grace on difficult days

Everybody has rough days.  Hard days.  Painful days.  Difficult days.

It’s one of the things every human has in common, isn’t it?  It’s easy to become myopic on these days.

Lately I’ve been trying to recognize what God’s grace looks like in my life on these difficult days.  Intellectually I know that God’s grace may very well be the difficulty.  But in the midst of it, I rarely feel this.   Although knowing it does make a huge difference.

Anyway, today I’m making a small list of how God’s grace is felt by me in the hard moments.. sometimes moments that string along for days or weeks.

1) I feel God’s grace when my 5-yr-old daughter sees my difficulty and ministers to me by offering to play with her younger sister in the other room.  Thank you Lord.

2) I feel God’s grace through a husband who’s willing to do whatever it takes to make sure his wife is well-cared for.

3) I feel God’s grace when phone call from a stranger jars me out of some unhelpful thoughts and unwittingly reveals that my life is really a string of blessing upon blessing.

4) I feel God’s grace in Advil Liquid Gels.

5) I feel God’s grace in a messy house that is evidence that we have friends who like us enough to come to our home and stay for a few hours.  I wish it lasted longer.

6) I feel God’s grace in a schedule that is empty today, but full tomorrow, and keeps me from drowning at home.

7) I feel God’s grace in the ministry of His Word.  It is powerful.  It is active.  It contains the power and Person of the Gospel, which I need.  Everyday.

8) I feel God’s grace in the gift of prayer.  The Spirit and the Lord Jesus make it possible for me to pray to God the Father.  They cover me and utter for me.  They bring me to the throne of a Tender Father, not a wrathful one.

9) I feel God’s grace in the sun heating up my back as I type this.  And a house with many windows that lets it stream in.  And when I’m done I will turn around and soak it in on my face and my eyeballs.

10) I feel God’s grace in that, when I sat down, I only had 4 or 5 things to list as His felt grace for today, but He is faithful in showing me many more.  More than I could ever record.

How are you experiencing His grace today?

“..abortion has done what the Klan only dreamed of.” -Dr. Alveda King

CNS News reports that, “Abortion kills more black Americans than the seven leading causes of death combined, according to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 2005, the latest year for which the abortion numbers are available.”

And so, the spirit of Margaret Sanger lives on in Planned Parenthood.

Sanger, an ardent eugenicist and founder of Planned Parenthood, spoke and wrote of her desire to get rid of such “undesirable” groups as “Negroes” through the method of sterilization and widespread birth control.  At one point in her sordid career she even addressed the women’s auxillary of the Ku Klux Klan.

Dr. Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, and pro-life advocate, couldn’t be more right when she points out that “abortion has done what the Klan only dreamed of.”

Those arguing for abortion often demand that it’s African Americans who would suffer the most by being denied the “right” to abortion.

Really?

I can and will never consider the decimation of a race of people to be a “right.”  Nor will I ever consider babies as punishment.

And I hope the reality of the number of African Americans dying each day (1,784) by abortion will jerk some pro-choicers out of their politically correct stupor and help them to realize there is nothing politically correct or civilized about genocide.

What kind of evangelical are you? Or, what do you do for Halloween?

Russel D. Moore provides these funny (and accurate) definitions of the many types of evangelical:

“If John Mark is right that an evangelical is “a fundamentalist who watches The Office,” then I’m written out of the definition since I’ve never seen the show. But, still, I think he’s on to something. Here’s an alternative try.

An evangelical is a fundamentalist whose kids dress up for Halloween.

A conservative evangelical is a fundamentalist whose kids dress up for the church’s “Fall Festival.”

A confessional evangelical is a fundamentalist whose kids dress up for “Reformation Day.”

An emerging evangelical is a fundamentalist who has no kids, but who dresses up for Halloween anyway.

A revivalist evangelical is a fundamentalist whose kids dress up as demons for the church’s “Judgment House” community evangelism outreach.

A fundamentalist is a fundamentalist whose kids hand out gospel tracts to all those mentioned above.”

A couple years of my growing up, we fell into the “conservative evangelical” to “revivalist evangelical” range.  We dressed up for our  church’s “unhaunted house.”  Many kids dressed up as Bible characters.  It was an outreach to the community as well as a way for Christians to still have fun and do a few scary things on Halloween without feeling (too) guilty.

Most years, however, we just stayed home, had friends over, ate popcorn and watched a movie.

With young kids of our own, we haven’t celebrated Halloween.  Not a judgment on people who do, it’s just where we’ve come down.  We did talk about Reformation Day last year though, although no one dressed up.  I like having the kids dress up.  They do it so often, it hardly seems like depriving them not to do it on Halloween.

See, here’s one-year-old Elianna dressed up in full costume.

I realize most people think I’m being a big stick in the mud and I’m ok with that.  My kids (and I) get plenty of fun and neighbor interaction in their lives.  They can do without it on one night of the year.  We have our reasons, and that’s enough for me.

But, back to the point, what kind of evangelical are you?  Elianna obviously ascribes to the ever popular cowboy evangelism.

a great vacation and lots of pics

We recently vacationed for three nights and four days up at MN’s beautiful North Shore!  We stayed in Lutsen and had the best time!  (Doing my best not to sound like a travel brochure and failing miserably..)

Our first stop on the four hour drive North was in Duluth at the Amazing Grace Cafe.  It was awesome!  Bread sliced an inch and a half thick.  Hard to find though.. a bit of a hole in the wall.  But packed, so obviously word gets around.

Traveling is hard work and the kids were asleep in no time.  I took the obligatory pic of the kids sleeping sweetly next to one another, so that, if ever they don’t like each other very much we can look back and say, “Ah, remember the days..”

The next day we made a stop at a park with a swing set right off of Lake Superior (which I think should be called Superior Sea.. nothing “lake” about it).  The wind was blowing and the waves were high.

Here’s the lodge of the place we stayed.  We were in a town home just a short walk from here with beautiful views of Lake Superior.  We could walk right down to the shore.

Is there anything better than kids climbing on rocks?  For them, I mean.. for me, it was slightly worrisome with so much cold water around to fall into.  I did a lot of hanging on to the back of jackets and trying to keep feet dry!  Seth was pretending to take a rock nap.

The trip was made complete having my mom and dad and Aunt Julie join us.  Way too much fun.

Yep, she’s as high up as she looks and laughing to boot.

Here’s Eliza by what I called the tumor tree.  Strange isn’t it?

Now here was my favorite stop of the whole trip.  The World’s Best Doughnut Shop.  They aren’t kidding.  I could have spent a few more hours at this ridiculously small doughnut heaven.

Snow on our fourth and final day up North.  It was perfect.

We took a gondola ride up Lutsen Mountain.  Very cold, but great views and lots of people to wave at along the way.

The one and only picture of Tom and me from the trip!  A stunning self-portrait!

Well, that’s it!  We will definitely be going back in years to come.  It was about as perfect a vacation as we could’ve asked for! We enjoyed God’s creation in beauty and hiking and eating and playing and people!

a good day to honor 30 years of serious pastoring

I couldn’t be more thankful for the serious (see post below) preaching and pastoring of Pastor John Piper.

Don’t miss this wonderful telling of the story by Justin Taylor of how Pastor John went from professor to pastor.

It’s worth clicking over just to see the cross-bling picture.

I’m thankful to the Lord for the way His Word is explained and revered and loved by my pastor.  It has made me love and fear God and His Word more.  As God has been exalted over and over in the mouth of Pastor John, I have tasted over and over His goodness, His sovereignty and His grace.

How are you thankful for your pastor?  Today would be a good day to honor them for 30 days, 30 months or maybe even 30 years of faithful ministry.

5 minutes of absolute ackwardness

Justin Taylor offers analysis on the inappropriate audience laughter during Pastor John’s message at a Christian counselor’s conference.

If you feel like being very uncomfortable, listen to the first 5 minutes of this sermon.

As Pastor John delivers a gut-wrenching opening to his sermon, the audience inexplicably roars in laughter at the most unbelievable moments.  Greg Gilbert offers more analysis on the training of Christian “audiences” to be cued to laugh, especially during the opening remarks to a sermon.

After having sat under the teaching of Pastor John for many years now–most of my adult life–I can hardly think of a time where he was intentionally funny from the pulpit.  However, he has on many occasions been unintentionally funny.  For more on his unintentionally funny comments, see Jamsco’s documentation.

Yet, to my recollection, he generally has understood why what he has said is causing laughter.  I’ve never heard him so perplexed, nor felt as perplexed myself, than when listening to those first 5 minutes.  Truly bizarre.

Any thoughts on the unusual laughter?  Were they nervous?  I wonder if I would have been swayed by the contagiousness of the laughter and chuckled inappropriately myself?  Probably not, because I’m familiar with the serious nature of Pastor John’s preaching.

Ever been caught laughing at something that was *not* funny?  I’m sure I have.

a provocative reality for parents

Apart from their own sin nature, it’s almost certain that I will be the single biggest influence of sin in my children’s lives.

What do you think?  Do you own that?

Here’s why I own that and continue parenting with boldness(instead of throwing in the towel in hopelessness): Christ and His work on the Cross makes all the sin that I commit around and against my children an opportunity for them to see the effective and redemptive work of the Savior in their sinful mother’s life.

Do I sin willingly or without shame and grief: no, no, no.  But the grief that accompanies the sin, the confession and repentance and forgiveness that happen, are the primary ways my children will actually be able to see the Gospel with their own eyes.

And I pray that seeing it day after day, reading it in the Word day after day, that they will want to taste it for themselves.  And that God will call them to taste and see that He is good.  That He is sweeter than honey.  That the Person of Jesus is wonderful and terrifying and gracious and uncompromising and more than they could ever exhaustively know.

Yet that they will long for more of the knowledge of God and His Son and will pursue it with the complete devotion of bought and paid for children of the Heavenly Father.

the lynchpin of deep, lasting friendship: commitment.

Think of your closest and oldest friend.

How is that you are still friends with that person after years and years of life changes, moves, babies, marriages, conflicts, sin, and intrusions?  Or maybe a better question is: do you have a friend with which you’ve experienced a range of life and disagreements and have still maintained an uncommonly close bond?  If not, why not?

I think the reason we don’t experience deep and lasting friendships is absence of commitment.  It’s like if you were simply shacking up with your husband instead of in a committed covenant.  It wouldn’t make for a very trusting relationship.  I think the same is true for friendship.  And yes, it matters what that commitment’s foundation is: namely Christ and the cross.

Real friendship cannot begin until the question of commitment is settled.  If you’re not sure I’m committed to you and our friendship, no matter what you may do or have done, then you’ll never risk the kind of sharing and loving and living life together that reveals who you are with me. (I’m not suggesting friendship with no conditions, but as few as possible Biblically).

I think this is what stunts our friendships in the body of Christ at the more shallow levels (especially at large churches).  We end up with 100 friends all of whom have seen the best of us, none of whom really know us.

True friendship is hindered when we can’t be certain that we won’t be dropped for another friend who’s a little more charismatic, witty, and enjoyable.

Because if you really knew me, you’d know I’m boring 75% of the time.  And unless you’re committed to me, you’re not going to hang out at my house all day when my dull personality is on display.

Unless you’ve decided your love for me is constant, you won’t endure the conflicts that happen; or the times of sorrow; or the moments of drama.  You won’t care enough to point me to Christ in my sin.  You’ll trade it in for the next new shiny friendship that comes along with all it’s start-up excitement and fun.

And if I’m not committed to you, I’ll shut-down the moment I think you’ve drifted away.  I’ll quit caring and quit pursuing.  I’ll decide it’s not worth the trouble and look for friendship elsewhere.  I won’t invite you over, because I’ll think you’re the kind of friend who needs my “A” game to enjoy time together, when all I’ve got today is a sub-par “C” game.

I think of David and Jonathan whose friendship was a soul-uniting commitment unparalleled in the Bible.  I think of Ruth whose commitment to Naomi and her God made her a direct ancestor to Jesus!  What freedom from fear there is in commitment!

Being a part of the body of Christ is an amazingly high calling.  It’s so high it baffles me.  And to think that we are to be committed to the body in such a life-altering way is overwhelming.  But what freedom there is in a commitment based on Christ and the Cross!!!  Commitment means whether near or far, the love and relationship remains, because it’s based on something bigger than location.

It means I’m called to love and live life with those God puts directly in my path.  It means I can lovingly say goodbye to those people when they move far away.  It means we never have to form cliques.  It means we can embrace new friendships, because they don’t threaten the old ones.

Paradoxically, commitment based on the cross means we’re more willing to let go of people.  We hold onto them loosely, knowing that we are bound in Christ forever.  The very commitment that knits our lives together in Christ, also allows that knitting together to be disrupted for the sake of Christ, trusting that we are one in Him for eternity.

I’m thanking God for the friends He’s given me that are committed to our friendship.  Not a commitment based on my worth, but on Christ’s.

One more thing: Check out a insightful post about friendship and indebtedness by Andy.

chuckling provided by the silent monks

I don’t know about you, but I could use a chuckle today.

Today’s chuckle is provided by the silent monks.  We thank you, monks.

want something good for free?

Then go visit our friend at The Responsible Father.  (Same guy who hosts The Responsible Puppet in my blogroll).

He’s giving away 5 Fighter Verse Song CD’s.  I’ve recommended them before as a great tool to memorize Scripture and enjoy doing it!

What I may not have mentioned is that my husband Tom has worked closely with Scott (author of the Responsible Father) and K. (the third in the trio of producers) to bring the CD’s to fruition.  Actually, Scott, Tom and K. have worked tirelessly, with many late-night meetings at our home and late night recording sessions at the studio and their labors in the Lord have not been in vain!

Here’s a heads-up on my favorite songs: John 10:27-30, all parts sung by Tom, written by Scott and Psalm 127:1, a duet sung by our dear friends Phil and Emily, written by Phil.

I can attest that within a couple weeks my children and I had almost every song memorized.  (Of course we had it on “repeat” in our cd player and listened to it ad nauseam :)

Anyway, if you go to The Responsible Father you can enter to win one.

Do it.  It’s worth it.