Jury Duty -- Verdict: Guilty

After the last 6 days of jury duty I'm taking today off but will resume on Wednesday writing for a few days about my week as a juror on a homicide case.  In case you are wondering, after 8 hours of deliberation we found the defendant guilty of felony murder and aggravated child abuse.  He was sentenced to life in prison without a chance of parole (murder charge) and was also sentenced to another 30 years as well (child abuse charge).  

Jury Duty -- Day 6

No blog today.  Jury duty again.

Sunday: Happy Valentines Day to You!

Happy  Valentines Day!  

Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13)

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8: 38-39)

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant,  does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;  bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  (1 Corinthians 1: 1-7)

A happy marriage has in it all the pleasures of friendships, all the enjoyment of sense and reason-and indeed all the sweets of life.   Joseph Addison

A friend knows the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails.   Donna Roberts



A happy man marries the girl he loves; a happier man loves the girl he marries.  --Anonymous


Don't marry so you can stop pursuing women. Marry so you can perfect the pursuit of  one woman  for a lifetime.- John Piper

Valentines / Matters of the Heart / Your Wedding Vows A Lifelong Commitment

Valentines Quote for the Day:

Robert Browning: Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made. Our times are in his hand who saith, 'A whole I planned, youth shows but half; Trust God: See all, nor be afraid!'

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When a man and a woman repeat their wedding vows, ending with "I do", each is promising before God and a group of witnesses for the rest of their lives.   Seems like a long time to be with one person--longer for some than for  others. This is fresh in my mind as I have had three married women friends in their 50s  pass away during January of this year.  

Marriage is meant to be entered into as a lifelong commitment.  There are a variety of vows but for the most part, they read like this:  I _____, take you ______, to be my wedded wife/husband. To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness or in health, to love and to cherish 'till death do us part. And hereto I pledge you my faithfulness.  Let's break the vows apart and see what they mean.

• To have and to hold from this day forward:  To belong to each other, yes, to make love with each other, to be with each other from now on no matter what the outward circumstances of your lives.

• For better, for worse:  In good times and in bad, sad times and happy ones.

• For richer, for poorer:  In times of wealth and plenty and in lean times, even poverty

• In sickness and in health:  Illness, cancer, injury and in times of good physical health

• To love and to cherish:  To treat with special care, words of kindness and affirmation, delighting in one another as the dearest person in your heart

• Till death do us part:  Until one of the couple physically dies

• I pledge you my faithfulness / troth:   I promise to be faithful in my emotions and in my physical body.  Fidelity for the rest of your lives with one another.  

A lot to vow before God and witnesses for sure. And not to be entered into lightly but with much prayer, discussion and wise counsel.  May each of you discover a love and BE a love like this.

Saturday: Family Community Service / Haiti Food Relief / Kids Against Hunger

Today was a planned community service project to help with the devastation and hunger in Haiti. We have donated money and food already, but we wanted to do more as a family.   My husband, younger son and I assisted in the packing of food supplies for the Haiti Relief via the organization Kids Against Hunger. (Our older son had to work today.)  The event was hosted by one of our local mega churches.  We worked for about 3 hours with 150+ other people from our community--young and old alike. They said that we succeeded in packing over 20,000 meals during that time span.  Each packet that we packed held enough for  6 adult meals.  

I have to say that this is quite an efficient organization.  We talked while we worked in assembly line fashion with 15 other people at our table, each wearing little food service hair nets on our heads.  I think there were about 10 tables in the large room where we worked.  There were 4 of us to scoop the four food packet ingredients into the bags and 2 to hold the bags under the funnel to keep the momentum going.  Then the table divided to have the same jobs on both sides of it--  2 to pass the bags to the next station, 2 to weigh and adjust the quantities, 2 to seal the packets, 2 to stack and pack 36 packets into shipping boxes, plus others at the end of each table to seal the boxes in shrinkwrap.  They were then carted off  to the trucks and loaded up.  Others would drive them to the airport. They said that the Haitian people would receive the food that we packed early next week.

Quite a rewarding experience for us.  It was wonderful to see people from different churches and some of their friends and neighbors all working together for a single purpose--to help others in need.   We're also signed up to do this next month as a family together.  I am looking forward to it.

Jury Duty --Day 5

Off to court again today. No time to blog.

Jury Duty --Day 4

I'm still on jury duty today.  No blogging today.

Jury Duty--Day 3

Jury duty again today.

Jury Duty--Day 2

Jury Duty again today.  8-8 yesterday. We'll see what today brings.

On Break for a Few Days: Jury Duty--Day 1

I'm on jury duty this week so I'll be off the blog for several days.