Fruitful Words

*Spoiler Alert* If you are going to Women’s Retreat 2008 do NOT read any further. Otherwise you will read about Friday night’s Bingo icebreaker game.

Everyone else may continue reading . . .

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You’ve all seen these lists. They include pithy thoughts like, “In 3 words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life. It goes on.” Robert Frost.

This is good. And it is applicable. But . . . .

• What if I actually thought about my life and came up with my own list of things I’ve learned?
• How many could I come up with?
• Would I be able to express who is responsible for teaching me that?

Stu Gray from The Creative Mouthpiece has done just that. Click here to read the 33 things he’s learned in the past 33 years. I think this is a very thoughtful list.

I’m not going to think about Stu’s list too much. Not until I’ve come up with my own list. I wonder if I’ll be able to come up with 10 things, much less 50!

What are some things you’d put on your list. Who did you learn it from?

Illness can be a good thing. I tend to reevaluate my life after I’m on the mend.

Last week I was slowed way down because of  the respiratory flu which also exacerbated my asthma. Yesterday was the first day in a week that I felt no pain and had a cheery spirit inside. Today is the same. 

When I wasn’t sleeping, I browsed through a book by John Ortberg, The Life You’ve Always Wanted: Six Sessions on Spiritual Disciplines For Ordinary People.

“You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry,” a wise friend advised Ortberg. 

What? Why?

“Again and again as we pursue spiritual life, we must do battle with hurry. For many of us the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it. We will just skim our lives instead of actually living them.” This paragraph is in chapter 5, An Unhurried Life, page 77.

“Following Jesus cannot be done at a sprint” (79).

Ortberg identifies 6 symptoms of people who have hurry sickness.

1. Constantly speeding up daily activities - Always pursuing the fastest line in a store & at a stoplight?
2.  Multiple-tasking - “Ever try to eat dinner, watch tv, read, and carry on a conversation at the same time?”
3. Clutter -  Life is cluttered by physical things and “Life is cluttered when we are weighed down by the burden of all the things we have failed to say no to. Then comes the clutter of forgetting important dates, of missing appointments, of not following through.”
4. Superficiality - Wisdom & depth take time to cultivate. Many of us have traded these for information because “we want to microwave maturity.”
5. An inability to love - “Love and hurry are fundamentally incompatible.”
6. Sunset fatigue - This is when we are just too tired,or too drained, or too preoccupied, to love the people to whom we have made the deepest promises…Hurry prevents us from receiving love from the Father or giving it to His children.”

Ouch! I’m guilty of hurry sickness and the fallout that surrounds my poor choices. Ortberg does have suggestions on what to do next. But I want to spend some time with God and see what He says to me first.

Anyone else have hurry sickness?

Used to have it? What did you do to live your busy life well?

Go to Mindful Ink for these links.

I have been thinking about Lent.

Here’s part of a quiz I made up last year.

True or False

• I have celebrated Lent once.
• Lent is 46 days before Easter.
• Fasting from food and activities occurs during Lent.
•  Fasting is not allowed on Sundays and so are not counted as one of the days of Lent. This is why Lent is said to be 40 days long.

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Diaper Diaries is in week 16 of her 1 Corinthians 7:5 Challenge.

It’s a series of “challenges” designed to help ladies stay aware of an area that is important to their husbands and their marriage.

Diaper Diaries writes, “Yes ladies, I’m talking about sex. Or more accurately, the sad lack of it that is going on in many marriages. When I told a friend I was going to be blogging about sex she responded, “But you have a Christian blog.” This is where we Christians are seriously missing the boat.”

Read more: “So here’s the deal. Every week, I will be posting a challenge on my website to encourage us wives to step it up to improve the sex in our marraiges.”

“It will be tasteful, it will be fun, it will be great for your marriage, it will be pleasing to God.”

So click here for the premise.  And here for week 1.

There are many such websites out there, but I’d like to recommend: Weird and Surprisingly Good  written by Alanna. She’s a newbie to blogland as her start-up was this very January 3rd.

Alanna says, “I cook weird and often surprisingly good recipes because of my food allergies. I am a little restricted in what I can eat: no cow dairy, chicken eggs or gluten (which is in wheat).”

The recipe section on her blog (13 entries so far) runs from smoothies, to salad dressing to several yummy sounding meat dishes. The sweet potato soup also sounds delish.

Alanna has food tips like how to clean your blender -the easy way, a review on Odwalla brand bars and drinks, and a cookbook that supports the wheat-free, egg-free, dairy free lifestyle.

She also has a strong interest in braille.

So stop by Alanna’s place and give her a bloggy hello and leave a comment or two. I know I will frequent her blog.

Question: What one thing is experienced by 100% of all people?

Answer: Conflict!

Conflict is something that everyone has in common. We all get stressed from it. We all, at times, handle it badly. Sometimes we are the receivers. Sometimes we are the initiators. What can we do about the conflicts we all experience?

Pastor Mike has an answer. Starting September 23rd he is guiding the church through a new series on peacemaking. This eight week series will present the tools needed to handle conflict in a way that is satisfying, helpful and biblical.

Small Groups will also be going through the same information. That way we can practice using these tools. “We grow through copying deeds, not just listening to words, through examples as well as precept, through habit and not just insight and information” (Os Guinness).

Watch the bulletin for details on the small groups. Sign up in the foyer. Contact me if you are interested in becoming a small group leader.

I recently switched to gmail.

With gmail I get maybe 5 spam a week - maybe. With my other provider, up to 200 a DAY.

That’s cool. That’s not the “slow” part though.

Today I just realized that the g in gmail  refers to Google.

Since my dd has to eat this way, I am always on the lookout for such recipes. SuchTreasures.com has some great recipes here.