It’s that time of year again. And with the economy like it is the gift giving might not be what it usually is. It’s hard to tell your children that they can’t have all the things you wish you could give them but sometimes you have to. Let’s be honest, kids are used to it on some level. I know when I was younger I wanted pretty much the entire Sears catalog.
This year might be a little different though due to layoffs and unemployment. Times are tough. How do you handle it? How do you decide what to buy and what on Santa’s Christmas list doesn’t make it under the tree? It’s not easy.
I looked back at the Bible for guidance on this one. One quote that you should remind your children of is Philipians 4:11. Telling your children to be happy with what they have is the easy part though. Dealing with your own feelings of guilt that were unable to provide everything your children wanted is a different story.
To resolve those feelings, I think back on the Bible to help remind me of the importance of telling your children “No” and setting boundaries as to what they should and should not expect. The story of Lot and his failure to deal with his daughters does a great job illustrating the point.
Instead of paraphrasing the Bible, I’ll just let the New Living Translation do that for me.
Genesis 19:31-36
31 One day the older daughter said to her sister, “There are no men left anywhere in this entire area, so we can’t get married like everyone else. And our father will soon be too old to have children. 32 Come, let’s get him drunk with wine, and then we will have sex with him. That way we will preserve our family line through our father.”
33 So that night they got him drunk with wine, and the older daughter went in and had intercourse with her father. He was unaware of her lying down or getting up again.
34 The next morning the older daughter said to her younger sister, “I had sex with our father last night. Let’s get him drunk with wine again tonight, and you go in and have sex with him. That way we will preserve our family line through our father.” 35 So that night they got him drunk with wine again, and the younger daughter went in and had intercourse with him. As before, he was unaware of her lying down or getting up again.
36 As a result, both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their own father.
God warned us all about the evil now known as the Christmas Tree.
“Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.” – Jeremiah 10:2-4 (KJV)
We are are a strange animal though and we do not heed His warnings. We even go a step further and buy artificial trees from Chinese sweat shops because evil trees made from the blood and tears of others apparently are better than a good old fashioned real heathen tree that our parents used to use.
I for one will not partake in this terrible ritual. I especially can’t do so now after reading about how an evil Christmas Tree caused a man to attack his elderly parents, using the tree as a weapon. The police report does not mention why 37 year-old Thomas Edward Lackie of Parrish Florida decided to attack his Read more »
I was buzzing through the news and found out that Thomas Burberry (founder of Burberry) had a huge set of stones. That and he was apparently a heathen.
According to an article on The DailyMail, a couple who owned a mansion built buy Thomas Burberry discovered a stone circle on the property and moved it with them when they moved to a smaller home (smaller reads roughly $1,000,000 USD). The couple (John the Druid and Suky the Witch) decided to take the 6+ foot tall monoliths with them because the property developer who bought their old property was otherwise going to get rid of them.
Back to the pagan purses… Incognito pagans should in America should all wear/carry a bit of Burberry as a secret symbol that they aren’t kicking it with the Abrahamics, kind of like what that chick did in the book “The Scarlet Letter” so people in the know could recognize she was a fun date.
“And if you sell anything to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, you shall not wrong one another.” – Leviticus 25:14 (AMP)
Ebay is running an insane Cyber Monday deal. They are randomly putting different items out each day for $1 Buy It Now and free shipping. Today’s items are 50 Nintendo Wii Systems, 40 Juicy Couture Day Dreamers bags, and 1 2009 C6 Corvette. A Wii for $1 is nice. A Corvette would be even better.
Bring your bot/scripts though. You will otherwise have a pretty slim chance of finding a deal. Many of the auctions are being sold with 0 page views and I’ve seen one that sold in 4 seconds from the time of listing. Not bad considering you have to load 1 page to see the auction listing, 1 page to see the auction page, and another page to confirm your bid. Even with no latency, you’d still be hard pressed to get 3 page loads with sensible clicks in 4 seconds.
If you’re feeling lucky, go to their DoorBusters page. There are still 7 more days worth of deals left.
The method they are listing their special deals is a little hectic. It’s basically the first person who can buy the item gets it, and you have to be lightning fast to win. This unfortunately has led to scammers running bogus auctions preying on people’s sense of urgency.
The most successful scammer of the day is a user named “Charles Fairchild” of Waynesville, Mo. Considering Waynesville is a town of 3500 people, it is probably the same Charles Fairchild as this guy on myspace (or that guy’s son Chuckie Jr). Anyways, long story short he listed a phony auction to catch people who were trying to jump these doorbuster deals. Two minutes and 4996 transactions later, his auction was stopped. Read more »
I know it probably isn’t fair, but when I am in public and I hear someone prosthelyzing I typically think that that person is worthy of a scholarship to the laughing academy. To be honest, I extend that even further than to just those who are prosthelyzing.
Today while out for lunch someone at a table near us was randomly and repeatedly singing verses of rock and roll gospel. She may have been singing to herself, but she was singing at the same volume level most people speak in a normal conversation. There might be 20 seconds between lines, or their could be 2 or 3 minutes.The quantity of noise coming out of this woman was inversely relative to distance her fork traveled. I’m pretty sure she was insane.
Seriously, most people who sing aloud in public (who aren’t being paid and/or otherwise expected to do so) are. I’m going to extend that same statement for people who approach complete strangers to discuss the correlation of their Bible reading and the fact that they have yet to be striken down by their loving god.
I was stumbling through youtube and found a video of a University of Florida student who apparently had been asked by the Lord to spread a message. There were no mountains nearby to go tell it on so instead she used the vantage point of her 4th story dorm room window.
Maybe I’m wrong (along with the police and EMTs who carted her off). Who am I to say she really didn’t hear the voice of God? Maybe she didn’t hear a voice but was in some other way mandated by her creator to spread the message that you aren’t supposed to masturbate? Maybe the guy at the donut shop and his devoted Bible reading did convince God to instead suffer Turkey an earthquake instead of leveling his house?
Maybe I doubt them and write them off as crazy because I’m jealous because I don’t have a direct line to the big guy upstairs… Of the many times I’ve shouted out the window about masturbation, only one time was it because a bearded man told me to do so. And his name was Dave and I’m pretty sure he isn’t a supernatural entity. And as for threatening others with newspaper headlines, I reserve that action soley for the family pet.
