Clothes

"The Mother of all Sales"

 

That was the subject line of a quasi-spam email I received today from a favorite women's clothing store.  How is that not irresistible??  Mother of all sales?  Yes, please!

 

Sadly, it's not time to shop for Rach clothing, it is well beyond time to shop for Hubby clothing.

 

PS - I still have not purchased shoes since July...come July 25, 2009 I shall go nuts in the nearest shoe store and have already started a mental list of "Shoes I Need To Buy".  Strangely enough, sneakers that are not Kangaroos are on that mental list.  What in the world has happened over the past year?!

Love

Sometimes we all need a little reminder of this...

 

April 30, 2009
Love Is a Choice
by Rick Warren

In our Devotionals series, Pastor Rick Warren discusses the Bible passages that inspire him the most. Today's Devotional is based on this passage:

"...That you may love the Lord your God, listen to His voice, and hold fast to Him. For the Lord is your life, and He will give you many years in the land He swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" (Deuteronomy 30:20 NIV).

Love is a choice and a commitment. You choose to love or you choose not to love.

Today we've bought into this myth that love is uncontrollable, that it's something that just happens to us; it's not something we control. In fact, even the language we use implies the uncontrollability of love. We say, "I fell in love," as if love is some kind of a ditch. It's like I'm walking along one day and bam!—I fell in love. I couldn't help myself.

But I have to tell you the truth: that's not love. Love doesn't just happen to you. Love is a choice and it represents a commitment.

There's no doubt about it, attraction is uncontrollable and arousal is uncontrollable. But attraction and arousal are not love. They can lead to love, but they are not love. Love is a choice.

You must choose to love God; he won't force you to love Him (Deuteronomy 30:20). You can thumb your nose at God and go a totally different way. You can destroy your life if you choose to do that. God still won't force you to love Him. Because He knows love can't be forced.

And this same principle is true about your relationships: you can choose to love others, but God won't force you to love anyone.

Kids

Today is Bring Your Child To Work Day and I got to be a stop on the scavenger hunt that was one of the organized activities my office was doing for the day.  Two groups of kids (ages 6-14) came to my action center and had a series of questions for me:

 

What's your name?

What's your job title?

What exactly do you do for your job?

And one bonus question.

 

The first group was a bit younger (I have no idea how young, they were between 6 and 7 hands high...yes, being the former horsewoman I am I still measure things in "hands", what's it do you?)  The conversation went a little something like this:

 

"What's your name?"

 

"Rachael"

 

"What's your job title?"

 

"Auditor"

 

"What does that mean?"

"You know how you have rules at home that your Mom and Dad make?"

"Yeah, like 'don't jump on my bed'?"

"Yeah, kinda. Well the government makes rules about how the Company runs our business. My job is to make sure the Company is following all the rules."

"So like what kind of rules? I don't see any beds to jump on."

The little guy who asked the question was adorable and said, "I bet they pay for candy, it's less expensive than pencils."

I wanted to hug him.

(Bonus Question: What's your favorite color? Answer: Purple.)

Nonsense

Obviously this woman is speaking nonsense.  You can see that right? 

 

She claims, "Each faith by itself is enough to fulfill a person spiritually."  "It's all there. I am not saying you have to go somewhere else to be complete. Some people don't need glasses, some people need single lenses. I need bifocals."

 

She is wrong. 

 

She claims that by reciting the shahada she has not denied anything about Christianity. 

 

She is wrong.

 

Let's not get into my feelings about her being an ordained minister (for I'm sure this could just as easily been a story about a man), but I was pleased to read that the Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Rhode Island where she was ordained has effectively un-ordained her.

 

Seriously?  How long has this gone on?  How long was The Way, The Truth, and The Life not preached as the only way to the people of her church who have been placed under her care?  No one gets to the Father except through Jesus.  Jesus plus nothing.  How did she miss that as a teacher/preacher/priestess?  Hopefully in her quest to learn more about both religions she will come to that realization and be able to minister to others who have been deceived by The Enemy.

 

Need to learn more about the inconsistencies between Christianity and Islam?

 

This week's sermon at church was on Islam and how their belief structure compares to Christianity (part of a series entitled "Destination Truth" which started off examining Christian beliefs and in it's second have has been examining other world religions and now they compare with Christianity.)  Check it out on www.frontlinedc.com.