Sometimes our prayers are for deliverance from conditions which are morally indispensable--that is, conditions which are absolutely necessary to our redemption. God does not grant us those requests. He will not because He loves us with a pure and implacable purpose: that Christ be formed in us. If Christ is to live in my heart, if his life is to be lived in me, I will not be able to contain Him. The self, small and hard and resisting as a nut, will have to be ruptured. My own purposes and desires and hopes will have to at times be exploded. The rupture of the self is death, but out of death comes life. The acorn must rupture if an oak tree is to grow. --Elisabeth Elliott
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Winds of Change
I grew up adoring Lord Byron, Tennyson, Browning, Rossetti, Swinburne, Yeats, Keats, and Percy Bysshe Shelley.... but by far my most cherished versifier is my dear friend Jenni: Winds of Change
"So how would you feel if local laws required that you bring your pup to the bus stop each day to join other dogs in a yellow cage that wheels down the road to the kennel or pound for socializing exercises? You know for sure that association with the pack is the fastest way to destroy any obedience training *you* have planned. Does anyone who knows children believe that the yellow school bus takes children down the road to a constructive, positive sense of society? Or returns them in the afternoon or evening more loving creatures than when they left in the morning?" -Dr. Raymond Moore, The Successful Homeschool Family Handbook
Zucchini
These are from our neighbors and I have never seen, as Catherine says, such "ginormous" zucchini in my life. I drove by our neighbor's house just in time to catch their 12 yo boy with a broken wrist (in cast) about to carry a huge bag of these with one hand a quarter of a mile to our house in blistering heat... bless his heart. Since I was going the opposite direction of our house, he offered to take them down to our porch for me. I thanked him profusely and told him he didn't have to do that in this heat, I could take them with me, no problem... but I arrived home to find a HUGE bag of tomatoes on our porch. ;) I made fresh roasted tomato soup for dinner, with grilled cheese sandwiches. Yum. Any ideas on preparing zucchini "steaks"?? Just one of these will feed our family of eight for one meal, and we have eight of these!
Why am I so tired?
Yesterday our dear 'Elizabeth' celebrated her 16th birthday. Even though, until now, our 'Fanny' has strictly been on Dr Michael Traub's Allergy Prevention plan for introducing solid foods to infants, we succumbed to the festive occasion and allowed our dear one to a small piece of unfrosted chocolate cake. Big mistake. She was wired until well past 4 a.m. :)
No Children! by Edgar Guest
No children in the house to play-- It must be hard to live that way! I wonder what the people do When night comes on and the work is through, With no glad little folks to shout, No eager feet to race about, No youthful tongues to chatter on About the joy that's been and gone? The house might be a castle fine, But what a lonely place to dine! No children in the house at all, No fingermarks upon the wall, No corner where the toys are piled-- Sure indication of a child. No little lips to breathe the prayer That God shall keep you in His care, No glad caress and welcome sweet When night returns you to your street; No little lips a kiss to give-- Oh, what a lonely way to live! No children in the house! I fear We could not stand it half a year. What would we talk about at night, Plan for and work with all our might, Hold common dreams about and find True union of heart and mind, If we two had no greater care Than what we both should eat and wear? We never kn...
So far so good!
Mary is my first "completely homeschooled" daughter. She recently took her first standardized test and scored in the 95th percentile. I don't put much stock in test scores, but my state does, so I'm jazzed. ;) To top that off, here's a nice article in the Aussie news: Top marks for home-schooling (though I can't believe they *still* had to bring up the non-issue of socialization at the end of the article).
One of my favorites...
The Biblical Portrait of Women: Setting the Record Straight by John MacArthur
"I hope", said Gloriana warily, "that you are not going to suggest that I marry the American minister, because I won't do it. I've been reading about the Americans in a women's magazine and they're all cruel to their wives." "Cruel to their wives?" echoed the count. "Precisely. They treat them as equals. They refuse to make any decisions without consulting them. They load them up with worries they should keep to themselves. And when there isn't enough money, they send them out to work instead of earning more by their own efforts. Some of them even make their wives work so they can go to college. They are not men at all. They are men-women. And their wives are women-men. If I am to marry, I want a husband who will be a man and let me be a woman. I'll be able to handle him better that way." — "The Mouse That Roared" by Leonard Wibberley
Grief is a fickle thing.
It's funny how it leaves you for a bit, and you become unguarded, and merrily roll along and then WALLOP, up side the head it comes. Maybe you noticed the date, maybe you smelled a familiar scent, maybe you didn't do anything except suddenly start bawling at this thing or that for no apparent reason. No... just a cat hair in my eye. No... just allergies of some sort. No... Christians shouldn't be so sensitive, you're right. And you wonder what on earth has gotten into you. It's not hormones... not time to PMS or ovulate... and WHAM it hits you. You still miss them. Achingly so. How can your heart contain it? Why doesn't it just burst and dissipate into nothingness like a vapor? You want to run to them for comfort, but they aren't there to comfort you. You want to run away, but there is no where to go that grief won't find you.. walloping you and whamming you relentlessly like waves. Except. In the arms of Jesus. The Steadfast Love of the L...