Home design

Large, luxurious kitchens with beautiful cabinets, fixtures, glass backsplashes and new appliances. Bathrooms with expensive bowl sinks, waterfall shower heads and old-fashioned claw foot tubs. Laundry rooms with new washers and dryers, places to hang up coats and boots when you come in the door and adorable washtub sinks.

Sometimes its fun to oggle at all the beautiful home interiors on Pinterest or the many home shows on TV.

I start planning in my head how I would change our kitchen or finish our basement or improve our yard or how I hope that I can have this or that when we get our dream of owning an acreage and building our own home. Most of what I dream of we would never be able to afford.

I think I'm a bit of a home snob. I love our home, and I'm proud of what we've done with it. I do have to say I tend to look at people's homes, and I know that I would never be OK with the mismatched furniture and old stuff that they have. I would not be proud to have people over if my house wasn't just so.

I'm blessed that my husband has made a lot of our furniture, and its gorgeous. But we're also blessed we have had the income to purchase the wood and items to make those pieces. We're also blessed our home has great bones and doesn't need much interior design work to be cute.

It really shouldn't matter what our home looks like. As I was reading "Loves Long Journey" by Janette Oke, one of my favorite books, I realized that I'm quite proud when it comes to houses. Missie moved into a soddy when her husband brought her west, and she could make that a home. If dirt can be a home, then anything that I put love into can be a wonderful home.

It's probably like my mom always said, "Put a smile on and no one will notice what you look like anyway." "Put a smile on, welcome people into your home, and no one will notice what it looks like anyway."

Wanna join the mile-high club?

"Wanna join the mile-high club?"

That's how a Hardee's commercial starts -- with a sexy blonde leaning over to a man across the aisle.

Of course, he says "Yes."

She then hands him the Mile High Thickburger, but I have to say you immediately picture something different the first time you see the commercial. Eating a hamburger isn't usually what you think when you hear "mile-high club."

It seemed appropriate to see how sexually-saturated our culture is as I was proofreading my pastor's latest sermon on lust. He wrote:

       "Lust and its unbridled expression known as pornography are considered by some men to be a sign of manliness, a right of passage to manhood.  I want to propose the exact opposite.  Men who give themselves to lust are not displaying masculinity, rather they are showing their lack of masculinity.  

"Puritan writer John Milton wrote the book Paradise Lost.  In this fictional work, the biblical Adam was shown the great mass of men that would be seduced in the future by women.  In classic Adam fashion, Adam instantly blamed Eve for the problem.  It was Eve’s fault for having such beautiful posterity.  In the book, the angel showing Adam this vision disagreed with him.  The angel explained to Adam that the men’s seduction by women was their own faults.  The angel said they were seduced because of their effiminate slackness.  A man who is seduced to lust after a woman is displaying femininity and weakness —- effeminate slackness.

"The heart of masculinity is self-sacrifice, headship and leadership.  A man possesses authority to lead himself and discipline his body.  His leadership should rise to the point where he is not just capable of leading himself but he is also capable of sacrificing himself to lead and care for a wife and provide for his children.  Men are designed by God for self-discipline and sacrifice so they can lead and protect those entrusted into their care, a wife and children.  

"The word seduction comes from the Latin word seduco which means, I lead.  When a man allows himself to lust after a woman, either an actual woman in front of him or a virtual woman in a magazine or computer screen, he is abdicating his manliness.  He is letting a woman lead him away from his wife and family rather than disciplining himself to exclusively love his wife and family.  He is not displaying the self-discipline and leadership of a true man."

I don't think I can say it much better, so I just wanted to share the words of a Godly man.

Anticipating his desires

The other night at dinner, my drink ran out mid-wings. The waitress didn't come over until I was done eating, and she asked if I wanted a refill on my drink.

I was rubbing my head because a headache was starting, and I said no I didn't want another sweet drink. Nate said "You want a water?" as the waitress was walking away, and I said "Oh yes, I want a water please."

Most of the time, Nate knows exactly what I want. Sometimes he knows what I want before I realize it myself. We're just so close that we can read each other's expressions and movements. We also just know each other so well that I know what he usually wants and he knows what I would want in a normal situation.

It's like that when we're so close to God. We often act like we have no idea how God would want us to act in a certain situation or we don't know how to find out his will. Well, if we were just close enough to God we would know what he wants. We would have a heart like his and we would know him so well that we could anticipate his desires.

It's no wonder that God uses marriage as a reflection of Christ's relationship with us and his church. If I had a relationship with Christ and the church like I had with my spouse, I'm sure my faith would be a lot stronger.

Cramped legs

I was laying in bed last night, and my legs started to get squirmy between Nate and Novie. I sometimes get a little claustrophobic when I can't move my legs like I want to, and that made me think about the horrible torture box that they put people in in "Zero Dark Thirty" to get them to talk.

I would not do super well in a tight spot like that, and I'm glad I don't have any deep, dark secrets that anyone would want to get out of me.

However, then I realized that every day Christians are being persecuted and tortured for their faith. When I think about someone challenging my faith, I have wondered if I am ready to die for what I believe in. I am. I would die before renouncing my faith in Jesus Christ.

I have not thought about if I am ready to be tortured for my faith. It is entirely possible that in my life or in my children's lives that our country will not be so free and we may be tortured to try to get us to renounce our faith.

What if someone put me in a tiny box where I couldn't flop around like I usually do when I lay down? What if they pulled out my fingernails? I don't do well with pain --- what would I do if I was in extreme pain every moment of every day and I couldn't just die, I had to suffer through it. Would I give in?

I know that being able to quote Scripture to myself would help. I could say "God doesn't give us more than we can handle." Then I realized that I don't know that many Scriptures that would be able to help me in hard times. I usually memorize Scriptures (when I memorize them, that is) that are positive. Those Scriptures apply to where I am today. But what if things change? I should be prepared for every obstacle, not just the ones that I can foresee.

The way my mind jumps around is the exact reason that I usually watch TV to go to sleep! It stops me from thinking!