Author Archives: Barbara Harper

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About Barbara Harper

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Friday’s Fave Five

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It’s Friday once again, and time to pause with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story to count our blessings.

1. An excursion to the American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge, TN, with Jason and Timothy. Mittu wasn’t feeling well, unfortunately. We talked a bit about postponing our visit, but Timothy had been looking forward to going. I imagine Mittu enjoyed some rare time to herself, though I know she missed being with the family.

We had visited the museum when we first moved here, and at that time it badly needed updating. Thankfully, they changed locations and redid the whole thing. There’s a lot for kids to run around and look at and interact with, but there are also places to slow down and read and learn and experiment.

2. Dinner at Jesse’s. He made us some pineapple glazed ham steaks that were really good. I made cheesy potatoes and applesauce cake; Mittu made green beans and gluten-free bread with pepperoni and cheese inside–something like stromboli. It’s nice to split up meals like that. Then we enjoyed some games.

3. Nice temperatures. We made it into the high 60s a few days this week! Winter isn’t over yet–the forecast shows we’re headed for 20s in a few days. But it was a nice break to have moderate weather.

4. Homemade soups. I love potato soup, but rarely make it from scratch. I get my cravings satisfied by occasional takeout from McAlister’s Deli. But this week, I just wanted potato soup. And since I was peeling so many potatoes anyway, I made a big batch–enough for one dinner and two lunches. Then one day for lunch I used some leftover baked chicken for some chicken noodle soup. This week hasn’t been as cold as the previous weeks, but it was still good to have homemade soups.

5. A competent customer service person makes such a difference in how a service call goes. We had to return a call to a government agency to give them information they asked for, and got handed off to three people before we found one that could help us. She gets bonus points for being reasonably pleasant.

How was your week?

Quotes about Reading

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Reading is one of my favorite pastimes, and for years I’ve collected quotes about reading and books that rang true for me. Here are a few:

“And indeed, what is better than to sit by one’s fireside in the evening with a book, while the wind beats against the window and the lamp is burning?”
~ Gustave Flaubert

“…and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.”
~Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! — When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”
~ Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“When I am king, they shall not have bread and shelter only, but also teachings out of books, for a full belly is little worth where the mind is starved.”
~ Mark Twain, The Prince and the Pauper

“Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly — they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.”
~ Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.”
~ Italo Calvino, The Uses of Literature

“The author who benefits you most is not the one who tells you something you did not know before, but the one who gives expression to the truth that has been dumbly struggling in you for utterance.”
~ Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, Dec. 15

“Far from being an escape from reality, good literature is a window into reality.”
~ Gladys Hunt, Honey for a Woman’s Heart

Which of these resonates with you? Do you have any other good quotes about books or reading?

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)

To Be a Clod

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Amy Carmichael was one of Elisabeth Elliot’s heroes, and both women are heroes of mine.

Recently a newsletter from the Elisabeth Elliot Foundation closed with this poem by Amy Carmichael, which Elisabeth had quoted in one of her radio broadcasts:

From prayer that asks that I may be
Sheltered from winds that beat on Thee,
From fearing when I should aspire,
From faltering when I should climb higher,
From silken self, O Captain, free
Thy soldier who would follow Thee.

From subtle love of softening things,
From easy choices, weakenings,
Not thus are spirits fortified,
Not this way went the Crucified;
From all that dims Thy Calvary,
O Lamb of God, deliver me.

Give me the love that leads the way,
The faith that nothing can dismay,
The hope no disappointments tire,
The passion that will burn like fire;
Let me not sink to be a clod;
Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God.

—Amy Carmichael

 I first read this poem as a young adult. I may have been in college or a newlywed when I first read Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur by Frank Houghton. I couldn’t help but be inspired by Amy’s fervor, courage, and determination to follow God wherever He led her. She became a missionary to India. It might be more correct to say she made India her home for the rest of her life.

There’s something about youth that is inherently passionate. Most young people have a burning desire to make their lives count, to make a difference, to further a cause bigger than themselves.

But after several decades, we tend to get more settled, don’t we?

Being settled isn’t always a bad thing. Though I continue to learn and grow, I am more settled in my convictions, less like “children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” (Ephesians 4:14).

I’m more settled in my self-image. I’ve never been super-model material, but I am okay with that now.

I’m more settled in my marriage. After forty-three years, my husband and I know each other pretty well. We’ve worked out our differences and learned to complement (and compliment) each other. We still find plenty to talk about.

But I hope I never become settled in the sense of complacency in my faith and walk with God, to let “easy choices” of “silken self” give way to the “subtle love of softening things.” We can be more inclined to do so as our physical capacity begins to decline.

I’ve often wondered at Amy’s use of the word “clod” in the next-to-last line. After the beautiful phrasing in the rest of the poem, “clod” seems like a jolt, like stubbing your toe on a rock. I would guess Amy probably did that on purpose.

A quick look in the dictionary shows that a clod is a lump, usually of dirt or clay. But it’s also a term used for an oaf or dolt. Amy may have meant the word in the latter sense. But I like to think of it as a lump, especially since she spoke of sinking to be a clod.

I’m not a soil specialist; I am not even a gardener. But when I think of a clod, it seems like it has three possibilities for its future.

First, it could erode. Wind and rain could chip off tiny bits of it until nothing is left.

It could get harder due to the sun beating down on it while it just sits there.

Or it could be tilled, broken up into useful soil again.

The last thought brings to mind Hosea 10:12: “Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.”

The ways God has used me have changed over the years with age, health issues, life circumstances. I can’t (and don’t even desire to) do things I once did.

But that was true of Amy, too. After a fall, she became an invalid for the last twenty years of her life. How she ministered to others changed. But she still followed hard after God in her heart, met with people as she was able, wrote books, sent notes of encouragement to her coworkers and inhabitants of the orphanage and hospital on the Dohnavur complex.

Of course, age and declining abilities are not the only contributors to cloddishness. It’s easy at any age to settle into a cozy lump of inertia.

May God give us hearts soft and pliable to His leading and will rather than soft to comfort and pleasures.

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)

Laudable Linkage

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I’m finally caught up on my blog reading! For now. Here are some of the best posts discovered in the last week.

More Than Jumper Cable Christianity, HT to Challies. “We use jumper cables when our car’s battery is depleted, dead, and in need of a jump from another battery to get going. We connect jumper cables to another car, get some juice, and then go about our day and way. I fear far too many of us approach “abiding” in Christ this way. We do some Bible reading, read a devotional book, get some spiritual voltage and roll out.”

Feeding our Longing, HT to Challies. “Have you ever felt like there was more to life than this? Known some sense of longing for the future?”

How to Think About God Promoting His Own Glory, HT to Challies. “Many people misinterpret God’s character when looking at his demands and actions in history because they imagine what they would think of a fallen human being who did the things God has done, and they recoil. Failing to picture God as he is, they picture instead what they’re familiar with—a sinful, human tyrant imposing his preferred laws on people by force, destroying nations, or demanding worship.”

Units of Thought in Narrative Scripture. “One of the most important observations to make in a passage is the structure. And the way to observe structure is to first identify the parts of the passage (the units of thought) so that you can figure out how those parts relate to one another. In this post I’ll show you some of the ways to recognize the units of thought in a narrative.”

Flaunting Your Faithfulness: The Dangers of Conspicuous Christianity. “Conspicuous Christianity is the practice of seeking to appear more godly, not out of devotion to Christ or the love of others, but purely for the sake of winning the approval of other people. Conspicuous Christianity can come in many different forms, but it usually has some of the following characteristics . . .”

Keep Doing the Small Things, HT to Challies. “What if your greatest spiritual growth does not come through some cataclysmic event. What if the most important spiritual breakthroughs in your life are slow and methodical? Are you going to be OK with that?”

All My Not-Enoughness, HT to Challies. “I’m confronted with my not-enoughness a lot lately. As I get dressed, as I parent, as I’m faced with yet another important thing I’ve forgotten. When I try to write and the words won’t come. When I feel so tired that every inch of me longs to slink to the floor and crawl back into bed.”

The Hidden Super-Stars of Missions, HT to Challies. “I coach new missionaries as they prepare to go overseas. I’ve found I can often predict how quickly they’ll be able to raise support based on one crucial factor: whether they have an advocate who will come alongside them.”

Words That Lead, HT to Challies. Loved this post on the myths and responsibilities of writing.

On Reading Widely: Are You Stuck on One Shelf? “Root your thinking in the Word of God first, but be informed about the world around you. Resist being spoon fed by others. Do your own reading and research to form your own opinions.”

Friday’s Fave Five

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Here we are at the start of a new month. The skies have been gloomy lately. Apparently we have six more weeks of winter coming, according to yesterday’s predictions. It would be easy to get in a funk. But counting our blessings is one way to help us see the good things we so easily overlook or forget. Some of us like to do this weekly with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story. Please feel free to join in!

1. Pork loin on sale for $1.27 per pound. Jim cut it into managable pieces and cooked them in the sous vide cooker Jeremy made him, and then browned them to a nice finish. We tried to go back and buy more for the freezer, but the sale was only on for two days rather than the usual week. The loins were back up to $3.98 per pound. Next time, we’ll know to get more than one.

2. Family dinners. Since Jesse moved out, sometimes we see him or Jason’s family separately, but I love when we’re all together. It’s even better when Jeremy, my oldest, is in town. Since the pork tenderloin was a pretty big piece of meat, we invited the local ones over for dinner. Mittu made some amazing cinnamon rolls.

3. Cute *fluffy* dish towels. It’s hard to find fluffy dish towels these days. The flat ones get soaked with just a few uses. On one of my recent excursions, I found these (I think at Home Goods)–just right for this time of year!

4. Adding to my bird collection. Some time ago, I bought one of these little birds at Target. I can’t remember which of the two on the right was my first. Then Timothy bought me the next two. I wanted to find one more to have two even pairs, but hadn’t seen any in a while. Then I recently saw a couple more. I couldn’t decide between the two on the left, so I got both. Now I am back to an uneven number, but that’s okay. I especially like the glasses on the one.

5. Family texts. we have a family group text not only for any important news, but also for fun things we want to share, pictures of home projects or dinner creations, Timothy’s sayings or activities or school work. I love that we can touch base throughout the week.

How was your week?

Writing for the Soul

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Writing for the Soul: Instruction and Advice from an Extraordinary Writing Life by Jerry B. Jenkins is part memoir as well as instruction, advice, and tips about writing. But even the biographical parts are written to share what he learned.

Jenkins started out working for a newspaper writing for the sports section while he was still in high school. His goal was to write for the Chicago Tribune until a message at camp about surrendering his all to the Lord led him to do just that. A job editing a Sunday School paper for Scripture Press under a tough editor caused him to hone his skills. An interview led to his first book, a biography. Many of his next books were biographies or “as told to” stories. Then he branched into fiction. Left Behind, the book for which he is probably most well known, was his 125th book.

In Writing for the Soul, Jenkins covers everything from his family policy, motives and tools for writing, discovering what to write and your audience, characters, plot, perspective, and much more. Some of the chapters end with a question and answer section. Interspersed through the chapters are smaller sections covering topics ranging from working with celebrities to the need for humility to internal dialogue of characters. In a paper book, these might have been sidebars: in the Kindle version I read, they were paragraphs withing the chapter but set off by dividing lines.

In-between chapters, Jenkins shares experiences with some of the people whose biographies he has written, from Meadowlark Lemon and other sports figures to musician B. J. Thomas to Billy Graham.

I especially appreciated the sections on making inspirational writing not sound “preachy.”

As you can imagine, I have myriads of quotations marked in this book. Just a few:

Know where your audience is coming from, imagine someone you know or know of who fits in that audience, and pretend you’re writing to that person alone (p. 5, Kindle version).

What’s your passion? Your strength? What field do you really know? Write about it. Fashion a short story, write a poem, interview a leader in the field, or work on a novel. Put yourself and your interests into it (p. 11).

Big doors turn on small hinges (p. 13).

The most attractive quality in a person is humility. Sometimes money and fame will come whether or not you expect or seek them. But if you become enamored with the trappings of success, they become your passion. You need to return to your first love . . . Don’t let success or pressure change you. If you become a success, stick with what got you there (p. 38).

Choice words in precise order bear power unmatched by amplified images and sound and technical magic (p. 54).

Don’t confuse inspiration with initiative. Initiative solves your procrastination problem and pulls you through writer’s block. Inspiration gives you something worth writing about (p. 57).

Variety still keeps the batteries fresh (p. 71).

The stuff that comes easy takes the most rewriting. And the stuff that comes hard reads the easiest (p. 194).

This book was first published in 2006, and my copy was updated in 2012. Just a couple of places seem a little out of date, like working with cassette tapes for interviews (unless people still do that. I’d assume most recording is done digitally now).

He also doesn’t have much esteem for self-published books, thinking the goal of self-publishing is to be picked up by a major publisher. But self-publishing has increased exponentially in the last few years and garners much more respect now than when the first self-published books came across as “homemade” and unprofessional. I wonder if his views have changed on that.

But the majority of his advice is timeless, and I gained much from it.

You can also find Jerry Jenkins’ advice at his web site and blog.

(This book would work for either the memoir or arts category of the Nonfiction Reader Challenge.)

January Reflections

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I used to dislike January because all the excitement of Christmas was over, all the decorations and lights were taken down, the weather was cold, the skies were overcast. But in the last few years, I’ve appreciated January as a restful month after the busyness of December.

This January has not been as restful as usual. But keeping busy helps keep my mind off winter. One thing that encourages me the most is the knowledge that we’ve been getting a little more daylight every day since the winter equinox.

I shared on some Fridays Fave Five posts that we went with Jason, Mittu, and Timothy to a car show and then with Jesse to a Knoxville Symphony Orchestra performance of the music from Jurassic Park—while the movie played.

One not-as-fun outing was a visit to the dentist for a filling, only to discover that the damage to the tooth was more extensive than originally thought and will require more work. I had to take antibiotics for an infection in the tooth and still need to call the dentist back to discuss the next steps. As much as I don’t want to deal with this, it won’t go away until I do.

I’ve mentioned here and there that we’ve been visiting churches in search of a new church home. We loved the folks at our last church, but had a difference of opinion over a doctrinal distinction that we didn’t hold to. We still love them and wish them well, but just felt we were going a different direction.

It’s a little unsettling not to have a church home. Much of our conversation the last several months has been discussing and weighing the different places we’ve visited. One good thing, though, is finding small groups of believers here and there that love God.

I usually share the cards I’ve made each month, but there were none this time.

And I don’t have much worth mentioning in the watching/listening category except the new season of All Creatures Great and Small on PBS.

So, on to books and blog posts!

Reading

Since last time, I have finished (titles link to my reviews):

I’m currently reading:

  • Be Rich (Ephesians): Gaining the Things That Money Can’t Buy by Warren W. Wiersbe
  • Writing for the Soul: Instruction and Advice from an Extraordinary Writing Life by Jerry B. Jenkins
  • All That’s Good by Hannah Anderson
  • The Fence My Father Built by Linda S. Clare (audiobook). Not sure I’ll be able to recommend this as it seems to promote a syncretism between trusting “Jesus and all the angels” and one’s Native American ancestors. But I’ll see how it ends up.
  • The Space Between Words by Michele Phoenix

Blogging

Besides the weekly Friday Fave Fives, Saturday Laudable Linkage, and book reviews, I’ve posted these since last time:

  • Let Not Your Hearts Be Troubled, drawing on Jesus’ counsel to His disciples just before He was arrested.
  • “Everyday Hallelujahs. “But worship isn’t just for Sundays or public gatherings. We don’t acknowledge God on Sundays and then go back to our regular work without giving Him any more thought. We can worship Him in everything we do because He is with us and has given us all we have.”
  • What Does God Want Us to Continue? We often start January with new goals. But some things we should continue from year to year.
  • Be Your Own Unique Style of Grandparent. We probably don’t compare ourselves to other grandparents as we did with other parents. Still, it’s good to know there are any number of ways to grandparent. But our main desire is that “through our love, our lives, our testimony, and our words, we can have a great influence on them for God.”
  • How Churches Can Help Visitors

Writing

I’ve finally made a dent in my hardest chapter! The problem is having more information than one chapter can contain and finding the best way to present it so the reader isn’t bogged down. I’m motivated because my turn to present to our critique group is coming up in March, and I’d really like to have made a good headway on this so I can get the group’s feedback.

Though January has been a pleasant month, I am happy for it to end. We look forward to Valentine’s Day, something we do up big with the family, and my daughter-in-law’s birthday next month. And as of this writing, we’re only 48 days away from spring!

How Churches Can Help Visitors

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In our four decades of marriage, we’ve been a member of six different churches and visited several others. Most of the time, a change in church has been made necessary due to my husband’s job sending us to a new state. A couple of times, we left for other reasons, but we don’t take leaving a church lightly. We like to find a church home and stay there as long as possible.

It’s amazing how intimidating it is to visit a new church, even for seasoned church attenders. I’m not sure why. We don’t expect anyone to throw stones or tomatoes or snub us. Though church styles vary, we have an idea what to expect. If it’s so unnerving for us to visit a new church, unchurched people are probably even more uncomfortable.

We’re currently searching for a new church home. I wanted to share just a few “stray thoughts” about our church visiting experiences while they are fresh in my mind.

First of all, I feel a church website is absolutely essential. In our case, we attend Baptist churches. If you search online for Baptist churches in Knoxville, you’ll find multiple pages of listings. I found one directory listing 25, but there are more. They all have basically the same statement of faith, so we’d agree on the most important core beliefs, like Jesus being the Son of God, salvation by grace through faith, the inspiration of the Bible, etc.

But churches with the same doctrinal base can vary greatly in personality and in secondary issues, like the following:

Traditional vs. contemporary style of service and music
“King James Only” or other Bible versions
Casual or formal
Continuationist or cessationist (referring to certain gifts of the Holy Spirit)
Reformed or not
Age-segregated or family-integrated
Songleader and choir vs. worship team
Premillennial, post-millennial, amillennial (referring to “end times”)

No one’s salvation is going to be in question on either side of these secondary issues. And there are some categories that we would be fine with on either side, though we might have a preference for one or the other. But others we feel more strongly about. We can grant that other believers have freedom of conscience to do something differently than we would, but we would have a hard time worshiping in a place where we disagreed with a lot.

So if we were to try to visit each of the list of 25 churches just once, that would take us 25 weeks—almost half a year. Normally we like to visit more than once, unless there’s something glaringly obvious during the first visit that would make us shy away. So we could spend more than a year visiting around. We’d like to find a church home in much less time.

It’s pretty standard now to look up a church’s web site before visiting. It’s helpful if the church’s site can tell us as much about the church as possible.

One church’s site said something like, “We don’t like labels. We just like to talk about Jesus.”

My husband’s father worked in a grocery store. He was allowed to bring home canned goods that had lost their labels, because customers would not buy them. If my mother-in-law was looking for tomato sauce, she might open cans of peaches, green beans, or SpaghettiOs before finding what she needed.

So labels do help. We would assume most Christian churches like to talk about Jesus. Anything they can share about the distinctives of their church will help visitors know if they want to investigate further or not. As my husband said, they might as well tell us what they are, because we’re going to find out eventually anyway. Some people are going to be looking for certain particulars while others are trying to avoid them. It saves everyone time if some of these things are spelled out up front.

Besides the statement of faith on a church website, we like to see times of services, some information about the pastor(s), a place to access past sermons or full church services (audio or video), information about the various ministries of the church. Some church sites have a “What to expect” or “How to prepare for your visit” page that might include style of dress (though most of them say anything is fine within reason), which door to go to, etc.

If a church has a Facebook page, it helps if the page contains more than just location and times of services. Many churches will put their services on Facebook, which helps. Some will put announcements or reminders. Some will have photos from recent events. All of that helps give potential visitors a feel for the church. Some churches will have a public Facebook page for potential visitors and a separate private page for members where they can share prayer requests or information that is not for the general public.

Then, once people do actually come to your church, appropriate signage is helpful, especially if you have multiple buildings or doors. Barring signs—or maybe in addition to signs—it’s nice to have someone available to answer questions about where the nursery, bathrooms, etc., are.

When we’ve been members, greeting new people has been one of the hardest things to do. But it’s essential. Once I get started, I am usually fine.

I could tell you multiple stories of odd greeting situations in churches, but that would take too long. I’ll share just one. In one church, no one spoke to us or even looked at us until their designated hand-shaking time (what my daughter-in-law calls “howdy time”). And then it was like some weird science fiction show where everyone came alive and became friendly while the music played. Then when the music stopped, everyone closed up again, not looking at or talking with us any more.

Some churches have a designated greeter at the door. Though that’s nice, those people shouldn’t be the only ones greeting newcomers.

On the other extreme, I read of a church that stationed an official greeter every 25 feet. That’s going too far the other way, unless you have a humongous church building.

It’s best just to sincerely and warmly say hello to people you don’t recognize, maybe “We’re so glad to have you.” If there is time, you could ask whether they just moved to the area, where they moved from, etc.

In our most recent visits, almost every church has had an older lady who has greeted us in just such a way, going beyond the perfunctory and obligatory greeting. They’ve been so genuinely interested and kind that I have felt, “If we stay here, she’s one I want to get to know.” I wanted to say that to encourage older people in general that, even though you may not be able to do all you once did, this seemingly minor act carries great weight.

Most visitors do not want to be made a spectacle or have attention drawn to themselves. Some churches will have new people stand up—one had visitors stay seated while everyone else stood for the hand-shaking time. Both scenarios are uncomfortable.

Some churches have had gift bags for visitors. I appreciate the thought, but gifts are not really necessary. One church had plastic cups that had the church’s name on the side. Because this church was a little aggressive about handing out gift bags, we ended up with six of those—that none of us wanted. They tried to give us more the next week, and we had to gently but firmly say no, thank you. Another had mugs with the church name, but also filled them with candy. A lot of churches will have pens with their name on the side that they hand out along with visitor’s cards to full out. The pens are a nice small reminder of the church. The one gift bag I most appreciated was from a particularly large church and had brochures about their various church ministries–what they did, when and where they met, who to contact for more information. And they had a few miniature candy bars, a plus. 🙂

Then during the church service, it helps to have what is expected made very clear–when to stand, join in the singing, etc. No one wants to stand out by doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. One church we visited was the first I’d attended with a worship team on stage. They had a choir as well. Sometimes everyone on stage was singing, sometimes just the small team in front. But no one told the congregation when it was their turn. I tried to figure out when I was supposed to sing by watching what others in the congregation did, but some sang and some didn’t. So I still didn’t know what to do. I ended up singing along very softly so I wouldn’t be noticed either way.

Sometimes you are as friendly as you know how to be in church, you’ve extended yourself, you’ve bent over backwards to meet everyone’s needs and wants, the singing has been great, the message has been biblically based and Spirit-filled–and visitors still don’t return. Have all your efforts been for naught? Have you failed?

No. You’ve ministered to people as unto the Lord. That “counts,” whether they become part of your church or not. Sometimes when we have chosen one church over another, it hasn’t been because of anything wrong with the one we didn’t choose. Sometimes there’s something indefinable about why we feel inclined more toward one church. But we appreciate the ways people have ministered to us when we’ve visited, and we hope to extend the same grace when we find a church home.

What are your thoughts? Are there other ways to make church visitors feel welcome—or at least less intimidated?

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)

Laudable Linkage

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Though still not caught up with the blogs I usually read, I got to a lot of them this week—as you can tell by my long list of links to share. Perhaps one or two will be as thought-provoking to you as they were to me.

January’s for Reflecting, not Resolving, HT to Challies. “Maybe part of the reason why so many resolutions fail by February is that they were early. Maybe the resolutions weren’t wrong; they were just underdeveloped. Maybe, they needed an extra month or two in the oven.”

Holy Prayers from Rocking Chairs, HT to the Story Warren. A lovely poem about mothers’ middle of the night sessions.

A Legacy of Love: Passing Down the Gift of Spiritual Discipline to Your Children. “Because of the legacy my mom passed to me, I have a vision that goes beyond serenity and candles. I want my children to see a mother desperate for Jesus, willing to do whatever it takes to be at His feet.”

Make Christianity Hard Again, HT to Challies. “The way of Jesus is the way of the cross. So don’t talk about it like we just need to be nice people. Here are three commands that have challenged me, with practical trails we can follow.”

“I Must Decrease” . . . But How? HT to Challies. “It’s pretty clear: the world’s loud, incessant voice tells me that in order to be happy, I need to spend more of my time, money, and attention on myself. You’ve probably heard the same message about your need for this, as well.”

Wasn’t My Body, but It Was My Baby, HT to Challies. “Abortion isn’t just about a mother’s choice. It’s also about a father’s responsibility. Perpetuating the lie that men need to stay out of the abortion debate isn’t just untrue—it’s catastrophic for the generations to come.”

Don’t Women Need Access to Abortion for Rape? “‘You don’t have the right to tell my fourteen-year-old daughter she has to carry her rapist’s baby.’ That’s what Joe Rogan, the most popular podcaster in the world, recently argued when he interviewed Seth Dillon, owner and CEO of the satire website The Babylon Bee. How would you respond to that argument? Here are three arguments to consider.”

The Murderer Who Crushed a Worm. “We get hard through the steps of an unperceived process.” This is a different kind of hardness from the article above.

C. S. Lewis an Mrs. Moore: Relationship of Sin or Sanctification? HT to Challies. “Every biographer of C. S. Lewis must face ‘the Mrs. Moore question’ and decide what to make of the relationship the beloved writer had with a woman more than 25 years his senior who remained a major part of his life from the time he returned from the trenches of the Great War until her death in 1951.” I especially like the concluding paragraphs of how God uses difficult people in our lives.

God Plans Your Stops, HT to Challies. “If God plans our steps, it means He plans our stops as well. And if you sit with it for a minute, there’s comfort in that.”

Unraveling the Riddle of Rejoicing Always, HT to Challies. “Several years ago, while meditating on Philippians 4:4, the Lord helped me glimpse why it makes sense to always rejoice—even in hard times—and how it is possible to give thanks in everything.”

A Family Vacation, a Broken Transmission, and a God Who Is With Us, HT to Challies. A neat story about God’s provision in a crisis.

Caregiving As a Calling and Ministry, HT to Challies. “At the time I didn’t see it as a ministry, and I didn’t understand that I had been called. I saw caregiving as a giant disruption to everything in my life and a burden that was forcing me to ‘step out of ministry’ to do this caregiving thing that I hadn’t signed up for. Over time, God has shown me  that caregiving wasn’t a disruption; it was God’s plan for me all along.”

How Should I Dispose of an Old Bible, HT to Challies. Though the sacredness of the Bible comes from what it says and Who gave it to us, not the pages and ink, we still want to treat it with respect. This has a good suggestion.

Friday’s Fave Five

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Here we are at the last Friday of January. We’re 1/12 of the way through 2023! It’s nice to pause the swiftness of time passing by to reflect on God’s gifts and blessings of the week with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story.

1. Lunch with Melanie is a highlight whenever we can meet to do so. I always enjoy our fellowship.

2. Cracker Barrel is one of my favorite restaurants, but my family isn’t crazy about it. Plus they have little to offer the gluten-free members, and I wouldn’t trust any of their food not to be cross-contaminated with gluten. But that’s where Melanie and I often meet. And as usual, I took home a slice of the Chocolate Coca-Cola Cake, which I divide over two days.

3. A long afternoon of errand-running was tiring and didn’t result in finding what I was looking for. But it was nice to push through and get everything done so I could stay home the rest of the week. And at least I can say I checked at various stores, so I can now eliminate them as places to look.

4. Perspective. We’ve been visiting churches, the most recent one just a few minutes from our house. I was hoping that this might be “the one” rather than another we visited that was almost 25 minutes away. Then I read the prayer letter of friends who minister in Papua New Guinea. They were rejoicing that a recent trip to a new area they are trying to reach for the Lord took “only about 1.5 hours of backpacking compared to the usual 4.5 hours” due to some “bush bridges” that the people had built.

5. Live-streaming of funeral services. I mentioned a few months ago that Debbie Talbert, who ministered with her husband in Alberta, had pancreatic cancer. She used to participate in FFF at a blog called Purple Grandma (which is no longer online). We knew Debbie and her husband in early married days as we attended the same church and went to the same college. We had lost touch over the years and then reconnected through our blogs. It was a blessing to be able to watch the funeral service online.

Bonus: My son and daughter-in-law had us over for dinner and games last Saturday, which we always enjoy.

How was your week?