Strong's

As a post-lude to my post I just wrote, I thought I'd include a little word study thang I did on Psalm 4:4.

It uses the King James Version and part of the reason I like this is because it gives more than just our current english definition of words and expands my ideas of what the verse means. Get ready:

"Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah."

It kind of breaks it down by words with various definitions, so here's what it's got:

Awe:
1) tremble, quake, rage, quiver, be agitated, be excited, be perturbed
1a) (Qal) to quake, be disquieted, be excited, be perturbed
1b) (Hiphil) to cause to quake, disquiet, enrage, disturb
1c) (Hithpael) to excite oneself

Sin:
1) to sin, miss, miss the way, go wrong, incur guilt, forfeit, purify
from uncleanness
1a) (Qal)
1a1) to miss
1a2) to sin, miss the goal or path of right and duty
1a3) to incur guilt, incur penalty by sin, forfeit
1b) (Piel)
1b1) to bear loss
1b2) to make a sin-offering
1b3) to purify from sin
1b4) to purify from uncleanness
1c) (Hiphil)
1c1) to miss the mark
1c2) to induce to sin, cause to sin
1c3) to bring into guilt or condemnation or punishment
1d) (Hithpael)
1d1) to miss oneself, lose oneself, wander from the way
1d2) to purify oneself from uncleanness

Heart:
1) inner man, mind, will, heart, soul, understanding
1a) inner part, midst
1a1) midst (of things)
1a2) heart (of man)
1a3) soul, heart (of man)
1a4) mind, knowledge, thinking, reflection, memory
1a5) inclination, resolution, determination (of will)
1a6) conscience
1a7) heart (of moral character)
1a8) as seat of appetites
1a9) as seat of emotions and passions
1a10) as seat of courage

Still:
1) to be silent, be still, wait, be dumb, grow dumb
1a) (Qal)
1a1) to be silent
1a2) to be still, die
1a3) to be struck dumb
1b) (Niphal) to be silenced, be made silent, destroyed
1c) (Poal) to make quiet
1d) (Hiphil) to make silent (cause to die)

It's interesting to see all the different things a word can mean.

WORD MEANINGS, HOOPA!

self-evaluation

Warning: Unfunny post to follow! (that's just so those of you who are 'only in it for the funny' can stop reading right here)

Something I've been struck by over the past few months is the concept of self-control, and how that requires a lot more effort than you think. Essentially what I mean is that people tend to act in response to how other people act, rather than how they might actually feel about a situation, myself included.

Now before I go on, I'm not writing this with a specific situation in mind. There are a lot of situations lately in which I've seen people respond both very well and very inappropriately to a situation because of someone else's reaction or response. I don't know, I guess what I'm saying is that in a perfect world, when someone "wrongs" us or someone does something that we "perceive" to be wrong, we should be able to STOP first. Think about it. Don't react.....yet anyway. I want to get better at that. I want to be able to thoroughly think through things before responding rather than responding emotionally and in most cases, regretting some, if not all, of what I say.

Psalm 4 is a chapter I've loved for a long time, and all the time I get new meaning out of it. In regards to the contents of this post, Psalm 4:4 is something I've kind of been meditating on and thinking about. Here it is in a few different versions, as I like to versionize (made up word) myself when I focus on specific passages.

Psalm 4:4

New King James Version:
"Be angry, and do not sin.
Meditate within your heart on your bed, and be still."

King James Version:
"Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still."

New International Version:
"In your anger do not sin;
when you are on your beds,
search your hearts and be silent."

New American Standard Bible:
"Tremble, and do not sin; Meditate in your heart upon your bed, and be still."

New Living Translation:
"Don't sin by letting anger gain control over you. Think about it overnight and remain silent."

I like reading the different versions because for me, wording is important, and sometimes it helps to see things phrased differently for me to get a better and more complete understanding, what what! (that was me trying to inject some funniness into an otherwise funnyless post)

One thing I really appreciate about this verse is that it gives permission to be angry. I think sometimes that when we think of self-control, we think that that means controlling the feelings, but I think it's more about how we control our actions based on those feelings.

I think the New Living Translation is the cutest translation! Mainly the part that says to think about it overnight. That might be taking a little creative license by being so specific about the length of time you should think about something before acting, cause y'all know we can all stay mad about something for longer than a night, holla!

On a slightly related note, I've talked recently with some friends about how our (and not to use the word "generation", but) generation is more self-assessing and evaluating than our parents' generation (in general). Lots of people I know are interested in getting to the bottom of issues in ourselves, exploring past experiences that have shaped how we see things - healthy or unhealthy, and trying to deal with it and let the knowledge of those things change how we can see things in the future.

Anymountains, I just thought I'd write about what I'd been thinking about. Love you!

thank you, thank you

So I'm just going to come out and say it. I VACUUM at sending out thank you cards. (the previous sentence was edited for content so as to be approved for all audiences) I sent out my first batch of wedding thank you cards a couple weeks ago. I don't know what Emily Post says, but that's probably way too late to be starting.....although, to be fair, I STARTED much sooner than that, I just wanted to get a big chunk of them done before I started mailing.

Anyboop, today I was talking with Jeff, our art director extraordinaire, about a client and how they might want to take their address off the envelopes we're printing for them because they might be moving and don't want to print the wrong address. Jeff made a comment about not being sure that the post office will mail letters that don't have a return address and that I might check with the post office.

DANG!

That's when I realized that I'd made the biggest thank you card writing faux pas (fo - pä) of them all! I totally forgot to put a return address on all the ones I've sent out! So now, if they don't make it to their final destination, they go in..................DEAD MAIL. What's worse is that those particular gift givers will think I'm a completely ungrateful jacko who wants the glory of gifts without any thanks on my part!!!

Don't believe it, potential non-recipients of said thank you notes!! It's not me! It's not who I am!

If there's anyone out there......anyone at all who reads this blog and might also have been a recipient of said thank you card, would you mind just dropping me a blog comment and letting me know if you received one? Maybe that's too much to ask, I don't know! My heart's all a'flutter and I'm a needer of affirmation!

Okay, I got that out of the way. Now I (don't) feel better. E. J. Sully never would have made this mistake!!!

WHY SHUUUUG!!!?!?

dutch søren

At long last.... he's here! Liz & Zach (well, mostly Liz) gave birth to sweet little Dutch Søren (and yes the line in the o is important) last night around 8:30ish. He's beautiful, weighs 8 lbs 12 oz 4.5 pounds of which are in his cheeks, making him quite jolly. Just in time for the holidays!!

Kevin and I went to visit them in the hospital on my lunch break and just couldn't get enough! He's peaceful, attentive and quite smart I think. Here are some pictures of him from the visit:

note the wondrousness of the cheeks:


a little more face:




my favorite picture that I didn't take, "gnome dutch," who is asking what in the world Willis was actually talking about:


my favorite picture that I did take:


So dang cute! I could hold his cheeks all day! More pictures to come, I'm sure.

Photo Booth LIVE!!

Thanks to Kevin's iMovie prowess and determination, he created this glorious little 3 minute movie of our photo booth pictures at the wedding.



all photography courtesy of Dallas in Focus.

I love this!

chrithmas time!

I feel like with all this wedding stuff happening, I have almost totally forgotten that Christmas is about 3 weeks away. CRAZY. I have done virtually NO shopping. It's funny because last year I was so proud of myself for beginning the present buying process BEFORE the month of December and this year my record's been shot to heck! HECK!

As a side note, I just realized on Sunday that the leaves are changing colors!! I think that I've gotten so into the mindset that Texas doesn't have an "autumn" of which to speak that I forget to even look for it. BUT IT'S HERE! Periodically I've enjoyed taking pictures during different seasons here at my office because you can see these really cool trees right out in front. Then I post them on this here blog! *as she spits the remnants of her chaw into the trashcan by her desk*

Here are a few this season (I've never afore seen this tree with RED leaves!):



And now this is me standing in front of the tree. Very insightful, I'm sure you'll agree.


See? I'm even wearing my "fall" sweater that I love so much. It really MUST be fall!

I also just noticed that there have been some updates to my blogspot in Mozilla. For example, now I can do this and this and all sorts of stuff! I can add a video if I had one to add.

Stay tuned for more exciting posts about leaves!