Generosity Part 1

I've said it before... but I was wiser when I was ten than I am now. That's because my Dad prided himself on "bringing me up well", and taught me all the things a child should know, including biblical wisdom and common sense learnt and passed down through the generations.

But "bad company corrupts good character" and sin has it's price, and oh how I wish I could snap my fingers and start again where I was at 21 before I met Catherine's Dad. And how I wish building my life back up wasn't such a long process. But building a character is a life long pursuit I guess.

But joy of joys - I've added another piece to the puzzle. Generosity.

You know how you just believed stuff when you were a kid? And when you heard in Sunday School - "It's better to give than to recieve", you just picked it up and ran with it? And now as a cynical adult, you look at world poverty and wonder if God really will provide for you if you don't hoard as much money as you can, and spend all your time with a foreboding about your future as a frail elderly person? No? Is it just me then is it?

Well, I guess that's what Jesus meant when he talked about child-like faith. Simply believing, then acting on it.

Well, the bible says generosity is the way to go. And either we can trust God to be true to His word, or we can't. And here's what I read recently...

"... he who sows sparingly and grudgingly will also reap sparingly and grudgingly, and he who sow generosly will also reap generosly and with blessings" (2 Corinthians 9 verse 6).

Theres alot more I'd like to say, but I'll leave it for later. For now I'll just say that I've decided to put all my eggs in one basket, trust God, and live a life of generosity.

Todays work at the bach

Finally got that durn window painted!

Now for the rest!

Saw horse.

I'm partly showing this to show what I did today (phew!!), but also to point out the cool wood horse my Dad made. Isn't it cool? It folds up and you sit the wood on the top to cut it... and the legs are different widths apart for different lengths of wood.

My Dad made some cool stuff. When he retired he decided to set about perfecting the perfect pie, making his own pastry. (And excitingly enough I've recently rediscovered the recipe he marked in the Aunt Daisy cook book). Anyhow... it was a big solid piece of pine , which sits perfectly over the sink one way, then fits just nicely inside the sink for cleaning the other way. It's the coolest thing ever.

The bible says "Train a child in the way they should go, and when they are old they will not depart from it". Dad often used to say "people have forgotten how to be poor... always buying plastic rubbish and chucking it out when it breaks".

Dad taught me alot of good things, and left me alot of good things, like the fire wood setup at our house for one thing. Four big bins to store it, a chainsaw and an awesome saw-horse... not to mention the experience as a teenager, holding the wood for him while he chopped it so now I know what to do!

Dirt

Now, I don't know if you realise... but a wheelbarrow full of dirt is HEAVY. And I wheeled out around 10 barrel loads today.

I was just going to leave it, but after having our drains replaced, our lawnmower man recommended putting down a mound of dirt on top as it would eventually sink. My Uncle seconded that, then asked if we needed to get a man in. "What?" I said. "No way... it's todays job, I'm fine". About an hour into it and I was wondering if I could ring my uncle to see who he'd recommend.

Well I persevered... and now, after a few full weeks of manual labour I have seen a pattern.

1. Start the day with my to-do list and plenty of optimism

2. About an hour into my labour (chopping wood, weeding, hedge trimming, etc...) I am feeling thoroughly disenheartened with a monologue that goes something like: "Why do I have to do this single-handedly? No matter how hard I work I can't get on top of this $#%^ section. I work and work and it comes to nothing. And why is this so hard now? I used to be able to work and work and without having to take a break every half hour... WHERE HAS MY YOUTH GONE?? etc, etc, etc..."

3. Half way through the job I look up and realise how much I've done, and realise "hey, not bad! I've only got xxxx amount to go"

4. Finish the job. Look around. Feel great that I did that huge job "single-handedly". Show mum and take pictures for my blog.

About Me

I am a 34 year old Mum from New Zealand, with a wee one... Catherine aged 8 who is my little social bunny. She preferres hyperactive social activity while I prefer to snuggle up with a book. We often bump heads, but still manage to get along most of the time. More about me. I worked a signwriter for 7 years and now I make wall stickers from home and do the occassional sign job for church or friends. I am also a make stuff... I sew, crochet, attempt to knit, garden, draw, paint and other things.

The joys of cutting fire wood.

Well, I've been telling myself all morning, if I get this done I'll stick it on my blog. So here we are. See the 2nd to last post for how it looked before. Can you believe it's the same place?? And that wood bin was completely empty at the beginning of the year and look at it now! (Luarna, I havn't forgotten you. If I fill it right up, I'll start chopping wood for you!).

SIGN!!

Am I blowing my own trumpet when I say this has got to be one of the coolest signs I've ever made? Yup... I guess I am! I showed Mum, and she gave me the obligatory praise... but she didn't get it.. It's hand painted and I tried to make it like those signs made in the days when signwriters made signs with finesse. That was my goal,  although it doesn't hold a candle to the really skillfully signwritten signs,  (I really should practice more!!).

By the way, the symbol is the Chineese character for love. It's a gift for a couple our church is linked to.

Look at the humungeous task ahead of me. Turning this

into this!

(Everybody say "Awwww")

Taking pictures for my blog perked me up a bit
... nothing like a bit of whining to get you through a job...

hoping to get through this then plant grass seed before winter comes. Time seems to be running out though... common' me! you can do it!

Fig Jam!

Well, I've been busy in the kitchen. I've made some fig jam. I am giving them away because we have a whole shelf full of uneaten jam and marmalade...

I momentarily thought of saving them for birthdays, but then I thought how cool it was recently when we recieved a package of gifts in the mail when it wasn't anybodys birthday or anything! ( I love presents... yup, it's my love language all right).

I better give the recipe too:

FIG JAM (Aunt Daisy cookbook)

Two and a half pounds figs, 1/2 pound apples, 2 oz preserved ginger, 3 lb sugar, 1/2 cup lemon juice, 2 1/2 cups of water.

Tail figs and slice up small. Peel and cut up apples small. Cut ginger samll. Put all in preserving pan and bring slowly to the boil. Boil about 40 minutes. Test before taking up. A lovely amber colour.

Dinner

It's been a while since I did a dinner post. It's good to be grateful for the little things, isn't it? Check this out! Homemade sparkling grape juice! I boiled up grapes from our grapevine, stirred in some sugar, then added half and half fizzy drink.

I also made some homemade basil pesto from the profusion of basil in our garden. Yay for planting basil in our fertile garden area instead of the dry herb garden. Worked a treat! Recipe here.A wee bit salty. There's so much cheese it doesn't need salt... so I'll know for next time. I also used walnuts instead of pine nuts. I think I'll use pine nuts next time.

Here's our cat, Clyde. Missed all the cute poses, but there he is anyway. He's a bit of a wild one. Not too domesticated. Always coming home from the wars.

And here's us tonight at dinner. That's the most natural pose I could get from Catherine.

And me at the bach again today. The life huh?

I think blogs are like soap operas. You just sit there and get ingrossed with other peoples lives while you sit there in PJs and hair rollers, thinking, Man! his/her life is so cool! I wish I were them!

But anyways... I have been up to something that has given a bit of a sense of achievement lately. Running. I prayed about it too. I said "Lord, help to run again like you helped me give up tea!"

I've been wanting to do it for ages but had so many reasons not to start. And the funny thing is, I was talking to my friend Myra about our reasons for not getting fit, and once I actually spoke them out loud, its like I pinpointed the monstors and was able to shoot them down. It's funny though. My reasons were "I don't have time, and what's more I don't have any of the gear and I'm gonna look like an old lady running around with no shoes". And that's what I did. I just went out to the field out the back of our house and ran with no shoes!! I used to do it all the time as a teenager. But apparently its not the done thing for a 32 year woman, because waiting to greet me on my first ever run around the goal posts was this guy who pointed out my bare feet!! Embarrassing, but not all bad. I took it as encouragement from on-high because he just stood on his veranda with a big smile on his face and gave me a 'well done' speech, even telling me I'd get better over time! He even seemed genuinely interested even though I don't know him from adam. Anyhow... I see him a couple of times a week now as I run and say a "good morning" to him.

Oh yeah. And it was embarrassing enough for me to actually go out a splurg on a new pair of shoes which is probably wise anyway I guess.... coz it's been chilly lately!

The crazies out there.

I recently read this post on some people in the US who picket military funerals. Now why would they do that? I thought. Do they hate war? They must be some kind of peace activist. NOPE. Read this! They were a bunch of christians!!!!
They hold up big signs saying "God hates fags" and "thank God for 9/11". They are predominately focussed on one thing. Homosexuality. Now, I am a Christian myself, and I have alot more sympathy for christians who get it wrong than the average person would have. I mean, I wrote the book of "Dumb things done in the name of christianity". I know what it is to isolate myself and fixate on one aspect of the bible and come up with unbalanced view pionts. And this church seems to be founded by one guy and consists mainly of his own large family (around 70 members).
But when it comes to being "unbalanced" this guy seems to take the cake. You'd think the subtitle of the bible was "God hates gays". Actually... God hates SIN. GOD LOVES PEOPLE.
The bible says every single member of the human race is a sinner. Yes it does say homosexuality is a sin, but it is NO WAY the worst. According to my concordance the worst sins are actually pride and greed. Why? they are the two sins that sever our relationship with God. The first commandment? LOVE GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART!! Pride makes us think we dont need God. Greed sets itself up as another God!
The bible also says don't judge others. We are going to be judged by the same standard we use for others. So man!! that guy (Fred Phelps) is going to be in a pretty pickle on the judgement day when he's judged by his own unmerciful standards. (Oh yeah. God loves us to by merciful, because He is merciful.)
So in summary. We are ALL sinners. You. Me. Jesus was the only perfect person to live. He was the perfect sacrifice who died instead of us. WE deserved to die, (although sometimes it takes God himself to reveal that to us because we tend to judge others harsher than we judge ourselves, if at all!!) but Jesus did instead. Now accept that and you can stumble along with Jesus like me and have a mighty hand helping you every day. ("Whoops!! up you get" :)

A few thoughts

Well, I havnt been in the mood to blog, especially after the Christchurch earthquake. I mean, what could I say? Nothing really, especially not my usually poor-me whine.
I've been listening to it through the ears of christian radio, and universally, on the radio and 2 church services, was the idea that our circumstances and our relationship to God are separate. Did God make it happen? The best answer I heard was from an Oxford lecture at GCC last Sunday, who said "I won't insult your intellence by giving a trite answer" ! "It's a complex question," (it sure is) " and as we sit here comfortably in our chairs it's easy to give flippant answers, but for the mother who has just lost a child it's a whole other story" (not an exact quote, he was more eloquent that that... but you get the idea). He also gave the scientific answer, basically, if you build a city on a fault line... well... it's only a matter of time...
And back to the question... apparently people have argued, these three cannot co-exist. 1. God is all powerful 2. God is all good. 3. Evil exists.
(and to think I thought I was the only one struggling with these questions! No! It's an age old question asked by multitudes!) Apparently a famous aethiest (Dawkins maybe?) has said: if the world was created purely by random chance and with no justice... this universe is the way it would have ended up. Well, the Oxford lecturer said (sorry, forgetting names here), "good, you've answered the question! but where is your answer to pain? Where is hope? you have none!".

I still can't grasp how a good God lets evil happen, but I've come to believe the bible when it says He will make good come out of it. I've seen that in my own life anyway. "Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning".