Status Report: December

Sitting…at the table that serves as my desk. It’s facing a window that looks out onto the front yard and street so I can watch the world go by as I work.

Seeing…that there isn’t much world going by this morning. Yesterday afternoon and evening brought 11 inches of snow in my subdivision and things out there seem pretty slow.

Decorating…nothing yet. My youngest son usually helps me with the Christmas and he’s not had time for it yet. Maybe I should just go ahead and do it myself. It would save the arguing we do over whether the Christmas decorating should be tastefully restrained and beautiful, or gaudy and over-the-top, with a tacky display in every inch of the house. (Don’t worry, it won’t hurt son’s feelings that I wrote this. “Gaudy and over-the-top is what Christmas is all about,” says he.)

Listening…to the Dividing Line live. I’m multitasking, something I’m not very good at, so excuse any typos, please.

Wondering…if multitasking should have a hyphen. 

Looking…it up.

Finding…that I spelled it right. Woohoo for me.

Reading…Eighteen Words by J. I. Packer (This is the book I have tucked in my purse to read in the grocery line-up, while I wait for appointments, and while Natalie is sleeping when I am babysitting her.); The World-Tilting Gospel by Dan Phillips (Just started this one, and have only just finished the first chapter); and O Love That Will Not Let Me Go by Nancy Guthrie, a collection of essays by various authors on the subject of facing death.

Thinking…that I’m not going to finish reading The Cross of Christ by John Stott. While the first 2/3 of the book was excellent, the last chapters were getting a little weird. Some of Stott’s stranger views seem to be making an appearance and I’m just not interested in finishing, so I won’t.

Feeling…energetic for the first time in a while. I had a difficult fall for many reasons, but things are returning to normal. A big hooray for that.

Anticipating…Christmas with grandbaby. And thanks to Carla, we will celebrate with a new ornament.

See all of Carla’s custom ornaments here.

Walking…nowhere with no one until it warms up, and when the dogs and I do go walking it will be more a trudge than a walk. For me, that is. Like Tigger, dogs think new snow is for bouncing. 

Wishing…it would warm up again.

A Catechism for Girls and Boys

Part II: Questions about The Ten Commandments

54. Q. What does the fifth commandment teach us?
        A. To love and obey our parents.

(Click through to read scriptural proof.)

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Book Review: The Promised One

Click on image to purchase at Amazon.comSeeing Jesus in Genesis by Nancy Guthrie.

The Promised One is intended for use in a study for group of women. It’s purpose is to help us see pointers to Christ in Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament. “You search the Scriptures,” Jesus said to the Jewish religious leaders, “but the Scriptures point to me!” He was, of course, referring to our Old Testament. So we should expect to see Jesus in Genesis, and this study was written to help us do that.

Guthrie’s goal is an important one. The Jewish leaders missed the Messiah because they did not see that Scripture was pointing them to a redeemer who would suffer. They were familiar with Scripture, but failed to see the big picture. We don’t want to be like them, and yet, too many of us read the Bible piecemeal (if we read it at all), and don’t have a good grasp of the whole storyline. 

Included in The Promised One are ten studies made up of three parts each. First, each study has a workbook section with questions on the section’s passage to be filled out by each participant in preparation for the group study. Then there is a teaching chapter to explain and apply the passage, including, at the end, a few paragraphs that show us how the themes in the passage that point us to Christ will be fulfilled completely at his second coming, when all the threads that begin in Genesis are tied up into a perfect whole cloth. Finally, there is a discussion guide with questions for use in group discussion.

I’ve not used this book in group study, but I have worked through each section, filling out the questions, reading the teaching chapter, and thinking about the discussion questions. I asked myself, as I worked through it all, how it would work in a group of the women I know. 

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