save it open it

my husband and i have been saving a bottle of shalestone merlot since our trip to the fingerlakes. our hope was to open it maybe on our anniversary, or some other 'special occasion'.

and then i remembered a conversation i had with my friend jennifer a few years ago. it was the night before thanksgiving, and we were planning on sharing thanksgiving dinner together. i called her that night to see if there were any last minute preps i could help with, and she sounded a little giddy on the phone. at my prompting of what was going on, she replied 'oh nothing. steven and i are just enjoying a bottle of champagne'. and since champagne is usually associated with (again, here's that word) 'special occasions', i asked 'what's the special occasion' to which she responded 'there is no special occasion.'

so last night, matthew and i had a monumental discussion (read: breakthrough) about our financial situation, resulting in something that will hopefully catapult us positively in the right direction. and we've also been having some beautiful hard discussions ever since our experience(s) at 10klf, trying to decifer what the crap just happened to us. the past 48 hours have been good hours of together.

and so, we decided to open the bottle of shalestone.

here's what i want to know: are you an 'open it' or a 'save it' sort of person?

dancing in the desert

i keep hearing this really funny song on 93X. it sounds like one of those songs where the writer(s) had three different song ideas, and they couldn't quite finish any of those three ideas, so they decided to cram them into one song. the title of this blog comes from that song.

and then this morning, i heard a song on 105 that, according to the DJ, is classified as acid reggae rap. the band is called matisyahu, and the song was 'king without a crown'. check out the band here. the website sucks, but the bio is pretty interesting.

my friend shannon is driving into town today. she's driving from new york. she is crazy, just like me. we're heading to the 10,000 lakes festival at the good ole' soo pass ranch in detroit lakes. matt is afraid of the hippies. i think i am too.

this blog has been completely pointless. i truly hope you enjoyed it.

pour

pour into me
until only You pour out

breathe in me
until only You breathe out

only You

this circle really doesn't have a beginning or an end, does it...

i have been surrounded by thoughts of death and the end of things this week. rachael dies, alexander is left to mourn her loss.

and then yesterday, our dear frends steven and beth welcomed into this world two new lives, sebastian jakob and julien thomas, twins that have been nine months in the waiting.

loved ones depart and leave a wake of mourning. new life arrives upon a wave of rejoicing. and we get a front row seat to watch it all go by.

'You give and take away
still my heart will choose to say
blessed be Your Name'

may i have enough mercies in my heart to bless Your Name when faced with death.
and may i remember to sing Your Name above any others when i rejoice with new life.

comfort has gone the way of the baptists...

hello my friends.

today i attended the very sad funeral for a friend, rachael r. grudem, who was married to a friend of ours, alexandar grudem. they had only been married 3 1/2 months. she was 23 when she was struck by a pick-up truck and died on saturday.

it was very strange to be at a funeral surrounded by young people, myself and my wonderful husband included, who have yet to even grasp what death really means.

it was even stranger to be at a baptist funeral that basically saw the loss of a beautiful daughter of the King as a means to lure numbers into the Kingdom. at one point, john piper, after reminding us of the details of the accident that claimed rachael's young life (a pickup truck ran a stop sign and killed her instantly) declared emphatically "what will you give as an account for your life if you get hit by the pickup truck today?" umm, sorry, but i thought we were at a funeral to help minister to each other and the family in the middle of our grief, not contemplate our own spiritual vacancies and, yet again, make it an all-about-me festival, that we american christians are so willing to do. and then to stand and "triumphantly" sing the traditional baptist hymn declaring that our 'victory is in Jesus'... really??? i would say that before we start shouting victory chants, a heavy dose of 'have mercy on me' would do wonders.

i like victory, heck, at one point in my juvenile life, i even contemplated being a cheerleader. i'm even partly baptist, being a bethel grad and all. but could the kind people of bethlehem baptist church allow the family and friends of rachael grudem to grieve a little, and not try to placate the grief with theological debates on how the Lord 'gives and takes away'? thanks.