Simple love

Thought provoking study on looking at marriage and being a wife this week, from The Legacy of Biblical Womanhood. On the kingdom purposes in marriage. On opportunities to "grow in holiness." On the idea of "oneness," with unity and diversity.

Author Susan Hunt writes, "Submission and respect nourish oneness. These attitudes and actions do not oppress a woman but are restorative. They help to restore the intimacy and harmonious complementarity of the pre-Fall marriage relationship. Submission and respect are life-giving. They breathe hesed (Hebrew: goodness) into a marriage relationship."

Of course, Hunt reminds us that "we must go to the depths of the gospel before we can joyfully embrace the concept of submission. ...The fact that the Son sumbits to the Father 'does not mean that the Son is inferior in dignity and being. Rather, in His messianic work the Son subjects Himself to the will of the Father... The climax of Christ's submissive, messianic work is this total conquest over His enemies, that God may be all in all, when His absolute rule is universally acknowledged."

And then, doesn't it come down to a practical application of loving selflessly, that act that is so unnatural and yet, so good? I think of the sweet chorus of a favorite Allison Krauss song:
I want a simple love like that
Always giving, never askin' back
For when I'm in my final hour lookin' back
I hope I had a simple love like that

So do I.

He who dwells... (Ps. 91:1)

Over the last week, at every moment I could get away with it, I've been soaking up this memoir of Jim Elliot. Soaking up like a sponge! This book challenges and exhorts and encourages and comfirms. Its words inspire and cause one to question himself, especially in light of the Lord. There was very little wasted in Elliot's life, not time, not energy, not things- his was a life lived with deliberate and prayerful purpose.

I started Shadow by borrowing a friend's copy, and quickly realized that I needed my own, to mark and go back and reference.

Here's just one thought from Elliot, of many, that impresses me. Wife Elisabeth writes:

"Delight thyself also in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart." God had given us that desire, and perhaps in the sense in which Jim had interpreted it in a letter to me written in 1949:

"It does not say He will give you what you want. It does say He will give you the want. Delight in Christ brings desire for Christ. He gives the heart its desires- that is, He works in us the willing (Philippians 2:13). This is why He can say in John 15:7 'Ye shall ask what ye will... if ye abide.' The branch takes its sap from the vine, the same surges the vine feels then become the surges of the branch. My will becomes His, and I can ask what I will, if I delight myself in Him. Only then can my desire be attained, when it is His desire."

Make a Joyful Noise!

The Psalms are full of references to "make a joyful noise unto the Lord."

Psalm 95:1- Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
Psalm 95:2- Make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
Psalm 98:1- Make a joyful noise to the LORD.
Psalm 98:4- Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth...
Psalm 98:6- ...make a joyful noise before the King, the LORD!
Psalm 100:1- Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth!

And until now, my praise has been joyful, but perhaps in comparison to my more melodious friends and family, a bit of noise.

NO MORE!

I have joined, if just for a short season, the ranks of musicians!
I am in the bell choir!

What fun!
Harder than it looks, I'll tell you.
I'm E6 and F6. I often have notes in succession. I even almost have a solo. :-)

To edit Psalm 71:23 just a little bit...
My lips will shout for joy when I ring praises to You!

Since I've been gone...

How nice! My three regular readers missed me. :-)


Here's some of the goings-on in the last week or so-

Family came to visit. Here's Su and cousin Sh from MI.

And Mom and Dad H. (Notice the middle guy. As friend Kenny says, "one word. Headbladedotcom.")

A trip to the zoo. Someone should market jellyfish tanks as a relaxation device...

A Curious George sighting at the Durham Western Heritage Museum. We were there for the Christmas tree lighting. Beautiful huge and full tree in a stately setting.

And lots of cards and games, lots of shopping, lots of eating, and a couple of great worship services besides.

We are blessed.

And thankful.

Harder and Easier

Excerpt from Mere Christianity by CS Lewis

The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says, “Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked– the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.”

Both harder and easier than what we are all trying to do. You have noticed, I expect, that Christ Himself sometimes describes the Christian way as very hard, sometimes as very easy. He says, “Take up your Cross”- in other words, it is like going to be beaten to death in a concentration camp. Next minute he says, “My yoke is easy and my burden light.” He means both. And one can just see why both are true.

Ref:
Matthew 10:38
Matthew 16:24
Mark 8:34
Luke 9:23
Matthew 11:30

(photo from National Geographic.com- a Malay woman with rice seedlings. I think Christ's yoke is easier...)

Crunch and Rustle

A few days ago I walked along the edge of the lake and was treated to the crunch and rustle of leaves with each step I made. The acoustics of this season are different and all sounds, no matter how hushed, are as crisp as autumn air.- Eric Sloane

It was Yard Help Day at our place, but not all work and no play. After all, who can resist a pile of leaves?

"The Freest of All God's Acts"

But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace. Romans 11:6

"Grace would not be grace if it were a response to resources in us. Grace is grace because it highlights God's own overflowing resources of kindness. Grace is eternal because it will take that long for God to expend inexhaustible stores of goodness on us. Grace is free because God would not be the infinite, self-sufficient God he is if he were constrained by anything outside himself."
John Piper, Future Grace

Thoughts to ponder on for a while, with utter gratitude and wonder...

Bizarre Foods

Our normal Monday date night plans were altered last night when our regular show wasn't on. So, in search of adventure, we turned to the Travel Channel and found Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern. WHOA! And let me say again... WHOA! This guy eats some nasty stuff! Last night he was in Ecuador where local cuisine includes such delicacies as roasted cuye (can I just say, an animal that we have kept as a pet...), a choice of soups (do you prefer the inside or outside of the stomach?), coconut grubs (fat little guys!), and a vitamin-filled aloe vera drink that seemed to have a consistency similar to, well, snot? I know that my faithful readers are intrigued!

But, we have to admit, Mr. Iron Stomach Zimmern made us laugh out loud, and fresh empanadas don't seem all that bad! You can check out his entire trip here.

Next week, we do hope to be travelling again with our Trekker friends, but Bizarre Foods was an amusing diversion for a week, anyway...

Happy eating!

One Semester of Spanish - Love Song

This might be the silliest of "Silliness" posts (or maybe that should be Tonteria con accento sobre el "i"...). Gracias a Escott for a blip that caused our entire familiy to laugh out loud!

Bump, Set, Spike!

This weekend, you'll find us at the National Home School Volleyball Tournament. 40 teams of volleyball playing young ladies, and some very competitive volleyball going on!

Go Warriors!

::: UPDATE ::: Here's a link to a story on the Tournament that appeared on the local news last night (November 1). Check out the video, too. Thanks WOWT!

"Ketchup? Puh-leeeese!"...

...says the salsa package.

A big THANKS to Taco Bell, who provided us with 6 tasty and free tacos yesterday. We appreciate that! And, it reedems the Boston Red Sox just a little bit, too...

Faith in what?

I've recently been challenged by the idea of "faith." We so often hear of faith spoken of, as if "faith" were the religion or the god, itself. Faith in what, I ask? I remember pop singer George Michael in the 80's crooning, "I've just gotta have faith..." Catchy song. Questionable faith. (and no comments on lifestyle choices of Mr. Michael, please. This is a family blog... :-) )

For the Christian believer, faith must be in God, the one true God, and in Christ's saving work on the cross. But, do we trust in that faith, in that God, enough?
Oswald Chambers addresses just that issue, faith, in the Utmost reading for today...

Faith by its very nature must be tried, and the real trial of faith is not that we find it difficult to trust God, but that God's character has to be cleared in our own minds. Faith in its actual working out has to go through spells of unsyllabled isolation. Never confound the trial of faith with the ordinary discipline of life, much that we call the trial of faith is the inevitable result of being alive. Faith in the Bible is faith in God against everything that contradicts Him- I will remain true to God's character whatever He may do. "Though He slay me, yet I will trust Him"- this is the most sublime utterance of faith in the whole of the Bible.

Observation

New house rule:
If mom can hear the music in the dining room, it is too loud...

(ps: bedrooms are above and below...)
(pps: only 12 more teenager years to go... :-) )

Art jag

Nobody sees a flower - really - it is so small it takes time - we haven't time - and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time. Georgia O'Keefe

This is one of my favorite Georgia O'Keefe paintings. (can you use "favorite" if there is more than one?)

I don't remember when I was exposed to O'Keefe first, but I remember exactly when I became enamored by her work. When living in Maryland in the fall of 1987, there was an O'Keefe exhibition at the National Gallery in DC and I wandered around by myself for hours. The enormity of some of her work simply awed me. I took a poster of this poppy home, and it has hung in various homes and rooms ever since.

After I left New Mexico, the O'Keefe Museum opened in Santa Fe. I've never visited, but I hope to next summer, because I see they will be doing an exhibition with O'Keefe and another one of my favorites, Ansel Adams.

I'm not an art scholar. But I know what I like... :-)

Are you warm, are you real, Mona Lisa?

I heard this story the other day, and was fascinated. What amazing technology, that can figure out what was, but is no longer. And, admitedly, I was amused. Because some poor cleaning chap, probably with the most honorable of intentions, might just have erased Miss Lisa's eyebrows. OOPS!

Don't worry- you won't find any kind of destructive cleaning like that around here...

Fall Classic

He's our favorite reason that this household will rooting for the Colorado Rockies in this year's World Series. No relation, that we yet know of... Well, and of course, that they are COLORADO. What sense would it make for this family to cheer for Boston? (though we did live in nearby Connecticut twice...)

Actually, I was hoping that Cleveland would beat Boston, and THEN fall apart against the Rockies. Alas... But, reminder..., the Rockies did outscore the Red Sox 20-5 in three games of interleague play at Boston back in June. Goliath who, we say?

Go Rockies!

Felony Flyers

These are my favorite shoes, well, right now, and I'm not just saying that because they don't hurt my infected toe and they only cost $5 on clearance. A friend, who has experience with such things, calls them my Felony Flyers because, apparently, they are jail issue shoes. Who knew I was so edgy? HA!

When I wear these shoes, I have a sense of being READY. Ready to go, on a moments notice. It's that same feeling of wanting to make "vroom-vroom" noises when I ride my mountain bike and hop the curb. Probably the Proverbs 31 woman did not wear Converse sneakers (only because rubber had not yet been invented, maybe, though I have to concede, that purple and fine linen probably don't go so well with sneakers...), though these shoes give me just a little extra bit of strength, and I smile when I wear them. (Prov. 31:25) These shoes aren't the Gospel of peace, but I am ready to go and speak it, live it, when I wear them. (Eph 6:15)

Watch out world!

Just wanted to share... :-)

"Go Simply Means to Live"

from Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest:

"Go ye therefore..." Go simply means to live. Acts i. 8 is the description of how to go. Jesus did not say- Go into Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, but, "Ye shall be witnesses unto Me" in all these places. He undertakes to establish the goings.

"If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you..."- that is the way to keep going in our personal lives. Where we are placed is a matter of indifference; God engineers the goings."

Fall Break

A day off! Fall Break! The Academy set off south yesterday, bikes in tow, to Indian Cave State Park. Indian Cave is located next to the Missouri River and offers some spectacular views of the Missouri River valley. There really is a cave, with Indian petroglyphs of buffalo and deer, and some more modern work, like "Jordan 1977." We resisted adding to the collection.






We did, however, climb trees. (well, some of us..., not the official photographer, of course...)

We rode our bikes along the Missouri Watershed trail.












Here's a self-portrait, a peek into a one-room schoolroom that's on the property. If you look past the glare, you can see the classroom...
















We saw more fields being harvested than we could count.

We stopped at a family farm pumpkin patch in Nebraska City on the way home, and left with our arms full of pumpkins and gourds. I think the lady liked us... :-)


At any rate, I'm sure glad that my kids enjoy road trips! I guess they can hardly help it, as I've been toting them around the countryside, indeed, around the country, since before they can remember. Wonder where the road will take us next...?

Intercession

...When King Jehosphaphat faced an insurmountable problem, he made no pretense to know the solution. A vast army marched against him, and "he was afraid and set his face to seek the LORD..." He assembled the people together, and he prayed,

O Lord, God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. In your hand are power and might... For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you. (2 Chronicles 20:6, 12)

Like Jehosphat, we can unapologetically say to a woman facing a vast army, "Our God rules heaven and earth. I don't know the answer to your problem, but I will help you fix your eyes on Him. I will remind you of His sovereign love and power. I will pray for you, and I will encourage you to search out His word to know Him more intimately."

from The Legacy of Biblical Womanhood by Susan Hunt and Barbara Thompson