Me and Dwight Schrute

(If you read my blog in a feedreader, you might want to click through today to see all the changes I've made! Keep your eyes open for more in the future, as well.)

"Why tip someone for a job I'm capable of doing myself? I can deliver food. I can drive a taxi. I can, and do, cut my own hair. I did however, tip my urologist, because I am unable to pulverize my own kidney stones." 

- Dwight Schrute, The Office

If I were able to pulverize my own kidney stones, I would be doing just that right now instead of talking to you.

4 AM Saturday morning found me writhing in pain and it found David groggily wondering why his wife was suddenly hyperventilating in bed next to him. A visit to the ER confirmed that I was in the throes of my second experience with kidney stones. 

What have we learned from this experience?

1. Emergency room doctors are really good about taking your word for it if you've had kidney stones before. Doing labor breathing and rocking back and forth in your chair goes a long way to convince them of your immediate need for morphine.
2. Morphine makes all the terrible awful pain go away. But it makes me a little nauseous. But the pain was making me nauseous, too, so pass the morphine, please.
3. Thanks to my friend who had extreme morning sickness this past year, I was quite familiar with the names of the anti-nausea drugs they gave me: Zofran and Phenergan. I felt so smart. Thanks, Becca!

Tomorrow I will tell you all about my first encounter with kidney stones and why stones always remind me of Ronald Reagan.

Under Construction

Over the next few days and weeks you are bound to see some changes around here.  I'm planning to spruce things up a bit.  I'm not planning on any domain change, so if you're reading in a feed reader you should be just fine.  :-)

Thanks for your patience!

Overheard: (a twofer)

Scene:  Afternoon, children are playing in the front yard.  Maddie comes in crying and yelling; hot on her heels is Jonathan.

Maddie:  MOMMY JONNY WON'T THROW THE BALL TO MEEEEEE WWHAAAAAHHH!!!
Jonathan, sweetly:  I'm sorry, Maddie!  I'll throw it to you!  Come on, let's go play catch!
Maddie, headed back outside:  BUT I DON'T WANT TO PLAY CATCH WHHHAAAAHHHH!!!

(Oh, three.  Some days you rear your ugly head more than others.)


Scene:  Wednesday evening.  Mom has done most of the prep work for small group on her own, but just like every other Wednesday, she puts on loud music and calls the kids to help her for the last half hour.  Family is jamming to CCR and buzzing around, making sure things are ready.

Mom:  Wow!  You guys are getting so good at preparing for FLOCK, I think you could do it without me!
Ben:  And I think you're crazy!

Till We Have Faces

If you were to ask me which fiction selection by CS Lewis I'd recommend, I would say without hesitation The Great Divorce.  I have read it multiple times and always find something new every time I read it.

I recently began Lewis' Till We Have Faces, one which my husband has long recommended to me.  I was struggling through it until about page seventy, where it turned a corner and I was suddenly getting emotional and asking David to please quote it at my funeral.

(It was really that fast.  One page, sighing and wondering if it's worth going on.  Next page, aching chest and PLEASE READ THIS WHILE YOU ARE MOURNING MY DEATH.  My husband is a saint for putting up with me.)

Here's a quote to whet your appetite:

It was when I was happiest that I longed most. It was on happy days when we were up there on the hills, the three of us, with the wind and the sunshine … where you couldn't see Glome or the palace. Do you remember? The colour and the smell, and looking at the Grey Mountain in the distance? And because it was so beautiful, it set me longing, always longing. Somewhere else there must be more of it. Everything seemed to be saying, ... come! But I couldn't (not yet) come and I didn't know where I was to come to. It almost hurt me. I felt like a bird in a cage when the other birds of its kind are flying home....  The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing — to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from — my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back.

And in the same vein, from another Lewis selection:  "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probably explanation is that I was made for another world."

Pictures From the Week

(left) Easter green M&M.  (right) Kelly's toenail.  Not to be confused.

Here's the free book stack.  We got two of these because we were both registered.  We also have a large *paid* book stack.

The "Zero Dollar Bookstore" is how T4G handed out the freebies.  You went in, got a couple empty bags, and went from station to station getting one of each.

Here's the building where we stayed.  Our place was on the 8th floor of the Henry Clay building.

Each morning we had a four block walk to our destination.  I liked the trashcans that said "Downtown Louisville."

I love the name "Augustus Toplady."

Here's a shot of us outside the arena.  We had no idea that we were posed so that it looks like David's saying "Yum!".  That was a funny surprise later.

I'm Back!

After a whirlwind week of Easter celebrations and the Together for the Gospel conference, I'm back at home!

I have a lot to share, and I don't know where to start.

So since I left you hanging with my Holy Week music selections, I'll give you a conference goody that would be a great "Sunday" song.  "Behold our God," from Sovereign Grace's Risen album.  We sang this quite a bit last week.  It's straight out of the Bible!

Holy Week: Friday

Today you're in for a stylistic change.  The kids and I have been listening to Shai Linne's album The Atonement for over a year.  It's a rap album.  Before today's song selection, a sermon snippet appears on the album, which I have included below:

And here's the song I'm introducing you to today: "The Cross (3 Hours)" I picked a video with the lyrics included so you can keep up.

 

And the bonus track today is one that I use as a catechism of sorts; it's a Q&A.

 

It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last. Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying, “Certainly this man was innocent!” And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts.
Luke 23:44-48

Holy Week: Thursday

This is an oldie but goodie. If you don't know Michael Card's music, you should check it out.

 

Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.” For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But the Scripture will be fulfilled, ‘He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.’ I am telling you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am he. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”

(John 13:1-20 ESV)

Holy Week: Tuesday

There is no crucifixion, burial, and resurrection without the incarnation.


And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

(Philippians 2:8 ESV)

She’ll know I am coming before I am here 

When she hangs her head she’ll see me there 

And then when I come she won’t turn away 

All the beauty and joy will return to her face 

And what of the loneliness? 

Now it is gone 

Lost in the bond of the mother and son 

Every sin that she suffered at the hands of men 

Every single disgrace will be washed clean again 

I will love her completely and when I am grown 

I will carry her out of that tenement room 

I am doing a new thing and soon you will see 

I am coming among you and my name shall be 

Emmanuel, Emmanuel

a conversation about this song

Holy Week: Monday

I'm departing from my usual blog programming this week to bring you some helpful meditations and music for this week before Resurrection Sunday.

Today's selection comes more appropriately for yesterday, perhaps.  It's Andrew Peterson's "Hosanna," with lyrics reminiscent of Palm Sunday and Jesus' Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem.

As we rehearsed this scene with the kids last week, we talked about how the Jews were expecting to be delivered not from their sins, but from Roman occupation.  Jesus revolutionized their lives in a completely different way.

You have crushed beneath your heel the vile serpent
You have carried to the grave the black stain
You have torn apart the temple's holy curtain
You have beaten death at death's own game
Hosanna

Full lyrics can be found here.

Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?” And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.”

(Matthew 21:8-11 ESV)