13 Hours of Rain

During my single days, I would often have bouts of "Mellow Sundays". While slowing down from a busy week of work and enjoying the quietness of Sunday afternoon, my mind would enter a state of reflective thinking. My thinking process would often spiral down to my perpetual agony of not being married. Oh woe is me! Now I am married. And I still have Mellow Sundays. I realize that in the past I would generally focus on one paramount area of discontentment: singleness. These days my Mellow Sundays focus on concentrated pockets of imperfections or dilemmas. Let me share some of my ponderings. 1. Renovation Envy Part II : Yesterday, our neighbor held an open house to showcase their renovations prior to the arrival of their new tenants. WOW. What a transformation! I felt like I was visiting a show home. As soon as I entered our home, I started to notice all the flaws on our walls, flooring, and furniture. I had to stop and remind myself that (1) even if we wanted to overhaul our pla...

My brother is overseas and is learning the art and science of cooking. He has asked our family for our favorite skillet recipes since he is devoid of an oven! So, bro, this is for you: Cashew Chicken Ingredients: 3 T sesame oil 1 cup cashews 3 medium chicken breasts, cubed 1/2 cup water 4-5 cloves of garlic, minced 1 1/4 cup chopped carrots 1 cup chopped celery 3/4 cup chopped red pepper 1 small onion, chopped 1/2 cup water 1 can chicken broth (284 ml or 10 oz) 3 T soya sauce 2 T cornstarch dissolved in 2 T warm water 1-2 tsp chili paste or sambal oelek* (optional) salt & pepper to taste Serves 3 - 4 people Procedure: 1. At high/medium heat, heat sesame oil in a large skillet or wok. Add cashews and toast until slightly brown. Remove cashews with a slotted spoon and place in a medium sized bowl. Do not remove the oil from the skillet or wok. 2. Add chicken breasts to the oil along with the first amount of water. Cook chicken breasts thoroughly . Remove cooked chicken with a slotted...

How I wish I could slow down time, Pause this moment, And relive your milestones. The day we brought you home: I was so scared. Overwhelmed. Exhausted. My emotions were chaotic. Forgive me For missing your initial discoveries. In spite of my failures, You fill my heart with hope. You remind me of God's faithfulness. You love me unconditionally And demand nothing less. You teach me precious lessons: Laughing at the simple things. Discovering the beauty in this world. Honestly expressing emotions. Yet, I am uncertain. Many lessons you must learn. Am I qualified to teach you as you teach me? I must believe. God chose me To be your Mother. He blessed me with a daughter. You, my beautiful princess. Therefore, wisdom He will provide For the journey ahead.

I've done it. Posted fifty times. Hard to believe. I guess I have more to say than I originally thought. So here I am in the wee hours of the morning. I really NEED to sleep. But I can't. Maybe my two hour nap yesterday morning has something to do with it! So I'll blog about random stuff, things that could take up an entire post but are not worth that much effort. 1. Last Saturday I gathered my gear and headed off to a city leisure center for my weekly step class. I showed up to find out that there was a track meet on, again. My class was cancelled, again. Why can't our instructor inform us the week before? Annoying. So I drove back to our area, determined to participate in some sort of exercise other than walking. I entered an elite gym with a free pass that I found in the recyclable material I was about to dispose of. Really snazzy place. Brand spanking new. I could have used a tour. No one offered. Kind of weird. Nonetheless, I participated in a boxer-step class. I w...

Thanks to theheresy.com and Google Reader, my two deleted posts have been resurrected from the tombs of cyberspace. Both articles are posted below. Yay! My research was not in vain.

(Oringinally posted in February 2009) Inaccuracy. Blatant stupidity. Poor research. Three things that cause a great deal of angst in the mind of my husband. I hear him vocalize his annoyance off and on within different areas of life. For instance, I have heard him yell at the T.V. screen with disgust when a hockey analyst gets his or her facts wrong. "No, Maguire, the GM did NOT negotiated a masterful trade to get Zdeno Chara. The Bruins picked him up as a free agent in the summer! Maguire, it is your job to get your facts right!" Stupidity? I don't know how many times my husband has expressed his righteous anger at the idiots that drive on our roads, especially when someone doesn't signal, cuts across three lanes of traffic, dumps a mini-van smack down in front of you, and then has the gall to drive ten kilometers per hour under the speed limit. As for poor research - you want to turn off my husband from listening to your sermon, reading your paper, or learning fro...

(Oringinally posted in January 2009) "A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent." (NIV) Apostle Paul, 1 Timothy 2:11-12 I am standing at a fork in the road. I am wondering which way to go. I have been wrestling with my beliefs and values. I am attempting to sort out the "truth" from opinion. My dilemma is whether or not women have the Biblical affirmation to preach in the church. Furthermore, do women have the right to pastor a church? Before I write any further, I must offer a disclaimer. First, I am not writing to defend one side over the other. Similarly, I am not claiming one view is correct and the other view is wrong. I am merely allowing you to be privy to my conflicting reflections. Second, I do not claim to be an expert in the arguments for or against the issue. I have not completed extensive research on the topic, though I have read a couple of position papers...

Vernal : Pertaining to spring. Equinox : Equal day and night.* When : Occurs when the sun is vertically above a point on the equator. In the Northern Hemisphere it officially arrived at 7:44 a.m. ET. Translation : It's finally SPRING !!! To celebrate : I have added more color to my blog and changed my title and introspection description to include lyrics from one of my favorite Nichole Nordeman songs "Every Season". Why : Spring is my season of choice. My heart finds joy when the world comes to life again. Snow melts into giant puddles. Birds return with new songs. Flowers and trees bloom once more. The days become longer. I smile more! :) (*Interested in more facts about the Vernal Equinox? Check out this National Geographic link!)

Baby is down for her morning nap. An aromatic cup of coffee has been brewed. I am comforted by the silence around me. Yet, my heart aches... aches for dear friends and family who are going through difficult times in their lives. I wish I could visit each of you right now. I desire to listen to your stories and share your burdens. If I were a magician, I would wave my magic wand and make all the pain and sorrow disappear. But I am not gifted with such powers. Thus, I will do the one thing that I can do in this moment of time. Pray scripture for you. Some of you are suffering due to a broken relationship . You have been rejected and scorned. Intimacy has disappear and you feel so lonely. The LORD appears to [you] saying: "I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness. I will build you up again and you will be rebuilt... Again you will take up your tambourines and go out to dance with the joyful. (Jeremiah 31:3-4) Others of you are dealing with sic...

This last weekend, I had the privilege of sharing a conversation with one of the directors of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship . In the course of our discussion, he asked me something like this: "If you were marking a math exam and someone just gave you the answer to a problem, what would you do?" "I'd write, 'Show me your work!' In other words, I'd want to see the process behind the answer," came my reply. "Yet, the church just wants the answer. We are not interested in the process. We want to hear the word 'Jesus'. That's it." I couldn't agree with him more. The director went on to explain how we need to acknowledge people's experiences before we rush ahead to provide them with the correct explanation. Furthermore, we need to provide individuals with a place to belong before we insist that they have faith. Lastly, it is imperative that trust is developed before belief occurs. Sadly, the current evangelical movement d...

I deleted two of my postings by accident. I was trying to remove a label from the article. Instead I erased the articles from cyberspace. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Both postings were on the topic of women in church leadership. The first one was titled "To Preach or Not To Preach" and the other one was called "Get Your Facts Right!" I was proud of the articles. I put a lot of thought into them. I did research and included web links. I edited the paragraphs so many times. Even my husband read over them to fine tune my wording. But the issue that bothers me the most is that both posts were documenting a paradigm shift in my thinking. I've grown up with a very literal view of scripture. If the Bible says, "A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent," (1 Timothy 2:11-12) then that is what it must mean for women today. No if, ands, or buts. However, in recent years...

Hardwood floors, stainless steel appliances, ceramic tile floors, finished basements, leather furniture, stimulating wall colors, coordinated drapes, eye-catching wall hangings, granite counter tops... A few things that are causing me to experience a bout of envy. During the last couple of months I have had the honor being a guest in several of my friends' homes. I can't help but gaze at their decor and compare it to our idiosyncratic collection of mismatched things in our home. There are days when I wish I could rip this out and replace it with that. Other days I stand in our chilly concrete basement and dream of how it could look if it were finished. It also doesn't help that our neighbor is renovating. I have heard the pounding of hammers. I have seen rolls of discarded carpet. I can almost smell the fresh paint. Must be nice. But, it is just a bunch of things . Things that will fade, break, and decay. Things that will need to be cyclically replaced, over and over aga...

I am reading an absolutely fascinating book by Malcolm Gladwell entitled, "The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference." The author explores social epidemics. Specifically, what makes one movement spread like wildfire while another does not? Now, I will not go into details just in case some of you may desire to read the book. Nonetheless, I want to touch on one point: the power of context in social revolutions. Gladwell illustrates this point by recounting a dark period in New York city's history. During the mid-eighties, New York was known around the world for its brutal crime rate. Murders, drug deals, robberies, and other criminal activity were commonplace. The New York subway system was no exception. Commuters were not safe on public transit. But under the direction of David Gunn, the subway system was dramatically cleaned up. Surprisingly, he didn't target the high profile crimes. Instead, he went after fare-beating and graffiti with a vengeanc...

The last few days have been rough. My poor daughter is not herself due to Gastroenteritis (commonly known as the stomach flu). Plus, she is teething... So, I thought I would take a break during her nap time and come up with 25 random things about me. 1. I am paranoid about what kind of information I post in a meme. After all there could be some crazy person out there who may take this information and use it against me! 2. Infants and toddlers freak me out! I have no desire to babysit any of my friends' children under the age of five. I only signed up for nursery duty at my church because they are desperate for workers. I rather hang out with pre-teens or teenagers. I love my own kid though. 3. Someday I would love to experience an "all-inclusive resort" adventure in some tropical paradise. But only for a few days. However, my husband isn't a beach person. Then again, neither am I. Maybe a Mediterranean villa in Greece? We could do a week or two there! Tons of history ...