Some prizes don’t have enough entries to giveaway just yet. Click the category at the bottom called Free Stuff,
for a likely chance to win something.
Now and then, however, I won’t be able to stop myself, and I’ll post giveaways in March, and in the months to come. I have some books coming my way, that you’ll love to try for. Don’t miss out a bit. Click to Sign up (button on the right) to the blog and to get each new post popped right into your inbox-proof-magical. You don’t even have to visit the site to read what’s up. No hassles, and never be out of the loop again! (Wild hooting and clapping heard from imaginary studio audience.)
This prize is great for the kitchen. It includes a *sweet* flexible cutting board. (I LOVE mine!) A dandy fridge freshener from the Arm & Hammer Baking Soda people. Ahhh-Fresh! A spiffy, metal kitchen caddy from IKEA, good for holding spices, utensils, snacks, or other kitchen-ish things, (comes with mounting hardware.) A Fun Saver disposable camera to record the fun, or give to some little kid who will suddenly think you’re “freakin’ awesome.” Random pixie stix (Yeah, I don’t have a good reason for that. They are the cocaine of sweets.) Also, you’ll see there, a mini spotlight, great for task work. Together, it has a retail worth of $17-20.
Yes! All this can be YOURS! To enter, scroll down, just a bit more for details.
Kitchen gadget combo prize
Remember Mr. Clean? How do you feel about him?
To win this giveaway, Let us know!
Leave a comment. (-click the ‘leave a comment‘ thing, at the bottom right of this post.) Share your thoughts, your fears, use adjectives, tell a story, talk about a Mr. Clean commercial, or jingle you remember, what ever you want. (Um, but, Keep it clean.)
Here’s something you may have not considered before: Outsourcing.
“Wait,” you say, “That’s a dirty word. That’s like saying, ‘I hate Grandmothers,’.” Oh, no, it’s not. Get a grip. Outsourcing is simply getting someone else to do something for you quicker and less expensively than you could do it yourself. Most of the time, time isn’t what you have. And, of course, money? Well, almost no one has that. So you leverage what little money you have to get what you need, specifically. A global marketplace means the world is flat.
Think about it, research, busy work, follow-up calls, answering emails, e-commerce, networking, and much more could be subcontracted, so you could save a lot of time, and maintain your main focus.
Soon I’ll update this with how my outsourcing is going.
Here’s a bit of a excerpt from a paper I’m finishing right now. I would love your comments.
-lisa
The Rich Language of “walk humbly”
In verse eight, it is fascinating how God uses the term (we read in English) “walk right” or “walk humbly.” In this apex verse, God asks his people to act as he does, and “live carefully” (Barker, 114). To walk with God implies constant prayer and watchfulness, and possession of a familiar yet “humble” communion with God. It includes both passive and active obedience towards God, their Sovereign (Fausset). While actions show the condition of the heart, worship is the outward expression of humility. One must love God and neighbor thoroughly in word and deed. For God, this renders sacrifices as secondary, or even unnecessary (Smith, 51). This Just God takes his people into kind consideration through protective laws, and in honoring them (among many other Just things). In that fashion, he expects that Israel’s “living carefully” includes Social Justice and true religion (113). Like the command of Deuteronomy 10:12-13, the people should act out of justice, not just talk about justice (115). Through the method of God’s prophetic message, God reveals the history of his Just and Merciful actions toward Israel. God asks of them that which stem from Justice–the attribute–that applies directly to God himself.
Bibliography:
Barker, Kenneth L. and Waylon Bailey. Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah. The American Commentary. Nashville: Broadman, 1999.
Fausset, A.R. Robert Jamieson, and David Brown. The Book of Micah: Commentary: Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871. Public domain. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/jamieson/jfb.i.html. Accessed 2/20/10.
Smith, Ralph L. Micah-Malachi. Word Biblical Commentary 32. Waco: Word, 1984.
Hoodie Hoo is a new, made up holiday that encapsulates most people’s desire for winter to end and spring to come! (Click the Hoodie Hoo link if you want to find out a little more.) It arrives February 20 in the Northern Hemisphere, 30 days before the first day of spring. Is it Hoo Doo? Well, only if you think it works. It’s probably just a great way to blow off pent-up frustration at frigid temperatures, slush, icy roads, and brown snow banks. It can make you feel better emotionally.
My birthday comes amid the Hoodiest low point of February, and I’ve always felt its sting. This time of year can be like a punch in the gut. I’ll try to counter act that with a hopeful goodie/prize. It retails at ElizabethArden.com for $20, and smells quite nice–floral with a little spiciness: Sunflowers. Fragrance-phobic? Here are a few reviews of the fragrance by some people who tried it.
It’s a nice way to brighten your Hoodie days in hopes of spring–And also makes a nice Hoodie Hoo season gift for a friend, mom, girlfriend, grandma, aunt, or wife… or adventurous male who enjoys floral spring scents.
To win this prize, name the strangest fragrance you’ve ever worn, (even if it’s a kind of bar soap, or hotel soap), in the ‘leave a comment’ area. A random entry will be selected.
What’s mine?
Dial Soap for Men (After 1.5 uses, I just couldn’t keep up with it. I’m just not man enough)
Sunflowers fragrance, Eau De Toilette, by Elizabeth Arden
Great balls of Fire –where could I be going with this?
This will take 2 min and 15 seconds. Hang in there.
1. Grace. Our life in heaven isn’t up to us. We’re not good enough or ready to be with a Holy God. God overlooks this. He, himself paid the debt, to cover over our deficit. Many of us remain awfully content with our goodness, or special knowledge to gain eternal life. But, this life beyond life remains fit as God’s territory singularly. Our residence there is a gift we could never afford. This is what is meant by Saving Grace.
2. Community. Interestingly, atheist Jean-Paul Sartre wrote that, “Hell is other people.” Many of us find being with others (who are not of our own choosing) gets difficult, tiresome, frustrating, annoying, or worse. Even extroverts don’t enjoy communing with every type of person. Some of us get to a point where we consider being with others something to consciously limit, or avoid. Sartre would be very uncomfortable in heaven, would you? God is Trinity, so God in its (pick your pronoun) own Divine essence is community. This is the basis for love-which must have a beloved, or personal recipient of love. And hence, community is the very stuff of heaven.
3. HumilityAndrew Murray wrote a wonderful book called Humility: The Path to Holiness. In it, Murray aptly shows how humility was Jesus’ chief characteristic. Jesus was the human face of The Holy God. Jesus was not concerned with being humiliated, and didn’t consider himself above others, but a servant of all. Many of us have quite little of this characteristic that is plentiful in God, and in heaven.
4. Self-absorption Many of us tend to think life, and life after life is about us, and our needs. With this viewpoint, we would be quite out-of-place in heaven. The Kingdom of God is about loving God and others. In doing so, we are found, healed, known, and freed.
5. Idolatry The things that capture our attention, time, and desires are the gods we worship. They can even be good in themselves, like, staying healthy, or being devoted to our children, doing ministry service, or working hard. Whatever we love or enjoy become idols when they possess our main focus. It is our natural bent to allow things other than God, to become first priorities, but it is not good for us. When we have our life ordered properly, everything else falls into place well. In heaven, that will be the case. We will have a chance to learn, and enjoy many things far more amazing than we do in this life. The heavenly, top-down-priority system will likely jar many of us very much for a while.
6. Judging Many of us are not use to leaving the judging to God. As humans we are not in the position to be good, accurate, or fair judges. We are skewed because of our sin, and we are not innocent. However, this doesn’t seem to stop us from doing it to others. We won’t be foolish enough to do that in heaven. The time we typically use to surmise and judge others will be all freed up, leaving many of us feeling quite disoriented, perhaps. This adjustment could take some “time” to get used to.
7. Holy Fire God is good. How grateful we can be for this! But have you ever noticed when righteous people in the Bible meet an angel of God, they flip out, and feel very uncomfortable in the presence of holiness. God is so very good, and so very pure. In this way, God is like a refining fire in the presence of any impurity, or imperfection. Shock and awe, yet all together good. No darkness can exist in God’s Light. It makes one wonder if the course to be made in God’s image (and fit for heaven) will be wonderful… eventually, but the Fire of God’s Holiness will be more of a conflagration, of sorts, during the cleaning process. The process of spiritual growth isn’t for God’s benefit, but our own. All that is not right for heaven will be burned away in his presence, otherwise we really aren’t ready for paradise with him.
Perspectives on Heaven
Some people think, once we are in heaven, we will be instantly and miraculously transformed, and be suddenly fit for heaven. I have thought this, even wished for it. But, I’ve also had to ask myself, “Is it like God to do this? Or, does God most often–for our best interest–allow us to benefit by going through some kind of ‘refining fire’?” Would a shortcut make our characters Christlike and fit for, that is,fully comfortable, in heaven? I’m thinking, probably, nah. A Junior Varsity area might be a good idea.
Though we may be forgiven, and allowed admittance to the place where God has prepared for us, I wonder if God will still be interested in continuing to make our character more like his, in a process fashion, not unlike we normally learn, and experience reality. When we see him revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is; that is–knowing we are children of God. Understanding our connectedness. We are relational. But that may, in fact, be a process, and not be something that can or should be done instantaneously.
Author and philosopher, C.S. Lewis proposed that heaven could be a place where people would move deeper and further into heaven, and better awareness, as they were able to become accustomed to it. He goes into this quite a bit in his fictitious rendering of heaven in his short book called The Great Divorce. It’s well worth the read. The Catholic idea of Purgatory has a similar notion, of a holding spot, where the heaven-bound are refined in character, and prepared to be with a Holy God, in a holy place, forever.
Since I haven’t tried out the place, I won’t make a blanket or dogmatic pronouncement about how heaven must truly be, and how it may work. I’ll find out all too soon–as will you.
Regardless, of what you believe, or what may happen, it is important that we understand:
• God is Holy, and we are not.
• We cannot be with God, or in a heavenly place after this life without God mercifully allowing us to be.
• We must humble ourselves to our Creator, and be willing to be crafted into God’s divine character.
