All Things Supercinski

The Hiding Place is my all-time favorite book. I have read it at least 5 times in the past five years, most recently on our trip to Colorado. Each time that I read it, I am encouraged and challenged by the faith and compassion of the Ten Boom family, and reminded of how powerful our God is.

This auto-biography accounts the story of Corrie Ten Boom and her sister Betsie, both single women in their fifties living with their father who runs a watch shop in the front of their house. As the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands begins and the persecution of the Jews in their city intensifies, the Ten Booms begin to providing places of escape and housing scores of Jews during their months of service. Eventually, they are discovered and sent to a concentration camp along with their father who is in his eigthies.

Their tale is suspenseful and moving; once you start reading, it is difficult to put it down. The sisters endured much at the hands of the Nazis–isolation, cold, hunger, disease and beatings, but they never became embittered and grew in their love for Jesus and desire to minister to those around them, including their guards. During one of their weekly “medical inspections” where they were forced to stand in a room, naked, and inspected by the guards, she writes,

“But it was one of these mornings while we were waiting, shivering, in the corridor, that yet another page in the Bible leapt into life for me. He hung naked on the cross. I had not known–I had not thought… The paintings, the carved crucifixes showed at least a scrap of cloth. But this, I suddenly knew, was the respect and reverence of the artist. But oh–at the time itself, on that other Friday morning–there had been no reverence. No more than I saw in the faces around us now. I leaned toward Betsie, ahead of me in line. Her shoulder blades stood out sharp and thin beneath her blue-mottled skin. “Betsie, they took His clothes too.” Ahead of me I heard a little gasp, “Oh, Corrie. And I never thanked Him…”

This book is full of accounts such as these–beautiful and true stories of seeing suffering rightly and growing closer to God through them. The Ten Boom sisters remind me of Romans 5:

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”

I encourage you to read it. This is truly a beautiful story of forgiveness, compassion and loving your enemies and praying for those who persecute you. Corrie ten Boom is a true heroine of the faith, and hopefully she will inspire you toward faith in the same God who protected and sustained her.

Yesterday, we had a playdate with some of our friends from church. The Lord has blessed us with friends similar in age and stage of life that have just had babies. As you can see, Josiah is much older than the rest, and he was a little disappointed that no one really played with him. Alas, the little newborns were much more fun to hold. Pictured are Josiah (7 months), Taylor (4 months), Aaron (5 weeks), and Jude (3 weeks).

Josiah also got a big time haircut. Daddy did a great job cutting in the midst of Josiah trying to look at and grab the scissors. Here is the before shot:

And after:

And if you made it this far, here is Mr. Giggle Box himself, laughing it up at Mommy bouncing up and down.

One of my favorite household cleaning and disinfecting products is the Clorox Wipe. It is pure genius. You wipe the vilest of messes and then throw the wipe away. No need to touch it and rinse it, just trash it. They are wonderful for toilets, the kitchen, the Diaper Champ, you name it. However, those folks over at Clorox know they can charge a pretty penny for such a wonder, and charge it they do. This morning, I held up the aisle at Walmart while debating whether or not they were worth the $4.88 for the jumbo container. I decided that they were not and that I could make them myself. And that is just what I did. Below are the instructions if you are interested, with pictures for the visual learner. I figure that I am saving over $4 since all it uses is half a roll of paper towels, water, and cleaning solution.

Ingredients:
Paper towel (I recommend Kleenex Viva)
about 2 cups water
Cleaning solution of choice (White Vinegar, Lysol Antibacterial Kitchen Cleaner, Mr. Clean Antibacterial, PineSol, Simple Green…)

First, cut the roll of paper towels in half using a sharp kitchen knife. You will only need one roll for this, so you can put away the other one for later.

Mix your solution of water and cleaning products. You could use anywhere from 1/2 cup to 1 cup of cleaning solution or equal parts water and white vinegar. Pour your solution into a container about the size of your half roll of wipes with a lid (a old 5 gallon ice cream tub would work too).

Add your paper towel roll and place the lid on tightly. Flip it over and let it soak through anywhere from 10 minutes to overnight. Open it up and pull the cardboard roll out.

You can start pulling wipes from the middle, using that container, or you can stuff them into the large size Clorox Wipe container (I saved my last one).

Sadly, I wasn’t the genius who thought up making them at home. There are a lot of great resources on the web, I just decided to combine some of them and share it with you, with pictures. Enjoy!

In case you’ve completely missed the news this week, the Pope has gotten some heat for remarks he made about Islam. He wasn’t giving personal opinion, but quoted from a text recounting a conversation between 14th century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II and an educated Persian on the truths of Christianity and Islam. “The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war,” the pope said. “He said, I quote, ’Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”’

Muslims around the world have reacted to this statement in anger, causing the burnings of both Catholic and Protestant churches. Some examples:

“Earlier Sunday in the West Bank, two churches were set on fire as anger over the pope’s comments grew throughout the Palestinian territories.”

“In the town of Tulkarem, a 170-year-old stone church was torched before dawn and its interior was destroyed, Christian officials said. In the village of Tubas, a small church was attacked with firebombs and partially burned, Christians said. Neither church is Catholic, the officials said.”

“Palestinian Muslims hurled firebombs and opened fire at five churches in the West Bank and Gaza Strip Saturday to protest the Pope’s comments, sparking concerns of a rift between Palestinian Muslims and Christians.”

“Further, an Iraqi insurgent group threatened the Vatican with a suicide attack over the pope’s remarks on Islam. In a message posted on the web it said, “We swear to God to send you people who adore death as much as you adore life,” said the message posted in the name of the Mujahedeen Army on a Web site frequently used by militant groups. The message’s authenticity could not be independently verified. The statement was addressed to “you dog of Rome” and threatens to “shake your thrones and break your crosses in your home.””
See here for the full news article.

It seems to me that they are proving his point. Hello!

Josiah is more mobile than ever these days. Here is a clip from the other day. He just took off after the rug and then Thomas enticed him to go further with the alluring cell phone. Enjoy!

Last night, we went to visit our sweet friends, Jon and Sally, and meet their new baby Jude. He is the cutest little boy and looks just like his daddy. I was flabbergasted to think that Josiah had once been that small. Well, he wasn’t quite that small outside of the womb, but only a pound difference. Sally was kind enough to let me help change his diaper, and I honestly had a difficult time doing it–me, of all people, who changes diapers all day long. It was so hard because his legs were so skinny and his tummy was so small, I just couldn’t get the diaper to stay correctly. I guess it is because I am accustomed to changing diapers of a 17-pounder with rolls.

I can only vaguely recall Josiah being that small. What I do remember seems like ages ago, not a mere seven months. How could I forget so much? At the time, I tried so hard to let all of those things soak in–the way his little eyes would meet mine and hold my gaze, the way his warm little body would curl so perfectly up against mine for nourishment, how small his cry seemed, and how I could carry him around with just one arm. Last night, I watched Sally burp Jude and he made eye contact with her. She talked to him at that low, soft voice that only moms can do, and I fought the tears. Time really does fly by.

Don’t misunderstand me, I love Josiah more than I did when I first held him, more than I did when he was just rumblings in my belly, and more than I did yesterday. I am so thankful for him, he truly is a wonderful blessing from the Lord. I guess what I am trying to say in my ramblings is that I was reminded even more last night how much I need to cherish these times. I shouldn’t always be looking forward to when Josiah can communicate with me what he wants, when he can be mobile or when he can whatever. Each day is a gift and I should treasure these moments. To our friends who are pregnant, enjoy those first crazy weeks. Take a ton of pictures and hold your sweet baby as much as you can. Let them sleep curled up on your chest, they won’t do it for long. Despite what you may hear, you can’t spoil a newborn so enjoy them all you can. I’ll be over here enjoying my sweet boy as much as he’ll let me between his squirming and exploring. I leave you with a video of Josiah when he was just a few days old, can you believe this is the same kid as the one we have now?

I went to check on Josiah just now since he’s been sleeping for quite a while this afternoon, and this is what I found.