Category Archives: Laudable Linkage

Laudable Linkage

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It has been quite a while since I have been able to do one of these, but here are some posts I’ve found interesting the last few weeks. Maybe you’ll enjoy one or two of them as well:

Planned Parenthood: Four Ways to Respond.

Explaining the Problem Does Not Eliminate the Problem.

Gentle Selfishness, HT to Challies. Guilty.

How We Do Family Devotions.

Are You Believing This Lie About Love?

Getting Acquainted With God.

The Sunday Worship Killer.

A Right Theology of Fear (and Why You Need It.)

A few on mothering:

Talking to Your Kids About Same-Sex Marriage.

The Beginning of the Sacrifice of motherhood.

How Much Should a Mom Minster Outside the Home?

Hidden. God has a purpose in “hidden years.”

A few on online communication:

How Should Christians Comment Online?

An Embarrassing Week For Christians Sharing Fake News. Yes! Confirm before you share.

Why I Removed Extremely Effective Pop-ups From My Web Site. Yes! Wish everyone would do this!

What Makes Readers Lose Interest in a Blog?

Four Easy Ways to Create Quote Graphics for Facebook, Pinterest, and Your Blog. Do you use any of these, or any others? I’ve used Quozio a few times.

21 Self-Editing Secrets That Can Supercharge Your Manuscript.

In Zimbabwe, We Don’t Cry For Lions. HT to Challies. A different and refreshing perspective on the Cecil the Lion story.

Someone shared this on Facebook:

Spurgeon - Faith

Amen! Happy Saturday!

Laudable Linkage

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It’s been a few weeks since I’ve shared some links that caught my eye. Here are the latest – hope you find something of interest:

As Somebody Somewhere Said. Good reasons to read the Bible as a whole rather than only parts of it.

Hoaxes and Hermeneutics. The need for learning how to interpret the Bible rightly.

How To Complain Without Grumbling. There’s a difference, and I am so glad to see someone finally say so.

Jesus Speaks Out For Marriage.

How the Gospel Ended My Same-Sex Relationship.

Do You Treat Your Husband Worse Than a Stranger?

5 Questions I Wish My Accountability Partner Would Ask Me. I am wary of accountability partner set-ups for several reasons, and while the author still recommends them, he advocates facets that are much more in line with Biblical accountability and relationships that what I usually see.

Twenty Years. A man’s reflection on twenty years of marriage.

Mama, Are You Thinking Ahead?

Teach Your Children to Have Devotions. Wish I’d had something like this to read when mine were small.

It’s OK For Kids to Be Bored During Church.

Why Little Kids Need Big Biblical Words.

Cherishing and Protecting Our Freedoms.

4 Tips For Dealing With Procrastination.

Navigating the Challenges of Real Life Online. “If you share everything, you’re an exhibitionist. If you share nothing, you’re closed-off and unapproachable. If you share too many good things, you’re fake. If you share too many bad things, you’re a whiner.” Jenn discusses some principles and guidelines for finding balance here.

10 Things Photographers Hate With a Passion. I had never seen the dinosaur wedding thing before. Bizarre! I don’t agree with every point – I think some trendy or “as seen on Pinterest” requests are inevitable – but otherwise some good things for us to think about.

And I saw this on the C. S. Lewis Facebook Page.

Lewis

Laudable Linkage

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It has been a while since I’ve shared interesting reads I’ve come across online. Here are some from the last few weeks:

Moms With Hands Full Need the Church.

I’m Grateful That Lady Forced a Bible On Me, HT to Challies. “We have this idea that doing something significant for God requires huge planning, red letters in the sky, a parting of the sea, signs and wonders. But the truth is, He’s working through us in ways we could never arrange on our own.”

No Disappointment in Jesus? HT to Story Warren. “It’s in life, in the real world, down here where things do and do not pan out, that the just are supposed to live by faith. When we are honestly disappointed in the way the God we trusted has handled things, when what has happened was not at all what we wanted—then statements like “Not my will but thine be done” have powerful meaning. What a sinewy kind of trust old John the Baptist had as he lay in chains—captive, doomed, lonely, blessed, and not offended.”

Are You Letting Your Kids Walk All Over You?

I Don’t Know What to Say. What’s helpful and not helpful when someone is grieving.

What I Learned From Elisabeth Elliot in Her Last Years.

Elisabeth Elliot’s Writings. Ann gives a good overview.

Staring at Dementia, Fighting For Joy.

Where’ve You Been? Story behind a touching and beautiful song about a man’s grandparents, one with Alzheimer’s.

How Can I Have a Successful Blog While Raising Little Kids?

Father’s Days: A Cartoonist’s Journey Into First Time Fatherhood of a baby with a severe illness.

7 Things You Need to Know About Medicare But Probably Don’t.

A boy’s stuffed tiger goes on a grand adventure at Tampa International Airport. Thought this was so cute and sweet!

Of course, yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling is on many minds and hearts. I’m still processing the news and don’t know whether I’ll say any more about it, but the best posts I’ve read so far are But What Does the Bible Say? by Kevin DeYoung and CBMW’s Official Response to the SCOTUS Ruling, and then Nancy Leigh DeMoss has a video response here.

Melanie shared this recently – a real-life illustration of the sheep knowing their shepherd’s voice:

I don’t know how many of you are familiar with Ron Hamilton, aka “Patch the Pirate.” He’s fairly well known in the Southeast. I love this arrangement of his song. Ben Everson is a master at these mutli-harmony things:

Happy Saturday!

Laudable Linkage

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Here are some thought-provoking reads from the past couple of weeks – maybe you’ll find one or two of interest:

My Father Killed My Mother. “How am I supposed to keep the command to honor my father when all I really know of him is that he hurts people to the point of shattering the very next command about murder?”

A Pastor’s Response to the Death of a Childhood Abuser.

What Missionaries Aren’t Telling You (And What They Need From You)

When Your Heart Isn’t In It. “Do you really think that avoiding worship will be the means by which your heart will changed, prepared to engage in worship?”

How Much of My Sinful Past Should I Share With My Children?

The Duggars and the Evil Outside, HT to my friend Ann. You may be getting tired of all the posts about their situation, and I have been mainly staying out of it since I don’t watch the show and only know what I’ve heard, but I thought this made an important point: We can try to shield children from all the evil “out there,” but we still have a sin nature in our own hearts that we have to learn how to deal with. Then just this morning I saw an article on an interview with Jill and Jessa Duggars that “The media coverage has been 1,000 times worse than the incident.”

Korean Artist Beautifully Illustrates What Real Love Looks Like. These are sweet.

And, finally, I think I may have posted it before, but I saw it again recently and it still cracks me up:

Laudable Linkage

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Here are some noteworthy reads that caught my eye this week:

How to Prevent Brotherly Love.

Forgiveness: What If He Isn’t Sorry? Excellent, well thought-out, thorough article on this subject. Too many people have a glib answer to this which overlooks some Scriptural principles, so I am very happy to see some of this articulated.

Wedded Bliss: 10 Years Married to a Sports Addict. Good article about dealing with a husband’s hobbies. I don’t think a wife necessarily has to jump in and experience it with him – I think it’s ok to have some different tastes – but there are great thoughts here about how to “honor his appropriate pursuit of” his hobby rather than attempting to “manipulate, belittle, or guilt him away from the thing he loves.” And of course this works with the husband in regard to the wife’s interests as well.

Introverts in the Dearest Place on Earth, HT to Challies.

On Writing Well (5 Big Tips)

You Can Avoid This Rookie Writing Error.

My cousin shared this helpful graphic for which holiday honors which service people:

Honoring those in service

Of course, it’s good to honor those who protect and defend our country at every opportunity.

Happy Saturday!

Laudable Linkage

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It’s been a few weeks since I’ve been able to share links I found interesting recently. But I don’t have as many as you might expect for a longer time period. Here they are:

What Does It Mean to “Accept Jesus”? “Accepting Jesus’ is not just adding Jesus. It is also subtracting the idols.”

No, Hanging Out With Your Friends Is Not the Church. Love this blog name, too: The Wardrobe Door.

Freedom From Parenting Guilt.

10 Amazingly Enjoyable Things About Having Kids. We hear so much negativity in the world about the frustrations of having children, but there are many fun things, too. This is from a secular source and therefore has a couple of philosophical bits I wouldn’t agree with, but overall some great observations.

Love Theologically. HT to Challies. Love and theology should feed each other, not oppose each other.

Sweet video about Moms.

If you’re a fan of Pixar movies (we are!), you might enjoy this video of “Easter eggs” in the films – little surprises from one film in another:

Happy Saturday!

Laudable Linkage

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Here are just a few commendable links from the last week:

Borrowed Lights: Inspiration for Christian Living. Benefits of reading about the lives of other Christians who follow the Lord closely. Loved this that Robert Murray McCheyne said of Jonathan Edwards: “How feeble does my spark of Christianity appear beside such a sun! But even his was a borrowed light, and the same source is still open to enlighten me.” I liked it so much I added it to my previous post Why Read Biographies.

Are You a Mentoring Momma? “Most likely if you asked them, not one [of these women] would say she mentored me. Yet her life influenced mine in profound ways. The common thread among each of these unique women is that she was further along in the journey, loved me, loved Christ more, and modeled how to treasure Him above all else.” To me that’s the best mentoring – not an official program, not a formal set-up mentor-mentee relationship, but just this.

When Motherhood Drains Your Happiness. The truths here of what to do when you feel drained ministered to me even though I wasn’t feeling that way with regard to motherhood at this point.

My Mother Practiced the Piano. “There’s nothing selfish about working toward your artistic interests as God allows the time. In fact, your children can benefit from watching you model discipline and discovery.”

And, for a smile – I’ve watched this several times and love the look on this cat’s face – although it wouldn’t really be funny to live with a cat who does this:

Happy Saturday!

Laudable Linkage

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Here are some posts I found worth reading and sharing over the last couple of weeks:

The Dead End of Sexual Sin along with some advice from John Owen about overcoming sin of any kind.

Providential Dullness: An Easter Meditation. We give the disciples a hard time for missing that Jesus said He would rise again, but Luke 18:34 says, “this saying was hid from them.” Why would that be? Some good answers in this piece.

The Ones in the Front Row.“I cannot control the reception my children’s God-given callings receive out there in the wide world. But I can raise them to be appreciators of beauty, loveliness, and skill. Then, maybe they will be the ones in the front row, clapping their hearts out, whistling, standing and cheering at all the beauty the world holds for them.”

Thanks For Raising the Man of My Dreams! I hate mother-in-law jokes and did long before I became a m-i-l. I did have  relatively good relationship with mine. Here are some good thoughts to enhance that relationship.

10 Ways to Create a Home of Warmth and Grace.

How to Get Published.

For those who like Christian fiction, especially free Christian fiction, there’s a Christian Fiction Scavenger Hunt going on this weekend with a possibility of winning 17-34 books from 30+ authors. Some of the individual authors are hosting their own giveaways as well.

Happy Saturday!

Laudable Linkage

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Here are some noteworthy reads from the last couple of weeks:

Shine Like Stars: Give and Rejoice {Philippians 2:17-18}. What it means for our lives to be poured like like a drink offering. Hit me right where and when I needed it.

10 Things We Don’t Want Our Kids to Learn From Church.

What these ladies did to turn a friend’s day around, and what they received in return. Loved this!

Why Can’t Christians Intelligently Discuss Current Events. “I suspect that by yelling so loudly about nearly everything, we’re obscuring the big thing (Matt. 12:36).”

Responding to the Increasingly Short Shelf-Life of Worship songs, HT to Challies. Songleaders/music pastors/worship leaders have an abundance of songs to choose from, and being able to project the words for all to see enables us to sing more than just what’s in the hymnbook. That’s good in many ways but complicates things in other ways. Though this was written to song leaders and such, it helped me to see what  big job it is to choose songs from the multitude we have available. I especially appreciated his caveat that some songs are for just a season. It used to bother me that we heard some songs often for a while and then not at all – kind of like a current “hit” – but then I realized that even the older hymn-writers wrote many songs that we know nothing about now, so that must have happened then, too.

This is a  neat overview of the Bible for kids, showing how it all points to Christ:

https://vimeo.com/123430346

Have a good weekend!

Laudable Linkage and a Jan Karon Video

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I didn’t do one of these last week because I only had two or three – and now this week I have several. That’s how it goes sometimes. But here is some noteworthy reading found in the last couple of weeks:

Moms Need Theology Too. Excellent. Not just for moms.

Adding to Our Faith? Good study of what 2 Peter 1:5 means when it talks about things we need to add to our faith.

5 Things People Blame the Church For – But Shouldn’t.

A Good [Wo]man is Easy to Find. Excellent piece about finding a mentor.

From Lesbianism to Complementarianism – one woman’s testimony.

Dear Gay Community: Your Kids Are Hurting. From the daughter of a gay couple.

An 11-Year-Old Boy’s Open Letter to Sports Illustrated.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss’s Advice to Young Writers and Speakers.

Solid Food for Little Ones. A list of books for young children that teach about God. Keeping in mind for future reference when my little grandson gets older.

Remember Card Catalogs? As a former librarian and avid reader, I loved this piece about people who take the old cards from library card catalogs and illustrate them.

I thought this was really cool. With a nerdy family who loves the Marvel universe films, Iron Man being one on them, I loved this video of Robert Downey, Jr. (aka Iron Man) delivering a bionic arm to a boy who has only a partially developed right arm.

And for Jan Karon fans, I saw on her Facebook page this announcement about her newest book coming out this fall!

I loved hearing her talk and watching her expressiveness! I also saw this post on her Facebook page saying that there might be a movie about Mitford and asking for suggestions about who should play which part. I hope if this comes to pass that they let her have creative control. I have mixed feelings – I love the books and would definitely see any film made from them, but I’m not sure I’d want any images other than the ones in my head. 🙂 But we’ll see.

Happy Saturday!