Amazon Bible review

 At first I thought - is this an elaborate metaphor?

Amazon Customer

3.0 out of 5 stars Fine but...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 December 2015

Verified Purchase

Nice product, nice to handle and clean however I do find that I have to cut the lemon, cross on the top to help break the back of it to enable me to get juice out easier. Requires strength to use, as one would expect. As for any claims about it being the best lemon squeezer I don't agree I think I'll be going back to my traditional lemon squeezer. I could of course be using it incorrectly.

Ahhhh... I see what's happened :-D 

Oddly, underneath it says "One person found this helpful"

Lord, help me to love

Help me to be patient,
Help me to be kind.

Don't let me envy,
Don't let me be boastful,
Don't let me be arrogant,
Don't let me be rude,
Don't let me be self-seeking,
Don't let me be irritable,
Don't let me keep a record of wrongs.

Don't let me find joy in unrighteousness
Help me to rejoice in the truth.

Help me to bear all things
Help me to believe all things
Help me to hope all things,
Help me to endure all things.

Help my love to never fail

Amen

(With apologies to the apostle Paul - 1 Corinthians 13v4-8)

Wow these things are hard!

A problem with Sunday School materials

I recently had to send this message out to the other leaders in my class, to make them aware of an issue with the Sunday School materials we are currently using (which will remain nameless to protect the guilty). Actually, it's a problem with many different Sunday School materials.

"Hi Explorers' leaders. Just thought I should flag up an issue to look out for with the [Sunday School] materials.

There is often a problem that it assumes the children are believers. We should never assume that!

So instead of saying, for example "the Holy Spirit is with you" - it's much better to say, "If you belong to Jesus/Jesus has forgiven you/you believe in Jesus (or similar) the Holy Spirit is with you."

You don't need to labour the point, but just make sure you're not making statements or false promises that may not be true of the children."

Bearing in mind these are evangelical SS materials, this is quite concerning.

How many times have we heard a testimony from someone who realised at the age of 9, or 15, or 21, that they had just been assuming they were a Christian, and had never believed for themselves? Never mind those we know who were brought up in church but never come to faith?

Of course, for children brought up in a Christian family, this may be a subtle, gradual thing. Not everyone has a crisis conversion. But children need to know that salvation is by faith - not by having Christian parents or being in my Sunday School class.

Down arrow

I used the down arrow on my keyboard today.

This may not seem particularly unusual, but I have only just replaced the keyboard I spilt Irn Bru on in 2013.

The down arrow hasn't worked since then.

Sometimes I would turn the whole page upside down and use the up arrow instead, though that's often not possible.

Keyboards are not expensive.

I am an idiot. 😆

Hobbits

Some pictures I did a loooong time ago!

I appear to have misinterpreted the description slightly, and made the soles of their feet hairy instead of the tops 🤦‍♀️. Otoh, I have given them "thick warm brown hair like the stuff on their heads (which is curly)", unlike the film-makers...

 

I think the one in the black suit was meant to be Bilbo, but then I drew a whole family. Not sure if they're meant to be modern-day hobbits, or it's unintentional anachronism.

 

 

 

And here's one I did much more recently!

Blind ballot

The lady I clean for is blind 👩‍🦯, and I thought I'd show you how we did her postal vote 🗳️, in case the info was useful to anyone else!

 

I put a paperclip between each box. Then I read out all the options, numbering them as I went: "Number 1 - Conservative. Number 2 - Labour" etc... 22 options for the list vote 😆

Then she counted down the paperclips, put her cross under the one she wanted, took off all the paperclips and put the ballot paper in the envelope. 

 

(The white paper is a test run we did to check the crosses would consistently land in the right place).

 

 

The difference

"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader - CS Lewis

"His name unfortunately was Eustace Scrubb, but he wasn't a bad sort."

The Silver Chair - CS Lewis

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!"

2 Corinthians 5v17