Wednesday Hodgepodge

Posted on April 20, 2011 by Barbara Harper

Joyce From This Side of the Pond hosts a weekly Wednesday Hodgepodge of questions for fun and for getting to know each other.

Here are the questions for this week:

1. What are your plans for Easter Day/weekend?

I’m not really sure yet — this will be a different kind of Easter for us since my oldest son now lives out of state and my middle son and daughter-in-law will be out of town to visit her mom and attend a friend’s wedding. We likely won’t have our usual egg hunt (with money in plastic eggs) with just one teen-ager at home. I don’t know if we’ll do Easter baskets. I do know our church is having a special, longer Sunday morning service and no evening service. And we’ll have our usual Easter dinner of ham and some kind of potatoes.

2. Besides Jesus, what one person from The Bible would you most like to meet and why?

I’ve been thinking about this question off and on since I saw them yesterday (Joyce posts the questions a day ahead) and have found it very hard to choose one, but I think I’d choose Martha. I tend to be like her and would love to hear more about how she balanced serving with worship.

3. What is one modern day convenience you didn’t have as a child that was easy to live without?

That’s hard to say as I lived without them easily seeing I didn’t know about them then. 🙂 But I have gotten quite dependent on my dishwasher, microwave, cell phone, computer, and GPS. And fast food. But I think one feature of many modern conveniences that I could easily live without is the beeping signals. The microwave, washer, dryer, coffeemaker, and I don’t know what all else beeps or buzzes when they are done and it drives me buggy. With most of them I know when they are about to be done, and if I don’t come running immediately it isn’t a disaster. Thankfully most of them have an option to turn off the signal. I can hardly eat in some fast food places because of the incessant machinery noise.

4. Are you more right brained or left brained? If you don’t know what that means there is an interesting little quiz here.

According to the quiz, I’m 56% left-brained and 44% right-brained. Some of the analysis seemed fairly accurate, some a little “off,” but that’s the way with most of these types of quizzes. According to this list (just googled it and found this chart, not clicking on the weird links!), I’d say I am more left-brained. But the analysis of the quiz mentions a lot about math, and I am not a math person, and says I am not very verbal, whereas I would say I am.

5. What is something you intended to do today but didn’t? Why?

I need to send some cards that I have been meaning to sign and address for days now. I’m not sure why I haven’t gotten to them yet — just distracted by other things, I guess.

6. Cadbury Creme Eggs or Reeses peanut butter?

Reese’s!!!

7. Who was your favorite cartoon character when you were a child?

Underdog.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

My knee was hurting to the point of hardly being able to walk on it last night, but thankfully it is better today except in certain positions (which I am trying to avoid.) My knees were x-rayed some time last year before we left SC, because they do give me trouble some times….but I don’t remember the results of the x-rays. 😳 I think it just indicated beginning arthritis. I’ve had a fear of someday needing knee replacement due to age and weight, and after hearing about what was involved from a friend who had both knees replaced at the same time, I want to avoid that! Last night I was all set to call the doctor first thing this morning, but I am thankful for a reprieve! This is the first time they’ve given me much trouble here since our new house does not have stairs. I do have a physical scheduled soon, so I’ll mention it then. (Edited to add: I may have spoken too soon about it being better — it just started up again just before lunch time. 😦 Hoping ibuprofen nips it in the bud.)

Just popping in to say hello…

Posted on April 19, 2011 by Barbara Harper

This has been an odd day. I’ve had a few post ideas in mind, but none would coalesce into a post. I was very tired and sleepy (and therefore cranky… 😳 ) yesterday, but when I tried to take a nap, I couldn’t get to sleep, and every time I dozed off in my desk chair, something would happen to wake me up. This morning when I was falling asleep in my chair at 9 a.m., I climbed back into bed, and I think I’m caught up on my sleep now though I slept much longer than intended. I’m in a much pleasanter frame of mind, anyway! But my thoughts still aren’t coming together enough to say anything of importance.

I’m not sure what the deal is, but I have noticed that when I have a very busy period of time, it takes me longer to “recover” — I seem to have a few days of malaise after having a few days of intense busyness. So I’ll just assume that is what is going on, and hopefully I’ll be back up to par tomorrow.

But now I need to try to salvage the day and go get something accomplished!

(Blog cartoon from We Blog Cartoons.)

The Week In Words

Posted on April 18, 2011 by Barbara Harper

Welcome to The Week In Words, where we share quotes from the last week’s reading. If something you read this past week inspired you, caused you to laugh, cry, think, dream, or just resonated with you in some way, please share it with us, attributing it to its source, which can be a book, newspaper, blog, Facebook — anything that you read. More information is here.

I thought I’d share a few quotes related to Easter this week. Many of them have appeared on my blog in past years.

God expects from men something more…at such times, and that it were much to be wished for the credit of their religion as well as the satisfaction of their conscience that their Easter devotions would in some measure come up to their Easter dress. — Robert South

People say the cross is a sign of how much man is worth. That’s not true. The cross is a sign of how depraved we really are, that it took the death of God’s own Son. The only thing that could save a people like us was the death of God’s own Son under the wrath of His own Father paying the price, rising again from the dead. Powerful to say, this is the Gospel of Jesus. — Paul Washer

We greatly need the cheer of this precious Easter truth. We make too little of the place our Lord has gone to prepare for us. We rob ourselves greatly when we try to reduce heaven to a mere state of ecstatic feeling. We need the cheer which comes of having the eye of faith fixed on the better country and the city that hath the foundations. Such a certainty of an inheritance that is real and that cannot fade away goes far to mitigate the pangs which come of the fires and floods and disasters and frauds which so often despoil God’s people of their earthly possessions; for we know that the things seen are temporal, but the things not seen are eternal, and they are only a few heart-beats away. – E.P. Goodwin

IF you come to seek His face, not in the empty sepulchre, but in the living power of His presence, as indeed realizing that He has finished His glorious work, and is alive for evermore, then your hearts will be full of true Easter joy, and that joy will shed itself abroad in your homes. And let your joy not end with the hymns and the prayers and the communions in His house. Take with you the joy of Easter to the home, and make that home bright with more unselfish love, more hearty service; take it into your work, and do all in the name of the Lord Jesus; take it to your heart, and let that heart rise anew on Easter wings to a higher, a gladder, a fuller life; take it to the dear grave-side and say there the two words “Jesus lives!” and find in them the secret of calm expectation, the hope of eternal reunion. – John Ellerton

There are many tombs where we may be held if we succumb to the powers of sin and death. Hatred, self-pity, bitterness, resentment–these are tombs. By the power that raised Jesus Christ from that sealed and guarded tomb we may be delivered from whatever seals us off from life. Jesus came to give us life, nothing less than life, “abundant” life….Do you know someone you are praying for who is living in the darkness of such a tomb? Has it seemed that there is no more possibility of getting through to him than to someone buried? Resentment has sealed him off from any approach. Pray for the power of the resurrection to release him. Refuse, by the grace of God, to be held back by his bitterness. Then ask the Lord to help you to meet him next time in the consciousness of Christ risen. Instead of dreading the meeting because of the thought of former disastrous meetings, face it with joy. Christ is risen! Christ is risen! — Elisabeth Elliot, “Death Shall Not Hold Us,” from A Lamp For My Feet

If you’ve read anything that particularly spoke to you that you’d like to share, please either list it in the comments below or write a post on your blog and then put the link to that post (not your general blog link) in Mr. Linky below. I do ask that only family-friendly quotes be included. I hope you’ll visit some of the other participants as well and glean some great thoughts to ponder.

And please do comment even if you don’t have quotes to share!

Waiting For Spring

Posted on April 17, 2011 by Barbara Harper

Though cloudy skies, and northern blasts,
Retard the gentle spring awhile;
The sun will conqu’ror prove at last,
And nature wear a vernal smile.

The promise, which from age to age,
Has brought the changing seasons round;
Again shall calm the winter’s rage,
Perfume the air, and paint the ground.

The virtue of that first command,
I know still does, and will prevail;
That while the earth itself shall stand,
The spring and summer shall not fail.

Such changes are for us decreed;
Believers have their winters too;
But spring shall certainly succeed,
And all their former life renew.

Winter and spring have each their use,
And each, in turn, his people know;
One kills the weeds their hearts produce,
The other makes their graces grow.

Though like dead trees awhile they seem,
Yet having life within their root,
The welcome spring’s reviving beam
Draws forth their blossoms, leaves, and fruit.

But if the tree indeed be dead,
It feels no change, though spring return,
Its leafless naked, barren head,
Proclaims it only fit to burn.

Dear LORD, afford our souls a spring,
Thou know’st our winter has been long;
Shine forth, and warm our hearts to sing,
And thy rich grace shall be our song.

-John Newton, 1779, from Olney Hymns, vol. 2, hymn 31

Laudable Linkage and Cool Videos

Posted on April 16, 2011 by Barbara Harper

I didn’t have quite as much time for web surfing this week, but here are a few noteworthy things I did see:

The Unsaved Christian. Someone on Facebook linked to this. At first I balked at the title because someone is not a Christian if unsaved, so this seemed like a misnomer, but the article explains what she means and gently but clearly sounds a needed warning.

Winning Your Friends to Christ, HT to Susan.

Grace Spots.

Responding to the Scandal. If you saw the recent 20/20 report on abuse within IFB churches, this is the best response I have seen, HT to my son, Jeremy. I’ve been thinking about writing a post about this issue, but this hasn’t been a week I could have extended thoughtful time at the computer. But Dr. Bauder says just about everything I would say and more, and much better.

Homemade Note Pads are presented as a Teacher Appreciation Gift, but they’d be good for anyone.

Styrofoam Wall Art. I forget where I saw the link to this. I’ve seen similar ideas using canvas, but this would be cheaper.

Timelapse Video of San Francisco-to-Paris flight Captures Aurora Borealis. Neat article and video.

This is pretty funny. I can see how they do some of it, but they do the change-out pretty fast!

Have a great Saturday! We had storms through the night and lost power this morning, but I am so glad it is back on now!

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on April 15, 2011 by Barbara Harper

Welcome to Friday’s Fave Five, hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, in which we can share five of our favorite things from the last week. This has been a wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God blesses us with. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.

It has been a super-busy week! Here are some of the highlights:

1. Cookies, cookies, everywhere. Jesse’s school lets the seniors sell baked goods at lunch time to fundraise for their senior trip. This year’s seniors have already gone on their trip, so now the juniors can get a head start on next year. The way they do it is that each one who wants to participate signs up to bring baked goods for an entire week — and this was our week. I’ve made double or triple batches of seven different kinds of cookies this week. Even that was less than I thought I’d have to do — the band was away for a competition a few days, which cut into his sales a bit, so he had leftovers to bring back some days. Of course the family has enjoyed a few of the extras, but I don’t want to have to make any more cookies for a while now.

2. Dogwoods after all. I feel like such a ninny — I said last week I was enjoying seeing the dogwoods in bloom around town but missed having some in our yard. Then what did I discover in my back yard this week:

I’m afraid I don’t recognize them when they’re dormant or leafy, just when they’re blooming. 😳 But I was glad to see that that’s what those trees are! They’re fairly small yet — just about 6-8 feet. So it will be nice to watch them grow.

3. Good AC with a vent right by the oven. I feel bad mentioning AC when some of you still have snow, but we’ve needed it this week. Having a vent right by the stove really helped as much as I had the oven on this week.

4. Plenty of counter space. The kitchen was one of the things I loved about this house, and when three of us were in there getting a meal ready this past weekend, I was so glad there was room to do so comfortably. That was impossible in our last house! And then when making cookies, I used to have to leave them on the table to cool, but now there is enough counter space to keep everything in the kitchen.

5. This tree, which I think my husband said was a Japanese Maple, is placed so that it gives us privacy in front of the house, plus I like the way the window on the door frames it. It’s fairly small as well now.

I’m also glad for antibiotics. My husband has a monster ear infection with what the doctor called a virulent bacteria and missed two days of work earlier in the week. His ear is still painful and swollen a bit, but it’s much better than it was and he’s feeling closer to normal than he was.

We had to get up early last Saturday to get Jesse to his ACT test, so I am really looking forward to getting to sleep in and not having any obligations tomorrow.

Happy weekend!

Looking Up

Posted on April 15, 2011 by Barbara Harper

Quilly has started a once a month Quilldancing Writing Assignment. She gives a prompt and we come up with a story based on it in 500 words or less.

I’ve had to sit out the last couple of months. My first attempt back in January was way over the word limit, and even with cutting out over 200 words, it was still over the word count. This one is a bit under — I had started it a while back and then forgot about it, so I hadn’t developed it any further until this morning. But I like it as is, so I think I am going to pronounce last time’s overage and this one’s lower count as balanced. 🙂

The prompt for today is:

As we all know, “April showers bring May flowers”. This month’s story should include a sudden rain fall and a recalcitrant umbrella. And, since this is National Poetry Month, your story should include a bit of poetry. You can write it yourself or use somebody else’s (be sure to give credit where credit is due); it can rhyme or not; as you wish. See you on the 15th!

My story:

Susan awoke with a start and looked with bleary eyes at her alarm clock. “Oh, no! That thing failed to go off again!” She needed a more reliable clock, but no time to think about that now: she flew into high gear trying to get ready for work.

Along the way, a series of small calamities multiplied her frustrations. The blouse she wanted to wear had a spot on it. In her haste making breakfast her sausage biscuit wasn’t quite warm enough before she had to wolf it down on the go. A train crossing the street out of her neighborhood delayed her even more. She couldn’t miss her boss’s scowl as she scurried to her place. She discovered they were shorthanded, and she ended up having to work through her lunch hour. Her customers seemed particularly demanding and impatient. 5:00 could not come soon enough.

When she finally clocked out, she dashed over to the electronics store to find a new alarm clock. Purchase in hand, she exited the store to discover the clouds that had been threatening all day had finally erupted into a sudden storm. As she unfolded her umbrella, she commented to herself, “I’m glad I brought this thing. At least something went right today.” She had had to park her car quite a ways away, and less than halfway there a gust of wind blew her umbrella inside out. Cradling her purchase in her elbow, she tried to reach the mechanism on her umbrella to close it while simultaneously trying to jiggle the thing back into its proper form, all to no avail.

Soaked from her struggles, she was on the verge of either screaming or crying when she became aware that a shadow had passed over and she wasn’t feeling the rain any more. She looked up to see a large black umbrella over her. She turned around to look up into the face of its owner. Tall. Handsome. Smiling brown eyes. Crooked grin.

“You know how it is with an April day,” he said.

Her wet bangs were plastered to her forehead and dripping into her eyes. “What?”

“You know that old poem by Robert Frost? “ He quoted with a flourish:

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You’re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you’re two months back in the middle of March.

She smiled. “Well, that certainly does sound like April.”

He handed her a handkerchief and asked, “Bad day?”

“It’s starting to get better.”

Wednesday Hodgepodge

Posted on April 13, 2011 by Barbara Harper

Joyce From This Side of the Pond hosts a weekly Wednesday Hodgepodge of questions for fun and for getting to know each other.

Here are the questions for this week:

1. Would you rather talk to everyone at a crowded party for a short time or have a significant conversation with two people?

Definitely the latter. Although I feel I should get around to say hi to other people (though not necessarily everyone) rather than just holing myself in a corner, I’d much rather talk with just one or two people about something significant than chitchat with a lot of people.

2. What objects do you remember from your parent’s living room?

My mom collected owls, and I can’t remember how many she had at one point when I tried to count them — I am thinking over 100, but that may be exaggerated imagination. But she had scores of them, anyway. Most were figurines but one was a humongous wax one about 2 ft. high. She and my step-dad had recliners and there was a couch and love seat for the rest of us. And a pretty big entertainment center.

3. Do you hog the bed? Steal the covers? Snore?

I pretty much stay in the same spot all night, near the edge of the bed (so I can reach lamp, alarm clock, water bottle, tissues, etc., if needed.) In the morning, if my husband has not been in bed, my side of the covers is just folded back and very easy to remake the bed. I think he thinks I hog the covers because if he has gone to bed first, I sometimes have to pull them over — but he tends to “take his half out of the middle” (a phrase my mom used for people who drive down the middle of the road). I don’t think I snore when I am lying down, but sometimes I have woken (waked?) myself up snoring if I have fallen asleep in the desk chair or couch sitting up.

4. Speaking of Easter dinner….what is your favorite way to cook/eat lamb? Or does just the thought of that make you squeamish? If you’re not cooking lamb what will be your entree du jour on Easter Sunday?

I’ve never had lamb. I love meat in general and don’t have a problem eating animals, but there is something about the thought of eating a cute little lamb that makes me not want to. Though lamb would be fittingly symbolic for Easter, we usually have ham — and I feel funny about celebrating the resurrection of Jewish Savior with ham, but…..that’s what we usually have. I don’t know how it got to be tradition to eat ham for Easter, but it is. A local grocery store has a spiral-sliced brown sugar version that is very good and much cheaper than the name brand stores for such things. I usually also make cheesy potatoes and either broccoli or salad or Vegetable Medley. And we have Resurrection Rolls with breakfast.

5. Let’s throw some politics into this week’s mix-oooohhh…Do you know the whereabouts of your birth certificate and when was the last time you had to produce it to prove you’re you?

I couldn’t find it when after we moved here and the local DMV required it for driver’s license registration, though we have a file for that kind of thing. I need to send off for it — I still don’t have my TN driver’s license (sh, don’t tell…). The last time I remember needing it was when we applied for our marriage license. I don’t remember needing it for driver’s licenses in other states…but maybe I just don’t remember.

6. As a child, how did people describe you?

Quiet.

7. What do you complain about the most?

Out loud — probably being hot. Inwardly — probably thoughtlessness.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

I don’t understand why people put mushrooms in anything. They seem rubbery and don’t have any taste to me. They kind of gross me out — I usually pick them out of food if I can do so unobtrusively. (This just came to mind because I was disappointed to see some in my Chunky Soup today.)

Book Review: 10 Gospel Promises For Later Life

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Barbara Harper

I don’t usually begin book reviews this way, but I feel I must say at the outset that I cannot recommend 10 Gospel Promises For Later Life by Jane Marie Thibault.

The premise is a good one. Mrs. Thibault has been a clinical gerontologist and has worked with the elderly for nearly thirty years. After a consultation with a pastor whose housebound church members said they had trouble relating to the gospel any more for various reasons, Mrs. Thibault began discussing this with her patients and heard similar comments. So she compiled a list of ten major concerns elderly people face — among them, depending on others for help, fear of illness, pain, fragility, disability, loneliness, losing everything and ending up in a nursing home, life after death — and sought to apply gospel truth to them.

While there are some helpful parts to the book, unfortunately there are several major difficulties.

In a section speaking of Jesus’ suffering on the cross, the author says:

Jesus realized that his suffering was necessary. The only way he could convince humanity of God’s love for us was to die for his cause and his teaching. He put his money where his mouth was, dying for his message out of total and complete God-love for the entire world’s well-being until the end of time (p. 85).

Jesus’ death was much more than dying for his cause to convince us of his teaching! He died so that those who believe could be”justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus (Romans 3:24-26.) If a judge told a convicted murderer that he could go free, everyone would cry that that was unjust. In the same way, God cannot just forgive sins without satisfying His justice. When Jesus took our sin on Himself and suffered our punishment, that act satisfied God’s holiness and justice, so He could justify us and still be just Himself, and those who receive Christ as Savior receive as well “the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe” (Romans 3:22).

Another major problem I have with the book is Mrs. Thibault’s belief that living people can ask the dead for help. Speaking of “institutionally acknowledged saints,” she writes:

“If they continue to live in God’s love and to participate in God’s love of us, the saints might also help us in our daily lives, especially if we ask them to enable us to grow in our love of God and one another” p. 121-122).

“I also believe that every single Christian in the church visible (that’s us) can ask for help from anyone in the church triumphant (those who have been promoted into heaven before us”) (p. 123).

She relates that in struggling with forgiving her mother because of feeling that her mother had been apathetic to her and emotionally abandoned her before her death when the author was a teenager, the author wrote a prayer to her mother asking that the two of them work on healing their relationship.

There is nothing in the Bible that encourages interaction with the dead: in fact, there are warnings against it. Deuteronomy 18:11 says, “There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch.Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.” The only time I can remember in the Bible that anyone tried to communicate with the dead was in I Samuel 28 when King Saul was desperate because the Philistines were about to attack him and God wasn’t answering his prayers any more because of his disobedience. He tried to contact the prophet Samuel through a medium, and Samuel did not say, “Hi there, what can I do for you?” He said, “Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up?” He not only did not help him, but he prophesied that Saul and his sons would be die. There is nothing I am aware of in the New Testament that would negate these warnings. Mrs. Thibault is not advocating using mediums or having seances, but still, there is nothing in the Bible instructing us to seek help from the dead or to pray to anyone other than God. Why would we want to, anyway, when He has promised to meet every need exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think?

A third major problem is the idea that “By interpreting our suffering as energy that can be useful to the human community and by offering this energy to God, we unite our sufferings with those of Christ…In effect, we turn the energy of our suffering into a gift for others to use for their well-being” (p. 86). She posits “According to the string theory of quantum physics, we are all inter-connected by subatomic ‘strings’ along which energy flows from one created thing to another. We can use our will, our intention, to direct this energy wherever we want it to go” (p. 88-89). According to my husband, who is a physicist, this is a faulty application, and the string theory is just a theory: according to Wikipedia, “The theory has yet to make testable experimental predictions, which a theory must do in order to be considered a part of science.” Mrs. Thibault says “This sounds like the scientific equivalent of Jesus’ image of the vine and the branches” (p. 89), but Jesus is speaking of the spiritual life and energy He gives to those who abide in Him (John 15), not of our directing energy wherever we want it. She writes, “Jesus has promised us that we can use our suffering energy for the welfare of all” (p.91). Not in any version of the Bible I have ever read. There are many Scriptural reasons for suffering, but nothing like this is mentioned: even the section of suffering for others’ sake does not indicate this kind of thing. The author tells of “dedicated suffering” as a group for agreed upon persons and says that those who participated in this kind of thing decreased their doctor visits and personal complaints. I don’t doubt that they felt better, but I think it was more likely due to the thought that their pain could help others and the practice of each participant expressing his or her pain. It is helpful to discuss your pain with others who also experience pain who would uniquely understand you. The author says this practice of offering the energy created by our pain to others or to God for Him to use for others “has its theological foundation” in Colossians 1:24: “Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church.” But I do not believe this type of practice is what Paul is talking about (my views on what this verse is teaching align more with what is taught here.)

Even though there were parts of the book I found helpful and useful, I cannot endorse it overall for these reasons.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

The Week In Words

Posted on April 11, 2011 by Barbara Harper

This is one of those weeks when I have many I want to share, but I am afraid if I share all of them at once, some will lose their impact and get lost in the shuffle. But if I try to leave some for another week when I don’t have any….well, so far there has been only one week like that! So I think I will just get started and then decide what to do.

This is a quote from a former pastor on a friend’s Facebook:

“Obedience is not legalism. It is the beautiful response of spirit-enabled people to say yes to God.” — Mark Minnick

That’s a rich one that really needs some time to meditate on. I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced being accused of legalism when you were simply trying to obey something you felt Scripture taught (and another differed on), but I have. Or, on the other hand, some people so emphasize grace that they don’t seem to see a need for obedience because they have grace for their disobedience. God provides grace in abundance when we fail, but He provides grace to obey and avoid failing, too if we ask Him (speaking here of the everday walk of a Christian — we all need God’s grace for salvation because we all have failed in the first place.)

This was seen at Challies in a review of the book Written in Tears by Luke Veldt which he wrote after reading Psalm 103 every day for a year after his teen-age daughter suddenly died. I haven’t read the book yet, but I want to.

Sometimes people of faith have a hard time remembering that suffering was an excruciatingly painful process for Job. ‘The Lord gives and the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord,’ we quote Job brightly—forgetting that when he said it he had shaved his head and torn his clothes and that a few days later he was sitting on an ash heap, covering in painful boils and cursing the day he was born.

Don’t try to make the pain go away. The pain doesn’t go away. Hurt with me.

Rich advice for anyone wanting to help anyone suffering.

From a devotional titled The Invitation by Derick Bingham. commenting on John 7:37, 44:

You are not big enough to be the goal of your own existence. Make Him your goal.

The next few are from Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross: Experiencing the Passion and Power of Easter, compiled by Nancy Guthrie.

From Adrian Rogers on Isaiah 53:7 concerning Jesus’s silence before His accusers (p. 53):

If Jesus had risen up in His own defense during His trials, I believe He would have been so powerful and irrefutable in making His defense that no governor, high priest, or other legal authority could have stood against Him! In other words, if Jesus had taken up His own defense with the intention of refuting His accusers and proving His innocence, He would have won! But we would have lost, and we would be lost for all eternity.

I had never thought about it that way before, but I am sure that that is at least one of the reasons for His silence.

And from Martyn Lloyd-Jones on Hebrews 2:14-15 (p. 77-78):

The world was very pleased with itself, was it not, as it looked upon him there dying upon the cross? That is why they laugh. That is why they are joking. At last they had got him, they had nailed him, they had killed him. He was finished….. The devil thought he was defeating Christ, but Christ was reconciling us to God, defeating the devil and delivering us out of His clutches.

If it was not so deadly serious, the irony would be amusing that when the devil did his worst against Christ, Christ was using that very act to redeem men and deliver them from the devil.

I think I will stop there today — I have another lengthy one but I think I will save it for its own post.

And please do comment even if you don’t have quotes to share!