bekahcubed

Categories Everyday Life

I’m not here

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Except that I am.

Or maybe I’m not.

I haven’t been online much lately…

not for any reason in particular, just for lots of reasons in general.

Reason 1?

My little brother came home from boot camp for his ten day leave starting last weekend–meaning that I spent the weekend in Lincoln with family.

Reason 2:

I am exhausted. Whether my all-too-active brain lets me sleep or not, I definitely haven’t had a lot of extra energy for anything extra.

And apparently the internet counts as extra.

Actually, pretty much anything but falling asleep on a book counts as extra.

I hope I catch another wind soon, ’cause this gets old really quickly.

Reason 3:

I have nothing to write about. (That is, nothing coherent to write about.)

Thanks to reason 1, I have had fun events occurring in my life. But thanks to reason 2, I have not even thought about how those fun events might turn into fun stories.

Thanks to reason 2, I have been reading. But thanks to reason 2, I have not felt like reviewing.

So, there you have it.

That’s why I’m not here.

Categories Relationships, Thankful Thursday

Thankful Thursday: Folks

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What would life be like without folks?

It’d probably be cleaner, neater, more productive…

and positively meaningless.

‘Cause people…

People are important.

Thankful Thursday banner

This week, I’m thankful for…

…Friday night jewelry folks–two of my favorite jewelry ladies, my two favorite sisters, my favorite mama(!), two friends and a friend’s mama…all of us playing with jewelry

…Friday night fellowship folks–a friend and I at coffee, fellows from her flock and mine, giddy girls eager to see me and share their stories, giggles and covert glances at guy(s) over apple cider and coffee

…Saturday afternoon helpful folks–strong men carrying washing machines up stairs, red-headed boys (and girl) following behind, sisters buying tools, fellows offering to loose my bolt, a friend who give rides to get a tool that fits and then getting under the car to help with the bolt we still couldn’t get

…Saturday evening dice-playing (and hamburger grilling) folks–Greek-toe noticing men, glad-to-see-you-gals, girls on the dock, bell ringing fun, grilling in the rain with tattoos on her feet, eating on the deck and trying not to be overcome with awkwardness

…Sunday morning flock folk–passing my notes for my sister to copy, discussing creation with gals I love, praying together for the things on our heart, going over and into the fellowship hour

…Sunday afternoon steak-eating folks–gathering materials, buttering asparagus, seasoning steak with company secrets, guys grilling with an errant thermometer, guys and gals together digging in to much too much food

…Monday morning stand up folks–catching up on a weekend’s events, laughter and side conversations across the room, being a part of a terrific team, feeling confident about where we’re going

…Tuesday all-day traveling folks–residents who remember my name, others who love to hear about my brothers the Marines, staff with smiles, settling into routines

…Wednesday morning weights folks–being on the same page with the people I work with, having “Aha” moments amidst a meeting, talking about daughters and dates, daring to Facebook “friend” people at work

…Wednesday evening Bible study folks–sharing more secrets, studying the Word, spending time chatting afterward, subjects that take on a life of their own, “Latika”

…Thursday afternoon support staff folks–the nurse on one station who delivers reweights promptly, the aides on another who jumped to it and completed three weights within fifteen minutes after I asked for them, dietary staff who all pitched in to make things work when a cook got sick

…Thursday evening embroidery folk–jokes with the kids while I’m picking them up, food from their mother along with shop-talk, comfortable conversation with embroidery hoops in hand, waving good-bye after a nice night at home.

I have a full, full life…busy, yes, but good busy.

My life is full of people… people who encourage me, bless me, stretch me. People who laugh with me, who pray for me, who sew with me. People who reach down to me, who look up to me, and who walk alongside me.

My life is full of people.

And for that I am most thankful.

Categories Reflections, Relationships

Notta Piranha

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My posts recently–and some of the comments I’ve been making elsewhere–might lead you to believe that I’m in full piranha mode.

Just waiting to sink my teeth into the nearest available fish (except for the much-sighed-over lack of fish in this particular sea.)

But I’m notta piranha.

Honest.

I’m not racing out, ready to hook the nearest single male into marrying me.

I understand that most often friendship comes before dating, which comes before marriage.

And I’m okay with that.

But unlike some of my friends (who are at different stages of life than I), I am not looking simply for some good guy friends, some “brothers” to hang out with.

I am looking for a husband.

Does this mean that I’m going to write off the guys who I don’t deem as marriage material and choose not to be their friends?

Absolutely not.

Brothers are wonderful. Guy friends are nice. It’s just that I’m unwilling to hide what I really want. I don’t want to pretend that I’m just interested in friendship.

I’m notta piranha, I’ve just tired of giving the impression that I’m justa pal.

Categories Faith

A Free Lunch

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Economists like to say that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Political conservatives remind the world that somebody has to pay for it.

Imagine with me, though, a world in which a free lunch exists.

Imagine that there were lunch…a fancy five course affair…an all-you-can-eat-buffet…that was actually free.

It didn’t cost anyone anything to make.

Even so, I would have no right to demand that I receive such a lunch. I would have no claim with which to petition the owner of such a restaurant.

So he wouldn’t lose anything in giving it to me? He still would have no obligation to give it to me.

Even if there were a free lunch, I could not petition to receive it on my own merit. I could only petition the kindness and the pity of the host.

But the economists are right. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Which makes my petition all the more worthless.

If someone else has paid a great price to procure and prepare this feast, how could I convince him that I deserve a free invitation?

Again, and all the more so, I must throw myself at the mercy of the host. The only case I can make for myself is His kindness, His beneficence.

And so it is in this economy of grace.

A great feast–even Christ Himself–is laid before us.

A great price–even Christ Himself–has been paid to procure it.

I cannot attempt to earn entrance to this feast, have no right to claim it as my own.

I can only fall upon the grace of the Feast-Giver.

“Because of Your grace, admit me. In accordance with Your unfailing love, grant me favor.”

And in His unfailing love, He opens wide the doors and sets a place for me at the table.

A costly feast.

Completely undeserved.

A free lunch.

In the economy of grace.

Categories Everyday Life

Assistance from unexpected quarters

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“Rebekah, do you know my daughter?” she asked.

I racked my brain trying to think if I’d been introduced to this coworker’s daughter. I don’t remember having been.

She continued, “Because she was asking me if I knew you.”

Oh, I thought, so I wouldn’t have met her through her mother.

Then how?

“S– is her mother-in-law.”

My eyes widened in surprise and recognition–and I nodded my head, “Okay, uh-huh.”

I hadn’t met her–but I recognize the connections now, at least.

Daughter-in-law to one of the gals in my Sunday-school-hour “flock” at church, sister-in-law to one of the girls I’m teaching to sew. Okay.

“I guess S–‘s been telling her what a great girl you are–so she’s trying to figure out who to set you up with.”

Wow, I thought, talk about assistance from unexpected quarters.

But I inclined my head and indicated that her daughter’s assistance was not unwelcome.

My coworker offered to screen potential set-ups.

With a laugh, I agreed that this also was welcome.

Categories Thankful Thursday

Thankful Thursday: The Church

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Being a part of the church can be one of the most difficult experiences ever…
and one of the most rewarding.

The church is a place of accountability and of encouragement, of ministry and of receiving ministry.

It is a wonderful thing to live life within the church.

Thankful Thursday banner

This week, I’m thankful…

…for the church that gives faithful wounds (Proverbs 27:6)

…for the church who binds my wounds (Psalm 147:2-3)

…for the church that meets corporately and worships the one God with me (Psalm 34:3)

…for the church that is obedient and practices church discipline (Matthew 18:15-17)

…for the church that mutually encourages one another as we hang out together (Romans 1:12)

…for the church that approaches me after church (the service) to discuss me teaching their daughters to sew

…for the church that comes to my house, where I am delighted to teach them to sew

…for the church that I belong to here in Columbus

…and for the church I belong to made up of Lincolnites, Oregonians, Missourians, Virginians…Chinese, Albanians, and Nigerians…the church universal with which I am connected

Thank you, Lord, for this seventh-day creation: Your church. And thank You for incorporating me into this creation. I am so blessed, so honored, so overwhelmed to be a part of something so big, so momentous that it could only be a work of God.

Thank you for the church.

Categories Everyday Life

Trash Talk

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Wanna hear something gross?

I just took my trash to the dump today…

for the first time all year.

Disgusting, isn’t it?

But here’s the thing.

Even though we’d been collecting trash for three months, we only had three trash cans not quite full. (I probably coulda gotten it into two if I’d tried.)

So the ten dollar minimum fee at the dump comes out to about $3.33 per trash can.

Still a little steep.

Problem is, now that it’s no longer freezing outside, I really can’t wait that long to take trash to the dump. It’ll start to smell long before then.

But ten dollars for the measly bag of trash we collect in a week?

I haven’t priced the trash services around town, but I sorta feel like almost anything would feel like overkill for the wee bit of trash we collect.

So what do you think? How would you deal if you had too little trash to make taking-it-to-the-dump/hiring-a-service-to-take-it-to-the-dump-for-you worthwhile?

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: “The Adoration of Jenna Fox” by Mary E. Pearson

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What does it mean to be human?

What makes me myself?

Is it the endless combinations of A T G and C that make up my DNA?

Is it the way my environment has shaped my genetic material such that I am expressed as a specific phenotype?

Or perhaps it is my memories that make me myself. Perhaps it is the collection of information and experience stored somewhere within my brain that makes me myself.

Then again, maybe it is some ethereal thing, something beyond my physical makeup, such that even if my physical being were to be completely annihilated, I would still be–and be complete.

Jenna Fox wakes up after a year-long coma to find that she’s not quite sure who she is.

She’s walking around in an unfamiliar body, remembering unfamiliar ideas.

She’s living in an unfamiliar world, watching videos of an unfamiliar her living an unfamiliar life.

She’s just starting to get comfortable in her own skin, just starting to remember herself, her life, her family…

when the truth smacks her in the face and she finds herself at square one again.

Who is she? What makes her herself? Is she herself? Or is she merely a product of her parent’ unceasing adoration?

The Adoration of Jenna Fox was my first ever dystopian novel–and oh what a first!

Set only a hundred or so years from now, The Adoration of Jenna Fox sees the world continuing on its current trend of helicopter parenting and biomedical advances–with disastrous results.

Adoration is a meaty novel, full of thought-provoking ideas about personhood (as mentioned above) as well as about ethics in medicine, genetic engineering, and beyond.

Nevertheless, this is by no means a novel intended as a text book. The Adoration of Jenna Fox is an engaging story in and of itself–and one that begs to be read, even if one would rather not think about the issues it raises.

Yet force you to think about the issues it does. This is no propaganda piece, intended to convince the reader to one side of a spectrum or another. Instead, it is does exactly what a good book ought–it forces the reader to think through sides of an issue he might not have thought about before, challenging his ideas regardless of which “side” he might have originally found himself on.

(For the record, I’m a conservative, evangelical Christian who believes that humans are created in the image of God and have intrinsic worth as such. I’m also the sister of a student of biomechanical engineering who is doing his graduate research with adult stem cells and who is always sharing fun stuff about manufactured skin and transplanted blood clots. And I found plenty to make me think in this book–things I agreed with and things I didn’t.)

This is a novel I highly recommend.

Rating: 5 stars
Category:Young Adult Dystopian Fiction
Synopsis:Jenna Fox seeks to discover who she is after a year-long coma leaves her in the dark–and discovers that who she is is scary.
Recommendation: Absolutely read this one! (Parents might want to read through it first before passing it on to their children–I’m not sure exactly what age group this’d be appropriate for, but I’m thinking probably older rather than younger. Like seventeen, eighteen year old kind of older. At least, that’s what I’m guessing. Not that the content is necessarily inappropriate–there’s a bit of girl/boy stuff but much less and less explicit than the usual YA fare; and a bit of violence I think–but I think the concepts and ethical questions would be much for a younger teen to think through.)

I originally added this book to my TBR list based on reviews from Diary of an Eccentric and Jennifer of 5M4B

Categories The Week in Words

WiW: God’s Gifts

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The Week in Words

“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!”
~Matthew 7:11

The temptation is to consider God a miser, a Scrooge who is worse than an evil father–an evil father who, for all his faults, still gives his children good gifts.

But God isn’t a miser. He isn’t a Scrooge.

He delights to give good things to those who ask Him.

“The eyes of all look expectantly to You,
And You give them their food in due season.
You open Your hand
And satisfy the desire of every living thing. ”
~Psalm 145:15-16

God does not merely cause to thirst; He satisfies thirst.

He does not merely cause hunger; He satisfies hunger.

He does not merely awaken desire; He satisfies desire.

What’s more, this passage says that He satisfies the desire of every living thing.

Which means me.

He satisfies my desire.

Yet my desire remains unsatisfied.

Why?

In this is my consolation:

“Because God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.”
~Elizabeth Barrett Browning (quoted in Robin Jones Gunn’s Echoes)

God gives good gifts.

God satisfies the desire of every living thing.

So why has my desire been unsatisfied heretofore?

Because God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.

Because God is better at identifying good gifts than I am.

Because God knows best how and when and where and with whom to satisfy my desires.

Thus I will trust Him–because I know that He will satisfy my desire–and that however He chooses to do it (whether by granting me a husband or not), that gift will put my best dreams to shame.

Don’t forget to take a look at Barbara H’s meme “The Week in Words”, where bloggers collect quotes they’ve read throughout the week.

Categories Everyday Life

Shelves

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Shelving. Not exactly the most scintillating topic.

But a worthwhile one.

Often the shelves are simply box store prefabs, not particularly spectacular, except for what’s on them.

What’s on a shelf can contain a wealth of knowledge. (This particular shelf is a bit empty because I just moved a slew of reference books into my office at work.)

Shelf

What’s on a shelf can make a home beautiful, or fill a home with wonderful food. (I forgot to take a picture of my cookbook cupboard–sorry!)

Shelf

What’s on a shelf can entertain, relax, or inspire thought. (Perhaps you recognize that there are multiple copies of a few books–perils of combining collections with someone who likes many of the same books.)

Shelf

What’s on a shelf can help one draw near to God.

Shelf

What’s on a shelf can be beautiful, can speak the words of Scripture.

Shelf

Of course, up until now, I’ve only spoken of Walmart shelves, Shopko shelves. Particle board pre-fabs put together with dummy proof screws. Shelves that sag under the weight of their contents.

But sometimes the shelf is
made by a craftsman.
Solid and sturdy,
Built to last

Sometimes it’s a gift.

Shelf

Even if I don’t know exactly where to put it
or what to do with it,
the shelf is a gift.

(This particular shelf was given to me at my “shelf party”. The giver’s husband made it years ago, before he died, leaving my friend a widow.)