While this has been a wonderful "starter home", it is time for me to spread my wings and enter a new realm of blogosphere.  I love the "gadgets" that the "new fangled homes" have and since I am not specifically homeschool oriented in my blogging, I think it might be time to move along.

I'm keeping Blogelle because I really want to expand that but my memories blog and my family blog are joining this one on wordpress.com

Visit me!  And to celebrate this exciting move, I'm holding a contest.  The prize is a 20 dollar gift certificate!  Come name my book! 

Paradoxology

Havig Haven

It's a Wonderful Life

Well here I sit.  Another week goes by and I sit.  I sit.... and I sit.

However, since coming to a realization that life in a chair doesn't have to be the epitome of boredom or completely free from accomplishment, I have managed to add more meaningful activity to my days.

Since that day I have...

• Edited two chapters in "Cinders"
• Edited a photo shoot.
• Organized about 300 pictures
• Started consistent daily work on Ethan's reading lessons
• Started a Christmas shopping list
• Started a Blog for my childhood memories.
• Switched out the tablecloth for something "Fallish"
• Researched alternate moderator gifts.
• Read four books
• Crocheted 3 more rows on afghan
• Planned science blitz.
• Planned quick Thanksgiving blitz to start in November. (How did I forget that the little kids haven't done one?)
• Planned two new ooks.

Today I'm off to update my writing website and do some tote sorting/decluttering.   Not too shabby....

A dear cyber-friend posted this on HK and gave me permisssion to share.  I was so tickled I had to put it up here for everyone to enjoy.  Thank you Becky!

I was enjoying my devotions tonight..which is another post..but I was writing..and for some reason... Everytime I write I think of you... So then I was being a bit goofy... and flipped this one out... so..here it is in all of its non-literary genius.. 

Dedicated to my writing mentor... Dear Miss Chatty 

Ready..I know you are on the edge of your seat, right??

Okay..already..Pure stroke of genius here..  Just for you...Btw, I am praying for your heart and health.

Not very bright
still
I like to write,
often
I interpret life
through
paper and pen; Rife
with personal thoughts and intuition
or maybe
forward thinking and premonition
Anyway,
This is a way
to
fill the end of my day
-writing-

I almost didn't write this post.  You see, tomorrow I go to the cardiologist where I pray he tells me that my initial symptoms were viral related which sent me to my chair and then when the virus had passed through my system I was so weakened by just sitting around all day for three and some odd weeks, my body kept fighting to get me normal.  I further expect (or hope anyway) him to say that I am to go home, slowly begin exercise, and resume my normal life.  I really want to hear him say that I need to try, at least for a week, to move as much as possible, rest until my heart/lungs resume normal and then get right back upon that hor- um, off of that chair!  This is my dream, my prayer, my hope- Ok, ok, I admit... this is my WHINE.

So, I wasn't going to write this.  After all, if I am going to be out of the chair as of tomorrow afternoon, I don't need to think about the topic of this blog.  Oh, I didn't mention the topic now did I?  Ok, the subtitle for this blog is...

How to fill your time productively and serve your family lovingly from the confines of a recliner.

Yep.  That's the topic of this blog.  I am writing, in order to remind myself that my life can't sit on hold indefinitely, a list of things that one can do when one can hardly move around the house.  I am writing this list tonight so that tomorrow, if for some horrible reason God doesn't answer my prayer in the affirmative, I  have no excuse to sit around and mope any longer. 

So... I posted on Hearth Keepers today and asked for ideas.  I was really hoping to get some amazing ideas that I hadn't thought of yet  but alas, most were things that I had.  This isn't due to any amazing brilliance on my part, you understand.  Whereas these industrious ladies have spent the last three weeks going about their normal routines, I've sat around the house waiting for a chance to do that.  What a waste of three weeks of my life!  No more!  I shall conquer this in one form or another.  If I am to be resigned to this chair for an undetermined period of time, I want it to be meaningful, productive, interesting, or at least less than soporific.

Activities for a Rich Life as an Arm Chair Critic Resident

Computer Activities

• Edit the numerous novels awaiting my inexorable editing muse.
• Finish one or more of the several novels awaiting their riviting conclusion.
• Organize the thousands of digital pictures tossed in the "shoebox" of our various computers.
• Create digital scrapbook pages for aforementioned pictoral evidence of our lives.
• Finish creating Braelyn's Photography website.
• Organize this blog by sorting posts in a more detailed fashion.  (Less "Daily Ramblings")
• Update the story Diaretic on my writer's blog.
• Finish my latest Blogelle post... maybe write more?
• Complete the cookbook and home school pages for Hearth Keepers
• Write childhood memory book.
• Learn more about photo editing.

Family Activities

• Plan children's fall wardrobes and buy/plan for them to make.
• Teach Jenna and Kaylene to sew.
• Finish Christmas Shopping
• Plan stockings.
• Read aloud to the children.
• Let Braelyn drive me around to get her driving hours in.
• Plan Morgann's 18th birthday party.
• Plan Morgann's graduation.
• Create a family newsletter with the kids for the Christmas cards
• ADDRESS CARDS NOW!

Household Activities

• Oversee deep cleaning of living room.
• Oversee Nolan sanding the dark spots from living room floor.
• Decorate for fall/oversee decoration
• Teach each child a different level of cooking.
• Sort through all totes with the goal of reducing by 50%
• Keep menus going and shopping regular.
• Oversee Nolan's Bathroom project to completion.
• Sell off all the eBay stuff!

School Activities

• Teach Ethan to read.
• Teach Lorna her colors.
• Make drills a daily goal.
• Finish Science early.
• Plan history for after Christmas
• Assess each child's school portfolio and plan for adjustments, improvements, and long range goals.

Hobbies

• Smock
• Hand quilt one of the many quilts waiting to be quilted.
• Crochet afghan.  (finish anyway)
• Make cool baby hat.
• Make gifts for HK moderators.
• Take up beading if necessary.

Personal Improvement

• Continue with improvement course.
• Blog about improvement course.
• Redirect my sleeping patterns.
• Create the habit of taking supplements on a regular basis.
• Create and develop a new more fulfilling routine.
• Reread every encouraging book I own.
• Learn to use a calendar and a "to-do" list effectively.

Giving

• Write notes of encouragement to everyone who needs to hear how they've blessed you.
• Plan ways to make blessing others regular as well as spontanteous.
• Get over your hatred of the phone and call those you love and tell them so.
• Remeber to bless Kevin.  He deserves more than he gets.

And of course, enjoy that grandbaby of mine when Jr. Muffin finally arrives!

I'll add to this as I think of things.  I'll try to post pictures of any progress.   Who needs to get out of the chair?  I have more than enough to keep me busy. 

I'll end with Philippians 4:11-13

Not that I speak from want, for I ave learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am.  I know how to get along with humble means and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have lerned the scret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need.  I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

.

There is a message board persona.  We've all met her.  Most of us have been her at one time or another.  Every board has one or twenty.  Let's give her a dossier of sorts.

Name:  Brunhilda Weinerbourgmaan  (aka- Hilda)

Age: 36

Sex:  Yes- um, er I mean female

Marital Status: Married

Number of children:  Five

Educational Position:  Homeschooler

Political Position:  Conservative

Religion:  When I remember.

Theological Pursuasion: First Method-ical-Bapti-costal-Assembly-Orthodox-Luthi-tarian-Mormon-Witness-Non-Denominational

Annual Income:  Not nearly enough but too much to keep track of.

Health:  NOT ANOTHER SCHOOL SUBJECT! Oh wait, you mean mine.  Yeah, I've got some somewhere.

Personal Commitments:  Do you want that in alphabetical or chronological order?

Ok, so it sounds like I exaggerate.  Unfortunately I don't.  So what does this have to do with gluttony you ask?  Isn't gluttony about eating too much?  Well, yes, it is but unfortunately you can over indulge on other things than food.

Take Hilda for example.  She posts often about her struggles with home organization, child training, and keeping on top of her responsibilities.  She's always looking for a new and better way to solve her problems whether it's a new laundry system, a week of bootcamp, or keeping the beds made.  While her children run amok, she struggles to keep their heads above water.

However, Hilda, in spite of her lack of home skills, has more on her plate than it seems.  In addition to her own home, which she confesses is ill managed, she also teaches classes at the local church, to a homeschool co-op, or to the moms at the homeschool support group.  Often, ironically enough, she teaches on organization or homemaking skills.  And she's usually very good.  The ladies who learn from her are blessed and go home and apply the excellent skills she has shared with them.

It breaks my heart though.  Hilda takes several hours out of her week to help others do what her family waits to see accomplished in their lives.  She helps others plan their school lessons while her children flounder in their own books because mom hasn't had the discipline or taken the time to actually ensure that their lessons are completed.  Or maybe she spends two hours a week teaching new moms how to train their children while her own run wild at home.  She may teach whole grain baking to eager crowds while her own family gets burgers from Mc Donalds.

Yes... she's ever learning... and teaching... but never coming to the knowledge of whatever it is that she is learning or teaching.  If we replaced that with eating what would we get.  "Ever eating but never being satisfied with food."

Gluttony.  It comes in many guises.

Did you know-

• When you don't get any exercise from basic movements you want more sleep than normal but can't sleep as much as usual?
• A racing heart is frustrating but a fluttering heart is actually uncomfortable?
• You can write 20,000 words in a day on you novel without any difficulty?
• Photo editing is less accurate at night?
• Digital Scrapbooking is fun and much more efficient than paper?  Less bulky too.
• It's easier to sleep on the couch than in bed when you can't breathe?
• Having the perfect set up for doing what you need to do isn't a guarantee that you will do it?
• There really are silver linings- you just need to love silver to appreciate them
• My husband is the world's kindest and most selfless man and I'm blessed beyond measure to have him in my life?

Have you ever read a book, watched a movie, seen a play, met a new person, or in any other way come face to face with the person you want to be?  I'm not talking about the difference between being a city girl when you dream of life in the country or visa versa.  I don't mean that you want to be someone God did not intend for you to be.  What I refer to is the realization that there are qualities or disciplines in this person's life that you've desired, or worse, known God has called you to be.  The problem is, you're not.  I can't be the only person who has ever been introduced in some fashion to the person they should be.

I just had this happen to me again recently.  It happens every now and then.  I remember the first time I was aware of it.  I'd read one of Lori Wick's books in the Rocky Mountain series.  I like two of the four books in that series but for very different reasons.  (And the other two books are worthless in my opinion.)  I love the character and storyline of Pup Jennings in To Know Her by Name.  That book never ceases to delight me but Rusty in Promise Me Tomorrow always tugs at my heart with a yearning I find it difficult to explain.  (Though I'll grant you, the book is very drippy!)

I envy her love of children.  I nearly covet the ease in which she interacts and relates to them.  That probably sounds very strange coming from a woman with nine children but I assure you, it's true.  I love the delight she has in children as people.  Her red hair and self-assurance doesn't hurt either.  ;)

I digress.  I recently saw myself in another book.  This time, the story is mine.  I am almost finished with a novel that is now a chore to finish.  Every word feels wrung from me like water drops from a half-dry dishcloth.  I don't know how I'll manage to finish it.  I see myself on every page.  Not only do I see whom I am supposed to be, I see who I am and it both frightens and disgusts me.  I think I struggle most with it because I am afraid if I finish it, I'll have to do something about what I've learned as I've written it.  I don't want to.  I like status quo.  I like it because it's easy and I am very good at easy.

The funny thing is, so much of what I am convicted about cannot be changed by actions right now.  I don't have the physical strength to do anything.  The core of the problem I can change but I don't want to.  I feel like Paul.  I don't do what I want to do, I do what I don't want to do, oh wretched woman that I am, who will save me from myself?

Why do we do that to ourselves?  Jesus already saved us from ourselves!  I'm already free.  I AM the new creature in Christ that I want to emulate in this book.  I AM.  I just don't act like it.

You know, maybe God timed things this way so that I wouldn't be able to "do".  Maybe I am supposed to sit at Jesus' feet, learn, and be.  Be still.  Know that He is God.  Repent.  Confess.  Be immersed in His Word until I stop fighting and allow it to infuse me.  Allow myself to be immersed in Jesus until that which needs changed outside of me happens as an overflow of a change from within.

Why are all the answers simple and complicated?  Simultaneously?

A man strolled down the sidewalk of a suburban neighborhood.  The street echoed with the occasional bark of a dog and the twitter of a bird in a tree.  He remembered his childhood.  Mornings on his street as a child practically sang with the sounds of sheets snapping in the breeze, vacuums buzzing through the houses, and the scent of bread, cakes, and cookies had punctuated the air. 

As he neared the second house from the corner, he noticed a difference.  Instead of the sparse manicured lawns and perfect landscaping, this home boasted a large tree with a baby swing hanging from the branches, a large flower garden, and a recently repaired fence, one board as yet unpainted.  The windows were open allowing fresh air to flow through the house, and allow the scent of oatmeal cookies to waft through those windows to tantalize our gentleman.

Our gentleman was curious so he entered the home.  Now don't be alarmed, he isn't going to hurt anyone, no one can see him, and this is just our way to be a fly on the wall in this home.  I just had to reassure you.  ;)

Inside, the woman of the house is removing sheets of cookies from a well used oven.  While clean, this appliance shows evidence of consisent use.  The corners are nicked, the handle has been glued with an epoxy that shows at the corners, and one of the knobs was laid too near a hot burner at some point.

As she scoops the cookies off of the baking sheet, she flips them upside down on layers of newspaper on the counter.  (trapping moisture inside and keeping the cookies soft.  They obviously are not a crispy cookie family!  She slips a fresh sheet of cookies in the oven, and then carefully stacks her cooled cookies into storage containers.  It is obviously an oft' repeated routine.

A glance at the clock implies she has other things to consider.  She looks into her batter bowl and then scoops more cookies onto the sheet.  She has time to finish.  Our gentleman wonders what is pressing upon her time.  She's home, apparently alone, and the house is clean.  Why is time such an issue?

Our woman, let's call her Martha for comic relief, immediately rinses her dishes and sorts them into the dishwasher.  She clears away most of the newspaper and wipes down the counter.  Her hands are busy as she waits for the timer to remind her to remove the cookies.  They emerge from the oven perfect.  She pulls three paper towels from the roll and puts a cookie on each towel.  From a drawer she pulls a sippie cup, and from the cupboard she removes two mugs.  Our gentleman realizes that there are children expected.

Just as she wipes the final crumbs from the counter and washes her hands, the faint sound of an alarm clock drifts in from the hallway.  A little boy, around six or seven years old, races down the hallway.  A cocked eyebrow from mom stops him dead in his tracks.  He does an abrupt about face, and scuttles back to his doorway.  Walking now, albeit quickly, the lad hustles as quickly as possible to the bar separating the kitchen from the living area and climbs up on the barstool.

The afternoon passes in a blur.  The second eldest child is a girl of four and then there is a baby  boy of sixteen months.  Between settling scuffles, supervising toy clean ups, and getting dinner on the table, she barey has time to sit to hear her son practice his reading for ten minutes.  It is a very busy time.

Our gentleman watches over the space of weeks.  This homemaker is a loving wife.  She isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination.  She gets frustrated by a tired husband and irritated that she must fix the broken faucet or wait until the weekend to have him do it.  However, their relationship is generally mutually satisfying and encouraging.  As a mother, she's firm and loving at the same time.  The children don't get away with petty disobediences any more than they do overt defiance but all is handled with a calm matter-of-factness.  The children don't see her as she slips into her room to scream silently over yet another infraction.  She doesn't always enjoy this aspect of motherhood but already with her eldest, she is reaping the rewards of loving consistency.

The  home is a well oiled machine.  Occasionaly parts get squeaky, like when she extended an afternoon at the park with the children and fogot to do her weekly money transfer.  Her husband found it impossible to withdraw his weekly allowance on the way home from work that Friday night.  However, as a general rule, things work well. 

Out of curiosity, our gentleman went into several other homes in the area for comparison and finally found another full time homemaker.  The difference is startling.  This woman spends her hours putting out fires and playing in between the fires.  She reads a book, the subject and type of book is immaterial, until a child is hanging precariously from a bunk bed.  She races to stop the child, administers some form of punishment, and then returns to her book.  The sound of her husband's car in the driveway reminds her that dinner is expected soon.  She tosses the book aside and rushes to throw together something in order to avoid another emergency pizza meal. 

Their checkbook hasn't been balanced in months, their savings account is nearing the red, and several bills wait to be paid in a stack on the counter.  They have house projects to do that they can't due to lack of funding.  Their income is sufficient but their usage is excessive.  We won't talk about the occasional bouts of credit card debt.

The gentleman returned to Martha's home and wandered through the rooms.  Martha's children seem healthier and less antsy but happier.  Martha takes time to ensure that she exercises, gets plenty of refreshing sleep, and eats a reasonable diet.  She has time to pursue pleasant pasttimes but then with a job that is 24/7, you would hope that she would have some time off!

Our gentleman made a list of the things he saw this woman do.  It was almost incalculable. 

• Basic house cleaning
• Organization
• Child care
• Child training
• Child education
• Interior decoration
• Furniture repair/reupholstery
• Home maintenance
• Auto maintenance/scheduling
• Nutrition and meal planning
• Cooking
• Food storage and preservation
• Shopping (groceries, clothing, furniture, and personal care/household items primarily)
• Scheduling (dental, visual, and medical, and other similar appointments)
• Book keeping
• Bill paying
• Research
• Financial Growth
• Gardening/landscaping/lawn care
• Sewing
• Correspondence
• Goal planning
• Preparation for the future

The list grew until he couldn't fathom the enormity of the tasks.  It wasn't until he realized that she didn't do all of those things every day, or even every week, that he was able to understand how she could be such an energy filled and fulfilled person.  His job as a former CPA seemed almost too easy and for the first time, he truly appreciated all his wife did.

"What is the difference," he wondered as he compared the two homes, women, husbands, and families, "between this home and the other?  Both women eventually do most of the same things yet Martha seems less haggard and harried than her neighor from several streets over.  Why is this?"

Martha could tell him if she could see him.  It's really a very simple answer to give but not so simple to live.  It's not a carefully planned schedule.  Contrary to appearances, very little of Martha's life is scheduled.  She has a few iron clad scheduled duties and a few routines in motion but most of her life is fairly well lived as it comes.  She tried scheduling several times but found that either the schedule controlled their lives in a way that left little room for taking advantage of excellent opportunities, or she found herself enjoying opportunities and losing sight of the schedule all together.  In doing that, she also lost sight of a few important activities.  She knew she had to find a happy medium, and for her, the healthy balance of basic routines punctuated with occasional unmovable duties, worked.

However, her routines and lack of schedule aren't the answer.  Not really.  They're a by-product of the answer.  The answer is simply that her home, family, children, and personal growth are her career.  She approaches her life as one who considers her days to be filled with a job that must be done, not one that must be appeased in order to free time to do the "fun stuff".  Where her neighbor works in between bouts of free time resenting the fact that she must work at all, Martha takes her job as wife, mother, homemaker, and Christian very seriously.

Her career is a varied one, I grant you.  She doesn't make financial investment decisions daily, or even monthly.  However, on her calendar she does have a notation of when to re-evaluate their decisions and make any changes.  This is one of those non-flexible appointments with herself. 

She doesn't spend every day researching the best recipes at the lowest cost, but when she does her budget and sees that food has increased, before she increases the budget to meet the rising cost of food, she does look over their menu and sees if they've switched from eating to nourish the body and enjoy God's blessing of food to possibly eating to enjoy and ignoring the necessity of nourishment.  During those times, she might search for new recipes to see if there is a way to reduce expenses in the food department but this is a brief period in life and one reason why a strict schedule would never work in her home.

She does spend every day in general maintenance.  It is this necessity of life that causes people to under value the calling and career of homemaker.  When you watch what a homemaker does, on the surface it seems to be a lot of dusting, sweeping, mopping, toilet scrubbing, dishes, and laundry.  Throw in a good bit of cooking and shopping, and you have a very accurate picture of the bulk of many homemaker's days.  This leaves the erroneous idea that you have an accurate picture of the bulk of a homemaker's LIFE.  This is simply untrue.

What most rarely see is the research into vehicles, medical plans, and househod appliances.  Why is this valued in a Fortune 500 company but degraded in a home?   Do we really think so little of a the great savings to family coffers when a wife spends time ensuring that they get the most from her husband's hard earned dollars?

We don't value she spends combing garage sales and thrift stores in order to save the family money.  We don't see that she finds things she knows she can't use but resells them online at a healthy profit adding to the family's financial worth.  It doesn't sound like a "real job" therefore it has no societal worth.  How very sad.

She may have a means of earning money from the home or not.  Some wives find this an easy thing to do while others prefer to find ways to save money rather than ways of procuring it.  Both are an added bonus to any family's budget.

What am I really trying to say by all of this?  Why did I write this elaborate but simplistic tale of homemaking?  Haven't we heard it all at some time or another?   We don't need to be convinced of the validity of our choice?  We don't need to be told that there is so much more we could do if we only had the skills, resources, or knowledge to do it.  It is no surprise to us to hear that colleges are once again offering degrees in Home Economics that encompass everything from finances, to basic medical care, to nutrition and more hands-on things like pattern drafting and food preservation.  Society is finally recognizing what happened when women left the home in droves for the workforce.  Skills necessary to the well running of a home were shoved to the side where they grew dusty and covered with cob webs.

Is the keeping of your home your career, or what you do to assuage the guilt between bouts of "doing your thing"? 

Signing off.  I need arnica cream for my toes.  I've trampled them so thoroughly here that I can barely walk.

The nursery worker.  The song leader.  The custodian.  The Bible class teacher.  The woman who makes the communion bread.  The man who fixes the widow's car.  The missionary.  The missionary supporter.  The prayer warrior.

What do they have in common?  They're servants.  They serve the body.  In very tangible and recognized ways, these people are servants to the body of Christ.  They're all well loved, needed, and appreciated.  There are more of course.  From curriculum writers to pulpit committees, from AWANA directors to a deacon, the church is full of servants, and well it should be.

Some areas of service aren't generally recognized.  In one congregation that we attended, a woman served me in ways she never knew.  Riddled with pain and several debilitating diseases, she came, week after week, and was just THERE.  It was service to the body.  When I'm unwell, I don't want to go anywhere no matter how badly I want to BE there.  Then I remember Dena and I realize that it's not about me.  Can I go?  Will I be able to sit there?  Will I infect others?  Will I need to be taken home?  Of course with those things in the negative, I shouldn't go.  But staying home and being miserable or sitting there and being miserable is just geography.

Another woman served me at another congregation.  Diana was an example to me and I don't know if she'll ever truly realize her service to the church even though I did try to tell her a time or two.  She loved her sons.  She had such an amazing closeness to her sons.  It sooooo impressed me.  I wanted that.  I emulated anything I saw in her that I could because I saw the root of it.  She served me.  She taught me to "... love their children" by example.

There is an area in the church that I think we've gotten lazy with our service.  Women have busy lives.   We live in an instant society with expectations of instant results.  We've forgotten that service can require inconvenience.  In this one area, we really need to reconsider serving our bothers in Christ.

That last sentence probably gave away what I mean.  Modesty.  I hear it all the time. 

"It is almost impossible to find clothes that are in style and still modest"  Difficult, but not impossible.  In almost any store in the country you can find SOMETHING. 

"I shouldn't have to work so hard at just shopping for clothes."  Well whether or not you should have to isn't the issue.  The issue is that the difficulty of the task doesn't negate the need for the task. If you had to find a blanket for your brother in Christ or he'd die, woudl you  not search until you found him one no matter how long it took?

The statements and answers are numerous. Do we die to self and serve the body of Christ or do we demonstrate a lack of love because loving them in this way is too inconvenient?  It isn't impossible.  It may be difficult but it isn't imposible.

"... she is like merchant ships.  She brings her food from afar."

We can and we should serve our brothers and sisters in Christ this way. 

Please note:  I am not defining what is or isn't modest here.  I'm not saying that one particular type of clothing is immodest or not.   I would hope that it would be obvious that clothing that looks painted on, shows cleavage, most of the thigh and/or part of the rear is generally inappropriate for a Christian to wear.  Some consider slacks and jeans still showing the rear and/or thigh, others don't.  I'm not going to play the game.  What one of my daughters can wear with absolute decency, another of my girls cannot. 

In popular children's fantasy fiction, there is a fascinating item called a pensive.  It looks like a typical tabletop bird bath but inside is a swirling mass of liquid silver "threads".  These threads are actually memories, preserved and stored in the pensive for our perusal at some later date.  I think part of the point of the pensive was to give the person an accurate history of events.  Time tends to blur them, rearrange facts, and sometimes leave out important parts of our memories.  The pensive would have them all accurately stored for your remembrance.

When a person wanted to relive a memory, he'd put his face down into the liquid and "fall into" the memory.  He'd be immersed in it so to speak.  The sights, sounds, and feelings of the memory would be vivid and real.  He couldn't interact in the memory.  This event has happened and is now over.  However, in the pensive, one could "relive" the moment whether it was your memory or someone else's. 

I was sharing about this with a friend of mine this evening.  She'd made the comment that she wished she could wrap her arms around someone we know to be struggling and just infuse them with the love of God.  That somehow through the hug, she'd be able to let them see how God knows and loves them.  She admitted it wasn't possible but that it'd be nice.  I immediately thought of the pensive.  How wonderful it would be if, in a moment when our human frailty overtook us, if we could simply fall into the "pensive" and not only know God's love for us, not only know God's delight in us as His children, but feel it; infuse it into our hearts and lives because we are seeing it from His point of view.

Of course, that was a silly thing to say.  As much as we tend to forget it, we do have a pensive.  We have the Word.   Our Father, Lord, and Intercessor has infused all the love and sacrifice for us into the Bible.  It is all there.  The Word is full of the Lord's provision for His people.  There are verses of stern admonition just as we all have memories of a father's stern rebuke when we did what we knew was wrong.  There are verses of delight.  One such verse I missed as a young girl.  We sang it at school.

Zephaniah 3:17:

KJV: The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.

I focused on the MIGHTYness of God.  I also recoginzed the love.  I didn't notice the delight and the joy and the rejoicing over His people.  This wasn't made clear to me until the late nineties by Beverly Bradley of Family Ministries.  He will... "rejoice over thee with joy"  That's like twice the joy there.  ReJOYce... and then with JOY.  WOAH.  The Lord delights in us.  That is just amazing. 

Another song we sang was from Revelation 4:11

KJV:	Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

We were created for His pleasure.  At the end of creation, when God finished each thing, He said, "and it was good."  But when man finally stood living and breathing in the very image of God, He said, "And it was very good."  I don't think that very was an extraneous word to keep the text from being too redundant.  I do that in my writing but I really don't think God needs to, do you?

Then, there is Song of Solomon.  While I firmly believe this is intended to bless us as people who marry and commit ourselves physically, mentally, and emotionally to our spouses, I know that it is also symbolic.  I understand the symbolism of Christ and his Bride.  The delight that Solomon shows in the Shulamite woman is marvelous.  It's a little uncomfortable for my Western ears.  I confess to finding the thought of teeth like sheep pretty disgusting as a romantic overture.  After all, who wants fuzzy teeth!  Brush those pearly whites! 

Now, lest I appear to think we should walk about full of ourselves in our greatness, let me be clear.  We're worms.  We're but walking dust.  Apart from Christ and His blood, we are like menstrual rags as Isaiah so vividly puts it.  How gross can you get?  However, thanks to another kind of blood... the sacrificial purifying blood of the Lamb of God, we are His chosen.  His beloved.   Isn't that the most wonderful thing ever?  It just amazes me.

It's all in the "pensive" of the Bible.  It's all in there.  Every last little bit.  We can see the love and care that the Lord has for us.  We can feel the everlasting arms around us as we grow weary.  We can know from our minds to our hearts, to our feet that run to Him who receives all the cares we cast upon Him... we are beloved.  He delights in us.  He rejoices over us.  He alone is worthy but we were created FOR His pleasure!  Hallelujah!  (That old pentecostal streak likes to try to escape every now and again!)

I think that sometimes we need to view the Bible with fresh eyes.  Not because it lacks anything.  It doesn't.  The Word of God is complete for every thing that we need.  However, we're weak.  We're fallen.  And sometimes we need to view things from a different perspective before we can truly see how they are. 

I think it's time that I "fell into" the pensive of the Word.  I could use an infusion of the Lord's perspective.  I think I've allowed my faulty one darken my perspective for too long.  Once again.  That is one habit I'd be happy to break.  It is interesting to me to realize that in so much of my Christian walk, immersion into some part of Jesus is crucial.