|
SubscriptionsSites I Read
|
|
|
|
| Two blog series that I have loved/am loving:
Girltalk - on Proverbs 31:12 She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life.
Runs from 10/7-10/31. My favorite is October 14: A Woman of Action. And I loved the last week of the series, where they posted comments that wives had sent in of how they do their husbands good. :]
Amy's Humble Musings - on how she and her husband planned financially & became debt-free.
Started 11/12 and is still going. I love the way she writes. And the example she sets in managing her finances and her family. Looking forward to the rest :]
That is all. This is what I do at work in my down time. Amongst other things...
Happy reading!
me.
| | |
| You see no beauty in any action that you do. All seems imperfect, blemished, and defiled. You are often sick at heart of your own shortcomings. You often feel that your whole life is one great arrear, and that every day is either a blank or a blot. But know now that Jesus can see some beauty in everything that you do from a conscientious desire to please Him. His eye can discern excellence in the least thing which is a fruit of His own Spirit. He can pick out the wheat from amidst the chaff, in all your doings. your tears are all put into His bottle. Your endeavours to do good to others, however feeble, are written in His book of remembrance...
It is very wonderful; but so it is. Jesus loves to honour the work of His Spirit in His people, and to pass over their frailties. He dwells on the faith of Rahab, but not on her lie. He commends His apostles for continuing with Him in His temptations, and passes over their ignorance and want of faith (Luke 22:28). "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him" (Ps. 103:13). And as a father finds a pleasure in the least acts of his children, of which a stranger knows nothing, so I suppose the Lord finds a pleasure in our poor feeble efforts to serve Him.
[j.c. ryle, holiness]
| | |
| yesterday was the end of college. the end of many things actually, and the beginning of many changes. but more than all of this, yesterday marked the end of being roommates with cindy. it has been four years of getting to know each other, initially as strangers forced to sleep in the same room... then as friends who have grown together in age, in maturity, and in love. finding out that the best way to tick her off is to stick my dirty feet under her covers. and one way to make her happy is just sitting on our $12 couch while eating dinner and watching minority report with her for the tenth time. that making a simple dinner and doing the dishes for her can mean more than taking her out to eat at a fancy restaurant. learning that she likes doing whites before colors, always using the parking brake, and eating her favorite gummy bears first. realizing that though she can seem non-sentimental, she keeps every card and heartfelt letter safely packed away in a manila folder. yesterday as we took our last pictures together, i started crying. not just because i would miss all the fun we had together, or because i would be lonely without her, but because i realized that this was really the end. i wished i hadn't fought so hard to be right in our petty arguments, or thought it was so important for my feelings to be acknowledged, or treated her however i felt whenever i wanted to. i wished i had persevered harder in loving deeply and forgiving quickly, in apologizing first, and in being patient with her shortcomings. in those moments, it seemed so important for me to get my way and i cared so much about myself, but i wish i could have sacrificed more and conceded more. how foolish those things seem in hindsight... they're just not worth fighting over. thanks always for being patient with me and dealing with the emotional mess that i am. for patiently hearing out all of my concerns and criticisms, for being willing to work through all the issues in our relationship. thanks for bearing with all of my weaknesses and persevering with me despite my many failures. i never would have expected that the little chinese girl in the green aeropostale sweatshirt that i met at orientation would become one of my best friends, one of the few people i can say i love most. i read this once in c.s. lewis' book: to love at all is to be vulnerable. love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. if you want to keep it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. but in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. it will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. certainly it has been painful and heart-breaking at times, but i've learned much in the ways of love and selflessness through our friendship. thanks for letting me love you and for choosing to love me in return... your twin. 
| | |
| I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. [romans 7:15-18] it is the greatest misery of a holy man that he carries about with him "a body of death"; that often when he would do good, "evil is present with him"; that the old man is clogging all his movements, and, as it were, trying to draw him back at every step he takes. but it is the excellence of a holy man that he is not at peace with indwelling sin, as others are. he hates it, mourns over it, and longs to be free from its company. sanctification in the very best is an imperfect work... the gold will never be without some dross -- the light will never shine without some clouds, until we reach the heavenly Jerusalem. the sun himself has spots upon his face. the holiest men have many a blemish and defect when weighed in the balance of the sanctuary. their life is a continual warfare with sin, the world, and the devil; and sometimes you will see them not overcoming, but overcome. the flesh is ever lusting against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and "in many things they offend all". [j.c. ryle, holiness] ...gives me hope... | | |
|
