Every month has a birthstone. The birthstone for the month of January
is the garnet. And it reminds me of Jesus.

The term “garnet” refers to a family of minerals. The garnet family
contains gemstones that appear in every color except blue. The
difference is what they are called and what extra minerals they
contain. For example, within the mineral family of “garnet” are
tsavorites (green), hessonite (orange, brown and pink), and rhodolite
(purplish red). When we picture a garnet, however, most of us think of
the deep blood red stone.

Red Garnet

Blood red. The color of Jesus’ blood shed for us. A forever reminder
of His sacrifice for us.

In gemstone symbolism, the garnet signifies eternal friendship and
trust. Such as is found in Jesus, our eternal friend in whom we can
place our trust.

Just like there are star sapphires, there are also star garnets. The
“stars” are produced by a sphere of tiny rods composed of titanium
dioxide. These rods reflect light back out of the garnet and appear to
our eye as a 4 or 6-rayed star that moves across the face of the
gemstone. Star garnets are only found in India and Idaho.

Star? With our celebration of Christmas still fresh in our hearts, it
would be nice to have a star garnet to always light the way to Jesus.

Star Garnet from Americanlisted.com

The garnet is known for its luminosity and high refractive quality.
Because of those qualities, early travelers carried garnets, which
they believed lit up the night and protected a person from evil. Many
extra biblical sources suggest that Noah used a lantern made from
garnet to help him see through the storms while on the ark.

Evidently, the garnet reminded Noah of Jesus, too.

Happy birthday to everyone born in January—especially my super husband
Jim, whose birthday is TODAY!

PRAYER: Heavenly Father, thank you for placing reminders in this world
of who you are. Please open our eyes to see you in everything today.
Amen.

WHAT ABOUT YOU? Do you own a garnet?

The post Carol’s Gems: Garnets For Jesus first appeared on I'm Just Thinkin'.

The post Carol’s Gems: Garnets For Jesus appeared first on I'm Just Thinkin'.

Please click here to head over to Amazon to purchase the paperback or Kindle edition!

My first book was published. Yay, I am so excited to be able to share this news with you! I was talking to one of my good friends at church yesterday about it, and he pointed out that it’s a pretty big deal to publish a book. I tried to downplay it, but I guess it really is. Lots of people have been asking me for direction on writing a book now so that will be something that I try to share, the knowledge of how this all came together (I’ve written about this process briefly, you can read that post here).  I believe that everyone has at least one book in them, and I would continue to encourage you to explore writing yours when the time is right.

Common Ground… Geology Happens! This book is a series of short, funny stories about God’s wonderful creation, our planet earth and it’s surroundings. It’s dedicated to my mom and dad, and the University of Florida’s Geology Department, where I found lots of answers and quite a few questions too. This book is Geology 101… just for fun! I hope that you will check it out, it’s a perfect coffee table conversation piece, and/or you can read/share it on your Kindle too! Just head on over to Amazon by clicking on the book image.

Thank you again to everyone who reads I’m Just Thinkin’, for your encouragement and support of my writing.

I’m so thankful to our Heavenly Father, the best is yet to come 🙂

Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! His faithful love endures forever. Psalm 136:1

The post Book Release: Common Ground… Geology Happens! first appeared on I'm Just Thinkin'.

The post Book Release: Common Ground… Geology Happens! appeared first on I'm Just Thinkin'.

CAROL’S GEMS: RUBIES FOR JESUS

Every month has a birthstone. The birthstone for July is the ruby. And it reminds me of Jesus.

The Blood of Christ

In gemstone symbolism, the ruby’s dark red color represents Jesus’ blood sacrifice for us. That sacrifice is everlasting—one sacrifice for all people for all time.

The ruby is a variety of the gem family corundum; a lasting gemstone, durable enough to wear every day.

Just like the ruby, Jesus’ salvation is durable enough for us to “put on” and wear every day—as the helmet of salvation in the armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-18) .

The Person of God

John’s vision of Heaven reveals the appearance of God:

And the one who sat there [on the throne] had the appearance of jasper and ruby. (Revelation 4:3)

Interestingly, both the jasper and ruby are typically red in color. Also interestingly, jasper is partially stone and partly organic—just like God in the person of Jesus, is both wholly God and wholly organic man. But that tidbit is for another discussion…

Of relevance here is that God describes His own appearance as similar to July’s birthstone.

Wisdom

Scripture compares wisdom to rubies.

…for wisdom is more precious than rubies, and nothing you desire can compare with her. (Proverbs 8:11)

…the price of wisdom is beyond rubies. (Job 28:18)

God wants us to be wise. And He recognizes that wisdom is precious. So then, we too, should strive to achieve wisdom in all things. The best wisdom comes from God—as we seek His desires through scripture, meditation and prayer.

In fact, that helmet of salvation protects our thinking and thus grants wisdom. I wouldn’t be surprised if our heavenly helmets are studded with rubies…

For Women

For the gals in the crowd, Proverbs 31:10 is a great reminder:

A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies.

Coincidently, this verse follows Proverbs 19:13, 21:9, 21:19, 25:24, 27:7 and 27:15, likening a quarrelsome wife to a leaky roof, living in the desert and dripping water.

Ouch.

Speaking from the female perspective, a husband of noble character is worth far more than rubies, too.

In fact, shouldn’t we all strive to live like rubies for Jesus?

Happy birthday to everyone born in the month of July.

PRAYER: Jesus, so many things in this world remind us of you. This month, every time we think “July,” remind us of the ruby and how it symbolizes you. In all ways, help us to live like rubies for you. Amen.

WHAT ABOUT YOU? In what way do you seek to be a ruby for Jesus?

The post Carol’s Gems: Rubies for Jesus first appeared on I'm Just Thinkin'.

The post Carol’s Gems: Rubies for Jesus appeared first on I'm Just Thinkin'.

This begins a year-long series on birthstones and how they remind me of Jesus. Since I’m cross-posting with my geologist friend, Chris Vonada,  I figured the topic of gemstones would be a terrific match.

But when I sat down to write this very first post, I realized I’m beginning with the one month of the year whose birth “stone”—the pearl—isn’t a stone at all.

Still, throughout history, society has considered pearls to be rare, beautiful and valuable.  And they remind me of Jesus.

The Gospel

In scripture, pearls are symbols of the priceless Gospel.Matthew 13:45-46 compares the Gospel to pearls of great value:

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”

Jesus’ parable reminds us that our salvation through Him, is priceless and deepening our faith and relationship with Him, should be our number one priority.

Protection

Pearls also remind me of Jesus because of how they’re made. Pearls are the oyster’s way of protecting itself from a harsh and painful grain of sand. It does so by laying down calcium carbonate in concentric rings.

Similarly, Jesus protects us from harsh and painful things in life—if we but lean on Him. In fact, just like an oyster, God can create layers of soothing protection from the irritants of life. Those layers become our ever-deeper faith; a faith that is beautiful, rare and valuable. So valuable that we should do everything we can to own it; because it results in our being part of God’s kingdom of heaven.

And we know what the gates of heaven are made of.

The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass. (Revelation 21:21)

June’s birthstone can’t be found in any underground mine on earth. Pearls are created by living creatures; much like the foundation of our faith is based on trust in a living God.

Pearls require no faceting or polishing to reveal their natural beauty. Just like our faith in Jesus requires nothing but to believe—and then trust and obey. That’s a beautiful thing.

Happy birthday to everyone born in June.

PRAYER: Thank you, Jesus for showing us your truth in the parables you spoke so long ago. Thank you for your good news. Please remind us each day of the Gospel’s incomparable value and help us find new ways to make it a deeper part of our lives. Amen.

WHAT ABOUT YOU? In what way do you see characteristics of Jesus in a pearl?

The post Carol’s Gems: Pearls Of Great Value first appeared on I'm Just Thinkin'.

The post Carol’s Gems: Pearls Of Great Value appeared first on I'm Just Thinkin'.

“Carol’s Gems” is a glitter-loving gal’s way to find a place on a geologists’ blog site. This begins a year-long series that focuses on the birth stone for each month of the calendar and how they remind us of Jesus.

When God created Earth, He filled it with beauty. Mountains, plains, oceans, lakes, rivers, creeks, ponds and puddles. The cloud-filled sky. The grass, trees, flowers, critters, all reflect God’s beauty.

But when God finished covering the Earth’s surface with beauty, He still had lots of beauty left. So He hid some deep inside the earth.

Mankind digs into God’s rich soil. Underneath the beauty at the surface of our earth, past the wiggly worms, gnarly roots and crumbly dirt, nestle sparkling, glittering treasures. We dig them up, dust them off and hold them to the light, exclaiming, “Beautiful!”

And we call them “precious.”

We name those treasures diamond, sapphire, emerald, ruby. They are a reflection of God’s glorious, excessive beauty.

Matthew 13:44 recounts Jesus’ parable of the man who found a treasure in the ground. The man covered it back up and sold everything he owned. He then bought the land so the treasure could be his.

The treasure in Jesus’ parable was the Gospel, the priceless good news of our salvation through Christ.

When I think of gemstones, I am reminded that God has placed His beauty all around me. It is in nature, in people, in God’s Word. Sometimes, His beauty requires us to dig. But when we find it, it is a sparkling, glittering, precious delight. And it is worth the seeking.

Hidden treasures also remind us that God has placed a sparkling, precious delight inside each of us. With God’s help we can dig through the dirt, past the worms and the roots and find it—our desire to know and love Him. And to become the people He means us to be.

God can dust this treasure off and hold it up to the light. Our obedience is a delight to Him. Our faith is a sparkling, faceted radiance, shining God’s glory to the world.

It is worth the digging.

PRAYER: Heavenly Father, thank you for your glory and for the reminders of your beauty around us. Please work in us so that we are a delight to you. Help us seek your treasure above all else. Amen.

WHAT ABOUT YOU? What treasures in your life do you see as God’s sparkling delights?

The series, “Carol’s Gems” begins next month with the June birthstone: the pearl and how it reminds us of Jesus.

The post Carol’s Gems: Treasure Hunting first appeared on I'm Just Thinkin'.

The post Carol’s Gems: Treasure Hunting appeared first on I'm Just Thinkin'.

The rocks of Racetrack Playa.

These rocks have legs.

They’ve got some get up and go.

How exactly do they get around?

Here’s the low down:

Racetrack Playa is located in Death Valley National Park in California. The Playa is an extremely flat lakebed that is usually dry. The sediment at the surface of this dry lake bed is uniformly fine… silt and clay sized particles. Following an infrequent rain, when these fine sediments get wet, they become very slick. As the rain evaporates and infiltrates… and when a big wind blows in… the rocks go vroom vroom.

Burn rubber!

Rocks on the go… vroom vroom!!

Have you ever seen rocks on the go… landslide, earthquake, Racetrack Playa?

The post Geology LITE: Rocks On The Go… Vroom Vroom!! first appeared on I'm Just Thinkin'.

The post Geology LITE: Rocks On The Go… Vroom Vroom!! appeared first on I'm Just Thinkin'.

switchbacks on the Bright Angel Trail give some perspective of the hike

I’m writing today as a contributor to the Christian Writers Blog Chain. Our theme for the month of August is Majestic. Christianwriters.com is an excellent place to network if you’re a Christian writer or author.

Walking from rim to river to rim at the Grand Canyon is a bucket list kind of experience. As a geology student it was the most majestic walk through time that one could imagine. During this walk we had a lot of time to think… and, for me, I was thinking a lot about history. On that day I walked past 3.6 billion years of it… 1.8 billion years on the way down from the north rim to the Colorado River, and 1.8 billion years on the return trip.

I remember actually first thinking in this context of “walking through history” earlier in our 10-day road trip through the 4 corners. Somewhere outside of Colorado Springs we stopped at a road cut with Dr. Jones (that would be Doug Jones, not Indiana or Dick either!). Jones (yep, that’s what we called him!) literally walked us through time on the road cut… and I could envision the passing of time as we talked about the fossils… environments of deposition… and, of course, whether we would be stopping in Vegas later on the trip (for some reason this kept coming up in nearly all conversations).

Several stops later we were at “the big ditch” … nope, not glitter gulch (we never made it there!)… but the most majestic place I can come up with, the Grand Canyon.

This was the last canyon of our road trip. Jones saved the best for last. It was breathtaking! We camped out that night and planned an excursion to the river and back for anyone who dared to venture out early. We left at daylight. The north rim is known for being a more difficult hike than the south. We were not discouraged.

Rim to River was a cake walk. All downhill. Just over two hours for this eager Geo-nerd.

Heading down the trail the stratigraphic rock units bearing legendary Indian names passed by pretty quickly…

sign?? ... what sign?? (photo courtesy of Jim Dvorak)

Kaibab Formation, Toroweap Formation, Coconino Sandstone, Hermit Formation, Supai Group, Redwall Limestone, Temple Butte Formation, Muav Limestone, Bright Angel Shale, Tapeats Sandstone, Grand Canyon Supergroup, and the Vishnu Basement Rocks.

The views were breathtaking… so beautiful I struggle to find the words to describe. I’ve been to some pretty cool places and this one is beyond comparison.

I reached the Colorado River with Mike McCoy in a little over two hours and took a brief dip to cool off and refresh. I thought about the journey ahead and was anxious to get started, not certain how it was going to go.

Up the trail I went…

The Vishnu Basement… some 1.8 Billion Years Old… the oldest exposed rocks in the Grand Canyon… that’s a long time ago!

The rock units sure did pass by more slowly this time around…

Grand Canyon Supergroup (1,250 – 740 million years old)…

yowza, I am a long way from the top!

Tapeats Sandstone…

more time to think about this place now…

how did this place get here?

are these rocks really that old?

Bright Angel Shale (515 million years old)

was there an angel involved in all of this?

Muav Limestone (505 million years old)

yes, it’s really spelled Muav!

Temple Butte Formation (385 million years old)

switchbacks in the trail…

long walk…

gettin’ rough…

Redwall Limestone (340 million years old)

so this trial we shared with mule…

I wish I had a mule right about now…

instead I’m walking and watching out for mule droppings…

Supai Group (315 – 285 million years old)…

more switchbacks…

Hermit Formation (280 million years old)…

and mules…

Coconino Sandstone (275 million years old)…

and…

Toroweap Formation (273 million years old)…

almost there…

Kaibab Formation (270 million years old)…

I can see the rock wagons!!!

Then, after all of that, something else happened. Really, the rocks themselves are legendary but it was what happened after their deposition that created this place.

The Laramide Orogeny. This is the major mountain building event that created the rocky mountains, and uplifted the area an estimated 2 vertical miles…

The Laramide Orogeny occurred just 75 million years ago…

and, finally, the carving out of this majestic place by the mighty Colorado River.

All I can say is WoW !!!

And, for me, one question remains…

Did it really happen all on its own, or should I thank God for making this earth perfectly, majestically round instead of simply boring and flat?

I’m awed, amazed and very thankful.

Christian Writers Blog Chain

Going Places is the blog series focusing on where God is leading us. It may include travel destinations, but doesn’t have to. This series is open to guest bloggers. If you would like to submit a guest post please contact me.

The post The Grand Canyon: A Majestic Walk Through Time first appeared on I'm Just Thinkin'.

The post The Grand Canyon: A Majestic Walk Through Time appeared first on I'm Just Thinkin'.

and while I was glancing through The Economist I came across an article related to a time period labeled “The Anthropocene,” or The Time Of Man.

The thought is that we are now living in a “new era,” so to speak, past the Holocene, currently the most recently recognized geologic time period…

It certainly seems to have merit from the point of view of how we are impacting the world we live in.

The track we leave behind is more complicated than just a “cast,” or fossilized impression of a footprint, at least when we think about our “breadcrumbs” from a geological perspective. Geologic time units are defined primarily in two ways… by significant events that can be observed in the evidence of the past (i.e., the “Golden Spike” that represents a specific point in time as defined in the rock record), or by assigning a reference standard according to  a specific number of years (the beginning of the Holocene is defined as 10,000 years before 1950).

The scientific community is looking at distinct changes in geochemical, sedimentary and biotic signatures through time… and finding the changes are significant enough to create a new epoch, the Anthropocene. Now we just need to define at what point in time the new epoch began.

This impression, if you will, has the potential to transform the thinking of mankind…

to bring together the scientific and christian communities to common ground…

I’m Just Thinkin’ out loud here…

So what if we’re really referring to the time period since God’s creation?

The scientific thought is “in the ballpark” with the age of the earth as defined within the Bible…

How cool would it be for the scientific community to come up with this definition of the impact of mankind here on earth… that actually coincided with the creation of our existence… by our God?

The post The Anthropocene: Where Science Meets Christianity first appeared on I'm Just Thinkin'.

The post The Anthropocene: Where Science Meets Christianity appeared first on I'm Just Thinkin'.

The Austing Haus

One of the people who God used to sow the seed in my heart was a fellow University of Florida student, John Hall. As an undergraduate geology geek, summer field camp was a required course to graduate with a B.S. degree. We were loaded up in two heavy-duty maxi vans, or “rock wagons,” as they’re called in the Geology Department… gear, books, students, 2 Teaching Assistants, and a Professor made the journey. The cool kids congregated to one van… the remainder loaded up in the other, and off we went. The route: that desolate road known as I-10, past cows, swamps, bayous, tumbleweeds… to the chic-artsy community of Taos, New Mexico. Our temporary digs for the 6-week field camp was The Austing Haus. A ski lodge by winter, Paul Austing found summer occupants in vans filled with University of Florida, Florida State University and University of Alabama students. From our base camp at the Austing Haus in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains (Spanish for “Blood of Christ”), we worked on a series of projects mapping faults, folds and sedimentary bedding planes; determining and describing the lithology of different types of rocks; investigating fossils; and other golly gee geo-technica. Our projects entailed field work by day, and creating maps and geological cross-sections by night depicting how we interpreted the geologic features.

We worked with partners as assigned by the professor. John Hall and I were assigned as partners for the last project. John and I had been in classes together previously but never really conversed past the casual “hey, what’s up dude?” level of conversation. My impression of John was that he was a nice clean-cut guy (and yes he rode in the nerdy-kid van).

The project at hand… 5 days working in a complex area within the Picuris Mountain Range. The professors saved the most difficult for last. The geology is basically a tight syncline fold, bound by ductile reverse and normal faults. The mixed soup of these mountains includes all three major rock types: sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic. It was very confusing for us geologist wannabe’s.

Blanca Peak in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains

On the second day of our field exercise, John and I were a considerable distance from our drop-off point when an ominous storm approached. An arid part of the country, this was only the second storm we’d seen since our arrival. We were a couple of hours hike back to the vans, and given the terrain and threatening storm, we decided to try to find shelter and ride it out. Our decision to seek shelter was further solidified as the best option when we watched the dry stream bed that we were walking along suddenly turn into a raging rapid as a flash flood filled it in an instant. Shelter turned out to be quite pleasant, a comfortable and dry overhang of a way-cool cliff. We were holed up for a couple of hours, and John told me all about God during that time. He shared with me about Jesus and His journey to the cross, and what He did for me on that day we celebrate as Easter. John seemed like an expert on the Bible and I was impressed not only with his knowledge but also the strength of his faith.

The days that followed were equally rewarding… John was a gift from God to me. The seed was set, and I absorbed a considerable dose of God from him.

When we finished the project all that was left was a one-day “final exam,” a solo mapping project…

and then we were off…

heading for home on a 3-day journey back across I-10. Not only did our vans carry all the load that we took with us, but now each of us also had a fairly sizeable rock and mineral collection too.

Slight glitch making our way home…

As we hammered across I-10 through western Texas in the midday summer heat one of the vans had a blow out.

Guess which one?

Looking back on that day the reaction of every one of us in the cool kid van was “THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN US!!!” We were the crazy ones, the crew that carelessly raced in our van, up and down Taos Mountain every day under the fearless leadership of our Teaching Assistant Jose. We were also the ones who nearly wrecked days earlier on a dirt road, swerving to miraculously avoid a near-flip in a ditch. And, of course, we were just plain careless, invincible, cool kids who really needed a lesson in The Journey Home.

So instead of what we felt should have been our fate on that day in West Texas… we had the horror of vividly watching the nerdy kid van in front of us…

the blow out of the tire…

the swerve…

the van’s loss of control…

and then flipping several times…

spewing gear, rocks, books…

… and our classmates all over the pavement.

Time seemed to stand still that day. It took emergency personnel 45 minutes to arrive at the scene. One student was life-flighted to an El Paso hospital that was more sophisticated than the local one. God took John Hall to be with Him on that day.

I was devastated… having just spent the last week of our lives together… and losing someone who I had grown to love and admire…

yes, I was truly devastated… and a bit confused…

Why would God do this to John?

Didn’t He love John?

Of course He did!

I think John inspired several of us on that trip. I know he had a very deep and everlasting impact on me… on my spiritual journey… and on my message and ministry. John is etched in my memory.

I readily share this story with anyone who will listen…

… and I very much look forward to seeing John again one day… in Heaven.

Do you have anyone who you would say drew you closer to God?

 

The post The Journey Home first appeared on I'm Just Thinkin'.

The post The Journey Home appeared first on I'm Just Thinkin'.

I’ve spent 20 years working as a geologist, in consulting. Several of the key people who drew me closer to God were introduced to me during my career and directly through work.

If you think about it, my education as a scientist could directly conflict with my faith. This part of the story is still unfolding for me and that’s something that I’m very excited about, and something that I believe God is encouraging me to explore and share.

The relevance of my scientific background, Darwinism and evolution, the age of the earth, and so many associated questions. Some of these questions are still there in my mind. I am resolving many of them through time.

For me, my faith has grown so strong that the relative importance of these questions is now insignificant in comparison to the God that I worship, the REAL passion in my life.

Yet, I believe, at the same time, resolving these issues and, in doing so, leading others to understand and accept our Lord and Savior, is part of my purpose in Him.

What questions do you have that may block you from being fully committed to God? Is there anything in your life that stands in the way to a closer relationship with Him?

The post Straight from the Heart first appeared on I'm Just Thinkin'.

The post Straight from the Heart appeared first on I'm Just Thinkin'.