rambling rosemarie

Paul Tripp, author of several of my favorite resources for nouthetic or biblical counseling, will be answering questions tonight in a live event on Desiring God . I am hoping to be able to sit long enough to read the questions (posed on twitter and in email) and answers. His work has been invaluable to me as a counselor and I recommend you stop by Desiring God Any Plans This Wednesday Evening and have a look.

This turtle was injured and trying to cross my driveway and the road. I used a snow shovel to give him a hand and he was so big he would not fit. His front legs and head were at the base of the shovel handle. The last 1/3 of his body wasn't on the shovel at all. I had to use it like a lever to lift his back end off the ground and slide him to safety. He was not appreciative and launched at me several times. I am so disappointed that the size of this monster isn't evident by the picture. He was not the biggest I have seen but he was bigger than most. They wander down my road frequently and the way they walk they remind me of those things in one of the Star Wars movies. He was big enough to injure one of my inquisitive little dogs or me severely. If his back legs had been on the ground and not in the air while I sledded him to safety, his launches would have been successful and I would have been without one or more fingers. Next time I call a local and tell them ...

I used to have a sign in my locker at work that said, "Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine." It was a bit of irony since I worked in an emergency dispatch center. It never ceased to amaze me the effort people would invest in making bad decisions; so bad that a call to 9-1-1 would become inevitable. I have a few hundred examples I could use but one particular incident comes to mind. It seems a homeowner decided that he didn't like the looks of the angled section of the stove pipe on his wood stove. Apparently it wasn't quite right and he didn't think it was safe so he removed the section he and went to the local hardware store to find a suitable replacement. Now most people would consider this laudable behavior and it would have been if there had not been a load of live coals and fresh logs in the wood stove. If you are like him and don't see a problem with this scenario, let me introduce you to what firefighters call the...

Embellishment. It is in the top three things that set mankind on its backside on the outside of the Garden. My old cowboy friend always told me that before a horse does something, it gets ready to do something. Things line up and then the horse bucks or kicks. Before Adam and Eve fell, things lined up. It took one question put together by the best wordsmith the world has ever known. It probably happened something like this: "Did God really say.... ?" Adam, who was given instructions directly, let the first bit line up when he relaxed his place of leadership and let Eve answer the question or rather let her answer it incorrectly. Eve embellished the answer. She told the serpent not only can't they eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they can't even touch it! That's the next bit that lined up. I think it's important because it is a twisting of what is true and it sounds so dramatic. It sounds as if Eve is an authority on the subject....

There are many posts and many opinions on the net regarding Dr. Ergun Caner and the veracity of his testimony and curriculum vitae . I have written an open letter to Dr. Caner here on my blog. I am of little consequence and my blog is not one that is well read. That seldom stops me from speaking my mind here in my blog and it is not going to stop me today. Having worked in Student Development in a Christian University, I am passionate about education. In my office I had 1 Timothy 1:5 posted on my wall to remind me of my purpose. "But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith." The point of being educated is to be able to discern right from wrong; truth from error. For believers a good conscience is not only one that is clean but one that does its job; keeping us from sin and when we do sin-leading us to repentance. Truth and repentance are necessary components of sound faith. The point of being an educator is deve...

I hate Mother's Day. It dredges up every raw emotion I have about not being raised by my mother, about losing my mom when she was so young once I did get to have her in my life... about the guilt of being young and stupid and not wanting to recognize my step-mom/auntie as mom on Mother's Day. Now that I have been in her shoes, it's especially difficult. I get the sting of being ignored and the larger more painful sting of knowing I deserve it. As you sow.... so shall you reap. I am doing a study on fear for a seminar I will be giving. I have titled it Fear Knot or Fear Not! It's been beneficial for me as I can see how many areas of my life are tinged or controlled by fear. As I sit here feeling the pain of regret and neglect, I have to say I wish God had told us Hurt Not! He didn't though. There's no place this side of heaven where we aren't guaranteed pain, suffering and tears. This morning a backhoe arrived in the vacant lot next to my house. It...