IJM Freedom Campaign Launch

In conjunction with my Black Friday article I decided that words alone are not enough. I need to act. So in my boycott of consumerism this year I have started a campaign to raise funds for International Justice Mission. I am seeking to raise $500 by the beginning of January. You can donate by going to my campaign page at the link that follows. Feel free to forward it to your friends as well.

https://ijmfreedommaker.org/campaign/657/The-True-Meaning-of-Christmas

I am not opposed to Christmas gifts. I enjoy giving and receiving as well. But at some point enough is enough. When we can't tell the difference between needs and wants, when we can't be satisfied and content with all we have been given, when we can't even dedicate one entire day to being grateful without looking to buy more...we need a change.

I have struggled with the question of how much is enough. Is it ok to spend so much on myself when others are starving? There is no clear cut answer but I believe that God does bless those who look to Him. I believe He blesses those who have little materially, in different ways than He blesses those who have much materially. In some ways, they may understand God's faithfulness more than I ever will. I don't think it's a matter of how much a person has because God gives to each of His children differently. We were born in a country that has abundance, but it wasn't our choosing. Some are born into poverty, but that isn't their choosing either. I think what is important is that we all come to the understanding that nothing we have is truly ours and our hands should loosely hold anything given to us.

I think Tozer sums it up nicely in an excerpt from The Pursuit of God. "The man who has God for his treasure has all things in One. Many ordinary treasures may be denied him, or if he is allowed to have them, the enjoyment of them will be so tempered that they will never be necessary to his happiness. Or if he must see them go, one after one, he will scarcely feel a sense of loss, for having the Source of all things he has in One all satisfaction, all pleasure, all delight. Whatever he may lose he has actually lost nothing, for he now has it all in One, and has it purely, legitimately and forever."

Walmart, This is Getting Ridiculous!

You may have heard the news by now. Black Friday has moved up to Thursday. What? Yes, you heard me right. This year, Walmart has decided to open for Black Friday on Thanksgiving Day at 8pm. This is wrong on so many levels. And I think something should be done about it.

It's been getting worse and worse every year. The times for these poor employees having to work the stores has been getting earlier and earlier. It used to be like 6am, then 5am, then 4am, then midnight. Now we are pushing it up to the actual holiday? Thanksgiving is supposed to be a day of spending time with family or friends and celebrating our many blessings. Giving thanks for all we have. I'm pretty sure spending Thanksgiving evening at Walmart does not qualify as giving thanks. That is in fact the opposite because that is saying, "I am thankful, but I need more."

We are so rich in this country. We have so much. Most of us have food and shelter, albeit some more than others. We have clothing and basic necessities, for the most part. There is so little we NEED. I can't believe that we have the need to shop so much so that 1 whole day dedicated just to shopping for deals is not enough. As if there aren't more days in the year before Christmas. Seriously? What about the rest of November and December? We really have push it up to the holiday itself.

I am pretty upset at Walmart right now. And I am learning from the advocacy group that I can do something about it instead of just venting on my blog. So I intend to do just that and would ask you, if you agree, to do the same. You can contact Wal-mart via their website and express your dislike of this policy. I did.

I have also learned that Target may be doing the same thing. A Target employee actually started a petition on change.org that you can sign agreeing with him that they should revoke this decision.

I am overall just so fed up with commercialism. And I truly believe that if you plan wisely and spend wisely then there is no need for you to have to stand in a line at 4am to get some "too good to pass up" deal. There are good deals all through the year. As far as I'm concerned Black Friday has become just that, a dark day in our culture, a day to celebrate our materialistic commercialism based culture. So raise a glass of overpriced wine and say cheers. "Here's to us and our never-ending addiction to more stuff! May we never be satisfied so stores will continue to pummel us with ridiculous ads and may we never grow the wiser to their strategies of enticement. May we spend in our lives working to gain and forget to enjoy what we have in the quest for more! Here's to Black Friday!"

Verse of the Week: 2 Timothy 1:7

for God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of of power and love and self-control.
2 Timothy 1:7 (ESV)

These verses I post are ones that John and I are memorizing. One per week. Surely if our Awana clubbers can do it then so can we, and we need to, just as much as they do. Feel free to join us. I'd recommend making a list of all the references you learn as well that you can pull out once in a while and go over cause I've found it's really easy to forget a verse you have "memorized" if you aren't reminding yourself of it every once in a while.

21 Days to a More Disciplined Life

When one of my favorite bloggers, Crystal of moneysavingmom.com, wrote this e-book I was excited to check it out.  I set out to read this book and was going to blog about my journey, but sadly I got stuck after the first chapter. Just deciding on a project was too much of a task for me. So I am going to read this book and tell you what I gleaned from it afterwards.

I have gathered some great tips and strategies thus far for getting more discipline into my life. I'm just not sure that 21 days really works in my life for a project at this moment. We'll see. Either way, I look forward to gleaning as much wisdom and good advice that I can and I will pass that on to you as best I can.

I encourage you to check out the book for yourself. Just click the book on the sidebar of the blog to take you to the amazon page. It's $4.99 at amazon (e-book). I have heard lots of good things from other readers. And who knows, maybe in 21 days I will come back and have finished many tasks. I guess we'll find out together. We'll re-visit this in 21 days.

If anyone does read this book and has success with it, please let me know.

Book Review: Wildflowers of Terezin

Wildflowers of Terezin
by Robert Elmer

Another WWII era story. Though the story itself is fictional, the events that occur are based on fact. It is always surreal to me to believe that these are historical events. Such a sad time in the course of history.

A Lutheran pastor finds himself drawn into the world of helping Danish Jews escape before they are rounded up and shipped to concentration camps. However, the one woman that matters the most he is unable to help. As both of their stories unfold you will wonder if either of them will survive the war.

Let us never forget what evil man is capable of. And let us never cease to fight for what is right even to our own detriment. I will end with a quote from the book that I will carry with me.

"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest."
- Elie Wiesel

IDOP 2012 - Please Take Action!

November 11, 2012 marks the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. There are so many ways you can take part in this, but I can give you one extremely practical way.

1. Go to the CAN (Christian Advocacy Now) website: www.christianadvocacynow.org

2. Click on the Prayer Vigil image on the homepage.

3. Sign up for a 5 minute time slot, or more, to pray for a country listed. There are prayer requests and info about each country on the site as well to make it that much easier.

4. That's it. You will get a reminder email with your time and country.

5. Pray when you signed up and feel good knowing that you are doing the most powerful thing you can for your brothers and sisters around the world. You are a part of God's kingdom work.

Palatine Restaurant Rocks

My good friend Groupon led us to a small local establishment this weekend in Palatine. It's called Rock N Roll a la mode. They have ice cream, shakes, burgers, hot dogs...your usual junk food fare. However, I will say that the food was good. We got burgers, cheese fries and split a yippee skippe shake (peanut butter, caramel and chocolate covered pretzels). I especially like the shake and fries.

When we went we were the only ones in there. Being as it's getting colder ice cream is probably not the first thing on people's minds, but I will say that the temperature inside was completely comfortable and I didn't get cold once. The decor was simple but modern and they had a huge flat screen tv on the wall. I'm not sure what the rotation of video play is but we got to watch Sir Elton John in concert so that was kinda fun.

Overall, 2 thumbs up. We had a really leisurely, enjoyable lunch. And it was nice to be able to support a local business. We'll definitely make a trip back again sometime.