Meme of Reading Questions

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Booking Through Thursday has a very long reading meme posted today (55 questions!!!) That’s way too much for me, but I picked out a few to answer, as reading is one of my favorite activities.Feel free to join me — either these questions or the whole slew of them, or just whichever ones you’re most interested in.

Favorite childhood book?

A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson plus a children’s picture Bible.

What are you reading right now?

The Unfinished Gift by Dan Walsh (won from Mocha With Linda — thanks, Linda!) and Faithful Women and Their Extraordinary God by Noel Piper

Bad book habit?

I honestly can’t think of one. I’ve cured myself of dog-earing pages and laying books open flat. Maybe hanging on to ones I am probably never going to read again. It’s hard to let them go. I’ve gotten better about that, but I still need to purge the shelves — and unpacking and handling each one individually will give me opportunity to do that.

Do you have an e-reader?

No. I don’t anticipate getting one. I can see the convenience of just carrying it rather than several books, and if I traveled a lot I might want to do that. But I like the real book experience.

Do you prefer to read one book at a time, or several at once?

I usually have two going at a time — one in each bathroom. 🙂 Sometimes I’ll have a Bible study or self-help book at the same time.

Have your reading habits changed since starting a blog?

My TBR list has grown immensely after seeing what others read and recommend! And I read a bit less as relaxation times are often spent at the computer.

How often do you read out of your comfort zone?

Not often. I am not unwilling to, I just have so many stacked up that I am looking forward to that there’s not much time to explore others.

What is your reading comfort zone?

Christian fiction, biographies.

Can you read on the bus?

I haven’t been on a bus in years, but if the question has to do with reading on a moving vehicle, yes, I have no problem with that as long as I am positioned where I don’t see the road going by in my peripheral vision. That bothers my eyes. But otherwise reading makes road trips bearable (if I am not the one driving. 🙂 )

Favorite place to read?

Stretched out on the living room couch with pillows behind my back and a throw blanket over me.

What is your policy on book lending?

I don’t have a policy. I don’t mind lending to anyone who asks. I’ve only had a few unreturned.

Do you ever write in the margins of your books?

Bible studies, self-help type books, yes. Otherwise I might only underline a significant passage or make a mark by a paragraph and then put a mini sticky-note on the page to help me find it again.

What makes you love a book?

Identification with the characters or plot. Excellent writing that makes me think or speaks to my soul. Well developed characters. Truth.

What will inspire you to recommend a book?

See answers to above question.

Genre you rarely read (but wish you did?)

History.

Favorite biography?

Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur by Frank Houghton.

Favorite cookbook?

Good old basic Betty Crocker cookbook.

Most inspirational book you’ve read this year (fiction or non-fiction)?

Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross: Experiencing the Power and Passion of Easter.

Favorite reading snack?

I don’t usually snack while reading.

Name a case in which hype ruined your reading experience.

Usually a lot of hype turns me off from a book, i.e., Harry Potter, The Shack, Twilight, The Purpose Driven Life. Haven’t read any of those.

How do you feel about giving bad/negative reviews?

I try not to be unkind, but I am going to be honest. I don’t criticize just to be critical, and I do try to note if something is just a difference of opinion or preference. But if something in a book hits one reader the wrong way, it will likely have that same effect on others, and I would hope a writer reading a negative review would take it in that light and use it as a means to improve their communication. Of course, no one can please everyone all the time.

Most intimidating book you’ve ever read?

The unabridged Les Miserables, both because of the sheer length of it plus some tedious passages. But it was worth it!

Most intimidating book you’re too nervous to begin?

I wouldn’t say nervous, but I haven’t read War and Peace for the same reasons. Maybe some day! I did know Les Mis was a beautiful story, and that led me to want to explore the full book. I don’t really know anything about W&P, so I am not really driven to it at this point.

Favorite Poet?

Hard to narrow down, but I think Robert Frost. He’s kind of the Everyman of poets, easily understandable and accessible, yet no less deep.

Favorite fictional character?

Oh, this is hard. David Copperfield. Sydney Carton. Anne of Green Gables. Elinor Dashwood. Pa and Ma Ingalls and Laura. Jean Val Jean.

Favorite fictional villain?

One of the best crafted villains that comes to my mind is Javert of Les Miserables because he doesn’t seem like a villain. He thinks he’s on the side of right. He stands for the good causes of righteousness and justice but forgets forgiveness and mercy and compassion. He reminds me somewhat of the apostle Paul who persecutes Christians because he thinks they are sinning against the God he thinks he is serving, yet unlike Paul, who is brought prostrate and converted when he is brought face to face with the truth, Javert can’t face it, can’t comprehend it, and sadly destroys himself.

The longest I’ve gone without reading.

I don’t think I have gone a whole day without reading something, even a few sentences, in my adult life.

What distracts you easily when you’re reading?

Other people.

Favorite film adaptation of a novel?

Lord of the Rings.

Most disappointing film adaptation?

The third in Kevin Sullivan’s Anne of Green Gables series, Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story. Why, oh, why did he have to stray SO far from the book?!

The most money I’ve ever spent in the bookstore at one time?

Over $900 — but it wasn’t for me, it was for our church missions’ closet — and that was after a 25% discount. We don’t usually have that much money in the missions’ closet account, but we had a surplus right before I left, and I wanted to leave it well-stocked. Those weren’t all books — there were some CDs in there as well. Personally — I know I’ve spent $50 before, maybe $75 or so.

What would cause you to stop reading a book half-way through?

Smut, bad language, dull writing.

Do you like to keep your books organized?

Yes, by basic types.

Even with leaving out many questions this ended up rather long! Let me know if you do this — I’d love to come check out your answers!

Book Review: The Cambridge Seven

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In 1883 Harold Schofield, a missionary doctor in China, surveyed the needs of his field and prayed in faith “that God would waken the church to China’s claims, that He would raise up men to preach His word. Above all that He would touch the universities and call men of talent and ability and consecrate them to His work in China. It seemed a prayer absurd enough except to faith” (p. 42). He did know know that God had begun answering his prayer “even while he was yet speaking,” and he didn’t live to see the answer: like those saints in Hebrews 11, he died not having yet received the promises, but God used him in faith and prayer.

This book details the answer to that prayer. The subtitle of The Cambridge Seven by John Pollock is “The True Story of Ordinary Men Used in No Ordinary Way,” an apt title.

A fairly short book at only 111 pages, it details the Lord’s leading in the lives of seven young men from their conversions to their departure for China with a brief synopsis at the end about what happened to each of them. C.T. Studd, M. Beauchamp, S.P. Smith, A.T. Polhill-Turner, D.E. Hoste, C.H. Polhill-Turner, W.W. Cassels were all Cambridge students who felt called to offer their lives as missionaries to China. They were from different backgrounds: some were wealthy, some were in the military, some were collegiate athletes — one of them a household name in his day; some were more “ordinary.” They were of varying abilities and gifts. Yet as God called them one by one, and it became known, and they shared their testimonies of salvation and surrender over England and Scotland, God used them in a remarkable way before they ever even got to China.

For many of them, the first stirrings toward faith in Christ came when D. L. Moody and Ira Sankey held meetings in England. Some of “their friends thought it a great joke that two uneducated Americans should be coming to preach to the University” (p. 29). But the Holy Spirit worked through His servant and His Word to convict their hearts and bring them to Himself. Others came from Christian families yet were only nominal believers until the Lord began to draw them to a closer fellowship and surrender to Himself.

Some of their families supported them: others strongly resisted the idea of their sons going to a foreign mission field, at least at first.

I appreciated the caution and care with which they approached their call. As D. E. Hoste “began to feel the urge to devote himself to the gospel. Nothing else seemed worthy,” his father “refused. He pointed out how recent was Dick’s faith, and reminded him that, though nothing could break its reality, the intensity of his emotions might be transient. To rush, on impulse, to such a binding decision would be foolishly wrong and might afterwards be regretted” (p. 43). C. T. Studd was listening to an address about the needs of China and “thought for a moment of rising in his place and offering for China on the spot. But he felt ‘people would say I was led by impulse.’ When the meeting ended he slipped away by himself and prayed for guidance” (pp. 69-70). I wince sometimes in our modern-day meetings when a speaker seems to feel he has to compel people down the aisle or else they’ll miss the will of God for their lives forever afterward. That may be true in some cases — there are moments of crisis when we need to make a decision for the Lord without hesitation. But as a general rule I’d rather people take time to pray and make sure their call is really of God than to respond to man-made pressure mistaken for the Holy Spirit’s.

China was not an easy field to go to then, if indeed it ever was. Some of these men were laying aside personal wealth and the possibility of brilliant careers and social prominence. But as they shared their call, they did not do so with woebegone countenances. They did not make it seem like a sacrifice: they made it seem like a joyous privilege. Perhaps that contagious joy was one of the things that drew a number of people to give their all to the Lord in their wake. Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission through which they would be working, even allowed them to wait past their appointed time of departure because they were being called to more meetings in the British Isles to speak: he recognized that God was doing something unusual through them.

C. T. Studd is perhaps the most well-known of the seven in our day. One of his most well-known quotes is at the end of this section:

I had known about Jesus Christ’s dying for me, but had never understood that if he died for me, then I didn’t belong to myself. Redemption means ‘buying back,’ so that if I belonged to Him, either I had to be a thief and keep what wasn’t mine or else I had to give up everything to God. When I came to see that Jesus Christ had died for me, it didn’t seem hard to give up all for HIM. It just seemed common, ordinary honesty.

(This review will be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

The Week In Words

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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.

Just a further note — if you’ve posted a quote on your blog this past week, feel free to link it here as well. You don’t have to save it for Mondays. :) And please do read and comment even if you’re not posting quotes.

Here are a few that stood out to me this week:

On several friends’ Facebook statuses:

The happiest people don’t have the best of everything, they just make the best of everything they have.

That speaks much to being content with such things as we have, as we’re instructed to be (Hebrews 13:5-6). It seems no matter how much we have, there is always a craving for more.

I saw this at Semicolon’s:

“It is not enough to simply teach children to read; we have to give them something worth reading. Something that will stretch their imaginations–something that will help them make sense of their own lives and encourage them to reach out toward people whose lives are quite different from their own.”~Katharine Paterson, U.S. National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature

I so agree with this! I am astounded when I hear parents or teachers say, “I don’t care what my kids are reading as long as they’re reading.” We don’t say the same about physical food: “I don’t care what my kids are eating, as long as they’re eating.” Why would we care less about what kids are putting into their brains? I am not talking about the extremes of censorship but rather teaching discernment and providing good books to read (for them and ourselves). There are so many good choices, we don’t need to read shoddy stuff just to have something to read.

Then in an article titled 10 Writing Tips at ChristianWritingToday.com (I got there via Semicolon’s link to 8 Writing Tips From C. S. Lewis on the same site) these first two were the ones that most stood out to me:

1.  Write only when you have something to say. (Playwright David Hare).

2.  The reader is a friend, not an adversary, not a spectator. (Jonathan Franzen)

That second one especially spoke to me: if writing is to be a means of communication rather than just self-expression, writers need to engage the reader, and then not be offended if a reader doesn’t “get” or like something, but rather look for ways to better communicate with the reader (though of course we all understand that we can’t please everybody. But pleasing and effectively communicating aren’t always the same thing.)

Then from an Elisabeth Elliot e-mail devotinal from her book A Lamp For My Feet concerning Romans 12:1-2:

The primary condition for learning what God wants of us is putting ourselves wholly at his disposal. It is just here that we are often blocked. We hold certain reservations about how far we are willing to go, what we will or will not do, how much God can have of us or of what we treasure. Then we pray for guidance. It will not work. We must begin by laying it all down–ourselves, our treasures, our destiny. Then we are in a position to think with renewed minds and act with a transformed nature. The withholding of any part of ourselves is the same as saying, “Thy will be done up to a point, mine from there on.”

That is the sticking point, isn’t it? I want God’s perfect will in my life…unless it means that.

From the same source comes this quote:

If God is almighty, there can be no evil so great as to be beyond his power to transform. That transforming power brings light out of darkness, joy out of sorrow, gain out of loss, life out of death.

Sometimes we boggle at the evil in the world and especially in ourselves, feeling that this sin, this tragedy, this offense cannot possibly fit into a pattern for good. Let us remember Joseph’s imprisonment, David’s sin, Paul’s violent persecution of Christians, Peter’s denial of his Master. None of it was beyond the power of grace to redeem and turn into something productive. The God who establishes the shoreline for the sea also decides the limits of the great mystery which is evil. He is “the Blessed Controller of all things.” God will finally be God, Satan’s best efforts notwithstanding.

We tend to want bad things prevented rather than transformed. That day will come, but it is not now. A friend once said she realized that if God were to wipe out all the evil in the world, He would have to wipe out all of us, for we all sin. I am thankful He transforms us rather than just doing away with us, and and we can trust Him to limit what He allows of evil and trust Him to somehow work it together for good (Romans 8:28) until the day when it is taken out of the way completely.

If you have some family-friendly quotes you’d like to share, please leave the link to your “Week In Words” post (not just to your general blog) with Mr. Linky below. Of course, it is fine to just leave a quote in the comments section if you’d rather. I hope you’ll visit some of the other participants, too: this is a small enough meme so far that it is not hard to visit around with others who love to glean quotes from their reading as well.

The Week In Words Participants

1. bekahcubed 2. Susan 3. Jerrie

Powered by… Mister Linky’s Magical Widgets.

(Mr. Linky is closed for this post: Please see the current Week In Words post to put your new quotes in.)

Happy Birthday to Jeremy!

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A Very Happy 26th Birthday to Jeremy!

I am so glad we could all be together for it!

Laudable Linkage

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I saw some great things around the Internet the last couple of weeks. Let me know if you find any of them useful!

Supernatural Love at Femina. We all need it. This is a great delineation of what it looks like, how to apply I Cor. 13 in everyday life. It’s geared toward moms, but of course the chapter and many of the principles listed could be applied in multitudes of ways.

Strength For a Weary Mom at girltalk.

Defining Success as a Parent at The M.O.B. Society. I love this site! I wish there had been something like it when my guys were small.

Confession Is Not Propitiatory at My Two Cents. It’s not how hard we confess that appropriates our forgiveness. Amen.

Thinking About Immigration Missiologically at MissioMishmash.

Davis Bunn and Writer’s Conferences. Maybe some day…

And on the crafty front:

Gifts Bags From Newspapers.

And a neat idea for storing fabric (HT to Lizzie).

And a couple of funnies from icanhascheezburger.

funny pictures of cats with captions
see more Lolcats and funny pictures

funny pictures of cats with captions
see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Have a great Saturday!

Friday’s Fave Five

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Susanne at Living to Tell the Story hosts Friday’s Fave Five so 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 gives. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.

I have multitudes of favorite things this week — or two weeks, actually, since we were moving last week and I wasn’t able to participate then. I don’t know if I can condense it to five — we will see!

1. The move went relatively smoothly. My husband’s company paid for movers, but we hadn’t contracted with any yet because we wanted to wait until we officially closed on the new house. Then when we did start calling them, it looked at first like none would be available the week we wanted to move, but one came through. Then we had several phases of moving: Wed. the movers came and packed; Thursday they loaded the truck and then we drove to TN that evening; Friday they unloaded in TN; Saturday Jim rented a U-Haul and drove back to SC to move Jason and Mittu into our old house while Jesse and I stayed here and started unpacking; Sunday he loaded up his mom’s things from her assisted living place and brought her here to TN, and then we moved her into her new place. Moving three households in one week seems absolutely crazy, but it had to be done, and everything worked out pretty much as planned and went fairly well. A few mishaps, but nothing major. Even though there is still a lot to do, it feels a little more relaxing because we can do it at our own pace now.

2. My new house! I could make a FFF just about it. I already wrote about it here, but to make a subset fave five, some of my favorite things about it are that it is one level — no steps except for a couple at the front and side doors; the kitchen/dining area has a more open feel than our old house; the kitchen has many more cabinets, much more counter space, a walk-in closet pantry, and lighting over all the counters; a garage (we’ve never had one before! And garage-door openers! So far I still get a little thrill pushing that button!); our master bathroom (only the second time in 31 years we’ve had one); pink floral towel racks left in the master bathroom by the previous owner as well as a pink and green striped rug; walk-in closets; quiet neighborhood….let’s see, I think that’s more than five already.

3. Two neighbors have come over to introduce themselves. One brought produce from her garden, the other brought home-made jelly. Both invited us to their churches. It’s nice to be welcomed!

4. Jim’s mom has adjusted really well to her new place. We had wanted to set up her room as much as possible like her old one, but we couldn’t because it is arranged so differently. But she doesn’t seem to mind. Jim and I had a meeting with one of the ladies in charge this week (we had met before, but this time we got down to the nitty-gritty details) and we’re really pleased with how they handle things and the attention they give her. She came out for lunch while we were there and saw us and came over, then one of the residents came over and welcomed her and invited her to eat at her table. When I visited her yesterday, she exclaimed how nice everything was and how good the food is. 🙂 So far there doesn’t seem to be much confusion, except the first day she went down the wrong hall. This facility is a very small, homey place, and so far we’re really pleased.

5. Jim’s relocation package included a bit of money for “incidentals,” and since we went from one and a half bathrooms in the old house to three full bathrooms in the new, we needed some new towels. I got some to match the pretty towel racks in our bathroom:

So that’s five already, and I haven’t even mentioned yet that Jesse had his first experience with the youth group here and enjoyed it, that a dear friend agreed to take the ladies’ group in SC, at least on an interim basis, and they had their first meeting Monday night and did fine. It’s a blessing to know I am leaving it in good hands. And I have mentioned my GPS before, but it has been invaluable in finding our way around a new town.

So it has been a very good if very busy couple of weeks. School starts for Jesse next week, and though he is a little “weirded out” by the thought of starting a new school — he had been in the same Christian school from K-5 through 10th grade, so this is his first time to be “the new guy” — I have every reason to believe he’ll do fine, and I am looking forward to settling in to a new routine.

Flashback Friday: Back to School

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Mocha With Linda hosts a weekly meme called Flashback Friday. She’ll post a question every Thursday, and then Friday we can link our answers up on her site.

The question for this week is:

Did your family have any back-to-school traditions when you were growing up? Were you generally eager or reluctant to start school? Was buying school supplies a big deal or did you order them through the school? Were there any school supplies you particularly loved? Did you take your lunch or buy it at school? Brown bag or lunch box/thermos? Does the first day of school from any grade stand out? Did you ride the bus, walk, or go by car to school? Do you remember how early or late school began/dismissed each day? Did you go to kindergarten? Half-day or whole day?

I LOVED school, and I loved getting new school supplies and getting them all set up and ready — in a cigar box in elementary school, then graduating to those clear zippered pouches that fit into one’s 3-ring binder. There is just something about a new box of crayons, packages of new pens and pencils, etc. In fact, seeing all the neat new school supplies out in stores has made me wish I needed them! They have some really fun, cute stuff these days. I remember carrying books and such back and forth in a book satchel — something like modern day “messenger bags.”

We didn’t really have any rituals or traditions associated with starting school. We just bought supplies at the store.

We varied between taking and buying lunches. I do remember that the little cartons of milk only cost 5 cents, and I seem to remember even 3 cents in early elementary school. I loved the hard plastic or metal lunch boxes with matching thermoses. I don’t remember what any of mine looked like.

We varied walking, riding the bus, or having someone take us to school depending on where we lived at the time. My most memorable rides involved my grandfather, the one I have mentioned with the distinctive laugh. My mom must have had a job requiring her to be there early at the time, because I remember my grandfather taking me to someone’s house where I had breakfast and then rode to school with them. Almost every single morning in my grandfather’s car we heard “Mairzy Doats” and “Mr. Lonely” on the radio. I don’t remember the people whose house I went to or what they looked like: I only remember that the mom required us to drink the milk left in our cereal bowls, which I thought was really gross.

The only first days of school that stand out are from high school: one was on my August birthday, which I thought was atrocious since school used to start after Labor Day in September. And the other was either when I started high school or when we moved to a new school when I was in jr. high — I don’t remember anything about the day, but I remember my mom picking me up, asking about my day, me shrugging my shoulders and saying something noncommittal like “It was all right,” and her saying she thought of all the kids I’d have the most to say, and I had the least. We talked about nearly everything, so it was unusual for me not to bubble over with all the details about the day. I don’t remember why I seemed to have not much to say that day!

Kindergarten was not required when I was of age, so I started right in with first grade and did fine.

I eagerly anticipated school most years — new books and the glories within, new teachers, seeing old friends. I loved learning (most of the time.)

I wasn’t able to do last week’s flashback because we were in the throes of moving, but it had to do with what we wanted to be when we grew up. I went through various stages, wanting to be a movie star :roll:, teacher, psychologist, writer, but underlying them all was the desire to be a wife and mom, and I am so glad the Lord gave me that privilege. That encompassed a little bit of teaching and psychoanalyzing. 🙂 And I’ve had various opportunities to write a little bit — maybe He will give opportunity to expand on that. After boxes are unpacked!

Book Review: A Matter of Character

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Daphne McKinley is a single heiress in 1918 with a secret: she writes melodramatic “dime novels” about adventures in the Old West based on true-life stories as told to her by a family friend. She doesn’t need the income, but she writes for the joy of storytelling.  She writes under the pseudonym “D. B. Morgan” for two reasons: she doesn’t want to embarrass her family, who might feel such novels were beneath her, and she feels her books might not find a publisher if it were known she was a woman.

Unbeknown to her, Joshua Crawford, the real life grandson of the main character in Daphne’s stories, is on his way to Bethlehem Springs to search out the reclusive D. B. Morgan and make him apologize and correct the defamation of character of his grandfather.

Daphne and Joshua are both in for the surprise of their lives!

I found A Matter of Character by Robin Lee Hatcher a delightful read. It was fun to get a peek at the kinds of decisions an author wrestles with in regard to plot and characters, and I appreciated Daphne’s personal struggle with the responsibility and weight her words carry even in fiction.

A Matter of Character is the third and last and my favorite of Robin’s “Sisters of Bethlehem” series, though it could easily be read alone.

(This review will be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

“David encouraged himself in the LORD his God”

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This is a sentence that has intrigued me often, and I have been mulling over it from time to time for several weeks. That might have something to do with the fact that we’ve moved away from our two oldest sons, and though we keep in touch, it is not the same as hearing what goes on in their everyday lives and helping them put life into perspective or quietly praying when the time isn’t right for motherly advice. I want them to continue developing this habit and skill of encouraging themselves in the Lord.

As Christians we are supposed to encourage each other, but sometimes there is no one at hand to talk to, or sometimes another person doesn’t really understand, or even if they do understand and do try to help, it’s ineffectual if we do not take their wisdom and encouragement in for ourselves.

The passage that this verse comes from is I Samuel 30. David had been anointed king earlier, but he was not the acting king yet: in fact, he was in hiding from King Saul, who wanted to kill him. While David and his men had been away from their camp, Amalekites had swept in, burned everything, and taken the women and children captive. David’s men spoke of stoning him out of their distress over their families. And at that point, “David encouraged himself in the LORD his God” (verse 6b).

How did David encourage himself? Verse 7 says he asked the priest for the ephod and inquired of the Lord what to do.

We don’t have ephods these days — though sometimes that seems like it would be nice when we need a direct answer as to what to do next! But we have the whole word of God and the continually indwelling Holy Spirit if we’re Christians. One of the many reasons it is so important to read and hear the Word of God regularly is that, as we take it in, we get to know our God and His character better, and the Holy Spirit can then bring back to our minds the truths we’ve learned (John 14:26).

David wrote in Psalm 63 in an earlier situation (I Samuel 23:14, according to the reference notes in my Bible), “My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips: When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches. Because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice” (verses 5-7). All through his life you find him inquiring of the Lord or going back to what he knew of God’s character and His word. Near the end of his life he passed this same encouragement on to his son, Solomon: in I Chronicles 28:9 he told him, “And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the LORD searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever,” and verse 20, “Be strong and of good courage, and do it: fear not, nor be dismayed: for the LORD God, even my God, will be with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee, until thou hast finished all the work for the service of the house of the LORD.”

May we all encourage ourselves in the Lord throughout our lives.

The Week In Words

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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.

Just a further note — if you’ve posted a quote on your blog this past week, feel free to link it here as well. You don’t have to save it for Mondays. :) And please do read and comment even if you’re not posting quotes.

Here are some quotes that spoke to me this week:

From the Elisabeth Elliot e-mail devotionals, this taken from her book A Lamp For My Feet:

How can this person who so annoys or offends me be God’s messenger? Is God so unkind as to send that sort across my path? Insofar as his treatment of me requires more kindness than I can find in my own heart, demands love of a quality I do not possess, asks of me patience which only the Spirit of God can produce in me, he is God’s messenger. God sends him in order that he may send me running to God for help.

Sometimes the very circumstance in our lives that we’re chafing against is the one God is using to work something necessary into our hearts and characters that we would not learn or develop any other way.

That goes along with something I read at Washing the Feet of the Saints:

In a recent conversation with a delightful young friend, we considered what it means to die to self, particularly in the ordinary tasks of every day life, and to live sacrificially in our home and community to the glory of Christ.

The “dying” this young lady referenced was a simple household chore that had nothing to do with family/elderly caregiving, but it’s application was obvious. My friend lamented that it should be easier to put her desires and contentment aside for the benefit of other. “But then it wouldn’t be dying,” I countered.

That last line really hit me between the eyes. Thanks, Patricia, for that perspective.

From the August 4 reading from Our Daily Walk by F. B. Meyer:

The best way of increasing our knowledge of God s infinite nature, is by the reverent study of His Word. It is a flimsy religion which discounts doctrine. What the bones are to the body, doctrine is to our moral and spiritual life. What law is to the material universe, doctrine is to the spiritual.

This reminded me of some of the truths I wrote a few years ago about the importance of learning doctrine when we read the Bible rather than just looking for warm fuzzies. The warm fuzzies fly away like dandelion seeds if they are not based on the bedrock of doctrine that we can rely on no matter what the circumstances are.

Then from today’s reading of Meyer’s devotionals:

From Act 7:2-5, we learn that the Call to Abram to go forth, which originally came in Ur of the Chaldees, was repeated in Haran, after his father’s death. Probably Terah delayed his son’s obedience. Let us help our children to realize God’s call, even though we be left lonely on the other side of the river.

This was particularly potent as we just moved away from our oldest two sons and daughter-in-law and are experiencing those pangs of realization in everyday life of their absence. I have read more than one missionary biography in which a well-meaning Christian mother who was active in missionary support balked and resisted when it came to her son or daughter going to the mission field. I do not know if any of mine are called to the mission field yet, but I do not want to stand in the way of any of them doing whatever God’s will is for their lives out of a desire to keep them close to me.

If you have some family-friendly quotes you’d like to share, please leave the link to your “Week In Words” post (not just to your general blog) with Mr. Linky below. Of course, it is fine to just leave a quote in the comments section if you’d rather. I hope you’ll visit some of the other participants, too: this is a small enough meme so far that it is not hard to visit around with others who love to glean quotes from their reading as well.

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The Week In Words Participants

1. bekahcubed 2. e-Mom @ Chrysalis

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