“If Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all that he said;  if he didn’t rise from the dead, then why worry about any of what he said? The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching but whether or not he rose from the dead.”  — Tim Keller

When Michael and I were raising the girls many moons ago, we listened to a lot of contemporary Christian music. Does anyone remember Farrell and Farrell, Randy Stonehill, Petra, Leslie Phillips, Michele Pillar, Keith Green? One of Michael’s favorite artists was Don Francisco, and we had all his albums.

One of Don’s most powerful songs was about the arrest, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, from Peter’s perspective. The song starts out quietly and builds in suspense, and ends in an exultant chorus that Michael used to sing along to every Easter morning. We would all get up and have breakfast before getting ready to go to church, and this song would be playing as loud as we could stand it.

Michael used to walk around the house booming out the words, often with tears in his eyes.

We don’t have record albums anymore, but I do have a CD of Don Francisco’s greatest hits, and “He’s Alive” is on it. I will pull it out on Easter Sunday and play it loud, and I can just see Michael’s response now. He may not be able to boom out the song anymore, but he will sing it with all his might, and I’m fairly certain there will be tears of gratitude still.

Thank you my kind friends for making time in your life to stop by here. I pray that no matter what life looks like to you right now, there will be joy for you this Easter.

He is risen!

Many of you might have already seen this, since it was posted on Ann Voskamp’s blog recently. It touched me so deeply I found it on youtube so I can share it here.

Like this mama, we are all still learning how to live, and how to give thanks to God, no matter what our lives are like….

These favorites of mine have nothing to do with Friday, especially since today is Monday. I like these things every day of the week, or at least almost every day of the week. It’s just that I rarely pass up a chance to employ a little alliteration, so Friday Favorites it is. Even though, as I said, today is Monday.

I know. Don’t ask.

I’ve said this before but it might be worth repeating — Honeycrisp apples are my favorite apple. They’re pricey right now since the season is over, but I buy them anyway. Crisp, juicy, and tart-sweet, I eat one of these every day, sometimes paired with a slice of Swiss cheese, or a dollop of peanut butter. What is your favorite apple?

I’m always on the lookout for a brand of pen I can latch onto and call my own. I need a pen with a large point — fine point pens don’t glide smoothly or quickly enough for me. This pen by Bic is called Velocity and it’s my current choice. It does leave the occasional blob of ink because the point is so large, and I’m not crazy about that. If I find another one that writes this well and is blobless, I’ll make the switch. Do pens make a difference to you? If so, what pen do you prefer?

This is my favorite peanut butter, and I eat some every day. Sometimes I just put some Smucker’s on my Honeycrisp apple slices, other times I spread a little peanut butter on toast. This is the kind that comes separated, and you have to stir and stir the oil and the ground peanuts together very well before you can use it. My OCD method is this: stir carefully and deeply over and over with a butter knife, making sure you don’t displace any oil so it runs down the side of the jar. I hate that. After you stir and fold and stir and fold, then you replace the lid snugly and store it upside down in the refrigerator overnight. Then the next day you can turn the jar back over and you’re good to go. Do you like peanut butter? What kind do you buy?

I’m not much of a makeup person. I do wear it when I’m going out someplace fancy, but even then I don’t wear nearly as much as I did when I was young. A lot for me these days would be concealer, a touch of eye shadow, soft liner, eyebrow pencil, mascara and lip gloss. That much would make me feel a bit clownish, even though I’m sparing when I apply it. Most days I just use eyebrow pencil (because looking like a Caucasian Whoopi Goldberg is not something I aspire to in my old age), lip gloss and Estee Lauder finishing powder. It’s translucent, and it softens the ruddiness that has crept into my fair skin after a dozen or two blistering sunburns when I was a teen. This finishing powder is hardly noticeable, but I notice a difference when I wear it. Do you wear makeup every day or just occasionally? Or not at all? If you do wear cosmetics, what two or three products do you wear most often?

About eight years ago my optometrist did a little test on my eyes to see how my tear production was going. I figured the ducts were just fine since shedding tears could be an almost daily thing for me. Open my Bible, cry. Read a greeting card, cry. See the below zero temperatures outside, cry. Walk on my wonky right knee, cry. See my husband declining, cry. Think of God’s many blessings, cry. Read a loving text from a friend, cry. (In fact, our family had a little joke about my mother’s propensity for crying about happy and sad things, and we used to sing this song from Sesame Street to her and it would make us all crack up. Now I think the song could apply to me.) Anyway, my eye doctor said my eyes were not making an adequate amount of tears and asked me if I’d experienced dry eyes of late. It made me ponder, and it hit me that when I get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and my eyelids are stuck to my gritty eyeballs, that could be a tear production problem. So now I use Systane, and it’s a Godsend. I especially need it at night, and have learned to put a drop in each eye if I wake up to go potty, or to tell Michael he’s only dreaming, or to move Mildred away from behind my knees.

I’ve been using Norwex Antibacterial cleaning cloths for about six weeks now and am totally sold. They actually kill bacteria because they have silver in them, rarely have to be washed, and enable the user to clean household surfaces with only hot water and no chemicals. If you don’t know about Norwex (and I don’t sell the products), try watching a couple of demonstration videos on youtube — they’re easy to find.

This is my favorite lip gloss. Or I guess it’s lip balm by C.O. Bigelow. I’ve used a lot of lip glosses over the years (I remember the first I was ever allowed to use when I was about 12 — it was called Yardley Pot o’ Gloss — anyone remember that?) This one is not too thick and sticky, not too liquidy. Do you use lip gloss? If you do, what’s your favorite?

And this is one of my favorite things to do….to get away for a weekend with my husband to a cabin on one of Minnesota’s 30,000 lakes. These cabins below are where Michael and I are going very soon, just for a short break. They’ll look a little different than they do in the photo…there will be snow on the roofs and the lake will be frozen over, but we plan on mostly staying inside anyway. We’ll enjoy the fireplace, the quiet beauty all around us, sleeping in past 5:50 a.m., and maybe I’ll take a book. Ha. No maybe about it.  🙂

And lastly, this is my favorite baby. Her name is Louisa and she’s my eighth grandchild. Can you believe that sweet grin of hers? Do you have a favorite baby in your life? I’d love to know about him/her!

And now, to my favorite blog readers, I wish you a joyful week full of some of your favorite things!

We have lived in our new house for ten months now. Are you tired of me talking about how many months and days we’ve lived in our new house? I don’t know why I keep mentioning that. We’ve done a few decorating things, but nothing major. A little red and cream toile wallpaper here, a little asymmetrical plate hanging there, but overall I just decided to be content with the modern/Swedish vibe of our home.

Now that we’ve settled in, I realize that I’m missing a place in our home for words. I have always liked having words on the walls in my homes. If you’re new here and you’ve never seen the words on the walls of our old house, you can click here to see the words in the kitchen, and here to see the words on my old office walls.

Not long ago, I happened upon a photo online where the people painted their walls with black chalkboard paint, so they could write on their walls. Before you say blech and wonder why anyone would do something dumb like that, click here. (Once there, be sure to click the right arrows that say “next” so you can see the several different photos of how people used chalkboard paint in brilliant ways in their homes.) I’ll wait while you look, and tell you what I’m up to when you come back here.

Did you see the unique ideas? Did you see the old door painted black and placed behind a bathtub? Did you see how even in a Victorian home they used chalkboard paint above rich oak paneling?

Now take a look at this picture below:

This is the photo I found online that made me stop and say, “Oh my gosh, I want that in my house!” I want a small piece of wall, perhaps a corner even, painted with black chalkboard paint, so we can write words on it. Like Bible verses I’m trying to memorize. Or grocery lists. Or the evening’s menu when we have company. Or birthday wishes. Or a heartfelt prayer. Or drawings, like the birch trees in the home above, or of our Edith and Mildred the Schnauzers. Whatever. I’m just a gal who likes to have words on her walls.

So here’s the wall I’m going to paint. It’s in the dining room, and you can see this wall when you’re standing in the kitchen and looking toward the living room. To the left of this wall are three very tall windows/French doors that let in a lot of light, and look out over Lake Superior.

My daughter Carolyn taped off the area for me with green frog tape, and it’s all ready to paint. Can you envision how the black chalkboard paint will be on the wall where the clock is, and then will be wrapped around to the right where that little piece of wall is, above the shoes? (Click to enlarge the photo if you like.) The bird clock was hung there on the day we moved in because there was a nail there — I need to find a new place for the clock. The old, oak deacon’s bench is a place to store pillows that I don’t like anyplace else, and also the savage, heavy-duty anti-bark collars we must put on our delicate and innocent little Schnauzers each and every time they go outside. Oh! You don’t know that heart-rending story? It’s called A Sad Day In Schnauzerville, and if all this chalkboard paint talk is boring you, you can click here to read about the neighbors who left us an unfriendly note. (I never know who is new here and might not have read some of these scintillating posts.)

I’ll post a picture when I’m done painting our little space with black chalkboard paint.  (I would like to thank Jessica Colvin so much for allowing me to post her photo above — she was so gracious when I asked her permission. Please visit Jessica’s very creative blog here.)

If you have words on your walls, what do they say? And feel free to link to a photo if you have one!

If you were going to put words on your walls, what would they be?

Learn to like what does not cost much.

Learn to like reading, conversation, music.

Learn to like plain food, plain service, plain cooking.

Learn to like people, even those who may be very different from you.

Learn to shelter your family with love, comfort, and peace.

Learn to keep your wants simple. Refuse to be owned and anchored by things and opinions of others.

Learn to like the sunrise and the sunset, the beating of rain on the roof and windows, the gentle fall of snow in the winter.

Learn to hold heaven near and dear.

Learn to love God, for He surely loves you.

~~Anonymous

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I know a couple who have given their whole lives to ministering to God’s people. When one of their sons fell into meth addiction many years ago, they continued to selflessly minister to their flock, encouraging and believing for other peoples’ children, when their own was lost to them for over ten years. When this couple’s prayers were finally answered and their son returned to the Lord and finished his prison sentence, their joy knew no bounds. After five years of being clean, their son returned to the world of meth, and this couple are again praying for his deliverance while they continue to minister to many other hurting people.

I know a Christian woman whose Christian daughter won’t speak to her, even though this woman has humbled herself and begged for forgiveness many times. Her daughter will not allow her to see her grandchildren even though they live in the same town.

I know a Christian couple who are probably two of the most patient, skilled, loving, steadfast parents I’ve ever known, and their adult son has dominated their lives with his anger since he was a baby. And continues to do so.

I have a Christian friend who has prayed every day for over twenty years for her two children to pay a bit of attention to the Lord and the solid spiritual upbringing they received, and my friend has not seen the answer yet.

I know a man with a terrible disease that is slowly taking over his body, and his friends and family and pastor have prayed for his healing, anointed him with oil and prayed prayers of faith and praise for years, and healing has not come.

I have a relative who is the kindest, most generous, loving woman, but her former daughter-in-law hates her faith in Christ and has not allowed her two daughters to see or speak to their grandmother for years. Now they’re grown up and have taken on their mother’s contempt of their grandmother’s love of Jesus, and will not see her, but she prays every day that God will change their hearts.

I know someone who is a woman of prayer. She and her husband raised their three children to love the Lord, and gave them a stable home with a happy marriage for a model. One of the children is openly disdainful toward a God who makes what he sees as unfair rules and judgments, and he does not believe. This woman continues to pray, but has not seen the answers she’s asking for.

I know a young woman whose heart is soft and tender and who loves Jesus with everything she’s got. She has a father who claims to follow Christ but who is full of destructive pride and rage, and has been cruel and hateful to her and her mother for much of her life. She has believed the Bible’s promises about how prayer changes things, but has not yet seen the answer to her cries for her daddy.

I know a believing couple who want God to bless them with a child. Their brothers and sisters have had babies, but they have not conceived, and as she prays each month that a new life will form, she tries not to lose hope and to believe that God hears the cry of her heart.

I know a woman who has a strong, child-like faith in the Lord, and married a man who ended up being an alcoholic. She prayed for years that God would get a hold of her husband, and at times it seemed like He did, but most of the time it seemed like He didn’t. They finally divorced.

I’ll bet you know some people like this too.

Or maybe you have also been praying for something or someone for years and years, and are still waiting for God to move.

The older I get the more I realize how little I know about God. I know that He is good and He is faithful and He is great, but I don’t think I understand His timing and His ways sometimes.

Have you ever felt like that? Have you ever said, “How much longer before you answer this cry of my heart, O Lord?”

It gives me comfort to know that others have prayed that way too.

Like King David….

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I take counsel in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

This is what is speaking to me today. Isaiah 58 from The Message Bible:

It’s snowing again here in Northern Minnesota, big feathery flakes that float down and make everything so soft and bright and lovely. This morning our grandson Elijah and I were looking out over Lake Superior, and even though our house is quite close, we couldn’t see where the white of the Lake and the white of the sky met. It looked like one big expanse of white.

The southern part of gigantic Lake Superior is covered in good-sized shards of ice, and my friend Bob King took a beautiful picture of it for our local newspaper recently. You should check out Bob’s blog — almost anything you could ever want to know about astronomy is there, written in Bob’s friendly, factual and fascinating voice.

I may be taking the alliteration a bit too far today, I don’t know.

If I went outside right now and walked the two blocks to the shore of our Great Lake, this is what I would see:

Except right now there’s no blue sky due to the snow falling. The black dot in the distance is a portable ice house. Yes, some person walked way out onto the Lake, which is hundreds of feet deep and cold enough to cause death by hypothermia within a minute or three, drilled a hole in the ice and dropped a line in.

Elijah and I played a game of Farkle this morning and I won for a change. Next, Michael and I picked up prescriptions, took Elijah home after buying him a small strawberry milkshake, and then on a whim decided our snowy weather called for some sushi. We had a quiet lunch at our local Japanese restaurant, and the California rolls and the tempura were delicious. Michael loves the spicy green wasabi on his sushi but I prefer only the pickled ginger. He says the wasabi is powerful enough to send hot vapors throughout every sinus cavity in his head and make his nose drip, but I have yet to figure out why this is something he wants to happen in a public setting.

Tonight we have to set our clocks ahead one hour, and I think this means that for the time being I’ll be getting up in the dark again. I might have to go to bed at 7:00 p.m. tonight in order to feel peppy in the morning. Actually I might have to do a lot more than that to feel peppy in the morning. Like finish my foster paperwork. And get a new knee.

We have a couple of Netflix DVDs we might watch tonight. One is of this movie, and I don’t know much about it. The other one is this, and I’m not sure if I’m ready for it. Have any of you seen either of these films? I have often received very good recommendations from you all, and if you can think of any other movies you’ve enjoyed, be sure to leave a comment and share, okay?

For a couple of years now, I’ve occasionally watched the den cams placed in the dens of some local bears. Here’s a link where you can see fantastic video of Lily the black bear and her two adorable cubs who were born in January of this year. Seeing what a good mother she is to her two little ones never fails to make me smile, and sometimes even sniffle a little bit.

Now I’m off to put the white clothes into the dryer, work a while on my CBS lesson, write a devotional I’m presenting on Monday morning at Leaders Council (thank God I don’t have to speak about peppiness or food preparation), and then I might meander into our hoity-toity master bathroom where I always assume the role of The Bathroom Fraud, and soak in our deep tub while reading a library book I’m enjoying. Clearly I’m in Work Avoidance Mode, as I haven’t touched a page of paperwork today.

May your weekend be a peaceful one,

Last fall my oldest friend Denel and I held our First Annual Lupi-Soo Convention. Or perhaps it was our First Annual Lupi-Soo Reunion. We convened and we reunited.  If you didn’t see the photos of our trip to the Rocky Mountains, you can click here.  

I chose the destination for our first trip — I had a hankering to be secluded away in a cabin in the mountains. We had a wonderful time in Evergreen, Colorado, even if the “Secluded Chalet” wasn’t quite what was conveyed on the owner’s website. This time we’re going to a place where we’ll be allowed to use more than ten squares of toilet paper per visit, and where (hopefully) there won’t be any leftover feminine products under the bed or discarded lip gloss under the couch. Bleh.

Denel chose the spot for our Second Annual Lupi-Soo (that was going to be the name of our girls’ detective agency when we were ten years old, combining the first letters of our then-last names) and I wonder if you can guess where we’ll be flying?

This peak below will probably always be in our view:

And I’m sure we will stroll through this famous place and grab some wonderful, fresh produce. I’m not sure we’ll buy a lobster, though. Does that give anything away?

Many of you will have guessed by now. I know my friend Shari will have figured it out with the first photo of Mount Rainier.

This view below is what we’ll see….

…after we’ve boarded this elevator to zip us to the top of one of the most recognizable landmarks in the world:

It’s called The Seattle Space Needle. I don’t care for flying, but oddly enough I don’t have a fear of heights, so I should be fine at the top of this structure. As long as there are no earthquakes during the time we’re there. This part of the world is prone to earthquakes, and I really thought I had said goodbye to those when I left SoCal and moved to NoMin.

After a couple days in Seattle, Denel and I will board a ferry to cross Puget Sound, so we can spend two quiet, idyllic days and nights on Bainbridge Island.

Have any of you ever visited Bainbridge? I never have. In fact, I’ve never been to Washington state before.

And Denel found the most amazing “cottage,” which is actually a lovely home, where we’ll relax, catch up, read, sleep in, and refresh. Here’s one of the bedrooms and its stunning view — you can just see Seattle on the left horizon and Mount Rainier to the left of the right tree. (I learned today that Mount Rainier is considered an active volcano….)

Denel and I are planning to meet each other in the Seattle airport this fall, and I’m already working on putting things in place here so I can make the Thursday-Monday trip.

There are meals to plan, appointments to record, plane tickets to purchase and respite care to schedule. But I think the most pressing thing I need to do before I fly off to the Pacific Northwest for The Second Annual Lupi-Soo Reunion/Convention is have one of these ghastly things put in my right knee:

I’ll be seeing a surgeon next month and am praying I’ll be a candidate for a minimally invasive knee replacement, instead of the conventional total knee. In the former, the quadriceps muscle isn’t cut, the surgical incision is half the size, and the recovery time is much less and not as difficult. I will know more soon.

I’m still on Paperwork Status here. I didn’t accomplish as much as I’d hoped to yesterday, and will only be able to do an hour or two of it today, because today is a special day. Aside from being our Schnauzer Edith’s 11th birthday, it’s our granddaughter Lil’ Gleegirl’s 6th birthday! Everyone will be coming over tonight for dinner to enjoy the menu she personally chose: cheese pizza, roasted Brussels sprouts, and dirt cake. Here’s a photo for those who don’t know what dirt cake is. And Lil’ Gleegirl has also asked that we play Pin the Tail on the Donkey, so I’m going to attempt to draw a big donkey and craft some tails. 🙂

What are you up to today?

This morning at Community Bible Study Leaders Council, one of our children’s program teachers, who’s one of the sweetest people I know, shared about encouragement. Carol shared most specifically how it’s okay to ask God to encourage us when we’re really down or discouraged, and the examples she gave about how God has answered that prayer for her were truly marvelous.

Then she closed with a prayer she had found, and I was so moved by it I came home to see if I could find it online. And I did, so I’d like to share it here.

This is a beautiful prayer in praise of the God who encourages us, and it’s by Scotty Smith, the founding pastor of Christ Community Church in Franklin, TN.

A Prayer In Praise of the God Who Encourages Us

     May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.  2 Thessalonians 2:16-17

     Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.  Romans 15:4

For it is the cradle of the Christ, not a manual for self-reform. It shows us that wisdom is a Person—Jesus, not a formula for success. It reveals the depth of our need, so we might boast only in the riches of your provision—the gospel of your grace. It frees us from giving you little bit parts in our stories that we might find our place of servanthood in your story.

Father, may the “eternal encouragement and good hope” of the gospel free us for a day of good deeds and helpful words. May this be a day of loving and serving the people you’ve placed in our lives—a day in which we accept others as you have accepted us in Jesus; a day in which we forgive others as you have forgiven us in Jesus; a day in which we are as forbearing and patient with one another, as you are towards us in Jesus.

As this day begins (and continues), fill our hearts with your beauty, so that our words will offer life-giving encouragement—no matter what we experience from others. May the overflow of our hearts reveal the wonders of your love, not the pressure of our agendas. Give us thick skin and big hearts for whatever providence determines for this day. It we must conflict, may we do so redemptively. Let us repay good for whatever comes as us.

Should we “leak grace” (and surely we will), refuel the joy of our salvation that we might love and serve you well until we climb, once again, into our beds. How we praise you for your steadfast commitment to our encouragement and hope. So very Amen we pray, in Jesus’ merciful and mighty name.

~~~~~Scotty Smith

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I hope someone encourages you today. I hope you can encourage someone else today. And I pray that God Himself would encourage each one of us, especially through His Word.

So many of you encourage me—thank you for that!