My List for Learning Grace:
"It's not about keeping rules!" Paul told people. "You don't have to be good at being good for God to love you. You just have to believe what Jesus has done and follow him. Because it's not about trying, it's about trusting. It's not about rules, it's about Grace: God's free gift - that cost him everything." - Jesus Storybook Bible, pg. 340
"There's nothing you did that secured your salvation, and there's nothing you can do to undo it. It's grace from beginning to end." -Paul Tripp
One Way Love explained...
Rock Church, Tullian Tchividjian, Inexhaustible Grace for an Exhausted World
Liberate
Key Life & Steve Brown Etc.
"We need to constantly hear the law of God, in spite of our failure to conform to it, so that we will forever be running to Christ." Horton
"We say, “Grace is powerful and free and beautiful and amazing.” But we leave out one of the key descriptors of grace.
The truth is, grace is offensive.
Grace offends in its’ generosity.
Grace offends in its’ availability.
Grace offends in its’ depth.
Grace offends in its’ unwillingness to be controlled or owned or manipulated.
Grace is offensive, and when I see people who I think don’t deserve it, I am reminded of ultimately how desperately I still need it." - Jon Acuff
Kimberley Suchta
Dropping Keys
"I don't have the power or motivation to defeat the sin inside of me, but I don't need to. My sin was defeated on the Cross of Jesus Christ." -Paul Tripp
"This is the amazing story of God’s grace. God saves us by His grace and transforms us more and more into the likeness of His Son by His grace. In all our trials and afflictions, He sustains and strengthens us by His grace. He calls us by grace to perform our own unique function within the Body of Christ. Then, again by grace, He gives to each of us the spiritual gifts necessary to fulfill our calling. As we serve Him, He makes that service acceptable to Himself by grace, and then rewards us a hundredfold by grace." - Jerry Bridges
"Grace has freed you from attaching your identity, meaning, purpose and inner peace to anything but the unshakable love of King Christ." -Paul Tripp
A preacher called David Martyn Lloyd-Jones sometimes asked people, "Are you a Christian?" If they said, "I am trying!" he knew they really didn't understand. Because being a Christian isn't about trying. It's about trusting. Trusting not in what you must do. But in what God has done. And he has done EVERYTHING! "But to all who believed and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God." -John 1:12 -'Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing' by Sally Lloyd-Jones
My note... Whether it was caught or taught, I thought that once God saved you, you move beyond the Gospel, to a deeper understanding of Christianity, living by the Spirit... Not understanding that the Gospel was everything I needed for life and godliness. In the same way, I didn't understand my need for the love of God, to be able to understand how my outward actions toward others is not "because I love God therefore I have to do service", but flowing directly out of love that he gave me.
"And—listen—if it’s up to us to keep ourselves saved, then we are under law and not under grace. And those who are under law are legalists." Grace for My Heart, Is it Legalism?
My note... I am good enough because He is good enough.
These sermons or podcasts specifically...
Ray Edwards interviews Frank on the relationship between Grace and Law and the Christian's posture toward the Law.
The Christian's Relationship to the Law
My note... Dr. Rod R's sermon helped tip the scales on our decision and we switched churches as a direct result.
Dr. Rod Rosenbladt, The Gospel For Those Broken By the Church
"There are only two places where you have to be bad to get in... The Mafia and the Church."
Jean Larroux III, Why Bad People Make Good Missionaries
"God's love is the power to liberate us, not the reward for us liberating ourselves."
JD Greer, Grace From Beginning to End
White Horse Inn Podcast, Sept 2, 2012, about the beginning
What do we contribute to our Christian life?
Steve Brown, Roman Road To Grace
Liberate 2013, Bryan Chapell, Grace & Christian Growth
Christianity is about getting, not giving...
Liberate, Nick Lannon (I hope this link works. Sorry if it doesn't!)
"Do we live Christianity or some kind of moralistic therapeutic deism?"
Liberate, Elyse Fitzpatrick, The Fruit of One Way Love
When the novelty of grace wears off... The focus shifts...
"The symbol of our faith shifts from being a cross to a ladder. Now it's all about me and what I do and what I don't do. And I become the center of this Christian journey. It's all about me...
I was appreciative of God's work, but for the most part that was past. But in the present our focus is on our work, as if the focus of the Christian faith is living for God...
The focus and foundation of the Christian faith is not living for God. The focus and the foundation of the Christian faith is the glorious counterintuitive reality that God lived for us, in the person of Jesus. Without that there is no Christianity."
-Tullian
Tullian Tchividjian, Romans: Part 14
(Or basically all the Liberate sermons!)
"Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God's grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily." - Galatians 2:19-21
"Too often, we set our sights on being a better father, or a college professor with tenure, or the pastor of a larger congregation, or a more sanctified Christian. We don’t know that, by doing this, we are willingly placing ourselves in front of the firing squad of the Law. We forget that the Law melts faces."
Liberate, Nick Lannon, The Law Will Melt Your Face
"We are much more concerned about someone abusing his freedom then we are about his guarding it. We are more afraid of indulging the sinful nature than we are of falling into legalism. Yet legalism DOES indulge the sinful nature because it fosters self-righteousness and religious pride. It also diverts us from the real issues of the Christian life by focusing on externals and sometimes trivial rules." - Jerry Bridges
God is the only one that can fill our needs...
Paul Tripp, One True Pleasure
"It's God's goodness - not yours - that is your ultimate hope." -Paul Tripp
My note... When we are looking to others for validity/decisions/worth, we are showing our deep need for a priest.
Liberate, Zack Hicks, One Sermon
And that helps us to be okay with not being okay... Identity...
"Because of the gospel, we have nothing to prove or protect. We can stop pretending. We can take off our masks and be real. The gospel frees us from trying to impress people, appease people, measure up for people, or prove ourselves to people. The gospel frees us from the burden of trying to control what other people think about us. It frees us from the miserable, unquenchable pursuit to make something of ourselves by using others."
Pastor Tullian, You're Not Okay and That's Okay
God lathers, rinses, repeats. We provide the dirt. -Laura Strait
"Grace calls you to do more than just celebrate grace. You are called to live the new life that grace enables you to live." -Paul Tripp
"Our pride and self-righteousness are just as offensive to God as the sins of the prostitute and the pimp."
Caleb Flores, 4 Things Jesus Didn't Die For
"But I find there is so much more room for grace and freedom, when I am not holding myself to my own unrealistic standard. There is so much grace in saying, 'Oh well. A perfectly scrubbed kitchen floor is just not the season we are in.'"
Not the Former Things, What Can I Not Do Today?
"I am freed from the need to present myself as righteous to God, others or myself, because Jesus is my righteousness now and forever." -Paul Tripp
I think giving is way easier to do than receiving. It goes against pride to receive. But it is a lesson worth learning because anything that challenges my prideful heart is a good thing. -Laura Strait
"One of the counterintuitive things about Christianity is that Jesus didn’t call us to findthe truth; he called himself the truth. Our spirituality begins and ends with him. He is the “author and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2). It is not our study or intellectual ability that gains us anything, but rather the perfect, finished work of Jesus Christ that gains us everything."
Liberate, Roger Smith, Intellectual Legalism (OOF!! This one hit me hard.)
“We are halfhearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition [and food] when infinite joy is offered us. Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea, we are far too easily pleased.” C.S. Lewis
"So when I decide to run to other things to comfort me, to give me pleasure, or for acceptance…I am forgetting that he gives me good gifts like food, not to be my ultimate comfort, but to point me to the One who is my Comforter. And to point me to my greatest joy."
Kimberley Suchta, Remember This the Next Time You Step on the Bathroom Scale
"Like he did in removing Adam and Eve from Eden, though, God will not permit us to be like him. If we will not decrease ourselves so that he can increase, he will decrease us despite ourselves. Though this feels like bad news in the moment—it hurts to be decreased against your will—it is good news in the long run. The more I come face to face with the truth—that I’m not God—the more and more I will be brought to a place of acceptance of a larger truth: there is a God."
Liberate, Nick Lannon, I Don't Know Everything (Gasp, I don't know everything?! Someone give me air! My incompetence will be revealed! Oh wait, there is a God... Breathe....)
"I have mostly learned to define myself not in terms of what I do, but in terms of who I am. Better than that, I’m learning to define myself in terms of Whose I am. The Father is teaching me that my value lies in belonging to him, trusting his direction, and leaning on his grace. My value doesn’t come from what he gives me to do but from who and Whose I am when I do what he tells me. Put another way, I am valuable because I am loved by God, not because of what I do for him. "
Key Life, Steve Brown, Defining Your Identity
These blog posts specifically...
http://www.kimberleysuchta.com/2014/04/28/an-open-letter-to-my-non-christian-friends/
"The Christian life is not about trying harder to be good but rather worshipping the only One who truly is good."
Key Life, Kimm Crandall, The Gospel of the Good Days or Podcast
My note...This speaks to my heart that as Christians we should not be afraid in our dealings. The truth is not fragile. We do not have to fear pollution from the world if we know the truth of God's glorious grace. (That's really a side note from what the article was saying.)
Christianity Today, Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, My Train Wreck Conversion
"It’s is God’s grace to you if your church is messy."
Tim Challies, Thank God for a Messy Church
"That’s the irony of the pursuit of perfection: it doesn’t inspire, it paralyzes. "
Liberate, Nick Lannon, Collateral and the Pursuit of Perfection
"All of us have a tendency to take something that is good, at least in our opinion, and add moral weight to it. Public school, home school, and private school can all be good things. Organic food can be a good thing. Dressing up for church or dressing down for church can be good things. Dating, courting, and dorting, can all be good things. Watching television can be a good thing and abstaining from television can be a good thing. The danger, however, is when we take a good thing and we turn it into a moral thing. When we make a good thing into something that other people must do if they are going to be truly spiritual. When we take a good thing and add it onto justification by faith as the way to God’s approval." Stephen Altrogge, The Danger of Turning a Good Thing Into a Moral Thing
Which gets us to the topics of modesty, courtship, purity, virginity marriage and sex.... Yes, really... "So, why DO we sometimes find ourselves angry or agitated at the immodesty dressed woman? Why the impatience? Why the frustration? Why the internal eye rolling and even self righteous thoughts of thinking we know better than she does?
Why isn’t our first reaction to the immodestly dressed woman one of, “You are my sister. I love you! I don’t condemn you.” ? Maybe it is fear. Fear of our husbands finding another woman beautiful. If that is the case, we can know we aren’t trusting the gospel in that situation. Because if my identity is rooted in Christ’s love for me, I won’t fear other beautiful women. I will trust my Father in heaven is sanctifying and offering my husband the same grace he gives me when he is tempted to sin.
When I am truly seeing the love and grace that has been offered to me in Jesus, I will be able to extend that same grace to my husband, instead of holding him under the law. Because sin isn’t an ‘if’ question, it’s a ‘when’ question.
Maybe it is jealousy or insecurity that is the root behind my anger at that immodestly dressed woman. Because when it bothers me to see her…is my primary concern for her soul’s well being…as well as the men around her that I am just assuming are lusting after her?
Maybe it is fear that is rooted in my promiscuous past…and I somehow feel that dressing a certain way will make God love me more…and seeing someone else dressing how I would deem as immodest causes me to question his love for me again.
Maybe it is that my standards and another woman’s standards for modest dress are different. And in my irritation, I am unknowingly demanding that she live up to my expectations.
It could be many things. There aren’t easy answers. So we all tend to want some sort of standard to be set. But contrary to what many have falsely believed, there are no lists or charts available to us for gospel modesty. "
"If we are only after behavior modification and not the heart, we’ve lost the point completely and are in the same sin as the promiscuous dressing girl, just with a different bent (a more dangerous one I might add because you are not going to get drug before church discipline for dressing too modestly). This is why I love Jesus; He is the perfect solution and antithesis to both religion and rebellion."
Believe, Jefferson Bethke, The Idolatry of Modesty
"Girls become responsible not just for their own purity, but for boys’ purity, too, and sex becomes something boys want but girls have to fight against... We have become so scared that teens will have sex that we have created a purity culture that is centred around rules and shame rather than centred around Jesus."
To Love, Honor, and Vacuum, Christian Purity Culture
"I define "emotional purity" in the same way that popular homeschool writers have: it is the idea of "guarding your heart". Which sounds all noble and righteous and everything but in this context is really just a facade for fear. Fear of loving and losing. Fear of making the wrong choice. Fear of getting hurt. Fear of being damaged. Fear of not measuring up. In my life it meant never having a crush on a guy, never allowing myself to "fall in love", basically training myself to shut down a normal, healthy, functioning part of my human heart." Darcy's Heart Stirrings,How the Teachings of Emotional Purity and Courtship Damage Healthy Relationships (Or you can find the same article, but a little different format here.)
"The intention might be good but over-emphasizing the specialness of virginity has unintended, harmful consequences." Elizabeth Esther, Virginity New and Improved
"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."
C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
What it really should be: "But most importantly, I want my daughters to know that a godly woman is a woman who repents quickly, and often. She is a woman who runs to her Savior confidently because she trusts in him and not in herself. She knows he is able, but she is not." Kimberley Suchta, To My Daughters What it Really Means to be a Godly Woman
"I was never educated about sex…and I grew up in a Christian family. My framework for sex was built by my friends at school and the movies I watched. Big UH OH. I still struggle with enjoying the fullness of sex today because of the cloud of lies formed during my teenage years... It is time for God’s people to take back the gift of sex. The lies surrounding it are ruining lives and ruining marriages. If you are married, let me challenge you to explore sex. Explore the fullness of it for the glory of God. Pray for sexual intimacy with your spouse." Frank Matthew Powell, 7 Truths About Marriage You Will Not Hear In Church
George Herbert
Love 3
LOVE bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lacked any thing.
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lacked any thing.
A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
Love said, you shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?
Love said, you shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?
Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.
"It has seemed for my husband and I, that the more we are understanding grace, the lower our expectations are for one another. Because it is just inevitable, that the more you realize what a mess you are, and what a mess your spouse is, the more incredible God’s grace becomes"
Domestic Abuse & Porn Addiction:
"You don't need to fear your weakness because God's grace is sufficient; his power is made perfect in your weakness." -Paul Tripp
This could go for both domestic and church abuse... "The most insidious spiritual abuse occurs when Believers begin to not only “find contentment” in their abusive circumstances but to find spiritual meaning and divine purpose in their sufferings. This sort of mental gymnastics can easily manifest as a form of Stockholm Syndrome when victims who believe that they have no options – no way out – delude themselves into feeling they do have a certain amount of control when they “choose” to embrace, support and defend their abuser. It is oddly empowering to an abused person to say, 'This is what I want – yes, it may be painful, but it is actually beneficial to my spiritual growth. I thank God for this and rejoice in my sufferings because in the end, it all brings glory to my Savior!'"Happily Abused?
Church Abuse:
"As a kid, I was deeply hurt by the pastor of our church. The man we had trusted to be our spiritual leader used his position to do some awful things. The result would be the displacement of our family, the splitting of our church, and a wound I would carry for many years to come. I would eventually come to trust Jesus again, but trusting His Church would prove to be a far bigger challenge."
Relevant Magazine, Aaron Loy, When Church has Let You Down
“Even as the angry vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him....Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness....And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world's healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives along with the command, the love itself.”
― Corrie ten Boom, The Hiding Place
"It is God's GOODNESS that leads sinners to repentance, not our legalistic efforts of trying to impose conviction on sinners (and even on Christians!) with statements like, 'You are going to burn in hell if you don't repent!'"
Bryan Hudson, Goodness of God Leads to Repentence
"What we know of the fundamental lie and the evil one who promotes it is that it stems from fear and pride, an unwillingness to rest in the provision and love of God. If I were to risk simplifying the lie, I would suggest: “I can and I should do it myself.” That lie has been cultivated into our humanity for all of history and is an integral part of our world. It should not surprise us when we see it everywhere, nor when we learn that we have been affected by it. Our parents lived in it as did their parents. The world’s thinking and most of the thinking of the church has been affected by it. The lie is everywhere. From Eve to the Antichrist, the lie has permeated our world."
Recovering Grace, Was it All Wrong?
Once we recover from the abuse, we'll want to know God's will for our lives...
"God’s will was never meant to be a mystical enigma that we try to decipher. It’s not a magical recipe and we need to discover and then follow in order to please God. "
Liberate, Nathan Man, I Know God's Will For Your Life
and...
"Over the past several years, I’ve been learning to take the gospel much more seriously than my Myers Briggs profile (INTP). And I’ve been learning to boast in, not about my brokenness. Our stories do yield important explanations about the origin of our relational patterns, but they’re not meant to empower excuses for our not loving well."
Liberate, Scotty Smith, The Gospel Liberation for Weenies
Abuse in Conservative/Homeschool (I hate that this category even exists, but I understand it needs to and have seen how twisted theology has warped things in my life):
My note.... When bad teaching creeps into a Christian's walk, it may seem like good things at first. But when they are placed all together and you can read a list of them at the same time, they suddenly become obviously errant. I can't believe the slight shades of these lies that ring true in my heart. That's because a lot of lies are twists of the truth. This article blew my mind and the Lord used it to free me from lies. Recovering Grace, Living by Principles
"But there was one verse, one principle that I unknowingly absorbed and lived out for ten years: “The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. Who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). Anyone familiar with the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) knows how this verse is applied in their teachings. According to Gothard, it meant that I was so inherently sinful that I couldn’t trust myself—my thoughts, emotions, or will. My feelings were biased by my baggage and only revealed my baser nature. As a young woman, I should only trust my father and then later my husband. I could never trust myself because I didn’t know what I needed and didn’t know how to protect myself."
Recovering Grace, the Principle of Self Doubt
"We do not homeschool to avoid wicked people. We homeschool so we wicked people can talk all day about the one Man who wasn’t wicked." ~ R.C. Sproul Jr.
"There is no idea so whackdoodle for which we cannot bring in someone from somewhere, give them space in a homeschool vendor hall, and watch them obtain a following."
HEDUA, Carol Barnier, Dangerous Philosophies (This one is really great!)
No Longer Quivering
General Parenting and Education (with Grace):
"Our Kids need grace so much more than they need organic vegetables. If we're not giving ourselves grace, how can we pass it on to them?" The Gospel Centered Mom, Fads That are Killing Your Joy
"But their prayers were so sweet. And it reminded me…because of the gospel…I can rest in the relief that I don’t have to have it all together as a mom to enjoy motherhood. And that one of the greatest things I can show my kids, is that I need Jesus just as much as they do…maybe even more."
Kimberley Suchta, How to Parent with No Regrets
"But I’m not sure that sin is the cause of most mommy guilt. If we’re honest, it’s usually pride and/or fear of man."
The Christian Pundit, RVD, Mommy Guilt and the Cross
"I have realized just how easy it is to speak law into their hearts, and how much more intentional I need to be in speaking grace into their hearts. "
"It was the year the strings on my SuperMom cape loosened…"
Kimberley Suchta, 4 Steps to Overcoming Supermom Syndrome
"Today you will measure your potential by considering your personal resources or by remembering the grandeur of what you have in Christ." -Paul Tripp
My note... Be intentional about admitting to your kids how messed up you are. I do! It often promotes very interesting discussion, in which the Lord has used my children to point things out to me and used my mistakes to bring to light things in my children's hearts that needed addressing.
Kimberley Suchta, 3 Reasons to be Intentional in Showing Your Kids What a Mess You Are
"Why is it that we are so afraid to give the message of grace to our little ones? We bombard their ears with law on a constant basis. “Obey your parents.” “Remember the golden rule.” “Be kind to everyone.” The list goes on and on…and only rarely gets tempered by mentions of the Gospel. We can’t bring ourselves to tell children that even in the middle of their disobedience, God loves them and sees them as hidden in the righteousness of Christ. We seem to want obedient children — at any cost — rather than Christian ones!"
Liberate, Jessica Thompson, Proclaim the Good News to Children
"I have a hard time with cliches. You hear them all the time. Something sounds good so people start saying it over and over. They even become mantras some live by. Normally, we hear them in response to a person's difficulty or personal pain. They are always shared with good intention and usually by wonderful people. Besides the fact that many of these are mostly used to place an optimistic bow on a difficult situation, the real problem is this: Many are skewed truth masking as wisdom and dangerous."
False Wisdom You Should Not Teach Your Kids
Why we don't "do" elf on the shelf...
"Do good and you will be accepted by God and will receive good things. Do bad and you will be punished by God or worse yet, be turned away.It’s the law, masked as Karma, masked as parenting.
Thank God for the Gospel! Thank God for the incarnation of the Son who came down to save us from this filthy mess that we have gotten ourselves into. Thank God that we no longer live under this burden but now live in the freedom of Christ. Is that not what Christmas is about in the first place?"
"People in this country just are not friendly towards people with big families. Why is that? I don’t know when it happened, that two kids was the preferred amount of children and three was pushing it — and even then, only acceptable if you were trying for a different gender — but for whatever reason, it is no longer acceptable for people to have large families."
Long Run Blog, Cassyfiano, When Did We Start Hating Big Families?
"My kids are not the center of my world because I love them enough not to allow them to be."
Stephanie Metz, This Young Mother is Giving up on Her Kids and I Don't Blame Her
"Because sometimes we don’t always see how much we have until someone who doesn’t have as much sees into our lives."
We Are That Family, Kristen Welch, How to Wake Up From the American Dream You Might Not Even Know You're Sleeping Through
"It takes intention to furnish a home with grace and rest and acceptance. I’m up for the challenge. I want to see past the worst and focus on the better. I want to search for the real beauty just waiting to be recognized. I want to make a home on purpose — with purpose."
A Holy Experience, Myquillyn Smith/The Nester, When You're Tired of Being a Stuff Manager and Want to Enjoy Living
Pain & Suffering in This Life:
"When we make the false and formulaic assumption that pain and suffering are always a punishment for a specific sin, we end up making the ways of God sound more like karma. Yes, there is such a thing as reaping what we sow, and there is such a thing as suffering the consequences of our actions. But the idea that all sickness and sad circumstances are the result of specific sins positions God, not as a Father who oversees our suffering and comforts us IN it, but as an abusive Father who administers our suffering and stands over us with a hair-trigger temper. But God does NOT play tit for tat with his children. And the Bible flat-out says we are not destined for wrath." - Jud Wilhite 'Torn'
"Here's an important principle to remember: you and I struggle to give up control because we think no one else knows what we need more than we do."
Paul Tripp, Defining Your Needs
"Trials are not punishments but interventions" Tullian Tchividjian
My note... If I could pray one thing for my friends and myself, it would be that we all become weaker. In my strengths I forget God. In my weaknesses I have a chance of remembering. But when I'm weaker still (and my husband isn't around to help pick me up and carry me, lol) then the Lord comes and gently reminds me that He is strong. Lord, make me weaker still. Make me daily, no, moment-ly dependent on You.
Liberate, Scotty Smith, A Prayer About the Joy of Becoming Less
Women's Role in the Church (and other places):
Elyse Fitzpatrick, Good News for Weary Women
Frank Viola, Women's Role in Church
"The purpose of an education is to help our children to know God
and to be prepared to serve him."
HEDUA, The Education of Our Daughters
Working from Home:
My note... Since staying at home and pursuing a home based business to help provide for the family, I have come to have highly mixed emotions about the blessing of working from home, yet the daily grind that strips the creativity and art out of the process. And when I first started trying to make a living and earn a paycheck at home I set standards for myself that were much higher than I could ever achieve, which completely drained the creativity out of it and made it a joyless job. The very thing I hoped would feed my family and feed my joy was sucking the joy out of me. I still struggle with balance, but have learned there are times I have to stop and feed the creative side of me before it starves. Then when I have aptly done that, I can apply myself to daily grind with more concentration and joy. And one day I still hope to make a business out of something purely art related (and not form that follows function, which is my current line of work). But for now I feel deeply blessed to be able to continue to be a Proverbs 31 woman for my family, as I know it's a gift from God.
http://deeperstory.com/the-day-siri-broke-my-heart/
