I’m not the Bible scholar I should be. I know some verses; not as many as I ought. Still, I find most of my experiences can be framed or underscored, explained or illuminated, by Scripture. Or maybe a hymn or a worship song, a devotional or a testimony. Frequently, I have those “Oh, yeah” moments when I see God clearly in an event. Or realized that I should have seen Him.
These are the moments of “The Bible tells me.”
These essays reflect that. Do know that I can proof-text as well as anyone. I have a concordance, and I know how to use it. Well, truthfully, I do all of that online now, where I can quickly find a passage, see it in many versions, and choose the one I like best. I try not to be narrow, but instead broad, as I apply Bible words to my experiences. I know that your interpretations and understanding may be different than mine. But I also know that our God is big enough for all of us.
I have a friend who, in her prayer time, likes to tell jokes to God. “I know He knows the punch line,” she says. “But I tell them anyway. He likes it when I laugh.”
He likes it when I laugh. I’m going to hang on to that. It’s Biblical. The Bible tells me.
Our mouths were filled with laughter then,
and our tongues with shouts of joy.
Then they said among the nations,
“The Lord has done great things for them.”
The Lord had done great things for us;
we were joyful.
Psalm 126: 2,3 (HCSB)
I’ve mentioned before that I’m more of a fan of football than baseball or basketball. I grew up not even knowing what March Madness was. (I looked that up in Wikipedia to see when the term originated and discovered only that it came into use in the 20th century, not really the precise information that I was hoping for.)
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When Jeremy was a little, bitty baby, he was a pretty sober guy. My mother tried tirelessly to make him smile, but he was stingy with those smiles. One Sunday, after we had lunched together, she was determined to get some grins from him. I held him in my lap, and she made funny faces and silly noises, wiggled her fingers and waved her hands, and became more and more frenzied in an attempt to get some sort of reaction from him. Nothing. Just calm, serene stares. The rest of us were quite amused at her antics. But not the baby. What was he thinking? Maybe, Well, this is interesting. Or, Gee, this is unusual. Or, possibly, I’d like to take a nap now, and this isn’t helping.
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The dishwasher wouldn’t work!
I loaded up the thing, put in the little square dishwasher soap packet, ran the water in the sink until it was warm, shut the dishwasher door, and pushed “Start.” And heard it start. As I passed by occasionally, every few minutes over the next half-hour or so, sometimes it seemed to be making a different sort of noise, not necessarily a bad noise, just a different-ish sort of noise. But I don’t spend much of its cycle time sitting beside it, noticing the various sounds it makes, so I didn’t really think anything was amiss. When I walked by and noticed that the “it’s done” light was on, I opened it up to let the dishes air dry. I saw that the food drips that had been on the door when I closed the machine were still pretty much on the door when I re-opened it. it. I picked up a few dishes, and oh, no, they were not clean at all.
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The fascinating Oxymoron craze crops up every now and then. It must be at a low point right now, otherwise I’d be seeing more lists of them on Facebook, like “10 Oxymorons That You Can Use at Work,” or “The Six Funniest Oxymorons Ever.” That sort of thing. I don’t know what those “10 Work-Related” or “Six Funniest,” might be, but now that I’ve brought it up, surely somebody will start working on them.
Anyway, if you missed one of the oxymoron surges in the past few years, oxymorons are common phrases that use words that are the opposite of each other. Like “Civil War,” because wars are anything but civil. And “Jumbo Shrimp,” because “jumbo” means “really big,” and “shrimp,” as slang, means “small.” You get the idea.
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I used to accessorize more, back when I was a reader of Seventeen magazine. I had different kinds of necklaces and pins and bracelets, and I carefully chose my earrings each day. I had scarves and knew how to wear them, I guess.
These days, I admire other ladies’ necklaces and bracelets, and, really, does anybody go out without a cute/charming/toasty/colorful scarf these days? At least besides me?
I don’t remember when I stopped being accessorized. I guess it just became more trouble that I was willing to give. And thank goodness ladies aren’t expected to wear hats and gloves to church any more!
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Yes, I’m still watching Olympics
Sometimes I’m just mesmerized by the wildly different sorts of things that athletes do on skis, skates, and snowboards. And, figure skates are different than speed skates, and slalom skis are different than downhill skis, and what you’re going to do on a snowboard determines what kind of snowboard you use.
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I love football. I’m a Texas girl, Friday Night Lights and all that. I started going to school football games when I was a seventh grader (when it was Thursday Afternoon Without Lights) and kept it up all the way through college. Well, through Baylor. I didn’t go to any University of Hawaii games.
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I don’t know much about Feng Shui (fuhng shwey). We’ve just rearranged my office, which is also a guest room, and since there’s a treadmill in it, I guess it’s my workout room. (Maybe that’s putting a lot of pressure to be truly functional on a 10 x 10 ft. space.) I was curious about things that could help me be more productive. I went to Wikipedia, and they had a rather exhaustive page about it, lots of it in Chinese characters, so I still don’t know much about Feng Shui. I do know that it’s a philosophy about arranging furniture in homes and using some appropriate colors to increase harmony and prosperity and stuff like that.
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Maybe I’m a little late to noticing how pervasive this is, but at some point, we stopped reading information in paragraph form and went with lists. I understand it. We’re busy, there’s so much information out there, how can I get the most of it in the shortest amount of time? Let’s cut to the chase, tell me just what I need to know, don’t beat around the bush.
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Last Sunday’s Bible story is one of my favorites (Acts 12:5-17). Peter was imprisoned for teaching about Jesus. His friends gathered and prayed in earnest for him. At the jail one night, everyone was sleeping soundly when an angel appeared and led Peter, free of his chains, out the jail door. Peter went right away to the house where his friends were and knocked on the door. A servant girl, Rhoda, went to the door and recognized Peter’s voice.
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