IMG_1679

Originally uploaded by MsRikki

This is my current favorite picture of myself. This doesn’t happen often, but every once in a while, I take one that I really like. So..if you see me on a site that requires an avatar…this will most likely be it..until I take another favorite picture. lol

Why am I blogging with pictures now? Cuz Flickr makes it easy..and I’m testing out the feature!

Memorial Field Closeup

Originally uploaded by MsRikki

Random shot of my boy taken in June. It’s usually when I take photos like this that I can see just how quickly he’s maturing. No more baby face. *sigh* I miss my baby..but I’m so amazed at the young man he’s becoming. God is TRULY good..cuz it sure didn’t happen without Him.

Read the article here.

Lashawn makes a good point and I wholeheartedly agree: “Must our president be a Christian? In my opinion, no. I’d vote for an atheist, as long as he’s socially conservative.

But I have BIG problems with someone who professes Christ and tries to appeal to Christians through “faith,” when his words and deeds indicate he is NOT a Christian. ”

In regard to the colored people, there is always more that is benevolent, I perceive, than just, manifested towards us. What I ask for the negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice. The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us… I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are worm-eaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! … And if the negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! … your interference is doing him positive injury.
Frederick Douglass
* “What the Black Man Wants” — speech in Boston, Massachusetts

Because of Barack Obama, my child now: believes he can do anything/believes he can become the president/has higher self-esteem.

Wait a minute: You mean to tell me that before Barry came on the scene, you didn’t teach your child that they could be whatever they wanted to be, accomplish whatever they wanted to accomplish, and that they were worth something?

I don’t need a long drawn out post for this one. It’s simple: ALL OF THIS STARTS AT HOME. Not with celebrities or politicians. My momma ALWAYS inspired me to do my best. She always told me that whatever I wanted to accomplish, I COULD. She made sure I knew I was a person of infinite worth. Not better than anyone else, but certainly NOT WORSE. And she certainly didn’t encourage me to wait until someone else did something before I felt like I could do it too.

So if your child hasn’t learned that lesson yet, I’ma need you to look in the mirror. Not at the blasted TV.

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right, and stopping the leaks in the roof, and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably, and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”

- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (London: William Collins, 1970), 172.

“How different is the God of the Bible from the God of modern Christendom! The conception of Deity which prevails most widely today, even among those who profess to give heed to the Scriptures, is a miserable caricature, a blasphemous travesty of the Truth. The God of the twentieth century is a helpless, effeminate being who commands the respect of no really thoughtful man. The God of the popular mind is the creation of a maudlin sentimentality. The God of many a present-day pulpit is an object of pity rather than of awe-inspiring reverence. To say that God the Father has purposed the salvation of all mankind, that God the Son died with the express intention of saving the whole human race, and that God the Holy Spirit is now seeking to win the world to Christ; when, as a matter of common observation, it is apparent that the great majority of our fellow-men are dying in sin, and passing into a hopeless eternity: is to say that God the Father is disappointed, that God the Son is dissatisfied, and that God the Holy Spirit is defeated. We have stated the issue baldly, but there is no escaping the conclusion. To argue that God is “trying His best” to save all mankind, but that the majority of men will not let Him save them, is to insist that the will of the Creator is impotent, and that the will of the creature is omnipotent.” —A. W. Pink (1886–1952)

Dyson’s theory of random fate « The Black Informant.

If you watched the CNN special “Black in America”, and listened to the story about Michael Eric Dyson and his brother, then this article may interest you.

Someone said (and I’m paraphrasing):

I’m a Christian, but I don’t believe that only Christians are going to heaven.

Now, I first want to know: Have you even READ and STUDIED the Bible? Then I want to know: If that’s what you believe, why be a Christian at all?

I need someone to explain this to me. smh

The Rebelution: To Say, I Have Known God.

“We must learn to measure ourselves, not by our knowledge about God, not by our gifts and responsibilities in the church, but by how we pray and what goes on in our hearts. Many of us, I suspect, have no idea how impoverished we are on this level. Let us ask the Lord to show us.

“Second, we must seek the Savior… It is [those] who have sought the Lord Jesus till they have found Him—for the promise is that when we seek Him with all our hearts, we shall surely find Him—who can stand before the world to testify that they have known God.”

~ Knowing God, J.I. Packer ~

I am currently reading “Knowing God”. I’ve read it before, years ago, but I really didn’t READ it.  This time will be different.

He ventured forth to bring light to the world | Gerard Baker - Times Online.

This article had me laughing out loud this morning!

Excerpt:

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.

The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.

When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: “Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?”