Tag: relationships

Posted in Believe it or not!, Inspiring, Photos, Scripture, Wisdom

God’s Dishonor Roll – Part 2

Posted on by Katharine
English: Moses Pleading with Israel, as in Deu...
Moses Pleading with Israel

Let’s look at more examples of God’s Dishonor Roll.

In Exodus chapter 2, we read that Moses killed a man with his bare hands.

God could have said, “I’m not working with this guy. He’s a hot-tempered man! He’d be a terrible leader!”

But instead, 40 years later, in chapter 3, we find that God chose Moses. He told Moses He wanted him to be the man to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt. He wanted Moses to be the one to tell Pharaoh, ’Let my people go.’ Even though he killed a man and was a fugitive from justice, He still wanted him to lead His people out of bondage.”

Even Moses thought God was making a mistake.

He made excuses for not being up to the task.

He wanted God to choose someone else.

Moses felt like a failure and unqualified for the task.

He was afraid. He didn’t want to fail again. Have you ever been there?

God could have agreed and selected another person, but He didn’t give up on Moses and enabled Him to show forth God’s miraculous power.

Furthermore, God met with Moses,

this murderer,

this weak man,

and talked to him as a friend. He gave Moses His Law and Commandments, the Old Testament.

“As Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay at the entrance, while the LORD spoke with Moses. Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshiped, each at the entrance to his tent. The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend.” Exodus 33:9-11a.

Or how about David, a “man after God’s own heart”, who failed greatly: Coveting another man’s wife, he committed adultery with her and planned her husband’s death on the battlefield to cover up his sin.

God could have been done with David and removed him as king of Israel, as He had done with David’s predecessor, Saul, but God had made a promise to David and He kept it. David suffered consequences of his sin, but he continued to rule as king over Israel. He, and his descendants, continued worshipping God.

“When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son.” 2 Samuel 7:12-14a

More tomorrow.

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Image via Wikipedia

Posted in Blessings of Habit, Inspiring, Scripture, Wisdom

Sunday Scriptures – Hope

Posted on by Katharine
Allegory of hope; Oil on canvas, Francesco Gua...
Allegory of Hope: Oil on Canvas, Francesco Guardi, 1747

We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.” For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

. . .

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 15:1-7,13

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Image via Wikipedia

Posted in Believe it or not!, Inspiring, Scripture, Wisdom

Sunday Scriptures – Peaceful

Posted on by Katharine

I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone–
for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.
This is good, and pleases God our Savior,
who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.
For there is one God and one mediator between God an men, the man Christ Jesus,
who gave himself as a ransom for all men–the testimony given in its proper time.

1 Timothy 2:1-6

Posted in Inspiring, Photos, Sayings, Scripture

Weekly Photo Challenge – Winter – 3

Posted on by Katharine

Have to explain some before I begin this post. Sorry.

First, I once worked outside the home. Surprised? One of the co-workers on that job was retired from the military and would tell us about his experiences abroad, from time to time.

For a while, he was stationed in Israel. It was a fun and easy assignment, no war or other real soldierly things going on, then; a desk job. Winter came, and with it, an extremely rare joy: snow. The old timers declared it had been 60 or more years since the last one.

The results were that the children did not know how to play in snow. So, the U.S. Army came to their rescue and showed them how to write messages with footprints in it, and to make snowmen, forts and snowballs, etc.

I loved that story and the images of soldiers in camo, with a knowing gleam in the eye and grin on the hardened jaw, teaching little kids how to make mittens from socks and play in the winter wonderland. I imagined giggles from young and older, rollicking snowball fights, and who knows, maybe some shared hot cocoa. It always makes me smile.

Hold that thought.

Second, and some folks may already know this, but according to the Bible, Jesus created everything that exists, including the angels. (John 1:3)

Okay. Now all the explanation is out of the way, and we can get on with this post.

I’ve been listening to an old Rich Mullins CD, lately, and the same song that always gets me, got me again.

I wish I could sing like him and impart these songs to millions. Instead, I wander through ballads, trying to hum along, wondering where folks find such skill.

The following links are to a free look at the lyrics with an option to listen.

I don’t like every song the man ever wrote—my problem, I know—but there are universal beauties in his too-short legacy. I absolutely love “Screen Door on a Submarine” (which you really have to SEE performed, to appreciate) for content, style, and execution: Tops!

And the achingly beautiful “Not as Strong as We Think We Are” haunts me for days, every time I hear it.

But my stoic husband hands me his hanky and admits, “It is a sweet song,” when they play “Boy Like Me/Man Like You”. Let me tell you why, and let me tell you why I’m writing about it here and now.

It is a darling song for lovers of children, beginning with:

You was a baby like I was once
You was cryin’ in the early morn’
You was born in a stable Lord
Reid Memorial is where I was born
They wrapped You in swaddling clothes
Me, they dressed in baby blue

It goes on fully expanding its theme, the purpose of the Incarnation, comparing various segments of Jesus’ life and the life of Mullins’ boyhood: Did You wrestle with a dog, let him lick Your nose? Did You play beneath the spray of a water hose?

But then comes the line that slays me, almost like a haiku moment:

Did You ever make angels in the winter snow . . .

not galille, but
Not Galilee, but . . .
Posted in Blessings of Habit, Inspiring, Scripture, Wisdom

Sunday Scriptures – Self Portrait

Posted on by Katharine

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it–he will be blessed in what he does. James 1:22-25

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 1 Corinthians 13:11-12

Posted in Blessings of Habit, Good ol' days, Inspiring, Photos, Wisdom

The Gift of the Blue Mail Box

Posted on by Katharine

We have not dwelt in this “neck of the woods” very long. However, when we first arrived, we learned of The Blue Mail Box.

decorated with love
Decorated with Love

The Blue Mail Box is an actual place, marked on some maps. People in many surrounding towns could drive you straight to it because they know exactly what you mean when you say, “The Blue Mail Box,” and they know exactly where it is.

Yes, The Blue Mail Box is an actual place you can drive to, but it is also a place in history, a place in the hearts of many local people. You see, it stands for so much more than mail, although it does include mail. It stands for trust, cooperation, and grit. It stands for love-thy-neighbor. It stands for “. . . the howdy and the handshake, the laughter and the tears, the dream that’s been . . . ”

Yes. The Blue Mail Box is a has-been. It still exists, but the lovely things it represents exist only in history, only in hearts, only in memories.

I am sure the first time The Blue Mail Box was vandalized, it brought shock or pain to its extended family of devotees.

Now days, it enjoys protection–it’s been vandalized that much–as a memento of an innocent age we wish we could resume.

But no mail.

Who would try, these days, what was common occurrence back then?

Who would allow all the mail from one community to be deposited in one box with no lock, to be sorted through by anyone who lived there? Who would trust a neighbor to bring him his mail, since he was going that way, anyway? Who would kindly take old Widow Smith her mail, then open and read it for her?

No one in his right mind, that’s who. Not now days. But The Blue Mail Box was all that and more, once upon a time. Friends who chanced to meet at The Blue Mail Box would linger and visit. Surely a few surreptitious meetings between lovers occurred there, too, under the guise of “collecting Mama’s mail”? Probably notes, without postage, sometimes waited inside The Blue Mail Box, for folks who did not have phones to communicate with their neighbors.

But those days are over.

Half of it is illegal, these days, anyway.

Now days, when someone hears of The Blue Mail Box for the first time, they greet it with laughter, as I did. But as we grow to know these people, we realize the love that stood behind all that trust with each other’s mail. Elderly ladies smile as they tell of hi-jinks from school days. They boast of good preachers from back then.  They dream, starry-eyed, of past Christmas plays, spelling bees, weddings . . .

The Blue Mail Box is the stuff of real life, and we all should have something similar stuffed somewhere in the backs of our memories, for it once was the American way.

But we have allowed “them” to steal it from us and it is gone, isn’t it.

Except for the box.

We’ve thrown aside the gift and we’re playing with the box . . .