More Tears Clean Floors

It's true Machine Gun Preacher deserved my kids' boycott. Their mature discernment is a credit to their generation. But having seen it and wept over East African anti-Christian warfare,

all the others now come to mind...

Drug Scarred Mexico. Secular Europe. Liberal Canada. Brow Beaten Indonesia. Communist China. ISLAMIC IRAN. Youcef Nadarkhani and his heroic lawyer.

A Conference Speaker yesterday requested we bleach our globes with tear stains. I recalled the immediacy with which I purchased our globe 20 years ago, emblem of guaranteed success for the home school classroom. I had such bold intentions to pray for missionaries with the "students."

It has hardly been touched.

"...Since the Egyptian Revolution in January, several riots prompted by Muslim crowds broke out against churches in Cairo and other small cities in Egypt, breaking down churches, burning others, and resulting in significant numbers of casualties and deaths. None of the aggressors were seized, even though their faces were caught on video as they were committing their crimes...

. . . Violent clashes began between the two groups, and then suddenly, to the shock of all the demonstrators, armored military vehicles sped into the crowd, striking protesters and fatally driving over at least 11! This reminded demonstrators of what took place by the police on January 28 during the Revolution…but no one expected this to come from the army who promised to protect the people and the Egyptian Revolution ..."  
-- Director of Focus on the Family, Egypt

(http://www.focusonlinecommunities.com/blogs/Finding_Home/2011/10/14/on-the-murder-of-christians-in-egypt)

If I can put the unclean floor to work as sturdy kneeler, prayer launch, territory for intercession, demarkation around which Satan will not prevail, the day's purpose will be served. Every home needs a chapel and a globe, but barring either of those, an unscrubbed kitchen floor will do.

DejaView

It's an old slice of guitar found
under a bridge in a
causeway by a
bikeway

'Long Rio Saint Gabe.

But maybe, once baby
had a life with
Leonardo,
cause, wait.

There it is
by his r-i-p sign.

When we captured it first on
our last river ride,
never figured we'd see it
again.

There it was.
Hubby eyed it
as we left town on Friday
leaning proudly, reunited

Somehow?

"RIP Leonardo Florez," age 57,
Carson & Los Coyotes

The same old trashed icon,
it does catch your eye...

...from 3 posts back.

Now, today, home again and

just barely settled

comes a redux, a fight.

Not again.

It's on principle. Privacy.

His company's piracy.

Of course it's a 

huge disagree.

So, I'm looking for something to hang on my 

front porch: "Welcome 

to the Gulag"

it'll sing.

Until Christ comes again

(no, we'll still fight in heaven)

He will ever be

disappointing.

Dusty Bible of old

Let three children mold.

Dusty Constitution

Leaves a people in ruin,

Their muddy trashed icons 

leaned up 

against

death signs.

Congratulations "Dave And Kate - October 8!"

A dear couple will unite in marriage on Saturday.

Cousin Kate

What is marriage? Why marry? I remember beginning a paper on this subject as a junior in college. I became so befuddled and overwhelmed (and spiritually attacked, no doubt, since I was still concealing a hidden life of "food addiction") that I recall burying my head under a sweatshirt at my UCSD library desk, and crying, literally.

It's 29 years later, and all I can say on the matter is that I serve a God who healed, and continues to heal the unstable, rebellious, infirm parts of me; and to admit that I always intended to revisit the topic of sacred marriage, but am too chaotic, unread, and lacking in quality scholarship to do it justice.

I'm no closer to understanding all that scripture counsels on the matter, either (thanks to my insipid church... ).  This I do know: my marriage lasts because my husband is tremendously forgiving and patient and humble enough to pray with me after we fight and cry. And he prays with me on most other occasions, too.

So,

I texted him this image from a store last week. Asked him if he could hear these BOOKENDS "speaking to him?" (Wanted to ask if his already purchased wedding gift - a mosquito net from REI, was just a bit boring as wedding presents go, but I didn't - - just yet, anyway.)

The gentle giant loved these, and admitted the dbl-wide mosquito net was probably just an impulse-buy that he could take back.  Dave and Kate, avid backpackers, must already have DOZENS of mosquito nets, right?

WELL, I just finished making this note and began wondering... !What tremendous marriage how-to's could we squeeze between these miniature Mount Whitneys?

Being Out Of Budget makes that prospect Out Of the Question, but... let's just pretend we could go shopping for the perfect wedding "helps."  What would I dare suggest?

("Gram's EnglishToffee" for the wedding potluck.
Four batches the budget did stretch!)

Naturally, the book idea was not my own. It only came as I listened to Focus On The Family while putting finishing touches on the card this morning.  Today's broadcast topic inspired the thought:

First Comes Love, Then Comes Money, S & B Palmer

Wow. This couple's book sounds perfect.  But there are so many more...

Learning to Love Your Husband, Shaunti Feldhahn

How We Love, Kay and Milan Yerkovich

What Wives Wish Their Husbands Knew About Women, James Dobson

Holy Ambition, Chip Ingram

More Than Enough, Dave Ramsey

Overcoming Emotions That Destroy, B.C. Johnson

Walking Into Walls, Steve Arterburn

Every Man's Battle,  Steve Arterburn

Every Woman's Battle, Shannon Ethridge

Man, I love shopping. 

Congratulations, Kate and Dave! I'll be praying that the truth of Jesus' love and sacrifice  breaks out all over your weddedness, and that you will daily seek Him as Saviour and Lord.

Love, 

Auntie E of the LBC

Awlaki Had No Reading Plan

To daily stop and sit and Read - Oh!
Honor Him
who made us.
That once again a nation prize
Dire promises to shade us.

(100 Day Scripture Reading Plan:

feed://www.youversion.com/reading-plans/the-essential-100/rss/99e564bbeb38f9866f45b9f6235cd58c5d27efb2   )

Anwar al-Awlaki Needed Alice

While bombers hate outright our nation
Some of us see why.

Our newsmen call it freedom legal,
Strippers' nude dance plied.

That rag unwelcome, tossed upon
My driveway like a habit,

Underwritten by strip clubs
Whose ads don't need that 'rabbit.

Like those who fall by target strength
Of plans on foreign soil,

May prayer plans aimed at Beeler's shame
Unwind his angry roil.

Meanwhile dear Alice plans and prays.
Her Good News Club begins

That children grow to know and love
What Anwar/Beeler need within.

Fluff Bludgeons

Just threw back a German beer.
What's going on in here? It was after
My ribcage went first.

It's stuck in a twist. I can barely
Inhale.
Getting old is starting to hurt.

How? Why? I'm not sure,
But I scrolled here for hours
Inside some girl's wonder blog

Turned to get up,
Suddenly stuck.
(That 'suck' word should go here I thot.)

Warm family stories
And sane observations
Have armed me with smiles and permission

To give to the journey
An entire morning.
And prayers for her young family's mission.

And I learned a new term: 
"Fluff blungeons" she typed, 
Retelling of wars with dorm pillows;


And roommates turned confidantes,
Campers at camp, 
And brothers who sound like dear fellows.


I must go now to pay out
The bills I'm avoiding
But one more ripe pick from her saga:

"Anyone who says they have one life to live 

must not know 

how to 
read'a


bLOG.

~Author Unknown" 

(slight amendment,  

my own)

Summer's Over; Fall Nearly

A 26th-Anniversary bike ride and breakfast out;

 the view from  

an overpriced, 

not-so-nice 

River's End Cafe.

Looked like rain, almost...

...and our trail is wanting trees.

Creation Falls

The six years when
I drowned within

The certainty
God hated me;

The six years when
I kept the sin

Hidden deep and outward in,
Impinged.

Not one win.

It's true you die when sin is hid.

I did.

But never once, no never, did

I justify it.

It owned me. I was it's slave;
Gerasene complete with cave.

Bulimia became my Schwinn;

My cycled anorexic twin,

As long as it stayed secret.

I could've said it's "who I am"
Because it was.

Had I surrendered to its way,
Had I sought others in its sway,

Willing it, to us, define,
Then scrawled a hundred angry signs,

Formed us rallies, demonstrated,
Labelled enemies who hate us.

Victim status.

Instead I begged. Upon my knees,
One thousand guilty anguished pleas.

Most took place beside commode,
Wondring why this God had shown

No mercy.

Plodded long, 'till came a day
Asked ONE to pray.

How dare I let my demon down!
"Out" myself to one so round?

But then, the gates of Heav'n opened.
Soft Word spoken:

"Hate your parents, you'll stay broken."

Repent of deeper wounds impressed?
Forgive the authors of my mess?

I'd do anything to earn
Good graces back to me returned.

So I admitted. Acquiesced.
Withheld resentment. God, impressed,

Hauled up the black immersing pest.

Bound my breaks, gave psychic rest.

I just confessed.

No one asked, but I told one.
Then Healing from the FatherSon
And HOLY SPIRIT,

ThreeInOne

Wrested evil;
Jesus won.