Friday, March 25, 2011

Signs you are in Grannie Heaven

There is a portable baby carseat on your coffee table.

There are folded burp rags within reach from every chair.

There are five versions of the sound of running water on your favorites list.

There is a baby changing site with diapers, wet wipes, and extra outfits on your counter, fully stocked, and padded with a nice, thick bath towel.

Nuk pacifiers are at the ready from every chair.

Baby body wash (no tears) sits at the ready beside the kitchen sink.

Your tee shirt sports stains that you are proud of---because you got a good burp out of him.

Your nails are cut and filed super short so that you don't nick tender, soft skin.

Your love watching your husband kiss Baby James on the head, and Baby James marvel at his GrandDad's deep voice, and awesome bouncing skills.

Watching your two month old grandbaby stuggle to find his thumb is the most entertaining thing. He reaches up and pinches his own cheek, chin, and nose. One day soon, he will find it, and suck his little thumb just like his Daddy did 25 years ago...hooking a finger on his nose.

You discover that the floors at Walmart look smooth, but a baby in a portable car seat finds the bouncing of the shopping cart on the floor bouncy enough to be sleep inducing.

You giggle and jiggle and dance even when your arms are empty.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Four and Twenty Blackbirds...

I don't think they are grackles. They are a huge flock of black birds with irredescent feathers on their head. They filled the yard finding and eating grubs, squawking away. Then they were gone.

I would love to rant and rave about Sunday's sermon, but that would be gossip, and not productive. Salesmen preachers set our teeth on edge. I thought Bob was going to explode. He kept passing me notes about how we should never "sell" the gospel, nor use the terms of salesmen when talking about the Bible, either. Yikes. And when Bob writes notes in ALL CAPS. Look out.

What to do when a guy in the pulpet is teaching heresy. Walk out? Cause a scene? That seems so rude, so we sit politely, and get ulcers. And vow we will never sit through another of his sermons whenever he subs---which seems to only be twice a year or so, thankfully.

I am sure the salesmen in the audience loved the message. It related to them. It was right up their alley. We did not even stay for the business meeting after. The once a year joke of a meeting where no account is made of a quorum, so why bother.

Bob taught Sunday School for the senior class---I am glad he practiced on me at home first, as it was a tear jerker. And Bob says he feels like he delivers it smoother when he runs through it out loud at home first.

Wow---the black birds are back. Noisy group. At first I thought this was the day the robins migrate through, but no.

We are doggie sitting. Our daughter-in-law left her Yorkie with us for a few weeks. She plans on staying with us a few days before and after her trip to Missouri, but it is easier to visit her relatives and friends in town with Brody here. Brody thinks he is a big dog. He loves to boss the neighbor's dogs, and keep our yard cat free.

I am still puffed up about getting the portable crib/bassinett all put together. We had used the playpen part before but I usually let the guys assemble it. the bassinett part was still in plastic shrink wrap. And the mobile needed unwrapped, too. The directions were more pictures than words, and five different size poles that snap together after been fed through sleeves of differing sizes. Took me about an hour. I think I will just throw a sheet over everything to keep off the dust. I don't know that I can dissassemble and fit it all back in the box. ha

And the bassinett part is only for a baby under 25 pounds, and a baby that is not flipping over yet...that won't be long. Baby James has doubled his birth weight---2 months old today ! At this rate...

Saturday, March 12, 2011

I love questions that make me dig

During a Wednesday night Bible Study, one of our college students asked the question: what OT verse speaks of salvation?
Did God make the way of salvation clear to Adam and Eve but forget to include John 3:16??
God created the heavens and the earth. God provided Adam everything he needed to live, learn, obey. God created a living being. God gave him everything except one warning: “in the day you eat from it you shall surely die.”
Die? God introduces the idea that not only are there consequences, but what exactly had Adam seen die? Maybe the daylight “died” each day, but so far, none of the plants or animals died.
Genesis 2:16,17 God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man saying—from any tree of the garden you may eat freely, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it: dying you shall die.
Before the woman was taken from the man and formed from his rib. It was just Adam. Why put a tree in the garden that caused death? Why tempt? Why give EVERYTHING but one thing? Why not Ten Commandments?
In Genesis 3, the crafty serpent says: “you shall surely not die.” So, whom do you trust? God or Satan?
Remember Genesis 3:22? I’m not sure Adam and Eve heard this, but surely God explained when/if they saw the cherubim and were driven out of the garden.
Cherubim: (plural) a huge, winged angel armed with a fiery sword. The fact that the cherubim existed, and were visible was visible proof that Adam and Eve were not alone. They were not the only creatures. Adam and Eve just saw an animal die and its skins made into fabulous clothing. Here is an angel stronger, capable of killing them if they tried to re-enter the garden. Whoops. What happens when they die? Would they cease to be? Would their soul go somewhere?
Genesis 3:22 Then the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become LIKE one of us knowing good and evil and now lest he stretch out his hand and take from the tree of life and eat and live forever… God sent him out from the garden to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. God drove the man out and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction, to guard the way to the tree of life.
The tree of life. Whoa. Wait. Okay to eat of it before the fall . The tree of life was different from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Why not just remove the trees? Why post a guard? Will the next generation ask about the 24/7 cherubim? Why is living forever a BAD thing? Why is eating from the tree of life now, after the fall, a bad thing?
Genesis 4:10 first hint of an afterlife?
In Genesis 4:1 Eve named her firstborn, Cain, and she said: I have gotten a manchild with the help of the Lord.
Did she think he was the promised one? The one who would strike the serpent on the head? The one who would punish the serpent that deceived her in the garden? The serpent God cursed?
Genesis 4:2 Abel (means breath) was a keeper of flocks while Cain was a tiller of the ground.
Why the offerings? In verse 3: So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground.
Verse 4: And Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. Why? When has your child ever desired to bring an offering to God? (I raised three sons, and they imitated driving cars and trucks, but I never recall them playing offering). Were they taught to worship this way back when the Lord made them garments of skin? Genesis 3:21
God appeared to Adam and Eve and and talked to Cain. Salvation is not believing God existed. They knew that. God had given them a promise of a future “seed”.
Genesis 3:14 The Lord God spoke to the serpent (Satan) but in front of Adam and Eve: Because you have done this—cursed are you more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly shall you go and dust shall you eat and I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed—He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise HIM on the heel.
Back to Genesis 4:25 And Adam had relations with his wife again and she gave birth to a son, and named him Seth for she said: God has appointed me another offspring in place of Abel: for Cain killed him.
She knew. She acknowledged Seth as FROM GOD. A gift. Grace.
Genesis 4:26 And to Seth, to him also a son was born—and he called his name Enosh. THEN MEN BEGAN TO CALL UPON THE NAME OF THE LORD. (curious phrase, eh?)
Genesis 5:1- This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day God created man, He made him in the likeness of God.
(We were made in the likeness of God. What does that mean? We were made with an eternal spirit? Soul? Mind? Body?)
He created them male and female and He blessed them and named them Man in the day when they were created. When Adam lived 130 years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his image and named him Seth. Then the days of Adam after he became the father of Seth—800 years. Other sons and daughters. Verse 5: Adam lived 930 years and he DIED.
Remember in Genesis 3, the crafty serpent says: “you shall surely not die.” So, whom do you trust? God or Satan?
Throughout chapter 5, the line, the lineage, other sons and daughters, but a record of the father and son--- was very specific. What did the fathers teach the sons and daughters? To live 930 years, Adam saw six or seven or maybe eight generations. It is not recorded, but surely Adam told the story of the fall, and repeated the promise, and we don’t know how long the cherubim stood at the garden. Until the flood?
What did they do for almost 900 years? What did Adam do for 930 years?
Trick question: What did Adam and Eve DO for salvation? What did they do for eternal life?
The first ten generations lived long, long lives. One guy, Enoch, lived 365 years and walked with God and God took him home to heaven one day. Enoch did not die like the others. 365 years must have been enough to mentor the next generation.
Who was the first to die? Abel was murdered by his brother. In Genesis 4:10 God told Cain that your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. Was this the first hint of an afterlife? Even if you were murdered, and even if your brother denies doing it, God sees and knows.
Once Adam died, it was not long before Enoch joined Abel and Adam. What a trio—the first man who lived and died, the first murdered, and the first to go to heaven without dying.
In Genesis 3, the crafty serpent says: “you shall surely not die.” So, whom do you trust? God or Satan?