rambling rosemarie

The truth about things is always out there to be found. My friend, Turretinfan , posted an excellent series written by Tom Chantry about the importance of truth in reporting history. I hope you'll read his work whether or not you are familiar with the Ergun Caner debacle. It is a valuable lesson for us all. I recommend you put both these blogs on your reading radar.

As a counselor I have determined that when God puts me in a position to teach on a subject it's a sure bet that the topic is going to be an area I most need some soul work. I have been studying fear and anxiety for the past several weeks and it has been invaluable to me, both in equipping me as a counselor and equipping me for life. You cannot study anxiety and fear without studying their remedy, grace. God's cleansing grace found only in Jesus' atoning sacrifice. The grace extended to believers on a moment by moment basis is the balm for our souls but we too often don't recognize it. We think deliverance from fear and anxiety should look like deliverance from trial and suffering and dark things that bump our souls. "It is good to understand that Christ's service never did secure a man from all the ills that flesh is heir to and never will. If you are a believer, you must reckon on having your share of sickness and pain, of sorrow and tears, of losses an...

I remember being told to look both ways before crossing the road and so far it's worked out for me. I remember being told to look before I leap, but truthfully by the time I understood the all the applications for that idiom, I had bumped and bruised myself plenty. All in all though, that one has been a success too. I remember a cowboy teaching me about horses telling me that before a horse does something, it gets ready to do it and if you can read the signals you've got time to change his mind. That bit of advice has been one of the treasures of my life because my old cowboy friend's real secret was that the same principle works for people. Before is a beautiful thing to understand. Before you are in trouble you can't get out of, before you are hurt, before you are sorry.... there's something you can do before you mess up to keep from messing up. Before is the ounce of prevention that's worth a pound of cure. Before you were formed in the womb.... before yo...

One of the pastors at my church has started a series on our responsibility to the poor. As I sit in a spare room that I call my office, typing on a laptop that has a 23" external monitor.... with lights on and a comfortable chair to sit in, I have to tell you that my guilt glands are swollen. Why? Here are some some statistics that are heartbreaking and mind blowing: Right now, more than a billion people live and die in absolute poverty, trying to live off $1.00 a day. There are another 2 billion people who live off of $2.00 a day. Nearly half the world's population (that's over 3 billion) lives on less that $2.50 a day. 1.1 billion people do not have access to clean water. Of the 2.2 billion children on the earth today, 1.1 billion of them live in abject poverty. 30,000 die each day due to poverty and preventable disease. Every day there are 5 thousand who die due to diarrhea.... just because they didn't have access to clean water. Those statistics were given to u...

My neck and back pain have returned me to a physical terrorist...er.. therapist. If you've ever had an injury you know that physical therapy can leave you feeling like you've been hit by a fast moving truck. It gets better but you've got to work the injured part of your body the right way to help it heal from using it the wrong way. Last night I was not only sore but exceptionally tired. I almost went to bed without checking my email. Email, FB and text messaging are the ways I keep in contact with my kids who are 2400 miles away. My cell phone doesn't get good reception in my home so my kidlets use FB and email mostly. As I blundered down the hallway I decided to take a quick look at my inbox. I am glad I did. My youngest had used her phone to text a message to me on FB. When I read it I was terrified. It seems she was headed to the library near the new city hall - which is in a bad part of her town. She doesn't drive so she was walking and near the cit...

I went to the doctor yesterday. She asked me how I was feeling and I told her she ought to just take me out behind the building and shoot me. She told me that those weren't the plans she had for me. I handed her the list of complaints I had written out. I was afraid I would forget what it was that I wanted to consult with her about and apologized for having a list. You're fine, she assured me as she systematically went through the list. "Let me see the new moles....ah, no worries we'll freeze those off." Whew! In my family cancer of every variety runs rampant. I also had a good report from mammography. Since my mother, aunt and both grandmothers had breast cancer that's a huge weight off my chest. Pun intended. Next on the list, remind me what are some of the bi-products of having pernicious anemia? "Mood swings, being emotional, loss of concentration, loss of cognitive abilities, loss of balance, loss of energy...." That's it! I am not...