in search of Persimmon Pulp

January 2, 2013
by Jennifer
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One Word – Healthy

One Word. What is that? It’s a chance to look at where you are right now & think about where you want to be a year from now. Is there a single word that can encompass that desire? Is there a single word that can help keep you focused on that goal? Something that is easy to remember, and can spur you on when you get discouraged?

My One Word for 2013 is HEALTHY.

I know, it sounds like the typical “I’m tired of this unhealthy body & want to make some changes” because THAT always works, right?

But that’s not the focus. Well, not the only one anyway.

Healthy. Not just health, but healthy. Healthy body, yes. But also healthy relationships. Building healthy relationships with my girls. With my past. With my future. With friends – current, former and future.

Having a healthy perspective on where God has me right now and on what He has brought me through.

Having a healthy balance. Work, play, family, self, finances… balance.

Building up a healthy appetite for God – His word, His presence, HIM. Seeking him daily. Not just reading a few verses, but truly seeking and spending time in His presence.

This is what “healthy” means to me right now. Physically, mentally, spiritually.

And yes, I plan to “pick up where I left off” with exercise. Sounds so much better than “start over again” doesn’t it?

If you want more info about this idea, please head over to http://oneword365.com/ – there is an entire community over there that can help & support you for the next 365 days. :)

July 10, 2012
by Jennifer
1 Comment

Romancing the Mind

That’s an interesting title… I know.

Let me back up and explain where this is coming from.  I am on the mailing list for a number of Christian book sellers – both email and snail mail.  I occasionally darken the doors of Christian book stores.  There is something about the offerings of these places that bothers me. But I’ll get to that in a moment.

One of the mailings that I recently received was a fairly large booklet.  There were about 25 or so pages in it, and 4 of those pages did not have “Christian Romance Novels” on them.  The entire rest of the mailing was devoted to romance novels.  Amish ones, mystery ones, historical ones… you get the idea.

As you may have noticed, I seem to have a problem with this genre of book.  Please allow me to explain.

The romance novel – be it an offering from Harlequin or Jeanette Oak – opens a door into a dangerous place for women.  It opens a door into imagining a perfect life with the man of our dreams.  It creates a longing for the kind of man – the kind of life that just isn’t easily found.

For women and girls that are not yet married, it creates an expectation of marriage that just isn’t real.  It sets them up to be disappointed.  For women that are married, well, it creates an expectation of their husbands that, let’s face it, most men just aren’t going to live up to.

For some women, romance novels are quite simply porn for our minds in the way that movies like Magic Mike are porn for our eyes – fully acceptable in today’s society.

WHAT?!?!?

That’s a pretty harsh statement, I agree.  But think about it.  When men look at porn, they are looking at an idealized version of women – a version that 95% of us will never be able to be.  They are training their eyes and body to react positively to a picture of womanhood that just isn’t attainable for most of the population.  They are teaching themselves to be dissatisfied with their wives and girlfriends.

When women read romances, they are training their minds (and bodies, for some) to react positively to a mental picture of manhood and relationship that just isn’t attainable or sustainable for most of the population.  Yes, some women use porn to do that too (more than you would ever realize) but I want to caution you to guard not only your eyes, but you minds as well.

There are many Christian women that choose not to read “those racy trash books” but will gladly pick up a “historical fiction” book at the Christian book store.  A book that draws them into a great story about a young girl… and a dashing man that swoops in and saves her.  A book that builds up a story about a man and a woman that start out hating one another and through circumstances eventually find that they are meant for each other.  Can’t live without one another. He brings her flowers, he knows her every need – and meets it.  He bends over backwards to make her life better and easier.  He dotes on her.  He adores her.  He cherishes her above all else.  He would give his life for her, and give up everything for her…

Not that any of these are necessarily bad things, but they aren’t the norm, and they don’t often last a lifetime.

I’m not saying that we can’t appreciate a good story – Pride & Prejudice comes to mind (with zombies, of course, but I digress) but I am warning us that we need to make sure that if we read these stories, we aren’t transferring them over to apply to our lives.

We need to make sure we aren’t comparing the story to our lives, and the dashing hero to our husbands.  We need to guard our minds against becoming dissatisfied with our lives because we aren’t living a fairy tale. Yes, you may be lucky enough to have married the man of your dreams, and he may truly cherish you and honor you above all others… but he also has bad days at work.  Money is often too tight you lavish you with expensive gifts.  There are children that demand a certain amount of time from both of you.

In short, life happens.

If you find yourself looking for your husband to be the man you are reading about in the pages of a book, please take a step back and look at the man that he really is.  You fell in love with him and chose to spend your life with him.  Take the time to remind yourself of the amazing qualities that helped attract you to him in the first place.  Don’t short-change your husband or your relationship because neither of you can live up to a fairy-tale.  It’s not fair to either of you.

Photo a day lists – June & July

June 29, 2012 by Jennifer | 0 comments

Wow – June is almost over already! That just doesn’t seem possible! Although, as I think back, it’s been a rather busy month with graduations and class plays and packing and Summer starting and packing and packing and… oops, got stuck in the broken record there.

July will be here on SUNDAY (Eek!) so I thought I’d better get around to posting the photoaday list… Sorry I missed June. I’ve been busy. Did you notice the packing above? Thought so… :)

This gallery contains 3 photos

June 10, 2012
by Jennifer
0 comments

The Speed of Life

Stopped by to check on things this afternoon, and realized that I haven’t posted anything since January!

Whoa.

Sorry about that. Life has been a teensy bit, well, INSANE since then!

To catch you up on 5 months in 5 minutes:

We did Pride & Prejudice at school for our Spring play.

Hmm. Maybe that only took 5 seconds. :)

Yes, I’ve spent much of the past 4 months working towards the goal of guiding these amazing students that God has blessed me with towards creating something amazing. And they did. We had rehearsals 4-5 days a week for 10 weeks, with some MAJOR rehearsals the last week. The play rather took over the lives of about 30 people.

And it ROCKED. They were amazing, and each performance just kept getting better and better. I am so very proud of them!

That ended a month ago, and since then it’s been a rush of getting caught up from the things that didn’t get done while the play was consuming every spare second, and preparing for the rest of the school year. Then there were the other plays. The 8th grade class play, the 4th/5th grade class play (in which my children did a fabulous job!), the 2nd/3rd grade class play, high school graduation… I think you’re getting the idea. Life has been screaming along, andI sit here today looking forward to the last week of my first year as a middle & high school drama teacher.

And I must say, I’ve had a blast! I think I’ll do it again next year!

On other fronts, life has been moving along at a rapid pace as well. The girls are growing – Miss M starts 6th grade this fall (eek! Mommy isn’t quite ready for that!) – and we are settling into our “new normal” of alternating schedules, sports (still soccer), school work, time spent with friends, etc. We are adjusting. Tweaking as necessary, but moving forward.

The past 9 months of life have been a period that I know I will someday look back on and see God’s hand all over. That someday I will see where He lead us and guided us and, yes, carried all of us. It has not been a period where the footprints will be random & scattered due to dancing, but rather where there was a single set with occasional tentative steps and big splotchy spots where I fell down again and again and God – in His amazing grace and peace and wisdom – helped me back up.

Friendships have been tested. Some have survived, some have not. New ones have grown. God is faithful in everything. He is always there beside us, comforting us, holding us, carrying us, and cheering us on. Always… even when we stuff our ears full of cotton and try to ignore him!

So that’s the short version of the past few months. SO MUCH has happened. So VERY much. I know that God will be using it and turning everything around for good, but for now, I am just… trying to be. To breathe in and breathe out. To get up and go to work and be with my kids and build friendships and… be.

Hopefully it won’t be another 6 months before I get back with another update! In the mean time, check out the PhotoADay photo stream I’ve been (occasionally) trying to keep up with since January. There are some fun pics, and some… interesting ones. :)

Oh, and before I forget, Have A Great Summer!!!!!

January 6, 2012
by Jennifer
0 comments

It’s spreading…

There’s something going around out there. Out on the internet. And it seems to be spreading.

Perhaps you’ve seen it?

It is often accompanied by the following hashtag:
#JANphotoaday

And I’m joining in the fun. You should to.

Get those creative juices flowing again. Reboot from the holidays and the desire to never touch a camera again and have a little fun with it.

Want more info? Check out this site – she has all the info you need.

And if you want to keep track of my progress, my instagram moniker is PersimmonPulp – just like twitter.

Come join the fun!

January 6, 2012
by Jennifer
0 comments

Books, Books, Books

2011 Reading Challenge

2011 Reading Challenge
Jennifer has

read 44 books toward her goal of 125 books.

hide

Well, I almost made it. For some silly reason my consumption of books drastically reduced around the end of August. Funny how getting a job can do that to a person. :)

I suspect that had I had the same amount of free time in the last 4 months of the year that I had in the first 8 I would have made that goal. Or upped it (again) to a higher one.

This year I am planning to go back to a more modest goal. Perhaps my original goal for last year… 50 books.

We’ll see if I make it. :)

January 6, 2012
by Jennifer
0 comments

The Genesis of Sin

I was reading Genesis 3 yesterday as part of my YouVersion reading plan, and it has kept knocking around in my head since then.

You can take a look at the passage here

This is the biblical account of the very first sin to enter the world. The original. Numero uno.

Eve has been created, and has been told the few rules of paradise. It would seem that she has been left to wander as she wills, and she found herself in conversation with the crafty serpent.

This crafty serpent decides to stretch the truth just a teeny tiny bit – most of what he says is true, but not all of it. Yes, eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil will open her eyes and give her wisdom – it will make her like God in that way. She will know and understand the difference between good and evil. And no, she did not “die” that day in a physical sense, but in a spiritual sense, she did. And physically, her days just got a number put on them. Her body began to decay and every breath brought her closer to death.

What has been knocking around though comes after that part. She takes the fruit, shows it to Adam and they eat it together.

And their eyes were opened. Sin entered into Paradise.

What is the very first thing they do? They hid.

First they hid their nakedness with fig leaves. Then they hid themselves from God.

That’s the thing with sin. It creates division. It separates us from God. It causes us to look upon ourselves and feel that we need to hide ourselves away because we aren’t pure and spotless anymore. It makes us turn away from God because He is pure and spotless. He is Holy.
Then what happened?

The blame game starts. They were caught in their sin. Once God called them out of hiding & began to repair the rift in the relationship they start passing the blame. Avoiding responsibility.

Genesis 3:11-13
11 He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.”13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

Adam passes the blame to Eve, and she passes it on to the crafty serpent. At least the serpent didn’t pass it along too. But no matter how far they passed it along, all they did was make the number of people who would be punished larger.

Because sin must be dealt with, and the consequences must be faced.

The serpent was cursed to slither on its belly & eat dust all of its days. It would no longer find a sympathetic ear in the woman, and it was cursed to have its head crushed.

The woman was cursed with pain in childbirth – one could assume she was cursed with monthly reminders of that pain as well. She was also told that she would live in submission for the rest of her days – but not like it.

Adam was cursed with toil and hard labor. No longer would everything he put his hand to be easy, he now had to work hard for everything he got. He had to fight against weeds and thorns to get the food to feed his family until the day he died.

Oh yes, death was now a reality for them, but not just their death.

Verse 21 says “And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.”

A sacrifice had to be made to atone for the sin. Something had to die so that they could go on with their lives.

They found themselves kicked out of paradise, now with knowledge of evil, and faced with lives of pain and hard labor.

Thankfully they still had God in their lives. And thankfully God also provided the ultimate sacrifice for us – the Lamb has been slain to take away our sin and bring us back into relationship with God. We are clothed in His righteousness so that when God looks upon us He see’s Jesus – a pure and spotless life lived for Him.

When sin separates us from God, we need to walk into the light, not hide from Him. He longs to bring us back into relationship with Him. If He didn’t, Jesus would never have been born a Man, would never have lived a human life, and would have been spared the humiliating torture of the cross.

But He loves us. He created us to be in relationship with Him. And He gave us free will so that we could choose to show Him our love and give Him our worship.