So sad

Maybe it's because it was raining when I got up this morning. Or maybe I am just depressed and crazy. Maybe it's because today is David's last, very last day as a student in the Liverpool Central School District.

I feel overwhelmingly sad. Gut-wrenching, eye-wringing, hold-in-your-sobs-while-your-body-shakes sad.

It isn't like David's even going away next year. He's going to save money by living at home and commuting. So what is the matter with me???

Tough day.


Here is David coming up out of the water on the beach at Port Aransas, Texas last summer.


This is David's sensitive side, decorating an Easter egg.


Well, here's a familiar shot.


DJ doing what he does best... how long do you think he'll keep it up? Which will win? Music or medicine? I guess we'll see over the next few years.


David is one classy guy. Dashing, too.


You never know what's coming.

Chives and honey

These are chives. Lovely things, chives. They come back every year, with absolutely no attention from me.



Chives are edible. When your thirteen-year-old is out playing with friends, he can pull up a few chives and gnaw on them throughout the afternoon. It makes his breath smell like onions, though. You can eat the stem, or the root (which is like a tiny onion). You can even eat the flowers. They are quite striking in a salad!




Chives are pretty and pungent. And I do mean pungent. You would not want to put them in a nosegay... they lack the delicate perfume of roses, lilacs or lilies-of-the-valley.



So... I am really wondering what this bee's honey is going to taste like. Yuck!

Radish greens

I am growing radishes in my garden. They are fun to grow, because they come up early and grow fast.

Contrary to the way my father taught me to plant them (one seed at a time about 1/4 inch apart up the row), I planted them the way our neighbor, Mr. Johnson, always used to tell me I should do it while he watched me obeying my father. He told me to rip open the packet and just pour the seeds out the corner, up the row.



When you do it Mr. Johnson's way, you get a very thick upcropping of radishes, which you then have to thin. The reason I did it his way is because we have discovered that early radish greens are really quite delicious... delicately pungent.



So we thinned the radishes, saving the little greens we pulled up and rinsing them carefully so we could eat them. Yum, yum!

The only problem is, they turn your tongue green...

Sweetened condensed milk

I have a recipe for chocolate frosting. It calls for something like 1 cup of sweetened condensed milk.

Sweetened condensed milk is...

(1) rather expensive
(2) totally delicious

This being the case, I did not think it was prudent to use just a portion of a can of sweetened condensed milk and risk wasting the rest. So every time I tried making this frosting, I tried to figure out just exactly how much sweetened condensed milk there really is in a can, and then do the math, extrapolating by ratios, to figure out what the proper proportions would be to make the whole can into frosting.

It never came out quite right.

Mind you, it is made of sweetened condensed milk, chocolate chips and a small bit of butter. There is a limit to how wrong such a combination can be. (Just pointing that out.) Every time I made it, it was absolutely delicious, but it was not always quite the right consistency for frosting.

The last time I made it, I didn't measure much of anything, and it came out fantastic, delicious, superb, and mouthwatering as well.

What I did:

I opened the can of sweetened condensed milk and poured some into a saucepan. It was most of the can, but I did not hold it upside down to drain it, nor did I scrape the sides in any way. Being thick, quite a bit clung to the sides, and this I scraped into a storage container; I would guess I got about 1/3 cup or so out of the can to keep. Maybe 1/2 cup? I don't know. I was being a free spirit.

I placed the sweetened condensed milk in the pan over low heat. While it was heating, I looked for chocolate chips, found them, and measured out approximately 2 cups. By the time I was done doing this, the milk was beginning to bubble a bit. I quicky added the chocolate chips and approximately two tablespoons of butter. It all melted together pretty much instantly, so I removed it from the heat and stirred briskly until it appeared to be a good consistency for spreading on the cake I had.

After spreading and cooling the frosting, I wound up with an AWESOME cake that was truly sublime, a rare treat for the tongue.

But... what to do with the leftover sweetened condensed milk???

DO NOT WORRY! I figured this out!

...You put it in your coffee. Not all of it, about 1-2 tablespoons per cup, depending on how sweet and creamy you like your coffee. Yes, that is what you do, and for a lot less than Starbucks, you get a drink that tastes better than anything they have to offer. This is not a lie. This is the truth. It is also good in English breakfast tea. I know, because I tried it.

Bible study blog

I started a Bible study blog.

May

This picture says a lot about our life in the month of May.

The lilac is leafed out, but the rose-of-sharons are just starting to bud.

Our pool is open (my goal in life is to have blue water outside my window as much as possible), but our neighbor's pool is not.

Our pool ladder has not yet been installed. Obviously, this is because it is too cold to get in the water.

Our neighbor has constructed a row of large wooden planters.

We need to screw down a loose board on our deck.

Laura and DJ are trying to soak up some rays. However, it is so cold that DJ is wearing long jeans and Laura is wearing a down vest.

Laura is studying for an AP exam. She is done with those now!

Prom pictures if you persevere to the end...

Today was the last Bible study class for the season. We ate a buffet breakfast together and exchanged gifts (they are far too generous to me), and I answered questions (or at least, I tried) and reviewed the major truths we learned this year.

Life is a smorgasboard of events: good ones, bad ones, happy ones, embarrassing ones, exciting ones, tear-jerking ones...all rolled up into one life that God planned for each of us, according to our needs, our idiosyncrasies, our unique paths. I go to Bible study and bask in the love of the Lord. I come home and face a dirty house and a weedy garden, good news about grades, bad news about school discipline, and a tasty homemade meal of Mexican chicken. These are the pieces of life that fit together to make, as one blogger says, "a quilt of grace."

There were really only two questions they had at the end of our study on 1 and 2 Peter. One was about the New Heavens and the New Earth (2 Peter 3:10-13). I am afraid I may have been lacking in compassion about that, because I don't really understand the question. I think it has to do with trying to look at this from a linear time perspective, which you can't do, but it is hard to imagine being outside of time, and so we become troubled about what happens to people who die before the second coming, wondering whether they are in heaven or not. Because if heaven is really a New Heaven and a New Earth, then does it exist yet, or doesn't it? To which I just want to say, "It doesn't matter... it's going to be great, however God works it all out."

I tried to explain that once we are free from our present physical bodies, I believe that we all arrive at The Day of the Lord at the same time, essentially. So people who have died are not in the ground waiting to go to heaven; they are already there, in their new bodies (2 Corinthians 5:2-5). But we are there, too: their present and our future are miraculously combined. I tried to say, "We all leave at different times, but God works it out so we all arrive at once." Which I don't think I explained very well at all, but it was hard for me to get deeply into it, because the exact logistics are not all that important to me. We will be with God in heaven for all eternity. That's what the Bible teaches clearly. The rest is mainly conjecture and, I think, not particularly important.

The other question was about eternal security (2 Peter 3:17--don't fall from your secure position). Augh. Nothing easy!

I, personally, think that much teaching on eternal security lulls many unsaved people into a false sense of security, a false assurance that something is settled and fine when it really isn't at all. This is one of my soapboxes.

At the same time, I do think that those who are foreknown, predestined, called by God (1 Peter 1:1-2, Ephesians 1:5,11), whose names are written in the book of life (Revelation 13:8), whom Jesus called His own (John 17) are in no danger of being lost. That's what Jesus was talking about when He said, "...He calls His own sheep by name and leads them out. When He has brought out all His own, He goes ahead of them, and His sheep follow Him because they know His voice." (John 10:3b-4) This is what eternal security is: to be called by the Lord and to follow Him, the one who is your good shepherd. The good shepherd does not lose sheep! But... the sheep follow Him. This is significant.

Matthew 7:21-23 clearly explains that there are people who think they belong to the Lord and who actually do not. I don't know if there is a huge difference in whether we worry about the question, "Am I at risk of losing my salvation?" or whether the question that plagues us is, "Am I really, truly, genuinely saved?" Either way is basically the same to us (and scary), except for one "slight" difference: The second question trusts in the sovereignty of God more; it depends on Him and not on us, what He has done, not on what we are able to continue to do. It looks to Him for assurance and to His Spirit to work in us, rather than depending on deeds we perform in our own strength. And that is definitely a preferable place to be!

How do I know I am saved? According to 1 and 2 Peter, I know I am saved when I suffer grief in trials and emerge refined. I know I am saved when I love Jesus without seeing Him. I know I am saved when I set aside my former evil desires in order to become holy as He is holy. I know I am saved when I believe with confidence and thanksgiving that God is God, Jesus is His own incarnate Son who died for my sins, and God raised Jesus from the dead so I can share in His glory. I know I am saved when He fills me with love for other believers. I know I am saved when I discover a spiritual gift that God has given me, and I have the privilege of using it to edify the church. I know I am saved when I discover evidence that God is growing me in faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverence, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love. I know I am saved when I look forward to the day when Jesus returns to take me to heaven to be with Him forever.

If, instead, a person lives a life of craving sin and seeks to see how many questionable adventures he can get by with and still make it into heaven, his heart probably does not belong to God. Just saying. Those who belong to God love God.

That is eternal security. 2 Peter 3:17 says, "...be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position." But Jude 24 says, "To Him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before His glorious presence without fault and with great joy--" My point is that although we need to be on guard (particularly against false teaching), it is ultimately Jesus who keeps us from falling, purifies us, and presents us faultless before the Father. And we can trust Him.

So... just a few "simple" questions to deal with today. And they want to do Revelation next fall. I really need to pray about this. It's rather overwhelming.

So... I will take a breather and post some prom pictures of Laura.














Laura and Zach


Laura and Zach



But she is still really Daddy's girl. For sure.