Around the Internet

My friend Felicity has a new blog, In God's Strength. Her goal of cultivating thankfulness through her blogging is a good one, and her recent posts reflect this aim.

I haven't been able to visit Kimi's blog for a long time, and when I visited today I was sorry to read that she is still enduring a lot of sickness. In her most recent post, Humility through illness, Kimi shares this about her illness: "It has been a constant reminder of my own weaknesses and how much I need God and other's help. If I had the perfect picture home, kept up on everything all the time, and was able to meet everyone's needs constantly, I could feel like I had "made it" and get prideful about myself. Sometimes you see this tendency in some of our Christian leaders-the desire to paint the picture perfect family. This is dangerous ground to be on and will more tend to discourage instead of encourage others. I personally find that I am most meaningfully encouraged by leaders who share God's grace and abundance to them through their own weaknesses". I recommend reading the whole post.

My friend Mike is aiming focus on encouragement through his blog. I appreciated his recent post on our pastor Mike and his wife Nikki . He explains the encouragement they have brought to his life. I have also been encouraged by their lives, especially Mike's humility in admitting where things have gone wrong in the past.

Susan has written a response to an article that was negative about marriage. "Silly Me" explores the self centeredness of many reasons why people avoid marriage, and offers "10 fascinating benefits to being married" as a response. I have noticed that many reasons Christians give for why they are happy to remain single are also self centered. So are most of the things Christians say to people who are not happy about being single. For example, "you have so much more time and you don't have to take care of others". Yay! What a great time in my life to value my individual freedom and autonomy so I can become more and more selfish and less willing to adjust to the serving that is necessary in marriage! [Read sarcasm, please!]. Of course, Christians can always bring out 1 Corinthians 7 . . . but I think most of us know that the reason we are not married is not because we are serving God better that way! I hope to elaborate further on this topic in future.

Finally, please drop over to Feminists for Life. These ladies are the type of feminists that I like.