Iryssa

Wow, I would LOVE to have that waterless wear-while-washing laundry machine! Also, that storage+dual dishwasher would be fantastic...so long as I could order it to match my decor

*nods* My Nana and I used to sing this song (among many others) at the piano when I'd visit.

I've ordered "For Men Only" and "For Women Only" by Shanti and Jeff Feldhan. I'm REALLY looking forward to reading them, so I'll let you know how that goes once I do (they should arrive tomorrow or Tuesday!)

Heh, I can understand that. I kinda wish we'd had another chance to see whether we're having a boy or a girl; the little stinker had his/her legs together the whole time during the 20-week ultrasound! Oh well...I guess we'll find out any day now. (weirdly as I was typing that last bit I started contracting a lot harder than I've contracted so far this pregnancy...guess time will tell whether that's a real contraction or just a Braxton-Hicks...prayers for a short and easy labor much appreciated, as are requests that it happens soon )

*nods* I am wary of anyone who claims to know the date when the end will come.

I'm SO with you there. I would question whether you even HAVE to have this testing done...I mean, if all they're doing is checking to see whether THEY think you should terminate, it seems a little silly to me. Why wouldn't they just be happy with a standard 20-week U/S to check on baby's overall health, the placenta's position and such?

*nods* I agree. When writing, one ALWAYS needs to take into account their audience. You cannot force your audience to read your material from your own standpoint, but what you can do is make your meaning more understandable to the reader, making clear, concise statements which encourage understanding over misunderstanding. I remember one of my Language Arts teachers telling the class, "pretend that your audience is abundantly stupid and requires everything to be explained." While I wouldn't recommend following that advice that when writing college level papers or anything you want published professionally, it may be good advice for avoiding conflict and misunderstanding on message boards.

I don't think there's any great mystery to it...I think it's just that there's really nothing new under the sun. I mean, as much as we're all sortof individuals, there still has to be a finite number of main vices and ruling personality traits out there, you know?

we're not following their examples closely enough. That is revelation! Lead by example! Tell that to a dead Church and see what happens! Jesus was the prime example and he said this, Greater things we will do then he did! Yes T.V. has provided a vehical to reach out but Locally do we do more then he did? Some areas we do but by far we have missed out on a great deal! When was the Last time we walked into a crowd and the Holy Spirit told us to approach someone , for salvation, healing etc. If your like me I know when the Holy Spirit tells me to do this and I am Learning to hear his voice. Like Jesus he went out to them more then they came to him! We are supposed to compel them to come in! I admit this takes courage but none the Less if you walk with Christ you have these inner feelings! Lets begin to act on them! We are supposed to compel them to come in! The way things are they run to get away from us because the Quote Chuch falls short of there needs! Ah-ha! I think I see where the misunderstanding happened then. What I think you're saying is that we need to do better than we have been doing, in order to fulfill what Christ was expecting of us. I think everyone was misinterpreting your remarks to mean that we need to do better because Christ's example and the examples of the apostles were not good enough, that the way they taught us is inadequate for the modern Christian (and to be honest, I can understand why that misinterpretation happened). Heh, I didn't think the realization that we're not following Christ's example closely enough was much of a revelation (really it doesn't seem like news), but I suppose it might be for some...

Woah woah woah, slow down! No need to get defensive. Like I said, maybe we're not getting your meaning. Though our knowledge may have increased, I still believe we need to have spiritual disciplines, following Christ's example of prayer and fasting. Our increase in knowledge has not made us less human and we therefore still need to follow such examples...not in a legalistic, prescriptive way (disciplines done for the sake of appearing spiritual), but in a way that is beneficial (disciplines done for the sake of seeking a deeper knowledge of Christ and as training to "run in such a way as to get the prize," as it says in 1 Cor. 9:24) Also, I never said that God had a problem, and I never said that we didn't. I'm not saying we don't need to make improvements at all in the way we currently are walking, but I am wondering what improvements need to be made on the ways taught to us by Christ and those who lived and walked with him. I am wondering this because you said "We can improve on what they did or do the same ole same ole which wasn't to bad back then." So, my question is HOW do we "improve on what they did"? What are you asking us to do, exactly? I personally think that we don't need to improve on the examples of old (the ways taught to us by Christ and those who followed him), but that the reason we need to improve is that we're not following their examples closely enough.

I think you've already taken the first step by acknowledging the problem. This is something I've often battled with. Prayer is SO important in battling this: remember that God can work wondrously in you if you take your struggles to Him in prayer! I also feel it's important to take captive these thoughts, and to counter Satan's lies with scripture. Commit verses to memory that remind you of your identity in Christ (remember that you don't need to prove yourself, because you are a child of God, an heir in His kingdom!), and of the fact that God's strength is shown in our weaknesses. Here are some passages I hope will help: Romans 8:14-17 1 Cor. 1:26-31 1 Cor. 13 And here's one that might be good for a memory verse:

yup...I think this goes along with what Christ was saying in Matthew 16:25-26: "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?" If we neglect to follow God's great commandment to love (love Him, love one another, love our enemies) and instead pursue our own interests we lose MUCH more in the end.

Your pastor is a wise man. I agree...beautifully said, too. I think I'm gonna save that one in my quotes journal (just a little book I keep great quotes in).

Oh...I hope all goes well finding another company to partner with. Wonder if it's recession-related issues making Disney rethink this or if there's something else going on.

Okay, that works when you're in a bad mood or are having some "down" feelings, but Clinical/Major Depression is an ILLNESS, like diabetes. It's not the kind of thing where you can think happy thoughts and it will just go away. Yes, self-discipline with regards to your thought patterns is a part of managing it, but you can't oversimplify it like that either.

That is sooo true... Even travelling in a car at 9 months of pregnancy is bad enough let alone sitting on a donkey stumbling over pebbles and rocks.. very much torture..!! I have to agree with Mike here...I'm not sure a wagon would have been a whole lot better than a donkey. I mean, given how rocky that area is, I doubt even the Romans could have maintained the roads at a level that would make it a smooth ride in a cart. They didn't exactly have pneumatic tires back then, and at least a donkey would absorb some of the impact of the bumps with its own body movement. If she was accustomed to riding a donkey it probably wouldn't have been a whole lot worse--and might have even been better--than riding in a cart. Anyhow, speaking as someone who is 36 weeks pregnant, I can tell you that she almost certainly would not have had an easy time of it one way or the other. Admirable as that is, she probably would have had a short labor even if she wasn't that active. I'm a very active person myself and had a 24-hour labor with my first. Has more to do with the structure of your body than how late into the pregnancy you can keep hiking trails. Of course it helps being in good shape, but at the end of the day some women just have fast labors and others just have long ones.

I'm all for breast feeding but yikes...five??!!!! That's waaaay too old.... The only reason our modern culture has such reservations about that is because of social stigmas originating with breastmilk substitute companies who created advertising campaigns specifically geared to make mothers think that there's something abnormal or inconvenient or uncouth about nursing or nursing past a certain age. Had we been alive in Moses' day, or even living in the better part of Africa today, such a thought wouldn't even occur to any of us. It's all just social programming.

I read somewhere that in Africa and the Middle East it was not uncommon for children as old as 5 to be finally weaned off the breast...I used that as the yard stick.. *nods* In Africa this is still quite common...the breastfeeding advocate in me really wishes this were the case in more of the world, but I'll refrain from my ranting about infant formula indoctrination for now

Would he have required that much protection, though? I mean, it has already been pointed out that the royal family would have assumed that the Egyptian river-god had delivered this baby to them for a reason. It seems silly to cultures like ours, but that really would have held a lot of weight with their people. His Egyptian adoptive mother and likely everyone in the palace would have known Moses' roots, but he lived there into adulthood anyway.

Look, I know my cousin's written "voice," and I've seen her engage in those "jokin' and pokin'" exchanges, and this was NOT one of them. TRUST ME. While I know in some parts of the 'States it's common to refer to eachother as "hooker" or "ho" or whatever as a term of endearment, that's not quite so common here.

I just read a cool tip for having a Christ-centered Christmas with the kids in the monthly magazine I get from Focus on the Family Canada: buy each child just three presents (they don't have to be expensive!) and have them each symbolize the gifts of the three Magi, perhaps using that as a lead-in for more discussion about the advent of our God.

So, one of my cousins is on Facebook and I have her added as my friend. We're pretty close for cousins with a ten-year age difference (she's 14), but it's not like we're confidantes or anything. Anyway, I just witnessed this exchange between my cousin M. and (I'm guessing) a girl from school or her dance classes after M. and I had been talking about a trip to Turkey M. might get to take: I don't know what to do. I was just gonna hit the "Report" button and report it as online bullying, but as you can see, my cousin responded just as badly. Thing is, I remember all too clearly what it was like being 14 and having girls say things like that and, well...at the time I probably would have said something cutting right back too (a knee-jerk response a teenager may not have learned to control entirely yet). So I have a dilemma...do I report the first girl? Do I report the girl AND my cousin (seems the most just, even if it's not entirely fair from an emotional standpoint)? Should I tell my aunt about the exchange? Do I just ignore it and brush it off as them being 14-year-old girls? Do I come to her defense in an adult sort of way? (in some ways I would have appreciated that as a teenager, but in other ways it would have just made things worse) I don't want to alienate my cousin when what she may really need more than anything right now is someone on her side (like I say, I remember what that was like), but on the other hand I don't want my cousin to end up being a part of another cautionary tale about online bullying. Anyway, I'd especially appreciate comments from some of the youth we have on the board. I mean, I haven't forgotten what it's like, but I'm not still there, either.