Sunday, November 23, 2008

"I'm Yours"

Last night's service was called "Missing the Point of Work."

Here are the main points:
  1. Work should be done with GRATITUDE. (Ecclesiastes 5:18b-19) Wealth is what is accumulated, not a measure of who we are. This has been God's intent from the beginning. Your attitude affects your "fragrance." (2 Corinthians 2:14)
  2. Work should be done with DILIGENCE. (Proverbs 10:4; 12:24; 22:29a) Work hard, work smart & work healthy. (Proverbs 6:6-9) Remember these points about ants: 1) initiative; 2) planning-are you proactive or reactive?; 3) timing; 4) persistence; and 5) longevity-how long before you wear out?
  3. Work should be done with EXCELLENCE. (Ephesians 6:5-6, where slaves = employees, masters = employers) Work with motivation to be faithful and having integrity. Be an honest worker. Follow the "2nd Mile Principle" (Matthew 5:40-41, 44, 46).
  4. Work should be done as MINISTRY. (Colossians 3:17) Your occupation is WHAT you do. Your job is WHERE you do it. Your vocation is WHY you do it (as a minister of Christ). We all have different ways to operate, but the same function: to be ministers of Christ.

The evening ended with a song written by our worship minister, though he was not there. Tears found their way streaming down my cheeks because its message matches how I feel about my life.

I'm Yours by Kevin Ross

You, O Lord created me and passioned me

You, o Lord have blessed me with ability

So what else can I do

But give myself to you

And let my life display your woner

Everything I am is according to Your plan

I'm created to praise You

Everything I have is Yours

I wanna live my life for Your glory

I'm giving You my life, my dreams

I'm Yours

Everything I hope to be

Is under Your authority

There's nowhere else I want to be, I'm Yours

You, O Lord laid down your life as a sacrifice

You, O Lord have rescued me and set me free

Thursday, November 06, 2008

Fun Contest Giveaways!

Mojave Tui from EcoGear


I try to regularly check in on my friend living in Laos who runs a regular blog called Mom Most Traveled full of eco-friendly and kid-friendly product reviews. She brings a fresh face to "mom-test, kid-approved."



She's got this great one for EcoGear which sells fun and eco-friendly backpacks that are super well made and comfortable to wear. I really want to get the Pig backpack from the Ecozoo line because it will be great advertisement for the Siem Reap Pig Project. The other backpacks just look really cool, and I could always use a new one since my North Fake from China has got a hole from where a rat chewed into it back in 2004.



The post for the EcoGear stuff is found here on Mom Most Traveled.
NEWS FLASH!!! I just found out that Just We Moms is having a contest to win this very same Pig Pack! Yippee!
I hope I win.
I hope I win.
I hope I win.

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Get out and vote woman!

This was forwarded to me, and though I don't usually forward forwards, I did send this one along (after cleaning it up a bit) to some of my favorite femail addresses.

While I know that women had to fight for the right to vote, I don't ever remember hearing about specifics of what that fight entailed. After reading this I'm reminded that it is not only a privledge and a right to vote and that by exercising that right we honor the memory of these feisty, couragous and strong women. So no matter your political affiliation by all means GO VOTE!!!

A message for all women
HOW QUICKLY WE FORGET...IF WE EVER KNEW...WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE

This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers; they lived only 90 years ago.
Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.
The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote.

Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.

And by the end of the night, they were barely alive.

They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.

They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead.

When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.
For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms.

So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?

Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie 'Iron Jawed Angels.' It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.

All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.

My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was ---- with herself. 'One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,' she said. 'What would those women think of the way I use, or don't use, my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.' The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her 'all over again.'

HBO released the movie on video and DVD . I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy.
The doctor admonished the men: 'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.'
Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know.

We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party - remember to vote.

History is being made.