Being Present in Light of Eternity
I want to cultivate an eternal perspective, but I also want to see this moment that God has given me. Tomorrow isn’t promised. Flowers bloom and die sometimes in a matter of hours. One day your husband is fine and the next he’s a shell of the man he was. Today a chicken is sitting in your lap while you take a break and tomorrow, she’s dead. Finite life is filled with finite moments. On the other hand, I don’t want to live so in the moment that my faith weakens because I’m living by sight, my selfishness increases because I’m hoarding moments, my grip on this world becomes knuckle–tight, and I become bitter because moments are often taken from us. Someday, I will be out of the fight and on to eternity—which my finite brain, especially pre-coffee, can’t even really grasp. I don’t want to live so in the moment that I forget this part of my life is short, sanctifying, a battle, and a testing ground. I don’t want to live so in the moment that I forget that this isn’t all there is.
Bruce and the Daisy
Spring made her way across the land and summer followed. Every day, they waited on the edge of the creek watching for the girl’s white dress and yellow hair to flit through the trees and bring them some new treat. She brought jars of honey, fish, or a pie to the bear and his friends. They ate, sang, and danced until the sun went down.
For a time, Bruce, Mr. Owl, Jack, and Gus forgot their hunt for the old woman. The four rested and waited on the girl.
War Movies (Part 3)
This is the part of my love for military memoirs that is hard to talk about because it is so very and deeply personal. War stories are for me an expression of my Christianity. The New Testament often uses military metaphors to describe our Chrisian walk. It’s hard to suck the marrow from those passages if you don’t have any idea what war is like and what being in the military is like. If you don’t understand the violence and the brotherhood, you’re missing out on some rich truth and some strong encouragement to maintain your church membership. If you haven’t watched the violence of hand-to-hand combat, do you know what it means to “Be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.”?
Why I Quit True Crime
This growing, subconscious tendency to adjudicate without the law and rules from behind the safety of a computer screen made me start distancing myself from True Crime. It was growing more and more odious in my heart every day.
The Homemaking-Christian
Dear Christian sisters, we don’t need to spiritualize our work. We don’t need to make the home more glorious – it already is. We don’t need to steal from the church to justify our labors; our labors are already good and necessary. There is no secret sauce that we’re simmering apart from our pagan sisters that makes us special. Let’s take care where we find our motivation and how we speak about our work. If we do that, we can build a community of homemakers generation to generation and watch as the Lord uses that to build His church how and where He wills. The Lord has used many a prayer from many a woman to save children and friends and family. Let’s pray, be in church, and tend our hearths.
The Christian Community and the Homemaker
Community requires practice and effort. It requires people to make meals, open doors, communicate. It requires managing schedules, hosting get-togethers, managing facilities, seeing needs and handling them. Community requires seeing the helpers and thanking them. It requires hugs and conversations. It requires a heart to serve before being served. It requires each of us to guard and garden our hearts for the sake of the friend beside us. Why looky here! Community requires all the things home requires, which means we, the Christian homemakers, have a wonderful witnessing opportunity by simply doing what we do. Ladies, this is what we’re trained, or training, for! We are constantly engaged in educating ourselves, in practicing, in growing our skills and expanding our skills in all these areas.
Grown-up Thoughts on The Princess Bride
For the last several years, God has taken me on a journey through a battlefield to teach me that He is good and that He is good to me specifically. He led me like a warrior captain out of the nihilistic minefield into calm pastures of resting in Him as a Father. I have a wonderful dad. How did I miss that God was even better? How ever that happened, like a good, gentle, kind, protective Father, the Lord led me back to Himself. Like a good warrior, He led me home to the safety of truth.
Letters to a Young Matron, Part 2
Communication is vital to a well-managed household. It is also fraught with dangers, confusion, and sin. It grows and changes. Learning to respectfully communicate is one of your greatest skills as a homemaker. You will screw this up. You will have to confess a disrespectful heart, mind, and words. Learn from these failures and follow his instructions on respecting him and managing his household.
Letters to a Young Matron, Part 1
Right now your whole world is tainted by the intoxicating emotions of romance, and the oddly amazing and indescribable sense of this man being “the one.” Take what I’m about to say and squirrel it away. Right now the very idea that you may ever have to labor (blood, sweat, and tears) to love this man isn’t to be believed. But being a matron in your home is first and foremost about loving your husband.
Doers of the Unspectacular
Clear lines help us do our work correctly, not raising it too high as if we are redeeming the world, and not pushing it too low, as if nothing here matters because it is temporary. Understanding what falls under the Noahic covenant and what falls under the Covenant of Grace is vital to doing our work right and well.
War Movies (Part 2)
This is why I watch war movies. I want to hold the truth in my head when the world tells me violence is never the answer and always evil. It’s not. Good men armed are a blessing and needed. War movies remind me of that. War movies help me understand that violence is awful, bloody, and breaking, but also necessary if I want to live safely in my home and nurture little things. I can’t grow flowers if I don’t have a defender.
War Movies (Part 1)
War movies help me not take for granted my quiet life. They help me to see how good I really have it. They remind me of the duality of life, and they help me be thankful for all that I have. They help me see everyday beauty by contrast instead of by exaggeration like fantasy.