I ♥ Thursday {No. 8}

Hi everybody! Or as my awesome professor would say, "Hi gang!" I've been sick for a couple of days, I guess with a touch of the flu or something, but I'm feeling okay tonight ... busy getting ready for finals, trying to find a research team to join next semester, and registering for my last few classes. I'm so thankful that all this stuff can be done online now - what a blessing when I'm not feeling well!!

I bought a new Anúna CD this week that I'd been wanting for a long time, and the liner notes for one of the songs describe "the joy of melancholy." I pondered that phrase and decided that, yes, I actually do derive some pleasure from being melancholy. So this week, I am liking some songs that may seem sad when you first listen to them, but they possess a special beauty that happy music just doesn't have.

***

Source: youtube.com via Victoria on Pinterest

"The Last Unicorn" theme - I've never seen this movie, but there is something triumphant in the sadness of this opening song.


  "Carrickfergus" - Watch Liam's face, his eyes. He lives and breathes this sad old song.


  "The Highwayman" set to music by Loreena McKennitt - Haunting, intense, and powerful.


  "Somebody Love Me" by Michael W. Smith - the lyrics on this one are painful but true


  "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye" - This is the original Irish version of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home," and it has none of the patriotic enthusiasm that our American version does. This is a bitterly sad tale of the horror and cost of war. I'm sorry that the quality of this video is so bad, but no one sings it like Tommy Makem - when he gets that catch in his throat toward the end, it is exquisitely painful.


  "War At Home" by Josh Groban

And here's a song that is in a minor key, but is not sad at all:


  "Wings As Eagles" by Jeff Conte - Stunning!

***

Remember that the rain can be as beautiful as the sun, in its own way!

Love, Vicki

So, I kind of blew up Pinterest today ...

Ahem ...

I think I owe my Pinterest followers an apology for the unconscionable amount of things I pinned today. I discovered a treasure trove of beautiful artwork in the morning, and for some reason thought I needed to "pin ALL the things"; then this evening I came across so many delightfully geeky things that I didn't want to lose ...

There really are some awesome things on my pinboards today. You should come take a look, if you haven't. But if you already follow and are wondering exactly what happened to your "Followers" page ... I'm very sorry. I hope you find something beautiful, inspiring, or geekily funny that will make amends.

Sincerely,
Vicki

Jesus Loves the Little Children

From here

Feeling very sober tonight ... it seems like many of my classes today, and then a lot of the day's various updates and news feeds that I look at, have involved horrible stories of children being abused or neglected. It is anguishing and heartbreaking to think about beautiful children, little flowers of God whom He loves so much and created with His own hands, being treated in this way. Or not being treated at all, just being left all alone and ignored when all they want is to be loved.

Imagine the horror of being so completely alone - of being hit or kicked when you tried to reach out for help - of being forgotten and left for days in one place, and being too helpless to move yourself. What a crime that any human being should be treated this way! And what a crime that it should be perpetrated against the most beautiful and helpless people in our whole world!

***

One of the stories that I read today was about a little girl named Zoe, in an orphanage in Eastern Europe. She is 6 years old and only weighs 10 pounds - yes, ten pounds. She is severely neglected and desperately needs parents to adopt her. You can read about her and her story here - I would warn you that it is  agonizing and disturbing to see the physical state she is in, but I would strongly encourage you to go and read about her anyway. There are many, many children in the world just like her, who need families of Christians - those of us who have been adopted ourselves! - to rescue them from death and show them how much God loves them.

We need to pray every day for the children, that none of them would live or die in vain; and we need to pray that our eyes would be opened to their needs, and pray for strength to face and meet their needs with courage and love, not close our eyes in horror and fear. God, grant Your people strength and love to serve the little ones You love so much!

***

 “We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.”

~ Mother Teresa

Giving Thanks for Peace

This post was actually written this morning, but I didn't have time to post it until now ...  :-)

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! It's a beautiful day here in the Midwest, and my whole family is hard at work cleaning down the house, getting all the food into the various ovens and pots and microwaves, pulling out the special dishes and silverware ... making plans for crafts, books and diets to begin after dinner ... it's a wonderful day!!

Today, I'm most thankful for the blessing of being content at home. My mom and I were discussing it this morning - as the old song says, it truly is a gift to be simple; and I'm so thankful that my family is enjoying a peaceful day, laughing and working and having fun together, without feeling the need to get "out" or "away" or anything like that. Peace is never something to be taken for granted - thank You, Father, for filling our hearts and home with Your peace today!

I'm also thankful for the peace that I have in my heart - I can enjoy today the power and strength of my Father, the passionate love of my Lord Jesus Christ, and the gentle, constant friendship of the Holy Spirit. I'm not worried about what the future might hold, because I know that He has it under control.

I'm thankful that I don't need much ... I've already been doing some Black Friday shopping online today, and the overwhelming abundance of stuff to choose from is just dizzying. I'm glad I have simple needs and tastes!

I'm thankful for peace in Israel today. Even when the mainstream media and public opinion turn against God's people, He continues to show Himself strong on their behalf.

And I'm also thankful for all of my wonderful blog friends! It's such an encouragement to me to get to log on every day and hobnob with other women who love the Lord and want His best in their lives. I draw strength from the things you write, and your comments always make me feel loved. You ladies are the best!  :-D

What are you thankful for today?

Love,
Vicki

Don't Keep Calm!

Hey everyone! Miss Laurie at Old-Fashioned Charm is having an awesome contest that you definitely need to check out if you love period dramas, good jokes, and "Keep Calm" posters!

Here are my three entries:

This is a classic Sherlock Holmes quote (or possibly misquote?) - I don't know which story it comes from, but it's quintessentially associated with the ever-awesome Sherlock Holmes.

From Sense and Sensibility

And my personal favorite:

Also from Sense and Sensibility

Be sure to pop on over and check out the contest - it's only open until November 23!!

Love,

Vicki

Justified, Adopted, Beloved

"Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness."

It was late on Monday night as I sat shivering on my cold bed next to the drafty window and read my next scheduled chapter of Romans. I wasn't feeling very good about myself. I'd dragged home from work and plopped in front of my computer for at least three hours that evening - again. I was tired of coming before God every evening with a long shameful list of failures, selfish choices, shirked duties, and ignored witnessing opportunities. I was fed up with beginning every night's prayer with "Lord, I'm sorry ..."

But I started that evening's prayer the same way. "Lord, I'm sorry ..." And then, feeling weary and discouraged, I opened my Bible.

These verses just struck me like lightning:

For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.
Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.
But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.
~ Romans 4:3-5

And these:

Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him;
But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead;
Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.
~ Romans 4:23-25

I was stunned. The only thing Abraham did that qualified him to be called "righteous" was to believe that God's word was true. He lied, he feared, he doubted, he rushed God's timing and had an unpromised son - I'm sure there were many times he came to God full of remorse and regret. Yet God Himself called Abraham His friend! Think of the honor of that! I would give anything for God to call me His friend in front of other people! What did Abraham do to win God's love and friendship? Absolutely nothing. He simply believed that when God promised to be with him, He would. It was as simple as that.

And even better - just to make sure I got the message, Paul added down below, "This wasn't just good news for Abraham. It's for you, too. If you believe that Jesus died to be punished in your place and that God raised Him from the dead, then you are considered perfectly righteous, because you are in Him."

I'm justified! I am just-as-if-I'd-never-sinned! All I had to do was believe that the Lord really meant it when He died for me - which I did, and which I still do, and which I always will. That's all I need to do!

It's such a stunningly counterintuitive truth, but it shouldn't be. Remember that the Bible says we as Christians are adopted into God's family. Does an adopted child have to work to earn his place in his new family? Does he have to be always on his best behavior and go over and above everything that his siblings do in order to be accepted by his new parents?

Of course not! A couple who adopts a child has seen him at his weakest and most unloved, maybe even his most unlovable; and yet they still love him so much that they make the sacrifices to bring him into their family. All the child has to do is believe it when they tell him they love him and want him to be part of their family. Even if he struggles to learn the family rules, or doesn't always obey, his parents still love him just the same and gently nurture him and teach him how to be godly.

From here

Why do I complicate my relationship with my heavenly Father so much, when He feels the same way about me? He saw me when I was helpless and unloveable, and yet He loved me so much that He sent His own Son to die in my place so that I could be rescued from my punishment. I saw His love extended to me, I heard Him invite me to be His daughter and part of His family, and I accepted that offer. I am His now. That's all I need to know!

Of course I need to obey His Word and the Spirit's leading - just as I obey my earthly parents. But I should obey God for the same reason I obey them: because I love Him and want to please Him. Why do I continue to believe that He sits up in heaven and frowns down at my failures and shortcomings? Would my earthly parents do that? Of course not! And the Lord is even more patient and loving than my earthly parents are!

Tomorrow, I resolve, with the Lord's help and presence, to get up in the morning and realize that I don't have to do anything to earn God's love. I have believed Him and accepted His salvation, and I am His adopted daughter. I will serve Him in love, not in fear. I'm not going to browbeat myself for struggling in certain areas, but rather turn to my Father and ask Him to help me. And He will:

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?
Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?
If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?
~ Matthew 7:9-11

God, teach me to serve You with a spirit of power, of love, and of a sound mind, not with a spirit of fear!

Love,
Vicki

Lost

Source: countrycrazy27.tumblr.com via Angel on Pinterest

"Have you changed much in the last five years?"

If someone asked me this - say, someone whom I hadn't seen in five years - I would say "no, I'm about the same" ... things in my life have changed, but inside, I'm still the same person.

Sometimes, though, I get a feeling that that's not actually true. Fundamentally, I think I have changed in five years; and I'm not sure that all of the changes have been for the better.

I was driving last night along a road I knew well - the road that used to take me to the fundamental Baptist church I attended as a teenager. Going that way always gets me feeling sentimental, but last night it was especially sharp. Would they even recognize me now? Of course my hair is shorter, I wear makeup and jeans, and I work outside the home and go to college; but on that road last night, I probed myself deeper - I've also become tougher, more confident, more phony, more calloused to the things of the world. I laugh at things that I never would have thought were funny. I enjoy music that would have made me cover my ears in horror. I neglect my talents in a way that would have made me weep.

I try to comfort myself with, "Well, at least my core values haven't changed." But I'm not so sure about that, either. When I graduated from high school five years ago, I didn't want to go to college at all, because I hoped to get married young like most of my friends did, and start a family and be a homeschooling mom. Yet this desire was not the calendar-checking obsession that it often is now - my heart was very still and quiet, and I was very focused on knowing and growing in the Lord. My passions back then were my family, my music, my writing, and my relationship with God - I took time to cultivate my skills in those areas. Now I stagger half-asleep through each day, doing the very bare minimum until I can collapse exhausted and zonk out in front of Pinterest every evening.

When I look at myself, I'm not sure I like what I see. I've grown a shell around myself that doesn't let very many people inside, and the heart inside that shell is not what it should be - it's selfish, apathetic, lazy, and worldly. I spend my day chasing knowledge, respect, and achievement, rather than wisdom, humility, and service. I come before the Lord every evening for devotions, trying to peel off the shell and bitterly ashamed of what He sees when He looks inside.

Yes, I've changed in five years. I don't think I'd like for the people in my old church to see me the way I am now.

Heavenly Father, bring me back to the innocent faith and quiet fellowship that You and I shared five years ago. Make me tender, holy, humble, and wise. Help me to find myself - and in doing so, to find You - once more.

What Do YOU Think?

Not too long ago, Jessica over at Safirewriter did a couple of awesome posts (here and here) where she posted a snippet of a story and asked her readers to tell her their ideas for background, names, descriptions, etc. of the characters and story.

I came up with this scenario today while I was listening to some epic soundtrack music, and I'd like to invite you to do the same thing. Who is the princess? Who are the ragged soldier, the enemy king, and the princess's mysterious guide? And most importantly, who comes through her door at the end of the snippet?

***

The princess stalked back and forth in her stone cell, her arms folded tightly over her flowing robes to try to fight the chilly dampness that seeped into her aching shoulders. She could tell by the gray light starting to creep through the high barred window that it was the dawn of her third day in prison. She had eaten only once in those three days; she was already growing thin, and her stomach cramped with hunger.

Today, however, she wasn’t thinking of that. “Be strong, Your Highness - on the third day, you will be rescued,” the ragged soldier had whispered in her ear as she was thrown to the stone floor and the iron door was slammed behind her. She had not been able to see his face or ask any questions before the cell was plunged into blackness. What had he meant? Who would come for her? Today was the day she would find out.

She stood against the far wall where the light was best and tried to see her reflection in the water running down the side of the cell, so she could twist her hair back into its tight braids coiled around her head. Hard to believe it had been just three days since the last time she had made these braids. It had been such a beautiful sunny morning; the world had been happy and at peace.

Then the invasion started. Terrifying dark soldiers from across the sea, arriving without warning, storming and tearing through town after town in their inexorable march toward the castle. The princess had known that her duty was to hide herself, to save herself for her country like a secret weapon. She had carefully put on a simple white robe and covered it with a coarse brown cloak that she wrapped around her and belted around her tiny waist, hiding her face inside the folds of its mysterious hood. She had gone to see her parents, the king and queen, and without speaking, they had understood. They did not weep, but kissed her, blessed her and urged her to return when it was all over.

Then she had called him – the one she had not seen for so many years. As soon as word of the invasion had reached him, he had come to be near her, knowing she would call on him in her hour of need. They had slipped away at dawn before the dark soldiers reached the walls, running through the thick forests toward the sea, where he would hide her in his little ship and slip her across to the neutral lands.

It was a good plan. But they had not made it five miles before the dark soldiers breached the walls, killing the king and queen and laying the castle waste. They discovered almost instantly that the princess was missing, and the new king’s fastest riders were sent after her. She was to be taken alive – if possible.

The princess shuddered and brought her attention back to the stone cell. Well, she was alive. What about him? She didn’t know – he had been shot in the shoulder and was left unconscious as the enemy soldiers dragged her away. If she truly were rescued today, she would go back to the forest as soon as it was safe and find him. If he had died for her … she swallowed her tears and shook the thought away. He was strong – he had to be alive somehow.

Just then, there was a soft noise at the door of her cell. The princess turned quickly and put her back against the wall. Was it a rescuer? Or were they coming to bring her to trial – or kill her?

She stood tall and regal as the door slowly swung open.

***

What do you think?? :-)

Love, Vicki

The Gift of Voting

I was so humbled and convicted as I stood in my polling place this morning - John and Heather and I voted in a really old building that was full of old flags, memorials, and plaques honoring veterans from our university; and as I waited in line and looked at those names and faces, I felt horrible for all of the apathy and disinterest I've felt leading up to this election.

Friends, the right to vote is an American right, yes; but it is also a huge gift. Our soldiers and veterans have given us this gift. It can feel empty to toss around the word "sacrifice" because we use it so much; but that word means loneliness, hunger, weariness, pain, and death for the ones who make that sacrifice for us. Generations of young men and women just like us have slept in fields and foxholes, slung muskets and rifles across their aching shoulders, run their fingers over the worn-out picture of someone a million miles away - all so we can stand in line and complain to our bored neighbors about how much we hate both candidates.

For their sake, get out and vote today. Make their sacrifice worthwhile. It doesn't matter so much who you vote for, as long as you raise your voice through the ballot and accept this gift of having a hand in your own government.

They died for this day.

~ Vicki

Why I Love Star Trek

Source: Uploaded by user via Victoria on Pinterest

I fell in love with Star Trek right around the same time that I began this blog. During Christmas break last year, my brother John came home from work one day with an armload of old Star Trek TOS videos that someone had donated to our local thrift store. We'd heard about the uber-geeky show and the backs of the video boxes looked interesting, so we whiled away the long snowy vacation days with Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and the rest of the Enterprise crew.

As I grew more and more enthusiastic about the series, my family wondered ... why? Why was their intellectual-bordering-on-stuffy daughter/sister suddenly enamored with a cheesy show that primarily consisted of cardboard props and lots of gold rickrack?

Well ... here's why.  :-)

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- Kirk, Spock, and McCoy represent a classical literary threesome - strength, logic, and emotion - and so they are very easy to identify with. I identify strongly with Spock. Like him, I often feel like a different person inside than outside, and that I am somehow different from people around me; and like Spock, I tend to use my differences as a kind of shield to keep people from coming inside and seeing the real me. Yet, like Spock, my true desire, underneath it all, is to be understood and loved by someone for that "real me" inside my shell. It was Spock who first drew me to Star Trek.

- The Enterprise is such a wonderful collection of all different kinds of people, with all different kinds of jobs, working together on a mission of peace and exploration. It doesn't matter what you can do; there's a place for you on the Enterprise - mechanics, historians, researchers, nurses, technicians, transcriptionists, computer scientists. Thinking about Starfleet is like dreaming of sailing to distant shores, or taking flight. It's another one of those things that keeps me dreaming big and remembering that there are bigger things out there than the mundaneness of daily life.

- I love the very hippie element of this show that dares to show nonviolent characters, Spock and McCoy in particular, as still being strong, masculine, and courageous. Of course there were situations where they had to use force to save lives, but Spock is opposed to violence whenever possible and McCoy refuses to kill or to allow any person to die in his place - I am nonresistant in my beliefs, and I love it that two of my favorite characters share my conviction (well ... sort of).  :-)

- Another reason I love the show is, like Bonanza and other TV shows of the period, it didn't shy away from difficult or unhappy themes. Sure, it got cheesy sometimes, but it also produced some really heartrending moments as it featured stories about love, duty vs. emotions, the limitations of science, the value of all life, acceptance of people who look and act differently than you. There are also running commentaries on 60's politics, if you listen carefully - my sister and I watched "Return of the Archons" last night, in which the Enterprise crew has to bring freedom to a country that allegorically resembles the Soviet Union.

- I love the interactions between the characters on the show. Each of the top three officers has a very different relationship with each of the other two, and their interactions are, by turns, fascinating, touching, frustrating, and comical. Their interactions with the rest of the crew are not shallow, either - it's always neat to watch Spock's logic join forces with Scotty's common sense, or to watch the emotional McCoy clash with stubborn Nurse Chapel. I love personal interactions, and that's primarily what the show is about.

- Star Trek also takes such great care to be scientifically accurate, and to make sci-fi predictions based on things that might actually happen. I can actually interpret Dr. McCoy's medical jargon because it's accurate (the only area of science I feel capable of interpreting). And of course, they use 1960's versions of iPads, memory cards, Bluetooth, biometric identification, and Skype - how awesome is that??

***

I'm sure that I'm identifying myself as hopelessly geeky with this post, but hopefully you won't think worse of me for it.  :-)  It is definitely a little out of my uber-artsy personality to be so enamored with such a science-geek show, but it's so cool that I can't help myself ...

What is your favorite show? Geek out sometime and tell me why you love it! I'd love to know!  :-)

Live long and prosper!!!
~ Vicki