A long prologue for a short story

Prologue

     Imagine with me, for a moment, a sixth-grade girl.  Give her straight brown hair, a serious face, and height somewhat taller than you'd normally associate with someone her age.  I'll tell you from experience that her face is not always pensive, but it should be right now.  Why?  Because she's a Bible quizzer, and she's studying the book of Acts.  Contrary to the beliefs of some of her teammates, she does actually put effort into this.
     Okay, do you see her?  Good.  Now, let's peek over her shoulder at the little book she's reading.  It looks like she's working on Acts 5.
     There's a certain passage she's puzzling over.  She furrows her eyebrows.
     Let's look at it with her.

"When they heard this, they were furious and wanted to put them to death.  But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, who was honored by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered that the men be put outside for a little while.  Then he addressed them:  'Men of Israel, consider carefully what you intend to do to these men.  Some time ago Theudas appeared, claiming to be somebody, and about four hundred men rallied to him.  He was killed, all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing.  After him, Judas the Galilean appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt.  He too was killed, and all his followers were scattered.  Therefore, in the present case I advise you:  Leave these me alone!  Let them go!  For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail.  But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God."

~Acts 5:33-39

     She likes the speech.  It is logical, organized, and her side of the argument wins.  Unconsciously, she wishes her life was like that.

     The problem isn't the speech.

     No, despite what her actions often imply, she does think about this stuff once in a while.  She's puzzling over verse 34:

   

"But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, who was honored by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered that the men be put outside for a little while."

~Acts 5:34

     "That's funny." she thinks.  "Luke definitely wasn't a part of the Sanhedrin, and they just sent the Christians out of the room.  So how does he know what Gamaliel said?"

     All right, now fast forward in time.  The sixth-grade girl looks like the one on the sidebar.  She's sitting in church, and the pastor is reading from Acts.  Her facial expression is serious, but she's smiling inside.  As someone who loves re-reading books, she's finding this to her liking.  In fact, since she spent so much time with it in sixth grade, it feels much like meeting up with an old friend.

     The pastor comes to the passage discussed above, and somehow she reaches back and answers a question she'd forgotten she'd even asked.

     Her head starts buzzing with ideas for a story. 

     On Thursday, she's gonna share it with you.

At the beach- part three

One of my favorite things to do is stand where the waves are lapping against the shore.  I close my eyes, and with each new stream of water, I feel my heels digging into the sand.  Often, the same hymn come to my mind:

"On Christ the Solid Rock I stand.

All other ground is sinking sand.

All other ground is sinking sand."

~Edward Mote, "The Solid Rock"

 

It seems that one of the constant struggles in my life is trusting God.  I find myself worrying, making demands, or getting angry way more often than I kneel at the feet of my Creator, trusting that He has a plan and asking for His peace.

 

 

The other day, I knew that I was standing by a lake.  I knew, not because there was a visible difference between that beach and the ones I've visited near the ocean, but because I've seen a map.  There are no oceans anywhere near the city we were visiting.  Still, if I hadn't seen the bigger picture, I would not have known the difference.

 

Unfortunately, I haven't discovered a map for life.  I just like to pretend that I know what I'm doing.  But you know what?  God sees all of space.  He sees all of time, both present and past.  The seemingly endless horizon at the beach makes me feel small, but somewhere the water does meet land again.  I must be almost invisible in the perspective from which God views me, yet He cares enough about me to never leave me or forsake me.  The thought awes me.

Maybe that's why I usually walk away from the beach feeling refreshed.  By the great expanse of water and sky, with my feet sinking under me, I'm reminded of God's majesty and my own inadequacy. 

My sister's awesome map (At the beach -part two)

In case you've forgotten my last post, I was talking about a recent trip to the beach with my friends.  It was so cold that my feet wished that they were in Tampa Bay.

Thankfully, my sister had a solution.

Actually, she, too, was cold, and did not see any point in freezing herself further by wading in the water.  Instead, she drew this amazing map in the sand: 

 See her up there in the corner?  She's drawing Alaska.  This is Hawaii, which was off to the left and much closer to the waves.

 Alaska, complete.

 Once upon a time, I also knew how to do this.  I'm afraid that my map falls apart at Kentucky and/or Wisconsin whenever I attempt.  I was impressed by her memory, and also the look of it in the sand.

Good work, Allison!

At the Beach- part 1

It was a beautiful, sunny day.  The first we'd seen since we left home.  Seventy-four degrees felt warm, so we headed to the beach.  We forgot one thing.

Following stormy days of sixty degrees, huge lakes are cold.

I suppose that blaming our memories is a bit unfair.  We hadn't forgotten.  Last year, the water was cold, but we'd waded out to where we could body surf.  Our chaperones told us not to go out that far this year, since rip tides were a concern.

"That's okay."  Some of my friends said.  "Julianne is a lifeguard."

Except that Julianne is a lifeguard who does not deal with rip tides or rescuing people without her floatation device.  "If you get caught, swim parallel to the shoreline."  I told them.  "Then I'll call the coast guard."

I also found out that I don't do well with cold water on windy days.  Behold:

The water is up to my ankles.  That's as far as I ventured.  Still, I was glad we went.  There's something about the beach that makes me happy.  What's your favorite beach memory?

To my blog

Hey there.

It's been a while.

I just want you to know that I haven't forgotten you.

I'll be back soon.


Sincerely,
Your Rather Negligent Author

For love and money

 There's something you need to know about me.

I enjoy making things.  I love thinking about something, the rush of excitement while I'm doing it, and surveying my finished product.  Still, I'll be the first to admit that my creativity has limits.

I can't draw to save my life. My food will never be in a magazine.  And I am the world's worst at gift wrapping.  

Just keepin' myself humble, folks.

Given the fact in purple above, it's rather ironic that my father asked me to wrap his gifts for my mom's birthday last week.

A lot of jokes go over my head, but irony gets me every time.  I normally would have laughed and gone to find my sister.

Except that last week, I was broke, and Dad knows the magic words:

"I'll pay you."

 I accepted the job.  It was going much smoother that expected, until one of her presents would not fit in any of our gift bags.

It was time to pull out the mod-podge.

Let me tell you, I definitely felt like he got his money's worth out of this bag.  I had to take a lunch break while I was working on it.  This is intense decoupage, folks.

Or maybe I'm just trying to make myself feel better for a job that my mother said, "should have been done out of the goodness of your heart."

I hope there's goodness in there, I really do.

But I'm keeping the money.

I've already spent some of it.

Homegrown Edamame

    As I believe I've mentioned before, this year I requested the my daddy order soybean seeds for his garden.  Allison and I have been excitedly anticipating the day when we would be able to enjoy it fresh from the garden.
     A couple weeks ago, Allison told me to go out and get a picture of the "baby edamame."   It doesn't look too small in these pictures, I admit, but we weren't exactly sure when to pick it.
    

For anyone who may be in the same predicament, I found out today that it is not enough to wait until the pod starts to budge out a little.  It's better to wait until the beans are visibly large, because what you see is apparently what you get.  Believe me, I've eaten many pinhead-sized soybeans today.  :)
     We were excited to try our new treat today at lunch.  Sorry that the picture is foggy, that's the steam from my edamame.  The larger beans (like this) were quite tasty, although our particular variety apparently has hairy pods.  (You can see some of the fibers in the picture.)  Does anyone know if this is normal?