Shirlee Abbott

Celebrate the Love

Posted on March 17, 2017 by Shirlee Abbott

Posted in other | Tagged love your enemies, Matthew 5:44, St. Patrick | 4 Comments

Time to Forgive

Posted on March 16, 2017 by Shirlee Abbott

Daylight Savings Time and St. Patrick’s Day, all in the same week.

Now is a good time to forgive. It will bring out the saint in you.

[As a teenager, Patrick was captured by Irish pirates and enslaved in Ireland for six years. He escaped and found his way back home to his family in Britain. Later, he returned to Ireland as a Christian missionary.]

Posted in other | Tagged forgive, St. Patrick, Time | 2 Comments

Careful How You Wrap that Gift

Posted on March 15, 2017 by Shirlee Abbott

Yesterday, I said time was a gift from God.

Lord, forgive me for wrapping your gift in the coarse paper of bitterness and anger. Teach me to keep it wrapped in the sparkle of love and the glitter of grace.

Posted in other | Tagged anger, bitterness, grace, love, Time | 2 Comments

The Gift of Time

Posted on March 14, 2017 by Shirlee Abbott

Genesis 1:14-19 (NIV)
And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years” . . . And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

God exists outside of time. He created time for us. It is his gift to us.

And when I complain about time–that I need more, or that it moves too fast or too slow–I imagine Jesus looking at me, disappointed:

You don’t like my gift.

Posted in other | Tagged Genesis 1:14-19, Time | 2 Comments

Just a Minute

Posted on March 12, 2017 by Shirlee Abbott

How do you feel about time?

Too much time
Never enough time
Time’s a wastin’

Time change. Again.

In 1784, Ben Franklin wrote “An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light,” joking that the people of Paris could save on candles by getting out of bed earlier in the morning.

The German Empire implemented daylight savings in 1916 to reduce use of coal in wartime. The US followed in 1918, abandoned it after the war and brought it back in the energy crisis of the 70’s.

In all that, mankind has not moved a single minute. God’s time triumphs. Again.

Posted in other | Tagged Ben Franklin, Daylight Savings Time, Time | Comments Off

Work the Problem

Posted on March 10, 2017 by Shirlee Abbott

I remember when tens of thousands of Hmong refugees came to the United States in the late 1970’s. Thousands of volunteers helped with their resettlement, some of our friends and family among them. I offered only second-hand help–mostly watching our neighbors’ children while they helped their new Hmong friends through the confusion of some necessary ER visits.

Thousands of volunteers spent thousands of hours helping thousands of immigrants find their place in their new world. That’s how it’s done.

If I’m going to push the plan, I better be willing to invest the effort.

Posted in other | Tagged Hmong, immigration | 2 Comments

Immigration Is Hard

Posted on March 9, 2017 by Shirlee Abbott

I knew a couple who came to the US from the Soviet Union. They were in an American grocery store for the first time, close to Christmas. They wept with joy as Silent Night played over the sound system. A few minutes later, they stood astounded in the dairy aisle. “How many kinds of butter do Americans need?”

I read a book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, about Hmong refugees. Medical science, with its exact doses and precise timing, bumps up against a culture whose clock is the sun and unit of measure is a handful.

1 Corinthians 13:7 (ESV)
Love bears all things.

Posted in other | Tagged ! Corinthians 13:7, immigration, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down | 2 Comments

Unhappy Ever After?

Posted on March 8, 2017 by Shirlee Abbott

We’d like to think that our immigration stories all have happy-ever-after endings.

But I worry about those sneaking across the border. How many young people are picked up by perverts, recruited by brutal gangs or abandoned by coyotes who promise a glorious garden and deliver a desert?

How many end up worse off than they started?

Lord God, show us a better way.

Posted in other | Tagged border, immigration | 4 Comments

Rules of Debate

Posted on March 7, 2017 by Shirlee Abbott

Posted in other | Tagged debate, fight fair, Romans 12:3 | 2 Comments

Safe Middle Ground

Posted on March 6, 2017 by Shirlee Abbott

Immigration is a hot topic just now. What do you think?

Keep out — build the wall
Come! There’s a place here for everyone
I’m confused

Yes, we have enough to share. And no one wants a gangster, thief or bomb-builder living next door.

Matthew 10:16 (ESV)
Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

Everybody take a deep breath. Stop the name calling.

Don’t turn the middle ground into a no man’s land.

Posted in other | Tagged immigration, Matthew 10:16, middle ground, no man's land | 2 Comments