Tag: Quotes

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Saturday February 20, 2010

My long time dear friend Erin of EAdams Designs sent me a lovely birthday bouquet (it’s so nice to receive flowers for a happy occasion now & then, too!), which arrived this morning while we were eating brunch as a family. Gabriel was excited to hear the doorbell ring, and equally thrilled to help Mommy open the newly acquired box.
Inside was a beautiful bouquet (don’t you agree?!), and I was so thrilled by the bright flowers and cheeriness that I couldn’t stop smiling. It was such a sweet offering. Thank you, Erin!! I wish I could hug you right now. 🙂
 

In the enclosed card, along with birthday wishes, she (who is likewise a bereaved mommy) included a beautiful quote of encouragement:

“The Lord does not measure out our afflictions according to our faults,
but according to our strength,
and looks not to what we deserve,
but what we are able to bear.“
~George Downame (1560-1634)

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Friday February 19, 2010

I have not started to read “A Grief Observed” by C.S. Lewis yet. But Steven is still reading it, and gleaning a lot from it. He shares tidbits with me occasionally.
This is one I am so thankful he shared with me.
And I wanted to share it with you.

I thought I could describe a state; make a map of sorrow. Sorrow, however, turns out to be not a state but a process. It needs not a map but a history, and if I don’t stop writing that history at some quite arbitrary point, there’s no reason why I should ever stop. There is something new to be chronicled every day. Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape. As I’ve already noted, not every bend does. Sometimes the surprise is the opposite one; you are presented with exactly the same sort of country you thought you had left behind miles ago. That is when you wonder whether the valley isn’t a circular trench. But it isn’t. There are partial recurrences, but the sequence doesn’t repeat.
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Sunday February 14, 2010

SONNET 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

	Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

	Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

	That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

	Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

	Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

	But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

	I never writ, nor no man ever loved.



			 William Shakespeare   

				(1564 - 1616)

EPHESIANS 5:2, 22-33

And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave Himself up
for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ
is the head of the church, His body, and is Himself its
Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also
wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church
and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her,
heaving cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,
so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor,
without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might
be holy and without blemish.
In the same way husbands should love their wives as their
own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and
cherishes it, just as Christ does the church,
because we are members of His body.
"Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother
and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become
one flesh." This mystery is profound, and I am saying
that it refers to Christ and the church.
However, let each one of you
love his wife as himself,
and let the wife see that
she respects her husband.

I can’t necessarily count on you to click, if I just include the link to Mrs. Wilson’s latest entry on marriage. And since it’s so appropriate right now for Valentine’s day… I am just going to copy the entirety of the text. And hope you take a couple minutes to read it. 🙂

A BANQUETING HOUSE, by Mrs. Nancy Wilson

Today was week four in a series I am teaching on women and marriage, updating an old tape series that Canon Press has been carrying for many years. The subject today was the marriage bed, and don’t expect me to dive into the whole topic here. But, I will mention one or two things. The first thing has to do with the bed itself. What kind of place is your bedroom? Is your bed inviting? Or is it buried under loads of laundry waiting to be folded? If we want our marriage bed to be comparable to what is described in the Song of Songs (a banqueting house with a banner of love), we might consider purchasing a small storage shed in which to keep the spare bicycles so we can get them out of the master bedroom!
The second thing I will mention here is the beautiful garden imagery. The bride is a locked garden, and the beloved is invited into the garden. It is a private place for them to enjoy alone. Do you view yourself as an inviting garden? Or is the garden a bit bedraggled, untended, full of weeds? Well then, time to start doing some tending, weeding, planting. Could be some little resentments have sprung up, crowding out the joy. What better time than now to start clearing away the debris?
Conjugal love is compared to feasting; it is described as celebratory; it is a time of rejoicing together. The wife says to her husband (Song of Songs 1:2), “Your love is better than wine.” Not grape juice. Not even sparkling grape juice. But wine. Rich, potent, intoxicating. But here’s a problem: What if we don’t drink wine, not even in the Lord’s Supper? If we only drink grape juice, how can we understand the potency of this passage? And if we never feast and celebrate around our tables, how will we understand the comparison made here between the marriage bed and a banqueting hall?
Marriage is to be honored and the marriage bed undefiled (Hebrews 13:4). The Bible is not prudish when it comes to the marriage bed. So we should not be prudish about it either.


~~And her follow-up about wine:

I made a comment a couple of posts ago about how wine should be something within our Christian experience, so we can understand a verse like “Your love is better than wine” in Song of Songs. And I got a question about this, so here is a little explanation. The Bible says not to be drunk, and that is as clear as can be (Eph. 5:18). In fact, that’s a simple one. But the Bible does not prohibit wine. If it did, there would not be much need for the admonishment against drunkenness.

Psalm 104:15 describes wine as gladdening the heart of man. At His mother’s urging, Jesus made quite a bit of the very best at the wedding at Cana (John 2:3). So it is safe to assume that wine is a given. At the same time, Scripture warns about misusing wine, and so we should be wise about wine. Older women are singled out in Titus 2:3 with a warning against too much wine. I have wondered what it is about the older women that creates a particular vulnerability for wine. I have a friend who suggested a good possibility: perhaps in the days before pain killers for the many aches and pains of old age, older women were tempted to rely a bit too heavily on the benefits of a glass of wine (or two). Wine is a mocker (Prov. 20:1) and “whoever is led astray by it is not wise.” Wine requires wisdom because it is potent.

Proverbs 5:19 addresses the husband and says to always be enraptured or intoxicated with his bride’s love. Married love should be intoxicating. Comparing the marriage bed to grape juice would be weak. You may as well compare it to lemonade. But wine is rich, potent, and intoxicating. Thus, for the Christian to be unacquainted with wine is not a sin, because the Bible does not require wine drinking. But non-drinkers simply have fewer biblical metaphors in their experience.

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Friday February 5, 2010

I haven’t been keeping up with quite as much reading as I’d love to lately… partly by choice and partly by circumstance… but I’m trying!
Here’s my list — and I’d love to know what you’re reading too!

Just finished:

  • Psalms
  • Down But Not Out by Wayne Mack

Still reading:

  • Proverbs
  • Five Aspects of Woman by Barbara Mouser
  • The One Year Book of Hope by Nancy Guthrie

Just started:

  • Be Still My Soul by Elisabeth Elliot
  • Hinds’ Feet On High Places by Hannah Hurnard

On the list “next”:

  • A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis
  • Waiting On God by Andrew Murray
  • Womanly Dominion by Mark Chanski
  • Mountains Of Spices by Hannah Hurnard

There is a great deal of difference
between an eager man who wants to read a book
and a tired man who wants a book to read.
~G.K. Chesterton
No man can be called friendless
who has God and the companionship of good books.
~Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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Monday February 1, 2010

Read this entry of Steven’s, and the excerpts of Mr. Palpant’s prayer.

Some of the sentences that made my chin quiver and my eyes pour out like little salty fountains:

~”We are those who buried another child, though we prayed against it, and though we hoped, and now the dark is very dark and we are often tired in the very center of our being.”
~”Forgive us for wanting to simply get through to the other side of the anguish, unwilling to sit in the desert and let you wash us off and clothe us and be with us. Forgive us for forgetting our great heritage of suffering and the Cross that stands as the sign and purpose of our mortal lives. Forgive us, Father, for hoping our joy would come cheaply.”
~”Forgive us for keeping our suffering to ourselves, for hiding behind a stoic smile, for selfishly wishing we could be only left alone.”

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Friday January 29, 2010

      I am still plugging along with some reading. Not as much as I was before, as I get too easily distracted by my thoughts – and then I end up getting very little out of the reading material, and the pages get too dimpled with salty tears to make it worthwhile. Maybe in another couple of weeks I will get back to books. For now I am mostly sticking with sewing and crafts and movies for distraction. (Yes, I admit that distraction is a great coping mechanism for me right now.)
      But when I feel strong enough for it, I am still delving page by page into The One Year Book of Hope. It is divided up into themes – five devotionals on each theme, along with an intro, closing meditation, and even guidelines for prayer. While it is difficult, it is wonderful. Bittersweet. Stingingly helpful. Accurately poignant.
This week I have been (ironically enough) in the theme of Death.
      The author, Mrs. Guthrie, says of her own deceased baby “…she no longer needed air to breathe. And I wondered if I was going to be able to.” I can 100% identify with that. There are moments when it physically hurts to inhale & exhale because of my grief. My body is both physical and emotional/spiritual. These aspects are tied in a unique way that only God truly understands. When my heart hurts so deeply, sometimes even my body hurts. Normal bodily functions that I normally don’t think about -like breathing- can become painful and laborious.
      Mrs. Guthrie also says, “…I’m reminded how natural death is for everyone and yet how completely unnatural it feels.” Yes. Unnatural. It feels foreign. And yet familiar. What an odd dichotomy.
Here are some quotes that I identify with and appreciate. I am thankful for this book, and thankful for the Word of God which Mrs. Guthrie weaves throughout. I am thankful that the Lord continues to speak to me and open Himself to me during my grief. He is faithful, and He is good, and He is my Father.

On Death:
~…[D]eath is not the end of the story.
~Death will be defeated.
~Birthdays. Deathdays. I feel like they are always coming at me.
When we are in the fold of God, death is impotent to destroy us. It is depleted of its evil power. The valley where we encounter death is transformed into a place of peaceful comfort; it is in this valley that we are more aware of God’s presence than every before.
~[Of her daughter]: I would like to see her grow. I would like to know her as an adult. But I also know that this life is filled with pain. And I don’t think it is a tragedy that she will have the opportunity to be spared from evil, from the pain of this life, and be in the presence of God. This is what I believe. It is not necessarily how I feel.

On Life:
~I craved the comfort of knowing that… life continues beyond the grave in the presence of God. This confidence was and is the only comfort when you stand at the grave.
~We can turn from God in the lowest moments of life, allowing our offense to alienate us from God until we are out in the cold, devoid of comfort and hope. Or we can turn toward Him, cry out to Him, and place our faith in Him as our sole source for life.
~It takes a step of faith to believe God will supply satisfying life now and when we die.
~I understand the pull and pleasure of drawing up the covers in an endeavor to sleep away the pain that comes with loss.
~…[T]his life is not all there is! This life is just a rehearsal for our real life, our forever life in the presence of God.
~Every life is valuable because God Himself gives life and breath to everything. [Acts 17:24-25, 27-28]

On the “Whys of Suffering:
~So where is God in our suffering? He is redeeming it.
~[E]xperiencing suffering can build up your faith and force you to go deeper with God, or it can crush your spirit and squash your soul’s longing for God.

On 2 Corinthians 12:7-9:
~There was a time in my life when I read God’s response to Paul in this passage as a dismissive pat on the head. Perhaps because I’d so cheapened the significance of God’s grace. Perhaps because I’d heard similar words spoken in a tone that seemed to dismiss the suffering this promise is applied to. Or perhaps I had not believed that God’s grace is up to the task of addressing some of the suffering I see around me.
~It [God’s grace] will be delivered to you in the form and quantity and timing your circumstances require.
~The grace God provides to you is enough for whatever suffering He allows into your life, not just enough to survive but enough to equip you.

On the Holy Spirit/Comforter:
~Significant suffering leaves us with significant questions.
~We want the truth, not just cliches or religious-sounding pat answers. This is when we need the Holy Spirit like no other time, when we’re facing an uncertain future and trying to make sense of it all.
~God reveals Himself to those who earnestly seek Him.
~I think we expressed trust more out of a desire to trust than a confession of the reality in our souls.
~[W]e felt so guilty that so many people were praying for us so diligently when we were so prayerless–partly because it was so difficult to know how to pray.
~When we are weak-willed and weak-minded, when distress has consumed our energy and emotions, the Holy Spirit helps us.
~And when your life if bumped by difficulty, what will come spilling out will be what fills you–an abundance of the Holy Spirit.

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Tuesday January 26, 2010

from Sketches of Home, by Suzanne Clark

“Soft Boy,” p 45

 I love your hands, cloud pugs, pillows. Soft or not, the hands are bossy, going for my hair, nose, ribbon on my blouse—anything they desire the hands grab, to go of course into the mouth with its voracious gums.

 There are also your cheeks, soft as dumplings, dimpling when you laugh. I love your laugh, proceeding first from the eyes, then spreading to your mouth in a grin that seems as big as you are—and on to the belly that shakes as you laugh, fat puppy’s belly, plush toy, marshmallow boy…

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Tuesday January 26, 2010

“Affliction is God striking us,
but only as the goldsmith pounds the gold,
or as the concert pianist hits the keys.”

“If the metal of a blacksmith being hammered into shape had the pain receptors that humans have,
it would not be silent every time the powerful tool crushes it on the anvil.
It would cry out every time.
It would beg to be delivered.
It would be confused.
The fire would would have been an unendurable pain,
and the hypothermia plunge into the cold water have nearly killed it,
but it would still be worked over again by the powerful and knowing blows of the Craftsman.
It may be too much right now to see the pattern you are being conformed to,
but He always works by one.”

~quotes from my friend Roberta, approximately quoting her pastor Douglas Wilson; emphases mine
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Monday January 25, 2010

We have had an incredibly warm winter. In fact,  it feels like we went straight from summer to spring this year, since we were jipped on autumn too. Hm, strange.
But anyway, we finally got another skiff of snow this morning! It was probably only our third or fourth snow this season, and it’s already melting completely away at not even 1pm. So much for that. Will we ever get a sledding day this year?? Hmm, maybe not.
But it was lovely. I miss snow. I wish we’d get more of it. Although my darling husband doesn’t really miss the shoveling escapades we endured last year, lol.

I’ve been waiting for some more snowfall here so I could share these inspired words with you, again from N.D. Wilson’s “Tilt-A-Whirl“:

Snow is so overused. One sentimental, overly structured ice flake might have some value. But God never seems capable of moderation or of understanding the basic concepts behind supply and demand. He constantly devalues His own products. (p 9)

 

We all know that each flake is different and unique, because we’ve all been to preschool. Each one is beautiful, yeah, yeah, we know that too. But how can we possibly value these things when their Maker slings them around like so much trash? Actually, I’ve never seen anyone sling this much trash. Doesn’t He realize that people will curse this tomorrow? That they’ll shovel it and salt it and SUV it into gray slop? Does He know that my daughters are going to roll in it, melting thousands of flakes with their flushed cheeks and tens of thousands with their tongues?

Dogs are going to pee on this stuff in the morning. (p 11)

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Tuesday January 19, 2010

You know how I have made the habit of going through books I’ve enjoyed reading, and typing up some of my favorite quotes and passages from their pages? Well, I’ve decided it’s about time to start sharing another book with you. It will come in spurts, as I feel like sharing pertinent passages.
So here are some words to ponder (emphases mine) for today

from

“Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl“
by N.D. Wilson

 

This world is beautiful but badly broken. St. Paul said that it groans, but I love it even in its groaning… It is full of conflict and darkness like every good story. And like every good story, there will be an ending. I love the world as it is, because I love what it will be. (p 17)


Deaths are as common as births. More common. (p 62)

This is not the best of all possible worlds, but it is the best of all possible ways to the best of all possible worlds—namely, Heaven. (p 80)

To His eyes, you never leave the stage. You do not cease to exist. It is a chapter ending, an act, not the play itself. Look to Him. Walk toward Him. The cocoon is a death, but not a final death. The coffin can be a tragedy, but not for long. There will be butterflies. (p 113)

In the end, when your life is of a different sort, your first flesh will be dust, and of your grief, not one grain of ash will remain. (p 115)