The Old Man and the Sea

Norah is in Challenge 1 at Classical Conversations.  Right now, she's reading The Old Man and the Sea and writing an essay on it.

To be more engaged with her as she works this week, I read the book, too.

I had read it before, but the details were vague and I remember thinking it was boring.

I loved it this time!

One of my favorite quotes was:

"He was too simple to wonder when he had attained humility. But he knew he had attained it and he knew it was not disgraceful and it carried no loss of pride."

This quote resonated with me, because I've been humbled by several mistakes and failures in the past several months. I am pushing my limits all the time in several areas of life, so failure and mistakes are just bound to happen, really, if I think about it.  So I am more reasonable about that and accepting of it.

At this point, thankfully, I usually don't feel much embarrassment for very long, and I have to say, this is really nice, because mistakes and failures used to debilitate me for hours or days. When I make a public mistake now or try and fail at something now, I just admit/ accept it and move on.  I usually think something like, "Well, here we go again. I know myself.  And I know God loves humility, after all. This is one more opportunity to practice humility and one more proof that God is committed to my sanctification."  So this quote resonated with me, because I begin to see that a person can have humility, because humility goes hand and hand with honesty.  A person can be humble without being totally defeated and that same person can have pride without it needing to be arrogance that comes from denial.

I also cried at the end. It was a sobbing cry. Getting older and having people I love get older made the story come to life. I saw my dad's body fail him, ultimately. I felt his spirit leave his body, since his body was no longer capable of holding his spirit.  So I was touched by this story, because it subtly speaks to these realities.  

I was glad to read this with Norah. We've already had a few amazing conversations about the book. To her credit, even though she's still very young, she loved it.  She does express regret that he made it back with only a skeleton.  But, from where I am in life, I tend to think, "But what a skeleton!"  

Memories from Christmas 2018

This is a photo from Dwayne's company's Christmas party. We always go to this event and get this same picture in front of the tree.  At this point, we can track our aging in the photos of this events.

We always attend church on Christmas Eve, too. Christmas Eve is one of the only times I make efforts and take expense to get everyone dressed up.  The other time is Easter.  On regular Sundays, we go to church, but we just wear our nicer casual clothes.

These are common sights for me in winter: bare trees and blue sky (or grey skies), fires in the hearth, and my tree.

We read The Advent Book each night of December. It's the story of Jesus' birth from the book of Luke.  By the end of the month, we all have it memorized. Each night, we also read one prophecy about the Messiah in the Old Testament and we read its fulfillment by Jesus in the New Testament.

This December, I took Norah to Andrew Peterson's "Behold the Lamb."  We felt so blessed that the concert was held at our church. So convenient! And, to us, it felt so cozy, too.

We always open new pajamas on Christmas Eve.

This year, I put these fun glasses in with the pajamas.  When you look through the glasses at the tree lights, you see various Christmas shapes.

Here I took a photo through the glasses. You can see snowflakes!

We always finish our Advent book on Christmas morning after breakfast and before gifts.

This year, the girls got t-shirts from movies or shows they like.

Norah's a Trekkie, like her dad (and her mom).  I do enjoy Star Trek, but I've seen them all once or twice now, so I just can't commit the time to watching the shows a third of forth time. Maybe that makes me less of a fan than other fans.  But Dwayne watches them with Norah and they enjoy that time together.

Our family usually goes to the Star Wars movies when they come out, so we are all big fans of that movie series, too.  We are a family of three girls, so we love the fact that there is a leading girl Jedi in the current story line.  

And I always love to get the girls a Lego set, so I can help them put it together.  I get a set that can be done in a few hours on Christmas day and we all help.

When This Kindness is Through

When this kindness is through, who will I be? 

His grace at work as yeast, kneaded as dough,

My flesh baked in His breath, blessed, broken, passed,

Enjoyed in joy, consumed by Him, a part 

Of Him, now whole. A stone within a Stone, 

In hand, He tumbles me. Held fast, I am 

Shaped a living stone, quickened, possessed. 

Obsessed He be to bear the image forth. 

Such art as this a fearful thing 

To give my God such leave. Love bears so much 

away from me. But such a love it is! 

So I'll press myself into His press. Changes 

Will come quick indeed. To make is His, 

To be made is mine. So be still, my soul, to see.  

-Veronica Boulden

"To Glorify God and Enjoy Him Forever"

Me: "Lord, I love your world! I enjoy so many things!"

God: "You were made for it all."

Me: "There isn't enough time for it all."

God: "You were made for me."

Me: "You are Infinite."

God: "Yes. Exactly."

Me: "There is plenty of time then."

God: "Yes. Eternity."

Fear not, little wren

Fear not, little wren.

Your nest is in mine

And I am in God, you see.

For He brooded first,

Now we do the same,

And over our songs He sings.

I Will Have God's Terms

I stood in a tent of war, my enemy's tent.

He stood with his guard in battle array, his army aligned behind him, just over there, right through the canvas.

Terms of peace were laid on a table before me.

If I only back down here and in this way and in that way, I will have peace.

I looked side to side, no angel of the Lord that I could see.

I stood alone and understood myself entirely.

I am nothing to be here, to stand up to these...

But then I remembered my God.

I did not see Him, or His troops. I did not even know the terms of the contract He sent with me. (His terms are a mystery to me still.)

But nevertheless, I looked at the enemy straight and said,

"No. I will have God's terms. I will have my inheritance and my destiny."

I do not know what comes next or what may happen to me, but I know my God.

He is worthy of all faith and unwavering allegiance.

It is only fitting that any one of His servants remain faithful to her given task, no matter how small she be.

Glorious and mighty is the God who sent me!

I will have His terms for my life and my children's lives and their children's lives...

come what may.

I will have God's terms!

God's Relentless Love

Thank God for His relentless love for me.

Thank God that He wants to heal the deepest wounds in me.

Thank God He wants to make my faith genuine.

Thank God He did not reserve the greatest trials for only the greatest saints.

These trials are not meant to destroy me, though they are destroying much.

Everything within and without quakes and burns.

It is simply that He, being a good Father, and True, wants to minister grace to the deepest places,

and He values nothing so much as that grace He means to give me,

because He values me above all.

Ministries, relationships, my sanity, my faith, all these can fall away and even be strained to breaking,

so far is He concerned for the healing and the grace He means to minister to the innermost place.

He will teach me to know wisdom as He said He would.

Like a small child who fights the doctor, because he holds a needle, I misunderstood my Lord.

But I am grateful He did not value my good opinion so much as to hold himself back from doing what was needed for me.

At the very end, I believed He knew better than me, and so I swallowed the remedy He poured out, though I thought I may drown in it,

knew I may die from it.

Though I did die,

and still do.

So be it.

He knows best.

Now I am being healed, so now I can begin to see.

I live as He promised.

He is with me.

He is so, so good, so much sweeter than I ever knew.

He has my unwavering devotion.

I believe Him, though the mountains give way.

I trust Him.

He means to do me good.

He is making me real, fitting me for Himself.

So in the midst of suffering, I say now, while it is still sacrifice and offering to do so,

Blessed be the Lord God Almighty!

His love is incredible!

His presence is dearer to me than life!

My Life Looks Nothing Like I Thought It Would

Me: "My life looks nothing like I thought it would."

God: "Your plans were boring, far too easy. Let's do this other thing, too."

He rubs His hands together.

I look at His hands and grow nervous and then look up at His face.

Our eyes meet.

He sees my hesitation, seems taken aback.

God: "It sounds fun to you, right?"

I look down and consider. My heart swells with joy and excitement, my cheeks flush, my pulse quickens...

I look up.

His gaze comes up from where it had been for a moment, on my heart, and He smiles at me knowingly.

I smile back.

Me: "But it's crazy.  It's so far beyond me that it'll be impossible without you..."

God: "Exactly."

Then I see His hands reach out to go to work.

A Gift for the Giver

When I come into God's presence and see His glory and feel His love, 

almost the very next thing I think is, "What can I repay the Lord for all He has done for me?" 

Like a small child with the impulse to bring something of worth, I look around and find that everything is a trifle. 

My greatest work is a stick drawing. 

But I seem to bring this anyway, though now I can see that it is nothing beside Him.

And just like when my children come to me bringing gifts of daises or something fashioned from the clay, I do take their gift, 

but the next thing I do is take them! 

Up! 

Into my arms! 

And that is when we are most happy.

This is how it is when God receives me.

He receives my worship, but the very next thing He does is take me! 

He takes me up! 

In!

Deeper still.

And then, before He puts me back down, He whispers kind things over me. He reminds me of what I know to be true. In a moment, He tells me a story, the whole story. 

"For this reason alone I have done aught, since the dawn of time..."  the story begins and ends.  

So that I (and you), so that we, 

can simply, extravagantly, 

be with Him.

The Christmas Box

Having three girls means we can reuse clothes, which is nice, because it means we can save some money. Any clothes that aren't currently being worn are washed, dried, and put up in big Tupperwares according to their size and/or the season.  I save all our Christmas attire in a separate box altogether, since it is usually fancier and the fabrics that make these dresses and sweaters will not sit nicely in a box with a bunch of jeans, etc.

Naturally, I usually have to buy a dress for the oldest, biggest daughter, unless she doesn't grow too much in one year. And a few times I have had to buy a dress for a littler daughter, because she grew enough to make last year's dress too small, but she did not grow enough to actually fit into the next size up in our collection.

After thirteen years of doing Christmas with daughters, though, I usually have a dress for my little ones and it's only been worn once or twice.  So it's a very exciting day in December when I pull the Christmas box down and we try on the dresses and assess what we need, if anything.  Avril, my middle daughter, is already eyeing the black lace/ white tulle dress that her older sister wore many years ago that she would like to big enough for next year.