Here are some reads that piqued my interest this week: you might find some of them beneficial as well.
We Must Believe. A good explanation of what exactly it means to believe on Christ for salvation.
6 Reasons Women Should Study Theology.
Mentoring 101, HT to Challies.
What a Pastor Wants From the Music Ministry.
The Books Boomers Will Never Read.
Read Slowly to Benefit Your Brain and Cut Stress.
And this from a Facebook friend brought a smile:
Hope you have a great day!
It’s been a couple of weeks since I have been able to share some interesting reads with you. Here are some standouts from my recent web reading:
The Memorial Service of Tom Craig, Our Pastor. Brad is a member of our church who has been chronicling the journey of our pastor and church every week since our pastor’s cancer diagnosis, and here he describes the events on the day of his memorial service as well as the service itself. Our church originally had a fundraiser that had been scheduled that morning weeks before, and there was much discussion about whether to postpone it since the funeral was scheduled for the same day. Thankfully they decided to go ahead with it, but that’s what the description of the run and bike rides are about. A recording of the memorial service is here.
Losing the Language. Apt analogy about getting away from church and the things of the Lord.
10 Ways to Exercise Christlike Headship, HT to Challies.
What People Who Are New to Your Church Want to Know.
To the Girls in the Pew Ahead of Me.
That Day I Wore Yoga Pants: 5 Myths About Modesty. Most posts/articles/books about modesty tend to lean either toward the woman’s responsibility to watch how she dresses so as not to cause others to stumble or the man’s responsibility to guard his eyes and heart. I thought this one was nicely balanced.
A list of things you may not have known about paralysis from a fellow TMer.
5 Things You Must Do To Protect Yourself Online.
10 Things I’ve Learned After 30+ Years and 70+ Books.
Dear Pinterest, We Need to Have a Talk About Bookshelves. Loved this fun, incredulous look at how people decorate their bookshelves with something other than the best thing: books.
I Quit Liking Things on Facebook For Two Weeks, HT to Kim, shows how what we click that we “like” affects what we see there. I’m not going to quit using the like button, but I am conscious that whatever I “like” feeds into algorithms to give me more of the same.
My friend Lou Ann sent out a survey to readers about decluttering and has posted a series about the results. My favorites are Finding Balance in Decluttering (it’s so easy to get off-balance even in good things) and Disadvantages of Decluttering (did you know there were some? There are! Or at least can be), probably because I rarely see anyone discussing those aspects. Other posts in the series are Advantages of Decluttering and Systems for Decluttering.
I think I have shared this before, but if you haven’t seen it, it’s the story of the pilot who was originally scheduled to fly one of the planes that was highjacked on 9/11:
It’s been a while since I’ve had time to share links to posts I found interesting, so this will be a bit longer than usual, but I hope you find something here of interest:
Wonderful Hope by Bobbi’s dad, who is facing a terminal diagnosis at the same time his wife is undergoing cancer treatments.
Advice On Seeking Answers to Spiritual Issues.
Becoming Christ-Like: The Goal of the Christian’s Life? There is a subtle but important point here that resonated with me.
God Does Not View Your Labors as Filthy Rags. We have this tendency to take one verse and run away with it.
Are Christian Missionaries Narcissistic Idiots? No. Here’s why.
The girltalk blog has had a series on training your children in dealing with their emotions. 7 Reminders When Talking to Your Teen About Emotions and Helping Children Handle Their Emotions were two that stood out to me.
Give Me Gratitude or Give Me Debt.
12 Strategies for Singles and Hospitality. The tips are good whether you’re single or married.
Why Courtship Is Fundamentally Flawed. Courtship vs. dating is a hot button debate and I am a bit hesitant to just post the link without discussing it further. I may come back and do so at some point. I may not agree with every little thing but overall he made some excellent points. I did read the book in question before my kids got to that age and pulled some principles from it but did not follow it exactly. We did feel dating – at a certain age and under certain guidelines – was a good way to get to know someone before taking the relationship further but we did want to avoid continued serious relationships and breakups one after another: we didn’t feel the latter was good emotionally nor good training for marriage.
Why Prison Isn’t Restful. We need to be careful about throwaway quips on topics we really know nothing about.
For the Quiet Child (And For Their Parents)…You Can Stop Apologizing For Who You Are.
Ten Things Your Husband Hates.
5 Myths You Might Still Believe About the Puritans.
On Writing Negative Reviews. Good reasons to do so when necessary.
Have a good weekend!
Here are some noteworthy reads discovered this week:
Testing Your Faith in Divine Intervention. On blaming God instead of people when tragedies happen and on why God does not always intervene, among other things.
The Kind of Complaint That’s Pleasing to God. HT to Challies. “If the Father appeared and spoke with us face to face, his words would have no more weight in our hearts than the ones he has already spoken. If we find his words in Scripture to fall short, we would also find his personal visitation unsatisfactory.”
How to (and How Not to) Minister to Families Battling Cancer.
22 Facts About Sleeping That Will Surprise You.
This had me smiling:
Happy Saturday!
Here are some links I found interesting in the last couple of weeks:
This quote is resonating with me from an article about preaching, though I am not a preacher: “That little voice inside your head saying ‘That’s just not who I am’ is not your friend. Sanctification is the process by which the Holy Spirit overcomes ‘who I am’ and shapes me into who He wants me to be.” The article is 5 Reasons Why Some Preachers Get Better and Others Don’t, HT to Challies.
15 Beautiful Benefits of the Word of God.
Five Specific Prayers for the Unsaved People in Your Life.
3 reasons you should not try to bind Satan.
Letting Parenting Struggles Make You Strong.
Ten Things My Parents Did Right.
Home Decor and Trendiness: Who Makes the Rules You Live By? Yes! I kept thinking that all through this post.
I am Ryland – The Story of a Male-Identifying Little Girl Who Didn’t Transition. In light of a recent case where parents started treating their daughter like a boy when she liked boy things, this blogger tells of growing up as what we used to call a tomboy or “late bloomer” who nevertheless did not identify herself as transgender. With the current climate, we’re going to run into these kinds of situations, and she makes some good points.
I’m not linking to 6 Reflections on Sleepovers so much for anything to do with sleepovers: it’s a response to a post on why this family doesn’t allow sleepovers, but I’m linking to it because the principles he discusses when Christians have different views cover many things. It is good to keep these things in mind when disagreeing on secondary issues.
Paralyzed? Or Medically Fragile?
Facts about the Hobby Lobby ruling that even some Christian seem to be missing.
Skip to the Loo, My Darling, HT to Lou Ann. An interesting look at bathroom facilities in other countries by missionary women. This reinforces the thought I’ve had that this aspect would be one of the things I’d have a hard time with if I ever traveled out of the country!
And lastly, I forget where I saw this, but it had me chuckling out loud. As my sister-in-law said when she saw it, “Baby: 1; Dad: 0.” (As an aside, for safety concerns it is probably not wise for an adult to climb into a baby’s crib.)
Happy Saturday!
Here is my semi-weekly round-up of interesting reads – I hope you’ll find one or two of interest:
A Return to the Book. “The further I move from the written Word of God, the less confidence I can have that I’ve heard a word from God. ”
The Danger of Coasting. When we’re not living intentionally, we usually end up somewhere we didn’t mean to go.
Flip or Flop. People can say and do horrible things – like in an earlier post by this author where people commented, “Your poor husband – 6 kids and wife in a wheelchair” or tell her that her children will grow up to resent her disability. But in this post she discusses the good things people have said and done and the choice we can make in which to focus on.
5 Ways Moms Create Cranky Toddlers. Written by a mom and shared by a young mom friend.
Seven Ways to Love Your Pastor.
Why I Read Heartwrenching Stories. I haven’t read the book discussed here but I like what she said about why she reads books that deal with topics that are hard to read about.
Louis Zamperini, the subject of the book Unbroken by Lauren Hillenbrand (one of the best I’ve ever read) passed away this week at the age of 97. An Olympic athlete, WWII soldier, and POW, his greatest victory came through faith in Christ. Here are a couple of short news videos about his life and death, neither of which mentions his faith: let’s hope the upcoming film based on the book does:
Here are some noteworthy reads recently discovered:
Nobody Understands What I’m Going Through.
How to Truly Encourage the Spiritual Life of Your Husband.
Slow-to-Anger Parenting, HT to Challies.
Thunder and Bugs: Helping Children Deal With Fear.
What To Do When Compliments Scare You.
I’ve seen this video in a couple of places this morning. We think of erosion as a destructive force, and it can be: we have to take measures against its damaging foundations and crops, etc. But God can also use it to create beauty.
Have a great weekend!
Here is a collection of some thought-provoking posts discovered in the last couple of weeks:
You Are What – And How – You Read from Rosaria Champagne Butterfield. About more than reading.
The Inner Life — Four Reasons to Have a Quiet Time.
The ladies of Out of the Ordinary have been blogging about middle age this month, a topic you don’t often see on blogs. My two favorite posts so far have been Things to Guard Against in the Middle Years and The Middle Years: There’s Good News, Too!
On Daughters and Dating: How to Intimidate Suitors. Loved this: “Instead of intimidating all your daughter’s potential suitors, raise a daughter who intimidates them just fine on her own. Because, you know what’s intimidating? Strength and dignity. Deep faith. Self-assuredness. Wisdom. Kindness. Humility. Industriousness.”
What do those with disabilities owe those without?
An Outburst Is An Opportunity.
When It’s Time to Leave a Church.
Five Helps for Memorizing Bible Verses.
Three Reasons to Diversify Your Reading. Why Christians should read non-Christian books.
Hope you have a great weekend!
Wow, I can’t believe it has been about a month since I’ve shared interesting links with you! Here’s some thought-provoking reading:
From my son’s blog: 4 things that have kept me sane in the NICU and Dealing with Disappointment in the NICU.
The Story. The importance of reading the Scriptures as a whole rather than isolated parts.
The Church Is a Body, Not a Body Part.
On parenting:
Godly Feelings Flourish Behind Walls of Self-Control. The girltalk blog has been discussing teaching children self-control, and I especially appreciated this post about teaching a very emotional toddler to rein herself in.
Teaching Toddlers Emotional Self Control: A Few Practical Thoughts, another in the above series.
The Morning When My Mother Got Up Anyway.
His Time, His Plan, His Way, a story of a premature birth.
What a child with food allergies would want you to know.
Why I Am Sick of Women’s Conferences. Though the title is maybe a little harsh, this is a good post about the wrong message being emphasized at some conferences.
Do You Know Your Missionaries? Eight Ideas to get to know them better.
Could Quitting Facebook Be A Mistake? HT to Bobbi.
This just made me smile – a friend saw at a shop in Williamsburg Jane Austen Action Figures.
Happy Saturday!
Here are a few interesting reads discovered in the last couple of weeks:
The Cheerleader. If something can be heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time, it is this testimony of a mom injured in the tornadoes that took her home and children.
“God’s Not Dead” and the Angry Atheist Professor: That Was Not My Experience, HT to Challies. I’ve not seen the movie, but Ann has a review of it here. She says as well that the atheists in the movie tended to be typecast as stereotypical meanies, and the film has some issues, but overall it has a good message.
Before We Die and After, Too. Things we want to accomplish before we go may not be the typical “bucket list” experiences.
How Can Moms Deal With the Distractions of Social Media?
What to Do in Those “I Can’t Handle It” Moments.
The Church and the LGBT Community: Is There a Way Forward?
Happy Saturday!
