What to get my Grandmother

I have no good ideas for my grandmother's Christmas gift. So I have a new contest. Best gift idea wins....something. It's a surprise.

Tips- Grandma is 85, likes to knit, crochet, sew, and read novels that make me blush. She is originally from Germany, she has not yet figured out how to work a VCR, not sure she knows what DVDs are, and her sound system was purchased in the late 80s. She has dietary issues, so caffeine, nuts and berries are out.

So, any ideas?

Holiday fun

Does anyone have any funny holiday stories? I was trying to think of some. All that came to mind were the numerous times the dog chased the cat up the Christmas tree, causing the artificial and thus already top-heavy tree to collapse, shattering about half a dozen glass ornaments every time. And yet we stubbornly decorated with glass ornaments year after year. But, alas, my precious dog has passed on, so the cat is now fat and lazy and the tree is, at long last, safe. Maybe. My nephew is walking now. Thant could be interesting. Maybe we should retire the glass ornaments for a few years...

The other funny story is really more of a tradition that a one time event type story. My crazy neighbors who have been across the street from my parent's home since I was two have this tradition of trying to convince their numerous grand children that they saw Santa every year. This started simple enough with someone dressed in black carrying a red-bulbed flashlight running across the field behing their house, or someone making noises on the roof. However, over time it excalated to where every year they try to convince a neighbor to dress like Santa and fall off the roof or get chased across the yard or something. They usually coerse my father into doing it. It's hillarious seeing my dad dress as Santa. He is the gruffest Santa ever! I have pictures of him I need to dig out. My dad does not smile for pictures. Ever. Not even when he's wearing a Santa suit. I think as a joke our family needs to make our own Christmas cards with the glowering Santa for the picture. I to this day have no idea how they get him to play Santa. I suspect blackmail, but I can't prove it.

Christmas is such a strange holiday in sooooo many ways.

What's this power stuff?

So, I've had a few conversations lately, and spent some time praying with some people about this somewhat elusive thing: the power of Christ.

One friend described in a way that I've heard before, but that just has been sticking about in my head right now: "the same power that let Christ rise from the dead." That's power. It's also what rose Lazarus. But it's also the power that kept Christ from giving into temptation. It also was the power that helped him love a prostitute, a tax collector, a pharisee, a betrayer. It helped him forgive those that hurt him, and let him love them. It let him touch a leper without fear.

So this power is part of my inheritance as Christ's child. So why is it that I have to pray constantly throughout the day to plead for the strength to keep from sinning? Didn't Jesus say we would see even greater things than those he had done? I have all that I need, now, to live in the power of Christ, but somehow I am missing it. I think part of it is I just forget. I forget my life does not have have to be one lived in some just-barely-not-defeated state. It can be lived in victory! Christ's power is not just something that maybe helps us to not sin most of the time, which is what I tend to settle for. It's something that should allow us to reflect the glory of God all the time!

It's good that it's not something I work myself up in. It's not something I can learn, or grow in. It's something I already have, and something that become more realized as I depend on God, and get to know Him better. Weird that dependence can be such a freeing thing.

Baby sitters club here I come

So have you ever heard of the book series, "The Babysitters Club?" As a little preteen girl I idolized those girls, Claudia, Mary Anne, Dawn, Bridget and others... I even thought, in my ridiculous pre-teen logic, that it would be cool to have diabetes because one of them had diabetes! Insane, I know. So the Babysitters Club and Frodo the hobit shaped my impressionable mind during that crucial developmental stage.

I had an opportunity last night to relive that childhood dream, the dream of being the perfect, cool, fun babysitter. It all came down to one fateful moment. When the little boy I was watching, well known for the crazy things he tries (and sometimes succeeds) to convince his babysitters to let him do, apparently tried to pull the wool over yet another victim's eyes. I was on top of it, though. I knew it was coming, and hardened my gullible little heart to face the assault. So when, in his cute four year old little voice, he blithely announced, "I sleep in underwear now!" I laughed in his face and said, "No, you don't, that's silly!" Proud of how apt I had been to his childish attempts at babysitter ambush, it took me a minute to realize the not of confusion in his protests that he really was telling the truth. Then I remembered the pre-parent-departure-bedtime-ritual-tutorial, when his mother had clearly stated that he no longer needed to put on a pull up diaper prior to going to bed.

I felt horrible! Here was this sweet little boy proudly telling me he had fully graduated out of his pull-up days, and I laughed in his face! Ever since I have had nightmare-like flashes of this 20-something fearful and insecure little man sitting in front of his conselor, tearing up as he finally confessed that it all went back to the time his babysitter laughed in his face when he shared one of the greatest accomplishments of his toddlerhood. Alas, there was a reason I never was one of those esteemed members of the illustrious babysitters club (I mean, aside from the club being fictional). I am a failure! And I can't be like Frodo, either, I passed the requisite height long ago. Alas, so much for becoming my childhood heroes.

the inadequacy of Scripture

Ok, you handful of SBTS-ers who visit my blog can stop gasping in shock now, I promise this post will not be heretical. At least not intentionally.

I've always given mental and verbal assent to the adequacy of Scripture for the Christian faith and life and all that. Well, always since becoming a Christian and becoming aware of the issue. But I realized recently (Friday of last week, actually) that while my mind and tongue agreed. My heart did not. Not always. When times are tough, when my faith and hope are lacking, Scripture is not very high on the list of the places I turn to first. Or even if I turn to it, it's to try usually somewhat futilely to find the one golden verse or passage that will speak to my present troubles.

So on Friday, as I found myself again lacking in faith and hope and joy, I found my self desiring very strongly to spend time in Scripture, studying the character and nature of my savior. And I stopped, stunned, realizing this was the first time I had ever responded that way. Usually I turn to a friend, then a book, maybe then to someone who has more of a mentoring role in my life, perhaps to my journal, prayer falls in there somewhere, maybe another friend or two, oh, and then Scripture, for the elusive golden verse. And the elusiveness of that one verse or passage that speaks to my exact situation and make it all better is what keeps Scripture last in the line of places I turn to for comfort.

It's hard though, sorting through all that stuff about God and Christ to try and find something that speaks to me.

That was sarcasm. But that was, often is, my attitude. How foolish! By looking to Christ, who He is, the maker and sustainer of all things, the one for whom all things were made, and the one who died for me and rose, first born from among the dead, who lives now, victorious over death and sin, even the sins that continue to plague me today. I become so self focused, I can't see beyond myself to see that I can be free of myself. Even the self that would see my problems as too big for God's words to speak to.

Free

I had a great weekend. Not that anything special happened, really. In fact, I spent most of it at Sunergos coffee shop, reading, knitting, staring out the window, sipping coffee, talking to old friends and making new ones.

One of my favorite things about coffee shops (I mean, aside from the beverages) is that it's a great place to meet interesting people. This weekend I met a UofL grad student from Yemen. She's here studying art. She showed me some of her work. Wow. She's incredible. And she's working on a thesis project that is really interesting. But that's beside the point.

We had an interesting conversation about freedom. She has lived in Yemen, China, India, and now here, and has traveled to a number of other countries. I spend little time thinking about our freedoms in the U.S. but as she pointed out, they go so far beyond even the obvious ones of freedom of speech, expression and religion. However, it is interesting how with all the freedom we have, it's really often like a leash let out enough for us to hang ourselves on. Her first experience with American "freedom" was living in a UofL undergrad dorm. Coming from Yemen and from a Muslim family, it was quite shocking. One comment that really stuck out to me was that her mother used to call her an Arabic term that means a flower that has not yet budded. She said that no longer describes her very well after all she saw and heard there. The girls on her hall were as shocked by her as she was by them. They couldn't understand why she wouldn't take this opportunity out of the Middle East and away from her Muslim family to live freely (i.e. drink and have sex a lot). They couldn't understand that freedom also includes the freedom to choose soberness and sexual purity.

Another interesting example was from a freedom she truly appreciates. In Yemen (and from what other friends from there, most Middle Eastern countries) students are supposed to learn straight from the books and repeat exactly what it says. Thinking for one's self and expressing one's own thoughts and opinions are absolutely not permitted. But while she appreciates the freedom to express her thoughts, she has been surprised at how American students use that freedom to express disrespectful attitudes and ignorance.

It was interesting to hear her perspectives on how we use (or abuse) our freedoms, especially coming from someone who appreciates these freedoms far more than I ever could. And to see the mixture of appreciation and disgust she holds for America. I do take my freedom, both as an American and as a child of God, for granted. As Americans we are free in ways much of the rest of the world cannot imagine, and have the opportunity to use that freedom to do so much good, but instead we selfishly abuse that freedom to satisfy our laziness and our more fleshly desires. Worse, though, is what we do with our freedom in Christ, though. Hold on, I should be writing this in the first person. I have the freedom, purchased for me by Christ, to live a life better than I could have ever hoped for, but instead I so often choose fear and comfort instead. I have the freedom to become a better person than I could have dreamed of being, I have the freedom to allow Christ to transform me more into his likeness. But so often use the freedom grace has given me to become the worst version of myself.

As Americans we are set free from oppression, but have the choice to use that freedom to express what is good and worthy, or to express ourselves in ways that disgust and offend others. As Christians, we are free from slavery to sin and the law, and we can choose to operate within that freedom in such a way that we reflect the love and goodness of the one who set us free, or we can operate in such a way that others looking on will see nothing so very special or desirable in that freedom. While my Yemenese friend enjoyed some of the freedoms that she was allowed to participate in while in America, she did not hold any more respect for America than she did for Yemen, and didn't seem very sad that her time here was coming to an end. Freedom hasn't presented a very appealing face to her. How often do others look on Christians, look on me as a Christian, and find little to nothing to draw them? My freedom is so dearly purchased, it is good to be reminded not to take it for granted.

Things that go Bump in the night

I had a weird morning. It all started around 1:30 am. I was sound asleep in my very comfy bed when suddenly my eyes popped open and I was wide awake. Not in the alarmed and tense due to a scary dream sense. No, I was awake with a calm certainty that someone was throwing a bouncy ball around my room. So I did the logical thing, I laid there for several minutes wondering who would be bouncing a ball around my room in the middle of the night. No names came to mind, so I finally looked around a little, didn't see anyone, noted that the clock read 1:23, and went back to sleep smiling because I still had hours before the alarm would go off.

And so I slept, dreaming I was on the island from Lost being chased by dinosaurs let loose by the Bush administration as some sort of ploy to secure their rule for many years to come. After hitting snooze multiple times because the dinosaurs told me to, I rolled out of bed and stumbled to the foot of it, and what did I find? No, not a bouncy ball. It was a bottle of lotion in the middle of the floor! I knew the lotion came from the book shelf several feet away. I stood staring at it for a while, wondering how it fell, and how it dot so much distance from that fall. Then I looked at the bookshelf. It was tilted, having fallen in the night and was propped on the books on the shelf below it. So I removed all the books, afraid the pressure would cause the next shelf to collapse if left all day. I neatly stacked all the books and went to remove the last one left on the shelf to find it was propping up the shelf above it! So that shelf collapsed on me, and trying to hold it with one arm, I gave up on my neat little stacks and started hurling books onto my bed.

So now I have a pile of books on my unmade bed, a stack of books on the floor by the bookshelf, and two very mischievous little shelves to restock when I get home. Geesh! What a way to start a monday! Oh, and I have to call the Ghostbusters because my room is clearly haunted.