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What should a wife do when her husband has conflicts with the church leaders?
A great post by Cap’n Dave over at our RedeemingChurchConflicts site:
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Vatican City Explained
I found this video fascinating. Plus, I learned that, pretty much, I don’t know anything about Vatican City:
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The Hardest Part is the Loneliness
(The PCA’s Special Needs Ministry) (DesiringGod’s Disability Resources)
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Blessed Good Friday to You & Yours (The First Christian Poem I Memorized as a (Teenage) New Believer)
The Lamb William Blake (1757–1827) LITTLE lamb, Who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee, Gave thee life, and bid thee feed By the stream and o’er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing woolly bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice? Little lamb, Who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee? Little lamb, I’ll tell thee: Little lamb, I’ll tell thee: He is callèd by thy name, For he calls himself a Lamb. He is meek and he is mild, He became a little child. I a child, and thou a lamb, We are callèd by his name. Little lamb,…
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Now This Is Love (Part 2)
Here is another example of love … my friend, Jennie Strong. Jennie is a busy mother of two young children with another baby on the way soon. And yet, she invited our dear Ella into her home this week expressly for the purpose of freeing up my schedule to work on my new women’s retreat. Talk about servant hospitality. That’s Jennie. She saw a (great) need. She knew it would take sacrifice to meet it. But she is mission-minded and Kingdom-minded and she jumped in with both feet … never making me feel like an imposition; never waving some sort of “friend-quid-pro-quo” in my face. (“You watched my kids for .67 hours so now…
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God can and does use weak, sick, discouraged, beat-down, lonely, struggling saints, who cry to him day and night, to accomplish amazing things for his glory.
I remember listening to this years ago and being blown away by what John Piper taught about the life of David Brainerd: Oh, That I May Never Loiter On My Heavenly Journey! (If you, like me, prefer to read rather than listen, the entire message is also transcribed on that link. One of the many reasons why I love DesiringGod.org so much.) I heard this message before I ever read D. Martyn-Lloyd Jones’, Spiritual Depression, and it was the first time (other than a snippet of a Focus on the Family broadcast from the 1980’s) that I had ever heard the word “depression” associated with a Christian. I resonated deeply…
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Now This is Love
I almost didn’t share this photo because I’m embarrassed about the level of Golden Retriever hair and dust bunnies that are on our hardwood floor. But I can’t stop thinking about how lovely and loving this bubble wrap is: Can you figure out what is going on here? Lilikoi is a bit puzzled. But I’m not. This is love! Fred loving Sophia and me after we’ve stubbed our toes on our bed frame WAY too many times … he bubble-wrapped our foot nemesis and didn’t even draw attention to doing so. Serving in secret. Taking care of people he loves.…
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Forgiveness
One of Fred’s favorite quotes on forgiveness comes from World Magazine’s Andree Seu: “I asked a few people if they’d ever forgiven anyone, and what it felt like. They gave me answers so pious I knew they’d never done it.” Does this describe you? I know it has described me at times. But then I think about the people who have actually forgiven me. What that felt like. How it healed our relationship and ministered the truth of the gospel to me. And I think about the times that I have forgiven—really forgiven—someone who has deeply wronged me. Sometimes, that forgiveness came only after I kicked and screamed and was pretty…
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Ye Fearful Saints, Fresh Courage Take
Just in case you haven’t recently re-read all of the words to the hymn I quoted briefly in my first post from today, here they are for your enjoyment and edification. (By the way … the first time someone quoted this hymn to me, I was in a dark season of the worst suffering of my life. I could barely breathe in and out each morning. Everything around me was collapsing. Nothing made sense. My bones were crushed. I had never felt more angry and more depressed and more alone. So when someone said, “Trust God!” and “God moves in a mysterious way!”, deep inside, all I felt was MAD.…
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Suicide Survivors: “Being with Someone Grieving that Intensely is Scary, but Necessary”
I remember every time I have spoken with and prayed with someone whose life was touched by suicide (or suicide attempts). For many of these dear people, as I entered into their pain (and sometimes shared my own story of rescuing my mother from her suicide attempt when I was a young teenager), it was the first time they felt heard and understood and accepted. I think of these conversations as “2 Corinthians 1” moments: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are…
