There are some words or phrases that just don’t go together. “Jumbo Shrimp,” “New Antiques,” “kind of pregnant,” or “sort of married” are some that come to my mind. Other phrases can become part of our standard english, like “virtual reality” or “Icy Hot.” In the English language we call them “oxymorons,” a funny sounding word in and of itself. That word has a greek origin, and could be translated as “pointedly foolish.” Another way to say it is that it’s a statement that makes a self-contradiction. All that intelligence I got from Wikipedia. (And that sentence is another oxymoron.) We all slip up in our speech sometime, but the Bible often uses these pointed phrases to drive home a point. The Bible often takes words that don’t go together, and puts them together, to grab our attention and help us see the point more clearly. For example, Paul writes “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live” in Galatians 2:20. The Gospels tell of “Virgin birth,” and Jesus
“Maybe you just have a good baby.” Those were the words the doctor said to us as we took our first child back for her month checkup. I asked him what was wrong with her, because I anticipated having a baby in the house to be harder than it was. All we had heard about was babies with colic, or sleep problems, or having trouble feeding. Our first born slept through the night the first night at hospital, didn’t cry that much, and was a delight to be around. It was still a lot of work of course. But honestly I anticipated it being harder than this. So he told me that perhaps we just had a good baby. I remember leaving the hospital thinking “I must just be really good at this.” I assumed I was simply crushing this first time father thing, and that’s why the baby was so good. Then after our second child was born I found out that wasn’t the truth. This time I anticipated things differently than the first time around. I thought they would be like they were before, but this child crie
At our church a few weeks ago, Sara shared her heart with our pastor about what she is passionate about. What God has given her a desire to do. I was there and watched her talk and saw the pastor's response. It was more or less a brush off. Sara has a degree in Family and Child Development and is passionate about helping families. So many churches want children and have VBS and huge kids ministries, but don't do anything for their parents. This kids might hear the word at church, but go home to the bad environment. Sara believes it's important to reach the parents as well as the kids, and God has given here a great passion for that. To give families tools to function, to help parents love their kids and build them up. It is well documented that our church has a "need" for people to work with children. They want to start things on Wednesday nights, and a choir/worship service for Sunday nights, as well as maybe a kids church. But we were told that our church wasn&
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