tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58423039406671924292024-03-13T15:50:23.939-04:00Earnestly ICQI'm Chris Booth and here are some thoughts about life and God and cancer and such...cjbooth85http://www.blogger.com/profile/15608840175846189104noreply@blogger.comBlogger268125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842303940667192429.post-45487629092638901372012-11-10T09:00:00.000-05:002012-11-10T09:01:28.575-05:00Phoenix Story<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I'm not usually one to introduce myself to total strangers in public restrooms. And end up exchanging emails with them for that matter. But let me start at the beginning.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I mentioned in a prior post that my family has a history of going to a family camp / conference center in the Adirondacks called Camp Of The Woods. COTW is full of happy memories for my family, as Janie & I would, for several summers in a row, load the kids into the car and head there to spend a week with Janie's sisters and their respective families. The place was full of relaxation and cousin-ish fun and we adults would be able to hear daily chapel messages, so our souls were refreshed as well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">We did this for many summers until Janie's diagnosis of breast cancer back in 2004. Even after the surgery and treatments that would continue off and on for the next six years, Janie never felt up to going back to Camp. And frankly, after she died in May of 20120, I didn't really have the heart to spend a week there either. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Fast forward to this past summer, 2012. Becca had taken a full-time staff position at none other than Camp of the Woods for her summer break, so I knew this would be the year that I would try to stay for a few days for a visit. I should mention that I had been to COTW in the early 70's when I was little, so between my early childhood memories and my own family's history there, for me, Camp is a place soaked in memory and nostalgia. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Now I had heard that Charles Price, whom I had known as a teen, (read what I said about him <a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2012/08/god-in-shutters.html" target="_blank">here</a>) was going to be the speaker during a particular week in August, so I arranged a couple of days for Carly, Daniel and I to stay at a little cabin called Mohawk. Mohawk is, I think, the very last property at Camp still left un-renovated, so it still has the crooked, creaky floors and the tacky 1960's-ish lamps and furnishings and a certain musty-woody smell that easily transports me right back to 1971. It's wonderful and in a way I regret that Camp is renovating at all, though I understand that </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">time marches on and they can't keep everything the same, no matter how much Chris likes the ugly carpets and sticking doors. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I spent time with the kids - we mini-golfed and played ping-pong and whatnot - but I also spent time alone with God each morning in the early morning hours while the kids slept. It's a unique time of day at Camp, and I have always cherished it. I like to walk around the grounds and be rejuvenated by the sounds of birds and lapping water, and the smells of earth and pine and the general sense of peace there. But I eventually wended my way back to our little Mohawk cabin, and sat on the porch with my bible. And as the minutes ticked away and Camp woke up, I could see folks in their suitcase-wrinkled clothes finding their way to the dining hall. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">One couple caught my attention that first morning as they went by: they were an older couple and they were chatting and laughing softly as they walked hand in hand, unhurried, along the path. I watched silently as they steadied each other to step over the roots that cut across the dirt path, eventually disappearing toward their waiting breakfasts. And I thought to myself a few thoughts. I thought, "how wonderful to be together into old age...and they seem so in love and devoted after all those years." And I of course thought to myself, "...and I've been robbed of that by cancer." This was not an angry thought, just a pensive one after having spent a great early morning with God in this peaceful setting. It was perhaps a bittersweet moment as I noted the contrast: me without Janie and this couple still having each other, cheerily making their way along The Path, metaphor intended. Let me reiterate: I was not angry; in fact I took a great delight in watching this lovely older couple.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The next morning, the very same thing happened again. This same couple appeared out of the morning mist, stepping along and chatting quietly, and disappearing toward their breakfasts. And the next morning, our last at camp, it happened again. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Let me mention here that the speaker, Charles Price, had planned for that very day to speak about, of all things, God's Use For Bitterness. Not bitter attitudes, but bitter circumstances. And it was wonderful for us to hear of God's faithfulness and providential planning on giving us bitter trials and that those trials are for our Good. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">So the kids and I went to the chapel service, hearing Dr. Price on bitterness in life and God's use of it. We came out of the auditorium and walked across the way for a little birthday party (yes it was my birthday) in the TeePee snack shop, but I needed to use the men's 'Necessary Room' first. And as I stepped to the sink, there was the old gent, the hand-holding, root-stepping, wife-doting older gent, washing his hands right next to me. Almost in unison, we crossed to the paper towel dispenser. And from out of nowhere, I heard myself speak up: "Excuse me. You don't know me, but I wonder if I could trouble you for a word outside." A bit confused, he obliged, and, once outside, I introduced myself to him, adding that for these past three mornings I had watched him and his wife pass by my little cabin porch and I felt so blessed to have seen the two of them walking hand-in-hand and that, "after all these years, in today's world, that is really something!" </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">He smiled and at this point his wife walked up, so he introduced us. He said, "Rose, this is Chris. Chris saw us walking hand-in-hand these past three mornings and he likes it that we are so devoted after so much time together." Rose smiled sweetly and with a twinkle in her eye, she leaned toward Jerry and said, "did you tell him?" I said, "tell me what?" And with a another twinkle in her eye, she announced: "Chris, we're newlyweds!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Jerry and Rose had been married only 1 1/2 years. Previous to their marriage, Rose had been married to Bob for 39 years, and she had been a widow for 12. Jerry had been married to Shirley for over fifty years and had been widowed for 2. And here's where it gets crazy: Rose and Shirley had been best friends, and Jerry and Bob were good friends too! Both Rose and Jerry's losses had happened suddenly, without a long illness or anything. Also, Jerry had gone through the trauma of losing a 47-year-old (the age I was turning that very day) son only a month prior to losing his wife. Clearly, these two had experienced some bitter times in their long lives, and the two, a bit like two Phoenixes out of the ashes, had come together to forge a new life together. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">We chatted a bit longer and I shared about losing Janie, and we marveled together at Charles Price's sermon and at God's Providence in sending Charles Price with his message - that very day - about God's Use for our Bitter times. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">And I asked for their email which they graciously gave so I could review the details of their story with them and which they have graciously allowed me to tell here on the blog.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Have you been through something tough? Something horrible? I wonder if you know about God's use for your Bitter circumstance? Can you see a bigger picture? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><u>Joseph</u> in the Old Testament saw how God placed him in Egypt for the saving of many lives. (See Genesis 45:5-8 and Genesis 50:20. Better yet, read the entire account starting in Genesis 37.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><u>Moses</u> saw how God directed the Israelites out of Egypt only to lead them to be cut off by the Red Sea with Pharaoh's army on their heels...so that God could show his power in saving them by taking them through the Sea. (See Exodus 14)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">And <u>Jesus</u> himself suffered, died and rose again...all under the Providential directing of the Father. (See Acts 2:22-24)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The bible is replete with instance after instance of God's Hand of Providence on the lives of His people...especially through their bitter hard times. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Jerry and Rose have been able to see that God has used their hurt for a great purpose in their lives. They have seen a growth of their trust in Him and they see that they are being shaped and molded more each day into the likeness of Christ. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">God has Big Plans for your hurt too, so be encouraged. God will not waste your pain.</span><br />
<br />cjbooth85http://www.blogger.com/profile/15608840175846189104noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842303940667192429.post-43527371719721697862012-10-11T00:34:00.001-04:002012-10-11T00:38:29.256-04:0010/11<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">On October 11th, back in 1965, the world became a better place. I know most folks think of the 60's as tumultuous times, and they were, but truly, the world became a better place because Janie-Lynn Brown was born October 11, 1965. It was a good life. She grew up and gave to the world around her. She gave and gave and gave. She loved God and gave His love to all she came in contact with. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I know that I sound like I'm memorializing her all over again - we did that back in May of 2010 - but how does one talk about her and not praise her? She was the best of the best.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I thought it would be good, in light of this being her birthday, to post the text of what I shared at her memorial celebration. I hope as you read it, you catch a tone of joy that was there that day as we sent her on her way, so to speak. Yes, there was great sadness - we miss her so much! - but also joy. She was a joyous person...her joy being rooted and grounded in her life with God begun here on earth and now come to fruition as she has been with Christ 'face-to-face' for two and a half years now. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Thanks to all of you who continue to pray for us - we are truly blessed. I pray you are blessed as we remember Janie this special day.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">A Few Words About Janie Booth from Chris Her Husband<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>5-15-2010</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Hi and <b>thank you all so much</b>
for coming today. Today came up really quickly, didn’t it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We kind of knew it was coming <i>eventually</i>,
if God wasn’t going to heal Janie. But we just really hoped it would be <b>at
least a little later</b>! Janie packed a full lifetime of living into 44 years,
though, didn’t she? Our nephew Ben said it best an hour after she died. He
said, <b>“she didn’t live a ‘<u>short’</u> life - she lived an <i><u>accelerated</u></i>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Just last week Janie said again, in
her raspy, chemo-ruined voice, these <b>three things</b>:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">*I’m not afraid to die since I am
going to be with Jesus</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">*I have no one to make amends with,
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">*I have no regrets</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Not bad. It took my breath away
whenever I heard her say it. Who talks like that? It’s especially mind boggling
considering what she was going through. As much as I miss her, I have to say:
I’m so grateful that she’s finally free of her suffering, aren’t you? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I want to say a great-big,
heart-felt <b>thank you</b> to so many of you; I wish I could name each of you
so everybody here could appreciate you personally. But let me just say a <b>special
thanks</b> to all the wonderful, caring people at RRMC who helped Janie through
the last 6 years, and also a huge thanks to all of you in the Christian
community who prayed for us and served us sacrificially for so long. We love
you and have hearts full of gratitude for you all.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Now, I can’t resist divulging
myself and giving a speedy list of <b>some neat-o, Janie-ish stuff</b> that you
may not have known about:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">First: Your clock reads
10:11 twice a day. That happens to be her birthday as well, <b>10/11</b>. So
Janie of course christened those two times of day, “<b>The Magical Time</b>.”
“Look!” she’d say, pointing to the clock, “It’s the Magical Time! Make a wish!”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">She loved a good <b>crossword </b>and
the <b>electric blanket</b> set to 10.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">She loved scouring the <b>beaches
of Cape Cod</b> for sand dollars and welk egg cases and tiny shells and stones
shaped like hearts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">She loved anything ‘<b>miniature</b>.’
From tiny tea sets to delicate Lilies of the Valley, the tinier the better! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">All right, you all know about this
one, but it absolutely must be on the list: Three words: <b>Chocolate…..chip……cookies</b>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">She loved all the PBS 19<sup>th</sup>
century costume dramas and especially, of course, <b>Pride and Prejudice</b>.
I’m no dashing Mr. Darcy but I tried my best.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">She loved delicious, cozy food and
warm drinks by the stove on a chilly winter night.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">She loved being quiet together…like
having a quiet conversation over a cup of tea or coffee.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">She furiously loved her kids…and
her husband.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">And oh, how she loved <u>Music</u>.
Whether she was directing a RACS Christmas Program, playing a duet with Rebecca
or just singing around the house, she had a song in her heart. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">She loved sharing about Jesus and
how to live more fully for him with anyone she could, but especially you teens.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Here’s one thing you probably don’t
know about Janie: she would…alright, really, I <b>promise</b> I’m not making
this up………….<b>W</b>hen I would walk through the door at lunch or at the end of
the day…she would <b><i>clap</i></b>! She’d actually <b>applaud</b> my coming
home! For lunch! Every day! And she’d cry, “Hooray!” And she’d kiss me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Anyway, those are just a tiny
smattering of some more recent Janie-ish things. I’m sure in talking with all
of you afterwards, you’ll share lots of other little things and I’ll be
thinking to myself, “Oh, I could have said that.” And I would be right. But
there are far too many stories and anecdotes for me to share of course, so I’ll
just say this: each of you has your own stories and anecdotes that inevitably
end with, <i>“oh, that’s <b>so</b> Janie” </i>or <i>“<b>That’</b>s the kind of
person Janie was.”</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s all
bring them to mind and be inspired by them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">My good friend Nate Winters from
Pennsylvania is here today and will offer a closing prayer. Nate’s wife Kim was
a very good friend of Janie’s. Well, Kim has a blog, which Janie, ever the
non-blogger, disdainfully called a <b>bl-ugh</b>. Back in 2007, when Janie was
about four years into cancer treatment, Kim asked Janie to write a guest post
to share about loving God while living with cancer. I’d like read what Janie
wrote on the <b>bl-ugh</b>, but first, I’ll read some of what Kim had to say in
introducing Janie, because I think it describes Janie really well. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">So here’s Kim:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">“<span class="fullpost">Janie is one
of those people who have the rare ability of making you feel significant in the
first five seconds of talking to her. The first time I met Janie I remember
walking away thinking, <i>“Wow, I really am special.”</i> The next time was no
different and in fact every time I’ve ever spent with Janie, I’ve had to be
careful not to allow her to spoil me by being so interested in my life that we
forget to talk about hers.</span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="fullpost">Janie has usually done something more interesting in the
last five minutes than I’ve done all year. She’s like a
“creative-mom-over-achiever” type – the kind with the glue gun and the shrinky
dink machine and the idea to build a replica of the White House out of
marshmallows. < <i>that’s silly: Janie never made a replica of the White
House out of marshmallows….it was the <b>Smithsonian</b>… ></i></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="fullpost">For some reason Janie never got the memo that we aren’t
supposed to be so devoted to our kids’ dreams that we actually do crazy things
for them like drive them all over the earth, have ALL their friends over each
week, and buy them things like sound mixers so they can sound better when they
rock out with their Christian band in the too tiny living room. It’s no mystery
why Janie had to put an addition onto her house – to make room for the
Dance-Dance-Revolution parties.</span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="fullpost">About 3 years ago, Janie was diagnosed with breast cancer.
It hit every one of us like 100 pound hail stones. I remember thinking: <i>‘Janie
has cancer? How can Janie have cancer?’</i> And while we were all reeling from
the news, Janie was out there comforting each one, assuring us of her will to
fight, of her hope in God. I’m pretty sure Janie is the only person on earth
who got cancer and then sent other people care packages.</span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="fullpost">Recently my heart has been penetrated by some of her words
and it’s caused me to do some things differently. Because of this I want to
share Janie with you.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="fullpost">Here’s Janie’s
post:</span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>THE NEW NORMAL by Janie Booth</b></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="fullpost">I took my 10 year old to get her glasses adjusted today.
Her nose pads had gotten so squished that the bar connecting the two lenses
rested right on her nose (She claims her glasses get squished when we hug her
too hard - what a rough life!) My daughter hates change and was not happy about
the adjustment. "This feels weird," she said, seemingly preferring
the bar to the <i>optometrist-approved</i> nose pads. "Yeah, it's the new
normal,” I jokingly replied, “get used to it."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"The new normal STINKS!" she said with disdain.</span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="fullpost">I can relate. Since being diagnosed with breast cancer in
2004 my new "normal" on many occasions stinks. I just finished
another round of chemo (8 once a week infusions). Unless a miracle occurs I
will be on some kind of chemo for the rest of my life. If I was an Israelite
I'd say, "I want to go back to Egypt!" But if I think long and hard
about it, there are so many things I (and hopefully my family) have learned on
the way that we can't go back. The “new normal” has eternally changed us and
made us fit for another place, but certainly not the place we came from. Here
are the most important lessons we’ve collected so far…</span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>Lesson #1 - God is in control.</b><span class="fullpost"> I know
this sounds cliché, but recently this came home to me in a new, non-cliché kind
of way. There was a time (BC - before cancer) when I had it all together. I
would tell God what to do and then go about my business. Umm. That's all
changed now. Now with everything out of control, I realize I can either fight
Him or let Him lead, trusting that He knows best for me, even when it looks
bad. I try to listen for His still, small voice when I present my requests to
Him and I am learning to wait for His answer.</span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>Lesson #2 - Life is fragile.</b><span class="fullpost"> I am so
thankful for every night I get to tuck my kids in. I don't care what kind of
day it's been. When I get up and the worst thing about the morning is making
school lunches and homework, I rejoice. I hug my husband tight when he comes
home for lunch or home at suppertime. I jump in the leaves. I marvel at
raindrops. I laugh at my 14 year old's jokes. I take my 16 year old shopping.
All of these things, for me, could be gone in a heartbeat and I don't take one
moment for granted. I don't want to waste one minute on petty arguments or
stupid things that will pass like bad grades, spilled milk, or an unexpected
bill. Hey, leave the toothpaste cap off or the toilet seat up! (Ok, I do draw the
line on some things – like I refuse to have a bl-ugh and potlucks are an
invention long overdue for extinction) :)</span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>Lesson #3 - God chooses the circumstances He planned for my life.</b><span class="fullpost"> I choose how I want to live it. If I need chemotherapy, I can
be bitter and angry or I can be happy that there's chemo to get! Either way, I
need to get the chemo! I lecture my kids all the time with this. "You can
either procrastinate on your homework and make all of us miserable with your
complaining and grousing and exhaustion from staying up too late or you can DO
IT NOW and have happy down time. Either way, the homework has to be DONE!"
(Disclaimer: this lecture has not worked as of yet.) I have a sign on my fridge
that simply says "Choose." That one little word helps me remember
that I get to have control over one thing in life: my attitude.</span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="fullpost">Now lest you think I’ve got it all together, rewind to
yesterday morning when I sat on our couch, all by myself, crying harder than
I've cried in a year. Trying to talk to God through my tears – telling Him that
all of this is just too hard. That I can't do it. That He should MAKE IT GO
AWAY! Every day is not perfect. And I still have so much to learn. I remember,
before I had cancer, reading magazine articles or listening to someone give a
talk on life. I was just like anyone else - maybe touched for the moment but
not really changed. Things are different for me now. Life is fragile, precious,
brief. <b>But what about you? Will you take my advice and live like you don’t
have forever to live?</b> Will you enjoy your kids, love your husband,
celebrate small victories and ignore things that don’t matter – even if you
never get cancer? Words you read on a blog won't do that. Only Jesus Christ can
do that. Only He can give you the eyes to see the marvelous in the mundane.
That’s my prayer for you. It’s my prayer for me too.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Well, that was Janie’s blog post
from 2007. And now our family is facing another “New Normal.” Cancer has been a
really difficult thing for her and our family to face. Janie & I spoke many
times, especially recently, about how badly she wanted her cancer to have been <b><i>worth</i>
something</b>. If you’re going to have cancer, you want it to have been <i>for</i>
something. You want it to have been for some great purpose and meaning in <b>God’s</b>
scheme of things.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Many of you have asked me in the
last few days if there is anything you can do for me…which I so much
appreciate. Well, there <b>is</b> something you can do for me, and it would
absolutely make my heart leap if you would: you can help to make Janie’s cancer
<b><i>‘worth something’</i></b> by addressing the stuff in your own life that
you know needs attention. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">If you could allow yourself to
leave here a changed person because you’ve been around Janie and the fragrance
of Jesus that was all about her, that would be the greatest gift you could give
me and my family, because it would <b>most vividly reflect Janie’s heart</b>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Jesus said, <b><i>“I tell you the
truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a
single seed. But if it dies, it produces <u>many</u> seeds..”(John 12:24)</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i></b>Let Janie’s life, if she had to lose it, produce <u>many</u>
seeds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the days ahead, if I can
hear your stories about good changes happening in your life – especially those
with eternal consequences - because of Janie’s impact on your life, it will
feel like it was <b><i>‘worth it.’</i></b> There is nothing that she would like
more than to <b>introduce</b> each and every one of us to Jesus Christ - <b>face
to face!</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Thank you all again for coming to
be with us at this time – it means so much and we love you.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>cjbooth85http://www.blogger.com/profile/15608840175846189104noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842303940667192429.post-46484946247341146202012-08-23T13:22:00.001-04:002012-11-11T17:16:21.667-05:00God In The Shutters<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6xwtNCwL2Q59QnJo7gVC4UQaE_EZFbYqoc1QvkCubitpQLDb63hj3gpN8ap0YRzWxTlc7I0wSEX8yhFC9zyQ1avG5ZbXV9OR0hML-39iClBS698oT7DyNQGWh-Wtm5lwOSXVk_82pMgU/s1600/shutter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6xwtNCwL2Q59QnJo7gVC4UQaE_EZFbYqoc1QvkCubitpQLDb63hj3gpN8ap0YRzWxTlc7I0wSEX8yhFC9zyQ1avG5ZbXV9OR0hML-39iClBS698oT7DyNQGWh-Wtm5lwOSXVk_82pMgU/s320/shutter.jpg" width="230" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">So at least we know who to blame. According to Hubpages.com, it was the Ancient Greeks who invented the window shutter, that HORRIBLE-TO-PAINT device that does nothing but 'decorate' modern houses and make teenaged boys of the 1980's miserable for their entire summer. Obviously, the Spartans had something to do with the invention - to aid in their austere, grueling, cruel training regimens. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /><b>Spartan Drill Sergeant, very loudly:</b></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> <i>You are to scrape every last bit of paint soldier! I want to see absolutely NO PAINT left on even one louver on that shutter! I want to see two coats of oil base primer on them with absolutely NO DRIPS and I want two gleaming black finish coats of paint on ALL SIXTY FOUR SHUTTERS! Do you understand, maggot?!</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /><b>Newbie Spartan cadet:</b></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> Sir, yes sir! Thank you sir may I have another!</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Though it felt like an eternity, I spent the summer of my 17th year scraping and painting the 64 shutters of my house. I slogged through it, louver by stinking louver...scrape after endless scrape, sanding till my hands were raw and I saw dancing paint cans in my dreams.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">****</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Church was boring to me as a kid. But there was this cool thing about our family's church: we were one of the 'founding families,' which meant that the church was started by a few families, ours being one of them. Though I never expressed it, there was a certain pride for me in being on the inside track, religiously speaking. Big fish, little pond, I suppose, but I wouldn't have known that when I was little. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">By the time I was 17, the new car smell had kind of worn off, and things were rolling with the church. They didn't have a regular pastor yet, but they brought in special guest speakers now and then, in addition to the interim pastor they'd hired. Little did I know what was in store for me in the summer of my 17th year.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Charles Price was one of these special guest speakers they'd brought in. Tall and young (at perhaps 32 years old) with a kind face and soft blue eyes, Charles was a Brit, which meant he was very listenable...Americans are suckers for British accents. But the truth is, accent or no, he was captivating. He spun out renditions of the bible stories I'd heard growing up in ways that engaged the imagination. He enabled and immersed the mind's eye, and brought the bible to life in such a way as I'd never heard before.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">He came to visit our church in the fateful summer of the shutter-painting, or as it has since come to be known, the "Summer of Torture." To ease the pain and pass the time, I'd been listening to pop radio as I scraped, then sanded, then primed, then painted shutter after shutter out in the garage of my family's house. Sixty Four window shutters. Each one taunting me: "There's too many of us!" "You're just a kid!" "You'll never get us all!" "Muuuahahaha!" Daunted and broken, I slogged on, but my heart wasn't in it. Lamely grasping my scraper, I'd look at the next shutter and mutter, "I hate you."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Then along came Charles Price. And a wonderful invention called the audio cassette.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The audio cassette was an invention, for those readers born after, say, 1990, which held analog audio information on a long tape all rolled up on a roll, and you could place it in a "cassette player" so you could listen to audio...kind of like your ipod, only it had moving parts and could hold just one album at a time. I know, SO caveman.</span>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />The thing about Charles Price's messages was that there was so much content, and it was so engaging, that you felt a little intoxicated and you wanted more...yes, kind of like a drunk and his drink I suppose. Actually, for me it was more of an awakening happening in my gut...in my spirit. I wanted more, more of the God of the bible, more of the cohesive Story-of-the-entire-Bible Charles was relating. I wanted more of the Jesus he told of, whom up till then I, though I claimed to know Him, had kept at arm's length out of fear that He may ask something of me. I wanted More, and I got it in the form of the audio cassette. And I got time to listen, since it was the Summer of Torture. </span>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />One message in particular I listened to many times. Charles creatively and wonderfully recounted the story in Exodus 14 where Moses, as he led the Israelites out of their captivity in Egypt, had the Red Sea before him, the entire Egyptian army behind him, and the two million irate Israelites all looking to him for an explanation. </span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>"Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you led us out here into the desert to die?"</i> So Moses went to the Lord. And here is the part that gripped me as I slogged through my scraping/sanding/painting debacle. I can still hear Charles' crisp, ringing accent as he pronounced Moses' command to the people,<span class="text Exod-14-13" id="en-NIV-1903"> “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the <span class="small-caps" style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span> will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again.</span> <span class="text Exod-14-14" id="en-NIV-1904"><i>The <span class="small-caps" style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span> will fight for you; you need only to be still.</i>” (Exodus 14:13-14). And of course the rest of the story was the miraculous parting of the Red Sea.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="text Exod-14-14" id="en-NIV-1904">****</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Many things happened in the many years since that summer: I got married to my high school sweetheart, we traveled some, we got jobs, and then other jobs, and apartments and even bought a house. Along the way, God gave us three beautiful children, whom we raised as best we knew how...and in the instruction and fear of the Lord. Though we had plenty of chances to be reminded of God's faithfulness to us through the years, nothing could really have fully prepared us for the news that awful day in 2004: "I'm sorry Mrs. Booth, but the results of your test are positive. You have breast cancer."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="text Exod-14-14" id="en-NIV-1904">Twenty five years after that special summer, I watched the nurses wheel my wife Janie into the operating room for her lumpectomy surgery. And the words, in Charles' wonderful voice, came back to me in my helplessness: "The Lord will fight for you; you need only be still."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="text Exod-14-14" id="en-NIV-1904">As she went in for her many chemotherapy treatments, they came back again sometimes: </span><span class="text Exod-14-14" id="en-NIV-1904">"The Lord will fight for you; you need only be still."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="text Exod-14-14" id="en-NIV-1904">As she went for her umpteenth radiation treatment, they were still there: </span><span class="text Exod-14-14" id="en-NIV-1904"><span class="text Exod-14-14" id="en-NIV-1904">"The Lord will fight for you; you need only be still."</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="text Exod-14-14" id="en-NIV-1904"><span class="text Exod-14-14" id="en-NIV-1904">As she fought off another 3:00-in-the-morning panic, we fought hard to declare: </span></span><span class="text Exod-14-14" id="en-NIV-1904"><span class="text Exod-14-14" id="en-NIV-1904"><span class="text Exod-14-14" id="en-NIV-1904">"The Lord will fight for you; you need only be still."</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="text Exod-14-14" id="en-NIV-1904"><span class="text Exod-14-14" id="en-NIV-1904"><span class="text Exod-14-14" id="en-NIV-1904">As the terror gripped me when I watched her dying, the voice was still there, albeit distantly, </span></span></span><span class="text Exod-14-14" id="en-NIV-1904">"The Lord will fight for you; you need only be still."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="text Exod-14-14" id="en-NIV-1904">And even today, as God guides me and my family along the road He has laid out for us, I still hear Him reminding us: </span><span class="text Exod-14-14" id="en-NIV-1904"><span class="text Exod-14-14" id="en-NIV-1904">"The Lord will fight for you; you need only be still."</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="text Exod-14-14" id="en-NIV-1904"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="text Exod-14-14" id="en-NIV-1904"><span class="text Exod-14-14" id="en-NIV-1904">I know it
may sound crazy to some, but we did indeed experience God's peace and
stillness many times through those days, and we do even now. And </span></span></span>I suppose you've probably already guessed my point: <i>I devoutly and sincerely thank God for the Sixty Four Shutters!</i> I thank Him for every blister from the chafing wooden grip of the scraper, for the raw sandpaper hands and the dreary coats of paint. I praise Him for it all. In His wisdom He was providentially preparing me, through a simple cassette tape and a long summer, for the eventual hard days ahead that I could never have dreamed of.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="text Exod-14-14" id="en-NIV-1904"> </span><span class="text Exod-14-14" id="en-NIV-1904"> </span><span class="text Exod-14-14" id="en-NIV-1904"></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="text Exod-14-14" id="en-NIV-1904">****</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="text Exod-14-14" id="en-NIV-1904"><br /></span><span class="text Exod-14-14" id="en-NIV-1904">Post Script: Just over a week ago now, I stood in the Tibbits Auditorium at Camp Of The Woods in upstate New York, where <a href="http://www.thepeopleschurch.ca/pastors.asp" target="_blank">Charles Price</a> himself had just delivered the Sunday morning message. Though I hadn't seen him at all in the intervening thirty years, I approached him, stuck out my hand and with a warbly voice, as I thought of all that Janie, myself and my kids have been through, I re-introduced myself. With a flood of emotion I thanked him for his faithfulness to God in serving Christ Chapel on Cape Cod back in the 1980's. He couldn't have known it back then, but he was playing a very special part in the spiritual formation and preparation of a certain young man. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="text Exod-14-14" id="en-NIV-1904"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xFv0Qgdp1fA" target="_blank">Here is a YouTube clip</a> of Charles. </span></span>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>cjbooth85http://www.blogger.com/profile/15608840175846189104noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842303940667192429.post-21827754754640500592012-07-30T23:30:00.000-04:002012-07-31T00:46:10.457-04:00Nostalgia Is Great, Actually<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">When my cousin and best childhood friend, Erik, would come visit, we'd sleep in the living room on the pull-out bed stored in the sofa. You know, the bed with the bar that runs across your back like Ben Hur had when he got arrested and taken to the Roman slave ship. The bed with the bar that disfigures you like Quasimodo by morning. That bed. The cool feature of this particular model was that the head end could be locked in a semi-upright position so one could read a book like the people in those Craftmatic Adjustable Bed ads. I remember all of this very well because I spent hours - hours! - lying awake while Erik snoozed next to me, him having dropped off pretty much immediately. Children shouldn't be insomniacs. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Now, even though I'd not fallen asleep till the wee hours of the morning, it was a sure thing that I'd still wake up at like 6:30 and go eat breakfast, read the funnies, feed the dog, mow the lawn, paint the shed, weed the garden, wash the car, run for Congress, and Establish World Peace, all while Erik did this thing called, evidently, "sleeping in." It was only till 8:00, but boy that kid taxed my patience.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I was reminded of all of this because just today, through the miracle of communication technology (Facebook haha), Erik and I reconnected after having become disconnected for many years. The reconnect happened because my Uncle George died last Friday, and several of the cousins were messaging and sharing George-memories, which inevitably led to everyone's shared memories of George's mom, our wonderful <a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2010/08/grammies-100th.html#more" target="_blank">Grammie</a>. So Erik and I reconnected. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">And the nostalgia floodgates opened.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I was already predisposed to reverie and whatnot, because just two days ago my nephew Ben married his soul mate, Liz. It was a beautiful day, mostly due to the joy evident on both of their faces all day. It was a weepy ceremony, complete with the bride's own father delivering the wedding homily. The strong emotions may have been a bit exaggerated for me by the fact that Janie wasn't there, and she had known and adored Ben since birth. And she would have adored Liz too. The night of the rehearsal dinner was Janie's sister Wendy's birthday, another life-passage, and that very day also would have marked Janie & my 27th wedding anniversary. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">So I of course lay awake that night, just soaking in the knowledge that, well, time passes. That is, life is made up of these events in time; our days are marked off by passage after passage, event after event, spaced unevenly, yet perfectly by the God who is There. And indeed life is short. As Uncle George emphasized by his passing, and Janie by hers, nothing lasts forever.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I know this sounds all serious and sober and so forth, but I guess when I get a death in the family, a wedding, a birthday and a reconnect with a long, lost friend all in the span of four days, it sets me thinking, you know?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>"<span class="text Ps-90-12" id="en-ESV-15391">So teach us to number our days</span><br /><span class="indent-1"><span class="indent-1-breaks"> </span><span class="text Ps-90-12">that we may get a heart of wisdom.</span></span><br /><span class="text Ps-90-13" id="en-ESV-15392">Return, O <span class="small-caps" style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span>! How long?</span><br /><span class="indent-1"><span class="indent-1-breaks"> </span><span class="text Ps-90-13">Have pity on your servants!</span></span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><span class="text Ps-90-14" id="en-ESV-15393">Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,</span></i><span class="indent-1"><i><span class="indent-1-breaks"> </span></i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="indent-1"><i><span class="indent-1-breaks"> </span></i><span class="text Ps-90-14"><i>that we may rejoice and be glad all our days."</i> Psalm 90:12-14</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I know we don't think about this stuff all the time...I'd even go so far as to say we probably <i>shouldn't</i> think about this stuff all the time. But do <span style="font-size: small;">we </span>think of this kind of stuff at all? <i>"Teach us to number our days."</i> Do we even spend any time thinking about the meaning of such things? </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">How's that adage go? "Life is what happened while you were making other plans." I wonder if that's not such a good thing? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Anyway, I don't want to get to the end of my days, however many God gives me, and feel like I missed it. Life, I mean. Living. Being in the moment that God gave and really <i>Live</i> it, with an awareness of the living as it's happening, and not just in retrospect as I tend to do. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I think for starters it would be good for me to be more proactive about making sure my kids know I love them. Becca, Daniel, Carly...I love you.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="indent-1"><span class="text Ps-90-14">As I mowed my lawn today, I listened, for the umpteenth time, to Switchfoot's, "Souvenirs." I hope it blesses and heals and inspires you like it does me....</span></span></span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/M8n-rKCSQ0A?rel=0" width="640"></iframe>cjbooth85http://www.blogger.com/profile/15608840175846189104noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842303940667192429.post-42674246455106212782012-06-05T19:34:00.000-04:002012-06-05T19:50:45.251-04:00Gungor: When Death Dies<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/9vHFsXOdTt0?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>cjbooth85http://www.blogger.com/profile/15608840175846189104noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842303940667192429.post-4385597519238440732012-05-11T05:47:00.002-04:002012-05-11T12:43:30.069-04:00This Momentary MarriageWhat an outstanding couple.<br />
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John Piper says about them, “I tremble with the glad responsibility of introducing you to Ian <span class="amp">&</span>
Larissa Murphy in this video. Tremble, because it is their story and so
personal. So delicate. So easily abused. So unfinished. Glad, because
Christ is exalted over all things.”<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="380" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/38033654?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&color=ffffff" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe>
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You can read more of their story <a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/ian-larissa-why-we-got-married" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/learning-contentment-in-suffering" target="_blank">here</a> <span id="goog_518188056"></span><span id="goog_518188057"></span>and <a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/a-daily-disabled-life" target="_blank">here</a>. I would guess there may be even more from the Murphys, so you may want to subscribe at the Desiring God website.cjbooth85http://www.blogger.com/profile/15608840175846189104noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842303940667192429.post-23804161120409448402012-05-08T06:56:00.001-04:002012-10-11T08:52:31.241-04:00Free<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Time has traveled on since May 8, 2010. Today is the second anniversary of that awful, amazing day when Janie Booth's family ushered her into the waiting arms of her savior. It's weird trying to recall to my memory every aspect of the day. Parts are so vivid, and I'm sure I'll never forget them; other specifics and details have faded some, which I'm told is normal.<br />
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Pastor Dave told me that when you lose a loved one, it seems to take <u>two</u> of all the special days of the year before you really begin to feel more like a normal person again: two birthdays, two wedding anniversaries, two Thanksgivings, two Christmases, and, perhaps most significantly, two anniversaries of the day of their death. I'm not sure how normal I am (I'll leave that to you all to decide haha), but I thought it would be good here on this second anniversary of Janie's home-going, to make a special post. <br />
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Now I've never claimed to be a poet (and as you'll see, I shouldn't start now!), but I did pull together this little ditty back in January of 2009. I was obviously, at the time, comparing our (future at the time) loss to Janie's gain in heaven (Philippians 1:21). <br />
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<span id="goog_350931801"></span><span id="goog_350931802"></span>Free<br />
by Chris Booth<br />
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Don't cry for me, (my dears)<br />
Cry for yourselves if you please<br />
But I'm gone now, I'm gone now<br />
And I've just started to live!<br />
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Sorry I've left you, (my dears)<br />
Left behind in the Shadowlands<br />
I've got a new use now,<br />
A new use for these hands:<br />
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They're touching the robe of the King (my dears!)<br />
Touching the robe of the King!<br />
And I can use my voice (my dears!)<br />
To sing praises again to the King!<br />
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Suddenly - oh the rapture - <br />
Suddenly - I'm healed!<br />
Suddenly - dead's alive again -<br />
Suddenly - I'm free!<br />
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So don't cry for me (my dears)<br />
Cry for yourselves if you please-<br />
But I'm gone now - I'm gone now<br />
Oh suddenly I'm free!<br />
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So long, so long, so long <br />
Going to breathe the free air now, so long<br />
Oh He is calling, so long, so long<br />
I love you forever, so long!<br />
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Ok, so I'm no Shakespeare, but I do know Janie would have liked it...and no, I never showed it to her. But we did talk about the subject, and this poem came out of those conversations. It makes me feel so much better to think of her whole...free of disease, free of pain, free of fear and heartache.<br />
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Jesus, please tell her that we here in the Shadowlands are doing ok. Life has it's challenges, pains and struggles, and we miss her a lot. But we are walking with you, Lord, through it and are emerging by your grace and strength.<br />
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Today, Janie has been in the very Presence of God for 730 days, and that is of course a mere drop in an infinite ocean. And the thought gives us joy.<br />
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<i>"For to me, to live is Christ and to die is GAIN." Philippians 1:21 </i><br />
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<br />cjbooth85http://www.blogger.com/profile/15608840175846189104noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842303940667192429.post-85376004050869099022012-03-08T13:28:00.000-05:002012-03-08T13:30:38.249-05:00Matt Chandler - God Is For GodI wanted to say that this is the best Matt Chandler Sermon ever...but really, it's just typical Matt Chandler. Strap on your seat belt and click play!<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/9yqQuTT1S40?rel=0" width="640"></iframe>cjbooth85http://www.blogger.com/profile/15608840175846189104noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842303940667192429.post-76267592506976337442012-02-21T13:50:00.000-05:002012-09-10T09:43:01.669-04:00A Song In The Night<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I predict that in about 11 seconds, you are going to say, "wow, Chris, that's heavy."<br />
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Have you ever had a night where a heaviness is so near and the phantoms of fear come up so close that the darkness is almost tangible? You toss and turn. A panic comes on. You get up and pace and try to shake it off, but you're just plain afraid.<br />
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I would guess that everyone has had a night panic at least once.<br />
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There seems to be something extra scary about being afraid in the middle of the night. Maybe it's because lacking a visual connection to the stuff around us, we have a frightful capacity to fill in the blackness with all kinds of phantasms conjured by our fearful brains.<br />
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There is a powerful weapon against the terrors of the night. Janie used to wield this weapon a lot. She utilized it to get settled when fears seeped in from behind the window shades and from under the dresser. Her fears about cancer. Her fears about the welfare of the kids and me when she would eventually die.<br />
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And the weapon's name?<br />
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Music! Specifically, music about God. Because sometimes the fears are so opaque that nothing else will cut through. A song in the dark can dispel the darkest mayhem in your mind like a thunderclap...or a whisper up close.<br />
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One of the greatest things about music is it's ability to carry to our hearts and minds great thoughts about God. This makes it a powerful weapon against fear in the night. When I'm all alone, I can still sing - as long as the song itself has a place in my heart and mind already. And how does it get in my heart and mind? Repetition. We should sing great songs often so they can come to mind easily. So that when the darkness comes, when the doctor says, "yes, I think it's cancer," when you're lying on the gurney in pre-op staring nervously at the ceiling, when your meds aren't right and the side-effects make you pace and wring your hands at 3:00 in the morning, especially in these times and worse, the truths about God found in the songs in your heart are there to settle you.<br />
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Of course, it's the bible truth, and the presence of the One it describes that settles you...the music is merely a carrier. I wonder if what really happens when we sing isn't so much God's presence arriving (isn't He already here?) as it is our heart's attention being diverted from our present scary situation and onto the face of God. It makes me think of Paul and Silas singing hymns in the dark of their prison: <br />
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<i><span class="text Acts-16-23" id="en-ESV-27493">"And when they had inflicted many blows upon [Paul and Silas], they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely.</span> <span class="text Acts-16-24" id="en-ESV-27494">Having received this order, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.</span><span class="text Acts-16-25"> About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them..." Acts 16:23-25</span></i><br />
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<span class="text Acts-16-25">Music has such a power to shift the mood from despair to hope. I wonder what songs they sang? I know it was written later, but can't you almost imagine the two prisoners singing in the blackness, </span><br />
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<i><span class="text Acts-16-25">"Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father. There is no shadow of turning with Thee! </span></i><br />
<i><span class="text Acts-16-25">Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not. As Thou hast been, Thou forever wilt be! </span></i><br />
<i><span class="text Acts-16-25">Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness! Morning by morning new mercies I see! </span></i><br />
<i><span class="text Acts-16-25">All I have needed Thy hand hath provided. Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!"</span></i><br />
<span class="text Acts-16-25"><br /></span>
<span class="text Acts-16-25">Janie had a virtually encyclopedic knowledge of the hymns. From the old-timey Baptist stuff like "Wonderful Grace of Jesus" to the tender, "Fairest Lord Jesus;" from the happy "Blessed Assurance" to the brooding, "O The Deep, Deep Love of Jesus;" from the the hopeful "One Day" to the mighty "O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing," Janie had 'em all stored in her noggin - and in her heart. </span><br />
<span class="text Acts-16-25"><br /></span>
<span class="text Acts-16-25">One of the things that concerns me about some of the, how should I say it? theologically "thin" church music* being written these days is that though the songs are fun to sing with all of our friends around us on Sunday morning, many don't have enough meat on their bones to thoroughly equip our souls with solid, dense, mighty truths about God. When the dark night comes, and the only songs laid up against it are fluffy and light, then a potentially useful weapon - music - has turned out to be a flimsy plastic sword.</span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"> </span></span>Martin
Luther said that after the sermon, the songs in church are the greatest teacher
of theology for the church. Oh, that that were true of more of today's songs! This is why I get excited by (among others) great modern-day song writers <a href="http://www.stuarttownend.co.uk/" target="_blank">Stuart Townend</a> and<a href="http://www.gettymusic.com/" target="_blank"> Keith and Krysten Getty</a>, who wrote the theologically robust, "In Christ Alone." We sang this wonderful song to Janie as she took her final breaths, and again at her memorial service. I like it because it reminds me, in the dark, that....<br />
<span class="text Acts-16-25"></span><span class="text Acts-16-25"><br /></span>
<i>In Christ alone my hope is found,<br />
He is my light, my strength, my song;<br />
this Cornerstone, this solid Ground,<br />
firm through the fiercest drought and storm.<br />
What heights of love, what depths of peace,<br />
when fears are stilled, when strivings cease!<br />
My Comforter, my All in All,<br />
here in the love of Christ I stand.<br /><br />
In Christ alone! who took on flesh</i>
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Fulness of God in helpless babe!<br />
This gift of love and righteousness<br />
Scorned by the ones he came to save:<br />
Till on that cross as Jesus died,<br />
The wrath of God was satisfied -<br />
For every sin on Him was laid;<br />
Here in the death of Christ I live.<br /><br />
There in the ground His body lay</i>
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Light of the world by darkness slain:<br />
Then bursting forth in glorious Day<br />
Up from the grave he rose again!<br />
And as He stands in victory<br />
Sin's curse has lost its grip on me,<br />
For I am His and He is mine -<br />
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.<br /><br />
No guilt in life, no fear in death,</i>
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This is the power of Christ in me;<br />
From life's first cry to final breath.<br />
Jesus commands my destiny.<br />
No power of hell, no scheme of man,<br />
Can ever pluck me from His hand;<br />
Till He returns or calls me home,<br />
Here in the power of Christ I'll stand.</i><br />
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Charles Spurgeon preached <a href="http://www.biblebb.com/files/spurgeon/2558.htm" target="_blank">a whole sermon</a> about singing songs in the night. He said that when you don't have a song, just ask God to give you one. You don't need to come up with something:<span style="font-size: small;"> <i>"<span style="color: black;">So, then, poor
Christian, you needn’t go pumping up your poor heart to make it glad. Go to your
Maker, and ask him to give you a song in the night. You are a poor dry well: you
have heard it said, that when a pump is dry, you must pour water down it first
of all, to prime the pump, and then you will get some up; and so, Christian,
when you are dry, go to God, ask him to pour some joy down you, and then you
will get some joy up from your own heart." I would also mention that Spurgeon battle<span style="font-size: small;">d spiritual depression his entire life<span style="font-size: small;">, so he speaks not so much 'in theory' <span style="font-size: small;">in 'real life.'</span></span></span></span></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;">So if you are having troubles in the night, may I warmly commend 'a song in the night' to you? <br /><span style="font-size: small;">Do you s</span>leep like a baby? May I still commend the idea of injesting great, theologically robust songs about God? Get them stored away in your heart against the day that you may need it. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;">One last thought: can you imagine, in those scary moments, <i>God </i>himself <i>singing </i>over you? What a powerful weapon <i>that </i>would be against the night phantasms! Zephaniah 3:17 says,</span></span><br />
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<i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"> </span></span><span class="text Zeph-3-17" id="en-ESV-22838">The <span class="small-caps" style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span> your God is in your midst,</span><br /><span class="indent-1"><span class="indent-1-breaks"> </span><span class="text Zeph-3-17"> a mighty one who will save;</span></span><br /><span class="text Zeph-3-17"> he will <b>rejoice </b>over you with gladness;</span><br /><span class="indent-1"><span class="indent-1-breaks"> </span><span class="text Zeph-3-17">he will<b> quiet you</b> by his love;</span></span><br /><span class="text Zeph-3-17">he will exult over you with <b>loud singing</b>.</span></i><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="color: black;"></span></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;">Maybe I'll write a worship song about that...</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;">***** </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;">How about you? Can you recommend to me some more modern day hymn-writers? Thanks!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;">***** </span><i><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;">*For more about music and worship, you may find <a href="http://forsclavigera.blogspot.com/2012/02/open-letter-to-praise-bands.html" target="_blank">this blog post</a> interesting.</span></span>cjbooth85http://www.blogger.com/profile/15608840175846189104noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842303940667192429.post-36197137903275063962012-02-09T20:39:00.003-05:002012-02-09T22:00:42.021-05:00What Did Jesus Christ Look Like?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQL4iYTj7vAuSOCtF1tLQKHt9WtqsDM9F1eHFp7mFRyEd22iFiR" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQL4iYTj7vAuSOCtF1tLQKHt9WtqsDM9F1eHFp7mFRyEd22iFiR" /></a></div>
What did Jesus Christ look like?<br />
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Well, first of all, he was <a href="http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQcMPxJZs87CkiOv9c2zxDjuYfU4QQwoHFkAVd7WM6KkXon-B8m5A" target="_blank">white</a>, or <a href="http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQr2LPKcdp2C0Kec5y6s1t7V7Ad8a6qywfx-ktGQJfzL6Vv0rvkIw" target="_blank">black</a>, had <a href="http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRJw9ywsldpSe-YbFITT98s_N5Ie7LJ-ZhVXHdZeIylabx2bclqMA" target="_blank">blue eyes</a>, was <a href="data:image/jpeg;base64,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" target="_blank">skinny</a> and had <a href="http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcShScX-uMi0Am0TJhE-eaKPB_97f07B9ILM1DX2GB3oJezVyLza" target="_blank">good hair</a>. He walked around in a <a href="http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTi0lnPlTibCVjPeuctPsh__k10XvflnGxk8i30SKL7a-86SXto" target="_blank">white bathrobe</a> with a blue prom sash over his shoulder and wore epic <a href="http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSrBoWIm8rLnKZea-3mXYtP6TdimkTN0H_lbZhMMVmtuEpZkmGZsg" target="_blank">screen-printed tee-shirts</a> and Birkenstock sandals and, evidently, <a href="http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTnWt5aCIAUc7ynNNgqE-NPgzQW7oYr4HdhedtCUTNXh8Hdq1rLgg" target="_blank">glowed</a>. He <a href="http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTWfO5oS2GROhQosy1XNs95qzcWRAufV8grWXgZ3ofSxLWzdQ4l" target="_blank">carried a lamb</a> around and <a href="http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS1sGOiYrkUs_cc-Q9yhUAE3B_E5_WvIK3vc31Vz0qrwaByWr8I" target="_blank">placed his hand</a> on the tops of little children's heads. I understand He also <a href="http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTePKRl-Zx3MlKWbmgE-CrX6B5C4Gv_eklASnNCzctY0kGIiUGx" target="_blank">played baseball</a> and <a href="http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ-ICBo-Y1A6sZZckSivj8fMtrkr5MOhKeK8X1ofbZqoqlfCEGkxQ" target="_blank">football</a> in the backyard with some of the kids in the 'hood. <br />
<br />
If I spend too much time thinking about <br />
<a name='more'></a>the silliness of how Jesus has been depicted over the years, it actually trips me up. If I really pay attention to the way He has been represented by awful paintings, kitschy church stained glass, bad Sunday School flannel-graphs, Christian bookstore coffee mugs or even children's story bible illustrations and the yearly Easter pageants, not to mention on South Park and the movies, I begin to wonder if it could all really be true. Frankly, with Jesuses like this, I don't think I'd want it to be true.<br />
<br />
Maybe that's why the Amish forbid any images of Jesus.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6xUHO7WhW2c?rel=0" width="560"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
Don't get me wrong: doubts are as normal as can be, and any Christian who says he never doubts is either not being honest with you (or himself perhaps) or is not really thinking about it all very much. I mean, what Christianity asks us to believe is that God the Son, Jesus Christ, who was an invisible spirit, took on human form (they call it the Incarnation) and walked the earth for 33 years and then was unjustly murdered, buried, and three days later rose from the dead, returned to heaven for a time and is coming again one day to gather those sinners who have put their saving trust in His death in their place so that they may live with Him, never to be sick or sad, enjoying His Presence forever.<br />
<br />
This is asking a lot. And we've piled onto that zillions of caricatures of Him that strain our ability to believe the story.<br />
<br />
I was thinking about these things one day when it struck me like a lightning bolt out of a blue sky: yes, we do have these various and often ridiculous caricatures of Him....but if Jesus Christ really did walk the earth 2000 years ago, well, He had to look like <b><i>something</i></b>. I mean, if the Incarnation really happened, and God really took on humans skin and bones and blood and hair and everything, well, He obviously would have had some kind of looks. Facial features. Pores. Arm hair. Fingerprints.<br />
<br />
This came as kind of a relief to me - to accept that He had looks. We've tried to represent Him, but every single man-made depiction cannot possibly be accurate, since there was no photography two thousand years ago. The only description the bible gives is that He wasn't particularly remarkable looking:<br />
<br />
<i>"...he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, </i><br />
<i> and no beauty that we should desire him."</i> <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Is%2053&version=ESV" target="_blank">Isaiah 53:2</a>.<br />
<br />
It also kind of comes as a relief to not have a detailed description of His appearance. By not having a description of His looks, we are more able to consider His message without distraction. Because the big thing about Jesus isn't his looks, it's His message. The gospel message He brought, the story of freedom for captives of Sin, is so big that it defined history. I know they're changing the way we talk about the division of history, and are now using B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) and C.E. (Common Era), but the historical fact is that B.C. (Before Christ) and A.D. (Anno Domini - the year of our Lord) were in place for fifteen hundred years. All of history hinges on this man who really did walk the earth and revealed what God is like to needy human beings. <br />
<br />
Obviously, all of this depends on the story of Jesus as related in the bible. So it begs the question: <i>is the bible a historically trustworthy document?</i> It seems that everything hinges on the answer to that question. <a href="http://www.rzim.org/justthinkingfv/tabid/602/articleid/29/cbmoduleid/1374/default.aspx" target="_blank">Here is a link</a> to a good article about the historicity of the bible. <br />
<br />
Anyway, for myself, I just don't want to look at human depictions of Jesus anymore. The only portrait of Him I think I can trust is the character sketch that's given in the bible.<i> </i>It's the only thing that in my gut feels like it has the ring of truth. So maybe the Amish were on to something....<br />
<br />
<i>"And the Word [Jesus] became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have
seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace
and truth." John 1:14.</i> <br />
<br />cjbooth85http://www.blogger.com/profile/15608840175846189104noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842303940667192429.post-58715918823878683532012-01-19T12:44:00.001-05:002012-01-19T12:44:46.639-05:00Don’t Rent That Clown Suit Just Yet…<h2 style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-weight: normal;">
<i><span style="font-size: small;">This is from <a href="http://www.theblazingcenter.com/2012/01/dont-rent-that-clown-suit-just-yet.html" target="_blank">The Blazing Center</a> blog, which is maintained by a father-son pastor duo from Pennsylvania.</span></i></h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2377/2053771120_e16f3138a6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2377/2053771120_e16f3138a6.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<h2>
Don’t Rent That Clown Suit Just Yet…<span style="font-size: small;"> </span></h2>
<h2>
<span style="font-size: small;">by Mark Altrogge </span></h2>
<h2>
We’re funny creatures, us humans. We ask our heavenly Father to
provide for us then we try to figure out how he’s going to do it.</h2>
We pray, then our wheels begin to turn. Let’s see, I could get a
second job. I could sell my signed Justin Bieber poster on eBay. I
could rent a clown suit and do kids’ parties…<br />
<br />
And when we can’t see how he will be able to answer our prayers, we
worry. Our fertile imaginations construct all kinds of “what if’s” in
our mind. What if I don’t have the money to pay my tuition? Then what
if I can’t get a loan? And I have to get a job flipping burgers? And
what if I don’t make enough doing that and I have to start living
under a bridge and turn to a life of crime? And then get caught and
put in prison next to an axe murderer?<br />
<br />
Worry is essentially us trying to figure out the future. Or how God
will work in the future. And when we don’t see how God can do it, we
get fearful. If we can’t see exactly how he’ll provide, or deliver or
heal us, <br />
<a name='more'></a>we worry.<br />
<br />
But God’s not dependent on means. He’s not dependent on our company
or the economy to provide for us. He doesn’t need doctors, medicine or
technology. He often uses means, but doesn’t need them. He can heal
with a word. Or put a gold coin in the mouth of a fish. Or multiply a
few loaves and fishes.<br />
<blockquote>
<strong>“We never consider that God can open the eyes of
the blind with clay and spittle, he can work above, beyond, and even
contrary to means… “Ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain,
yet the valley shall be filled with water” (2 Kings 3:17). God would
have us to depend on him though we do not see how the thing may be
brought about.” Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian
Contentment</strong></blockquote>
Did you catch that last sentence?<br />
<h2>
“God would have us to depend on him though we do not see how the thing may be brought about.”</h2>
Someday in heaven we’ll get to trace all God’s providences. Won’t
that be fun? We’ll say see, here’s the day I offered that prayer. On
that same day, God gave a man in South Africa a new idea and he did
this….that changed the way people did this…which created a market for
this. Which caused my boss to transfer me across the country….which
led to me meeting my wife…<br />
<br />
Part of the joy of heaven will be following all God’s providences and worshiping him for his infinite wisdom and goodness.<br />
<br />
<strong>Our job is to depend. To trust. To pray and thank God for
his faithfulness. To rest. God’s job is to run the universe and care
for his children. He’s pretty good at it. And he’s got ways of
answering our prayers we don’t even know about. So don’t rent that
clown suit just yet…</strong>cjbooth85http://www.blogger.com/profile/15608840175846189104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842303940667192429.post-63463904734737014612012-01-09T13:27:00.002-05:002012-01-09T13:58:53.498-05:00The WalkNow that the Janie's Christmas Stocking project is <a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2011/12/janies-stocking-final-whizbang-wowie.html" target="_blank">done</a>, I thought I'd add one more thing from <a href="http://www.fh.org/" target="_blank">Food For The Hungry</a>. <iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/34031499?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/34031499">The Walk</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/foodforthehungry">Food for the Hungry</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
<br />
<i>"If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit." Galatians 5:25</i><br />
<br />
You don't need to wait till the next Janie's Christmas Stocking project to bless needy people in the world. You can make a change all through the year by <a href="http://www.fh.org/give/sponsor" target="_blank">sponsoring a child</a>...or giving to one of <a href="http://www.fh.org/" target="_blank">FH's many ministries</a>. I don't want to "guilt" anyone into doing anything, but I am asking those who are feeling the tug, who are tired of resisting and are ready to follow God in this way, to follow through and commit to parting with some of your money. I know the video said that throwing money at the problem may just kick it down the road, but, well, if we can't personally go and walk with the needy, why can't we financially back those like FH that are?<br />
<br />
This passage jolted me this morning, though I've read it a thousand times: <i>"<span class="woj"><u>Sell your possessions and give to charity</u>; make yourselves money belts which do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near nor moth destroys.</span> </i><span class="woj"><i> For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."</i> Jesus is calling us to invest in non-material things - peoples' hearts and souls - by spending a material thing: money. Have you ever sold something of yours so you could give it's "value" to charity? I haven't.</span><br />
<span class="woj"><br /></span><br />
<span class="woj">I think I'm going to give it a try...I'm starting with my kids' old gaming systems and I'm only half-way kidding! I wonder what else in my basement I can free myself of? </span>cjbooth85http://www.blogger.com/profile/15608840175846189104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842303940667192429.post-22800526966437541392011-12-28T22:50:00.001-05:002012-08-15T10:07:46.723-04:00Janie's Stocking 2.0 Final Whizbang Wowie<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://mycharitywater.org/images/welcome_image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://mycharitywater.org/images/welcome_image.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Don't you hate it when your kids are in the position to be able to
say, "I told you so?" Well, that's me right now. Back in November when
we were deciding on what item from the <a href="http://www.fh.org/give/catalog" target="_blank">Food For The Hungry "Gift" Catalog</a> we wanted to select for <a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2011/11/thankful-fora-sock.html" target="_blank">Janie's Christmas Stocking</a>, I wondered
about the idea of being so ambitious as to choose the largest gift in
there. We'd seen God do amazing things last year, when over $1700 came
in when we had hoped to "reach" $500. But still, this year I expressed a
little reservation. It went kind of like this:<br />
<br />
Me: "I have some reservations this year."<br />
<br />
Carly (scoffing a bit): "Of course we'll reach $2500, Dad. You'll see. Have a little faith."<br />
<br />
Me: *wince* <br />
<br />
And
with that, we decided to <br />
<a name='more'></a>take the plunge and commit to try and raise the
$2500 needed to purchase a well for a needy village in Kenya. It could have been a million dollars for all the confidence I was feeling at the time, but I just figured we'd raise as much as possible, and if we reached enough for the well, that would be great, but if not, then we'd just use it for something else in the FH catalog.<br />
<br />
On Thanksgiving day (only four weeks ago, but it feels like forever doesn't it?), I had a brief chat with my pastor, Dave Lind, and his wife Dawn. I had simply described the idea of the well, and asked if they might forward an email from me to anyone in the church who they thought might have known Janie and might like to get in on the well project. Doing his due diligence, Dave took it to the elder board at Calvary Bible Church here in Rutland and from what I understand, they went a little bonkers (the good kind of bonkers) on the idea. They actually suggested that a mere email forward was not enough, and they asked if we would mind if Calvary's Christmas Eve offering go to the project. I was thrilled of course, and with delight said yes! So to begin to let people know about it, on the first Sunday of December, Dave had me get up in front of the congregation to describe what we were doing. Then, much to my surprise, Dave announced that <i>all</i> of the December special offerings up to and including Christmas Eve's would go to the project! Amazing. (Encouraging side-note: this offering was intended to be <i>in-addition-to-and-not-in-place-of</i> regular giving, and I'm told Calvary's regular giving did not dip during December. That's pretty special, because Rutland is not a particularly well-to-do city, and as far as I can tell, the folks at Calvary aren't necessarily particularly well-to-do either.)<br />
<br />
So the month went by, and we watched as Janie's Stocking got filled, so to speak. The online giving was slower to catch on, though I was amazed, just last night (New Year's Eve), as people continued to donate right up to the eleventh hour.<br />
<i><br /></i><br />
<i>Alright Chris, enough story! Cut to the chase! How much came in?!</i><br />
<br />
Well, Carly, you were right, I should have had a little more faith. I hadn't anticipated the four weeks of special offerings at church, and I hadn't anticipated the coin purses emptied into my palm (although I had kind of anticipated - actually publicly asked for haha - a certain <a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2011/12/creepiest-piggy-bank-ever-20.html" target="_blank">creepy piggy bank</a>). I hadn't anticipated the cash handed to me in the gas station line, I hadn't anticipated friends re-posting my blog posts about it, and the subsequent visits to the online giving page from literally around the world. In the end, though we were hoping to reach $2500.00, Janie's Christmas Stocking 2.0 brought in $8365.00, and I am more than a little stunned. That's well over 3 times more than we were looking to raise! Praise God, this will help hundreds (maybe thousands?) of needy people in other parts of the globe. It's a really humbling feeling, and it's been such a good experience to do this. It made the Booth's Christmas without Janie more bearable, even joyful in some ways, to know that people will be helped, since helping people is what Janie loved to do most.<br />
<br />
So in practical terms, what this means is that we can purchase <i>three</i> wells (@$2500 x 3 = $7500) rather than just one! With the "leftover" money (about $800), we are *tentatively* talking about a <i>fourth</i> well in another country, possibly Haiti, since we have some connections there.<br />
<br />
**Psst! If you go to Calvary, shhh, please wait to talk about it with anyone till after next Sunday the 8th, since we're making the announcement then during the service. Ok? Thanks.**<br />
<br />
There truly are no words to express the kind of gratitude all the Booths, Browns, Linds and Karabenshes feel toward all of you who gave. So we say, humbly, <i>thank you</i>.cjbooth85http://www.blogger.com/profile/15608840175846189104noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842303940667192429.post-1462176046557955092011-12-27T23:12:00.001-05:002011-12-29T22:16:14.690-05:00The Authoritative, Indespensable Year-End Roundup of EarnestlyICQ<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://nbchardballtalk.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/click-here-large2.jpg?w=272" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://nbchardballtalk.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/click-here-large2.jpg?w=272" width="200" /></a></div>
<i>The Authoritative, Indespensable Year-End Roundup of EarnestlyICQ</i><br />
<br />
Heh, I enjoyed that post title. Any guesses where I ripped that off from?<br />
<br />
Anyway, I've never done a year-end roundup of the most popular posts of this (obscure) blog...and I'm not about to start now. However, I thought it might be fun(ny?) to put up some of the posts that I most enjoyed typing (or were most meaningful for me at the time) from the ENTIRE HISTORY (since July 2009 haha) of this blog....for your year-end reading enjoyment. So both of you reading this blog can <br />
<a name='more'></a>have a laugh...or a cry. Either way, enjoy!<br />
<br />
<a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2009/10/your-best-lifelater.html" target="_blank">Your Best Life Later</a> <br />
<br />
<a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2009/10/i-thought-it-would-make-me-happy.html" target="_blank">"I Thought It Would Make Me Happy"</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2009/09/how-to-ride-roller-coaster.html" target="_blank">How To Ride A Roller Coaster</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2009/10/holy-holy-holy.html" target="_blank">Holy, Holy, Holy </a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2009/12/herman-j.html" target="_blank">Herman J</a><br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1805373385"><br /></a><br />
<a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2010/02/this-side.html" target="_blank">This Side</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2010/03/cowbells-and-colossians.html" target="_blank">Cowbells and Colossians</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2010/03/drainers-and-fillers.html" target="_blank">Drainers And Fillers</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2010/04/chagalls-abraham.html" target="_blank">Chagall's Abraham</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2010/04/where-are-men.html" target="_blank">Splash Of Rain</a> *and* <a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2010/04/yankee-candle-convert.html" target="_blank">Yankee Candle Convert</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2010/04/everythings-amazing-and-no-one-is-happy.html" target="_blank">"Everything's Amazing And No One Is Happy"</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2010/04/typing-lessons.html" target="_blank">Typing Lessons </a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2010/04/running.html" target="_blank">Running</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2010/06/in-which-inexplicable-is-explained-to.html" target="_blank">In Which The Inexplicable Is Explained To Me</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2010/07/july-27th-1985.html" target="_blank">July 27th, 1985</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2010/08/ping-pong.html" target="_blank">Ping Pong</a><br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1805373423"><br /></a><br />
<a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2010/08/peewee-in-hallowed-culinary-halls.html" target="_blank">A Peewee In The Hallowed Culinary Halls</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2010/10/beauty-will-rise.html" target="_blank">Beauty Will Rise</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2010/11/jesus-and-plunger.html" target="_blank">Jesus And The Plunger</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2010/11/outward-glad.html" target="_blank">Joyful Grieving?</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2011/03/music-for-soul.html" target="_blank">Music: For The Soul</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2011/05/pride-goeth-before-summer.html" target="_blank">Pride Goeth Before A Summer</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2011/05/365-days-with-jesus.html" target="_blank">365 Days With Jesus</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2011/09/be-lifted-up.html" target="_blank">On Being Lifted Up</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2011/11/fasting-and-sacrifice.html" target="_blank">F.A.S.T.ing And Sacrifice</a><br />
<br />
Wow, that was more than I thought there'd be...um, sorry about that. (But in all fairness, it is almost 2 1/2 years' worth.) Well, just pick out something that looks interesting to you (of course they were all brilliant to me at the time, heh) or, if you're smart, you'll go write your own posts instead of reading someone else's!<br />
<br />
Final update on Janie's Stocking fund-raiser coming very soon!!!<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />cjbooth85http://www.blogger.com/profile/15608840175846189104noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842303940667192429.post-40923491122495281322011-12-27T22:10:00.000-05:002011-12-27T21:41:04.646-05:00Book Roundup 2011<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://encrypted-tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSPZ5fzWUd_2ZdWHAR-mYiCvXIveNdwMXz8hC7XDG-Wmu55xBmJlw" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="148" src="https://encrypted-tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSPZ5fzWUd_2ZdWHAR-mYiCvXIveNdwMXz8hC7XDG-Wmu55xBmJlw" width="200" /></a></div>
It's year-end-roundup time, and the blogosphere feels different for a week or so. We give our "funniest posts roundup," our "most popular posts," our thoughts on the turn of the year and......*pensive pause* ha! you thought I was going to give you my list of books I read this year, didn't you! Nope, I'm turning the tables....<i>you</i> tell <i>me</i> what books you read this year instead! Thanks to <a href="http://theverticall.blogspot.com/">The Blainemonster</a> for the idea. I'm always nervous about asking people to comment though...what if they don't? I'll feel silly gosh darn it. At least you'll comment, Blaine....won't you?<br />
<br />
<br />cjbooth85http://www.blogger.com/profile/15608840175846189104noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842303940667192429.post-3349411189434002932011-12-26T23:27:00.001-05:002012-08-15T10:08:22.851-04:00Creepiest Piggy Bank Ever 2.0<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_gcReY1LX9Q/TvlHdrDW26I/AAAAAAAAFfc/Y7mWrQBmufw/s1600/IMG_4609.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_gcReY1LX9Q/TvlHdrDW26I/AAAAAAAAFfc/Y7mWrQBmufw/s320/IMG_4609.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
Long-time subscribers to this blog (bwa-haha that's funny) may recall that last year when we did the first-ever Janie's Christmas Stocking fund raiser, my friends Steve and Ruth Hall contributed the contents of their spare-change <a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2010/12/creepiest-piggy-bank-ever.html" target="_blank">piggy bank</a>. Well, they've dropped off the bank again this year too, God bless them. It's a wonderful way to be a part of the fun, but they gave it with a few caveats:<br />
<br />
1) I have to return the bank. No Problem...the thing gives me nightmares. This year, they dressed it up with some false eyelashes and a big red bow on the top of it's head. Yeah, that makes it much less chilling. Remember that awful shower scene in Psycho when the shadow falls on the shower curtain and the lady knows she's about to get it? <i>"Reeee! Reee! Reee!"</i> "Screeeeaamm!!" I wake up in a cold sweat having seen this pig, pretty eyelashes and all, appearing in the mirror when I closed the medicine cabinet. Or I get in the car and reach up to adjust the rear view mirror and there it is....slightly grinning. Or pushing me out of an airplane. Go ahead, click the picture. I dare you.<br />
<br />
2) We have to remove the change ourselves from the <br />
<a name='more'></a>bank, which seems like it should be no big deal except that the maker of this particular bank made the hole in the bottom - the one for removing the coins - almost exactly the size of a quarter. Knowing what was ahead for me, Steve and Ruth I'm sure guffawed all the way home as they imagined me sticking my index finger into the pig's butt to extract their coins. I laughed a bit myself, actually, and reconfirmed what I'd known about myself my whole life: I do not want to be a proctologist.<br />
<br />
Just a quick status update on Janie's Stocking: It's going great! It's going better than what you would see if you only look at the <a href="http://www.grouprev.com/janiesstocking?saved=1" target="_blank">online giving page</a>, which is only part of the story, as is evidenced above. I'll
give a Grand Total Finale kind of thing on New Year's Day, and I'll tell the full story of all the wonderful people who have contributed as well as how this thing "took on a life of it's own."<br />
<br />
Thanks so
much for giving, my friends. <br />
<br />
<br />cjbooth85http://www.blogger.com/profile/15608840175846189104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842303940667192429.post-55818751300637030022011-12-19T23:14:00.001-05:002012-08-15T10:09:12.911-04:00Janie's Stocking Is Going Great<a href="http://www.grouprev.com/janiesstocking" target="_blank">Janie's Stocking</a> is cranking right along! Thank you so much for giving. People you will probably never meet, <a href="http://www.fh.org/blogs/poverty-180-what-a-world-of-difference-clean-water-will-make.html" target="_blank">people like this</a>, will have a tangible evidence of your loving them because you gave to the project! Thank you! Don't stop spreading the word and thanks again!cjbooth85http://www.blogger.com/profile/15608840175846189104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842303940667192429.post-48108597927876387492011-12-18T12:16:00.000-05:002011-12-18T17:07:00.102-05:00Anti-Facebook Snobbery<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://encrypted-tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQUmR43_PUeUKoYKRUo6XG14ry1je7QVrVCYfyNgZQBrdOH6RehHg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="196" src="https://encrypted-tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQUmR43_PUeUKoYKRUo6XG14ry1je7QVrVCYfyNgZQBrdOH6RehHg" width="200" /></a></div>
<br />
Wait, let me explain. I'm sorry. I don't really mean to hate on you, Facebook, it just seems to happen. I just blurt stuff out without thinking. I'm really sorry. I hope you can forgive me. It's just, well, I've seen how you have changed things so much, and I feel like not all of it is for the better, honestly. It just seems to me that the last thing our already narcissistic culture needed was more stuff about <i>me, me, me...us, us, us</i>. Here's my list of reasons why I've hesitated to get a Facebook account for so long:<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
**I get concerned about the superficial nature of Facebook (here I go again, hating on you, but I don't know how else to get this said).<br />
<br />
**Hyperconnectivity. Do I really want to be connected with so many people so continually? Is this even good for a person? I do know people who are addicted to checking in on their Facebooks. <br />
<br />
**Is it just me or is Facebook a little creepy? Back in the day, didn't they use to call someone who peeks into another person's life a "peeping Tom?"<br />
<br />
**I'm a really private person, believe it or not, and the thought of everyone reading what I've posted on a wall...well, it's just not for me I guess.<br />
<br />
**Lack of real conversation in Facebook interaction. There's so much <i>snarky banter</i>.<br />
<br />
What's that? You say I'm being an anti-Facebook snob? You're probably right, I think I probably am. I mean that sincerely, actually. I think I have become an anti-Facebook snob.<br />
<br />
I feel like I owe some of you, my friends (and even family), an explanation on why I've held off for so long on starting a Facebook account. And for those of you who are aware that I <i>actually do</i> have an account (which I ignore), I especially feel like I owe you an explanation. I'm really sorry, first of all. I really don't want to ignore my friends. I think the nub of my frustration with Facebook is this: we have Facebook for the studio, and the studio has, like, 1400 "friends." I really do see so much "snarky banter" and other nastiness (mostly from high school seniors) that I just get weary of it. Plus, I find Facebook's terminology and (constantly changing) layout confusing. These days, since Janie went to be with the Lord back in May of last year, I've been working hard to <i>simplify</i> my life, and honestly, adding Facebook - and all that goes with it: the constant barrage of updates, feeling like I'm not 'keeping up,' and whatnot - seemed, frankly, like a little too much for me.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I do actually have a Facebook account! I mostly got it, no offense, because Spotify seemed (and is) cool. And it looked like you couldn't get Spotify without having a Facebook account. So there you go.<br />
<br />
I also know that I will not have 1400 friends, and that the friends I do have will be awesome people like you and you won't be snarky and you won't be a peeping Tom (you won't, right?). Plus, I'm probably going to set up a separate page for the blog for privacy's sake...if I can figure out how to do that....<br />
<br />
That said, I think I am going to give the Facebook thing an honest-to-goodness try. However, I don't see myself as one of those people who constantly checks for updates, so please don't be offended if I'm sluggish about replying to stuff, or whatever I'm supposed to do on Facebook. I know you are all Facebook Jedi by now, but I'm just the padawan-learner, so go easy on me, Masters!cjbooth85http://www.blogger.com/profile/15608840175846189104noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842303940667192429.post-32026976863794959922011-12-15T12:30:00.002-05:002011-12-15T12:30:32.888-05:00Beautiful ThingsBeautiful Things by Gungor<br />
<br />
Another word for what they are artfully saying is the word <u>redemption</u>. <br />
<i>"He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to
the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive
the promise of the Spirit." Galatians 3:14</i><br />
<br />
And that's the nature of the Christmas story, isn't it? <br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/oyPBtExE4W0?rel=0" width="640"></iframe>cjbooth85http://www.blogger.com/profile/15608840175846189104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842303940667192429.post-28871875197406618732011-12-11T19:21:00.001-05:002012-07-31T00:48:29.776-04:00Koyaanisqatsi And Me<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://olivebike.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/59.jpg?w=700&h=495" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" src="http://olivebike.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/59.jpg?w=700&h=495" width="320" /></a></div>
When I was a senior in high school, I saw a film called, <i><b>Koyaanisqatsi. </b></i>That's a Hopi word which means, "life out of balance."<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
I lay awake the other night, thinking, like I sometimes do. I know, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Temperaments#Melancholic">melancholies</a> are weird like that.<br />
<br />
I was in Boston, staying at a swanky hotel. If you know me at all, I'm pretty sure you would know that "swanky" is not really my style. I was there because the company I work for got hired to photograph the Christmas party of a very large, swanky company. I promise I will not us the word swanky anymore in this post. These people, virtually all 800 of them, were young, beautiful professionals. The party was at the absolutely gorgeous <a href="https://encrypted-tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRYkaChsD49vkAe30lZ572cSvCceZelwMBmCmg21wz7y33ewsJErg">Boston Public Library</a>. I brought Carly along so we could do some of the Boston-at-Christmas thing the next day.<br />
<br />
The company put us up in a, um, fancy hotel, called The Colonnade, and it was very euro-sleek and stylish. It had a view to the North - right toward the 50-story <a href="https://encrypted-tbn1.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTxw0tZCOVUKPya9qB6jAoSxk2Pka-wL2c4wl0DVzEJ6my7O7ghEA">Prudential Center</a>. Fabulous.<br />
<br />
The next day, Carly & I took a stroll through the mall in the Pru, walking past the Anne Taylor store with the eight-foot tall posters of Demi Moore wearing (presumably) Anne Taylor's clothes in the store windows. We moved along to Copley Square and ended up, inevitably, on<a 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Jt1gxj7xCof4R4ho3NDedpFMT574wy6smJ3zpf7ozTp/P+DpeQQxLFRM7GfT6sAcYzZQoF9t2CpO0/rHoJ9+JDhXGczVqU6Bfu1I06kUTt53FoHxxV1yjd2p0lkZGAY+KJAJHP42xNpUFGE137N+TSL1O0c447TK1aykgkMwkbEzuMVvajgqVMmG2aglj5ACVPlzxIZin86VF5e0ebdPfjoPEqBNDMKDJKuwn0mB5W+vB67O8eXFT/uwyjaZzPiLxQYeo/wDlcQXBEuJ/1bFtxJ9VFjEX26Sq2E4juBi/oTj3Yu0SSXxoy+RqazyBaPrx0z8nFFdFVXXwSlhIIJkcuX345/lqc5llkDUVEsYA8yeQ88dI/J2PE6FgSCDETN4kP08vOcTdW2sTKunSt/MccByeW+TpqW4DAyWMAO3Tawwr49lEpZj/AJgpaQTpNwTtdjtcYpOC0X+TkIo0trEkgX1uMLOPZHXmCh27tAfXTH+ePPxXrerjcpT7Ikch2nr/ACjuqVEMrNCl7MRce1EddrY6RTyoptDK1gTBiDEGZF7TFxhPkOAtTphiviUmDE2mef2YoDme9TvbydSgbRC3n3jDyy45xlpW6OalF82mIeK8fpmplStOCtdTcC0qwv5/hhvW46HIDUQygiRpk/BQcc+4iVbMU1htIr0wZYxfkDsMHPx9+8NGFSa4DNTN2UkCPDaYG43xRGE2o6WZy0Ju0N/ygZmnRoKlFe7FUnWkQIsQY2Uz0xzeo++H35QOI6W0yxCOAAfaA0C7CLEkbTNsSCZ/VYA+pjF6t7sjlJJ7HSKZBAm9gb/54z7JcYWk2YDGAKiLJgAElhP+XliWy3aogKDTJgAG4E/VgHN5k1HZlBQEzAi/Qt1PngZIa46TR5o7MfcXMZ7MgWip9qjAfDQrVKmsBvExEgG8jr5Yw4dw81F7zvWDsfEHHtRb2738jHrhpwrId3U1EhzUDki24KgxBIIvyxrBVSMpW1YDwURXrKthFYAC0fNk4KzNRBmCogWUhQORRT9+B8rT0551t4i2141UzjXncxNfLm96K/3afhgVuxlL4VQ4biNJcxTZ1L6SQ6sNQmNIABtvHvnB9ZyatTukFJhBVbKFIUE8ouJviYy6g1LaZWoASVmCXtvvETGHbrFeqrPpMHY29mQOvlGKVwSt/E/NnQeyXaL5QgVz86ok7eIdbeuC+1p/4HNfsKv922OacM453K6gtVX0sFZALkgATIIgGDO/3kD8oLPlcxSrktro1FDwPCTTeBAF5MCfPyxjq7FCSU0SvZDj/wAmamVpB5UKRqje5Igb2xb9nuPgmrqRwBLk2KqLm5mR8OWJPgHAWIpuaZVe7VtRQiZQbE77zh/neFMMu5VmDL4mAJErcHbyJtfbHgdVhw5W0+XS+h6Cx03IBftTRFzTYze08/W2PlPtVlRrJpsJABN52MWBtGMGIIEiRYwY6YX8OYFMwQBcE7bWbDxx40tk/qVPVXIo4cQayE1VpEU5UsGImbeyDb1xS5/iT1qXjZH0rCFEUSbix0hgCeUEGTiSSjqKsJMU9Jts17YpKj1VpUyaZpqqqE8JiR7R1MJJJ8R9cWZIp0ebijzYFn8who0XbWtc1lldIVIBN15kWA6CMUvAqSVeK5hfoPRUWEWKpMAC2Jfi2arPTphmLjvlIFt5JsdxfltfFH2IpH+FHJJnu1Fz+qkgz0xlkh8D/R/uhdNOn/dmLNeaBbToDIx0spAYaWI2M7x/qcdCo03ARqglwBLBY89hMYAzlBflFVYGl23FiDvIPK/PBGYWtTy7VCxWTqgsSyiQsAmZnpiPK1kaRRCKxb+SQqZNkrAkEKHUkkECJBmTaPPFx8oB0w4s2l48QNogkTzIwo4Xx0VnehWbVTqjQJtBI9Ov24JzlBqLAmwVoIvpJK2NiLyMZdbieRxk+1hik20jmvH60CsOjn7BifyHDzSqtTJDQRt5qrffil45lTUereJqKPiRf6jbAOW7JVaVaqA61AjkAlgGYBZnSTO32Y9/En6af94IGv8AloTOZzRHkv4Y6B2UcUKjtc+EWLW9rrGIOllw+bhnCLCy5khRO50gmPxxV0qzHSaLFy8AhdwS0QQwEGb+/CZ8Tnjfjg2wZYKbi+eSq4Jxeo1DSqEkM8iSDPeuZtaAd+pEYLoAvmQ7AT4bjaJ91zz85xPdls73lMpI1q1QuSTcmoSLbEXPvIxT8Ay7mS778rC4JgiLD3Yhjhbm0l5K1KLjsVtYzTMdMS/CKtiLxf4+L68OflZNMgMJAMnp54UZFPacsJ1kabA3kzv54nyYpb3yqR2Kkmmct7T1v+IrAbeAxym33GMNsxTJ7slF1vpqI1OykajuAJ1hgRY2nY4H7T8Ld31IkyPE0XEaYkg9MNE4IwXRZ63hemVYgBACWUAxE2YQJN8eootQRO4uU5eAKrlBmBNVfm9XhGojxASQx3YgH2jc4fcD7EUTHzSHVsCTb1P14VZDIJUao2pqahzCkgrZZ0kbxdvF0jFbwfiwVQeUHpz2xH1CyydQdeexpihs3RkvYaiCQuXRjzjlt+thzk+xmUEzl15b/wC+DOBUtSmoSZMjfeYvA52xN8b7UVETTZyH0Xm5m2w3PTBxNxhGbtt3W4koubaXbk08S7LUxrakmlQCVCncjcEEEe/HPOJZvvPCwUBGbTe94BBiOmLxc/3jkFSjBfnAdUoJiItMnywHS/J1Sq1Hlq3NjAWLqG/xAY0w562mnf1Dmx7JxZIcF4fNRXWmWRXGogEgTyJBtgjjOX05pIYd2qjSLkwVix6Ypshw1uHOO51Oa5C6XCiYNvEGBUz/ALYE4n2OztauXWmgDE6QXQWknbUeuKYZU90TyjpjTEeg02aTdoqD0n/fFB2gca6lt0M+ZGx/3wNxrgxo5UHMUyK4JVdHiDodrCZgnlHnjZxWirPTqAhaVdBpFgR4QGBBFrnFmPJGWxLlg42zRRqxlHL1ToUEwABclCTI9onTsdsRXE8+rFwjHSQY3vY3xR5XhjVKFQq2lhIJI1CIBsCLHzxG8QpGNRaSZkACwFhjNml3KIBQ7VZmlISs6jaBHKw5dMFr+UHPfzmpfz/yxP1dz6n7ca5wvpwfKFnOSk9x5/HLN/8AXf6vwxgO1uaExWe++1/qwnx7B0R8CepPyxp/GfM/9Z/jjY/a/NkQcxUIHVsJ5xkFwdK8A1y8jIdpszIPf1JFx4jbDHI9s8yjmoK9QVG3abttufdidPrjPvBAEcrn3/hgaUDU/JXr+UjOXPyh584P2jGz/wD1XOlYNaV6MqEfAjEbVIBsDB641qcL6cPAXln5LMflHr7kUW53opP1AYav+WTM1BpZaLC0ym8bbHHOyZGPgJG1sB4oPlHLNNdy0zvb5nBXuaS6nDkqGFxIG7GBfbBnBuMLW7yrWVmTURKm6swJUEnkIxB0m5HFF2WZJqqxIYquggWLavpGbCJvhvyxpGuLK3kTbCM2FTNiWLoVWSvnBYCbEiYHIxig4DSXvNK+yCDDG5hwbkc7XxI5muUzJSqdCsVDzcgA/bz/AN8D8Uy7aqlSlrekr6dcGxMwGiwJAJjywHbWm9hoyUbnW9/M6Hw7Lp31ZxUBiu47uwJEzNzeRyA3GHtLiJpyAQJWRNovjitOs2k3IkYK4YGbvIAPhkzPJhPpacLGDUlK/YeGZLaK5OlZjtOwdAWGkXYWvIFo+/DGj2ioZlAtSpTpsJ1EmxHIoBeeUTji+drCxX9ET64FWsepw2juB9W74OwcQ4maSkpWR5NtLSYGxM8jNvTDHJ5ygyUgapSrbxmNIPneY5SNscoyFEnLtVMlVaJ5TAhes8/TC3vjI8XLlyvhp/GqbDHqZQVJHUu1GRLK1WmqqJUqEcObyZAWZUEEwbicOOyGaWogLuA1uYAggCdj9IgY5z2fNV3OlvE4cjSSugrN+VonbfGXCaubChaAqeIX0gX5/dOJsuOMo02NjyvVqSO7I7JWUFlFLSdZ1xv7JECCJHwxiUprUU06aOxJiTIT9YTtPW+OMJxTPIYqNXAiYVgPT3YacP8A4QzI1Zdq50ggk1BtMQL/AFYzhhhjiknwP6tt2mdLqZWjRrVKi+LXTZWp6iWdruI8RM+E2GNuT40GpawrL4wGQWI0rpIOrlI+zHM+EDNhXquahAYDVruG521T7xg7Kdqaiu1PRUqNcXbmbyLEzfeb4E4p3oY0Gv8Aui7pcSpyjko+g01IkMUuV1GTCxvONPaHiYECkVLKtmQRaZ8N52nbEZl69Sm5D5dhrsSWYb7GwvsLY2Vcznqx/MVaiqSfZbYiImL7b4V4noSvvuGM4qVspMnxQdzVBLSUkAE6h4bg369MTldwyqG8UVSt5JhlHXzE+/BGS4Nm/Ey5ZlIlVpOBpaQCdysA9cJuPZ9svTSpXpmkalQto/RZREASTBtv9eKOlx6JbvuZdTNSi6PnZLh+s1FXSE1LqZ2OlbNBO9t8aO22TWh3iK1NyUWWpm3pYb2nAPZXtdQpfKFqMQKiwkCRI1bi36WBO9p5hap75QUQkK5IdyAT4QBfY74qdvYnhKOz7kZns6z2MQthHw+7AeGycPQtJrUxuYJPTbbebYzq8NQnw1qcdZ9OR9fqxy2QuTeTE6oTyOPppnocUeR4Yiz84rTG3pP+WCM1wxTswuOSkxjtQfTemyVpUpON9hH4YZfwMqGdTEWBOgwJ3tgevl0hSWIJN7bbYF2ZuLAXxmGTSJF/twQaFM21Pc2kQDt125/DGjOZcq+m/ltf4YIhreoDHkIx8VcYMMUfBuCtUAgcvtAP44EnSCo2J6WVYgmYgTj5UsxDNy6eWKLj/Bfk9XSTvTVo9RiabLN0MdY+/ATs5xo8Gja/uxRZVqdJVZKobUilvDp0vJlf1o64nRSj1kD4jD7u4pX7oEAkBCpPKfZY+RvHPHMfHtuNMxln4kKtWq6ioi6kqtYVYt3dhGrofcdxhXlczUy9bUL6WVzTa6MRtqXmIke84a9i+KshqQfADZTMCQTNiL2+vDvtG/fJSp1BTUMyAOqBWpyL3Ht78+mEcor4SiGGU460Ilo0s0teu9SnQfVIpcmDTq0AbeQJGF9HKKqVmVnHh+b1aV1Akcpv9LbpjXmuzlXvai5djXFLUSUnUEU+2V5DzBOBKufq3FWmW8AVAQwFMAyCoFjbUL/pHDRVdzKTp7rdHqlCmSoFU7ATCj7WxknA5e1RNPMmpTB+GqME5XI0KtLMVCXospUUqV3LSb+IgWAG/mME5rsq1CnSqVqmgVdlKnVpIEMOUGZ3tgtgjjb7BnDuzFV0cUD3ndoSwDIRJaAfASDAHribp5Qh+7PtyQQZBBG/PecWVPhtLL1WHfOMq4ChtWlmLeyDpmymWIEWHngB+H5WlmiHZ8zTQNL0mCkmLEE39qDc4Cb7jZIVs+3IlyWZqBvm6jpA6EgC/wAJ29+LXs1xapSorU71SsEd2WXVIgElBcSSd+mJBOPVaAq0qYVUrJpYQDbcXuZ9+BuBk94InUwIAg3B9Lm+FnBTTUg4sjxyVfM6H27bTRouNLFzBJUStlbwkQfK84ccDcrTy3ihXFOQAoF1O1uqi+Ibj3GqlZEpOir3RmRqB9kLfV5DGadpaxpJTGhRTUQwHi8LEC5PnhpQg4OPlDeq9eo6d2XyYqCozVCp+cACqogLpg+zJsSdsY5DiBpZ5kZ4SmYWw2lQZgDkBiK4DxmqqadR5lryIJAO3WRJ6DFhkeGrVioWcVWAHsnS0kg77nYSDyvOI549MSiM9boocz2wR1UrsxiLSSJtfY2kY1ZfMVFrsjsxUsXHitpMbzsReRibzfH8plqeghWNh4SuotF2/SUzz88La35S6ZKro1Kok+IiTEHVNmv1xMseSdvcZzxx22L/ALR0nelUNGS5enEGD7RESTjk3bjhtepSQhS3jNyQbaSY1E8unLB/Efymi+mV1ARDkgHqQVuekERPPEtxrt7XrjTUqsVFx4VUgnzUT8cXQhPngkyZIVVk3U4FWjVpUDrIj3dcYrw8ofE4B6Df/X443tnRVN29NRJ++2NFSqpOm5Mz7+Q8hiutiaD+JfqVPF8vWpCiukKtWijrKq3hKC4bTzM2vEeWBqPzppK1OlAUMCKcExEq0WM2N73xXcU41TWnkgipWqfJAmkMvgJG7TYR0OI+lxwVBQpiiqlQqs36R1J0Hl9eI4t+C+elSbbCW4Wrss06XiXVAWALA/fjU3BlIpkU0EtECb7/AIYoFoQ6eQI+ofhjXToeGn/5/e2F9U9n7lFrj+7EstKMy9JRoUpdQSVJEEGD641Z/I2W30/uOHK5MniJAEzT262Bt1tfGfFcvCHqGBxup8HnS6dVNeGyU4hQhNuYx84kkNT5f6GN+dU9009RjDtFTI0e/wC7GqIHDZv9BVVPiOOwdl8gBl8s0fnECn1CVR9wxx1OfpjvHAljKZYx7NSn8CB+9hcitGF0TX5SOG682xVlXRQpt4jGoadh532xM5nsvWp5dMyyHuqhKjebAGb2gyQPTF72pyQrcSZCtRwKVORTUFrKvJrfGcP8+mcrZR6SqgQqQFelDEctoRSOvliGfUem0iyGDWrODV6fiEEwSN/eMFjJBAGncHfT08pwTxrJ6HWnpIZSASWN7kXBsL42rlHCpcHULBSs3Ft8XXZOobs29nzp1WABZedz4Tyjbzw77QOlSjTXVPszBEi0YRtlKg/5VRjI3cdI2BnfGHyOrzy7DzUn8DjNxTlqKYZXGDhWwoXidXLs606jLqQ0280J28tuWMKHGaq0zTDsFJBPu2g7j0GKJuGgwTReWPOmDYdeYv1Axk3BUtqREMH2lKyfcd8aakT+m3wxDm+O1alFKTGVpmZNySZ3O/uwwoVambpr31QnuxoQnZFEH6gT9WDRwCmVMJTPhFwzC9+p3tjfRyKqrhKfhMFgH2vHM84w0WuTnCbfJL8W4l3hVUkU6Y0oPLmx82NzgWnmyvw54o/4v0yG+bqWaLPykeWC/wCDaQgslSQIktNulxGO1IX0pEomaIdXhTp5Rb3jDzhebaq1JKaoreILoswa9yx9levlg6plsuosKiyIMabjmPKSN8favDUR1qU7k+K6hYMCI0zYET0wyoWUZJCUcVZWIa5Fo35zcnlM42txtiN1Sd+f3WwoztRjUYt4jJve/wAcbMplldlDNzv6c74DFTZa9m85qpvqAeDAClgD6G0mfsxWZrJZhh8y1akL7BmF+Yg2PpjnFfiYen3QQqqmLNGrmLxHLHwOtP8A5jA6SSA7WP0QSB8cc2qNIzoe5vsDWZie9M3J1U2HmTfGrh/YiCwatTgq14k2E2mACbD34V8K7X11plCzAbhxYyB4VLEwVm8YZ5DtA9bwVGFTwqNJbSF0mZUxuSTI54ZaRbiD5fs7Sv8AKMzDafDouJn9LSdQK2AFwSAeuCMz2PSurDKQzUzCjVrauGgglh82ukStiLgiMH8Jod3Vc6GZIbT84s3A8AWGUH2gGjcgk8sM+FLJNU0e7rL7TW+fQNIVQoKK8BRBXSYW1jjZRTMWtzl/EeEPl6rJUWCm5F1vsQYiD1xS5TsctWgcx3hQhC+gpzVSbHVcGN/PFTxDs2MywZaVSkDGqwUsAbBwpKvtJMLcnlj72hzQWi1KnZQjAxtMGw8hhXCrs1xbtB9TheT+S5GrXhy1CGDAAaVTbwwSQxABucRz5fK99QFJXViAxJmJ1rG/l92LDN9m81mMlw3uEDFaLbuFkkAiNW9hhJ2Z7NBq1OnmarUmQO6gFSdaOAQZa11Ijnjy9NXK/l2PQyTStV3G6UQaokfSYfDV+GNJpWHlU/xkYOpjxzb87U59df1WOBanst5VP/6YhTd/T+T6lSTXy/0CVMmjipqUHxKQeY8O4O4NsAZw1FQ6z39MfRcxUAn6NUb+jA4cvRIBgHZDYeTYXcQHzTe77RinDkdqjHPhhkjJ9990TeY4fTrIy5d/nD/yasJUkclJOh/cZPTAnazLEPSDAqeYIgjbcHHziyeCtbZp/s4LzfF+6SijAZhD/wAutJ0G3sVB409xI8sejtZ8zNNKS/T9yRRfa9DjuvBj/wABTPQU2/8AhD9xxytOGZauW+T1e5qG3c5ggAnolYeE3/TC+uOscJpFMpTpsCGFMAg9RSI9OW4wzIWgXtCujiGsEy1BIAfRqsRGoA/onlikyWRqVKS1bMjINKuxMebEQT78A1Hq1mHdgrFNVLbFtN4nePFt6YOy1PlWqqCsadcEMbjb3H1x4XVOLddz3cKlGCX+zk/bjhzU8yWIpgMQ0IdvEdpvhOleXpEAwAFvi9/KjxLL1G9qXCIq2IFnYnlEXF5xz3JvdPUY9PA28as8/KqyP3HzCfXG+vxDuqakK2md42npa+M8sOZiNrzvy254S57OwrC4UNtzW/U3NuVsMt2dnlpdI3rx91BY1IBkgWuOUnrjPO8eq6iAb2kzBiN10+GSMTlZqZUaANU+0TCj0G5PngsZiu6Fizk30wFAhZJJEeseYxrSJE2NM3xZlOmodJYhbkAGYOoxIAG89Tg3s7UrVDZ5QWneb2Frdd8AcK7P1sy+rMawp8d7FyTv5f6th1xHi1LKroQADnHIc4I5+eG24NIxa+JjGrm1QkBVJ1GbbH8cY1eJUVDaqi+H2gLn4AdcTub7VIKLBKagsd5M39fLCCidRLoSGNzBkdLz1OAGWauB/m+0aCpSJIUAsKiAB1a9iD6RhwnaMN4ctSLkWJI0gbWv5c8RNZ58JhSJkR4TPSMH8Er1KcXBQGTESZgGJ32x1iLI73LviHEhSph3RSOdlMGPMXE2xz3tNx816gZVVFWw0gCeswBzwd2u4p3kFPCAmkiN7zy6dcSLVsFbhyz1OkGpVAXe+8RAxhRrdb8j6dPjecAE42q8CcGjGho1EFPbQzsCbDla2+B0DUms5VjzFreuAVqY30MwUYEG46gffbBOoqOG1xX00gUdrmCQhNgfDUMGQeR5+WD07I5wzppM0foup+xsbuwvZ1KpWrfWWJEfRj6r46HxTiKZemVF2iAp69fMDDqNqx4nI6716LQ3eU2HXUPtxVPRmhUfrTeP6pk4MpjvFlvEWJ1E877Xx9z6AUKkbd2/9g4KjQy2kv1LDsWdOVyFR28IRrnl823M+QjHMuA5fvM7UzRbu6bPVhiBefEI1EAyD1HrbDDgVV6CI1OqfYkU6viphmUXhpA3PI74U5l822khPD4g4pnSrglp1LTgyZ6YhcdUWr5HyY5KXzHuc4vSSotQEuhclnCjSurvNKTvPob+7Ame48qq4gg959IRs6k232OI53rxoAgay3dsTeAxEgmDYkD188aND927koQXAYX1DYmTvB2jqMLHpo7WVfiGZJpHVaHbmkBVphCiNTTxc29q/nP3Yn+IcYR4XQ3iOkkCx2iD13+GJVsyO+LITpABIUzO5gE3i+2D6lao+kU40hQ4MCWK3gQzeI852wY4IRdpCLq8qunzyaOJIdFeAReIjkQh5429oeE6DlQT7TqJ8oW/14+ZDMljU72GLsJk+H2VnxfcOgww7hGp6ax1d2ykEr4oI3UhgSfW1rHljYx9TVyRGmHqDeNQ+BOOqdmMofkuXNOoyFkEg+OmxIaSUY+EmBdCpxO5XstlzU1kuV+lSVTJ5m5NvtxUdnqqKgRSdFIjcGVBY6V6zBIHMxOFnk22ES3soOG58oFNekyKJGtJddtysa1EXkgi2+CONVTVo68uO8CEGUIOuYAjTf19+IzjvaTTUprWWqKJLeNH8VQREL0TkesRio7O9qsvV1rQBpQAWPhp6+lgRJgbjHkzxNfG47+3B7OLLT2ZyztTWqVa66lOoHTsbnV5354dZTscyaNVMpa5qGJJJEwDy5Dnh32/yL1XXMakC06fe+H6arWppcjn45kTtgfifFDmBFMd1RPiNWCYi/hUi0k2Y+1Nhi5Tk4x0qiGSTnJt2wbi4FIJl/zlSG+bWQywWu4awuAZsIPPECyt4tZViBN28+Q/SN8dQyHFRlk7unCKBpqFlUs8gTJMFpG/UnyxLZrLoAKlVu7diwK6Rp0G40L7WqZFxEYpitJPkhK/iIdiTAE+7/LfF72e4fSGl67rrhQtPXZYFtQFi3OPPrj5wal8yWy9NabEFQ7CajkbxyXAX8W6ujVz5qdx92NGpPsaQwTVNK+4945x0K2hD9EyfeLDHP8AiWbLuxJkThxn6L07uIF1NxM2P+jier15awhZ2xyRhlcm6Z9qHUJG3Pyx9pZoyIMD7camqxIU2ONWGoyoaVs+GE6QGGBnrmxHwHLGtag5jGNTrgUCgzL8WOzCQd/O22PNw/UfCAREyOQ877joMBUpBkbi+GNPNqVBNm1arLafMYITDhvAqtdlSlTZ3YkLGzESSATAmBtzw64l2RVcsz0dVV6Z+eBs9KBDhqQBhQ5A1zGDOxOVevm6VOm8aT3qI1kdwYIImbiR4ZPphhT4OMnVVn1PQqk06tOixSoskyhBgstjfyIJEX2hFONmcpO9jnWuIjDLhnCWrsOQ52xRUexiF9U2/RjbFVwvgqUxqI8IwiiahvZzLrl6RdzpCj3n08zhPnc+1WpqbnsOQHQY28W4j3phbIPZH34x4bQmCeW3mcHnZD8B+Vp6VHxxhxH8zV/Zv/ZOCMaOI/mav7N/7Jxq1sZwfxr9SDyvaCogAJDKLAH8RfDbL9qU+kpVuu493PCGpwOqFDC6kA3tuJ3wv76DBxDVlEpyjJl//CFOrYhKg/WAJ/HAed4Bl3pnShVjEaWtM81M8sSKVsNOF8Wqh1Ac++8ek46gqafKG7dgaZJYVmUR+iB8ST6Y0Vey6+zTzdORyYfHYxfHyrVLGWJJ88CVsHcLUfATlOzNZTUCOjkEWR4BJXz5QYOPue4XWCpqo12hfEF0lVb9UqSYMCxE74G4dlWZ30i8rt6eWG70MzSEguB5NMeoE4AuhNbCHK9o6quwzBqbALA0wQbEiLwOUcsH5biI78uVLEEeIezvaQfERNoEQCcGDj1X6RVv/JRjx42hMvl6THrEH3HHOKYNC8g/GONL8pC5nL0qlJGaFo1GB8UkAvM+EnbyAw6pdusl3fc/I2pUw2oFD47C2trlxczPuwmzYydQr809MsxllM/RYzBN74na6aSRuJ3I3wHBNCtOLuyx7X9sMpmKDhQ4eNFJVlURCyM2qfEzeDcmL7c8D1OPqcso1CkrqAVJ7xoFl0LMLYc+uJFKTOwCqWPQCThxwvsVUIms3dj9EQW9/IY7QqGhKW9Lk0VOOxaipXrUfxOR67L7sM8vkBqY0wKtRZYNUME22Oqxg3BGG9DgtOlSqd2y0iE1anmakTYGI3BuLYjM7nTUdRqmSAzGbTvJI92NEqC5adr3/Yo6naB1VaNNW79iughZDEmIHvMCMF5viD0ytOuzAlStUFQppuIMHpc74nOGcQp0ard8KpKBu7am0EPIKkhrFREQI3nHs/xo12r1KSlacairsW5AaiSLkteBYTja9uTvvWTUP81wynX0uXJC3KEx4QLCQJExvhDS4Ymslsu+ghZLGIa58JMWJgTh92cy/wAuqVRW8NUKFVQ8SNMz5kWNz5Yz4qjpUpBqqaGlTI9kwOU3P346u5S1CdTar+f9ETT4M9TMNT0imbkAzYbxhdUQzB32x1DhnZo5nOUw8lAWNTR4O6UiQDU2IYXFzzAnFPxLslS1gUXpUtFNarvUK6agBbu3Ui5PhvsB0JwVjb3IZyjGWn/JwinQJIABJNgALk9I6+WM61IqYYFT5iN/XHccl2P7vLZutqorXK953oBmkCoaEbYEkE221YVfNVslSqcVyzaRT00a6eIsT7IfQZVoA06hBgnngvF2vcweRWch7huV8faVO28XwxzvB6lKlTdqbqtXV3T2hgLEW2PkcLTfbljJ7bM05GfDs+9JgKTaTMagASF5wfrjHR6rtXcO7l2QaA4VVFVROmoQtwxB28hiN7K8D2d1M8gftx0LJZUD1w8Edp3PmUyW1ueAuP5+D3Smw9r16e7ng7inFO5BVD84w/qD/W3TEuTJ6/fgyl2RqlRvpDUdI5/Zh1SWFFrDAeUyekSeeD1joMNCNGMnZ9wPxD8zV/Zv/ZOC9Q6YG4iB3NXf82/9k4d8HQ/Mv1Jql2gpCmikVJVVGywLAGLzgTM57LuPEjX6BY+2Zx7HseWmz6mXS45PcT5jL0voah7v8zjVkX0uJ28sex7DamYPoMNjteIUhvrPuH72D6HFsqB7FSfMKR/ax7HsdqZoujxeAml2noL7KOJ6Ko+xsZHtdS5Cp8B+9j2PYXUN91xg9XjmWf20cnrpUH6nwuzeYoH82ag8mVT9YfHsew1sV9HiFr5sSu9mn6iPvwXlatEmamsidlUfbqx7HsdqYq6LEOcv2gy9MQiOo8lWT6nVJxk3ailIEPBIBOkWHOBqv6SPXHsexymwvo8dCztT2ier82laq1BZ0K4VSomYOgkNfAnD+1NWilYCnRZ6y6Xd01MVO+9t42HIY9j2H9WVmP4dh9/qADNxS0BF7wvqNaTqKxGmNo54F7mw0+EiOZIY8ycex7AeWQfw/CgrL0hTrqwqOACCSoAaDvAJI+OHA4jTNQ1G1OzmoHLIpgEQGWGENb/fHsewVkkMuhxVX8gKcYq06JpUarqre2LQ97Sd4A5f74at2rpvl1o1KAKrEFYDEX1KzbsGN5tp5Y9j2HWea7mT+zcD7f5HWc7R5Qd21KnURjURnGmKaqsHSE70hwbElrkgG22Ae0nH1rVXp06lQZdmFXu2pLpFUfq94fDA5Nudsex7BeeT5AvszAvP1E/BuKUye5zIqPltTNoVrhogFZgKb+cwBhWclTWs+ln7sMdMgais21AGJjeDj2PYzeWTHX2fhXn6lVku0FFAAVe3RV/ew0TtvRUEhahYbAqsT5+LHsexyzSQ/wBxxCCt2gViWbWSbkwN/wCtj7leM0w0nX5QB97Y9j2B6kgvocT8/UajtbRjap/VX9/H3+NtH9Gp/VX9/Hsew/rzE/DsPv8AU+/xto/o1P6q/v41ZvtTRam6gVJZGGyxcED6Xnj7j2B68mFfZ+FO9/qf/9k="> Newbury Street</a>, aka the <i>Rodeo Drive of the East</i>. Everyone (that's not hyperbole -it's really everyone) on Newbury Street was beautiful. Their stylish clothes, their up-to-the-knee boots, their carefully managed handsome/pretty faces, and especially their silky and properly product-ed hair, was beautiful. I'm not troubled by the beauty - that's not what I was <br />
<a name='more'></a>losing sleep over. <br />
<br />
It was just the <u>contrast</u> that got to me. The seeming extreme contrast between the multi-million (billion?) dollar company, the hotel, the shopping, the luxury cars, the Pru, the Anne Taylor posters, Newbury Street, all of it was such a gigantic contrast to all of the focus that I have had recently in trying to make <a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2011/11/thankful-fora-sock.html">Janie's Christmas Stocking</a> a reality for 2011. In reading statistics, I've been seeing lots of pictures of the world's poorest people. They are very affecting pictures, pictures that stay with you after you've moved to a new web page. The pictures you see when you're flipping through the TV channels and you see a dirty, malnourished children and you skim past because they make you uncomfortable. Those pictures. Those are the ones that were in my mind the night after the big party.<br />
<br />
Now don't get me wrong. I technically don't have a problem with people being wealthy. That big company I mentioned gives away a lot of money to worthy causes. I am not asking people to despise the very-wealthy, the pretty wealthy, the somewhat wealthy, the average wealthy, the middle income folks, and so-on. I get it that the world is broken and that a very few have ended up with most of the world's wealth and a massive number - I've heard <i>1.4 billion</i> - is in dire poverty, and that there is a good number somewhere in the middle.<br />
<br />
I don't even know that I want to say about all of that. I just feel troubled when I have the contrast glaring right before my eyes, and to have had a foot in both worlds, in a way. I've heard it said that if your family income is above $23,000 a year, you are among the richest 2% of people in the world. I just don't even know how to process that. That means that 98% of the world lives on less than $23,000. And I'm sure there is another statistic that would show that a good percentage of that 98% is subsisting and dying. This is <i>Koyaanisqatsi,<b> </b></i>life out of balance, and it's ghastly and troubling.<br />
<br />
No, I know that we won't fix world hunger and poverty overnight, but I guess for myself, I'm still trying to come to terms with how rich I am. It was a little shocking to realize that I'm far closer to the world's 'rich' than to the world's poor. I live in a nice house in a nice neighborhood. I have a lawn. I have a lawnmower. I have a car. I have a job. My kids are healthy, and so am I. I have a TV. I am typing on a computer. A nice computer. My home has heat, and air conditioning. And food in the fridge. I have been extremely blessed, and I know I shouldn't live in constant guilt. After all, God chose to bless King David, and especially King Solomon with material wealth. And He's blessed me. Now don't worry, I'm not going to go all <i>Joel Osteen</i> on you, but I do get it that God seems to (inexplicably, to me) bless some more than others. But I feel so bothered by the question, "<i>why me?</i>" I asked that a lot when I was losing Janie (it was, "why Janie?"), and I ask it again now in a different context: why me? Why am I so materially blessed? Why are <i>others</i> so needy?<br />
<br />
In thinking about it, and to be reactionary about it, I suppose I could stop eating to try to better sympathize with those who are hungry. And I could quit my job and sell everything I own and give the money to the poor...to help them and to better sympathize with them. But in the end, what good would I have done? I'd have helped a few, but then I'd have become one of the sick, needy people myself and I'd become a burden to others. This doesn't make any sense.<br />
<br />
So my thinking right now is this:<br />
<br />
1. God has placed the well-to-do in a unique position to be able to be Jesus's hands and feet here on earth to help those in need.<br />
2. We sin when we selfishly keep what He's blessed us with and don't use it to help others. Maybe we could do a lot more of this than we do...like sacrificially. Just thinking out loud here...<br />
3. When we help others, <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2025:34-40&version=NIV">we're 'helping' Jesus himself</a>, right? <br />
<br />
Is there more to this equation?<br />
<br />
It's been a joy to see the interest from so many in <a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2011/11/thankful-fora-sock.html">Janie's Christmas Stocking</a> <a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2011/12/so-its-time-for-big-reveal-of-new-twist.html">project</a>, where <a href="http://www.grouprev.com/janiesstocking">we're raising money</a> to get a well installed in a village in Kenya through an organization called <a href="http://www.fh.org/">Food For The Hungry</a>.<br />
<br />
Will this one well solve the all of the world's problems of famine, drought, disease and hunger? No.<br />
Will this one well end all of Africa's troubles? No.<br />
Will this one well reverse <i>Koyaanisqatsi </i>and provide clean water in Jesus's name for a village in Kenya?<br />
<i>Yes! </i><br />
<br />
So I'll still struggle with the problems of poverty, hunger and disease, but I'm not about to sit on my hands and do nothing when God has blessed me so much. Maybe He's calling you to do something too. If He is, then...<i>what now</i>?<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/V1YcViDGO28?rel=0" width="640"></iframe>cjbooth85http://www.blogger.com/profile/15608840175846189104noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842303940667192429.post-15318103480109024222011-12-08T12:23:00.001-05:002011-12-12T16:22:22.496-05:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://encrypted-tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ9PmhjEd1llYeHzfaw4KJO59INWc53VV9JHmqJsrVVVIeD5XQq" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://encrypted-tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ9PmhjEd1llYeHzfaw4KJO59INWc53VV9JHmqJsrVVVIeD5XQq" /></a></div>
My friend (and Carly's youth pastor) Rob Townshend recently had some articles published on a blog for youth workers. It's been fascinating to watch Calvary's students "own" their youth group and take hold of the paradigm that Rob describes. My Carly has been really changed and blessed by it. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.youthworkers.net/index.cfm/fuseaction/blog.view/BlogID/390%20%20%20">Here</a> is the first one, and <a href="http://www.blogger.com/%20http://www.youthworkers.net/index.cfm/fuseaction/blog.view/BlogID/421">here</a> is the follow-up.<br />
<br />
Good job, Rob, and thanks for being so willing to be led by God "<i>out of the box!</i>" <br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></span>cjbooth85http://www.blogger.com/profile/15608840175846189104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842303940667192429.post-80161116865064008772011-12-07T12:56:00.001-05:002012-08-15T10:10:44.561-04:00Thanks For SharingI'd like to say a public Thank You! to those friends and family - you know who you are - who tweeted, blogged, emailed and shared on Facebook about the <a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2011/11/thankful-fora-sock.html">Janie's Stocking project</a>. As you know, spreading the word about something of this nature is the only way for it to succeed - people can't give to something they don't know about! I'm especially grateful to Calvary Bible Church here in Rutland for sharing via their email list (as well as letting me talk about it on Sunday) and to my friend <a href="http://gospeldrivenchurch.blogspot.com/">Jared</a> for posting about it on his widely read blog. Thank you all! I'm excited to see where God takes this!cjbooth85http://www.blogger.com/profile/15608840175846189104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842303940667192429.post-35319831468861349622011-12-02T21:51:00.001-05:002012-01-02T11:58:18.296-05:00Janie's Christmas Stocking 2011<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://whatgives365.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/girl-drinking-water.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="http://whatgives365.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/girl-drinking-water.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
So it's time for the big reveal of a new twist on <b>Janie's Christmas Stocking</b>:<i> <b>Online giving!</b></i> Yep, you don't need to mail a check or catch me in the hall with cash (unless you are <a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2010/12/creepiest-piggy-bank-ever.html">Steve and Ruth Hall</a>) or give me your firstborn or right arm or anything! Food For The Hungry has graciously set me up with <b><a href="http://www.grouprev.com/janiesstocking">a page for Janie's Christmas Stocking</a></b>, and it's pretty cool. <br />
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If you don't yet know what this is about, click <a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2011/11/thankful-fora-sock.html">here</a>, and for where it all came from, click <a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2010/12/janies-stocking.html">here</a>.<br />
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We are extending the deadline to December 31 this time.<br />
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Also, if you would still prefer to <br />
<a name='more'></a>contribute to buying the well by way of this old-school thing called a <i>check</i> (a check, evidently, is a way of paying for things by writing letters and numbers on a piece of paper and mysteriously, people accept it as payment! Groovy!), you can mail it to Chris Booth, c/o Calvary Bible Church, 2 Meadow Lane, Rutland, VT 05701. Make it out to <u>Food For The Hungry</u> and write "Janie's Stocking" in the memo. It will be tax deductible - huzzah!<br />
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You may have heard of Sara Groves, a singer songwriter who Janie (and I) listened to a lot. She is a big fan of Food For The Hungry...she wrote a very moving song about her visit to a Rwandan community...<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Lt_WpluguwE?rel=0" width="640"></iframe>
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I learned today that the well will be built in <a href="http://kafjc.com/KenyaAfricaMap9.jpg">Kenya</a> which is experiencing a terrible drought right now.<br />
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Please click over to <a href="http://www.grouprev.com/janiesstocking">the online giving page</a> to see a 29 second video clip of one of these wells in action. The sound of the water is so beautiful, it kind of makes me want to cry.<br />
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Thank you again for being a part of this special Christmas giving event for the Booth family!cjbooth85http://www.blogger.com/profile/15608840175846189104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842303940667192429.post-68744332591539454492011-11-24T10:54:00.000-05:002012-08-15T10:11:18.893-04:00Thankful For....A Sock?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3rv5QTcFuKYywg11gIhLq_noHGQ807njX_Bj5I1KjXZV48aTW_eqMQ-Ani6wNacuKr8_qkIf_jMXsCfV-QJRPGBTt8gVLL2i7PNIGRdT-h9eTg4XrS5E9_6YM0BClEEQcDZaw4vZVS7Y/s1600/a4391.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3rv5QTcFuKYywg11gIhLq_noHGQ807njX_Bj5I1KjXZV48aTW_eqMQ-Ani6wNacuKr8_qkIf_jMXsCfV-QJRPGBTt8gVLL2i7PNIGRdT-h9eTg4XrS5E9_6YM0BClEEQcDZaw4vZVS7Y/s320/a4391.jpg" width="165" /></a>Yes, I'm thankful for a sock this Thanksgiving! It's not just any sock, however: the mystery photo from the last post is <i>Janie's Christmas Stocking</i> (you can read what we did with the stocking last year <a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2011/01/janies-christmas-stocking-final-update.html">here</a>). It was a thrill last year to collect, alongside so many friends and family (as well as a few total strangers!), enough money to buy a <a href="http://www.fh.org/give/catalog/animals/cow"><i>cow</i></a> for a family in Rwanda through a wonderful aid organization called <a href="http://www.fh.org/">Food For the Hungry</a>. We also helped several local families. I honestly wonder who got the greater blessing, the folks who received the help, or all of us who were involved with giving it. So I'm thankful.<br />
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Before last year's project was even over, many were asking if we'd do it again this year. Well, we decided with a resounding, "yes!" We've decided this year to not only help one family with one cow, but to help a whole village of people by buying them a <a href="http://www.fh.org/give/catalog/clean-water/well"><b>well</b></a>! Can you imagine walking four hours, waiting in line for two, getting your jerrycans of clean water, and walking home another four hours with forty pounds of water? And repeating this <i>every three days</i>? That is what some families have to do to obtain clean water that won't cause sicknesses from water related disease. A well right in their own village can save people from all this, and it will help not only one or two people, but a whole village of people. Plus, Food For the Hungry gives these resources in Jesus's name, which is the greater gift of course.<br />
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The goal will be <br />
<a name='more'></a>$2500, which is substantially more than last year, but I've been amazed at how generous people were last year, even in the midst of a tough economy. I don't really know what the reach and impact of this humble little blog is, but I'd rather be ridiculously ambitious than play it too 'safe,' wouldn't you?<br />
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As before, anyone who wants to get involved can send (or hand me directly if you are local) your checks. This time around, though, make the check out to <u>Food For The Hungry</u>. I'll send them all in at once so all of it will be designated to this project. This way, you will get a receipt from FH. Tax deductible this time! Does that encourage you to increase your amount? I hope so!<br />
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Also, we are adding one more feature which I will announce in a future post, so stay tuned, because it's kind of cool!<br />
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<a href="http://earnestlyicq.blogspot.com/2010/12/janies-stocking.html">When we decided</a> to do this special project last year, we really hadn't anticipated the degree to which it would help us (especially me I think) to "get through" Christmas without Janie. But it was such joy. So I'm hoping to continue it in her memory, and in Jesus's name. So thank you so much in advance for contributing!cjbooth85http://www.blogger.com/profile/15608840175846189104noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842303940667192429.post-3526234013018868802011-11-21T18:11:00.000-05:002011-11-21T18:11:46.739-05:00Tis The Season For Online Awesomeness<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdz_CO0sVe80ifjlzZFHe0YbFZ-pvjMuUPqU36H9y_J32Kjs4yC8JL1Kq3MzyrbUNfXpCGZdwtwfg2AdlBG7OmlaTDGjmObNWp8WGU8nN6CTG5tXxfP9xAj54BUCg6_pX-zuZgGhD69Y8/s1600/aa4387.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdz_CO0sVe80ifjlzZFHe0YbFZ-pvjMuUPqU36H9y_J32Kjs4yC8JL1Kq3MzyrbUNfXpCGZdwtwfg2AdlBG7OmlaTDGjmObNWp8WGU8nN6CTG5tXxfP9xAj54BUCg6_pX-zuZgGhD69Y8/s320/aa4387.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>I've got something cooking that I think you're going to like....so stay tuned!<br />
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Based on the photo, can you guess what this might be about? Click the photo for a closer look and leave a comment if you think you know.cjbooth85http://www.blogger.com/profile/15608840175846189104noreply@blogger.com3