Cookie Cutter Creations

Preschool age children love to get their hands in Play-Doh and cookie dough. They roll it, pound it and squash it when they get mad. Mommy ads to their fun when she puts cookie cutter molds into their tiny hands; youngsters now have the excitement of creating favorite shapes.  The tikes laugh with glee when they see that they have created an exact copy of animals, Christmas trees, stars or snowmen.

As their mothers or grandmothers, we must guard our hearts and minds. We must not conform to the molds of our godless society. “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God (Romans 12:2 KJV).” The Creator places no cookie cutter into our feeble hands; He writes His word upon our hearts and watches to see its transforming power in our walk with Him.

Book Review: “cold tangerines”

Cold Tangerines

By Shauna Niequist

I needed this book.  I didn’t realize it until about halfway through, but “better late than never.”

Painted with a “Faberge egg” brush – stunning, exquisite and slightly outrageous – cold tangerines (lower-cased) is divided into four parts.  Stand-alone, first-person stories in each section include: spark, french class, carrying my own weight, lent and television, broken bottles, writing in pencil, island, and my favorite: old house.

Profound and Whimsical

Cold tangerines is spunky.  Profound one moment and whimsical the next.  At times you feel like you’re seated in the front row at the Improv; at others you’re sniffling and reaching for Kleenex.  In each section the author sweeps us into her everyday life with pitchy observations about family, unexpecteds, writing, Africa, vacations, friends: “True friendship is a sacred, important thing, and it happens when we drop down into that deeper level of who we are, when we cross over into the broke, fragile parts of ourselves… Friendship is acting out God’s love for people in tangible ways…, an opportunity to act on God’s behalf inn the lives of the people we’re close to.<

Like when her calendar is crammed with to-dos, events and activities and she sees a tall tree in the park, “twice as high as a two-story house,” that’s “the brightest, most insane, lit-from-within red I have ever seen.”  Along with weddings and adoption celebrations and dinner parties, baby showers and fall colors, Niequist comments, “This is a masterpiece just here for the week, our very own wonder of the world, and I just about missed it.”

Don’t we all?

Humorous and Hearty

Maybe what I like best about cold tangerines is that the author is Real.  Genuine.  Humorous, hearty.  Disarmingly candid.  She’s flawed and knows it.  Niequist asks the tough questions and avoids the canned answers: “What if I’ve missed the cosmic bus to my best future because I was watching E!?”  The author has an “eyes open” storytelling style about babies, loss, vulnerability, disappointment, being overweight, motherhood, heart attacks, “the healing effects of a barbecue” and jealousy “like a house fire.”  The slice-of-life vignettes are Christian themed without being preachy or pompous.  They reflect an author who’s cracked and chipped.  Human and hopeful.  Daring.  Kinda kooky.  Someone I can relate to.

This book is crunchy and quirky.  As succulent as a cold tangerine on a sizzling August afternoon.  Reading this book is like walking into a dark living room on your birthday, bummed that no one remembered, and having people in party hats jump out and yell, “Surprise!”

I’m keeping my eye out for another serving.

***

Reviewed by: Kristine Lowder

Roads Diverged * A Little Lowder * Twitter * Facebook

Moore “Feathers”

“Lord,” Beth Moore’s daughter reportedly prayed prior to her mother’s address to a large group, “we don’t want anybody to get the idea that our family is perfect.  It’s not.  But I thank You, God, that because of You, it’s real.  (Feathers From My Nest: A Mother’s Reflections, p. 97)

This daughter’s prayer sums up Beth Moore’s Feathers From My Nest, a skillful weft of reflection, inspiration and homespun homilies.  Its 214 pages are divided into 18 chapters that include strolls down memory lane featuring family togetherness, rhetorical reminiscence, and reflections on hearth and home.  Themes, both primary, secondary and tertiary, run the gamut from insincerity and hypocrisy to triumph and tears, trust and obey and mercy and memories.  All are told with Moore’s trademark wit, passion, and the kind of ebullient effervescence that could charm nine gallons out of a ten-gallon hat.

Introduction and Resonance

The four-page introduction, “Feathers From My Nest,” is a clever take-off on Matthew 10:29, 31.  It includes some poignant conversations between “Mr. and Mrs. Sparrow” that will strike a responsive chord with parents of a certain age. Other passages will resonate especially well with moms, such as:

“I wanted so badly to be the perfect mother and raise my children in the perfect home.  Not that I had ever had it or seen it.  The irony is that as hard as I worked to keep harsh realities out of their lives, my children learned a few right inside our own home.  Let’s face it.  No family lives a fairy tale.” (p. 96)

The section on car pooling from 127,000 miles a la the “Moore mobile” is hilarious – and will have “been there, done that” readers chuckling down the road, too.  Dog lovers will enjoy The Stray Dog – and so will feline fans (it’s not just about a lovable, opportunistic black dog).  Speaking of black, the black and white family photos –  mostly featuring Moore’s two daughters – which accompany the facing page of each chapter heading add an intimate “three dimensional” family flavor.  The final chapter, One Slightly Gray, Well-Seasoned Man is a tribute to Moore’s husband and rounds out these maternal reflections nicely.

Structure and Style

Astute readers may notice that Moore has a tendency to overwrite on occasion, such as in The Index Cards.  Here Moore can’t seem to decide which specific target to tackle, so she adopts a shot-gun style and sprays everything with what is perhaps an overlong, somewhat random chapter.  In this chapter Moore expands a relatively brief vignette related to Deuteronomy 6:5-7 into twelve pages touching on God’s love, parents as teachers, His name is wonderful, joy, broadening boundaries, and “family altar time.”    Some themes are related, some are redundant, and some deserve separate chapters for clarity’s sake.  All are laced with Scripture and/or a biblical perspective.

Some readers will find this autobiographical “smorgasborg” tender and endearing; others may find it smarmy and reach for a roll of Rolaids.  If you like Beth Moore, you’ll like Feathers. If not, you may want to skip this one.

Reviewed by: Kristine Lowder

Roads Diverged

A Little Lowder

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Open War?

Proverbs 31.  Virtue.  Valor.  Strength.  Might.  Courage.  Bravery in battle.

 

Them’s fightin’ words.  Which begs another question: What are we battling for?  And whom are we battling?  Where is our strength, might and power to be focused?  This passage describes a wife who is righteous, moral, worthy, courageous, upright and of noble character.  But…. what else?

Does God want his Daughters of Eve to battle, fight, exhibit bravery, valor, and might so we can attain the lofty goal of becoming… “nice”?  (Nothing wrong with that, but… what else?)

Look at it another way.  If we’re not neck-deep in battle, then what need of valor?  If there’s no threat, then we do we need courage?

 

Take it a step further.  Why do we need a seasoned Commander if we’re not in the midst of a war?  If we’re not prone to getting lost, why do we need a Guide?  Sheep who can fend for themselves, protect themselves from predators and find their own grazing grounds – what do they need with a Shepherd?  What do we need with Valor if there’s no menace, no stalking evil, no imminent threat?

 

 

 

We have an enemy, the thief who comes to “steal, kill and destroy” (see John 10:10) and he’s neither impotent nor moot.

 

 

There’s a great line from the second movie in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Two Towers.  King Theodin of Rohan does not want to commit his troops to battle or engage the invading armies of Sauron, the epitome of evil.  “I would not risk open war,” says the waffling king.  Aragorn the warrior sagely replies, “Open war is upon you, whether you’d risk it or not.”

 

Sound familiar?

 

 

The New Testament (Amplified) puts it like this: “Be well-balanced – temperate, sober-minded; be vigilant and cautious at all times, for that enemy of yours, the devil, roams around like a lion roaring [in fierce hunger], seeking someone to seize upon and devour.  Withstand him; be firm in faith [against his onset], – rooted, established, strong, immovable and determined – knowing that the same [identical] sufferings are appointed to your brotherhood [the whole body of Christians] throughout the world.” – I Peter 5:8-9

 

 

For more, see Ephesians 6:10-18 and  www.walkingwithgod.net

 

 

By Kristine,  professional mom, blogger, author, homeschooler, humorist, and chief wrangler at the ‘ole “testosterone farm.”

 

Roads Diverged * A Little Lowder * Twitter * Facebook

The Choices I Get To Make

I get to choose daily what type of attitude I “clothe” myself with.

I get to choose whether I see my cup as half empty or half full {on the days that my proverbial cup doth not runneth over}.

And get this: I even get to choose the “climate” of my home.

Wow.  What a reality check.  What a great honor.  What a hefty responsibility!

We, as women {especially as wives and mothers}, have a tremendous impact on the “tone” of our home environment.  In short…we set it.

It is sweet.  Or it is sour.

Unlike the sauce, It cannot be both.

I get to choose how I respond to my children when they behave poorly.  I get to rise above and initiate an energizing cycle, in spite of bad behavior, and regardless of how badly I may have slept the night before {thanks to them}…or simply react negatively out of my own selfishness and immaturity.

Wisdom or impulse.  It’s my choice.

I get to choose how I respond to my husband when he is weary, unknowingly abrupt, and still in “work mode” {which, translated, means treating me in a way I interpret as unloving}.  Choosing to love and serve, even when I am feeling unloved and empty.

I get to choose.  Every time.

Fuel or water.

What will I choose to pour over the situations I find myself standing on the verge of on a day-to-day basis?  And those I find myself hopelessly stuck in on rare occasion?

My attitude has the potential to change everything…the basic dynamic of my day…of his day…of their day.

I’ve heard it said, “attitude is everything”.  And the older I get, the more I grasp the magnitude of that statement.  It’s undeniable…our attitude has the potential tomake or break us, and those around us.

And the heart-breaking truth is, I’ve failed miserably in this department over the past few weeks.  Specifically in regards to my sweet husband.

I so easily turn my focus inward.  Selfishness consumes my thinking, and a mutually uncomfortable season in our marriage, brief as it may be, becomes one where all I see is my own emptiness.

I am instantly the victim, my husband the culprit.

Sucked into the vortex of my own self-centered, little pity party, I fail to recognize where my man is struggling, where he is feeling worn down and empty, and how my superficial attempt to explain my feelings leaves him feeling dejected and insufficient.

Fuel or water?

I had been choosing fuel almost exclusively for a week.  Crying myself to sleep, I made agreements about myself and my marriage that were so far from the truth, but were powerful enough to slowly drive a wedge between us.  Intimacy, shot.  Heart, hardened.  Climate, frosty.

My perspective clouded by selfishness, I held him at arm’s length and practically demanded my {emotional} needs got met before his {physical} needs had a chance of being met.

How does the knowledge I’ve acquired regarding the differences between men and women get forgotten so easily.  While I was processing legitimate heart-ache, I was going about it the wrong way.  I know that isn’t how this relationship thing works!  I know that isn’t the way God intended me to love my husband.  I know that isn’t the way to woo my husband’s heart.

It starts with dying to self.  Laying my agenda aside.  Loving extravagantly – without expectation – and allowing God to do “His thing”.

I forgot the power of pure water.

I’ve laid my bucket of fuel aside, pursued my husband’s heart {in spite of feeling the nagging ache of loneliness…oh, how I despise ‘night shift’}, intentionally prioritizing the refreshment of his weary soul…and now find myself reveling in the sweetness of God’s upside-down way of doing love.

My cup runneth over!

It’s delightful.  It’s mind-blowing.  It’s life-giving.  Tis’ sweet, my friends!

And it has energized the heck out of my marriage.

I get to choose.  Initiate an energizing cycle, or perpetuate the destruction of the crazy cycle.

All because of a small {okay, enormous} decision to change the attitude of my heart.

I’ve written previously about my love for the often quoted saying by Chuck Swindoll… “The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life…The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past… we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you… we are in charge of our Attitudes.”

I’ve had an attitude adjustment over the past week {and for this, my husband is eternally grateful}.

It was hard and awkward and tear-filled.  But oh, so necessary.

And oh, so worth it!

{because marriage, God’s way, always is}

By Joy McMillan, Simply Bloom