by Alaina | Aug 21, 2022 | Sunday Scripture
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.
1 Corinthians 12:12 ESV
I was reading a book on personality the other day. I, like many of us, enjoy reading books that shed valuable insight into our makeup, showing how we are wired to do the things we do and why we do them. I tend to be the hard charging, analytical type that prioritizes getting things done on a schedule! My personality, without exception, tends to be described as someone who is focused, who values getting things done, and analytical enough to spot a problem and start solving it. What a great personality type to have! My husband, on the other hand, tends to value fun. Sure he’s willing to go over to someone’s house and help with a difficult project, but let’s also bring hot dogs so we can have a cookout afterwards! We were discussing our personality types and I read the description of his, thinking all the while about how much these fun-loving types really need to buckle down and worry less about having fun so they can accomplish something with their lives when a big smile breaks across his face and he says, “Yes, I’m the fun type, that’s the best!” I thought my personality type was the best.
Not only did I think my personality type was best (even though yes, yes, all personalities are needed and none are better than the others), but I had been sure that people with other personality types wished they could be more driven and as leveled headed as my type. The fact that someone considered a fun-loving personality type as the best had never occurred to me—seriously, why does the world need fun? Fun never solved anything.
This conversation made me stop and think about all the times when my husband made us prioritize fun. Well, a fun life has been the result! If it was up to my husband, we would have had a lot more fun in our married life—we also would have never completed one house project and the laundry would be always overflowing! However, if we listened to me and never prioritized fun we would have an immaculate house and yard and be miserable from working ourselves too hard. We need both to balance each other out.
This brings to mind I Corinthians, Chapter 12. Paul is talking about how each member of the church is like a part of the body. We each have our unique job to do, and our specific personality traits help us deliver those results. All of us are needed to use our God-given talents to make up one whole, functioning body known as the church. We need those hard-charging detailed business types to keep the church on budget; we need the people who just want to have fun to plan the next church outreach event. We need intuitive helpers who are able to connect well with people to discover how the church can help in our community—and not one of these types is more important than the other.
My personality type might be great for running an event, organizing the details and people, and getting cleanup done afterwards, but it doesn’t see the need first. Many times we are able to see other characteristics when they are things we want to cultivate in ourselves, but what about when they are traits we don’t value as much? Just because we may not value certain traits doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t valuable. So the next time you’re getting irritated by someone with a different skill set than you, let’s take a breath and remember that God made us all different for a reason, and then see how we can be stronger when we blend all of our strengths together.
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by Alaina | Aug 14, 2022 | Sunday Scripture
So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Psalms 90:12
My phone died. And just like all those commercials advertising backups for your computer, I lost a lot of data, namely my pictures. These weren’t just any pictures, they were pictures of the first month of life of my first child; they were pictures of our vacation to Mexico; and, oh, a number of cat photos the world will never see again! All my pictures and screenshots of the past two years were gone.
Now I admit, I was partly to blame for this loss. My phone, while not quite “old” (it was still under two years) had been starting to be a little glitchy. It would sporadically decide it was tired and just turn off. It would vibrate like I was getting messages while none appeared—until I would power it down and restart it. Sometimes I had to restart it two or three times. My husband said we should make sure everything was downloaded to the Cloud and I agreed but we never took any action. I felt sure there would be time to do this. I kept thinking that before it finally died, it would give me a warning—a kind of false-alarm crash which would be scary, but we would then have the opportunity to download everything before it officially crashed. Unfortunately, my phone didn’t play by these rules—it just died.
I got a new phone and anxiously waited to see if, miraculously, everything would transfer with no loss. The setup process completed, my husband handed me my phone and I touched the photo app hoping against hope that all of the pictures I had taken of the early days with my son would be there. They weren’t. It was like my phone had amnesia. Everything from the past two years, apparently my storage had reached maximum capacity, was gone. Looking at it you would think the past two years had never happened.
Of course, the first thing I thought of was the loss of photos of my son which, if I am being honest, isn’t the loss it first sounds like as I sent the really cute photos to my family and friends and can recoup them by having them sent back to me. In addition, my husband still has all his photos. The second loss was all the screenshots and pictures of notes I had taken over the years of things I wanted to be sure not to forget, recipes, quotes, funny memes—gone. Then, of course, I realized how many photos disappeared of my first babies—my kitties and my doggie, and then I realized that all of my photos from trips we had taken over that past two years were gone.
Naturally all of this got me thinking … how much of this “loss” would really have lasting value? How much would end up mattering that I lost in the end? The photos of my son I will miss. The pictures of the good times on vacation, I would miss. A few of the kitty photos will also be missed … but the rest? I haven’t missed them yet.
Just as my phone’s storage was full of lots of things that didn’t really matter, I wonder: Are our lives the same?
How do we spend the time of our lives? There is the staggering statistic that the average American spends three hours a day watching TV, three hours! Is TV watching that important to us? Most say no, but still spend the three hours watching anyway. We spend one-eighth of our day doing something that hardly matters to us—we are spending this with the currency of time, the only non-renewable resource on this planet. We are wasting the time of our lives.
I thought there would be time “later” to download all the photos on my phone. What other things in our lives do we think there will be time for later?
When we look back over the years of our lives, how much of it is spent doing what we really want to? I was listening to a podcast by an author by the name of Oliver Burkeman who was being interviewed about his new book and the gist of his quote was that we wait to start the thing we’ve said we have always wanted to do, in part, because we think there will be time later; we don’t have to face the fact that the time of our lives is not infinite.
The time of our lives is not infinite, yet we get so caught up pursuing things that don’t matter and which are not truly important to us. I lost two years of photos on my phone and most of them didn’t really matter and I’m guessing the same might be more or less true for you, but what if we erased the last two years of our lives? Would we miss it? More importantly, would others miss it? Or have we been so self-centered that our time has revolved just around us and it wouldn’t make a lick of difference to others if it had never happened. Have we spent our time wisely and invested in people, things, and in places that will make a difference in eternity?
Other Posts You May Enjoy:
Time is But an Illusion
The moments of our lives
A Sense of Eternity
by Alaina | Aug 11, 2022 | Book Nook
I can’t believe it but unfortunately summer is almost gone! The summer is winding down, school will be starting for the kids soon, and it can make us feel like summer is over but—I’m fighting this feeling! According to the calendar, we still have well over a month until fall (September 21st) and hopefully the weather will cooperate and we will still have time to sit outside and enjoy our books late into the evening.
If you are like me and still hoping to squeeze in some more summer reading, check out these titles to see if any pique your interest!
The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel
Inspired by a true story, The Book of Lost Names is the true story of Eva Abrams, a Jewish Holocaust survivor. As a graduate student in 1942 Eva is forced to flee Paris for a small town in the Free Zone of France. While there, Eva is offered to use her artistic abilities to help forge papers to help smuggle Jewish children out of France and into neutral Switzerland. Eva soon discovers that erasing names comes with a price—she and Remi (her handsome partner in the endeavor) devise a way to help preserve the heritage of these children. Now, years later, the book of code names has resurfaced and it is up to Eva alone to tell the story hidden within its pages.
Beautiful Little Fools by Jillian Cantor
Beautiful Little Fools is a twist off of the Great Gatsby. Told after Gatsby’s death, this is the backstory, told by alternating views of the women we know from The Great Gatsby, as to why Jay Gatsby was found dead … and why there was a diamond studded bobby pin found in the bushes near the pool where Gatsby was found dead. Frank Charles is the detective investigating this case even though the case has officially been closed? Something about it just doesn’t sit well with him and he senses one of the women is lying to him. But which woman is the liar and what is she trying to hide?
Our Last Days in Barcelona by Chanel Cleeton
I have been a huge fan of Ms. Cleeton’s other books (check out my post on her books Next Year in Havana and When We Left Cuba here) and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this one! This story continues to tell the story of the Perez family, who we met in Next Year in Havana and When We Left Cuba, told this time from the perspective of the eldest daughter, Isabel. Isabel has always been the reliable and responsible one of the family. She is now married to a wealthy American and is living in Palm Springs, Florida when she becomes troubled by the seeming disappearance of her wild and impulsive sister, Beatriz. Iasbel decides to take off to Spain where Beatriz is currently living to find her sister. However, while there, she happens upon a mysterious photograph of her, her mother, and a man she has never seen before which was taken in Spain. When Isabel confronts her mother about it, her mother insists that they’ve never been to Spain leaving Isabel with yet another mystery to try to unravel.
Surviving Savannah by Patti Callahan
This story tells of the sinking of the ship, the Pulaski, known as the Titanic of the South. In 1838, the Pulaski was advertised as a safe way to travel in style with only one night out at sea. What a fateful night it was—culminating in the boiler of the ship exploding and approximately 130 of the 190 passengers dying! This story alternates between telling the story of Augusta Longstreet and Lily Forsyth, who were passengers on the ship and Everly, a modern day history professor, who has been asked to curate a new museum exhibit of this event. Everly is eager to delve into the research to discover the truth of what happened that night, however in doing so, she will have to face her own ghosts in a past that she would rather forget.
I hope these titles will help you relax and drink in the last bit of summer that is left! As always, if you haven’t yet, be sure to subscribe to our email list so you never miss a post and if you have enjoyed this post, please share.
Other Posts You May Enjoy:
End of Summer Historical Fiction Round 2021
Author Spotlight – Susan Meissner
Author Spotlight: Books by Ann Rinaldi
by Alaina | Aug 7, 2022 | Sunday Scripture
Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Philippians 2:4 ESV
Well there I was, in active labor with my first child and stranded with my husband in our car alongside the road. Maybe I should back up and give you a little more of the story.
I was 39 weeks pregnant and we knew I could have this baby any day. This particular Saturday morning I hauled myself with my very large stomach out of bed to get started with my day. I didn’t get very far when my water broke! I called out to awaken my husband and announced that this was the day—we were having a baby! He, of course, was a bit frantic as I imagine most first-time fathers would be, to be awakened first thing in the morning with the knowledge that the baby was coming! As he started wildly pulling clothes out of his dresser, he was listing off at a frenetic pace all the things that had to happen before we could leave for the hospital but that he would take care of all of it—that I just needed to worry about myself. I looked at him whipping the clothes out of his dresser and asked him if he wanted to shower. He stopped dead in his tracks then said he thought that would be a good idea, and proceeded to numbly stumble out of the room towards the shower.
As he left to do that, I called the number the nurse had written down for me to call if I should find myself in labor after hours. I introduced myself and told the lady who answered the situation—there was a long pause and then she replied that she was with dermatology. Since I would rather not have my first child in a dermatologist’s office, I took her up on her offer to connect me to the correct office!
Finally, I got through to the doctor on-call and he told me to get ready and come in as soon as possible. We finished getting ourselves together and left for the hospital. While traveling, I was on the phone with my parents informing them that I was bailing on having dinner with them that night, that I had decided to have my baby instead, when the car started making an ominous thumping sound. My husband coasted over to the side of the road and put the four-way lights on. Our car had broken down on the side of the road on the way to the hospital while I was undoubtedly in active labor.
It is at times like this when you start to understand how babies are born on the side of the road in a car! My husband was a little stressed, to say the least.
Frantically, my husband yanked out his cell phone, we panicked briefly as to whether there was service on this stretch of road, but luckily there was enough service to make a phone call. We were about 10 minutes from home so my husband punched in our neighbor’s number and explained the situation before politely asking (or should I say frantically begging) him to come get us. He graciously agreed to save the day and within minutes he arrived to chauffeur us to the hospital where our baby was to be delivered. If our neighbor hadn’t been able to help us, we might have had a ride in a police car or in an ambulance!
On that morning, more than most, we were specifically reminded of how much we need others in our lives. This is a lesson we have learned, and I’m sure will continue to learn, as we try to raise this little baby into a full-fledged adult. God didn’t make us solitary creatures. He made us to need others. He made us to be in community—that’s the whole concept around church! If you don’t have any sort of community around you, I urge you to take the first step. Join a small group, ask someone to meet for coffee, or even just smile at the person sitting next to you this Sunday. Take a step even if it is a small step to support someone else and be prepared to be amazed by the awesome people with whom God has already surrounded you!
Are you interested in more Sunday Scriptures?
by Alaina | May 8, 2022 | Sunday Scripture
They say there are two kinds of people in this world: starters and finishers. Starters get a thrill out of starting new things; they love planning to start new things, they love researching what it will take to start these new things, and they love buying the needed items for their new venture—most of all they love starting the new thing! Because starters get a thrill out of starting new things they tend to start a lot of new things but often have a hard time completing any one thing.
Finishers on the other hand, love to finish things; they hate having a bunch of loose ends. They want to start a task and see it through to completion. I’ve heard that finishers are the ones who finish their body lotion down to the last drop and take great pleasure in having used every bit of lotion in that bottle, whereas if you look in the cabinet of a starter they have about 50 bottles with just one or two pumps of lotion missing!
I am a starter. Talk about starting something new and I am all excited about it! I want to quit what I’m working on and go all in on the next thing … until, of course, the next new thing arises! I wish I was a finisher. At least I am aware of this tendency so I can work to do better at finishing what I start, but my natural inclination is to start all the new things, and maybe finish one or two of them.
On the other hand, I think Paul was a finisher. The other day I was reading my bible and I was reading Acts 14 where Paul and Barnabas were in Lystra and some of the Jews followed them there from Antioch and Iconium where Paul and Barnabas had just been. The Jews started to stone Paul, driving him out of the city and leaving him for dead as they returned to the city. After they leave, Paul drags himself up, dusts himself off and heads back into the city- definitely not something any starter would want to do! But here’s the thing that really got me: the Bible says Paul and Barnabas then left the next day! The next day!! If I had been run out of a city and I had planned to leave the next day I would say, “Well I almost died, they ran me off leaving me just shy of the amount of time I was going to be there, I think that’s good enough!” Meanwhile what I’d be wanting to do is to call down curses on the people who tried to kill me- but this is a good illustration of why I am not Paul.
God calls each of us to certain tasks in this life. I believe what He calls us to is not half as important as how we go about doing what He has called us to. “The end of something is better than the beginning,” we are told in Ecclesiastes 7:8. But that is the hard part—especially for us starters! We need to cultivate the grit and perseverance to stick with something and follow through with it. We need to make sure that we are cultivating Paul-like follow through. The kind of perseverance where, even if we really, really don’t want to do the thing, we do it anyway because we know God has called us to it and how we follow through with the task, be it big or small, is one of the best ways we can honor Him.
Other Posts You May Enjoy:
Nothing To Be Excited About
The Moments of Our Lives
Do Unto Others
