January 26, 2013

• talk is cheap

   

  The stuff that matters is hard work.

  Getting out of bed.  Praying.  Reading Hebrews.  Waking children. Cooking.  Drinking 8 glasses of water.  Dressing warmly for a walk in winter weather.  Extracting teeth.  Shovelling snow.  Picking peas.  Washing windows.  Trust.  Learning algebra.  Preaching.  Abstinence. Building muscle.  Memorizing.  Sawing logs.  Vaccinating calves.  Scrubbing bathtubs.  Training children.  Losing weight.  Loving.

  The stuff that’s not as important comes easily.   Staring at the daily planner but not planning.  Fear.  Gazing out the window.  Eating raisin tart bars. Exaggerating.   Grabbing another handful of cheetos.   Lying in a warm bed.  Gaining weight.  Poking fun at someone.  Checking facebook.  Being served.  Worry.  Picking at hangnails.  And talking.  Talking is easy.

  At least for some of us.  From our nice warm pews on Sunday morning we discuss reaching the lost.  We say good words.  We mean them with our whole hearts. 

  From our little Facebook platform we rally against abortion.  We link.  We share.  We state our opinions. 

  We shake our head at the sad state of our nation.  We mourn the loss of principle.  We rant. We follow conspiracy theories.   We remember better days.

  We put this writer/speaker on a pedestal, but research the trash on that one.

  We say a lot, but our hands stay clean.

  We really wish we could help, but we don’t know how.  Since we don’t know how to help, we talk.  And we eat.

  Do we really think people will change their minds because of what we say?  And is the source of all the information we have flying around trustworthy?

  Dan’s dad always said, “Paper will stay still for whatever you want to write on it.”   A computer screen is pretty cooperative that way too.

  Mennonites have traditionally not taken up arms.  I didn’t grow up rallying pro-life.  We were taught to be law-abiding citizens.  But man we can talk.  I will say what I jolly well please about that snake in the grass Obama.

  The stuff that matters is hard work.

  I’m so proud of my sister in law who teaches abstinence to today’s teens with hope that they won’t choose abortion someday.

  The man who prays for his president instead of bashing him is my hero.   

  I feel warm inside when the neighbor tells me that a man from my church really lives what he preaches.

  Because all the stands we take and all the talk we talk is nothing if we don’t live the life.

  There’s certainly a time to weep over sin like Jeremiah did. 

  I hope I will stand like Daniel and his friends if I’m ever faced with the choice they were.

  It is right and humane to grieve the loss of precious life through abortion or war.

  And I know those Old Testament prophets preached on and on to a society that wasn’t hearing or obeying.

  There might even be a time to pray vengeance on the enemies of God like David did.

  But Jesus’ way is even more attractive.

  From my friend Michelles’ blog:  We must live intentionally. What if instead of saying, “THEY need to
  ______________”, we’d buck up and start saying “I need to __________________.”

  Talk is easy.  The stuff that matters is hard work.

  

  Author Philip Yancey says, “Each of Paul’s letters ends with a call to practical acts of love and service:  prayer, sharing with the needy, comforting the sick, hospitality, humility.  We dare not devalue the “ordinary”–actually most extraordinary–work of God making himself at home in our lives. These are the marks of the Spirit-filled life.”

  He also says, “I can write what I believe to be true even while painfully aware of my own inability to atain what I urge others towards.”

  I feel that just now.

   

  ***********************************************************************

  Tori underwent anesthesia and had some mean teeth pulled last week.   She was sitting at the table with a very sore mouth eating mashed pears and bananas the other day and I thought sadly that growing up isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

  Liesl was squinching her eyes shut as she ate her toast and said, “My eyes can cover up the whole world!”  That is so her, oozing with confidence.   Not “I can’t see anything.”  More like, “I can control the light and darkness myself.”

  From Natalia to Liesl today, “Let’s go mess up our playhouse.  It’s so fun cleaning it up.”  Good job, girls.  Prepping for life as a mom. The endless cycle of cleaning and messing up.

  When she wears this dress handed down from her aunt, I call her Laura Ingalls.

  

  My niece Annie played Mrs. Pye in a Green Gables musical at her school last weekend.  Victoria & I went to watch it one night with Barb and her girls.  Barb is the nicest sister in law you could have and we had a great night.  Annie was beautiful in her pink dress and played her part well with the gaggle of Avonlea gossips.  It was a fun production, representing so much hard work on the part of Dr. Kearney Middle School in Fort Saint John. 

  The lady behind us was Gilbert’s grandmother.

  

  

  Some days this is where it’s at.  Five minutes in the corner with high hopes on my part for reform when they’re dismissed.

  

  What I see from the loveseat in the mornings.

  

  Dan told me about this story he read on the news. A 55 year old British grandmother who was smuggling drugs into Indonesia was caught with 2 and 1/2 million dollars worth of cocaine in the lining of her suitcase in the Bali airport.  She was tried and is sentenced to die in Indonesia.

  I don’t know why I had to write that, but it really got me, that story.

  We had fun setting up this fellow in Mr. Mack’s chair at school for his birthday.  He’s talking on an iphone.

  

  Getting ready to bake cookies. 

  

  Goodbye for now, friends.

   

   

   

  • 5:38 pm
  • 14 Comments