These Three Remain...

There is a popular book/movie of which I have heard (but not read/watched) called Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy; apparently, at some point in the story line, the answer to "life, the universe, and everything"--to life's biggest question-- is found. The answer? 42--yes, the number 42.
Well, much more about the story than that I don't know, but I believe I have found a different answer. It's very simple, like the number 42...nothing complex or hard to understand about it; in fact, we use it most every day without thinking anything of it. A common word in the English language, short, small, yet its implications can be eternal. My answer? His.
If we could grasp the deep significance of that small word every moment of every day, we would have the true answer to "life, the universe, and everything." It's all His--it all belongs to Christ. I am His, you are His, the person who cuts you off in traffic is His, the very house in which you live is His. Why should we worry, complain, or fret? Yesterday was His, today is His, and every moment of your future is His...is He not capable of taking care of His own? Shouldn't we leave it to Him, then?
If every human being on Earth is His, I should treat them with respect--they're the possessions of the King of kings; the way I react to them is, in essence, the way I am reacting to God, isn't it?

"And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Matthew 25:40 KJV

by Michael Wells (From Life Lines, Volume 112, newsletter of Abiding Life Ministries, International)

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Proverbs 18: 19, "A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city, And contentions are like the bars of a citadel."

"You offended me!" It is always said in the form of an accusation and in a manner indicating the need to change the offensive behavior. After all, the most important thing is that people tiptoe around and never offend self. Heaven forbid, if self were offended. Pastors hear it all the time. The statement is actually said with a tone of spirituality. However, the statement reveals a pathetic, others-controlled person, not a spirit-controlled person.
A man was taking a shortcut, found himself in the, middle of a soccer game, hurried to get out of the way, and as he was running accidentally kicked the ball and made a point. This man had not made a planned offense; it was all by accident. However, the team that was on defense started screaming, "You have ruined the game and given our opponents a point!" The man just stood in amazement. Why blame him? He was just running through, and the defense was terrible. If a stranger who doesn't know the game can score, then the defense is in need of being fixed.
If you keep getting offended by this person and that person--who are only stumbling and bumbling in front of you—fix your own defense. You are the one with the problem, not them. Oh, it sounds better to say they have the problem, but if they really do have an obvious problem and you allow them to offend, you are even in worse shape. You are surrendering your peace to a contentious person. You should be fit enough,spiritually that no one can offend you. One fellow said to me, "I don't really care if they like me or not. I like them!"
Another statement that goes right along with what we are talking about is, "You made me mad." What exactly does that mean: That I am your god and your happiness rests in my hands? Amazing! I didn’t know I had that kind of power over you! The fact is this. You surrendered your joy to my behavior and your misery is completely and utterly consented to by your will. You allowed yourself to get mad, and instead of wearing your weakness, it sounds better to your flesh to indicate that I did it. I didn’t do it. You did it, and you are the failure. Men say that their wives make them mad. No one can MAKE them anything. They choose to allow themselves to be mad. Stop being deceived, take the blame, and take charge of your own happiness. Well, Amen!

For Mrs. Ezzo, who (I am told) has requested photos of our new golden retriever, Cody, and for any others who care to risk turning green from envy! ;)

Rudyard Kipling

Well greetings! I trust that all of you had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I know that we did...I have so much to catch up on with you all! I'll be going "back in time" with my posts to update you on the holidays, if possible, but for now I have more recent events to relate to you.
About a month ago my mother, Kara, and I flew out to Georgia for a week long conference. The experience was so life-changing, and I learned so much, that I will have to cover it in several posts at some point. The information is just too invaluable to keep to myself--have you ever had that sort of feeling? A sense that the knowledge that you have just gained is so vital that you almost have to share it? That's rather what I feel about this, so I will (Lord willing) be able to convey some of what I learned at that conference with you at a later date. Ah, I have begun to ramble--back on topic. ;)
Anyway, as I was saying, we attended a conference in Georgia. As we returned to the airport, we stopped at the rental car return. Mommy talked with the man who was collecting the information about the car, while Kara and I gathered up our things. The man soon finished his questionnaire and Mommy too checked through the car for any remaining personal items. Soon, however, the young man (I wish I knew his name! :P) returned and said, "Mrs. [our last name], did someone hit you?" Mommy quickly replied in the negative, and stepped out of the car as he informed her that there was a large dent in the trunk. As she came to the back of the car, she was confused--there was no damage that she could see. The man quickly said, "Just jokin' with you, m'am." My mom, relieved, laughed and then commented, "I'd think you'd get punched in the face if you pulled that one too often!" He chuckled and said, "Yes, but you've got to do something to make this job interesting!"
Think that's unusual? Oh, we're not finished yet! As we approached the security checkpoint in the airport, my mother temporarily misplaced the boarding passes. After five minutes of scrambling around, they were recovered, and with all three passes firmly in hand Mommy passed through the "metal detector." Once on the other side, the worker there commented to her, "If you still want to leave either of them (pointing to Kara and I) behind, take advantage of it now--you have both their boarding passes!"
As our bags went through the "X-ray machine" scanner (for lack of a better word--what are those called, exactly?), the security personnel in charge of the machine paused it for a minute, consulted with each other, and then continued. One of them approached my mother where she was gathering her possessions and said, "I'm sorry m'am, but the chicken is going to have to go, and so are the fries." (We had purchased some Chik-fil-a for dinner, unhealthy as it was, as the flight did not serve dinner, and we didn't have time to stop and eat on the way to the airport.) My poor mother replied, "Oh, no! That was going to be our dinner...." The woman quickly interrupted her and said, "Oh I'm just joshin' with you, m'am." Mommy laughed (more out of consideration than actual amusement, I believe, although I thought it was extremely humorous!) and said, "What? Do I have 'tease me!' written across my forehead or something?" She then explained what had happened previously, and the worker chuckled, hugged Mommy, and said, "Just trying to make it light, m'am; just trying to keep it fun." Whew!
Well, just thought I'd share that story with you all; hope it brought a little chuckle, at least, to your day. ;)

Lord willing there will be many more posts/updates to come, so please check back often, and feel free to drop me a note anytime! :) God bless!

All I wanted to do was make a batch of our Christmas fudge. We've done it every year around this time ever since I can remember, and nothing was going to stop me from doing so again this year--not even when my mother told me that we couldn't use our traditional recipe because it uses Marshmallow Creme, and Marshmallow Creme contains the deadly (I'm serious) high fructose corn syrup. So, after doing a bit of research, I decided to make my own Marshmallow Creme--simple enough, right? As I began to get out the ingredients, I pulled out the "light corn syrup" as required, and discovered, to my utter annoyance, that this also contained high fructose corn syrup!! Off I went to my mom, asking her if we had any corn syrup of another brand. She replied that we did not, and that she did not even realize that the corn syrup contained HFCS. :P So back I went to the computer to find a recipe or appropriate substitute for light corn syrup. I finally found one, and soon had a jar of amber-colored liquid sitting on the counter; my corn syrup substitute. That went into the Marshmallow Creme recipe, and that into our traditional fudge recipe. All that, just for fudge. *sigh* Oh, but it was worth it...

I have discovered something about Christmas that had never really dawned on me before. Christmas is really not about Jesus. Hold on, before you accuse me of being blasphemous—let me explain. Christmas is most certainly about Jesus to a certain extent; the baby in the manger, God in flesh appearing, Jesus humbling Himself to come into the world to save us from our sins. But, if you think about it, is Christmas not also about our Father? The focus of the season has always been on the baby born in Bethlehem; but what about His Father? The one of whom the Bible says “…the Father himself loves you”? (John 16:27) When do we celebrate what He has done for us? He sent his one and only Son to Earth—His Special One. He understands what pain is all about; He experienced the ultimate form of it. But He so loved us that He sent His Son to die for us. In the age of the New Testament, have we perhaps lost sight of The Father? Many people seem to think that, with the ending of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New, that the Father has stepped back to make room for the Son. No! The Father is all the more prevalent; Jesus said that if we have a request, go to the Father. He didn’t say, “Go to me and I will ask the Father for you.” He said go to the Father.

Please don’t get me wrong—I don’t want to minimize what Christ did for us by coming to Earth, nor do I wish to take the emphasis off of the Gift—such a wonderful, extreme physical manifestation of Love itself; but rather, I’d like to place more emphasis than has been in the past on the Giver Himself. Perhaps we should view Christmas as the day of God the Father’s gift, and Easter as the day of God the Son’s gift? Would there be the latter without the former? Would the former be as important without the latter? Again, please don’t misunderstand me—I believe with all of my heart that Jesus loves me with a love greater than I can even begin to comprehend or fathom; but does the Father not love us just as much? He longs to hear from us; He wants so badly for you to speak with Him, ask Him, thank Him….Is it not just as hard for the one who is sacrificing as it is for the one who is to be sacrificed (think of Abraham and Isaac)?

So, while please remember the beautiful, priceless Gift of the baby in the manger and what He represented, remember also the Giver and His overwhelming, enveloping, surpassing, self-sacrificial Love for mankind manifested on that night in Bethlehem.

I sit on my bed, my bedroom being almost completely dark, with the exception of the light coming from the screen of my laptop; in the next room, I can just hear my grandmother listening to a lecture CD on her computer, and even clearer is the sound of my sister practicing piano on the other side of the house, playing a Haydn sonata slowly and steadily. I, meanwhile, am reading an article on Wikipedia regarding philosophy and its different forms, trying to find the sort that describes the idea focused on in the book that I am to write a report on for my English class. I have a window open (the weather is still in the 70’s here, though it’s winter—this should be illegal), and I can hear, faintly, distant cars, mixed with the sound of the night creatures’ songs. I can look over and see my calico, Faith, sitting at the open window, enjoying the fresh air, as am I.

My sister’s serenade has now switched to a Grieg nocturne, and I take a break from realism, idealism, and rationalism, realizing how long it’s been since I spoke in the blog world…You all have been quite patient with me and my lack of posts. :)

As I sit here, trying to decide what to tell you all first, what is most important, what would you like to know, I realize that there is so much to tell that I don’t know where to begin. The world of college is in a completely different universe (so to speak) than that to which I am accustomed—I am so very glad that I am living at home, where I can refocus and reprioritize. I am very blessed to have many friends in the music department who come from similar backgrounds (i.e. Christian, conservative, and often homeschooling families), but the larger percentage of the college is not so inclined. I don’t know what I would do had I not the training and the anchor that I have in Christ.

Besides that aspect, however, college is going beautifully. My professors are absolutely fantastic (even my liberal Political Science teacher :P)—they are down-to-earth and personal, and have a genuine concern for their students. My classes have fairly light homework loads, which is such a blessing, as I still have piano practice to get in. I’m doing well in my classes, and am very pleased to discover that I will never need to take more than 12-13 hours of credit per semester (because of my AP tests). This, too, is an amazing blessing. Over the past week especially God has filled me with this incredible joy and peace, and I feel that with Him guiding me I will continue to soar, and continue to grow in His wisdom. College has been a trial, a growing experience, and a blessing all together so far, and I know that it will only get better and better.

Thank you all for your patience, your prayers, and your support—and, though I might be rather slow in replying, please send me an e-mail or even a letter if you so desire; I’d love to hear from you!

God bless!

~Written 11-18-07

I don't believe that anyone who is right handed realizes how prejudiced the world is towards them. There are so many areas where we left handers are simply ignored or not considered! Let me give you just a few examples:

You know those mugs with the picture on one side? Go take a look at which side the picture is on; it's to the left of the handle. "So?" you say. Well, hold that mug in your left hand; what do you see? Nothing! The picture shows if you hold it in your right hand, but when you hold it in your left, you get to look at a nice blank mug.
You also (most likely) have no idea how frustrating scissors can be for left-handers! I don't know how many times I have had to give up in despair and ask a nearby right-hander to finish cutting something for me. Scissors, unless they say otherwise, are created with right-handers in mind; the blades must be cut in a special way. When I hold scissors in my left hand, not only are the handles themselves uncomfortable at times, but the silly things just won't cut! It's ridiculous!
Ah, and another biased item; measuring cups. Believe it or not, measuring cups can be rather annoying to left-handers as well. As I am an American, I generally use the "English" measurement system. Well, take a look at measuring cups--any measuring cup. On the majority of these, which side is the "cups" measurement on, hmmm? To the left of the handle. That means that when I am measuring something out while cooking, I have to turn the handle to the other side, and turn it back again when I want to pick it up (or use my right hand to pick it up).
Pens are another thing! Pens with words written along the side look just fine when you are holding them in your right hand; trying switching it to your left! Now what do you see? A bunch of upside-down nonsense, no? (I am very good at reading things that are upside down; I've had a bit of practice! ;) :P )
One thing that I have simply gotten used to in this backwards world is the mouse on the computer. The way that the mouse is shaped prevents left-handers from simply switching hands, and the mouse is always on the right side of the keyboard, anyway. So I am quite used to using my right hand in that arena.
Something that I have realized now that I am going to college is that desks pose another inequality for left-handed students. Many desks in school (at least at my college) have a little extended area of the writing surface to the right of the seat, allowing right handers to rest their arm on it as they write. Unfortunately, the desk is not symmetrical, so we left-handers are not given that nicety.

Now, with all that said, I have a shocker for you; I couldn't be prouder of being a left-hander. :D I absolutely love being left-handed...and a red-headed left hander, at that! And I'm in good company: Benjamin Franklin, Winston Churchill, Ludwig Von Beethoven, Charlemagne, Alexander the Great, Ronald Reagan, Lewis Carroll, Albert Einstein and many more famous figures of antiquity and the recent past have laid claim to this prized characteristic.
Finally, it is a scientific fact that we left-handers are the ones who are most in our right minds. That explains a lot, now doesn't it?