OK, this really IS the last blog of the year...

It's early morning.  This end of New Year's Eve is quiet and reflective here.  I'm the only one up; I will probably be the first to bed tonight...
I just found the following from a blog I often visit.
~~~~~~~~~about Mary:
I'm certain there would always be whispers and unbelievers and a reputation ruined in the eyes of friends and relatives. I once read the statement that the only human on earth who knew it was a virgin birth was Mary. With certainty Elizabeth must have believed and been a friend to Mary. Joseph believed but not at first.

I pondered on the very young mother and what it was like as she raised her Son. Did she play tag with Him and sing Him songs and tell Him stories of times past? Did Joseph show Him how to use a chisel and a hammer? Did Joseph read from the Torah... the words to the Word?
There are many people I've met in the Bible with whom I would love to sit and talk over delicious tea (for I'm certain the tea of Heaven will be delightful). Mary is near the top of that list. I wonder if she would share how it was to be chosen the mother of the Lamb of God... or will she continue to ponder those things in her heart?

http://coffeeteabooksandme.blogspot.com/

I so identify with this writer.  I, too, have many questions and few answers.
See you next year!

last blog of 2011

I'm studying the gospel of MATTHEW these days and this verse grabbed my interest this morning.
6:17-18---When you fast, comb your hair, wash your face, look normal not martyr-like...others need not see what you're doing, but God will.  He'll see your heart and decide if your fasting is sincere and will make a difference on the answer to your prayers.  (I've taken HUGE LIBERTIES with this verse by translating it.)  (There is nothing I can do to make God love me more...or less!)  Fasting is not commanded except for one day a year, the day of Atonement, and that is for Jews.  But here's what I found in a great commentary by John Phillips:

Simeon Stylites, A.D.390-459, did something that awarded him cannonization by the Roman Catholic Church.  He ended up living atop a high pole.
"His life on a pole began when he moved to a hillside not far from his monastery and perched on a pillar six feet high.  There he sat with an iron collar around his neck, chained to his pole.  Periodically the height of the pillar was raised until it was fifty feet high.  His disciples had to climb a ladder to bring him such scraps of food as he would condescend to eat.  Throughout the bitter cold of thirty Syrian winters and the burning heat of thirty Syrian summers, disdaining any shelter from wind or rain, frost or sun, he sat on his pole and in the end was rewarded by his church with sainthood."

The year changes from 2011 to 2012 in a few hours.  I won't say Happy New Year; what does that mean anyway?  It sounds like a command...maybe you're not inclined to be happy in the new year...and when does the 'new year' end?  Is this an ongoing state of attitude continuing on for...
well, you get the idea.  But, I do say, God's blessings on you in 2012.

Christmas as a kid

There are a few things I don't miss about Christmas mornings as a kid.  Oh, I know...you're probably all 'mushy' about recollections of YOUR childhood Christmases ...masses...(couldn't find plural of this word in dictionary).  Here's a few things I'm glad are gone:
1. SNOW, ICE, COLLLLD-D temps (Minnesota, don't cha know??)
2. wrinkled tinsel, or even straight...    we carefully began to hang it on the branches, then when half-   way done, we just threw it on.  Mother ordered us to carefully pack it away when we took the tree down a couple weeks later, but when we needed it the next season, it was just a big ball laying in the  bottom of the box of ornaments.
3. I don't miss those ugly little hooks one used to hang the glass balls onto the branches...first the hook pokes you, then the pine needles poke you...then your sister pokes you...uh, I probably shouldn't have added that.
4.  the stockings all hung by the...ours were Dad's white work sox hung on the mantel of the cardboard fireplace (with the red cellophane over an electric gizmol that went round and round, casting eerie shadows.)
5.  the one orange and a dozen walnuts (still in the shell) settled down in the toe of the stocking.  What kid can hardly wait to crack her nuts on that festive morning?
Do you see all this in your imagination??  It sounds dismal, but we looked forward to it all year.

We usually got a gift of a new flannel nightgown the night before and I only remember opening ONE gift presented under the tree... adorned with fallen pine needles. 
We didn't read the Bethlehem account or sing hymns...oh, sure we sang JINGLE BELLS or RUDOLF, THE RED-NOSED DEER.  We believed in and performed as 'nice rather than naughty.3' to please the big, fat guy SANTA.  We always listened to DICKEN'S CHRISTMAS CAROL on the radio each Christmas Eve, performed by Lionel Barrymore. And we had a favorite uncle that stopped by with a tin of hard candy that we fought over.

There you have it; does that differ much from yours?

 Do you see the original price of $.29 for the box?  Well, you can now purchase on the internet for $9.99 plus tax and shipping.  Whooee.

Royal comforts

I've been selling a few books on AMAZON; just quilting and scrapbooking items.  When I think of the retail price I paid for them new, and now they go for just a buck or two.  They were 'impulse purchases' that I'm over now!  This leaves me with a new occupation:  dreaming over the wishbook of Amazon.com and just what I'll order with the small reserve of $$ I've accumulated.
My wishlist is tempting me.  The one I plan to order soon is, SOLOMON by PG Ryken.  In the sample pages, I read in I Kings 1 of Abishag, the human hot water bottle.  King David was old and shivering in his bed, just couldn't warm up!  Someone, (was it the court physician?)  ordered a Shunnamite woman to be put into bed with him for the express purpose of warming him up.  Nothing else, it seems.
Wonder if it worked. 
Wonder what she thought of this command on her life. 
Wonder what David thought as he shivered there.
Yup!  After reading the sample pages and several critic reviews, I'm going to order this book next.  Not just to read about David's bed partner, though.