Oregon, My Oregon!

After two years I am finally going to spend time in my beloved Oregon. Someday I will live there or at the very least spend a month here, a month there, etc. From my last visit, I have a drawerful of undeveloped film! I am, therefore, so very grateful that I will be taking my new digital, pocketsized camera. I can take something like 250 photos or more before it must be downloaded or the little insert (whose name escapes me at the moment) must be changed. At 9:30a.m., July 6, my brother and I will touch down in Portland, rent a car and spend the next seven days at my cousin's place......five acres out in the country, surrounded by other 'mini-farms' and viewing vast expanses of land and tall trees rather than condos, strip malls, and houses. I ache to take in the aroma of trees, rivers, and newly mown hay.

San Diego

I love San Diego......Laura is there and b'sides, it's just a dropdead gorgeous place to hang out! I love to 'window shop' houses/condos for sale. Found a house soooo perfect that I actually cried when I found that it had just been sold! I'm SUCH a goof! My own house has not sold and likely will not sell anytime soon, so it was just a lovely fantasy. I sat in the yard......just the right size .... not too big, not too small. Just the right size for me to 'putter' in the garden without having to spend an entire weekend on yardwork. The house is very small but adequate, with the exception that I'd have to put in another bathroom. HAFTA have two toilets, minimum! The kitchen was heavenly. They'd knocked out a wall to make it a part of the living/family room, complete with an island. Plenty of room for two or even three to cook. Bedrooms were postage stamp size but I was in love so I didn't care. Sigh.....some day. :'o/

Christian and Gay? No WAY? Yes, WAY!

I am a christian, born-again, saved by grace, covered in that same precious blood that Jesus shed for all of us. I am HIS, just as all of you are. And if you don't know Jesus, I'd love to share Him with you. I found this article this morning on the internet by Dr. Louis B. Smedes, a much beloved man of God who passed away in 2002. I had the great joy of meeting this wonderful man of God the year before at a Christian Conference. Feel free to comment after reading the full text.
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About the Author
Dr. Smedes is a retired minister in the Christian Reformed Church, a former ethics professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, and the author of a dozen bestselling Christian books including To Forgive and Forget and All Things Made New.

edited for length.....if you wish to have the entire article, please contact me here or by e-mail at katewshka@yahoo.com

.....I believe that God blesses us when we improvise on nature's lapses. To create my own family, for instance, three mothers had to have given away their own children. And my children had to suffer the deep trauma of being torn away, long before their time, from their mothers. Surely Doris' and my way of family making was no part of God's design for the family. But I know that he gives his supportive grace to such improvised families as mine. And, in the same way, I believe, he gives his supportive grace to the way homosexuals improvise marriage-like covenants for themselves even though they cannot by sexual means create families.

Some time ago, an elderly couple of a fundamentalist persuasion told me about their fear for their daughter's soul. She had left their church because she could no longer accept some of its fundamentalist demands on her life. The daughter still confesses Christ as her Savior, but her parents consider her denial of some fundamentalist standards an equivalent to a denial of the Lord. Their sorrow and fear for their daughter made me very sad. And, as happens to me often these days when I feel sad, a hymn popped into my head as a kind of anti-depressant: "There's a wideness in God's mercy like the wideness of the sea." I wished that my friends could believe that mercy so wide must embrace their daughter even if she is no longer a fundamentalist believer.

My church's exclusion of homosexuals who confess Christ and live together in committed love makes me very sad in the same way. And when I think about it, I am haunted by the same hymn. Is there really a wideness in God's mercy like the wideness of sea? Is his mercy wide enough for people who, through no choice of their own, have no other way to fulfil one of the deepest of all human needs but the way that my wife and I have fulfilled them for fifty years - in an abiding partnership of lasting love? I think I know my own heart well enough to believe that if his mercy is wide enough for me, it must be wide enough for them.

Lewis Smedes

Hair

Got my hair cut last week......took forEVER to decide to really DO it! I talked it to death! LOL!
I am donating this cutting and the last two to Beautiful Lengths, a place that provides wigs to women who have lost their hair to chemo or alopoecia. Before and After photos at the bottom of the webpage. I'll have the front view of "after" soon. The ones I took the day I had it done didn't turn out due to my camera's battery being WAY low.

I am STRONG and courageous, and it is WELL with my soul!

This is to be my new affirmation. Some days I feel it down to my toes and up to the heavens! Other days, I hang on my my fingernails. Work is a huge blessing and at the same time, very, very stressful. I want to quit, I want to stick it out until the teacher returns from maternity leave at the end of February. I NEED to stick it out. I am teaching kindergarten at my favorite school, the place where I feel safe even during tough times. I need to keep the reputation I've earned for being dedicated and reliable. I can, with God's help, push through and emerge triumphant. God's Word says "Let the weak say I am strong". My favorite song says: "When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll....whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say...It is well, IT IS WELL WITH MY SOUL". During times of stress, my dad used to tell me, "Cissy, the Lord is still on the Throne". Good morning, dear ones.
I am strong and courageous and it IS well with my soul!

Homosexuality.....pro and con!

Originally this was a post looking forward to my trip to Anaheim to a Gay Christian Network conference. The conference was heavenly but is past and no posts occurred, so I've renamed this thread "Homosexuality....pro and con!" to relate better to what little has been posted so far. Hopefully this will be a spirited discussion. Please....NO CUSSIN'! ;o)

Hugs, Kat(hy)

Yay!

Finally discovered that I can remove that pesky astrological sign thingie from my profile! No offense to those who follow it, but I'm an evangelical Christian and it doesn't look right to have it listed, imho.
That said, great morning to the one or two of you who may happen by!