Destination: grape jelly

My neighbor gave me two vast freezer bags of little tiny grapes. I thought they were blueberries at first, until I tasted them. No idea what kind they are. Are Concord grapes little tiny and contain seeds? These suckers are extremely seedy.

Anyway, I'm pondering making grape jelly today. I have a few cherries left, and I'll just pit them and chuck them in the pot, too. I did an experiment with cherry pits the other day. I had a whole heap of them, and I felt bad about tossing so much fruit. So I cooked them with sugar to try to make syrup. Instead, I made quite a good jelly. There must be pectin in the pits.

So I saved a bunch more pits. I'm going to wrap them in cheesecloth and cook them with the grape jelly, and hopefully that'll be enough pectin to set up the jelly. It certainly works with lemon peels. My goodness, my marmalade is still set up like concrete. I can hardly dig it out of the jar.

So that's the plan. I had an idea for some deep theological blog post, but I don't have the energy to write it. Eh.

Although, just for giggles, I found the Apostle Paul gave advice for how to deal with jerks on the internet. From 1 Timothy 6:

But if anyone teaches otherwise and does not assent to the sound and wholesome messages of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah) and the teaching which is in agreement with godliness (piety toward God),

⁴ He is puffed up with pride and stupefied with conceit, [although he is] woefully ignorant. He has a morbid fondness for controversy and disputes and strife about words, which result in (produce) envy and jealousy, quarrels and dissension, abuse and insults and slander, and base suspicions,

⁵ And protracted wrangling and wearing discussion and perpetual friction among men who are corrupted in mind and bereft of the truth, who imagine that godliness or righteousness is a source of profit [a moneymaking business, a means of livelihood]. From such withdraw.

Why Christian spec fic writers shouldn't include Jesus

I have so many things bouncing around in my head tonight. Life and all its little stresses.

One thing I've been pondering on is this argument that goes on in Christian fiction writers circles: the question of How Much of the Gospel Do We Include?

Some people take Jesus's command to spread the gospel to its extreme, and say that every story has to have Jesus in it, or a Jesus figure who is a redeemer.

Other people go to the other extreme and recommend no religion at all, unless the story absolutely has to have it.

Seeing as this argument goes on between writers of fantasy/sci-fi/paranormal etc., it does raise interesting questions of how you have Jesus when you're writing about elves fighting aliens on another world. I've toyed with writing Christianity in fanfiction for years. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. (The only time it seems to work is when it's laid in with a feather touch. Anything heavier and it just goes into a sermon, or worse, Bible verses with the nouns changed to something more 'fantasy' sounding.)

I've been reading from the Amplified Bible every night. I'm enjoying it hugely. Anyway, I came across Luke 12:8:

And I tell you, Whoever declares openly [speaking out freely] and confesses that he is My worshiper and acknowledges Me before men, the Son of Man also will declare and confess and acknowledge him before the angels of God.

Notice that Jesus doesn't say "whoever declares me in all of his stories, or at least has an Aslan." He says "Whoever declares openly ... that he is My worshiper". Like, in person. To real people. Face to face.

Think about the life of an author for a minute. Once they write books and people start reading them, they start getting fanmail. People want to meet the person who delighted them with a good story. That's the place for the author to make a statement of faith. I know that I'm always appreciative when a person of a different faith says so on their website, but keeps it out of their book. I feel like that writer respects me as a reader.

So why do Christians think we can save people by sneaking "Jesus saves!" into our books? We can't save anybody. Only the Holy Spirit can do that. But we can tell darn good stories. We don't even have to have Jesus (or any religion at all) in them. I think it's more respectful for the author to drop the "get people saved" agenda and just tell the darn story.

Cool Bible trivia

I got a Bible app for my ipod, and I've been reading chunks of the Bible in the Amplified version.

I've always wanted to read the whole Amplified Bible. I was reading Samuel, but apparently Hebrew is pretty straightforward, because there's not much  to amplify in there.

So I switched to Luke. Man, Greek must be really nuanced. I feel like I'm reading the Extended Edition, like Lord of the Rings. There's so many passages that always confused me, like this one:

Luke 8:18, KJV: Take heed therefore how ye hear: for whosoever hath, to him shall be given; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have. 

And in the Amplified: Be careful therefore how you listen. For to him who has [spiritual knowledge] will more be given; and from him who does not have [spiritual knowledge], even what he thinks and guesses and supposes that he has will be taken away.

I understood that passage for the first time in my life!

But the really juicy bit came a little later. You know the bit where Jesus and the disciples get into a boat and are going across the sea of Galilee, and Jesus is asleep, and a storm comes? See what it says in the Amplified. I put the interesting bit in italics.

Luke 8: 22-25: One of those days He and His disciples got into a boat, and He said to them, Let us go across to the other side of the lake. So they put out to sea.
But as they were sailing, He fell off to sleep. And a whirlwind revolving from below upwards swept down on the lake, and the boat was filling with water, and they were in great danger.
And the disciples came and woke Him, saying, Master, Master, we are perishing! And He, being thoroughly awakened, censured and blamed and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; and they ceased, and there came a calm.
And He said to them, [Why are you so fearful?] Where is your faith (your trust, your confidence in Me--in My veracity and My integrity)? And they were seized with alarm and profound and reverent dread, and they marveled, saying to one another, Who then is this, that He commands even wind and sea, and they obey Him?

You know what kind of whirlwind happens over water and revolves from below and upwards?

 A waterspout.

So it wasn't just a storm that was swamping their boat. It was a freaking waterspout! No wonder the disciples were terrified! And then Jesus rebuked it and it went away.

I just thought that was awesome and had to share it with somebody.

Thankfulness and boring

Head munchkin playing with his train in the "snow". I thought that was pretty creative.

I've discovered by updating my blog almost every day that I really am very boring. There's nothing much to report that would make a good blog post. "Yesterday I ran out of laundry soap. I bought some cheap stuff, and only read the directions after I found it caked all over the clothes after the wash."

Because that's so interesting.

Anyway, thankfulness!

15. How much fun I have with the munchkins when we're all just being silly.

16. My husband, who is so kind to me. Have I been thankful for him yet? I think it'll be a recurring theme. I am so very thankful for him.

Oh yeah, that's why my brain is shut down about yesterday--I tried to read Hank Hanegraaff's The Apocalypse Code.

*insert stock image of a brain exploding here*

Mostly the book's about how much he hates the Left Behind books, and he uses every study technique that he can to show that Revelation happened in 70 AD. Monsters and demons and meteors falling? All metaphor. Anything that applies to helicopters, tanks, and nukes? Boy, that's all literal!

When I learned about Bible prophecy, we were taught about how every prophecy is in layers, and each layer applies to something different. Sure, some things in Revelation and Daniel and elsewhere apply to 70 AD. But there's multiple layers there. It wasn't completely fulfilled then, and I think to state dogmatically that it was, you remove some of the multidimensionalness of the Bible.

Anyway. I didn't mean to blog about that. I find that it's dangerous to talk about things I don't fully understand, and Revelation is one of those things.

God's providence, again

Last summer was a hard, hard summer. No job, no money, little food, little hope. Relatives paid our rent and helped with necessities. I took art commissions and we paid bills with the small amount I made.

Then, right in the middle of it, I got pregnant. We reeled. But we chose to believe that another baby was a blessing, even though we couldn't see it from the circumstances we were in.

There's this little book called Be Fruitful and Multiply, and it's filled with all kinds of encouraging Bible verses that talk about how God blesses the womb first, then he provides material blessings so the family can feed and clothe this additional child. I clung to those verses.

Our financial situation improved a little as my husband went back to school on the GI Bill from his time in the military. At least we could pay the rent and buy food again.

Then Claire was born.

And now, six months later, God has seen fit to give us a bigger car.

(Not the same exact one, just the same model and color.)

A relative died and left it to us, so it's completely paid for and almost as good as new. We rode around in it yesterday, and I was completely astounded at God's grace to us. I took him at his word, never expecting a new car. And for some reason He saw fit to give us a new car. (Admittedly, we had completely filled the other one and rode around like a can of sardines.)

This means that my husband can get a job now, and he and I both have the wheels to go places. I'm hoping that a job will come next. It's been so long. God said that He will provide, though, and I'm still hanging on to that.

God's providence

When I got pregnant with Claire last summer, we were going through a really hard time financially. But I chose to believe that God would provide for our family, because he wouldn't give us another baby and then not give us the means to care for her.

Duet 8:18: But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.

So I've clung to that verse. Also I've changed prayer tactics. Instead of praying that God would magically change our financial situation, I prayed for my husband directly. And I've seen answers to every prayer.

Yesterday our financial situation changed again, enabling us to have enough to live on for the next four or five months. It came through an avenue that neither of us expected or foresaw, although I was certain it was yet another scam at first (since we've been through two awful job scams now). But my husband researched it and everything checked out. It's not a job, which he needs, but it's the funds to keep us afloat while he continues his job search.

God is so gracious to us. I'm determined to be a good steward, so I have a stack of coupons that I'm taking shopping today, too.

Being fruitful

A while back, my mom loaned me this little book called Be Fruitful and Multiply. I picked it up again to encourage myself that having babies is the right thing to do.

Oh, it's encouraging, all right, complete with reams of Bible passages about how God blesses a nation and a family by giving them lots of kids. And how our mentality of "let's wait a while before we have kids" is straight from Satan, and how the church has fallen for it.

And I'm sitting here with a baby in my lap, pettily lamenting, "I'm fine with lots of kids, but why does labor have to hurt so much?"

Another thing that I found encouraging is that God first blesses with children, and then he blesses with material things. I worry about our financial situation all the time (who doesn't?), but it's right there in loads and loads of verses: God blesses with the fruit of the womb, and increases their flocks and herds afterward.

I've kept an eye out to see if this principle actually does hold true in real life. I've been fascinated to see that in many people around me, the birth of another child in their home precipitates some kind of success in the father's place of work, enabling him to feed this new arrival.

One colorful example has been the adventures of Rhett and Link. They're a couple of internet comedians over on youtube, and we've all enjoyed their videos for years. Anyway, they're both in the process of having kids. When Link's fourth one came along, they got this deal to do a commercial for McDonalds. And now they have a contract to do a TV show about making their hilarious local commercials for people.

As their families are expanding, their oddball internet-tainment business is taking off. (I don't know all the internal details, of course. This is gathered mostly from their videos and observing the timing of things.)

I don't know if they're believers or not (their videos are always clean). But God is certainly blessing them.

So I'm waiting to see how God is going to provide for us now. However he does it, it will be unique and fascinating. I just wanted to get my thoughts down, so I can look back and go, "Yeah!"

My field of experience isn't very wide at this point. Have you seen this principle of expanding family leading to God's expanding provision?

God's will for me today

It's been kind of a rough weekend. The kids came down with the stomach flu Friday. Today's Monday and we're still dealing with the remains of it.

When your kids have the flu like that, the whole house starts feeling (and smelling) unclean. I needed to clean house like crazy, but I was in that Monday morning slump and just couldn't seem to muster the energy. So I was sitting and reading blogs to try to get a jump on the day.

Like Mother, Like Daughter updated with a post called Competence vs. Perfectionism. There are lots of good thoughts in it, but the one that really spoke to me was this one:

What would you think if I told you that you could find out right now what His will is? That it's a "problem" of a day, not years? His will for you, specifically? (And I'm not going to trick you by saying that God's will for you turns out to be "love everyone," or "work for world peace," or "lock and load"!)

It's not really a secret, and it's so simple that it seems like it couldn't possibly be true. It's just this:

Trying to do all the stuff you have to do, today, with a loving heart.

Not all the stuff you could possibly do.

The stuff you have to do.

Knowing what that stuff might be is couldn't be simpler, and counts as the most lovely prayer and also remedy for the distraction of other people's priorities: In God's presence, think of your obligations; the people to whom you are obligated.

...Don't be like Mrs. Jellyby, whose eyes could see no closer than Africa! “It must be very good of Mrs Jellyby to take such pains about a scheme for the benefit of natives — and yet — Peepy and the housekeeping!”

I didn't want to be like Mrs. Jellyby, so I jumped up and cleaned house. Trying to do it cheerfully, because today, cleaning house is God's will for me. And so is cleaning up other detritus from small, unwell children.

Chicken soup for dinner, I think.

Water in the sand

Thought I'd show you something cool I found.

When water runs off the beach, it makes little patterns like this, right? (Not my photo)

So take a look at this beach. (Click to enlarge)

Except that it's the Mojave Desert seen from Google Maps.

Isn't that cool? It's not a desert, it's a huge beach!

Either that or Hell. Click on that second map. There's a town called that. XD

Genesis 8:1-5
But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded. Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky. The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible.

Psalm 104:5-9

He set the earth on its foundations;
it can never be moved.
You covered it with the deep as with a garment;
the waters stood above the mountains.
But at your rebuke the waters fled,
at the sound of your thunder they took to flight;
they flowed over the mountains,
they went down into the valleys,
to the place you assigned for them.
You set a boundary they cannot cross;
never again will they cover the earth.

Devotion: Waiting for hope

From Streams in the Desert:

For we through the Spirit by faith wait for the hope of righteousness" (Gal. 5:5, RV).

There are times when things look very dark to me--so dark that I have to wait even for hope. It is bad enough to wait in hope. A long-deferred fulfillment carries its own pain, but to wait for hope, to see no glimmer of a prospect and yet refuse to despair; to have nothing but night before the casement and yet to keep the casement open for possible stars; to have a vacant place in my heart and yet to allow that place to be filled by no inferior presence--that is the grandest patience in the universe. It is Job in the tempest; it is Abraham on the road to Moriah; it is Moses in the desert of Midian; it is the Son of man in the Garden of Gethsemane.

There is no patience so hard as that which endures, "as seeing him who is invisible"; it is the waiting for hope.

Thou hast made waiting beautiful; Thou has made patience divine. Thou hast taught us that the Father's will may be received just because it is His will. Thou hast revealed to us that a soul may see nothing but sorrow in the cup and yet may refuse to let it go, convinced that the eye of the Father sees further than its own.

Give me this Divine power of Thine, the power of Gethsemane. Give me the power to wait for hope itself, to look out from the casement where there are no stars. Give me the power, when the very joy that was set before me is gone, to stand unconquered amid the night, and say, "To the eye of my Father it is perhaps shining still." I shall reach the climax of strength when I have learned to wait for hope. --George Matheson

Devotions for Monday

I had some good thoughts in my various devotionals today.


Isa 58:11
The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.

Have faith in The Lord, wait on Him and He will bring
you through your trouble. He is guiding you even though
...you may not see it, for we walk by faith and not by sight.


"The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" (John 18:11).

This was a greater thing to say and do than to calm the seas or raise the dead. Prophets and apostles could work wondrous miracles, but they could not always do and suffer the will of God. To do and suffer God's will is still the highest form of faith, the most sublime Christian achievement. To have the bright aspirations of a young life forever blasted; to bear a daily burden never congenial and to see no relief; to be pinched by poverty when you only desire a competency for the good and comfort of loved ones; to be fettered by some incurable physical disability; to be stripped bare of loved ones until you stand alone to meet the shocks of life--to be able to say in such a school of discipline, "The cup which my Father has given me, shall I not drink it?'--this is faith at its highest and spiritual success at the crowning point. Great faith is exhibited not so much in ability to do as to suffer. --Dr. Charles Parkhurst

Spiritual Gifts

This is a plum tree at my Mom's house. These plums are still green, yet they're already an astonishing blue color. Last year they amazed me when they were ripe, because they were the most gorgeous blue-purple, the kind that the camera can't even capture properly because it's almost ultraviolet.

Last week at a friend's house, we got into a discussion about Tongues. You know, Speaking in Tongues and all that stuff. It's sad that various Christian denominations abuse the whole Tongues thing and ignore the other spiritual gifts.

We listened to a tape series years and years ago about spiritual gifts, and how they're not what you always think. It's stuck in my mind because it impacted me so much back then.

Ex 31: 1-11 Then the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts— to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of craftsmanship.

Moreover, I have appointed Oholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, to help him. Also I have given skill to all the craftsmen to make everything I have commanded you: the Tent of Meeting, the ark of the Testimony with the atonement cover on it, and all the other furnishings of the tent— the table and its articles, the pure gold lampstand and all its accessories, the altar of incense, the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils, the basin with its stand— and also the woven garments, both the sacred garments for Aaron the priest and the garments for his sons when they serve as priests, and the anointing oil and fragrant incense for the Holy Place. They are to make them just as I commanded you.”

Note that first paragraph. Working in gold, silver and bronze, and woodworking, were all spiritual gifts straight from the Holy Spirit. And they're just as important as Tongues, Prophecy, Teaching and all the rest.

So, when somebody has a gift for, say, sewing, and other has a gift in architecture, and another is skilled in mathematics, aren't those all spiritual gifts, too?

Yet I never seem to hear teaching that talks about that.

In the Exodus passage, God had specially equipped and trained those men so they could make the Ark of the Covenant, the Tent of Meeting, and all the instruments and clothes that the priests needed. God seems to train us in the exact skills that we're going to need later on down the road. And the awesomest thing of all is when we use them to bring the glory back to Him.

Wouldn't it be cool if there were revival meetings where, instead of speaking in tongues, people were giving displays of the things they were talented in and praising God for it?

Genesis and the Ice Age

I've had a lecture brewing in my head for a few weeks now, so I figured I'd post it in my blog. I suppose I'll get flamed, because using science to support the Bible is so very taboo these days. But it's got me all excited, so I wanted to post it somewhere.

Okay! Today's topic: Genesis and the ice age.

So Noah built the Ark and everything, and the Flood destroyed the whole world. Or, we might even say that THE WORLD ENDED. Anyway, after the Ark landed on the mountains of Ararat, and Noah and the menagerie disembarked, God promised never again to destroy the Earth with a flood. And he blessed Noah's family and told them to be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the Earth.

This is where it gets interesting.

So in Genesis 10 is the Table of Nations, listing off all the kids and their kids's kids, who went on to fill up all the corners of the world, and interbred until their skin became lighter or darker, forming the different 'races'. (Did you know that the Bible recognizes no races? There are tribes and nations, families and tongues, but only one race. The human race.)

So then we get to Genesis 11.

Gen 11:1-4
Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.
As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
They said to each other, “Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.
Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

And yet God had told them to scatter. Wanna see why?

Science tells us that there was this thing called an ice age.



(Actually, scientists like to think there was more than one, but they also assume that the Earth is a lot older than it was. No, there was only one ice age, but even just one can mess up the landscape pretty well.)

The Earth was a lot warmer before the Flood, and there's a lot of theories as to why. Anyway, when THE WORLD ENDED, the atmosphere cooled a lot, while the oceans remained warmer for a while. This caused some really severe freezing at the poles, and the oceans froze and froze until the glaciers came at least as far south as, say, the Great Lakes.

The result of the lower oceans is that all those land bridges were open. Like the one between Australia and the Asian continent, and the one from Russia to Alaska.



So God told Man to get with it and get to all the continents while the ice age was on, before the land bridges closed. And Man was all like, "Nope, gonna stay riiight here!"

Imagine what would have happened if every race in the world was stuck on the European/Asian continent.



But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building.
The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.
Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.
That is why it was called Babel -— because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

Then we come down to Abram/Abraham pretty quickly. God moved him out of Ur and ("Goin' out West!") to Israel. Or Caanan, as it was then. And we can tell the ice age was still on, because it wasn't all desert.

Like when Abram and Lot had to part ways, and Abram let Lot have first pick.

Gen 13:10-12
Lot looked up and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan was well watered, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, toward Zoar. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.)
So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east. The two men parted company:
Abram lived in the land of Canaan, while Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom.

Know what that area looks like today?



Not much like Eden.

Then in Genesis 14 we come to the five kings who came out to conquer Sodom and Gomorrah. And among the battling, we come to verse 10.

Now the Valley of Siddim was full of tar pits, and when the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, some of the men fell into them and the rest fled to the hills.

Tar pits? Wait a minute. Like the ones at LeBrea? I thought there were only tar pits during the ice age!



...oh. Right.

Years and years later, when Israel came out of Egypt and went back to Caanan/Israel, the climate had stabilized into pretty much modern-day, because it was all desert.

Thanks for coming along with me on my little lecture! Science supports the Bible so very well. It's just interpreting the facts through a worldview that gets tricky.