Bashing Black Friday

     I have to admit, I have already done some online peeking at the Black Friday sales.  I spend a significant part of Thanksgiving Day perusing the flyers, making a list, checking it twice, and planning the itinerary as if we were exploring space instead of parking spaces. Stories of Black Friday shoppers fighting and trampling their way to the holy holiday have given Black Friday sales a well deserved black eye. They are considered by some to be the epitome of ugly American greed. But greed is not what motivates me to leave my cozy bed at 5 a.m. on what is, for me, a work day, so that I can buy my family more extravagant gifts that I could ordinarily afford, it is love.
     Love--and thrift.  In the SILK (Single Income Lotsa Kids) days of my childhood, we lived on the cheap side of the thrift tracks. After graduation, I headed off to Bible college with faith, a student loan, and very little income. As a newlywed, I helped put a broke husband through aircraft fixing school (a modest investment on which I have lived for 33 years).  Then I was the overworked, underemployed mom of three children who were able attend Christian school on Reed's modest income.  I worked part time through some of those years, but my main contribution to the family finances was saving, not earning, money.  Our kids are grown and my husband is established in his profession so we have a more comfortable lifestyle, but I have not retired from my lifestyle as cheap financial officer. I consider thrift wise stewardship of the income God has given us.
     Greed is wanting, and buying, more than you need or can afford. Black Friday sales allow us to buy gifts that our loved ones want or need and still stay within our Christmas budget. My shopping-impaired husband even goes with me, after all, he is used to getting up to hunt in the wee hours of the morning. Finding these bargains was especially important as our children launched from home and needed--OUR stuff.  On one hand, I love getting a good deal, on the other hand, I love sleeping in, on the third hand, I love my children more, but on the second third hand, not enough to shop the dreaded discount stores like Walmart.  We mostly shop at hardware stores, and the hammer holding horde is neither as numerous nor bargain blood thirsty as the Walmart warriors.
     The last thing I want to do is recruit more shoppers to the sales, by all means stay home. Feel free to bash Black Friday consumerism, but don't look down on us stalwart stewards of our discount daily bread, we haven't had our beauty sleep.

If We Prayed It Like We Meant It

Our Father who's parked in heaven,
how often we use your name.
May our kingdom come, our will be done
on earth, if not in heaven.
Give us this day enough bread 

to last through retirement.
Forgive us our sins,

 but we will not forgive those

who sin against us.
You don't have to lead us into temptation, 

we can find our way to evil.
For ours is the whining 

and the wanting and the worry
forever and ever.

Amen

From the Reds to the Blues

    I was disappointed with the outcome of the recent election, of course.  I live in a little bastion of conservatism, most local radio talk shows are channeled to the right wing, the worst accusation in the campaign attack ads was--my opponent voted with Obama.  It gives us a skewed view of the national political climate, not as skewed as CNN, but skewed nonetheless. So I was sad Tuesday night, but not as sad as I was when "Billary" got elected for a second term.  We were studying the kings of Israel in BSF that year and I thought we had willingly reinstated Ahab and Jezebel.  The consolation was that they couldn't rule for decades like Israel's rotten kings.
     But I have learned something in the intervening years that helped me make it through election night, God is sovereign in the affairs of men.  He can use a leader who denies and detests him to work out his purpose just as well as one who loves and obeys him.  In fact, often God goes out of his way to choose an unbeliever to accomplish his will.  Pharoah's oppression didn't stop the Exodus.  Haman's plot to wipe out the Jews not only wiped out Haman, but many of their other enemies.  But my favorite example is Cyrus.  Cyrus was uniquely prophesied by name in Isaiah as one who would rebuild the temple in Jerusalem.  I don't think his name was written in scripture centuries in advance to convince Cyrus, he was an inclusive individual who liked to appease his subjects' god preferences. I think it was written to convince the Jews. I'm sure they were thinking, yes we want to build the temple, but why not choose some nice Jewish boy to lead us instead of this heathen?  For us it would be the equivalent of having a national Christian heritage day declared by Barak Obama.
     Yes, it is a great blessing to have godly leaders, but God is not the least bit frustrated by ungodly ones.  We are, but he is not. The Bible will not be found in the humor section of a bookstore, although there are some funny stories in it, but it does say that God laughs at our puny human plots against him. When God watches the schemes of our world's rebellious rulers, it is not only a reality show, but a sitcom. God thanks us for our cooperation in doing his will, but he does not need it.
     We are called to be people of hope.  I found hope in the record number of people who came out to vote, Americans are, at last, aware that our way of life is at stake.  I found hope that, after all the years of Republican leaders trying to impersonate Democrats, they are returning to their historic distinctives.  But mostly I found hope in the truth that no matter who is president, God is king.  All world leaders will give account to the king. And when those accounts are read, they will be the ones who are blue.

Sheepish

     I sometimes resent the idea that the Bible calls believers sheep.  You will never hear cheerleaders yelling, "GO MIGHTY SHEEP!!".  Sheep have few natural defenses and lots of natural stupidity. Lambs are cute, but even more helpless.  I am a Lamb, and today I was sheepish.  When my older son was a teenager, he would sometimes arrive home after school halfway through an argument with me that I didn't even know about. I'm not crazy about arguing, although I do it rather well, but if I'm having an argument, I would at least like to be let in on it.  I have also had this experience with my husband who will sometimes play both parts, filling in what I am thinking and saying for me.  Eventually, he will notice my silence and I tell him that if he is going to play my role, there is no need for me to participate.
     Today it was my turn. Our youngest son has been without employment for a couple weeks.  He already has a job lined up, but wanted to finish some side work first. Side work for an auto mechanic involves autos.  Since the only place he has to work on them now is our garage, the side work is stacked in our driveway making it look like we are having a perpetual party.  Our son has been working on them, but he is cramming an eight hour shift into two or three days and I started stressing about it.  Today my little sheep brain began playing worst case scenario about all the things that could go wrong if he didn't start the other job soon, and I mentally delivered several renditions of the same lecture.  I am not a worrier by nature, and I must not do it right because some people make it a calling and I don't enjoy it at all.
     So this afternoon, in walks the object of all my concentrated efforts, who tells me he has a call in to the guy with the lift truck to help move his tool boxes because he is starting the new job this week.  Then he tells me about his financial plan which includes all the good stuff we taught him and that he'll be back tomorrow to work on cars.  What a gyp!  All that good lecture material wasted.  And me, sheepish, but so thankful for the silence of the Lamb. 

Good Hair Day

     I thought that in the two weeks I would be off work following my knee surgery, I would be doing lots of blogging. This has not been the case.  Apparently, my knee bone is connected to my funny bone. Tuesday I had a good hair day, literally, that part was going right. I felt okay and could walk reasonably well, for someone new to Earth who had just recently discovered there was such a thing as walking.  But I skipped BSF that morning because three inches of snow had fallen the night before and I was worried about getting to the church, not in my car, my snow tires work well.  I was worried about getting from the parking lot into the building.  My knee was not strong enough for the fine movements involved in balancing on slippery surfaces and Connie + crutches + ice seemed like a formula for disaster.
     But Tuesday is shopping day--not for me, my knee was not strong enough to shop for me. Tuesday is the day I shop for a shut in. A woman who has been doing things her own way for 88 years and is not about to change. DJ is not the most particular person I have known, but she is number four.  Since preparing a list for two weeks worth of groceries is not her own way, I gamely offered to shop on my lame leg as soon as the snow melted.  As I drove the motorized cart through the store that day, buying groceries that weren't even for me, I was having a bad hair day.  A woman who worries on an Olympic level, who refuses to leave the door unlocked for me to get in with the groceries because she thinks getting startled might break the hip she had surgery on 12 years ago, is perfectly fine with me, her treasured friend, limping through the snow with her groceries 6 days after surgery.
     Whatever blessing I might have gained for this sacrificial service to the Lord, was surely lost in the mental complaining I did afterwards.  The thoughts inside my head were in much worse shape than my leg. Fortunately, people can only see the outside, and my hair looked terrific. 

A Tale of Two Toilets

     For years the toilet in our master bath had a crack in it.  Because the crack was superficial, we didn't bother to replace it. Frankly, a toilet with a crack on it seemed only fitting.  But when we needed to replace the flush pump for the second time in a couple years, we decided to dump that idea and aspire to a new throne. Aside from the tiny toilets you see near a school's kindergarten class, I have always thought of toilets as a one-size-fits-all item, like Snuggis, only way more useful.  But good fortune smiled upon our cracked potty when I found a Costco coupon for a small tank, dual flush, tall toilet.  I wasn't sure about the other features, but I realized a tall toilet might help counteract the increasing gravity that has accompanied my increasing age.
     Where is Al Gore when you need him?  No one is sounding the alarm about the global gravity crisis.  I have no hard data, (but neither did Al Gore) and I have noticed an alarming increase in gravity the closer I get to the floor. It gets worse every year, yet the U.N. does nothing, but then, that's what they are there for. But there is something I can do, I can buy a tall toilet.  In our miniature, master bathroom, now the only victim of the gravity vortex is the soap.
     One problem solved, another created. I cannot seem to reprogram my knees to adjust to toilets of different heights.  At first, I found myself landing abruptly on the tall toilet. Now, having gotten used to it, I keep landing abruptly, shall we say, short of the runway on the normal sized toilet in our main bathroom.  I did not realize until now that part of the fearful and wonderful way our bodies are made includes toilet- tailored sitting.  This is a minor inconvenience compared to serious matters like the gravity crisis, but still a tall tail tale worth telling--at least here, where the expectations are low.

Eternity in Our Hearts

     Ecclesiastes 3:11 says "He (God) has set eternity in the hearts of men."  I understood that verse in the sense that I cannot imagine my own extinction. I cannot conceive of not existing.  I also think of that verse every time I stand at a graveside saying goodbye. An innate sense of right and wrong tells me we are not meant for this, we were not created for goodbyes.  But I heard a message from Ecclesiastes last week that stressed another side of having eternity in our hearts, the knowledge that, no matter how much we achieve here on earth, death will claim all. Wealth, fame, accomplishments, all will be left behind. The king carries no more beyond the grave than the pauper.  Eternity can be a bitter weight to carry in our hearts.
     Eternity is only a comfort to those who know where they will be and who they will be with. It is like the aroma of Christ in 2 Cor. 2:15, 16--to the saved, it is the fragrance of life, to the unsaved, the stench of death.  It is our nature to both long for, and fear, eternity, for only eternal life can give this earthly life significance. It is God's nature to use both the fear and longing to drive us to him. In the heart he transplants into his children, eternity fits perfectly.