When God made time, He made enough of it.

Celtic saying

A month ago, I wrote about 10 ways to save $100 this year.  My mom says I need to go back and make a disclaimer about that post.  I am absolutely certain that I could save $100 (or more) this year if I followed those 10 things, but I would have to give up long drives to nowhere and thrift store treasure hunting.

Long drives to no where are almost as good as marriage counseling and thrift store treasure hunting is cheaper than retail therapy at the mall.

By the way, today I bought 2 pairs of funky embroidered Coldwater Creek jeans, a glass pitcher with etched flowers, a jar lifter and bubble remover thingy, and an ironing board.

The only thing that wasn’t on my list was the ironing board.  But it was such a great heavy duty ironing board that I just couldn’t pass it up.  They don’t make ironing boards like that anymore.

Not that I actually iron…

…but it will come in handy when I start quilting.

Last week Family Life Today (a radio program) was having a marriage and money theme week.  They were talking with author Scott Stanley who co-authored You Paid How Much For That?: How to Win at Money Without Losing at Love

He said, “Men will pay $2 for any $1 item that they really want.  Women will pay $1 for any $2 item whether they want it or not.”

And now I own a full sized, antique, super heavy duty ironing board.  Do you know how much that type of ironing board would cost new?

Growing up, my parents had an Ecuadorian poncho that my Dad had picked up when he served for a summer as a Wycliff missionary in Quito, Ecuador.  The poncho was about the size of a twin bed blanket.  It was green, yellow and blue striped with the colors you can only find in South America.  At the bottom, it had fringe to my young-girl-heart’s delight.

Whenever I heard the story of Joseph and his coat of many colors, I always imagined him wearing that poncho.

The story of Joseph is basically how God took human failings and turned it into good.  Joseph’s brother sold him into slavery and many years later, Joseph was 2nd only to Pharoah in Egypt.  Joseph persevered through the dark times, he continued to work with diligence and excellence, honoring God in all that he did.

Whatever you are going through right now, know that God sees you in these dark days.  Persevere.  He means it all for good in His ultimate plan.

I believe I do love Jesus, but most of the time I’d rather spend time being entertained than spend time in God’s word. How do I break this hold that entertainment has on my heart?

That’s a very good question. And I think it’s especially relevant because we live, I think, more now than ever, in a day when entertaining kinds of things are immediately accessible.

I was thinking the other day of the difference between our temptations and, say, 250 years ago, the day of Jonathan Edwards. Edwards would write about the folly of young people getting together to do “frivolous conversation” or other worse things. (“Bundling” it was called: getting in bed together and keeping your clothes on, that sort of thing. Just spice up life a little bit. Life gets boring in New England 250 years ago.)

Today we carry in our pockets radio, television, internet, and games, and anything that would be titillating, fun! And “fun” is a word in the church today that’s just rampant! It’s an adjective, it’s a noun, it’s a verb, because we do ministry in order to fit this mentality.

I’m deeply concerned about that. I want to stand for seriousness about God, instead of making him palatable by making him “fun”! Turning him into another piece of entertainment.

So this question is, “How do you break free from that kind of addiction?”

1. Recognizing it is a huge step in the right direction.
2. Seek the Lord earnestly about it. Pray like crazy that God would open your eyes to see wondrous things out of his law.
3. Immerse yourself in the Bible, even when you don’t feel like it, pleading with God to open your eyes to see what’s really there.
4. Get in a group where you talk about serious things.
5. Begin to share your faith. One of the reasons we are not as moved by our own faith as we are is because we almost never talk about it to any unbeliever. It starts to feel like a kind of hothouse thing, and then it starts to have a feeling of unreality about it. And then the powers of entertainment have more sway in our life.

And so those would be some of the things, but ultimately it’s a gift of grace to feel the glory of God.

One last suggestion: think about your death. Think about your death a lot. Ask what you’d like to be doing in the season of life, or hours or days, leading up to meeting Christ. I do that a lot these days. I think about the impact of death, and what I would like to be found doing, and how I would prepare to meet him and give an account to him.

By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to 18 and came up with $160,140.00 for a middle income family. Talk about price shock! That doesn’t even touch college tuition.

But $160,140.00 isn’t so bad if you break it down. It translates into:
* $8,896.66 a year,
* $741.38 a month,
* $171.08 a week.
* A mere $24.24 a day!
* Just over a dollar an hour.

Still, you might think the best financial advice is: don’t have children if you
want to be ‘rich.’ Actually, it is just the opposite.

What do you get for your $160,140.00?
* Naming rights. First, middle, and last!
* Glimpses of God every day.
* Giggles under the covers every night.
* More love than your heart can hold.
* Butterfly kisses and Velcro hugs.
* Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds, and warm cookies.
* A hand to hold usually covered with jelly or chocolate.
* A partner for blowing bubbles and flying kites.
* Someone to laugh yourself silly with, no matter what the boss said or how
your stocks performed that day.

For $160,140.00, you never have to grow up. You get to:
* finger-paint,
* carve pumpkins,
* play hide-and-seek,
* catch lightning bugs,
* never stop believing in Santa Claus.

You have an excuse to:
* keep reading the Adventures of Piglet and Pooh,
* watch Saturday morning cartoons,
* go to Disney movies, and
* wish on stars.

You get to frame rainbows, hearts, and flowers under refrigerator magnets
and collect spray painted noodle wreaths for Christmas, hand prints set in
clay for Mother’s Day, and cards with backward letters for Father’s Day.

For a mere $24.24 a day, there is no greater bang for your buck. You get to
be a hero just for:
* retrieving a Frisbee off the garage roof,
* taking the training wheels off a bike,
* removing a splinter,
* filling a wading pool,
* coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs, and
* coaching a baseball team that never wins but always gets treated to ice
cream regardless.

You get a front row seat in history to witness the:
* First step,
* First word,
* First date,
* First time behind the wheel.

You get to be immortal. You get another branch added to your family tree, and if you’re lucky, a long list of limbs in your obituary called grandchildren and great-
grandchildren. You get an education in psychology, nursing, criminal justice,
communications, and human sexuality that no college can match..

In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there under God. You have all the power to heal a boo-boo, scare away the monsters under the bed, patch a broken heart, police a slumber party, ground them forever, and love them without limits, so one day they will, like you, love without counting the cost. That is quite a deal for the price!!!!!!!

Love & enjoy your children & grandchildren & great-grandchildren!!!!!!!
It’s the best investment you’ll ever make!!!!!!!!!

Next time someone asks you what you do at home all day, you can answer, “I’m building cathedrals.” The text that follows is slightly different than the video, but the message is the same:

It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I’m on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I’m thinking, ‘Can’t you see I’m on the phone?’ Obviously, not.

No one can see if I’m on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I’m invisible. The invisible Mom. Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this? Some days I’m not a pair of hands; I’m not even a human being. I’m a clock to ask, ‘What time is it?’ I’m a satellite guide to answer, ‘What number is the Disney Channel?’ I’m a car to order, ‘Right around 5:30 , please.’

I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude – but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She’s going; she’s going; she is gone!

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England … Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, ‘I brought you this.’ It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe I wasn’t exactly sure why she’d given it to me until I read her inscription:

‘To Charlotte , with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.’

In the days ahead I would read – no, devour – the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work:

• No one can say who built the great cathedrals – we have no record of their names.
• These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished.
• They made great sacrifices and expected no credit.
• The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.

A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, ‘Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it. And the workman replied, ‘Because God sees.’ I closed the book, feeling the missing pieces fall into place.

It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, ‘I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you’ve done, no sequin you’ve sewn on, no cupcake you’ve baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can’t see right now what it will become.’

At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride. I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on.

The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree.

When I really think about it, I don’t want my son to tell the friend he’s bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, ‘My Mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table.’ That would mean I’d built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, ‘you’re gonna love it there.’

As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we’re doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.

Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful — Warren Buffett

Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you.
Dr. Seuss

If you never did, you should. These things are fun, and fun is good.
Dr. Seuss

So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.
Dr. Seuss

The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer;
My God, my strength, in whom I will trust:
My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised;
So shall I be saved from my enemies.

Psalm 18:2-3.

I have carried you since you were born; I have taken care of you from your birth. Even when you are old, I will be the same. Even when you hair has turned gray, I will take care of you. I made you and will take care of you.

Isaiah 46