rambling rosemarie

It is a glorious day in Kentucky. The humidity is gone. Mornings are crisp, evenings cool and it is toasty warm during the day. This morning I sat out on my front porch enjoying the birds, flowers and gentle breeze. I took with me an outstanding cup of Colombian coffee and my Voices of the True Woman Movement book. Before I started reading I took a moment to think about my stereotypical idea of the perfect Christian woman. In my mind she is perfectly dressed, perfectly coiffed, and demure. She speaks in dulcet tones and only when she has something encouraging to say. There is no doubt that her make-up is the perfect shade and she uses just enough to allow her to radiate a pleasing angelic glow. Her nails are manicured. Her feet are Barbie-like. She is Jackie O and June Cleaver combined with an encyclopedic knowledge of Scripture and a repertoire that includes a series of perfectly timed, perfectly targeted encouragement statements. She and I look nothing alike. As I inventor...

As I sit here preparing to review Nancy Leigh DeMoss' " Voices of the True Woman Movement A Call to Counter-Revolutio n" I am realizing just what a radical change having a biblical perspective makes in your life. As a new Christian, I would have thrown this book in the trash before bothering to read it. Thankfully I have matured in my faith and wisdom. I no longer dismiss books or people because I assume (even rightly so) that I disagree with their position. I have to wonder what my various groups of friends must think of me now as they read this. Those friends who knew me in high school, those who knew me as a wild young adult, those who knew me in my career at the sheriff's office and/or at the fire department, those are all folks who knew me a feminist and liberal. Truthfully, I have a hard time believing I am a conservative let alone that I am reading books like this one and agreeing with the premise. Becoming a woman of faith is easy if you don't f...

I know I am not the only woman who has struggled with understanding her God given role. I also know that for some women, submission and femininity come easy. We are all made from the same dirt and suffer the same effects from the fall. However, human beings are like snowflakes in that we share the same building material but our Designer has engineered each individual differently. Some people understand math, some people are artistic, some folks learn from doing and others just have to be told. For me, I am a combination of all of the above, with the exception of math. I am decidedly math deficient. Math is not my only shortcoming. I do a lot of spinning of my mental wheels that isn't necessary and gets me nowhere but frustrated. Generally this occurs when I start with the wrong premise. Foundations are important. Alan Kurschner, one of the members of Alpha and Omega Ministries blog team, wrote an an excellent article about starting with the wrong premise. You can read it her...

I got up fairly early this morning and took my dogs out into the backyard. I did some weed pulling and they did some romping. It is amazing to see how much energy my new pup has. She has two speeds, full out and knocked out. Chet the Wonder Dog, my faithful companion of the last 11 years, just watches her as she bounces and spins around him. All the while she is taunting him with the toys she steals from him. It seems youth is wasted on the young in all species. Speaking of species....two years ago my best friend, who still lives in California, sent me plants for my garden. Among the varieties she sent was scarlet bee balm. It is a perennial here and is quickly overtaking my garden. That's OK with me, I like it. Today as I was waging war on squash bugs, I was treated to half a dozen hummingbird moths sipping nectar from the bee balm. The plants are sizable enough that the hummingbird moths, hummingbirds, honeybees and bumble bees all got to eat their fill without fighting. I wat...