Announcement

Creed laughed!

Thank You Miss Marsha

for making us such cool monkey outfits!

 

 

Random Acts of Kindness while out and about

    I tend toward frugality sometimes even to a fault.  Creed suddenly over the span of 24 hours outgrew his size one diapers.  I still had 3 packs that I had bought at CVS while they were on sale with coupons and earned Extra Credit Bucks as well.   In other words, they were a good deal.  But no deal is a good deal if you can’t use them.  So I went tonight to see if I could exchange them for the next size up; surprisingly I even had the receipt.  We went in and I asked the young girl working if I could exchange them.  She tells me to go get what I need and bring them back up there.  They only had two packs so I was just going to swap the ones they had so I wouldn’t ruin my good deal(if you understand that because she sure didn’t), but she said I couldn’t do an even swap even though they were the same brand and same size package because they were a different size.  All she could do was give me my money back and let me purchase the others.  Ummm….no thanks.  I couldn’t even buy 2 packages for what I had paid for the other 3.  I had Elizabeth take them back to the shelf and asked her to just refund my money and I’d buy them somewhere else(for much less).  The lady behind me in line said, “I’d like to buy those for you.”  What?  Really?  “Thank you,”  I said, “That really isn’t necessary.”  I tried to explain to her than while they run good sales, their regular price is ridiculously high.  “But don’t you need them?” she asks.  I assured her that I still had some at home and we were going to Sam’s next and I could pick some up there.  She leaves me with, “You have a lovely family.”  Gosh!  I love her and don’t even know her!!!

    So off we go to Sam’s where we don’t actually get diapers there either since we discovered that they package 1’s and 2’s together.  We get our other stuff and get in line. Someone was checking out and the lady in front of us had a cartful.  She looked at my 3 things and 5 children and suggested I go in front of her.  Two nice ladies in one day looking after strangers.  There are days I love being out and about.

When bad things happen

Part II

I have been chastised

for a week without pictures

Introspection

I recently read an essay on introspection by Jim Wilson. He defines introspection as “the act or practice of meditating on one’s own past actions and emotions.” We have a tendency to mull things over in our minds. Either things that have happened to us, mistakes we have made, sins we have committed, or sins committed against us get run through our mind over and over. He points out that we are often encouraged to do this because it is away of explaining or understanding the things we do or the way we feel. But he also says, ” Introspection is not like walking in the sunlight on a summer day. Instead, it is like going down dungeon steps with a flickering candle in your hand. You have a tiny light that throws long shadows and dimly shows skeletons, spider webs, and gross, crawly things.”

Going over the same ghastly things in our mind repeatedly never brings about joy, and he attributes some depression to introspection. He suggests the alternative of walking in the light as in I John 1 : 5-10 and to pray Psalm 139:23-4 when starting down that path: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the everlasting.”

The full essay is online here.

When Bad Things Happen

A blog post I read today…

Wordless Wednesday

It Worked??

   It really bugs me when people say someting along the lines of, “Thanks for praying!  It worked!”  I had no idea there were prayers that worked and prayers that didn’t.  Today, I picked up a newspaper at the chiropractor’s office and read a letter someone wrote about her coworker that was very ill in the ICU; she received a call saying they didn’t expect him to live through the day.  She went into the breakroom and asked the people there to join her in prayer.  They all prayed together and 3 hours later his condition greatly improved after they tried a new medicine.  She concluded by commenting that you really should pray because it works.  Am I to assume that if he hadn’t gotten better and died that their prayers didn’t work?  So when we get what we pray for those prayers worked and when we don’t they didn’t work.   I believe we pray for many reasons including because we are commanded to and promised that the prayers of a righteous man will be heard; I don’t think the Bible says that some prayers work and others don’t or that we are promised to get whatetver we pray.

A birthday question

  I have a friend that shares a birthday with me.  She is older and wiser than me.  She posted a very good question reflecing on life: Am I living or existing?