See, What a Morning is
playing as I write. It’s lively. It’s full of hope and joy. And I can hardly listen to it just once.
Some songs are just like that, you know?
I woke up in the middle of the other night to hear…rain? Yup.
Even though rainy season is over, we still get an occasional drizzle (or
downpour). They call them “mango rains”. I guess they’re good for the mango trees or
something.
And while we’re talking about mangos, I can’t
wait for mango season to come around again.
I didn’t get my fill of them before they disappeared a couple months
ago.
Happy, happy!
I found butternut squash at the store the other day. It’s been a while since I’ve seen any.
I took my cue from my aunt and whipped up (literally)
a rustic African version of pumpkin soufflé.
I say soufflé…but that’s a little too refined for what it ended up
being. Pudding might be a more fitting description. With no food processor or even a wire sieve to
purée the squash, it wasn’t nearly as smooth as I’d have liked it to be. Also, I didn’t have a deep baking dish to
allow the mixture to pouf up grandly like soufflés are supposed to.
But it still tasted quite delicious, so I
deem the experiment a hearty success.
- - -
I discovered something this week. Normally when I’m startled, I jump or
gasp. I’m not the screaming kind. (In fact, I’ve sometimes wondered whether or
not I’d be able to if I ever did need
to scream.) So. My discovery.
I walked into my kitchen one night with my hands full, and noticed there
was a cockroach on the floor. I couldn’t
kill it right then (since my hands were full).
I looked down a second later and the disgusting thing was running
towards my foot. I shrieked. Then I set the dishes down, grabbed my shoe,
whacked the stupid creature, and thought with relief, “Well, at least now I
know I can make some noise if I’m sufficiently startled.”
On the subject of cockroaches, I do wonder if
my neighbors puzzle over what’s becoming a nightly ritual of banging and
slamming in the bathroom. At the end of
a long day, when I just want to brush my teeth and crawl into bed, the
cockroaches conspire to torment me. They
wait for me to flip on the bathroom light and walk in, and then they start
running to the corners and other hard-to-reach places. They’re evil.
If only I could decide to get a cute
cockroach-eating gecko for my bathroom, the same way I’d decide to get a new
soap holder or towel set. In an ideal
world. …Well, in an ideal world there
would BE no cockroaches. (But there
would still be geckos. They’d just eat
something else, like maybe…fruit. Or
something.)
- - -
I shouldn’t be by now, but sometimes I’m
amazed at just how perfectly God knows what I need to hear (or read, or
see). I just finished Alistair Begg’s
“Fix Our Eyes on Jesus” series on Hebrews and each message seemed to be exactly what I needed every time.
With that series finished, I’ve been debating
on what to listen to next. A friend
mentioned he’s starting a new series on Titus, so I’ll probably end up doing
that.
There are too many good ones to choose
from…all at the click of a button.
I wonder if I’d value the Word of God and
Biblical teaching more if it weren’t so readily available to me?
I was going to say we’re doing the story of
Noah.
But when I read the chapters again (in
English) the other day, I realized just how much more it is about what God did or said than what Noah did or
said.
God’s warnings…God’s promises…God’s
instructions…
Noah’s name is just sprinkled through the
chapters, usually along these lines, “And Noah did what God told him to.”
It only makes sense…the Bible is God’s story, after all. You can see the Bible as a random conglomeration
of stories about various people like Noah and Moses and Peter, or you can see all
of history as one epic story with God as the Hero.
If Noah and Moses and Peter were the heroes,
then our ambition would be to be like them.
But if God is the Hero…then we
can just let Him be the Hero. We can just trust that the same God who was
faithful and powerful and full of mercy for them will be faithful and powerful
and merciful in our lives.
- - -
I’ve been jotting down plans for my language
sessions in a little notebook.
Apparently I’ve had it for several years - the other day, I came across a
page with two friends’ addresses. I remember
sitting in an airport with them, exchanging addresses so we could stay in touch
over break (not that we HAD to do so by mail…).
All three of our addresses have changed since then. Two of us are now half-way across the world
from home, and another is half-way across a continent from home. :)
Kind of crazy.
Actually, a LOT of my friends have moved in
the last few years. It’s a little weird
to stop and realize that I have good friends living on every single continent. (Not including Antarctica, naturally.)
I’m thankful to live in today’s world, where
I can easily send a letter to Indonesia, receive a package from India, text a
friend in Michigan, and talk with family in California.
Ah, this girl. I would say she keeps me sane, but I’m not
always sane and the truth is more like…she is
my sanity at times.
Again, I’m thankful there’s email and Skype
to span miles and time zones and all that other stuff.
- - -
And that’s all for now. Except that it’s FRIDAY! (If you didn’t know that already.) I love Fridays. I like Thursdays, too, because Friday comes
after Thursday, and that means the weekend is just around the corner.
Anyway, enjoy your Friday, friends, and have
a good weekend!
If you’re the link-clicking type, here are a
few I’ve enjoyed recently:
Fix Our Eyes On Jesus – Vol. 1, Vol. 2 & Vol. 3
(It’s quite a long series, but well worth the time, if you’re looking for some good
sermons to listen to.)
Glamorousness and A New Adventure (This is my friend and former classmate’s
blog. She’s an amazing writer. If nothing else, read these posts just for
her sense of humor.)
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