My Daughter

Thirteen years ago yesterday, God gave me my little girl. She is taller than me now, but when I look at her I still see that tiny, perfect, blond baby, with one curl sticking out to the side. One of the greatest blessings that Leah brings to this house is the sunny, positive nature with which God has blessed her. Decay and corruption are all around this world, but she is a picture of hope. She is always singing or playing the piano. There is always a song in her heart. Thank you, God, for putting together this family of unique personalities designed to encourage (and provoke) each other toward godliness. Happy Birthday, Leah Katherine!

God's Blessing on Hospitality

Having more guests in our home and making our home more appealing to them is our family's version of the "Lose Weight" New Year's Resolution. We try diligently for a few months, then fall back into our habits as faithful members of the Diogenes Club. Part of this year's effort has been repainting the kitchen/den. This minor renovation completed, the Lord then worked it out for us to have a dinnertime visitor. How he blessed our venture into hospitality in an unexpected way: Our family has started using the old hymns for our family devotions. Since none of us has an angelic voice, this has posed some challenges -- but we strongly feel it is worth the effort. Imagine our delight, when our guest burst out with a beautiful, booming voice and proceeded to lead the musical portion of our devotions! My heart soared. How the Lord loves to bless those little acts of faithfulness.

Good Advice For Blogging

"Never write what you dare not sign. An anonymous letter-writer is a sort of assassin, who wears a mask, and stabs in the dark. Such a man is a fiend with a pen. If discovered, the wretch will be steeped in the blackest infamy." Charles Spurgeon

Spiritual Clutter

Our home is getting less cluttered, little by little. I am not a pack rat. I don't even want most of the stuff that I own. I just get busy, and neither John nor I tend to notice the clutter -- we are both happily oblivious until we start looking at the house through the eyes of visitors. It's amazing how that brings everything into perspective.
Well, this Christmas my mom bought me a beautiful garden border for our kitchen/den. It has roses and flowerpots and a little cat sniffing the flowers. Because I wanted it up so badly, we actually tore down our grungy old wallpaper, repainted the walls ivory and added a sage green accent wall. Suddenly, I have an open, airy and pleasant room. What a picture of what the Lord is doing in our lives right now. The process is slow, but He is making me aware of our spiritual clutter. Emotions, intuitions, my own ideas about Him -- all are being challenged by His stark Truth. The Christian life looks simpler yet far more radical than I originally had thought. It keeps coming back to the fact: All I need is Him. And I don't need anything that hinders my ability to see Him clearly. It's just not worth it. It just takes time to sort out the junk from the treasure.

God is Sending Us to Ligonier!

The Lord gave us an incredible gift... On Thursday, I had my planner out and I was looking longingly at the postcard sent to us about the Ligonier Conference. I had just noticed that Al Mohler was going to be at the conference too... I had remembered John Piper, Ravi Zacharias, R.C. Sproul, John MacArthur and then I saw that Al Mohler was going to be there, too. So badly did I want to go... so little money did we have... we talked about how we might go... discussed all the other things that were calling for our money most urgently... then went on to the next thing. I put the postcard in my planner under the March heading and hoped that maybe in the next few months, the money would somehow be there.

Then on Friday, John called to tell me that a blogger friend of his had held a drawing and given away tickets to the conference... and we had been picked!! We truly cannot believe it... Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Tim Challies. Only God would know how to give a gift that we would love so very much!!!! I will be looking so closely to see what He has for us to learn there... surely something so very special to do this in such a special way!!!