Yesterday was one of those days where everything on my to-do list did not get done; so her are my Friday Reflections on a Saturday.

Hard to believe, but another school year is drawing to an end for us.  Finals are next week and the Ken's Sabbatical begins!  My job has been renewed for another school year.  The astronomy outreach program I work for is really growing-there is even an article in the June issue of Sky and Telescope about us.   Currently we have five asteroid search campaigns running with 79 schools from around the world participating.  Exciting Times!!  Things will slow down for the summer, but then in the fall there is talk of doubling our current load.  My boss keeps telling me it is about to get busy.

Bible Reading: Day 119-Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!

Daily Bible Reading; Day 120-Walk in a manner worthy of your calling

Daily Bible Reading: Day 121-Clear contrasts between those chosen by God and those facing His wrath.

Daily Bible Reading: Day 122-Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.  And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. 

Daily Bible Reading: Day 123-There's that verse we women love to hate.

Happenings in the Quilt Studio- a project that I have been working on for months is finally finished and it came with a surprise.

God, the Gospel, and the Gay Challenge- Al Mohler has written a response to Matthew Vines' book God and the Gay Christian.  At the end of this article there is a link to download Mohler's book for free.

What You Can Learn from Calvin and Hobbes about the Message and the Medium-"The only appropriate media for communicating the gospel are lives and words. Christians have to wrap themselves up in the good news of Jesus Christ, live that mystery together in the fellowship of the church, and give the world something worth seeing. And they have to explain it in the form of sound doctrine, explaining biblical truth, making the message clear as only words can. There is a strong temptation these days to seek refuge in the claim that “my life is my testimony,” as if a set of behaviors could take the place of preaching, teaching, witnessing, and the host of other verbal interactions the New Testament is about. But the gospel is wordy, just as it is lifey. It just isn’t very bumper stickery."

A New Sew Along with EQ7-Starting Monday Electric Quilt is doing a sew along that offers to help us all learn to use their EQ7 software for quilt design.  My schedule will not allow me to do this, sigh, there is so much more I know I could do with this software.  I hope they will do it again in the future.

Blessings!
Deb

I have started to actually use the site Good Reads this week.  With a vast array of books in my library and on my Kindle I need to read more.  Books are as tempting for me to collect as fabric and quilt patterns.  I see something I really like,  bring it home, maybe even start to read it, and then it just sits there lost to my schedule of otherliness.  I thought I was making up a new word, but alas, when I searched on Google it actually pulled up links for queries on whether it was in a Scrabble dictionary.  The answer was no, no, no, and no.  And there was no known definition in any dictionary.  Goody!  I get to tell you what it means!  Otherliness-the quality or state of being busy with other things of equal or lesser importance.

One of the things that Good Reads does is recommend books to me based on my ratings of books.  Today it gave me recommendations based on my feelings about Strunk and White's Elements of Style.  

I happen to like that book and it has a fun family history in our home.  Late one night after the boys had gone to bed I came into the room where my husband was and began to read a section of it to him out of pure delight for what it was saying.  The boys were not sleeping but heard this wonderful little exchange and unbeknownst to us stored up their knowledge ofthis exchange for the future.  

It came one afternoon many years later when we were sitting at the table with a group of friends after church one Sunday.  The topic turned to one of how our children used the ventilation systems in our home to hear that which we thought was secret.  In every home we have ever lived there are certain rooms that carry sound well to another.  In this particular case, the room where I read passages from Elements of Style carried right to their ears with enough clarity to hear what we were saying (and it really hit their funny bones, but to their credit they kept quiet.)  So here we are at a table with with friends when Jeff suddenly pipes up about the conversations he heard as a child from his parents bedroom.  Ken and I both looked at him aghast-what was he about to reveal!  How much had his young ears heard over the years?  With great style he informed us of the night mom came into dad and asked if she could read a grammar book.  He did a great job of implying that this was great romance in his parents lives and that Ken would then read me math books in return.  We still get ribbed about that.

So...my Kindle now has samples of Spunk and Bite by Arthur Plotnik, Sin and Syntax by Constance Hale, Making a Literary Life by Carolyn See, and The Right to Write by Julia Cameron.  That should add some spice to my life.

Happenings in the Quilt Studio-

Five Errors to Drop From Your Easter Sermons-This was a very interesting read, the comment section is also worth a look.

Moralism is Not the Gospel (but many Christians think it is) -Al Mohler with some interesting thoughts: "The deadly danger of moralism has been a constant temptation to the church and an ever-convenient substitute for the Gospel. Clearly, millions of our neighbors believe that moralism is our message. Nothing less than the boldest preaching of the Gospel will suffice to correct this impression and to lead sinners to salvation in Christ."

When Marriage is Hard-"This is what we cling to when marriage is hard. Day by day we trust the one who accomplished salvation for us. We lean hard on his grace and beg him for new mercies with the rising of the morning sun."

I'm Thankful that I Became Blind-an excerpt from Fannie Crosby's autobiography.  Makes you think about your life.


Heaven Is For Real-I saw an ad for the release of the movie so pulled up reviews I had read when the book came out.  I like Tim Challies perspective.


Best wishes for your weekend!
Deb