Psalm 84:1-2

How lovely is your dwelling place,
O Lord of hosts!
My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God.

This is from the ESV.
I pray that it is true of my heart.
Sometimes God has to make things on earth a little bleaker than we'd like them, in order to get us to look up and long for what He has in store for us in heaven.

Psalm 82:3-5

"Give justice to the weak and the fatherless;
maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.
Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.
They have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk about in darkness;
all the foundations of the earth are shaken."
(ESV)

Dear Lord, help me to understand what this means. Sometimes poverty is the result of wickedness. Sometimes the sins of the fathers affect many generations that follow (Exodus 34:7). Lord, how do we figure out what justice is? Do we simply give love and mercy, and leave the justice to you? Is it OK to give money to someone I am pretty sure will spend it on drugs or alcohol? Who are the wicked? Is there a difference between a wicked poor person and a regular poor person? Is there no such thing as a wicked poor person?

I am very confused. But it makes me think of Micah 6:8...

"He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"
(ESV)

Psalm 80:19

"Restore us, O LORD God of hosts! Let your face shine, that we may be saved!" (ESV)

"Restore us, LORD God Almighty; make your face shine on us, that we may be saved." (NIV)

"Turn us again, O LORD God of hosts, cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved." (KJV)

I actually like the KJV here: Turn us again.

Please, God, turn our hearts back to you. Why are we so prone to wander? Please fix our direction and shine your face on us, your loving, powerful, almighty face. It is only through your Spirit and your power that we can ever be saved. Although Jesus took the miraculous steps needed to save us, although He gave his life to redeem ours by suffering, dying and rising again, we cannot even begin to comprehend or accept the truth about Jesus until your face shines understanding and love for you into our hearts. Teach us to depend on you, to look to you, to follow you. Teach us to love you.

A New Focus

Today I read some stuff from my old blog, the really old one I did through a teenie-bopper web journal before I started these two. I don't think that old blog exists anymore, and if it does, I have no idea where to find it, but I had been laboriously copying and pasting each entry into Word so I could keep it for posterity, and today I pulled up that old Word document and read some of it.

In the old days, I went through a blogging spell where I did "VOTD" which stood for Verse of the Day. Sometimes I wrote about the verse of the day, and sometimes I simply quoted it.

I am going to try to start doing that again, here.

I hope I can keep up with it.

We shall see what happens.

Smoothie Recipe

Just posting this here for lack of somewhere else to post it, not that it has anything to do with this blog, but nobody reads this blog, so it doesn't make any difference...

I'm hoping to get Shannon onto eating breakfast, and preferably a healthy breakfast without too many sugar and white flour carbs like your average bagel, juice and coffee breakfast. Also, this is something I can hand her on her way to the car and she can sip it as she goes. The rest of us drink kefir smoothies, but Shanny took one look at kefir grains and refused ever to let kefir pass her lips again.

Smoothie I'm hoping Shanny will like:

Vanilla yogurt (~1/2 cup)
Orange juice (~1 cup)
Frozen strawberries (~2/3 cup)
Two bananas
Oatmeal (uncooked flakes) (~1/3 cup)
Ground flax seed (~2 rounded tablespoons)

I made this today and Jon and I shared it. It was tasty, if a bit grainy, and plenty for two, so if Shanny makes these for herself next year, she can half the recipe. I'd like to try it with a scoop of whey protein powder, probably vanilla. Our bananas were room temperature; it would be better with chilled or frozen bananas. I can't remember if Shannon hates bananas in smoothies. Somebody does. I hope it is not her, because bananas are so handy and affordable.

Finally?

I think spring is finally here.

It is 71 degrees, for one thing. I went to the doctor this morning and I didn't wear a coat, only a sweater, and a three-quarter length sleeve sweater at that.

The best thing: the tiny leaves are starting to grow, spreading a soft green mist among the bare branches.

Daffodils are up.

Forsythia is blooming. Forsythia is not my favorite, crazy yellow shrub. But it is definitely a sign of spring, so I always welcome it, zany as it may seem.

The hyacinths are up, too. They always look a little forced and artificial to me, but they are undeniably pretty in all their varied pinks, purples and blues.

If it just doesn't snow tonight, I think we'll be in business.

A year later

I haven't posted here for nearly a year.

It has been a difficult year.

This past winter was brutal. It started early and snowed hard, froze hard, and continued long.

This week is spring break, with Easter coming on Sunday. Temperatures are predicted to be in the 40-50 range with lots of rain. Last night, howling wind, thunder and lightening kept me from peaceful sleep. My daffodils are up, but they look pale in the dim, clouded atmosphere. I don't feel like taking pictures of them. The rabbits ate most of the rest of my landscaping... the holly and the rose-of-sharon are bare of bark. We will likely have to replace a lot.

It is a good atmosphere for practicing Habakkuk 3:17-19.

On a bright note, DJ is doing better.