Christmas in July #5

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And to close out July, one more Christmas song.  And a light show to go with it.  This is one of my 9-year-old's most favorite songs.  And when we play it, we play it LOUD!  (Good job, Roderique family!)

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A great sermon to start 2026

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I watched  this online Willow Creek sermon  yesterday from a new series called The Jesus Way, about the Sermon on the Mount... and I just gotta share it because I haven't heard a sermon this good in awhile.  In fact, it's one of the best I've heard in a long time.  A great way to start 2026!   Maybe it just said what I needed to hear at this point in my life.  Maybe it won't speak to you the same way.  But, who knows, maybe it will.  Give it a try.  What've you got to lose?  
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Pause, breathe, smile

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(Happy New Year!)  Please, allow me to vent and to listen to myself rant.  And come along, if you want, on a trip through m y mind  (I apologize in advance for how the messy it is😉) : Are you exhausted?  I am.  I am sick and tired of all the craziness out there, all the chaos, fighting, hate, lies, fear-mongering, violence, increasing prices (for less product or services), natural disasters, wars, rumors of wars, AI this-and-that, Big Pharma, social deviance/immorality, efforts to force people to tolerate social deviance/immorality, political posturing and mudslinging and nonsense, etc.  ("You can stop the world now, God.  We wanna get off.")   I am sick of both social media and the news - because everyone just wants to fight, scream their opinions, demand their way, calls names, make accusations, and force everyone else to agree with them and do things their way.  E verything's an "us vs them" thing, and "if you don't agree with 'us' ...
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List of Calvinist Preachers, Authors, Theologians, Websites, etc.

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I  found a lot more names to add to my list of known Calvinists (found in my various  "How to Tell if a Church, Pastor, or Website is Calvinist"  posts).  But instead of adding this huge list to all those posts, I am going to put it here, and I'll just provide a link on those posts to this one.  [FYI: I added a note at the bottom of this post on May 5, 2021.] So here it is, a "master list" of known Calvinists to help you be careful and discerning about who you listen to and where you get your theology from.  There are plenty more Calvinists out there, but these are just the names that I ran across the most.   These are either definite, self-professed Calvinists or "most likely Calvinist," in my estimation.  (I haven't heard of most of them, but it's good to know their theology before I do.)   After finding these names in various places online, I looked up each person to see if they are Calvinist.  If they did not self-identify ...
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Another Serving of Anti-Calvinism Memes

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Some more of the memes I made up, just for fun! "Sovereignty" ... Special code Working for salvation? "Total Inability" But guess what? And so I said ... I told you ... WRONG! Santa Claus Hard To Swallow Pills How you feel when ... The Pie Chart - Theological Influences The Pie Chart - Calvinist Theology Calvinist theology - dead men I Tell You This Every Time ... Definitely "elected" How do we get them to believe ... Where do you get your theology from? You're right, Calvinist A Calvinist's Amazing Grace What if ...?
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How to Make a Right Decision

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This weekend (FYI, this is a repost, written long ago), I was struggling with a decision I made, wondering if I made the right one.   I do this a lot.   I always doubt myself and then have to re-evaluate my choice before I can feel confident that I made the right one (unless, of course, God lets me know that I was wrong.)   In this post, I want to look at ways we can evaluate our decisions and do our best to figure out which one God wants us to pick.   How can we know that we are making the “right decision”?
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Giggle Translate #12: Butterflies and Dandruff Head

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For the newest Giggle Translate, I wrote about a less-than-pleasant day I had when I injured myself gardening.  Here it is: The Original Version, in a post under the heading of "Things I've Actually Said": “Hi, Honey!    I did something stupid.    I’m alright, but can you pick up some butterfly bandages on your way home?”              I had just said good-bye to my husband and sons as they left for a store.    And I called out to my husband as he pulled away, “Are you sure you don’t need me to go with you?”              But I really preferred to spend some time home alone, so I was relieved when he said, “No, I’ve got it covered.    You stay home and enjoy your time alone.”              About a minute after they pulled away, I was trying to hang up a stupid, little,...
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"Ohio Sheriff Offers to Help Celebrities Leave The U.S. If Trump Wins, On One Condition ..."

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I love this! Ohio Sheriff Offers to Help Celebrities Leave the U.S. If Trump Wins - On One Condition: "You Can't Come Back" Thank you, Sheriff Rick Jones, for saying what a lot of us have wanted to say to those celebrities who threaten to leave the U.S. if Trump wins (and who threatened last election).   I applaud you, and I add my message to those celebrities (and anyone else) who think they have the right to demand that everything be their way or who threaten to move from the country if they don't get their way:  "Good ... leave!  We don't want your snotty, cry-baby whining here anyway!  We don't want your arrogant attitudes where you think you're better than all of us lowly, common folk.  We don't want you preaching to us about how we should think, how we should vote, what our values should be, etc., especially when you contribute to some of the most wretched, immoral, godless filth in entertainment and live it out in your own lives too.   Who ...
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How Would You Spend Your Last Day?

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Okay, so today (reposted from 9/23/17) is the beginning of the end of the world, according to a Christian numerologist.  As I went to bed last night, I was thinking, "What if the world really did 'end' tomorrow?  How would we choose to spend our last day?" As I laid in bed by myself last night watching Gilmore Girls for the 832nd time while my husband and kids watched a show together in the other room, I thought about how we all had eaten dinner together earlier (homemade BBQ chicken pizza) and how hubby and I had our "mommy and daddy" time and how we were all just chillin' now with each other, hanging out in our normal low-key way, eating mint chocolate chip ice cream.  And I thought, "This is exactly how I would want to spend my last day.  If the world ended tomorrow or if the rapture really happened and Jesus came back and took my family out of here, I would be happy to end my time on earth like this."  Actually, I can t...
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Let's just call it what it is: Wicked!

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Wicked and repulsive! What else would you call a Philadelphia ruling that would rather children not get a home than get a faith-filled home through a faith-based agency!?! Wicked and repulsive! And yet the left continues to think it's so tolerant and open-minded and all-inclusive and open-armed! Nonsense!!! This kind of thing shows who they really are.   May God overturn this ruling and turn the hearts of people back to Him, opening their eyes to their need for Him and to the true condition of their hearts and souls.  May they see how far they have fallen and the damage they are causing in our country! And if I may point something out:  This is not an attack on faith, but only on faith in the God of the Bible.  Because what they seem to forget is that everyone has faith in something.  Everyone stakes their eternity on something.  Even people who claim to have no faith ... have faith.  They just have faith in themselves, in chan...
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Spiritual Warfare: Sword of the Spirit 4 (the sword)

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Okay now, onto the list of verses I shared with my family member for her to use in spiritual battles, when Satan's got us down and cowering in fear.  These were specifically chosen for comfort, encouragement, and strength - and I added a few extra here for different kinds of temptations, trials, or confessions.   I suggest p rinting them out, reading them over and over again, writing them out, mem orizing some, taking a list with you wherever you go, etc.  Whatever it takes to get through the hard times.   And when the attacks, temptations, or hard times come, turn them into prayers  (I'll share my own personal Scripture-based prayers in the next post )  or simply s peak out loud the ones that fit your particular struggle, trial, temptation, or fear.   Declare to yourself, to the struggle/temptation, and to the Enemy/spirit world that "It is written ..." and then quote a verse that fits.  A nd let God's Word comfort and still your s...
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