My husband has had to make his own breakfast for the last two mornings owing to my arthritis flaring up.
When I did the breakfast dishes today, I noticed that there wasn’t a dirty bowl from his oatmeal, just the pot. I realised that this is always the case when he makes his own oatmeal.
When I make his oatmeal, I cook it, spoon it into a bowl, stick a chunk of butter in the middle of it, then sprinkle it with brown sugar and cinnamon and stop to admire the way the brown sugar and butter look–the colours complementing perfectly and the patterns made as they melt together.
When Tyler makes his own oatmeal, he cooks it, grabs a potholder, and eats it right out of the pot, no doubt stopping to admire his efficiency in dirtying only one dish.
Of course, he also thought I was completely brilliant when I taught him how to cook oatmeal on the stovetop (he was simply boiling water and pouring it over dry quick oats like they were one of those instant packets). I’ve told him several times that the directions are on the box, but he still refers to it (facetiously. I think.) as ‘your oatmeal recipe’.
of the most encouraging thoughts posted after Initiative 26 failed to pass (this time). I haven’t been able to get my own thoughts and feelings into words, and I’m not sure I want to share them if I do, but friends posted many helpful thoughts, verses, and hymns on Wednesday morning and I’m putting a few of them together here. Our God still reigns!
Les Riley’s official remarks Tuesday night:
“
‘Lack of even the likelihood of success in the performance of a divinely commanded task does not absolve a man from the duty of making the attempt.’ Elizabeth Goudge ~Virginia M.
~
Very sad at the outcome of Personhood….my heart breaks for the babies, and for the terrible sin that is being allowed to flourish in Mississippi, but I’ve been reminded of what Amy Carmichael wrote once: ‘If God can make His birds to whistle in drenched and stormy darkness, if He can make His butterflies to bear up under rain, what can He not do for the heart that trusts Him?’ May we all trust Him fully today and every day. ~Katie S.
~
I’m very disappointed in the results of the vote, yes, but we are not accepting ‘defeat’. We will continue to spread the Gospel of Christ and to fight for the unborn! God has greatly blessed our efforts (much more than I can begin to list here) and He has allowed us and the whole world to see the apathy of the ‘Bible Belt’. My continued prayer is that this will be a wake-up call for the Church! As John Paul Jones said, ‘I have not yet begun to fight!’ Right now I’m also thinking of Diego in ‘Ice Age’: ‘Who’s up for round two?!’ ~Jennifer F.
~
When peace like a river attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well, with my soul
~Posted by Candace Riley
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The One who created life is the One who holds the outcome of the election in His hand: Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, and the one who formed you from the womb, ‘I, the LORD, am the maker of all things, Stretching out the heavens by Myself, And spreading out the earth all alone.’ Isaiah 44:24 ~Katie C.
~
26 was defeated. God WASN’T caught off guard.
He STILL has not changed, therefore the sons of Jacob are not consumed.
He is STILL perfect in justice and in mercy.
He STILL is working ALL THINGS together for the good of them that love Him.
Christ was NOT lying when He claimed all authority in heaven and on earth as His own.
And we STILL weep, but NOT as those who have no hope!
~Jacob Riley (one of my favourites)
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Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labour is not in vain. 1 Cor. 15:58 ~Posted by Anita C.
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So saddened to hear the results from last night, but our Lord is not surprised by the outcome nor is His truth diminished. May He strengthen those weary from this fight and cause His people to rise and press on for His glory. May God receive all glory! Look to Christ! ~Devin C.
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Praise to the Lord, who, when darkness and sin are abounding,
Who, when the godless do triumph, all virtue confounding,
Sheddeth His light,
Chaseth the horrors of night,
Saints with His mercy surrounding.
May we all praise Him still.
~Hannah M.
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Mississippi has spoken: ‘Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords from us.’
He who sits in the heavens shall laugh;
The Lord shall hold them in derision.
Then He shall speak to them in His wrath,
And distress them in His deep displeasure:
‘Yet I have set My King
On My holy hill of Zion.’
~Posted by Jordan C.
~
And finally:
VICTORY! The Truth was proclaimed and we carry on the fight! ~Katie Carroll
Write, Jake, write. Give back to God what He has given you – this ability to express love to Him through the words you write. Do not write opinions; do not write for self; do not write for others. Write for the God’s glory. Write, dear young brother. Write.
A Transcription of An Ongoing Argument I’m Having With Myself
Facebook is annoying me with all these bizarre changes, not to mention privacy violations. Maybe I’d better delete my account.
But they already have all my information anyway. And even if they didn’t, Google does.
Really, is it something I need to have around? I’ve streamlined my internet time so that I’m wasting way less time. Facebook is the only inefficient thing left.
But I use it to keep up with dear friends I moved away from, not to mention the ones that moved away themselves.
Well, maybe if I don’t have Facebook, I’ll actually write to and email my friends! ‘Friendship’ shouldn’t be dependent on technology. If I really care about these people, I’ll go to a little extra trouble to keep in touch.
But I can’t see pictures that way.
If I really have to see them, I can borrow a sibling’s account. No problemo.
Speaking of siblings, I talk to them on Facebook too.
Like I don’t see them, call them, and text them on a regular basis? Oh yeah, and there’s that whole mailbox and inbox thing–neither were invented as junk mail holders.
But! But! But! How will I stalk people’s walls?
You’re starting to sound desperate. That’s a bad habit anyway.
How will I have up-to-the-minute information on relationship statuses and pregnancies?
I might actually have to talk to people in person!
Where will I post Emma Jane’s pictures and updates for family members who don’t get to see her much?
I might actually blog more than once a month! What a novel concept.
Hey, here’s a clincher: Pinterest is linked to my Facebook account.
I lived without it just fine before last week, but I’ll do a quick Google search. Nope, it won’t be affected at all.
Does the fact that the idea of deleting my Facebook account really bothers me mean, perhaps, that it’s too important to me?
Am I letting Facebook take the place of the flesh-and-blood relationships it’s supposed to represent?
Still thinking about it.
(To Tyler)
I’m thinking about deleting my Facebook account.
(Pregnant pause)
Don’t pressure me about it. I’m just letting you know what’s on my mind.
Yesterday, I was six months old. Today, I tried a mashed banana for the first time. I made a lot of Truly Hilarious Faces and did a lot of Very Cute Things, and my mommy captured them all for posterity.
This is what I looked like at the start, before Mommy gave me my first bite.
This is how I reacted to the first bite.
After I had that first bite, I thought, ‘Hmmm! It’s not mommy-milk, but it’s not so bad!’
So Mommy thought it would be a good moment to give me another bite. I thought, ‘Well! Maybe it is so bad!’
I asked Mommy, ‘Why me?’
She was too busy laughing at me to answer.
I have to admit, I could see the funny side of the situation too.
But still!
Seriously, Mommy, have a little dignity, not to mention sympathy.
Then I found the source of this stuff!
Carefully, I wiped my fingers.
And started to check it out.It didn’t take me long to figure out that Mommy had it all wrong. See, she thought this banana stuff was for eating, but really, it’s for playing!
Tyler and I spent our entire evening looking at my old letters, journals, and other paraphernalia from my teen years. I saved everything–some of the stuff I couldn’t even place and we only got through one box (and that was skimming). I have school notebooks full of detailed notes on my history and government books (wow, I kinda miss ‘em), short stories, articles I wrote for no other reason than ‘I have an opinion and I’m gonna write it!’ (this was pre-blogosphere), letters, drawings from my siblings (some of them mere scribbles with no signature or date–I have no idea what made them more special than the other five hundred or so scribbles they gave me for my bulletin board), and masses of random ticket stubs, certificates, wedding programs, political flyers, and all the other things that have survived 15 years of purging and moves. Yes, there were several things in that shoebox dating back to 1996! I have a certificate stating that I won third place in a church baking contest when I was eight and a Christmas card from my great-grandmother from the same year (the only personal thing about it is the signature ‘Love Grandma’ under the printed message).
Also:
A Precious Moments jewelry box holding my entire jewelry collection from age eleven (a broken locket and charm bracelet, and a friendship necklace from someone I rarely see these days), and ‘I’m the Big Sister’ button from the day Annie was born, a business card from the 2001 Mississippi state flag referendum, a menu from the tearoom Mama and I visited on my fifteenth birthday, and a ticket stub from ‘The Lipazzaner Stallions at the Pyramid’ a decade ago. That last one was a very special ‘daddy date’ with my sisters which is still a sweet memory when my interest in horses has been non-existent for at least half of that time. I remember that Daddy was nervous about the dangers of being in downtown Memphis at night. It’s strange how strange the path our Lord leads us down can be. I now go to church literally in the shadow of the Pyramid.
I still have half a dozen short stories in various stages of completion from my days as ‘the next L.M. Montgomery’ (or G.A. Henty, or Laura Ingalls Wilder–I wasn’t particular). We only read one, a story about a fictional Indian tribe which I fondly believed was satirical. Tyler got a lot of laughs out of it. Maybe tomorrow I’ll break out my historical fiction tale which included my great-great-great grandfather as a character. Then again, I’m not sure I can laugh at my fourteen-year-old self’s attempts to be serious as readily as at her attempts to be funny. (All this is reminding me strongly of a passage in one of the Anne books–name that book.)
But the letters were the real highlight. When I was about eighteen I got rid of all the letters I wrote to my friends when I was between ten and fifteen and I regret this, but there’s no helping it now. They might have been nostalgia overload. I had a few official pen-pals (they were all the rage before message boards and blogs), but the ones I miss are those that came from friends I’d moved away from.
I still have everything from sixteen on. Reading them made me teary-eyed. Most of them date from 2006 on. Reading them through brought back some sweet memories of the road I’ve been led down by our Lord’s loving hand (and a few not-so-sweet recollections of the byways my own stubborn heart led me down).
There was a random and somewhat confusing letter from my beloved sister and roommate. It was very sweet, but the tone of it puzzled me a lot; had we had an argument? I remember finding the letter on my pillow, but I have no idea what sparked it. There were notes from my pastor and my grandmother when I was diagnosed with my arthritis; there was a sweet card from a random dozen roses from Daddy; there was a birthday card from Ellen signed ‘Marg’ (if you didn’t know, Margie is her first name and she went through a couple of phases of calling herself that); there was a card from Trey when he was about thirteen with an original poem. I found a pile of letters from a friend I haven’t talked to in a year, reminding me to drop her a note.
And I found two notes, dating two years apart, from one of my dearest friends, that were striking mainly because of their timing in our respective lives. It was remarkable to see how she wrote, five years ago, of learning her need for God, when at the time we both were convinced that we were depending on Him while completely full of ourselves—over the next year or two He would bring us both to an end of ourselves to finally, truly depend on Him. In the card she sent me for my twentieth birthday she hoped that the year would ‘be a constant unfolding of the perfect plan of your Father’, and thinking back, it was. It seems strange to pick that year when I met my husband the next, but if it hadn’t been for the hard chiselling that went on in 2008, 2009′s wonderful changes wouldn’t have been possible. I love it when He gives me a little glimpse of ‘the back of the tapestry’ like this.
The writing of notes and letters is a form of hidden art that is now forgotten by many–including myself these days. I know two of the dearest girls (or are we women now?) who practice it inveterately. Ell and KK, thanks for your written words that gave me smiles and tears this evening years after they left you.
While I was writing this post I started scribbling down a list of people I need to write to–real, in-the-mail letters.
One of the many great things about having babies is getting to name them. You get a whole person to yourself to christen according to your own taste. Other people may have input, but in the end no one else’s vote counts.
Well, okay, one other’s does.
Then you get to discuss and debate and make lists and compare options and compromise and rethink the whole thing three weeks before the baby’s born right after everything is monogrammed (okay, that last part isn’t actually from personal experience).
When I was fourteen my favourite name was Savannah Claire. My daddy told me that his first question for my suitors would be ‘Do you like the name Savannah Claire?’, and if the reply was yes, he’d show the young man out the door. He may have been teasing me. I still like both names (especially Savannah, which is very Southern-belle and is also the name of a good friend), but not together. And not on my top-three list.
By the time Tyler and I married my taste in names had matured. For one thing, I had decided that I wanted to name daughters after my favourite historical heroines, Lady Jane Grey and Sarah Edwards. At first I combined them into a double name, Sarah Jane. By the time I got pregnant I had decided that that was too close to my sister’s name, Sarah Joy, and also that ‘Emma Jane’ had a better ring.
Unlike many of our friends, we didn’t have a very hard time with names, although we put some discussion into it. During early pregnancy Tyler had begun reading through the Old Testament. He was struck by the story of Phinehas (Numbers 25), the priest’s son whose zeal for the Lord turned judgement away from Israel. So our boy name was to be Phinehas Lee (inspired by another of my heroes, Robert E Lee, and the fact that both of us have lots of family members named Lee). The girl name took a little longer, because as Tyler kept reading, he ran across the story of Jael (Judges 4&5), a woman who was praised for slaying an enemy of God’s people with a tent peg. Since running someone through with a spear is what Phinehas is famed for, we joked that Tyler just liked names that had to do with sharp objects. Jael and Emma Jane were neck and neck for a while, but obviously, we settled on the latter, although with further discussion on whether it was to be a single first name (Emma-Jane) with another middle name (I briefly raised the idea of making it one word–Emmajane–but Tyler vetoed that idea).
(Incidentally, let me clear up some confusion. Emma is my nickname. Our daughter has the double name, Emma Jane. So, I’m Emma, she’s Emma Jane.)
The other night I was doodling possible names for future children (D.V.). After Emma Jane was born, Tyler changed his mind about Jael for our next daughter. He selected the name Sophia Marie–Sophia because of its meaning (‘Wisdom’) and Marie because he thinks it’s pretty. We’re still stuck on Phinehas for a boy (unless Trey and Candace, who also love it, get to it first). But not Phinehas Lee. All the men in Tyler’s family have their father’s first name for a middle name (his great-grandfather was Leon, his grandfather Delee Leon, his father Bruce Delee, and Tyler’s name is Tyler Bruce), so it will be Phinehas Tyler. That was my original vote for Emma Jane had she been a boy, but at the time Tyler didn’t like the idea (mainly because he doesn’t love his first name). He’s become much more of a tradition-lover since. Before we knew Emma Jane’s gender we called her PhinEmma-Jane. I noticed that our picks for our next child blend much more seamlessly: SoPhinehas. We’re already calling our still-hypothetical second child by that name.
We have a scramble of names we like for further children. My two top boy picks are Riley (definitely using it somewhere down the road, even if it’s for a girl’s middle name) and Ezekiel. Riley should be obvious. I just decided I loved Ezekiel the other day when I was thinking about Ezekiel 16, which is a passage rivalling all the glories of Isaiah in the middle of a very hard-to-understand prophet. When I was doodling I put them together: Riley Ezekiel or Ezekiel Riley. But I like them both as first names too much to use them that way.Tyler’s favourite boy name is Rousas John, after his favourite theologian. I am thankful that he agrees with me that Rousas (which is Armenian) is not a good name to actually call a little boy by.
Jael is still on Tyler’s top girl name list. And my third pick is Priscilla. I kinda like the sound of Priscilla Jael. So, for girls, we have Jane after Lady Jane Grey, a prodigy in her day; Sophia, which means Wisdom; Priscilla, who was the theologically astute wife of a companion of Paul the Apostle; and Jael, who was a shrewd and wise woman of whom the prophetess uses Proverbs 31-esque language. Wow, I hope our daughters aren’t intimidated by their names.
Of course, there are a few more knocking around in there, and other heroes, heroines, and family members to honour.
Emma Jane Upchurch
Phinehas Tyler Upchurch
Sophia Marie Upchurch
Riley Ezekiel Upchurch
Priscilla Jael Upchurch
Rousas John Upchurch
Now, all we have to do is have six children. And all they have to do is be accommodating enough to come in a tidy ‘girl, boy, girl, boy’ order.
