Picturepocket's Blog

Category: finance

  • Newsies Now

    Newsies Now

    My daughter’s theater aspirations has put me on a broadway musical journey these last few weeks. Last night, we watched the filmed stage version of Newsies from 2017, not the 1992 Christian Bale version. Le sigh!  I remembered singing and dancing, but I forgot about the proletariat struggle. If you are foggy on the story…

  • Genesis 41: Pharaoh’s Famine

    Genesis 41: Pharaoh’s Famine

    Two whole years layer, the Pharaoh has a series of distressing dreams. In the first, seven attractive, plump cows come out of the Nile river followed by seven ugly, thin ones. The thin ones devour the plump ones. In the second dream, Pharaoh sees seven ears of grain growing from a stalk, followed by seven…

  • The Undeserving Poor

    The Undeserving Poor

    I remember when I was 26 years old and and working retail. I volunteered a couple hours a week at a soup kitchen in a church basement. You could work in the kitchen or sit out in the tabled area with the youth that were served. Either way, I remember the leader telling us that…

  • Caring Twice in a Row

    Caring Twice in a Row

    I posted on Facebook recently that I had gotten an iron infusion to help with my anemia. But I didn’t talk about was how I was originally diagnosed and why it took so long to fix.  Two and a half years ago our church hosted a blood drive. Before the Red Cross takes your blood,…

  • Genesis 23: In Deed

    Genesis 23: In Deed

    At age 127, Sarah dies in Hebron. Abraham negotiates with the Hittites for land to bury her body. He starts by acknowledging that he was a sojourner, a temporary resident.  The Hittites answers that Abraham is a Prince of God, so they offer him some land. Abraham mentions that Ephron had a cave east of…

  • 2 Corinthians 9: Family Style 

    In this chapter, Paul continues trying to convince the Corinthians to give to the ministry. He is raising support for believers in impoverished communities. He starts out saying that he has already bragged to the Macedonians about their generosity, and wants make sure they actually give something so he doesn’t look like a fool. He…

  • 2 Corinthians 8: The Joy of Giving

    Paul continues by addressing his audience as brothers and sisters. When I was a kid, the old pentecostal churches used to refer to each other in this manner. “And now Sister Sarah is going to play us a special on the piano.” It’s a warm way to greet our church friends.  Paul reminds the Corinthians…

  • 2 Corinthians 6: Soft Skills

    Paul is continuing in Chapter 6 his appeal to the Corinthians on behalf God to take the gift of Christ seriously. He quotes Isaiah about God’s faithfulness to hear and respond to his people’s call to him. He calls it the Day of Salvation.  Paul lists all the obstacles that they have overcome with weapons…

  • Romans 7: Wanting More

    Paul uses the example of “till death do we part,” of marriage to explain the law. He says that if you remarry after your spouse dies, you don’t break the your vow of marriage. Similarly, under Christ, we are in a new arrangement, we are no longer bound by the previous commitment. We are not…

  • H-A-double P-I-N-E-double S

    Our women’s study is going through the “Every Thought Captive” book by Kyle Idleman. This week we are reading about the pleasure fallacy where people pursue things that make them feel good, only to find themselves worse off. He’s right, in an attempt to make ourselves feel better we binge eat, binge watch, and binge…