people at my church, and even gave an altar call.  (Bold, no?)  The altar was full.

3.  I was married at only twenty years old, and gave birth to identical twin girls nine months (and twenty minutes) later.  Honeymoon twins.

4.  I was ugly in middle school.  I'm talking u-g-l-y.  I had no self confidence whatsoever.  I was homely and I knew it.  Then, something happened, and I entered a beauty pageant at age 17 (the Junior Miss Pageant) and almost won.  I came in third - each of us girls in the top three were within tenths of a point of one another.  So I really did almost win.

And - of all things - I scored the best...out of every single contestant....in (are you ready for this?)  not grade point average.  Not my interview, though it went well.  Not in physical fitness - my dance was a fiasco.  I took top score in...

poise and appearance.  Apparently God really does make all things beautiful in His time.

Don't hate on me.  In that season of my life, I needed that.  Honestly, I've never been all that proud of that little fact about me, and I'm not stunningly attractive today - but I'm not above wanting to be.

5.  I was president of the Knoxville chapter of Teenage Women's Aglow in the 80's.  (Anyone remember "Women's Aglow"?  It was the age of Christian women in power suits, silk scarves, and big earrings.)

6.  At one point in my walk with God, I wore a headcovering.  Only for a couple of months - until my then-pastor took me to task, a little known fact for which I thank him to this day.  No disrespect to those women who do wear head coverings, but today the very thought makes me cringe.  I am forever grateful to God for an Enlightening Grace that pulled me out of the clutches of legalism.  It was and still is a process.

7.  My husband bites his nails, and that irks me.  Oh wait...that isn't about me, is it?  I think it sort of is, because that one thing is the Great Secret Irk of my life.  He's doing it right now.

8.  I love him in every other way.  He's adorable and selfless and definitely cute in a baseball hat.

9.  I'm loyal as a hound dog.  Friends are friends forever in my world - you have to treat me and my husband with a lot of disrespect before I'd even think about kicking you to the curb.  Even then, I wouldn't.  You'd have to leave me.  But if ever you do - I don't chase you down - I have too many other friends who do love and need me.  So I won't follow you home, begging you to bring your Barbies back to my porch.  I just leave the light on for ya.  You'll be back.  You like your girlfriends witty and good looking.  You'll miss me eventually.

10.  I'm a lot of things - I swear sometimes, am known for too much sarcasm (its a gift) and I feel more deeply and pray more than most people will ever realize.  But for some reason, I've never been a jealous woman.  Your success is mine.  I want you to be as blessed as possible - no strings attached.

11.  I'm a freakish combination of a Sophia Loren wanna-be, and Mother Teresa.  I think deeply, love God radically, read real-books like some women sit in front of Facebook (all day, every day) but refuse to live without high heels, red lipstick, and the occasional glass of wine.

That's all for now.  Whatever.  I'm so glad we had this little talk.  I'm going to hit "publish" before my better judgement takes over...

Baby Showers and Bliss...

I'm blissed out because my daughter Hannah's baby shower (first baby!) was today, and it was such an event...the friends, the family, the food, decorations, presents, all of it was just .....

special.  Completely special.  It rocks to be me.  Unless you have to open your mouth and actually talk.  I'll explain in a minute.

I'm bummed out because I brought my camera to the shower and everything, but as soon as I booted it up, the little red "low battery" light came on.  One of life's lessons in the Age of Technology, I guess - "Always Have Extra Batteries." 

I didn't.

However, enough other people took pictures that I should have a few to post soon.

I'm running into one other problem, however (other than the "low battery" thing) and that is my brain.  Seriously, people, someone tell me what is wrong with me.  This week especially, I have noticed that I can think one thing, open my mouth, and something else comes out.  How does that even happen?

I think, at the shower, I meant to say, "What a cute and very tiny outfit!" and instead, the thing that came out was, "My hair went to the store because the weather report needed the exercise." 

I know I've been pretty sick with this darn headcold.  I know my back has been hurting "like junk" (as Isaac would say)... but really.

Really.  Seriously?  Is this what I have to look forward to?

I think I am just getting old and tired. 

At the baby shower, I actually heard someone say to my daughter, "Your mom looks pretty slammed..."  (as in pathetically pathetic...not hung over.)

Crap.  And I even tried.  I was trying to look like The Gorgeous Young Grandmother-to-be.  It didn't offend me or even depress me, because it was said with more pity and compassion than you'll ever know.  (This mom has a soldier in Iraq right now...)

::interrupting myself - which one can do when one has several selves, each of whom wants her turn on the Blog World Stage::

Hilarious.  My husband just called me from the other room, and my response, before I could think or sensor myself was, "I am not getting out of this bed."  He has not dared to page me again.  Smart man.

I should probably just go to sleep now.  And not talk anymore until pigs fly -  or menopause, whichever comes first.  But blogging is such sweet therapy, since this is the only place that what I am actually thinking comes out in any sort of coherent fashion.

I am so much cooler online, ya'll.  I make sense and everything.  Be envious.  Be very envious.  Not everyone needs a keyboard to know what's on their mind.  Not everyone's fingers respond like mine.  Faithful digits, they are.  I can always depend on them to tell me whatever it is I am truly thinking and feeling.

Just don't call me on the phone, okay?  Because I'll have to use my mouth.  And something startling or incomprehensible is always coming out of it lately.  I want you to be able to understand me.  Maybe just Facebook or email me.

Harvest Church is in a very, very difficult position.  I make all the necessary announcements on Sunday mornings.

Wonder what my mouth will say?

In Which Sheila Declares

...that Joy Baher and Whoopie Goldberg are Christian-hating, screeching dolts who don't know what they are talking about....over-emotional, unreasonable women who don't know half of what they think they know.

This is one time that, if you have no idea what I am talking about, I am going to tell you to Google it.  Google "The View" and "Bill O'Reilly".

Just watch.  See what I'm talking about.  Gah.  I never watch The View.  It would be knowingly killing off my own brain cells to watch that show.  But I saw the segment with Bill O'Reilly on Fox News tonight.

Wooooooow.  Can you say "morons"?  Oh-em-gee, (I can't even do those phone text abbreviations when I TRY to do them) give those women some medication.

They do make medication for that sort of thing.

Sneeze, Re-attach, Repeat

Suddenly, out of nowhere, I have been sneezing my butt off today.  All over town.  In Wal-Mart, it was:

sneeze, reattach butt, repeat.

In the grocery store:  sneeze, reattach, repeat.  In the hardware store - well, you get the idea.

sneeze, reattach, repeat.

I'm so tired of the whole routine.  If it weren't for dark chocolate and swearing, I might have a nervous breakdown after the week I've had.

Besides.  Wine makes me sleepy which makes me grumpy if it is not time to sleep.  So all I am left with is dark chocolate and swearing, which keeps me from being irritable with my family.

The way I look at it, every bite of dark chocolate, every mild swear word, is an act of selfless love for the people I live with.  Maybe I should tweak my routine to "sneeze, swear, reattach, eat chocolate, repeat".

Nah.  Too much trouble.  And within three days, my butt would get so big, I couldn't pick it back up.  I swear (::cough::), the next time I sneeze, I am just gonna look furtively, all around, and just leave my butt wherever it lies.

If I could only manage to sneeze and hold onto my butt at the same time.  Alas, my motor skills are not like everyone else's.   

Harvest Decorating

I had all my harvest decor stored away until the beginning of September.  It was so fun to get out the Harvest Wheat sheaves...these evoke for me not only my love for the Harvest season, but my passion for Harvest Church, and my passion for the harvest that is white and ripe and ready...the harvest of the hearts of people, who will one day worship Jesus Christ.  May His name be famous in all the nations of the earth!

Also, you see a beautiful brown mosaic-glass plate on the antique dresser.  These all sit in my entry foyer.  I always make very simple changes, from summer to autumn, but simple can be so effective!

I love children's stories.  I firmly believe they are cheap therapy.  So you can imagine my joy at being gifted a few vintage vinyl story records...about fall and Thanksgiving on one side, and Easter and spring on the other!  I listened to the fall stories this morning...it was the best way I could have started my day.  Yes, it was a "story time" kind of day.

If you've been studying interiors at all, you've found that right now, orange and blue are in combination everywhere...these are my fall pops of color against my neutral canvas.  Notice the autumn leaves suspended above the table, hanging from the chandelier, and the ironstone crock full of hydrangeas from my garden.

Another shot of the Harvest Table, looking into the kitchen...I love my terra cotta floors - very French country.

 A burlap garden trug, filled with pumpkins...

Display your Autumn cookbooks (I get my seasonal cookbooks for $2 and $3 at our local used bookstore!) for a perfect seasonal decoration that strikes the all important combination of beautiful and useful.

Most importantly, cook.  Fill your home with the true essence of autumn.  Instead of pumpkin candles, try making pumpkin bread and pumpkin cupcakes with maple frosting.  I did...it was so, so good.  Try your favorite soup recipe, and bake some bread.  Display beautiful linens in fall colors in your kitchen.  Other than these very natural things, my only Harvest decor is a medium sized ceramic white pumpkin, sitting primly on those gorgeous oiled-wood counters.

I love fall.  It remains my favorite season of the year.  Miracles always happen for me when the leaves turn lipstick kissed red.  God is always One to spoil me during the months of September through December.  I find His fingerprints all over my day, and feel His butterfly kisses in the wind.  He's just so glorious, and I cannot wait until the entire Harvest is His and His alone - this entire spinning orb called earth, all of it rejoicing in His righteous ways.

Take joy in every season as it passes.  All too soon, it will be gone.  No one else but you can experience God's precious presence in your own unique heart and mind.  Take some Harvest joy.  It glorifies God when you do!