Gifts--in response to Tara's blog

So Tara started this great discussion on her blog concerning spiritual gifts and it has been running through my mind for days now. Please take a look at her original post and all the very thoughtful discussion that followed it. http://tara-bleperson.blogspot.com/

My questions have to do with the actual identification and application of spiritual gifts today.
Various books and gift inventories come up with a different count of spiritual gifts. Some branch out into areas like finance and administration, some stick with basics like healing, teaching, prophesy, etc. Interesting side note, some sources call it prophesy, some call it wisdom... go figure.

So anyway, what ARE spiritual gifts? Even an unsaved person can be referred to as a "gifted teacher" or similar. Now, I realize that all humans are created in the image of God and as such can portray aspects of their creator, such as love, sacrifice, mercy, etc, even if they are not indwelt of the Holy Spirit. This is where I'm going with this... I KNOW that I'm a teacher, I have to teach, it's part of me... however, is that a "spiritual gift"?... I would be a teacher even if I weren't a Christian. Some people are naturally good speakers anyway, or passionate about what they believe in (I've seen plenty of evangelists that weren't evangelizing about God!), or naturally hospitable, or merciful.

Are these things that are our natural bent ALSO our "gifts"? It almost seems like the idea of a spiritual gift would be more like a special empowering in a specific area (which I may not be naturally good at) in order to do a specific job, it may be for a limited time or it may be ongoing. We seem to apply this reasoning especially to the gift of tongues and interpretation of tongues, that it is God's specific empowerment, only for very specific times, such as the preaching to the mixed crowd in Acts. I agree with this by the way... just wondering why this stipulation is not often applied to the other gifts.

Another thing... Julie mentioned in one of the comments on Tara's blog about how their church has had to restructure some things after training on spiritual gifts and making sure that people are working the the area where they fit best. I agree with this... I have gone through much angst myself because of church nursery scheduling... the attitude is, if you are a parent of that age group, you need to take a turn working the nursery. One problem. I don't do little kids. Of course I do my OWN kids, and even very limited numbers of friend's kids... but to take a two month rotation watching a room full of three year olds? This is not ministry, it is torture. I don't enjoy it and I'm not good at it. I will take a turn cleaning the bathroom to free up someone else to watch the nursery. But I digress, my point is, I agree with putting people where they are useful and "gifted", not simply where you need a warm body to fill a spot. However, we also often hear so much about "moving out of your comfort zone", "working where there is a need", "allowing God to stretch you" and so on... So which is it? do we work in the areas we are good at (gifted in) or do we move out of our comfort zone?

As you can see, I have lots of questions and no answers, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

belated birthdays and a teaser.

January is our busiest birthday month here at the Luck home. I do have to say that we get it all over with in an efficient manner. Sure we have three birthdays, but we get them all out of the way in less than a week. I go first, January 3, this year I turned 28. I can't even write that with a straight face, LOL. I turned 35. Joyana is next, on the 5th she turned 2, and finally Joey on the 8th (which was also Elvis Presley's birthday), he turned 6. Honestly, my baby boy turning 6 makes me feel far older than myself turning 35.

I will talk about both of the birthday kiddos. Joey is a huge child, well over 4 feet tall, and tipping that scales at around 65 lbs. He also has 5 permanant teeth already. Crazy. He is a gentle giant. Well, he means to be gentle. Unfortunately, he is a bit heedless at times and will bowl you over without even seeing that you were standing there. For his birthday he got a BIG BOY BIKE. Poor kid was still attempting to tool around the yard on the tiny bike we got when he was around 3. Let me tell you... nothing will hamper the bike riding learning process like literally not being able to fit your knees around the handle bars... I was a bit afraid that the bigger bike would be too big, but he did SO well. Joey is the funniest little man, he loves to tell jokes, although often they simply dont' make enough sense to be funny. For Christmas, I looked up a number of kid-friendly jokes and wrote them down for him to learn. He memorized 10 or so new jokes (which were actually amusing) much to the delight of various grandparents at various holiday family functions. He adores all things Thomas (the Tank Engine, for those of you without little boys) and anything having to do with animals. The kid can play a full-on version of Zoo Tycoon 2, often with more success than I have. Happy Birthday Bubby, I love you so much!

Joyana... It seriously seems like yesterday that she was born. Now she is two, talking, playing, singing, dancing. The big eyes that still vacilate between green and blue/gray (I'm pulling for green!) and the red curls that simply delight me everytime I look at her. She is the doll of the family, with both Joey and Jessi doting on her, and it goes without saying that Daddy is hopelessly wrapped in her little fingers. Even Dean is under her spell. She learns new things every day and amuses us endlessly with her mimicry... "No Doey, NO , GO ROOM!" " Sessi, stop cry, STOP STOP cry!" her discoveries which she shares with such enthusiasm.. "p-butter jubby in BELLY!" Jeff and I often remark that she stayed a baby longer than the other two (she didn't walk until 13 months, the other two were 9 months), and it was so sweet to have a "real" baby, but boy is she making up for lost time now! I hear "Mommy, Mommy" and go answer, only to find that she is talking to Jessi and they are playing house. She carries babies around and gently rocks them, she begs Bubby for "read book, read 'tory, read me bubby" . Baby Girly, I love you, I'm so thrilled that God gave you to us.

Finally, the teaser. Brandy... this is for you. The soaker is nearly finished but I'm having too much fun making you wait to see it knit up.

politics

yes, I know I'm late on the bandwagon, but honestly, I just can't get into the fray too early on... why get your hopes up on the next guy who can save America when they aren't actually going to make it onto the ballot anyway?
I am, as usual, a bit conflicted on how to vote in the upcoming election. I have to admit, I can get confused about who the less evil option is just in our local elections, so for the national picture, the mire only gets deeper.
Only this time, I'm less confused about who to vote for (here's a shocking admission, I'm not even sure who the current frontrunners for nomination are) than I am about which issues I will make my decision based on.
-the war
-the economy
-"family values" (not really sure what all that entails, but I assume sanctity of marriage and prolife stance)
-immigration reform
-healthcare
-education
-the environment.

I have taken some of those little quizzes that tell you who your most likely candidate is based on the issues that are important to you, and I find that I pretty much need to vote both for and against, ALL of them.

First and foremost, I'm a Christian. Therefore my values need to line up with God's values. Ok, not a problem, I know how I feel on all the issues and I trust that those views are based in God's values. The problem arises when I realize that voting will not be that simple. I am going to have to prioritize. Which issues are most important to me? What if one candidate supports my top two issues but is totally against all my views on all the other ones?

I have strong feelings on the war. and not typical republican conservative feelings either.
I have IMMENSELY strong feelings on immigration issues....and not your typical republican conservative feelings either (if you doubt this... you should check out my posts on MyHoliness...it would curl your hair)
I have moderate feelings on the economy and education and the environment. I assume that those would probably line up with most other conservative views.

Lest you think that I don't care about family values, that is not it, it's just that that term gets bandied about so much that I don't even know what it stands for anymore.

What truly frightens me is when I realize that I will almost certainly end up having to choose between something like immigration and abortion. Before you throw your hands up and ask how that could EVEN be a question... let me explain.
There are atrocities going on every day IN THIS COUNTRY that are a direct result of our broken immigration system. Kidnapping, murder, white slavery... the immigration system is so very broken. simplistic answers like "well if they'd just follow the laws..." just don't hold water. Even Immigration Law specialist get caught up in the quagmire. There is no simple answer and the inhuman acts that are happening every day will not stop until there is true reform. I truly feel that when our country knows about the wholesale white slavery trade of 12 year old children and does little about it, then we WILL stand in judgment for our (mis)treatment and (non)protection of people made in God's own image.
Abortion. I don't even know how to approach this. Do not dare for one moment to think that I am making light of this plague. I am a mother, I am a mother who has lost a baby in my womb. I know how precious life is. However... abortion has been legal for nearly 35 years. We have had 5 republican presidents during that time and only 2 democrats. We are finishing up 8 years of Bush. Abortion is still legal. I do not know how I can in good conscience ignore other pressing issues that might actually make progress (like immigration and the war) by voting based soley on the abortion issue when I KNOW it's not going to change anyway.

And that is all of part one. Let the comments role.

Did you know?

that a computer hard drive can break? not what we frequently refer to as "crash" where you got a virus or some software issue, but BREAK.
I didn't know this.

We returned home from our Christmas travels and of course I headed right for the computer, needed to download pictures, check emails, etc. Instead,I got the blue screen of death.

Long story (it's been over month since I've posted so yes, it's long) short, the little man who sits in there and writes everything down, died.

After exhuasting all our options here at home, Jeff took the computer in to the shop. THey assured us that no matter how crashed it was, they can nearly always bypass the issues, save the data, then wipe it clean.
The day wore on with no report. Finally in the evening, the phone rang. Jeff made ominous noises like, "oh really? oh my! Oh dear. I see. Uh huh, Uh huh. Oh. Well. " It did not sound encouraging.

Apparently, there is not a little man in there writing everything down, there are however little record player thingies (I'm not making this up, I looked it up and saw pictures) in there where all the data is recorded. Something broke. the little magnetic records can no longer spin. the little reader/writers can no longer read and write.

I am a bad person. My husband supplied me with a second hard drive so I can back things up. I used it for storing my volumnous digi-scrapping files. I haven't backed up pictures or files in over a year.

They told us that they can't get our data off, someone can, but they have to take the hard drive apart, take out the little magnetic disks, and put them onto something else to read them. This does of course cost $$$. At this point we have the broken hard drive and will save money and hopefully someday be able to recover all the data.

So anyway, it's been a long month of no computer, replacing the drive, reloading all the systems, etc. I am now nearly all back on track.

Lesson learned. back up your stuff. back it up. the little man in the computer will not live forever.

knitting socks, a pair at a time

So, If you are not a knitter, you may just want to admire my pretty colors and move on. Unless you are an engineer like my husband, who was intrigued by the whole process, or just acted like he was, seeing as how he's my husband.

This is a combination of the knitting small diameter projects on two circular needles technique published by Cat Bordhi, and the knit two socks at once technique by Barb. I'm sure that other people also do these things, but I'm crediting the people who I directly looked up.

First of all, the benefit of using two circs. For me, the benefit over using DPNs is obvious, as Cat points out in her book Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles , using her method will save about 300 intersections vs. using DPNs. I was a little skeptical, having been taught by my mother how to do small diameter circular knitting on one circular needle and never having any trouble with it (this method is commonly called "magic loop"), why I should need two circs. I have found that there is the benefit of not having to ever rearrange your stitches, you put half on each needle, and that is where they stay. Of course there is a time for magic looping, but I do think that for projects like socks where you are going to stay in a small diameter the entire time, the two circ method is more efficient.

The benefit of knitting both socks at once... well, I have to admit, that I am often a "one hit wonder" when it comes to projects. I made it, great, now I'm done, I move on to something else. This presents a difficulty in items such as pant legs, socks, mittens,... you get the idea. Doing both at once is not necessarily faster, but when you are finished, you have your pair of socks. I know myself and myself would be highly likely to only ever make one sock.

I'm not going to attempt to fully explain these techniques, there are other websites that go into great detail and/or, you can buy the book. Mom wanted to see my projects and so did a few other people so here it is.
Cast on your stitches, then put half on each needle, join, work a round. I started my two socks separately then put them on my needles with about three rows each. THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART! Ok, there are going to be several important parts, but this is the first one. Your working yarn must be coming off the same side for both socks! Pointing the same direction. In the following picture, my live yarn is coming off the top needle/top facing side of the socks, and as you can see, they are both pointing "north". I lost count of how many times I put the stupid socks on and off the needles before I figured out this rule. Apparently it's either so obvious the instructions didn't say so, or I skipped that page. If your yarn is not going the right way, you will knit one side and then be stuck. You will have no needle and live yarn adjacent to each other. You will be caught on one of those mobius strips and have no where to run. You will take the project off the needles, turn it, put it back on, anxiously counting stitches to make sure you aren't dropping any, knit one side and be back in mobius hell again.

Here is a view from the "top", the socks are not connected, they are just slid together. So, straight position looks like this: you have working needle (green) which you will slide the stitches up to the point and knit them in a second, and you have resting needle (red) which just dangles there. Your working yarn is going to come off the resting needle and knit into the live side.You must use the front and back of the SAME needle, don't get sidetracked and knit off onto the resting needle. If you do so and attempt to just slide the stitches back onto the correct needle, I bet $5 that you will put them on the wrong direction and, you guessed it, be back in mobius hell.
Personally I am going to look for two different colors of the same gauge needle, or try using one metal and one wood, I really think that having two colors would free up a lot of brain space, and since knitting is supposed to be relaxing, not having to think too hard is a good thing.

So, you have the projects on the needles correctly and you knit with the correct needle, and now you are faced with this: It looks nothing like my neat "straight position" illustrated above.
Don't worry, you are looking for an end that has a needle point on one side, and a working yarn coming off the other side. If you did everything right, it's there. Again, take your working needle, bring your yarn off of your resting needle, and knit.

That's it. Each round you do will both sides of one sock, then the other sock will have mysteriously made it to first position and be waiting there for you to knit it as well.

I am also working on a pair of mittens like this... not only will I end up with two mittens at once (a handy little side effect...) I won't have to remember how many round and increases and decreases I did so that I can make the other one identical. It will already be the same. WHOO HOO.

Ok, I'll post pictures of the socks and the mittens when they are finished. Of course that assumes that I will conquer heels, toes, and thumbs.

I've been busy

These are all custom orders or gifts that I've turned out in the past month or so:
Custom dyed, then knit, as a baby gift for a friend of mine. The colorway will be available in my store under the name "Hannah's Hydrangea"
A set of shirts for a sibling group, there were actually four, but i took the picture after the first three were complete. This was for a trade, it purchased Jeff's Christmas gift from me.
Custom shirts for a newborn girl. Well, technically, she's not born yet, LOL. The mom requested the coffee cup, I don't just randomly make coffee cup shirts for infants.

Custom dyed yarn for a little guy who loves all things yellow.
Custom dyed self-striping yarn in "Cotton Candy"

These reptiles are all for one lucky kid. I am now under strict orders to produce an equal or greater number of toys for my own kids! I am particularly pleased with the lizard.

This one was a joint effort, my mom knit up the stockings, I embellished them and am offering customized name options. This one is made up and shipped out, there are other available in my store--link in the sidebar.


Custom shirts for a new baby boy.

infant sized diapers for my friend who just had a baby girl... I am SOOOO suffering from baby fever, I truly enjoyed making these dipes.
For those who understand (or care) about the inner workings of cloth dipes, these are flannel, with an inner soaker layer, then a sewn in "lay in" doubler. The doubler is sewn in across the back so it can't get lost in the dryer, but will flap freely to speed up washing and drying time. The doubler is topped with a wicking/stay dry layer of alova suede, and the rest is flannel.
I'm sure I'm missing something... oh yes, two fleece covers for the above diapers but I didn't get a picture, I barely got them in the mail box before the postman this morning. Also a secret dyejob on a skein of yarn. No pics of that yet, not until I'm ready to debut in the store, ... ha ha, take that you industrial spies who are reading my blog and trying to steal my trademarked colorways!

I also deep-cleaned the kitchen and cleaned and rearranged the living room awaiting the arrival of the christmas tree. And Jeff was out of town Monday through Friday... and will be out of town again next week, but I don't want to even talk about it, it makes my blood pressure go up. Oh, the good news is that he was accepted (to two different Universities) for his Master's program. He had an emotional pull to go with ODU since that is where he has his BS from, but he is going to choose Florida Technical Institute instead since they offer a direct program with his company. The cohort will be made up only of people from Northrop Grumman and they will hold the classes in company facilities. The other great thing is that NG pays for it up front instead of having to pay for it then submit for tuition assistance.

Hmmm. that's all for now, I have 5 minuts alone and I better use it wisely!

Pork Roast and Perspective

1. Perspective. Jessi is convinced she can fly. Remember that ANNOYING song from the mid-late 90's? I mean the girl truly believes she can fly. She spent quality time this summer jumping jumping off of the little playhouse to see if she could ever go up instead of down. Yesterday she was doing a job of straightening the pantry, which like any good job involved the use of the step stool. Once she lost interest in arranging the boxes and cans, she turned around and began making mighty leaps from the pantry to the kitchen. I tried to convince her that people couldn't fly, that if they could, everyone would be flying around. She will have nothing of it, and demonstrated that SHE flaps her wings, err, arms, just perfectly and she CAN fly.
I decided that other than the possible trip to the ER, it was harmless fun and let her continue jumping while I prepared dinner. After one particularly HUGE leap, she picked herself up off the floor and with the brightest eyes, her voice full of faith, exclaimed, "Whoa, I have to be careful, I almost fell!"
You see, in her mind, she WAS flying, that wasn't a long jump ending in a fall, it was a successful flight with a slightly rough landing. It's all about perception.


2. Pork Roast (oh wait... you thought this was going to be a perspective of pork roast?... sorry)
Every so often I just get fed up with bland American food and have to revert back to my childhood (fyi, my dad was Cuban and I grew up in Key West, Florida). One of my all time favorites is Cuban style roast pork. Here are directions.
Uhh... I don't do "recipes" so much as I simply give instructions... and to be honest, it would make a lot more sense if we were in the kitchen together and you were watching me.

Pork Roast (made with easily accessible American ingredients)
3-5 lbs pork roast
head of garlic
lemon juice (if you live where you can get key lime juice you should use that, the lemon/lime juice is for the rest of us)
lime juice
cumin (that's a spice, you should be able to find it at any grocery store)
minced onion
a large enough ziploc bag to fit your roast in (or of course, you can cut your roast in half)

-peel about 6 cloves of garlic and cut them in half
-with a small sharp knife, stab your roast and shove the cloves down into the slits
-put the roast into the ziploc bag and pour in a generous amount (see this is where the whole idea of "recipe" falls apart) of the lemon juice and lime juice in. I suppose you need about a cup total, enough that your roast has plenty to swim in
- add a generous amount of cumin ... maybe two tablespoons... I mean smell it, it's yummy, just pour a lot in
-a tablespoon or two of dried minced onion
- chop up a few more cloves of garlic and throw that in as well. save a little garlic for the beans, but other than that, use it.

seal the bag and let it sit for several hours, the longer the better.

When you are ready to cook it, remove from the bag and put it in a roasting pan,all that juice too! cover it with foil and bake at 350-375 for several hours (depends on how big your roast is). Pork is done at 155 degrees, so about 30 minutes before it's done, remove the foil so that the roast can get all brown and delicious.

Now, since I don't always have a big old pork roast laying around, I do the same thing with chops and it works great!
The only thing I don't do is stab the chops and stuff them with garlic, just marinate them the same way, then bake or broil until done.

Serve with:
steamed white rice (or yellow rice) and black beans.

black beans:
two cans of black beans
one onion
one green pepper
several cloves of garlic
salt
vinegar
olive oil

- cut up your onion, green pepper and cloves of garlic
-in the saucepan that you will use to make your bean soup, heat olive oil over medium to low heat (no, I don't know how much olive oil... cause I don't know how big your sauce pan is! you need enough to cover the bottom and saute all the veggies in)
- put the onions, green pepper, and garlic in and cook them over a slow heat, you are not browning them, you are cooking them until soft and clear (well the onions will turn clear.. I'm not sure how long to cook the green pepper to make it clear!) this is called a "congree" which is spelled wrong but I don't even know what language that is... I just know that's what my mom calls it.
- to this pan, add the black beans, let them simmer over low heat for a while (how long? well, they taste better the second day anyway, so I just let them simmer while I cook everything else), say an hour or so.
- at the end of the cooking time, taste them, add one table spoon of vinegar, stir, taste again. you may wish to add a tiny pinch of salt, but the vinegar will probably do the trick. If you want, add another tablespoon of vinegar, but please, taste in between the spoonfuls! The vinegar is important, if you don't add it, you will have bland beans and blame me. It is also important to wait until the END of the cooking time, or the flavor cooks out, and again, you will have bland beans.

Slice the roast (or plate the chops), spoon some of the juice from the pan over each serving, add rice to the plate, serve the beans over the rice. The juice from the meat will mingle with the bean sauce and you will be wishing for some Cuban bread to sop up the plate juice with.

A word about garlic. Some may read this and think that I have used too much garlic. I don't think there is such a thing. It's sort of like having too much money... people claim that it can happen, but no one ever knows of an actual case. viva la garlic!


* i found this recipe for the marinade i use, mojo criollo:

Yield 1 1/2 cups Units US

• ¹⁄₄ cup lime juice, fresh squeezed
• ¹⁄₂ cup orange juice, fresh squeezed
• ¹⁄₂ cup olive oil
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 6 garlic cloves, pressed
• salt, to taste
• black pepper, fresh ground, to taste

Directions

1. Add all ingredients to a small jar, cover and shake for 2 minutes.
2. Adjust salt and pepper to taste.
3. Use as a marinade for meats and poultry.