My Time at the Inn

           I love knitting.  I especially enjoy learning new techniques, but sometimes  the  learning curve is high.  One of the things I enjoy knitting  most is socks.  I've only  ever made them  on 5 needles, but in May, my  friend gave me  the needles and  instructions for knitting socks on a circular needle from the toe  up.  I began  that evening  trying to work on them, but I just couldn't get it.  I felt so  frustrated, but since my friend gave me this gift, I had to do it.  It's taken since May, but I had finally gotten  hold of how to do it, when last night I discovered I had dropped  stitch.  Ugh... I almost wanted to cry and rip the whole sock out and just go back to my  comfortable way of  knitting socks.  Almost....but not quite. My husband reminded me it's easier to quit than to press  forward.   He referred to a ...

                  Recently, some friends of mine have been going through a time of tremendous trials.  One of them asked me in tears, "Is God listening?  I've called out to Him so many times for answers and I am waiting for clarity, but nothing is clear. "  I had no ready answers.  When my friend called me, I just returned  to another friend's home after the funeral of her mother.  I had  come from a service where the message was about victory and hope, and yet I was at a loss for words for the tears coming forth from this person.  I simply said, "God knows what you and I do not.  We have to trust."  I had my own doubts, but how could I share that?  What comfort can be found in the words, "I don't know?"  Yet God does know.  How could I tell my friend that I too had called out for help, and didn't feel I had clarity?            This morning the Lo...

           The title of the blog has changed to "My Time at the Inn."  Luther once said, "The world is a den of murderers, subject to the devil.  If we desire to live on earth, we must be content  to be guests in it, and to lie in an inn where the host is a rascal, whose house over the door this sign or shield, "For Murder and Lies."  While visiting our  son in Texas last summer, his pastor's  Sunday school lesson was on that quote.  The pastor said  that we are merely strangers in this world, and we should view it as though we are on a pilgrimage, and we are staying at Inn filled murderers and liars.  That message resonated with me these last few days, and I thought that I had  a wrong title for my blog. I get too comfortable with the world, and along comes God and gives a trial whereby I must face my sin.  Has that ever happened to you?  It's too easy for me to get comfortable here.  Perha...

 Do you ever read blogs and think, well, I wish my life were that perfect.  I  homeschooled all my children from Kindergarten through  twelfth grade.  I am rather glad there were no blog early on when  I started, or I would have felt like a failure.  It's the same on Facebook, we  all tend to  post what's  good that's going on in our lives, and exclude our failures. If you read yesterday's blog post, you might have thought the rest of my day went on  like a breeze, but oh contraire, it did not.  I had so much frustration. Things that could go wrong did  go wrong, and of course my first impulse was to  gripe.  I nearly lost it when my violin bow wouldn't wind. I have a rehearsal Sunday in church, now what???  I really felt the  words that Paul wrote  when  he said, "For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not  do what I  want, but  I do the very thing I hate." (Romans ...