Laudable Linkage and Videos

Posted on December 11, 2010 by Barbara Harper

Just a few interesting posts rounded up this week:

Settling for a lump of coal this Christmas? Candy ponders different reasons why Christmas joy might be missing as well as sound advice for dealing with the different issues.

Why we love the church.

Catalog Living, HT to Amy. A fun site — they post pictures from catalogs and make up funny comments to go along with them.

How to tie a bow. Am I the only adult whose bows go wonky? This helped.

Super simple snowman treats.

Cheese puffs.

Jon Acuff posted this video in Why you don’t bring a camel to church and asked how people would caption it. Some of the comments there are really funny. (Thankfully no animals or people were hurt.)

Best Wheel of Fortune solve ever — with one letter:

Remembering Mom

Posted on December 10, 2010 by Barbara Harper

It was five years ago today that I received the dreaded phone call that my mom had passed away. I wrote more about that day and its aftermath of sorrow and answered prayer here, and a tribute to my mom here. I won’t repeat all of that this year, but I did want to share a song that has ministered to me since her death. I don’t know what all the video is about, but it is the only one I found with the song “Safely Home” by Steve Green recorded.

Miss you, Mom.

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on December 10, 2010 by Barbara Harper

Welcome to Friday’s Fave Five, hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, in which we can share 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.

1. A helpful clerk and discounts. I had a pretty nice shopping excursion last Friday. One place I went to was JoAnn’s Fabrics — I decided to sew one present. I know, I must be crazy to do so at this stage. But though lines were long, customers and staff were in fairly good spirits. I couldn’t decide between two fabrics, and found when I had the one cut that it was marked down several dollars — so I got both! 🙂 Then at the checkout, I didn’t have any coupons because our newspaper somehow didn’t contain their sales flyer, but the clerk tried keying the coupons and discounts in anyway — and saved me about $20.

2. Plaques for the sewing/craft room. Found these while at JoAnn’s:

3. Christmas programs at church and school. For me, those provide the times to sit down and really soak in what the season is all about. The children’s Christmas program at church was this past Sunday night, and though mine were all too old for it, I enjoyed seeing all the little ones tell the age-old story. Then the school’s Christmas program was Tuesday night, and Jesse’s choir sang. The funniest moment of the night was when, after the kindergarten class got done with their song, one let out a very loud, relieved sigh. Everyone chuckled, and at the end of the program the pastor said he felt like that sometimes when he got done preaching, and his listeners probably felt like sighing, too. 😀 And in both programs the littlest children had on the cutest costumes like footie pajamas in animals prints and accessories (ears, tale, etc.). They were so adorable!

4. Kids applying Scripture. It’s not unusual for me to bring up Scriptural principles when talking with my children, but I was blessed to hear Jesse bring up a pertinent Bible verse and apply it to a situation we were discussing and then again in a book report.

5. A new wreath. We can’t hang a wreath on our front door because it looks like this:

I know I could get one of those over-the-door hangers for one, but I just didn’t know if it would look right with the oval there, and the previous owners had installed a hook in the brick by the door which we’ve been using instead of door decorations. I had been wanting some kind of white wreath because I thought it would show up better against the brick, and I was delighted to see one designed by Charlotte Lyons in Amy Powers’ Inspired Ideas Christmas magazine (p. 26). I finally made it last night and finished it this morning, and I’m so delighted with it! Because everything is pinned in or tied on, it went fairly quickly.

I hadn’t wanted to sew and stuff the little dove, but I think I might — I think he’d show up a little better. I like the fuller, more collage-like look of hers — but I like this one, too. 🙂

Have a good weekend! We’re planning to finally get our tree tomorrow! It was raining buckets last weekend, and I haven’t looked at the forecast for tomorrow, but it’s bright out today and I hope it continues.

Book Review: In the Company of Others

Posted on December 7, 2010 by Barbara Harper

In the Company of Others is the second of the Father Tim novels by Jan Karon. Father Tim, as most may know, was the central character in Karon’s delightful Mitford series, but the Father Tim novels take him out of his well-beloved town.

In this book, Father Tim and Cynthia finally embark on their long-awaited trip to Ireland, the land of his roots. He has been there once before but is looking forward to showing Cynthia the sights.

Trouble arrives fairly soon, though, as Cynthia injures her ankle, causing her to have to be off her feet, the lodge where they are staying suffers a series of burglaries, and the family who owns the lodge is wounded by a rebellious daughter and a distant mother/mother-in-law, a bitter old woman who experiences serious health issues. Even Dooley, back home in Mitford, phones them concerning serious problems with his girlfriend, Lace.

As Father Tim and Cynthia are unable to travel due to her ankle, they get caught up in the lives of the folks in the area and try to help where they can. As they recuperate they enjoy reading an old journal that eventually leads them to a clue of help in the current situation at the lodge.

Reading In the Company of Others was like a comfortable visit with old friends. I enjoyed hearing bits from and references to the old Mitford gang (loved hearing long-suffering secretary Emma’s personality come through her e-mails), and I often get a little misty at Father Tim’s wonder over his wife and his later-in-life marriage. I love his interaction with Cynthia and the personal conflicts he wrestles with — wanting to take Cynthia to Ireland but hating travel, trying to control his diabetes but being tempted by things he shouldn’t eat, hating controversy but needing to express truth.

Some of the most valuable sections in the book come from his advice to lodge proprietor Anna from his experience of dealing with his own “wounded boy,” his adopted son, Dooley:

“We think of love as warm and cozy, and that’s certainly part of it. But it was hard to muster those feelings toward someone who vented his life-long rage at me.”

“It’s not the sort of thing romantics wish to hear, but I found that in the end, love must be a kind of discipline. If we love only with our feelings, we’re sunk — we may feel love one day and something quite other the next…I realized I must learn to love with my will, not my feelings…”

“I learned over a long period of trial and error to see in him what God made him to be. Wounded people use a lot of smoke and mirrors, they thrust the bitterness and rage out there like a shield. Then it becomes their banner, and finally, their weapon. But I stopped falling for the bitterness and rage. I didn’t stop knowing it was there — and there for a very good reason — but I stopped taking the bullet for it. With God’s help, I was able to start seeing through the smoke.”

“Healing came as little drops of water, and never the mighty ocean when you need it.”

“There’s just no way to deal with their suffering, except through love. And there was no way I could gouge that kind of love out of my own selfish hide without the love of God” (pp. 238-240).

Though parts of the story are more ecumenical that I personally am comfortable with, and though I wouldn’t agree with every little point of theology portrayed in the book, gospel truth is clear but not obtrusive.

Though I appreciate the book more and more as I ponder it, and a great deal more than the first Father Tim novel, Home to Holly Springs, I probably enjoyed it maybe a smidgen less that the Mitford novels. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because of missing Mitford and its people, but I don’t think so — I really don’t think much more could be done with those characters. Maybe it’s because some of the plot lines seem a little edgier that those in Mitford, but then again, not really, either, considering Dooley’s back story. I did find it a little ironic that many characters in the book mention that they haven’t read much of the journal Father Tim and Cynthia read because it’s too dry and boring — and then great chunks of it are quoted in the text. Yet once I got used to the language and got straight who all the different people were, I began to enjoy those parts as well and was delighted at the way their stories were wrapped up in the end.

I’m not sure if Jan Karon is planning any more adventures with Father Tim and Cynthia, but I will be glad to visit with them again if she does.

(This review will be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday review of books and the next 5 Minutes For Books I Read It column.)

The Week In Words

Posted on December 6, 2010 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.

If you have posted quotes over the last week, feel free to link them as well. You don’t have to wait for Monday to post them.

I collected several this week, and it is hard to choose from them! Here are a few:

From Lifenut:

Unboxing the Christmas decorations is like going to a reunion with old friends. You pick up where you left off.

That just hits the nail on the head. That’s one thing I love about decorating for Christmas, that and the family tales that go along with them.

Seen at girltalk:

“Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?” Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Isn’t that true? Instead of letting thoughts run rampant we need to “gird up the loins of [our] mind” (I Peter 1:13) and “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (II Corinthians 10:5).

Seen at Outnumbered Mom:

“All happenings, great and small, are parables by which God speaks. The art of life is to get the message.” (Malcolm Muggeridge)

Seen on a friend’s Facebook status:

“Job’s desire to commune with God was intensified by the failure of all other sources of consolation… “O that I knew where I might find my God!” Nothing teaches us so much the preciousness of the Creator, as when we learn the emptiness of all besides…” C.H. Spurgeon

Sadly, it often takes us much too long to “learn the emptiness of all besides” — and it’s sad that too often we look for consolation and help everywhere else first. But sometimes I think God lets us just for the very reason Spurgeon said — that we might learn that emptiness and His preciousness.

This was quoted on our youth pastor’s Facebook:

If you have a problem with anger, you are told to memorize certain verses so that you can recite them in moments of anger. If you struggle with fear, you should read Scripture passages that focus on trusting God when you are afraid. This emphasis on thinking as the solution to our problems fails to introduce the Person who has come not only to change the way we think about life, but to change us as well. We are more than thinkers. We are worshipers who enter into relationship… How People Change by Timothy S. Lane, Paul David Tripp

I’ve not read the book. I have a little bit of a quibble with this one. I have been greatly helped by memorizing verses in problems areas, and I think that’s one way we renew our minds (Romans 12:2, Ephesians 4:22-24). However, if we’re looking up and reciting those verses to ourselves as just a kind of behavior modification, we’re missing out. I read this just after posting “That’s just the way I am” and rereading an earlier post titled The means of change, so my mind was on this topic anyway, and it just brought the focus back to Christ: it’s by beholding Him and worshiping Him that we’re truly changed and brought into a deeper relationship with Him.

And finally, this from A Blogger’s Prayer by Ann Voskamp. I encourage you to go over and read the whole thing:

Let my words be worthy of the greatest of audiences: You.
And You are enough.

May I write not for subscribers… but only for Thy smile.
May my daily affirmation be in the surety of my atonement,
not the size of my audience.
May my identity be in the innumerable graces of Christ,
never, God forbid, the numbers of my comments.
May the only words that matter in my life not be the ones I write on a screen —
but the ones I live with my skin.

I freely and heartily yield every sentence, every title, every post, every comment… or no comments… all to Thine pleasure and perfect will.

Amen.

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 — feel free to comment even if you don’t have quotes to share!

“That’s just the way I am”

Posted on December 2, 2010 by Barbara Harper

When my youngest son was small, he was a real chatty little guy. In fact, sometimes he could talk too much. I didn’t want to squelch his openness with people or his ability to strike up a conversation, as those are valuable traits (which don’t come naturally to me!) But on the other hand, no one wants to be around someone who talks incessantly. Once he was talking to the wife and mother of a visiting missionary family at church who was trying to soothe a fussy baby and graciously step away from him, and he kept chatting merrily on. When I tried to suggest that perhaps he was talking a little too much, he flashed his bright smile and said, “That’s just the way God made me.”

“Well,” I thought, “What do I say to that?”

After a while the Lord did bring to mind a few principles to share with him, such as the fact that God made us to eat, yet it is wrong to eat too much or the wrong things; God made us to sleep, but warns against loving sleep too much and being lazy, etc. He gives us responsibility to use our natural bent and inclinations in the right way. We talked about the warning signs that you’re talking too much — when other people look bored, sleepy, or glazed, or when they’re trying to step away or start another conversation with someone else, etc.

I’ve heard variations on that response from time to time. I used to really struggle under the leadership of someone who was not good with details: when he overlooked something that caused problems, frustrations, more work, etc., for the people under him, he’d just smile and say, “You’ll have to forgive me, I’m not good with details. I’m just not wired that way.” I’ve heard someone apologize for an angry outburst by saying, “I’m sorry, I just have a bad temper.” I’ve known people who think they have the spirituals gifts of prophesy or exhortation to harshly lambast a person or movement they are opposed to (and take great pleasure in doing so), forgetting that “the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth” (II Timothy 2:24-25).

When my middle son was in about the 6th or 7th grade, he was lamenting that he studied for spelling tests and yet still made bad grades, and a classmate hardly studied at all and yet made A’s. I explained that everyone has an aptitude for certain areas, and this friend obviously happened to have an aptitude for spelling. He brightened, thinking that since he didn’t have a natural aptitude for spelling, he didn’t really have to worry about it. I had to say, no, that doesn’t mean you don’t have to work on your spelling: in fact, in means you have to work harder!

The person who is not good with details is not excused from having to deal with them; in fact, he may have to work harder to handle them, or hire an assistant to help him. The person with a bad temper is not allowed to give it free reign because he can’t help himself. Even spiritual gifts such as exhortation or mercy or giving have to be kept in balance. A person whose gift is giving for example, can’t run his family into debt or neglect their needs to give to others. He is responsible to exercise that gift in conjunction with other Scriptural instruction under God’s leadership. Scripture contains several passages of instruction concerning how to exercise spiritual gifts.

Understanding they way we’re “wired” helps us, perhaps, to know what direction to go in life, what ministries or vocations to choose, etc. For instance, I am not good with numbers: I can add the same list of numbers up three times and get three different answers — even with a calculator. So I would not look for a job as an accountant. However, sometimes God does call people to do what doesn’t come naturally — Moses felt he could not lead or speak, yet God did not take any of his excuses. Jeremiah said, “Ah, Lord GOD! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child. But the LORD said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak” (Jeremiah 1:6-7). We think of the apostle Paul as bold and wise, yet he said, “And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom” — but he goes on to say, “but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (I Corinthians 2:3-5). Sometimes God uses people in the ways they seem to be bent, but other times He calls them to do something that doesn’t come naturally to them to show His power and His grace through them.

Whether dealing with a sin issue, a personality bent, or even a spiritual gift, “That’s just the way I am” is not a good excuse. God wants us to seek Him for deliverance from the power of sin, for power and grace to maintain right balances and to be diligent even in areas where we don’t have natural gifts, and for help to grow continually more Christlike every day we live. He does not want us to remain “just the way we are.” “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (II Corinthians 3:18). We’re changed….by beholding Him.

The Week In Words

Posted on November 29, 2010 by Barbara Harper

Here are a few noteworthy quotes seen this last week:

From The Holiness of God by R. C. Sproul, seen at Challies:

People in awe never complain that church is boring.

Oh, that we might maintain that awe of God.

Seen on a friend’s Facebook status:

“We are told to let our light shine, and if it does, we won’t need to tell anybody it does. Lighthouses don’t fire cannons to call attention to their shining — they just shine.” Dwight L. Moody

This was seen at Lizzie‘s, quoted at Robin Lee Hatcher‘s from her church’s devotional book, quoted from Francis Chan’s Crazy Love:

When I am consumed by my problems — stressed out about my life, my family, and my job — I actually convey the belief that I think the circumstances are more important than God’s command to always rejoice. In other words, that I have a “right” to disobey God [and his command to rejoice always] because of the magnitude of my responsibilities.

Worry implies that we don’t quite trust that God is big enough, powerful enough, or loving enough to take care of what’s happening in our lives.

Stress says that the things we are involved in are important enough to merit our impatience, our lack of grace toward others, or our tight grip of control.

Guilty on all counts. I’m thankful for that accurate though painful perspective. We never really have an excuse to sin, and God is able to meet our needs without our stressing over them.

And again from Challies:

“God sometimes blesses a poor exegesis of a bad translation of a doubtful reading of an obscure verse of a minor prophet.” —Alan Cole

I need to remind myself of that when I get frustrated with a well-meaning preacher’s poor exegesis. (Edit: I thought I’d better come back and explain myself on this one. I don’t think it is saying it is all right to handle the Word of God carelessly or deceitfully because He will bless it anyway, and I definitely wouldn’t share a quote to that effect. And I don’t think it is saying there is no need to exercise discernment: there definitely is such a need, because not everyone who teaches or preaches from the Word does so correctly. Even the devil quotes Scripture. But my husband and I were privileged to be under the ministry of a master teacher and expositor for fourteen years when we were first married, and sometimes I have trouble listening to other preachers who don’t handle the Word in quite the same way. Yet none is perfect, and in what little bit of speaking and writing I’ve done, I know what it is to be almost paralyzed for fear of making a mistake and to depend on God for the right way of handling the Word and trusting Him to overcome any mistakes I make and to keep me from serious ones. If you’ve ever read C. H. Spurgeon’s testimony, he was saved at a meeting where a layman substituted for the preacher who couldn’t get there because of bad weather, and though he was not trained in how to present the passage and may have even rubbed some people the wrong way, he was earnest and did the best he could, and God used His Word given through that man to save one of the greatest preachers we know. So that’s what this quote means to me: it is not a license to be lazy in studying the Word or writing or speaking from it, but as a listener, I need to remember it is God’s Word and Spirit which convicts and enlightens, and I need to be careful in my judgment of those handling it.)

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 — feel free to comment even if you don’t have quotes to share!

The Church’s One Foundation

Posted on November 28, 2010 by Barbara Harper

It’s Day 28 of the Giving Thanks Challenge hosted by Leah at South Breeze Farm.

I am thankful for church. No church is perfect, but God ordained the church, cleansed it, gave gifts to it, and somehow uses it to show His wisdom to creatures in the heavenlies.

I’m working on a post titled “Why go to church?” and hope to have it up in the next week or two.

But for now this hymn has come to my mind often today. More stanzas to it are here.

The Church’s one foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord,
She is His new creation
By water and the Word.
From heaven He came and sought her
To be His holy bride;
With His own blood He bought her
And for her life He died.

She is from every nation,
Yet one o’er all the earth;
Her charter of salvation,
One Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy Name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses,
With every grace endued.

Yet she on earth hath union
With God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won,
O happy ones and holy!
Lord, give us grace that we
Like them, the meek and lowly,
On high may dwell with Thee.

~ Samuel J. Stone, 1866

The Week In Words

Posted on November 22, 2010 by Barbara Harper

I had planned to post mostly Thanksgiving-related quotes this week…but I have so many other good ones, I hate to wait to post them. I had assembled some Thanksgiving quotes in previous years here and here if you’d like to read them.

But here is one I have not yet published. I tore it out of a radio station’s newsletter that we had received in the mail years ago, tucked it in the drawer to use some time, and then forgot about it. I keep rediscovering it and forgetting about it again. 🙂 So here it is, finally:

The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of Thanksgiving. ~ H. U. Westermayer

Some might argue with the “No Americans have been more impoverished…” part. I don’t know how to go about measuring that. But the truth remains that these people made a day to give thanks after devastatingly hard times.

From a friend’s Facebook:

“This is true obedience. . . when we look not so much to the letter of the law, as to the mind of the law-maker.” John Trapp

That, I think, would keep us from being legalistic or lax.

From another friend’s Facebook:

A quality life is never achieved by focusing on the elimination of what is wrong. True success requires you to focus your mental, emotional, and spiritual energies on pursuing that which is right and good. Trying to become virtuous merely by excluding vice is as unrealistic as trying to cultivate roses simply by eliminating weeds. – Gary Ryan Blair

That is so good. Amen.

I forgot to note where I saw this one:

Haste has worry, fear, and anger as close associates; it is a deadly enemy of kindness, and hence of love. ~ Dallas Willard

That was convicting to me, because it is when I am pressured and hurried that I most most tempted to be short or unkind of thoughtless of others.

Seen at Challies:

I was but a pen in God’s hand, and what praise is due a pen? —John Bunyan

This came from Cary Schmidt’s post ‘Twas the night before chemo about dealing with a lymphoma diagnosis:

Matthew Henry said it this way: “Happy shall we be, if we learn to receive affliction as laid upon us by the hand of God… While there is life there is hope; and instead of complaining that things are bad, we should encourage ourselves with the hope they will be better. We are sinful men, and what we complain of, is far less than our sins deserve. We should complain to God, and not of him.”

What we complain of, is far less than our sins deserve. That does put things into perspective, doesn’t it?

And please — feel free to comment even if you don’t have quotes to share!

Laudable Linkage

Posted on November 20, 2010 by Barbara Harper

Wow — came across some deep, thought-provoking posts this week as well as some fun ones. Hope you find a few you enjoy!

What is Success? Life in the Upside Down Kingdom by Ann Voskamp, HT to Lisa Notes. I’d urge any of my blogger friends who are Christians to read this if you don’t read anything else here. I need the constant reminder that whatever else my blog is or does, it is first and foremost done as unto Him.

Also by Ann, HT to Addy, When you’re trying to get your priories straight. Beautiful. I’ve been referred to and blessed by Ann’s blog so often that I finally subscribed.

Seeing past what it seems, HT to Lizzie, had me in tears.

‘Twas the night before chemo and Cary Schmidt puts this journey into perspective. HT to Susan.

On a lighter note:

Flourless chocolate cake.

Do you love turkey? — jokes and cartoons for Thanksgiving.

Turkey finger puppet tutorial.

Free decals for kitchen use.

This little girl is soooo cute! She tells the story of Jonah, and though she doesn’t have every little point exactly right, she has wonderful presence, a variety of voices, and a sweet way of saying “sh” for “s”. “Forgive us for being shelfish.”