Just about every year, I prescribe for myself a serious course of reading . By the time beach weather sets in, my high standards are gradually laid aside and I take up light, entertaining reading. Oh well. For now, however, I will take advantage of my strong resolutions and soak up all the valuable knowledge and worthy sentiments my mind and imagination can absorb. I try to stick to a biography or history book, a classic, and a theology book all at once. Right now, I am reading Jane Erye (For the third time - the best books are like best friends, you enjoy revisiting them), His Excellency (a biography of George Washington in honor of President's Day), and Institutes of Christian Religion - The First and Second Books by John Calvin. Reading Calvin is intense - it is incredibally engaging and requires every ounce of energy to comprehend fully his meaning. I am going slowly; in fact, I read the the first chapter three times, just because it was so good and I was afraid I had missed out on something. Here's one of my favorite thoughts from that first chapter:
"We cannot aspire to Him in earnest, until we have begun to be displeased with ourselves...For since we are all naturally prone to hypocrisy, any semblance of righteousness is quite enough to satisfy us instead of righteousness itself."
O God, Help me to raise my eyes to You, ever upward and never inward, and may your radiance and brillance so enlighten my heart, that beholding You I am dazzled by True Righteousness and Wisdom, and Purity!
"The moon shall be confounded and the Sun ashamed when the LORD of Hosts shall reign."
We finished reading this book about the life of Adoniram Judson. He was a missionary to Burma. He had hard times. He was thrown into prison once and all three of his wives died and many of his children. But he trusted in the Lord and knew that everything would be all right in the end. He just wanted to tell them in Burma about God.
I had the awesome opportunity to watch my middle sister get married this Christmas. The wedding was wonderful and she looked beautiful. I have to admit many childhood memories of us as little girls came back to me as I was watching her walk down the aisle. Praise the Lord for family and sisters.
Dad very methodically drinks his morning cup of coffee
We are not sure but we think Katie just might have an imaginary friend
Well, here they are, finally! Here are the three pictures we got from the ultrasound. The baby is at 19 weeks in these scans. They were done on January 2, 2007.
Hi everyone. Tim and I are going to have a family blog (Tim is keeping his personal blog) over at timandem.vox.com.
Look for baby pictures, family stuff, etc. over at our new site!
We have been reading to Andrew from a biography about Adonirom Judson and we took a little field trip up to Plymouth this week to see his grave marker and show him the other historical sights there. I am glad that he is interested in history (because both of his parents are) and I am glad that we live in a part of the country where we have historical sites to visit. We plan on bringing him to where Edwards preached, where the first Baptist church in America is in Providence, and some of the other church history sites around here in New England, in the future. Our prayer is that he will have a deeper sense of his heritage as a result. Growing up, my father took us to all of these same places and I know it helped me to develop a love for church history and an appreciation of how God sovereignly used these men and woman to build up His Church.
Burial Hill, where Adonirom Judson's grave marker lies, is probably the oldest or one of the oldest cemeteries in America. Many of the Pilgrims are buried there. They originally used the hill as a site for their fort, where they had a commanding view of the harbor. It is still a spectacular view. Even more awe-inspiring is just walking around and gazing at the cracked, moss covered gravestones, looking at the art work on these ancient tombs, and attempting to read the faded,elegiac poems upon them, carved in archaic script. An aura of peace pervades and there is a great, enveloping sense of life among the dead. I know it sounds odd and perhaps I am too sentimental, but this paradox did not originate with me, it comes from the Word of God where we told to lose our lives in order to save them. Many who are memorialized on Burial Hill chose suffering, sacrifice, and self-denial for the cause of liberty in Christ, as in the case of the Separatists, and for the sake of the Gospel, as in the case of Adonirom and Ann Judson. This strikes me as such a stark contrast to modern day Americans and modern day Christians, who live from one materialistic and self-centered experience to the next. God, spare me from such a hollow,empty life as that! It is no life at all.
"These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth..." Hebrews 11:13
I ran out of room from my old webpage and they wanted me to buy more room. I figured I would move on to bigger and better ( and Free) things!!!!
Here are some pictures we took lastweek in the snow!!! Yes we had snow. We even had a "snow" day. The kids were very excited!!! Mom was not. People who don't generally get snow can't drive in it, if you know what I mean!!!
I did post recently on my other "blog" so be sure to check it out one last time!!! http://ncrinhi.wordpress.com/
A Vessel of wrath once was I,
Destined for destruction and
Doomed to die. But Christ,
Rich in love and grace,
Bore the curse of
Sin in my place;
Rescued
my soul
From a hell
Bent path. My vessel
Holds mercy now, not wrath.
I thought I would try my hand at "typographical poetry." Some of the Puritan and metaphysical poets like Herbert used to write occasional verses where the shape of the verse represents a key theme of the verse. It was harder than I thought. Whenever I attempt(very feebly) to write poetry, I am all the more appreciative of the great body of poetry we have and the depths of creativity it took to compose these works.
This is a scene from one of my favorite Narnian characters - the Dufflepuds. The Dufflepuds are a group of dwarfs that are one-footed. They want to go back to the way things used to be because they are too dull and stubborn to realize that all that has been done for them by the Magician that Aslan sent to rule over them, has been done for their good. No metaphor is perfect, but I found this amusing:
When the Magician saw Aslan he bowed low and said,
"Welcome, Sir, to the least of your houses."
"Do you grow weary, Coriakin, of ruling such foolish subjects as I have given you here?"
"No," said the Magician,"they are very stupid but there is no real harm in them. I begin to grow rather fond of the creatures. Sometimes perhaps, I am a little impatient, waiting for the day when they can be governed by wisdom,instead of this rough magic."
"All in good time, Coriakin," said Aslan.
"Yes, all in very good time, SIr," was the answer. "Do you intend to show yourself to them?"
"Nay," said the Lion, with a little half-growl that meant the same as a laugh. "I should frighten them out of their senses. Many stars will grow old and come to take their rest in islands before your people are ripe for that."
I need a little of Coriakins' perspective, so that I don't grow weary!
There is an exhaustion that comes from ministry that is a good kind of exhaustion. It's a funny paradox, but pouring out your heart and soul into people can leave you physically and emotionally drained, but at the same time energized, when you see God at work in their lives. Then there is an exhaustion that comes from ministry that is not so good. It is the exhaustion that comes from dealing with the people who have sat under the preaching of God's Word for years, whose thinking has never changed. There is a hardness of heart about them that manifests itself in many different ways. Many times it is passive rebellion and inward bitterness towards the leadership and direction of our church, but other times it exposes itself in very public and ugly ways. I heard about one such way today that happened recently, and it took me through the usual wide range of emotions - anger, frustration, discouragement,disgust - eventually I find myself tired from all the energy I poured into my feelings toward the person and the incident and the church! My whole day can be caught up in my reaction to these incidents. The good kind of exhaustion begins seeping away and is replaced by the bad kind, which is a far more exhausting exhaustion. A foggy sort of hopelessness about church and ministry settles on my heart and my mind. Then I begin to want to give the whole thing up, call up my husband and say, "Let's move away from here. Far away. And let's become normal people with normal jobs where we can get involved in a church and have nothing to do with the inner workings of ministry and people and all the problems we are privy to." Soon , however, the reality that my husband wouldn't necessarily go along with me and that I really don't want that deep down, relentlessly pushes itself into my consciousness. The grace and strength that God unfailingly supplies begins to work its way into my troubled heart, as well. And then I go on....until the next time.
I write this because I know only my close friends and family read this blog, and I know they can relate, because I assume I am not alone when it comes to ministry experiences. If I am, be gentle! And when you see that I am growing weary and impatient, please -remind me of the Dufflepuds!
