You Don’t Need a Date Night. Nearly everything you read about marriage says you do, but what you actually need is focused time together, no matter what you do. Date night work best for some couples, but other activities work better for many.
Good King Wenceslas. I love this carol and found this background to it very interesting.
An Introduction to the Family Advent Art and Reading Guide. “I wanted us to think about Jesus and the nativity, but I had not provided a sense of his pending arrival. Meanwhile, everywhere we went, my kids were told Santa was on his way. Fortunately, I had a couple thousand years of church tradition to back me up, if only I knew how to draw on it. It was time to learn about Advent.”
If you, like me, are avoiding the Black Friday crowds, perhaps you’ll be interested in a little after-Thanksgiving reading. 🙂 Here’s a round-up of interesting reading discovered in the last week or so:
Why Controversy Is Sometimes Necessary. HT to Challies.”The only way to avoid all controversy would be to consider nothing we believe important enough to defend and no truth too costly to compromise.”
It has been a few weeks since I have been able to share with you some interesting things found around the internet. Perhaps you’ll find something of interest in the following:
There were so many more Write 31 Days series than I could possibly read, and I dipped in here and there with quite a few, but a few I kept up with almost daily were:
31 Glimpses Into the Unquiet Mind. A mother and daughter share the daughter’s journey with bipolar disorder and the long journey to diagnosis and treatment.
With the 31 Days With Elisabeth Elliot series going on every day, I wasn’t sure whether additional posts during the week might be a bit much to keep up with; on the other hand, I don’t want to have an excessively long list of links to share at the end of the month, because I know that can be a bit much, too. So here are a few things I found of interest in the last couple of weeks:
The Pinterest feed changes: How to see more of what you want to see. And why you’ll never see all of it. If, like me, you have been frustrated with changes at Pinterest, this article shares how to fix a couple of them, and the powers that be at Pinterest seem to have reached out to this blogger with an interest, so maybe some of the comments there will reach the ears of someone who can and will do something about it.
Here are a few noteworthy reads discovered in the last week or so:
God of Judgment, God of Grace. Rebekah does a great job of showing that these are not aspects of God from two different testaments, but rather they are both all throughout the Bible, and in the midst God’s judgment are some of the most marvelous displays of His grace.
6 Things I Wish I Had Never Told My Children. I don’t know that I agree with every little thing here, especially the last point (though I agree with what is said underneath it), but it is thought-provoking and a reminder that while we love, nurture, and build up our children, we do need to prepare them realistically for the real world.
What Is Periscope, and How Do I Use It? I had vaguely heard of this and knew it involved watching people’s videos of what they were doing, but that’s about it. This article explains it all clearly and simply.
The Presence of Greatness. “What the world calls damaged, deficient, broken, Jesus names beloved, beautiful, redeemed. What the world would throw away as useless, He honors and exalts, making the least into teachers of compassion, possessors of radiant faith, living parables of His truth. What the world considers great, isn’t. Not in the eternal scheme of things.”
It has again been a little while since I have been able to share good reading I’ve found on the web. I try to do them about every other week so there’s not such a long list, but life doesn’t always work out that way. But here they are, and maybe you’ll find something of interest among them:
The Best Day of the Week. “Lord’s Day worship isn’t a burden to endure, but a joyful offering from God to receive. Christians don’t put aside their earthly cares each week to earn God’s favor, but to enjoy worshiping the God whose favor has already been granted in Jesus Christ. It is a true delight to forego even the best worldly endeavors for the day, without feeling any sense of guilt for being lazy or uncaring, to revel in the heavenly things of God which are the truest and greatest treasure for any Christian (Matthew 6:19-21).”
Your Children Are Your Neighbor. This is excellent. There is one difference in that parents are authorities over their children and supposed to correct them, while they are not with neighbors, but even still, authority can be handled with grace and not authoritarianism.
Invent a Ministry. HT to Challies. Love this. One of my themes is that ministry isn’t always in an official church-sponsored activity. It’s being available for God to use you all throughout the day. Another is the “Someone should…” or “The church should…” mentality, forgetting we ARE the church. I’ve been thinking about a possible blog post along these lines.
What It’s Like When You Publish a Book. Interesting thoughts on the type of people God uses (clue: messed-up ones, because that’s the only type available).
Sticking With It, on reading long books with dull spots, either personally or to children. I don’t think the author is advocating for never putting a book aside, but I like the analogy that life is going to be that way sometimes.
Stray Thoughts 