Written on
October 20, 2011 by
Mary in
Blog
“What does ‘Trick or treat’ mean?” My five-year old is at the stage of asking the meaning behind cliches that most of us rattle off mindlessly.
“Well, it used to be that on Halloween people were saying, ‘Give me a treat or I’ll play a trick on you.’ It doesn’t really mean that anymore and people don’t really play tricks if someone doesn’t give them candy.”
A few days later he asked again, but he finished the story for me, “But people don’t really mean it, right?”
It made me realize how many times we say things without thinking about the real meaning behind them.
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As the fourth of five children growing up, there was always a lot of competition to get a desired role or other things I wanted out of life. I wasn’t always placed on the “A team” as it was not easy contending for my way with three older siblings and a little sister. I often felt pushed aside, overlooked and forgotten.
Do any of you remember the TV show “Land of the Lost“? (I am really dating myself here!) As a child, I loved to pretend play this show with my brothers and sisters. I always wanted to be Judy, who was beautiful, or Penny, because she was smart.
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Buhfai Tham means a ‘handful of rice’. It’s a ministry started in Mizoram, India one hundred years ago. The ladies, though they have not much more to give, set aside a handful of rice each meal to give to the church as their tithe. The church then sells the rice in order to sustain her ministry. Millions of dollars have been earned and thousands of people have been reached through this sacrificial giving.
I can’t wait until I get to heaven to see this parade of women, who by monetary standards have nothing, come before God. I want to see the rich rewards they’ll have for all eternity.
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I am glad that it’s October.
Yes, I know that October brings us one month closer to winter, and for those of you who live in the frozen northern lands like me that means snow, but I really am grateful for a new start. Somehow when I flip the calendar over and see the month — the new month — it fills me with hope and opportunity.
You see, September was hard. September didn’t go as planned. Our family was sick most of the month. When you have a family of nine a long lasting cold really becomes a long lasting cold.
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The laundry. How it seems to mock me. The endless piles of dirty clothes in baskets throughout my home. The mountains of clean laundry, piled on chairs or in corners, waiting for me to get my act together enough to put them away. The random socks I find strewn all over my daughters’ bedrooms. I won’t lie. Although I adore my family, I do not adore doing their laundry.
How thankful I am that the Lord does not get tired of washing me! Washing away my sin, that is. 1 John 1:9 tells me that if I confess my sins, He is faithful and just to forgive me my sins and to cleanse me from all unrighteousness.
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As a mom, I sometimes hear certain statements made by my children that could rattle my nerves. One of those is the beloved “that’s not fair” statement. As a parent, it is my responsibility to teach my children about fairness. Even so, to a child, almost everything that goes against what they desire is unfair. At least in my household it is. If something doesn’t go their way, it’s automatically not fair.
“Mom, why does sissy get to stay up later?”
“Because she’s older.”
“That’s not fair!”
“Mom, can you buy me a candy bar?”
“No. You haven’t had dinner.”
“That’s not fair!”
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If you are like me, which hopefully you are not, exercise is one of the things that I often put on the back burner of my life. If I had a daily video of my life you might see me wake up in the morning, examine my face in the mirror, recognize that yes, I am getting older. Then I would go to the coffee maker and you would see a thought bubble come up above my head that wishes the coffee were somehow an IV that I could just have a constant stream of caffeine coursing through my veins. After the thought bubble burst into flames because that is not a possibility, the next thought bubble would pop up, this time pondering if I should exercise before I hop in the shower.
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When I was growing up, my family often gathered together at the dinner table – all seven of us. I so appreciated my mother’s home-cooked meals – fried chicken and scalloped potatoes, tacos and refried beans, BBQ hamburgers. More than the food though, I appreciated that dinner was a time to be with my family – to laugh together, share about our day, our hopes and dreams. I just knew that when I grew up, I was going to cook for my family every night so that we could experience what I did when I was young. I had good intentions, but then life happened.
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