Week's Events in Random Order

It's Monday morning after a good but tiring week of house cleaning, travel, and class with Jeremy. Here's a look back at the week:



This was a lovely lady whose writings we got to peruse in our seminary class. Wouldn't you like to meet her? Actually that was kind of the point of why the professor shared her work with us--to show the effects of abuse and how much it hurts people. She became a feminist and had a really strange, hard life and...well, just look at her.






In stark contrast to my exposure to Andrea Dworkin, here's another lady we came in contact with last week. I told Jeremy that I wanted to meet a little gray haired lady at the retreat center (since he was worried I would be bored while he studied). This is who I met, a sweet lady named Gail Kittleson, the essence of what I had hoped for! She was there doing some grief/loss retreats and it turns out she was a survivor of terrible sexual abuse growing up. She shared about how God brought her out of it and the struggles she has had. She wrote a lot during her recovery, and started a line of sympathy cards using her own verses. What an interesting and encouraging story to hear in the midst of attending our class and having just finished reading Mending the Soul by Dr. Steve Tracy.

For my friends who knew that I was agonizing over what books to read on my getaway, here's what I ended up reading.

First, Unspoken by Francine Rivers (story of Bathsheba). I enjoyed reading it, but didn't like it nearly as much as some of her other books. It was interesting to read it now because I have been learning so much about David lately--how he handled his sin and what he could have done differently to prevent his children from following in his footsteps. Second, I worked on Francis Shaeffer's Trilogy...I kept getting sleepy while reading it so I ended up putting it down to read later. It is so relevant to understand our culture, even though it was written in the late 60's, just a little dry for the mood I was in. Lastly, I read and almost finished Jane Austen's Persuasion. Basically, I was at the library before we left and was running out of time and couldn't find anything that stuck out to me. The librarians recommended a few books, but I didn't know if I could trust that they wouldn't be raunchy. I like romance in a book, don't get me wrong, but only when it is there as part of a bigger story or statement about life. I told them I liked Anna Karenina and they got a list of other books that dealt with "extramarital affairs" off of their database...not quite the direction I was intending to go. Yes, Anna Karenina is about an affair, but it is about so much MORE--that's why I like it. Anyways, I feel like my book selections were kind of boring, but I enjoyed reading them. And now I am back to my real life where there just isn't a lot of time for reading.



These are some pictures of the retreat center--Living Water Retreat Center in Cornville, AZ. Yes, my out-of-state-friends, Cornville is exactly as you can imagine it...except I didn't see any corn growing. I knew I was in for a QUIET retreat when I read the list of things to do at the camp: pet the petting horse, sit on a sitting bench (there were benches everywhere!), listen to insects at the creek. I think there were horseshoes and volleyball, but we were the only people staying there and Jeremy was reading the whole time. But, the staff were nice and it was relaxing.

Class was good again...I told Jeremy that I don't think I will be the same after taking it. Not in some earth-shattering emotional way, but what I have been made aware of will change how I view hurting people. I also have learned about the significance of humans being made in the image of God--I just won't look at people in general the same, I hope. Jeremy says he has felt that way after all of his classes at Phoenix Seminary, so I think that says a lot about the school. We watched Slumdog Millionaire before class on Friday...AMAZING! Everyone needs to see it! We were excited to be reunited with our kids Saturday evening. I guess Jeremy wanted to put some of the things we learned in class into practice, so on the way home he asked Sam about what the difference between boys and girls is. Here's a sample of the conversation as far as I can remember it.

Sam: "Well, girls have longer hair than boys."
Jeremy: "What else?"
Sam: "Ummm (long pause)...oh! They speak different languages."
Jeremy: "They do? How do the languages sound? Can you understand Mommy?"
Sam: "Yeah, but you speak in your language and she speaks in the girl language."
(We talked and laughed about that--Sam imitated both of our voices)
Sam: "Another difference is that girls paint their toenails red. Boys don't do that."
Kaci: "What about babies?"
Sam: "Oh, the boys don't have babies. Just the girls. And crocodiles."
Jeremy: "How do they get the babies?"
Sam: "Oh, the baby pushes really hard and then it pops out."

There was so much more--we were laughing so hard...God is really good!