• Joy

    One of the Juniors emailed all of us asking, "What brings you joy (other than God)?" I smiled and liked how God bringing us joy is already assumed and then how much I want that direct connection to be more evident in my life. I also smiled because it also made me think of the tangible ways God has brought me joy in my life. As I started listing them I started thinking how healthy of an exercise this is :)
    • Looking out over the ocean on a clear blue day
    • Jumping pictures while it's snowing
    • Surprise notes in surprise places on ordinary days
    • Fresh-cut flowers on my desk to look up at occasionally when working/studying
    • Almond M&Ms
    • Curling up on a couch with a good book, tea, and nothing scheduled until dinner
    Shall we continue?

  • Praying for him

    It is a privilege and a challenge for me whenever I feel God's prompting in my heart to pray for someone or something, and I think more recently it has been a particular privilege, challenge and delight as His promptings have been hinting and directing me toward a responsibility and role I might take on fully in the future. I feel as if He is growing me in my inmost being, as He molds me more and more into His likeness in identity, while at the same time I feel as if He is growing me in an outward but still intimate direction to experiencing, in the beauty and mystery of Christ and the Church, two individual journeys starting to meet and converge as one. To somehow wrap my mind and heart around how these two things coexist and constantly lift each other up leaves me elated and speechless. All I know is it's beautiful, and even just the beginning whispers of it tickle my ears and insides.

  • Joy in expectancy

    MaryAnn, Aug. 13, 2009

    "As the days of pregnancy are quickly coming to a close, I had the brief thought today that I might miss a bit of this season in my life.  Not that I would want repetition of the nausea, vomiting, dietary restrictions, needle-pricking or this reality of a train running over my body -- but I will miss waking up every morning with the constant, continual, everyday hopeful, expectant anticipation of a miracle.  That's what this season has been like - I and everyone else around me are all looking to the future, eagerly expectant of something wonderful that's going to happen.  Even strangers look at me with knowing smiles and sparkles in their eyes as we share in this universal feeling of Hope from the anticipation of new life.  Joy really springs from the Hope of something wonderful to come, doesn't it?

    I think this is what (should) make the gospel so enticing.  In the gospel, we are promised an inheritance beyond comparison and guaranteed a future full of good and wonderful things.  We have Hope like no other.  Therefore, we ought to wake up and live every single day with hopeful expectation of a miracle that is about to happen that very day.  As Frank Laubach wrote, wouldn't it be glorious to live a year with the view in mind that you will say at the end of it,"This, this has been the finest year of my life" or to be able to look ahead and say, "The present year can and shall be better!"?  That is the hope he anticipated as he resolved to fill every minute of every day full of God.  Just because this season of my life is coming to an end, it doesn't mean that my life has to slip back into some kind of dreary existence where there's nothing to look forward to.  That would be false living.  With Christ, I really can keep on living with a constant, continual, everyday hopeful, expectant anticipation of a miracle. "

    :) Praise God that I can say that I am really learning about and experiencing this kind of joy in my life with Him.

  • New Things

    I am looking forward to new things. Mm!

    I feel like I'm standing at the edge of a cliff, closing my eyes, taking a deep breath, exhaling, and then opening my eyes to something fresh, untouched, crisp and new. It makes me want to giggle, laugh out loud, smile, close my eyes and be still- all at once. I feel so free.

    I don't remember feeling this way toward a new year in the past. But maybe it's because this year God reminded me that He is the God of new things, new beginnings. And perhaps it is because He has been showing me more recently that I am daily in need of His grace. It has been painful, learning about my weaknesses and how constantly I fall short and have fallen short in the past and present, and yet every time I am met with grace still more. What's even better? It doesn't take the onset of a new year for His promises of a fresh beginning to start. We are constantly renewed.. second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day... just as His love is constantly being poured onto us second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day..

    As children of God we are constantly being made new.
    Can you imagine living in light of this? I can't believe I didn't before!

    It's crazy! It's having New year's every day!
    Ah! And I love it!

    Here's to new things and living in light of it. This is what it is to live in freedom.

    The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases
    His mercies never come to an end
    They are new every morning, new every morning
    Great is Your faithfulness, O Lord
    Great is Your faithfulness


    (I was really blessed by this sermon from John Piper recently, especially because of what God has been showing me recently: http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByTopic/17/992_Consider_Each_Other_How_to_Stir_Up_Love/ )

  • Glorious

    Father, teach me how to see You glorified as my highest priority.

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