Here are just a few good reads from the last couple of weeks:

Examine Your Profession of Faith.

Speaking the Truth in Love. “Truth becomes hard if it is not softened by love; love becomes soft if it is not strengthened by truth.”

Idolizing Worship. “A true worshiper is not a consumer or a spectator. A true worshiper is one who is personally engaged with God in spirit and truth. The means of our worship is not Christ’s point of emphasis….In general we devote ourselves to building up the church, not simply pursuing an idealized experience that makes us feel as if we’ve worshiped.”

Slowing Down rather than rushing and hurrying children.

Sync Free Audiobooks. Sync is offering a couple of different audiobooks for free each week through the summer, several classics among them.

Why I Think You Should Break the Blogging Rules.

Hope you have a great weekend!

I don’t know if this will matter to anyone but me, but I used to label my Laudable Linkage posts with all the different topics covered. The only problem with that was when I went to look through a particular category, there would be a lot of “Links” posts, and it was hard to find and skim through my own posts. I didn’t want a reader searching through the categories to face the same thing, so I created a separate Laudable Linkage category for these types of posts and I’m in the process of changing the tags on the old ones.

On to my collection of interesting reads from the last couple of weeks:

Tim Bosna and Evil’s Smile. The last paragraph is a helpful perspective when unthinkable and insensible evil happens.

Where Was God?

Forgive Us These Faults.

5 Things Every Christian Should Know. Or remind ourselves of.

Aiming at Heaven.

Why Going to Church on Sunday Is an Act of War.

To Ron and Shelly Hamilton’s Church on the death of their son. Good advice when a church member is grieving.

5 Ways We Grow.

The Difference Between Original Autographs and Original Texts of Scripture.

4 Ways to Be Like Nana Lois from II Timothy 1:5

10 Ways to Encourage a Missionary, HT to Kim.

Why Christian Writers Should Keep Writing, HT to Laura.

An Invitation to Old-fashioned Blogging, sharing our simple stories, before “branding” became a part of blogging, HT to Susanne.

A delicate subject matter – toilets in Japan from missionary friend Kim. I find these things fascinating. Note the last one with the sink on top of the toilet, so the water from washing your hands goes to fill the tank. One thing I’ve never understood about bidets – I’ve never used one, but you know how with a air hand dryer, your hands never get completely dry….? Seems like that would be a problem with bidet dryers as well.  I’m glad they have alternate western-style toilets in airports there! Even in the US, I’m always glad to get back to my very own bathroom. 🙂

Enough of that – here’s a fun way to make a bear-faced pancake:

This cat must be thinking, “Make. It. Stop.”

Have a great weekend!

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

The Boundaries of Evangelism. I’ve been coming across what he’s talking about here, elements of mysticism creeping into evangelicalism, so this was a timely read, though I’m not of a Reformed denomination and believe you don’t have to be Reformed to be Evangelical.

Some Things You Should Know About Women and the Old Testament. Excellent treatment of passages that many find troubling.

Building An Effective Scripture Journal.

The New Legalism. “How the push to be ‘radical’ and ‘missional’ discourages ordinary people in ordinary places from doing ordinary things to the glory of God.”

Mommy. Sweet post about becoming Mommy and then Mom.

An open letter to pastors {A non-mom speaks about Mother’s Day}

Why Reading That Novel Makes You Smarter, More Empathetic, and Closer to God.

10 Texts That Will Make You Appreciate Mom. Funny.

This is cute – a baby duck trying to stay awake. Though I don’t know why it’s in a classroom.

That’s one way to kill a spider – probably not the best way…

Hope you have a great weekend!

Here are a few interesting reads from the last week or so:

Why Should I Surrender to God?

There Really Is a Reason: 12 Benefits of Affliction.

I’m Just Not Wired That Way. Probably the most balanced post about introversion I’ve seen.

Finding Encouragement and Community as an Old-er Woman.

D-I-S-C-I-P-L-I-N-E-D Eating.

Self-promotion, Humility, and the Christian Writer.

Hope you have a great weekend! It’s supposed to be a rainy one here, and I’m trying to decide which of my “things to do” I should work on.

Here is a round-up of interesting reads from the last couple of weeks:

The Gosnell Horror: What Now?

When you don’t know what to say when ministering to others, in this case, the homeless.

Howard Schultz, Tim Keller, and Commandment #9. Two people whose views have been misrepresented and then spread across the Internet. We need to be careful before we click the “Share” link.

What does it mean to “love not the world”? HT to Challies.

Surrendering Our Fears.

So what if abortion ends life? I can understand people being for abortion if they don’t believe life begins at conception (though I disagree, I can understand the rationalization.) But to believe “the fetus is indeed a life. A life worth sacrificing” is indeed chilling.

Dear Mom Who Is Afraid of Having a Teenager.

Why Is Christian Art So Bad? Principles for creating art drawn from the Bible.

5 Talented Women Who Write and Love Fiction. Interview with five Christian fiction authors.

There has been much about the Boston marathon bombings, but this one tells at the beginning and end about the older racer whom we saw fall down at the first bombing. He got up and finished the race.

Here are a few good reads from the last couple of weeks:

What if Jesus really DID rise?

Making Peace With the Wrath of God, a difficult concept for some to grasp.

In the Crosshairs of the Discernment Bloggers. This is a vital, valuable post in many ways. There are many sites, bloggers, forums, and even Facebook groups that set themselves as watchdogs for certain organizations, colleges, and individuals. The problem is they so often operate from a platform of bitterness (even while denying bitterness), interpret every nuance in the light they cast on it without conceding there may be another side to the story, and even make up facts some times. Discernment is highly valuable, but that’s not what they’re exercising.

Excellence or Faithfulness. I had to think over this one, as learning to strive for excellence has been life-changing for me, and I can’t stand when someone does a simple job sloppily. But reading this in context, I do agree: “Every man I know would much rather be married to a faithful woman who’s a fair cook, a competent housekeeper, a good mom, and a decent wife than a woman whose devotion to excellence in all things leaves her strung-out, uptight, and intolerant of herself and her family.”

Learning Quietly and Humbly.

Old Testament Law and the Charge of Inconsistency.

50 Ways to Love Your Son Well.

Why Christians Should Read Fiction.

More thoughts on literal Biblical womanhood.

9 Things You Should Know About Edith Schaeffer. There has been much written online about Edith since her recent death. I loved her book The Art of Homemaking in my early married days and always wanted to read something more from her and her husband, but haven’t gotten around to it yet. Not a Waste of Time is an excerpt from her book, and Thank You, Edith is a tribute to her teaching and example.

Booker T. Washington on reading the Bible.

A letter to Victoria’s Secret from a father. Amen.

Nice “flashmob” featuring Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.

This was neat:

And these Cat Special Forces were pretty funny:

Have a great weekend!

Here are a few good reads discovered in the last week or so:

Hallelujah, What a Savior, HT to Janet. How a low view of God’s law leads to a cheap view of grace or nullifies it altogether.

25 Things Our Sons Need to Know About Manhood.

Scripture reading plan for Passion week.

Curing Fear, Restoring Mission. Though there are times we are supposed to separate, ““Does there have to be perfect conformity to the customs for us to have biblical fellowship in our church? Does the other person or group have to adopt our customs and live exactly as we do for us to fellowship with them?” No.

To parents of small children: Let me be the one to say it out loud. “You’re not a terrible parent if….”

And from the above author’s wife: These are the lines of a story, lovely post about our bodies after childbirth.

The Christian Fantasy. Why good fantasy is hard to write and why today’s doesn’t often measure up to the great fantasy writers of the past (Lewis, Tolkien).

Writes of Passage is a blog of ten different Christian fiction authors. This month they’ve been celebrating Women’s History Month by featuring a different woman of history each day, sometimes a woman who influenced one of their books. It’s been interesting reading.

Writing jokes, songs, and picture books. A lot of effort goes into making it look effortless.

A visit with Elisabeth Elliot, one of my personal heroes of the faith.

Shopping at the Department Store of Ideas. How writers hone in on ideas for writing.

By now you have probably heard that Google Reader is shutting down July 1 (Boo, hiss!) Here are some good alternatives, and here is one more.

And for a quick smile, the Mission Impossible Squirrel:

Here are a few good reads from the last week:

Do You Know the Bones of Your Bible? Here are some good reasons to if you don’t.

Preaching to Women Who Work in the Home.

It’s Better to Be Faithful than Gifted, HT to Challies. “There aren’t many superstars in the kingdom of God. Not many have super gifts. Most of us are just average. Gifted in small ways. But if we are faithful to use the gifts we have and serve in whatever ways we can, God will increase us.”

Four Good Reasons to Read Good Books.

Chavez’s Last Words and Yours.

Speaking of Chavez, his death stirred some memories of a missionary friend whose ministry in Venezuela was cut short during Chavez’s rule.

A giveaway for Robin Lee Hatcher’s book Betrayal and Adam Blumer’s The Tenth Plague (the latter ends today at 4).

This is a cute video of a dad and his babies. Funny how they stop when he stops.

This is a very touching speech from a father before giving his daughter away in marriage:

I especially liked, “You see that look? She never had that before she met you.”

And I saw this at Susanne‘s It was a little slow to me at first but had me laughing at the very end.

Hope you have great weekend!