Amanda’s Musings

I really enjoy taking a moment here and there to ‘doodle’ in my moleskine. I used to paint and draw and sketch a LOT more but have put that aside lately for polyclaying. I’m hoping to bring the two together even more soon. Here’s some of tonight’s sketches:

Look, there’s an angel in my house.

Wordless Wednesday

I have been in a few more Etsy treasuries lately as well as grabbing a few of my own to do. You can find out what a treasury is in this previous post. So, here they are;

My daisy rings

Retro Stripes Necklace

Surfy Chick Bookmark

Under The Ocean Necklace

Undertow Necklace

Miniature Chopping Board

I wonder if theres a reason that the more oceanic blue items are those featured?

Lastly, I’ve put together a few treasuries myself lately and have one going right now but this one made it to the #4 spot out of around 250 treasuries at the time!

The other day I was reading the story of Lot. Lot was a relative of Abrahams in the old testament, whenever he is spoken of you can’t help but compare him to Abraham and Lot comes out looking pretty awful. When he’s first mentioned* he’s tagging along with the rest of his family led by his grandfather. His Uncle Abram (later known as Abraham) is in the pack too. They all settle nicely in a place called Haran although their original plan was to go to Canaan. So far so good. Nothing too bad is mentioned

A little while later Lot is mentioned again*, this time he’s tagging along with Abram and Abram’s wife Sarai who have left the rest of the family back in Haran and have started to travel towards Canaan. So far Lot is nothing but a family tag-along, nothing too bad there yet.

Abram and Sarai were fairly rich it seems. They had a lot of herds and quite a few possessions. They were nomadic and continued to move around. Lot also had a lot of animals and so it became obvious (when their employees started fighting) that they needed to separate and find enough land for their animals. Abram comes out smelling like roses in this instance. He gives Lot the choice of land and this is where we get the first glimpse of Lots character. He chooses the best land. After tagging along with his Uncle all this time, no doubt eating his food, learning the tricks of the family trade and getting richer by the hour he shows nothing but selfishness. Abram graciously agrees.*

The area that Lot chose to live so happened to be the plains where there were some pretty ‘colourful’ cities. You might have heard of them - Sodom and Gomorrah. It seems that Lot got mixed up in the wrong crowd at this point and its not long before Uncle Abram has to come to his rescue. The local Kings (with interesting names such as Amraphel King of Shinar and Arioch King of Ellasar and Kedorlaomer King of Elam) all went to war and Sodom and Gomorah lost. They were raided by the enemy who took everything inside with them, including Lot.*

Good ol’ Unca Abram. Does he say ‘well that silly young man was so selfish and took the best land and got mixed up with the wrong crowd so he can just suffer’? No. He gets 318 men who were born in his household (I told you he was rich) and goes and rescues Lot (and the rest of the city and Kings).*

After this event you would think that Lot would feel really bad about taking the land and having to put his family through such an ordeal, but no. A little while later its revealed (by God) to Abram that he is planning on destroying Sodom and Gommorah (the bit you may have heard about). Abram pleads with God not to destroy the city if there are 10 righteous people in there. God agreeds but as it turns out, there were none.*

This is the part that I find most interesting about Lot and it also reveals a lot more about his character. After being rescued by his Uncle, Lot had settled down in the city of Sodom, married and had two daughters. His daughters were both engaged to men of the city. God sends two of his own ‘men’ (angels) into the city to convince Lot and his wife and two daughters to leave with them. While these godly men were there the men of Sodom came and tried to break down Lots gate to get to them (to sleep with them) and do you know what Lot does? He’s such a lovely man (not). He offers the men his daughters.

Now, if that was me trying once again to rescue Lot, I would have walked off and told him that he can stay there for all I care. Instead, the two men grab the four hands of the Lot family and practically drag them out of the city. Lot’s wife is told not to look back and she does (famous pillar of salt). *

Lot doesn’t return to live with his Uncle at this point. Instead he settles in the mountains around the area with his daughters. It seems that he managed to pass down the family character trait of immoral actions to his daughters. The last we hear of Lot is when both daughters decide that there is just no hope of marriage now that their fiance’s have been destroyed in a burning heap so to make sure they have children they get their father drunk and sleep with him. Both become pregnant with sons/brothers.

Ok, so that concludes the story of Lot. I have been mulling over in my head for days the reason why God went to so much trouble to rescue Lot twice. After all, his character can be described using words such as ungratefulness, selfishness, immorality, disobedience, stupidity, ignorance, pride, cowardice, incest and so on. Why would God bother with him?

This is my conclusion. How is Lot really any better than me? Ok, so I might not have all those qualities but sin is sin. I am often selfish, stupid and so on. There is only one word that can describe God’s reaction to Lot.

GRACE

I am so glad that God shows each of us grace. That he doesn’t give up on us. That he loves us regardless of our actions. That he forgives. That I am forgiven.

*Genesis 11:31, 12:4, 13, 14, 18, 19

Can you guess who found (and tasted) the last orange on our tree?

While visiting Michael’s Mum at an apartment she was staying in (while his Dad was in hospital) we found this great mirror. There were two mirrors opposite each other (eternal mirrors) and Keziah just loved them!! How cool are these shots!

I’m enjoying playing around with this mosaic maker from flickr’s big huge labs. I thought I’d share this one that I did. Its a mosaic of some photos taken while we were in Niger with SIM in 2001. There were a few pics of some paintings I did in the flickr folder I used too so they are here as well!

1. Amanda and Fulani Lady, 2. African boy, 3. Michael and Fulani baby, 4. Fulani lady with baby and Amanda, 5. Fulani2, 6. Hadiza, 7. African lady beauty, 8. Lonely child, 9. AMANDA UP ON CAMEL, 10. Schoolkids close up, 11. Nigerien classroom - Maradi, 12. Michael with schoolkids, 13. Galmi gate

1. More Yummy Beads, 2. Pretty Beads Closeup, 3. Jazzy Razzy Beads, 4. What you can do with a skinner blend 1, 5. What you can do with a skinner blend 1, 6. Nursing Necklace Beads, 7. Nursing Necklace Beads, 8. Nursing Necklace Beads, 9. Nursing Necklace Beads, 10. Little People Beads 3, 11. Breastfeeding Necklace Beads and a badge, 12. Breastfeeding Necklace Beads, 13. Little People Beads 2

Go! Reachout ‘07 will be held on 21 & 22 September which is only next month. What is Go! Reachout I hear you ask. Well, to quote the website its:

GO! Reachout is a gathering of young adults and aims to teach the Biblical basis of missions, enhance awareness of the needs of our world and provide an opportunity for young adults to meet, and explore the implications of God’s passion for the unreached.