Some good and some bad...

Mother funds a poinsettia for me every year.  This year, this is the one I chose.  I didn't think about how it sort of clashes with my table runner when I was choosing.  I just found the color rather arresting.

I also chose my Christmas tree!  The guy in the store told me to let it relax for a day after taking off the wrapping before decorating it, but I couldn't resist putting on the lights.  To me, lights make a tree more Christmas-y!  Honestly, I could get buy with just white lights and a star topper (I do not have one of those, but am considering getting it as my "Christmas Tree Supply" purchase this year.  Something simple.  A bit antiquish.  I am definitely a start topper kind of person, rather than an angel.  Somehow I know this even though this is only my 2nd ever Christmas tree as an adult!

I gave my realtor a referral for some long-term business, so she gave me a Panera gift card.  I had dinner there after tree and poinsettia shopping.  I brought dessert home for later.  Later meant finding a HAIR baked into my scone.  [Near the base of the right side of the scone reflected in the knife.]   ICK!  Very, very, very disappointed.

Here is another post from the Reveling in the Book of Concord (now defunct) Facebook Group I failed at starting:

"Besides this you must also know how to use God's name rightly. For when He says, "You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God, in vain," He wants us to understand at the same time that His name is to be used properly. For His name has been revealed and given to us so that it may be of constant use and profit. So it is natural to conclude that since this commandment forbids using the holy name for falsehood or wickedness, we are, on the other hand, commanded to use His name for truth and for all good, like when someone takes an oath truthfully when it is needed and demanded. This commandment also applies to right teaching and to calling on His name in trouble or praising and thanking Him in prosperity, and so on. All of this is summed up and commanded in Psalm 50:15, "Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me." For all this is bringing God's name into the service of truth and using it in a blessed way. In this way His name is hallowed, as we pray in the Lord's Prayer." ~BOC, LC, I, 63-64

I just adore the Large Catechism and honestly don't get why it isn't (seemingly) taught more, studied more, devotional-book-ed more, lauded more. There is such love for the Small Catechism in the LCMS publicly vocal community, but it seem like the Large Catechism is the neglected step-child. A cinderella of Lutheran theology.

I love this quote because it arrests my mind. "Stop. Do not assume. Read and listen to what I have to say about the taking of God's name in vain," Luther says so beautifully. And then he throws in some Psalter, which is always tops in my book, giving this bit of certitude as the icing on the cake of this passage.

God says, I WILL deliver you and you SHALL glorify me. He doesn't give parameters about just what you need to say in order to qualify as glorifying God. There is certainly no bowing or kneeling or incense-burning instructions. There is no proscription of words. There is just Call and I WILL and you WILL.

It is so easy to think of the 3rd Commandment as swearing or cursing using God's name, but as Luther shows with all of the commandments, there is a depth and breath to it that is for our good.