Category: Links

Posted on

I’m not interested in corpses & tombstones

“Liturgy without life is like putting makeup on a corpse.
Doctrine without this same life is like spelling everything right on the tombstone.”
(Against the Church, p. 42)

When I read this quote here today, I was reminded to pray for this kind of LIFE.
I’m just not interested in corpses and tombstones, and this serves as a reminder that the counter to that is precisely found in praying for life.
May God continue to grant me the courage and the strength and the joy to actively pray for and seek this life for His glory.

Posted on

Putting it into words

Do you ever feel like you have something to say, but you just don’t know how to put it into words?
Like you have this important concept in your head, but are unable to get that articulated in a way that makes sense?

I feel that way.
And usually it is because it’s about something so big, so huge, so central in my life that I feel like if I don’t get it right, if I don’t process it fully from my brain into a way that it gets properly into yours, then it isn’t worth blathering about in the first place…
And for me, that subject is (98% of the time anyway) my children. Specifically, the deaths of my children.

And while I sometimes use the word “miscarriage,” it is rather a misnomer ~ I’ve always said that it’s such a little word for such a monolithic devastation. It is not a medical condition: it is, rather, the death of my child.

So I tend to replace “miscarriage” with that phrase. Because it’s more precise. (You may even notice that I do not have a category or tag called “miscarriage”… which surprises some people!)

Thus, when I read this article this morning, and realized how well Rachel composed her thoughts, and how precisely she put into words the thoughts of my own heart… especially from past years when we would have services hosted by one of our pastors on the sidewalk outside of Planned Parenthood (two times while I was in the first half of my pregnancy with Asher, in fact)… I realized that I just need to ask you to read her words.

I can’t tell you how many times I have started writing on that very subject, and deleted the paragraphs because I just didn’t think I did it adequately. The words that I have wanted to coin for a while, but didn’t know how ~ she did it. May God be glorified, and may eyes be opened.

“that hole in her heart that will one day scab, one day scar, but will never fully heal…”
“What if you didn’t just affirm to the world that all babies are valuable — but you also affirmed to a bereaved mom that HER baby was irreplaceable, and would forever be missed?”

Posted on

Not Forgotten

It is easy to feel forgotten. Even Scripture has evidences of God’s people feeling forgotten by Him.
And to be honest, right now, I feel forgotten too.

Psalm 77:7-9
Will the Lord cast off forever?
And will He be favorable no more?
Has His mercy ceased forever?
Has His promise failed forevermore?
Has God forgotten to be gracious?
Has He in anger shut up His tender mercies?

Psalm 42:9
I will say to God my Rock,
“Why have You forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”

Isaiah 49:14
But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me,
And my Lord has forgotten me.”

And in these moments where I can so easily feel forsaken and feel forgotten, I have to rely not on feelings and not even on circumstances, but on what I know about God, His character, His faithfulness. And so I must talk to myself, rather than listen to myself. I must remind myself about truths of God, not give in to the feelings that I have about where God has me right now.

Isaiah 49:13, 15
…the Lord has comforted His people,
And will have mercy on His afflicted.
Can a woman forget her nursing child,
And not have compassion on the son of her womb?
Surely they may forget,
Yet I will not forget you.

Psalm 10:12
Arise, O Lord!
O God, lift up Your hand!
Do not forget the humble.

Luke 12:6-7
Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins? And not one of them is forgotten before God.But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.

May God remember me in His mercy ~ by being with me in this dark valley, and by graciously bringing me to the other side of it back onto the heights someday where the sun still shines.

Posted on

‘Tis the Season

In case anyone out there needs a couple of ideas for links on Christmas festivity reality-checks… or in case you need a reminder why you are doing what you’re doing during this season of the year… take a peek at these things below.

This is what life is all about. Especially at Christmastime.

Joy to the Whirled

Generosity: the Antidote to Consumerism

6 Ways to Handle Stress this Christmas

Keeping Jesus at the Center

The Gospel According to the Wasteland

The Gospel According to the Trees

The Gospel According to Gifts

A Brief History of Christmas

The Goodness of Stuff Means Merry Christmas

A Theology of Christmas Gifts

 

So hey, happy Adventing and merry Christmasing. Because there is good reason for all this. Jesus. Now and the rest of the year through. But for now? Whirl with it. Put the heathens to shame. Show them that every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ (yes, the One who humbled Himself to be cast into human skin and plunged into the dark womb of a virgin) IS LORD. Amen.

Posted on

The Savior Reigns… even in the public square!

Did anyone else see this flash mob? And was anyone else in tears, realizing that it’s just one more reminder that The Gospel can not be vanquished? Christ may not normally “be allowed” in public schools and national places, yet here is the United States Air Force band at The Smithsonian Museum singing about the reign of Christ!! (to which a big part of me wants to say, Eat That, Obama! :lol:) Jesus is the joy of man’s desiring! He is Wisdom! He is the brightest Love! They actually sang, at the top of their voices in a public place, JOY TO THE WORLD ~ THE SAVIOR REIGNS!!!

Oh man. Anyway.
Good stuff. :happytears:
Christ is King!!!!! Let all the world hear it! Let all peoples proclaim it! Whether they recognize what they’re proclaiming or not, God is using them as His mouthpiece to proclaim The Gospel! This is one little way I see every knee bowing, every tongue confessing… Jesus Christ is Lord!! (Philippians 2:9-11 and Romans 14:11) Amen.

Posted on

Wanting to be a Faithful Advocate

After reading this incredible charge to take charge in drawing the charge (did you follow that?), I am praising God. What a responsibility, what a joy, what a gift, what a grace, what a burden! to be called to take up His cross and follow Him. And by that, He doesn’t mean to blindly follow anyone who claims to be following Him… but to FOLLOW HIM.

How does one do this with a balance of boldness and humility?

I don’t have the answer to that. But I am asking God to reveal it to me over time, so that I may be accurately taking up His cross, following Him, dividing truth, pursuing wisdom, receiving grace, and pouring out mercy. (This reminds me of my dad ~ and if you’ve ever met my dad, I dare to say, you couldn’t possibly disagree.)

Central to the task of walking in the wisdom of Christ is obedience that could be mistaken for being a crank without actually being one. … Nehemiah is a good guy. He might have easily been accused being a crank, a legalist. But he wasn’t. But Nehemiah was the kind of obedient that might get him labeled as one. If you are never accused of being cranky, stodgy, a bit legalistic, you aren’t doing it right. But the key is to obey in such a way as to draw the charge without actually being guilty of it. … The difference is whether you are fundamentally an accuser or an advocate. Do you confront your friends, your roommates, your brothers and sisters in love, honestly wanting to do them good? Or do you despise them, secretly hoping they are shamed in the eyes of others? Are you an advocate or an accuser? You want to be the kind of faithful advocate that draws the charge of being a crank without actually being one.

When you read that teaser paragraph (excerpts from the above linked post), do you think of Christ? I do! Wow. It’s like he’s describing Jesus Christ, His life, and His faithful advocacy. Jesus got accused of being a crank, but He wasn’t actually a crank. He was THE ultimate faithful advocate. By God’s grace, may we seek the true Christlikeness that would put us into the same camp. Amen.

Posted on

Reformed & Always Reforming!

On this Reformation Day, please take a few minutes to read this beautiful defense of the Protestant Reformation. It could not be better said. Here are two wee teasers for you:

First, let’s be clear that what Luther and Calvin objected to primarily were the innovations and flagrant abuses in the Roman church. In other words, the Reformers did not object to the traditions of the fathers per se. What they objected to was the way popes and priests and cardinals ran rough shod over the most ancient traditions, you know relics like love your neighbor as yourself and thou shalt not steal.

Second, let’s defend the idea of division. Better, let’s celebrate it. But let’s distinguish schism from division. When God tore open Adam’s side, we don’t have any pictures, but I suspect it was a bloody business. Bones probably popped. If you were an angel in scrubs in that first operating room, I imagine you might have wondered what the Maker was up to. But this was a glorious division, the creation of something beautiful. This was not God being schismatic, this was God being creative.

May the Lord grant us grace and courage to continue reforming, ever seeking to be more conformed to His image and the pursuing of His will!

“The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellar full of fifteen-hundred-year-old, two-hundred proof Grace–bottle after bottle of pure distilate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the Gospel–after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your bootstraps–suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home before they started…Grace has to be drunk straight: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale; neither goodness, nor badness, not the flowers that bloom in the spring of super spirituality could be allowed to enter into the case.” (Fr. Robert Farrar Capon – 1925-2013)

 

Posted on

Rainbows and Redemption goes live!

In the fall of 2011 an idea was conceived.
God placed a desire in two hearts, to grow and nurture something that we would keep for a while and then send out into the world to do His work.
There has been waiting, growth, anticipation, expectation, nail-biting, anxiety, and much prayer since then.
Now we are anticipating completion.
We are ready for arrival, for the big reveal.
We don’t know what will happen, we can not see tomorrow…
We don’t know what the Lord’s plan is, and we know that only He is in control…

Sound familiar?

But I’m not talking about a pregnancy. I’m talking about a project.
One of my dear friends and I have had the great joy of coordinating and editing a devotional created for women on the Pregnancy After Loss journey by women on the Pregnancy After Loss journey. And today we are ready and eager to begin sharing it and sending it out to the world to do God’s work.

But why today? Why have we been using Easter weekend as our deadline?

Because no time of the year could possibly be more fitting. Life after death. Redemption. Glorious hope.
The Saturday between Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday is like a picture of the entire PAL journey. Death has happened before, and you are still reeling from it. You have seeds of hope growing within you but you have no idea what tomorrow holds. As my friend and co-conspirator Kristi wrote once in her article Stuck in Saturday:

Saturday begins when the worst pain is behind you, but a throbbing ache has taken its place. When the sun dares to shine, but your world is still dark. When the abuse is in the past, but not the hurt and shame. When you are no longer hemorrhaging, but neither are you healed. When the rest of the world expects you to be “over it”, but you’re not.

Where are you? Have you experienced the darkness of Good Friday? Do you feel stuck in your Saturday, not really sure where God is and why He withheld His hand of protection from your life? We, too, can follow the example of Jesus’ followers.

Rest. Reflect. Retreat from the frenzy of the world. Talk with others. Don’t be afraid to ask God the hard questions. And do all of this with an element that the disciples didn’t have.

Hope.

They didn’t know what Sunday would hold. They weren’t waiting for a miracle. They were just waiting.

But we know that Jesus rose, and just as He did on that first Easter, God longs to move us from Good Friday to Resurrection Day.

When that resurrection comes, it will not erase the past. Easter Sunday did not change the fact that the crucifixion, in all of its ugliness, had happened. His followers would never forget that day. And there was no “getting back to normal” either. They didn’t return to their former lives of following an itinerant teacher and healer around Judea. No, they went forward into their “new normal” characterized by God’s power and presence in a way they had never dreamed possible.

 But first, you have to get through Saturday.

So please, without further ado, come visit our new website Rainbows and Redemption to get a glimpse of what the Lord has been doing. Allow us to journey with you through your Saturday, through your Pregnancy After Loss.
Please contact us to receive your own PDF version of the e-book devotional. This is a free resource to bless our sisters and glorify our Father. And if it particularly encourages you, we would love to have you make a donation to Hannah’s Prayer Ministries as a way to further promote encouragement to others who may be walking this path, now or in the future.

To God be all glory.
Jesus has risen! Death has been conquered! Hope has been restored!

Posted on

Thoughts on “grace” ~ a link

“Grace deals with sin purposefully.  It doesn’t make excuses.  It doesn’t ignore, soften, or cast a blind eye.

It approaches the sinner only after resting in grace himself and then he goes to the sinner, or child with a firm hand, but a compassionate heart.”

Click here for the rest of the short post by a former pastor and dear friend of ours, Ben Alexander. We sure miss Ben in our community (he was called away to another church, and we know God is sovereign), and are thankful for the internet as a medium which allows us to continue gleaning of his wisdom.

His thoughts here on grace being persuasive and winsome has been evidenced in our home in our discipline routines. I am so thankful for resources like this which God uses by His grace to pour out grace upon us so that we may then be equipped to shower grace upon grace on the heads of our children.

Posted on

The Old Schoolhouse Magazine

Since last fall, I have been a product reviewer for The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, and I was just sent a link to a free issue that I am able to share with you all!

Click here, share it around, and see if you can spot me in there (twice). 🙂

We have sincerely been enjoying the products I’ve received over these months, and it is such a fun outlet for me to write reviews on everything. As Gabriel (and siblings, as the Lord sees fit) grows and matures over time, I am looking forward to trying new things, and being able to pull out previous products that he’s been too young for as of yet.

Gabriel’s current favorites (not for the magazine though) for his purposed/intentional learning are these flash cards, and he is super excited about his new workbook (which apparently doesn’t exist because every way, including ISBN number, that I have tried searching for it online, there is “no criteria found” – hah! We got it from Costco, and I know it exists).

Some favorite things we’ve gotten for the magazine are ABC Bible Memory Verse Songs, four sets of Teach + Play Tiles Wooden Flash Cards, a study through Proverbs, and a learning to read series of Little Books ~ just to name a few.

So click over to enjoy the free issue of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine: may it bless you, and may it urge all of us on toward God-honoring education.