After the change of plan for December's posts, I will now be returning to my blogging plan. You will find more blog posts here at the end of January.
In the mean time, I recommend a couple of blog posts:
Your Sacred Calling, A Single Solitary Article
Passionate Homemaking, A Godly Woman's Work
"Year's End", a prayer from The Valley of Vision, is ideal to meditate on at the start of 2009.
O love beyond compare,
Thou art good when thou givest,
when thou takest away,
when the sun shines upon me,
when night gathers over me.
Thou has loved me before the foundation of the world,
and in love didst redeem my soul;
Thou dost love me still,
in spite of my hard heart, ingratitude, distrust.
Thy goodness has been with me during another year,
leading me through a twisting wilderness,
in retreat helping me to advance,
when beaten back making sure headway.
Thy goodness will be with me in the year ahead;
I hoist sail and draw up anchor,
With thee as the blessed pilot of my future as of my past.
I bless thee that thou has veiled my eyes to the waters ahead.
If thou has appointed storms of tribulation,
thou wilt be with me in them;
If I have to pass through tempests of persecution and temptation,
I shall not drown;
If I am to die,
I shall see thy face the sooner;
If a painful end is to be my lot,
grant me grace that my faith fail not;
If I am to be cast aside from the service I love,
I can make no stipulation;
Only glorify thyself in me whether in comfort or trial,
As a chosen vessel meet always for they use.
The start of 2009 is also the perfect time to decide on a new plan for spending time in God's word. Check out this impressive list of Bible reading plans. I'm still deciding what to do. I'm thinking of trying to read through the whole Bible before baby arrives, using the 90 day plan.
We serve a God who can do the impossible. In August two years ago I wrote a long post about courtship, which I’ve summarised in some of these posts. At the end of my article I wrote: “After all this, you have to actually like the person . . . or preferably fall in love! If that all seems impossible, as it does to me often, remember that we serve a big God who loves to see his people happy and functioning effectively for his kingdom.”
I’ve been amazed at how God has answered my prayers. Marriage has been better than I ever imagined, and I still marvel at the way God brought Dave all the way across the world! I rejoice in the way we are able to support and love each other. At the same time, marriage has made me realise again the importance of trust. Singleness is a real trial to many people, especially those who struggle with sexual desires that cannot be fulfilled or with loneliness. Yet marriage can bring with it its own particular unfulfilled longings.
God chose to withhold the gift of children from Dave and I in the first year of our marriage. We always knew he might do so, and that it might even be his will that we were permanently childless. Our marriage vows contain a deliberate acknowledgement of this. We did not promise to raise “our children” to know and love Jesus, we promised this for “any children God gives us”.
Yet despite this mental acknowledgement, we experienced a lot of fear about why we weren’t getting pregnant. Many negative and even sinful emotions emerged. As the seemingly endless pregnancy announcements kept coming, we wondered if there was something wrong with us. Of course, the announcements that were attended with the label “unexpected” were the hardest.
Now that God has blessed us with an unborn child, I am still laying down dreams. The desire to adopt a child runs very deep. Yet if anything, getting pregnant has made this harder. I’ve had to repent of wanting to control situations in order to be able to adopt. Only God will enable us to adopt, just as only God could give us a biological child. It has got to be his dream, not ours.
In the face of unfulfilled dreams, we all have a choice: trust God, or be miserable and without hope. We must say with the hymn Prince of Peace, Control My Will “May thy will, not mine be done, May thy will and mine be one”. This is particularly hard when we know that what we want is in line with the general will of God. Marriage is the general will of God, as is bearing children and the placement of orphans in families. It is right to desire these things, but we must want the fulfilment of God’s specific will for our lives more – even if it means we are denied the very things we believe God’s word leads us to desire.
God does not call us to an emotionless life. Unfulfilled dreams will, at times, be a source of grief. We can entrust our broken lives, and crushed hopes, to God and know that he does not condemn our sorrow. Yet in the midst of this God is calling those who are hurting to trust Him and believe He knows best. As we seek God, He will provide ways for us to serve Him in the circumstances He has appointed. It is in God that we find our ultimate hope and inheritance, not in earthly families and relationships. He wants us to desire Him above all else.
But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
We had a wonderful month celebrating Christmas! Dave loves to decorate the tree.
My sister gave us a bassinett some time ago, and it is set up in our room looking pretty . . .
On Christmas Eve, we had "Nine Lessons and Carols" at our home. This is a worship service with carols and Bible readings and prayers. Christina was to give birth to Eve the next week (who, by the way, is a most beautiful baby).
On Christmas day we harvested some veggies to take to our family Christmas lunch.
Our sister-in-law obligingly took photos of us in my parents garden.
I hope you also had a fantastic Christmas and December.
I had planned several posts for the Christmas week, and even written them the week before! I'd also decided on some of the photos I'd like to upload. However, I had another reminder of one of my favourite verses:
O Lord, I know the way of man is not in himself;
It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps.
Jeremiah 10:23
Our Internet was out nearly all week, and could not be fixed until this Monday - when we left on holiday! So I'll be posting a few things next week that I had intended to post in December.
Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper is a heartfelt call to live out the Christian life with passion. John Piper does not advocate a “good” life, or an “ok” life, but a life devoted to enjoying God and making others happy in Him.
Don't Wate Your Life is full of the biblical themes that should define our lives: the Creation Mandate, the Great Commandment, and the Great Commission. Piper shows the way that all are essential to the furtherance of God’s Kingdom. He achieves a refreshing and essential integration of them in his call for devotion to Jesus Christ.
An entire chapter is devoted to “secular” work and its worth in the Kingdom of God. This chapter provides fresh perspective on what it means to be creative human beings who aim to exalt and enjoy God through daily work. I am going to dip back into this in order to apply it better to my approach to work at home.
John Piper draws all things into the centre of loving and enjoying God. He calls for us to love the cross, the gospel, and the beauty of God Himself. Piper shows the way love for God leads to love for others. This is expressed beautifully in part of a long prayer that makes up the final chapter:
“There is a quiet kind of joy, O Lord, that Jesus did both save us from our sin and show us how to love. His life, as you have said, was both a purchase and a path. He died for us, and now calls us to die with him. He took our poverty upon himself that we, in him, might have the riches of his heaven, and he calls us now to use our riches for the poor.”
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