considerable grace

I love living in a small town like Billings. One of my favorite things? Stopping by Fred’s office at Peacemaker Ministries just to say hello.



BTW—For those of you who don’t know about the (truly miraculous! amazing!) news re: sweet baby Micah (born to a Peacemaker staff member at Christmastime 2010 with metasticized liver cancer) ...



We received a two word text from his parents this week (from the Children’s Hospital in Denver):

CANCER FREE

I am re-reading some of my favorite C.S. Lewis books and thoroughly enjoying peeking into very-young-Tara-ness because of my (near constant) underlining and notes in the margins. My old paperback books may be falling apart, but that doesn’t mean I’m not immediately transported back to First United Presbyterian Church (Moline, Illinois) and Augustana College and Dr. Paul Jensen’s Sunday School classes and philosophy classes. What a grace that God brought me there way back in 1988.

My topic du jour? I am continuing on the theme of friendship. The Four Loves is a must read, of course, and that transported me immediately to Dr. Jensen’s message at our wedding in 1995. Familial affection (storge), friendship (philia), erotic love (eros), and divine love (agape) ... only minutes after we were husband and wife, Paul made our entire wedding party laugh with the acknowledgment that eros was not lacking in our hearts in that moment. And then all of the married people in the room nodded in quiet agreement as he counseled us that, even though we could not IMAGINE it at the time, eros WOULD wax and wane throughout our marriage. (Yes. We couldn’t imagine it at the time, but of course he was right.) But that philia and storge and agape love would cement us together for life. (Praise God!)

If you haven’t yet read The Four Loves, I commend it to you. It’s a great read. But if you’re not quite up for a book these days, there is a good summary here:

Mere Friendship: Lewis on a Great Joy

One of my favorite quotes:

"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art. . . . It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that gives value to survival."

And another:

"The very condition of having Friends is that we should want something else besides Friends. . . . There would be nothing for the Friendship to be about; and Friendship must be about something, even if it were only an enthusiasm for dominoes or white mice."

I love this classic article by David Powlison, not just for its application to marriage, but for its wisdom re: all relationships:

Renewing Intimacy: Closing the Gap between You and Your Spouse

This is my favorite paragraph:

"In the Old Testament two Hebrew words are often used to describe God: chesed and emet. Chesed is translated in the Old Testament as “lovingkindness,” or “steadfast love.” It means committed kindness, a chosen generosity, a resolution to do good to another person no matter what. Emet is translated as “faithfulness” or “truth.” When we say of someone, “She was a true friend,” we’re using the word “true” in the sense that the Bible uses the word emet. It’s someone who’s looking out for your well-being, who is genuinely concerned for your welfare (see Philippians 2:20). God is full of chesed and emet—steadfast love and faithfulness—toward you."

Incredibly sad. Sobering. A call to prayer and action!

Teens and P*rn: Ten Stats You Need to Know

Sophia and Fred had to leave very early this morning for Sophie’s service opportunity. She had to wear all black for the occasion. Don’t you think she looks like a little beatnik?



And isn’t it hard to believe that only one week ago, I could never have taken that photo because, unlike our 50 degree weather this morning, last week we had a minus 35 degree windchill during a big snowstorm? (Oh. And so I allowed Sophia to go outside at 9PM to make slushies and enjoy the quietness of nighttime snow.)



Fred the snow sculptor had fun with the girls the next day ...



And Fred the fort-builder continued the fun over the weekend ...



Hope your week has been going well too!

Blessings,
Tara B.

We are all enjoying Fred’s reading for us each evening:

John Stott’s “Through the Bible, Through the Year: Daily Reflections from Genesis to Revelation”

Tonight, we go to bed with these verses in our hearts:

"Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." John 20:30-31

Is anyone else having a hard time jumping into big tasks on this Monday morning? Sophie and I have the strongest urge to climb back into bed and pull the covers over our heads. Alas, life calls.

But not before I started my day laughing over a very funny one minute video from when Sophia was just a tiny squirt:



Is this really the same child who is going to serve through music by going around to the public schools Wednesday and Thursday playing the Vivaldi Violin Concerto in A minor to help a small group of musicians advertise the Billings Symphony Orchestra’s Free Family Concert this weekend? Time. Just. Flies.

Have you ever looked around your life and seen so many people "truly" suffering that you are tempted to minimize your own? Doesn’t it sometimes feel selfish and self-indulgent to weep over your (small amount of) pain when there are people “out there” who are REALLY experiencing TRUE pain?

I struggle with this propensity myself and I hear it in the voices of women at events coast-to-coast too. One of the truths I try to remember to believe myself—and I remind women of over and over again is that pain is pain, suffering is real. To restate an old poem:

Yes. We can cry over the man who has no feet, but it is also hard to walk over pointy rocks and broken glass when you have no shoes.

Of course, we want to keep all suffering in eternal perspective. This life is our one opportunity to suffer with our Elder Brother, and so we fight for the faith to be content, even in the valleys of darkness and weeping. But that doesn’t mean we don’t weep.

Ed Welch says all of this much better than me:

No More Minimizing Pain

Throughout this last week, I’ve had a number of really awful things I’ve done in the past just JUMP on me. I’ve physically cringed (and sometimes cried out a silent, “I can’t believe I did that!”) when I’ve thought of what I’ve done.

So I thought it was a good time to review Ed Welch’s article and try to lay hold of these truths that I really do claim to believe:

Feeling Guilty? Who Doesn’t?

Another big thank you to random.org—Ann won the Nancy Leigh DeMoss book. Thanks to everyone who joined in the fun. I really enjoyed hearing from you!

Sophia and I are just back from Latin / Grammar / Literature and now I’m going to put some laundry away while enjoying the nummy smells from the kitchen. Fred is making Rachael Ray’s chicken cacciatore. It’s totally making me think of Enzos.

Hope your Friday was a blessed one!

Your friend,
Tara B.

Today is the last day to enter our family’s drawing for the (great!) Nancy Leigh DeMoss book, “Brokenness, Surrender, Holiness.” Just go to this post and leave your name to enter:

Enter Here to Win the Nancy Leigh DeMoss Book

If I weren’t so tired, I would’ve found it a little funny that my really bad night of insomnia apparently was punctuated by some brief times of REM sleep, because then I had nightmares about being awake with insomnia. Pathetic!

But such is life. I keep thinking of the end of the last session of my Fear Not! retreat:

Sleep in Peace—God is Awake!
“I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure.” Psalm 16:8-9

If only my subconscious mind would get the message ...

Well ... time to kick it into gear on the ol' 2011 family photo album! Picaboo is having their annual buy-one-get-one-free sale and that’s when I like to crank out our album and then print two copies for the girls to have when they grow up and leave home.

I have the entire year organized and ready to go. It’s just a matter of plopping it all together and adding in the backgrounds, captions, etc. A yearly scrapbook in a weekend (while hanging with the family)—that’s my yearly goal. I hope I can get 'er done.

(BTW—the sale code is WINTERBG.)

I thought it was particularly well-timed that we would be studying the Salem witch trials in history on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It gave us yet another great time to discuss some of the parts of our (wonderful!) country’s history that are dark and difficult to recognize.

How grateful I am for the courage and sacrifice of the men and women of the civil rights movement.