yup. another video

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Extra! Extra! Nathan Time

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For work reasons, Mark is not available, which means Nathan and I have been having a lot of bonding time. Sunday night we made applesauce muffins. Which means I made applesauce muffins, and Nathan measured dry beans onto the floor--because I preferred him playing in that than with flour or rolled oats. He also got to lick the maple syrup measuring cup, which he was a big fan of, and got offended when it ran out. Honestly, I made the applesauce muffins because I didn't want to go outside [which he wanted to do, which I knew because he kept showing me his shoes and jacket] and figured he would get distracted with muffins. That's also why I put away laundry--because he loves laundry--and why we went to the library. Maybe even why we went to church. Basically we had a bunch of side quests to distract him from his Main Quest. I'm beginning to suspect that all of his childhood will be me coming up with side quests, filling up his days with Things To Do so that he doesn't rea...
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What's in a Name

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 I'm here to tell you that Sheila, Mark's car of 20 years, has died [more precisely, has been donated to public radio, but the fact remains that she no longer runs]. Mark was starting his drive home from St. Louis when Sheila just...stopped. He started her up again, and she reasserted her stationary status. He did a manual override to get her off the road [ie put her in neutral and rolled off to the side down the hill], and then called a tow.  And thus began the search for the ideal car . [Unfortunately, I don't think cars, or people, have achieved perfection on earth, but the pressure to find the closest-to-perfect still exists]. It needed to have safety features like a backup camera, curtain airbags, and superb crash test results. I stipulated that it needed to have air vents to the rear seat, as I had noticed that Nathan can get warm sitting back there in his carseat. We preferred a hybrid, for environmental and gas-price reasons. The car also needed room for his strolle...
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God is With Us in Adversity

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  I was asked recently to give a talk on Joseph of Egypt. I'm sharing an expanded version here because I want everyone to see it and draw strength from it. Everybody has trials. Every single person. But the universality of it hasn't yet provided a satisfactory answer on the necessity behind each of those hard times. Sure, we have theories. Maybe the difficulties stem from agency--either we or someone else made a poor choice, and now we get to learn from the consequences. Maybe the struggles are because we live in a fallen world (aka "mortality") and we need the trials to become better people worthy of living with God. Maybe we are suffering because God made a bet with Satan [I'm thinking Job here] and we just need to hang on long enough to have full vindication and double the blessings we had before.  We've come up with phrases to offer to those who are suffering-- "God is in the details." or  "You're going through a refiner's fire....
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