wish lists
I really must stay out of the toy store. It’s just not a safe place for me to be. Nor is it a good place for me to be—with aisle upon aisle beckoning me to spend money I don’t have on gifts my child doesn’t need for a room that has no further space. And yet each year I find myself, somehow, in the middle of the store with my heart being wrenched by the same conflict as last year. When will I get it, Lord? Her little mind is filled with thoughts of Barbie, Hello Kitty, and the Power Puff Girls (where on earth did she pick up the Power Puff Girls?) Her wish list weighs down with the...
Read Moreyou tell me…
We can all fall prey to the tendency to focus more time and energy on preparing our homes for Christmas than on preparing our hearts for Christ’s arrival. What preparations or repairs need to be made “beneath the surface,” in order for you to be truly ready this year?
Read More…the empty print…
What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in things that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself. Blaise Pascal Still struggling with fatigue and brain-fog, but this quote from my reading last night struck me and I wanted to share...
Read Morewholly acceptable
I was talking last night with a gal I really enjoy who recently, in her own words, got “kicked in the butt” spiritually. It was the third or fourth conversation for me in the last week that revolved around the idea that everything we do matters to God. Wheels are turning in my head that haven’t turned in a while… there is a lot of creaking and groaning in going on up there, drowning out all other thoughts and conversations. It is not entirely comfortable. I wish some things were better left alone. Everything we do matters to God. This is the recurring theme. ...
Read Morethe tenacious ten: wanting what i want
Saturday evening’s tryst with Graeter’s went just fine, thanks to the brilliant idea that we pick up a few pints and eat them at the house, which somehow, fortunately, took the emotional impact out of it for me. (And it is, after all, all about me. Sheesh…) One bite of coconut chocolate chip was enough to sate me, and I was content to sip my tea and chew my dessert-flavored gum in favor of fitting into my shorts when I go to Alabama in two weeks. While that crisis was thankfully averted, I continue struggling, ad nauseum, to find the line between what my body wants and what my...
Read Morethe tenacious ten: day seventeen
In many ways the stomach is like a spoiled child, and a spoiled child does not need indulgence, but needs discipline. …You are to be the master of your stomach, not its slave. Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline, pg 57 Does anyone else around here have a two-year-old for a stomach? Or am I the only one who’s stomach throws screaming, kicking, flailing fits in front of God and everyone for what it wants? Anyone?
Read Moregiving up to gain (or to not gain, as the case may be)
When Jesus says, “Follow me,” it’s not an invitation to drag our divided heart alongside us as we attempt to follow hard after God… Here’s how Jesus describes it: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). With Jesus, if we want to gain, we must give up. If we want to be filled, we must deny ourselves. If we want to get truly close to God, we’ll have to distance ourselves from other things. And if we want to conquer our cravings, we’ll have to redirect them to God. Lysa...
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