What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, “FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE BEING PUT TO DEATH ALL DAY LONG; WE WERE CONSIDERED AS SHEEP TO BE SLAUGHTERED.” But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
–Romans 8:31-39
Argh
I was loving up my flufferpie today and noticed that he had a huge bump on his lip that was about the size of my fingertip. I called the vet and got him in to see Rachel (our vet) who took some blood from the bump and scheduled him for surgery on Monday to get it removed. He’s doing OK otherwise and was a very good cat when I had to give him his antibiotics (to keep it from getting infected).
Pray that the surgery takes care of the growth and that it isn’t something cancerous…
My Thoughts Right Now
Hear my prayer, O Lord
From the ends of the earth I cry
Your peace will lead me to
The Rock that is higher than I
For you have been my strength in times of trouble
A tower above my enemies
And Lord, I will abide with you forever
In the shelter of your wings
–”Hear My Prayer” by Debbie Owens
Anger
I am so furious over the Confirmation situation that I’m not eating and I’m spending my time under the covers hiding.
Oh yeah… we’re going to be carless in a week.
Prayers would be appreciated.
Protected: Confirmation (III)
Swelling With Pride For My Alma Mater
They made fun of my alma mater’s mascot on Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! this weekend. I am so proud to be a fighting banana slug!!!!!
And for the record, a banana slug could so beat up a geoduck!
Flowering The Grave
Someone who is related to our parish in several ways had twins on Sunday and the younger twin (N) died on Wednesday. N had been born with heart problems and she wasn’t expected to live even those three days. Jon did the burial service for her on Friday and my contribution was to stay home and pray. (I’m a younger twin, female, and my heart stopped at birth. They managed to get my heart going again but I was in ICU for three weeks. In other words, this death hit really close to home and I knew that I wasn’t going to make it through the funeral.) Jon said the funeral went well and the burial was good as well.
Yesterday, N’s aunt (who is my age) called and told us that there were flowers on the piano in her memory. This morning, N’s great-grandmother told Jon and I to take the flowers home with us after church. Jon replied that he thought we should put them on her grave instead and I agreed. After all, they were given in N’s memory and flowering her grave seemed an appropriate use for them.
After the service at the church where she was buried, I took the vase out and started taking the arrangement apart. (I was just going to put the straight bouquet on there but I found that the individual pieces were stuck in floral foam, so I had to take it apart cutting by cutting.) About halfway through this process, some of the kids and their parents came out to the grave with Jon. Jon asked them to each take a cutting and lay it on the grave and we finished laying them out. The gravesite looks so much prettier now and it was a very meaningful way for the kids to deal with N’s death.
It amazes me how simple things like this can be so profound and have such a healing effect.