It Is Well With My Soul

This has long been one of my favourite hymns and a very emotional one for my Mom. Her Dad died in '84 or '85 and this was sung at his funeral.

The story of how this song came to be written follows:

In 1871, tragedy struck Chicago as fire ravaged the city. When it was all over, 300 people were dead and 100,000 were homeless. Horatio Gates Spafford was one of those who tried to help the people of the city get back on their feet. A lawyer who had invested much of his money into the downtown Chicago real estate, he'd lost a great deal to the fire. And his one son (he had four daughters) had died about the same time. Still, for two years Spafford--who was a friend of evangelist Dwight Moody--assisted the homeless, impoverished, and grief-stricken ruined by the fire.

After about two years of such work, Spafford and his family decided to take a vacation. They were to go to England to join Moody and Ira Sankey on one of their evangelistic crusades, then travel in Europe. Horatio Spafford was delayed by some business, but sent his family on ahead. He would catch up to them on the other side of the Atlantic.

Their ship, the Ville du Havre, never made it. Off Newfoundland, it collided with an English sailing ship, the Loch Earn, and sank within 20 minutes. Though Horatio's wife, Anna, was able to cling to a piece of floating wreckage (one of only 47 survivors among hundreds), their four daughters- Maggie, Tanetta, Annie, and Bessie--were killed.

Horatio received a horrible telegram from his wife, only two words long: "saved alone." Spafford boarded the next available ship to be near his grieving wife, and the two finally met up with Dwight Moody. "It is well," Spafford told him quietly. "The will of God be done." Though reports vary as to when he did so, that belief led Spafford to pen the words to one of the English language's best-known hymns. Some say he wrote it on the ship to meet his wife, around the place where his
daughters died.

It is comforting to know that no matter what happens, God is right there & all is well, even if it doesn't seem like it at the time. Those of us who are His children have the knowledge that we will see our loved ones someday in Heaven.

Of course, as my Great-Uncle Glenn once said to a cousin's hubby, and I paraphrase, "No offense, but I think I'm gonna spend the first thousand years or so praising God. After that, I might look ya up".

It Is Well With My Soul

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Refrain:
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.

But, Lord, ’tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord!
Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul!

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lyrics found at Timeless Truths
Spafford's story found here.
Week 7 - The Battle Hymn of the Republic
Week 6 - Praise You In This Storm
Week 5 - Come Thou Fount
Week 4 - The Old Rugged Cross
Week 3 - Fairest Lord Jesus
Week 2 - Be Thou My Vision
Week 1 - A Mighty Fortress Is Our God

Beautiful Shmeautiful...

You are Betty Grable

The ultimate girl next door You're the perfect girl for most guys Pretty yet approachable. Beautiful yet real.

What Famous Pinup Are You?

From Betty Page aka Leslie

I'm Such A Doofus

I did something stupid.

I told my bosses I would work every Friday & Saturday overnight the rest of the month.

This is in addition to my regular Sunday thru Thursday overnights.

Soooo, I'm gonna be working every. single. night. from Sunday, July 30th thru Monday August 28th.

I need the money & they need the staff, so it's all good, but Mom is so gonna kill me. *sigh*

But hey, after that I'm going to Colorado with the parental units for a family reunion (the Nebraska side).

One Awesome Marine & A Bunch of Deluded Fools

I saw this story first at Blackfive & then again at IMAO where FrankJ linked to a DemocraticUnderground thread.

The story is about a 21-year-old Marine who is his team's designated marksman. Let's just say the man is good at his job & I for one am thankful that he is. The number of lives he has saved, both American & Iraqi... just wow. Go read the whole thing.

Anyway, the DU fruit-loops would prefer that this soldier be locked up when he returns from his TDY. They call him a brainwashed, bloodthirsty sociopath, a killing machine, a souless killbot and a disgrace to the uniform who should be jailed. Those are just a few of the comments. Don't bother going over there to read the rest unless you wish to rot your brain (see what I do for you people - I'm killing my brain!) They also turn it into a racism thing & say he's going to go crazy down the road & kill his family.

Those DUmmies make me sick. This man is fighting to give the Iraqis the opportunity to have the same freedoms we have here, heck the freedom to live, & they do this to him? They claim to support the troops, but that's a big stinkin' load of bull. They need to take a little "vacation", go over there & have a nice little chat with the side they do support. Their sweet little "insurgents" won't be interested in talking. They're more the torture you, hack off your head & booby trap your body after they dump it in the desert types.

That's my 2 cents. Sorry if it's a little incoherent, I just get really ticked off at these idiots sometimes.

(Anybody know where I can get a full body transplant? I wanna join up & go kick some terrorist butt too. Dang medical restrictions...)

Ewww... *Groan* SPLAT! *Groan*

The title above is pretty much the soundtrack from work last night.

I have to log the temperatures from the five fridges & freezers every night, so at 2am I went out to the garage to do that & get started cooking. The door to the fridge was hanging open several inches, since there were several heads of lettuce jammed in a shelf where there wasn't enough room for them. The temp in the fridge was 78*.

That's not exactly the ideal temp for the ten gallons of milk, seven dozen eggs and various other perishables stored in there. So, basically I spent the rest of the night cooking what I could without the rotten food & when a 1st shift person came in, I went out & recorded everything that had to be pitched. I think there four large garbage bags full of spoiled food.

Anyway, got that taken care of, the kids fed & they were doing chores. I was watching the non-chore-doers in the living room when I heard one of the girls call for a staff who was in another part of the cottage. I asked her what she needed. "The watermelon fell on the floor & is leaking red stuff." "You're kidding, right?" "No."

I went in the kitchen, and sure enough, there was large watermelon playing 'Humpty-Dumpty' on the floor. Got that cleaned & then chopped up while the girls went off to fill their heads with wisdom (umm, yeah, right) & am now eating a healthy breakfast of an ice cream sandwich while typing this. Guess it was just one of those nights.

Oh, yeah, we also just found out that a previous client was found dead in California. She's around 14 or 15, maybe 16.

Aging Gracefully (I Hope)

Found this at Leslie's Omnibus & thought it was cool.

The Age Gauge by The Boy Named Bear

You said your birthday is 1 / 20 / 1979
which means you are 27 years old and about:

62 years 3 months younger than Walter Cronkite, age 89
57 years 6 months younger than Nancy Reagan, age 85
54 years 7 months younger than George Herbert Bush, age 82
47 years 4 months younger than Barbara Walters, age 74
45 years 2 months younger than Larry King, age 72
38 years 11 months younger than Ted Koppel, age 66
35 years 7 months younger than Geraldo Rivera, age 63
32 years 6 months younger than George W. Bush, age 60
27 years 6 months younger than Jesse Ventura, age 55
23 years 3 months younger than Bill Gates, age 50
18 years 5 months younger than Cal Ripken Jr., age 45
12 years 7 months younger than Mike Tyson, age 40
8 years 6 months younger than Jennifer Lopez, age 36
3 years 1 month younger than Tiger Woods, age 30
3 years 5 months older than Prince William, age 24

and that you were:

22 years old at the time of the 9-11 attack on America
20 years old on the first day of Y2K
18 years old when Princess Diana was killed in a car crash
16 years old at the time of Oklahoma City bombing
15 years old when O. J. Simpson was charged with murder
14 years old at the time of the 93 bombing of the World Trade Center
11 years old when Operation Desert Storm began
10 years old during the fall of the Berlin Wall
7 years old when the space shuttle Challenger exploded
5 years old when Apple introduced the Macintosh
4 years old during Sally Ride's travel in space
2 years old when Pres. Reagan was shot by John Hinckley, Jr.
not yet 1 year old at the time the Iran hostage crisis began

There are also TV, Movies & Top 40 ones. Go check it out!

A Stand-Up Dame

The Classic Dames Test.

Katharine Hepburn

You scored 11% grit, 9% wit, 57% flair, and 28% class!

You are the fabulously quirky and independent woman of character. You go your own way, follow your own drummer, take your own lead. You stand head and shoulders next to your partner, but you are perfectly willing and able to stand alone. Others might be more classically beautiful or conventionally woman-like, but you possess a more fundamental common sense and off-kilter charm, making interesting men fall at your feet. You can pick them up or leave them there as you see fit. You share the screen with the likes of Spencer Tracy and Cary Grant, thinking men who like strong women.

Find out what kind of classic leading man you'd make by taking the Classic Leading Man Test.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 99% on grit

You scored higher than 99% on wit

You scored higher than 99% on flair

You scored higher than 99% on class

Found through Gebiv, who scored as Jimmy Stewart (yum!).

Oh! And I love love love Cary Grant (double yum!)

Sleep Is A Luxury

I had 3 hours of sleep from 11am Friday until 3 Sunday afternoon.

Friday I went to the Star-Lite drive-in theatre with some friends from church & the old YAM group. Borrowed Lily, my old trucky-wucky from Vking Dad & we set up lawn chairs in the bed. We saw Pirates & Cars but didn't stay for the third, which was Nacho Libre. That one started a little after 2am. I slept the night at Nic's (that's where the 3 hours came from) & got up early to go to Lyn's promotion ceremony. (Congrats, Lyn & J!)

Went home, watered the honeysuckle & other various dying plants in the yard before trying to nap for several hours. No such luck. Worked Saturday night, went to Sunday School - my last week in the 3-year-olds class :-( , & church. Lunched with the fam at Applebees & then it was finally off to bed.

My poor kitty has begun barring the door & then trying to leave with me when I go to work.

Whoa...

This says it all.

This is one time an Arab aggressor must be allowed to be beaten so badly that every civilized nation will stand in horror, wanting desperately to step in and stop the carnage... but knowing that the fight will only truly be over when one side gives up and finally admits defeat.

Just as every person who had ever rescued that bully from admitting defeat helped create the cowardly brute I saw that evening in the bar, every well-intentioned power that has ever stepped in and negotiated a ceasefire for an Arab aggressor has helped create the monsters we see around us today.

Enough is enough. Yes, it's terrible that Lebanese civilians are getting killed in all of this, but how many Israelis have been murdered by suicide bombers & sneak attacks throughout the years? If they didn't want this, they shouldn't have voted a terrorist organization into power. Smash 'em, get it over with & let the rest of the terrorist nations see that messing with the good guys will get you obliterated.

In other words, nuke the moon, boys.

Found through the Castle.

Bollywood, Baby

I don't even remember what prompted me to put it on my Netflix queue, but I recently received the Hollywood/Bollywood musical Bride & Prejudice in my mailbox.

At first I was sitting there going "Whaaa..." but after a while, I was kinda hooked. The music is ear-wormy, but in a good way. I did think the guy playing Darcy was too perky, but this is one that I'm gonna have to buy sometime.

I also watched The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy the other night & had the dolphin's So Long & Thanks for all the Fish song in my head all. night. long. at work. Rather obnoxious after several hours.

Spambots = Evil

I logged into my gmail account & saw that I had comments.

Comments! And there was much rejoicing - Yay!

Then I saw that they were all from Evil Spambots - Grrr.

And there was much plotting of how to bring about the long & painful demise of said Evil Spambots and their owners/creators.

So this means that I will be moderating all comments, so they won't be popping up immediately. I'm sorry but me no likey Evil Spambots.

'Cause they're Evil. Evil, I say.

Oh Yeah...

...this is sweeet!

Family wallops would-be robber...

While covering his head amid the barrage of flying fists and feet, his legs bound with a jump-rope by children half his size, a bruised and bloodied Craig Mack had a sudden realization, police say: He'd picked the wrong family to mess with.

Beautiful.

Found through the comments of this IMAO post.

Basking...

The Mothership's Boo is basking in the knowledge that she is now world-famous...
...and Sydney is basking in the crinkly-ness of her tissue paper pile.

Check out all the puddy-tats at the Friday Ark & the COTC will be up on Sunday at Creatures of the Earth.

Oooo! Creatures of the Earth has ponies! Lots & lots of ponies! Pretty!

Hehehe!

Viking Dad & I both laughed out loud when we heard this come on the local news:

It was a scary moment for some Salina teens at Kanopolis Lake Wednesday. A B-52 mistakenly dropped nine practice bombs on the lake.

A Salina teen and some friends were swimming when they saw it happen. The commander of the nearby Smoky Hill National Guard range says the bombs were filled with concrete and posed no danger. The bombing mistake is being investigated.

Can you imagine - hanging out at the lake in the middle of Kansas & suddenly you're being bombed by the Nat'l Guard!?!

Oooh! Oooh! Look!

Hey ! I've decided to copy Spacemonkey & post a doodle, and on a Thursday, no less!

I actually went to team meeting today and after I was done playing with my toys, decided to draw a little. So, first up we have a horse head. Horses were my first love & I spent many an hour drawing lots & lots of ponies. And this is about as good as it got. (Well, I have done better, but that was with a pencil & more time & attention.)

Pony!

And now, a chick with really curly hair. I always make faces too long...
but her eyes are good. This one started out bad & just went downhill from there. I give you a punk-accountant dolphin, complete with glasses, pocket protector, goatee, tatoo, hat, calculator & piercings.

Sometimes I think I confuse myself.

At least I think I do...

Maybe...

And, a stick figure pirate. This was inspired by my skull-magic-8-ball-thingy from one of my Happy Meals. I named him George & he answers all of the really tough questions we have in the office. Tough questions like "should we let the kids out of their rooms today?" "Nay, scallywag!" "Alrighty, then." (I also have 2 of the stuffed pirate guys for Sydney to play with.)

So there you have it - more useless information to cram into your poor brain.

Speaking of brains, I got a little walking toy brain at the psychiatric museum but Scot let him walk off of the desk & now he's broke. *sob* I have gummy candy brains from the museum too. :D