Catching Up

I often question my desire to write in a blog. I came across a quote recently that made me chuckle: "Blogs used to be called Diaries, and they were written by twelve-year-old girls" (Greg Gutfeld). I am certainly no twelve-year-old, although I am a girl. My struggle entails my own (un)worthiness to write a blog. How much knowledge can I actually have that others need? I haven't lived that long, I have no children, I don't even have my own house right now! Can I really put anything on the internet that people need to know?

The answer, of course, is probably not. However, I think I will try to keep posting. Sometimes I just get so full of words that I have to share with someone, or I might explode. And sometimes I so desperately want to share other people's words that I've found to be useful to me, and I think a blog does this job very effectively.

I know that I haven't been updating my blog lately. Truth is, I've been adjusting to a new situation in life. As of May 1, 2011 I no longer live in a little white house in the middle of nowhere. God has graciously given my husband a job that allowed us to move closer to our families. So, here we are, back in Central Pa, living in my parents' house... saving up for a home of our own. I also got a 3/4 times teaching job that will start in the fall. Once again, God has shown his loving-kindness to us in ways that I cannot fathom. I look at myself and see how unworthy I am, how I doubt Him over and over, and how He just keeps lavishing blessings on us, one after another, saving us, answering prayer, answering worries even before I prayed (shame on me). I want to share those things with you, the things I observe, the things I wonder, the questions I have, the examples of the goodness of our Creator. So, be patient with me; I know that once school starts I will be one busy chica. But hopefully over the next few weeks I will become regular at posting.

For now, here's a quote I found this morning from Ann Voskamp, who also writes a blog. She was featured in World Magazine a few weeks ago, and I just got around to reading her column. To shorten, she thanked God for holding back the rain so that her husband could finish planting his soy beans (I cannot emphasize enough how much the weather affects farmers' livelihoods). Her daughter asked her why she didn't thank God if it rained, even though they didn't want the rain. "If God really works in everything - then why don't we thank Him for everything?" As the rain started coming down, Ann thought about this question, and here is where she ended up.



" If I only thank Him when the fig tree buds - is this "selective faith?"? Practical atheism? What of faith in a God who wastes nothing? Who makes all into grace?
... is thanking God for everything... thanking Him for evil?
When we bought the enemy's lie in the beginning and ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, Satan hissed then that we'd really see and know what is good and evil. But the father of lies, he'd duped us in the whole nine yards. Though we ate of that tree we did not become like God, and we have no knowledge of good and evil apart from God; my seeing, it is not omniscient. Can I really see if a death, disaster, dilemma, is actually evil? Mine is only to see His Word faithfully and wholly obey Him in this. Therein is the tree of life.
Is this why he commands 'giv[e] thanks always and for everything'? Because to thank God in all is to refuse Satan's relentless lure to be god-like in all; to thank God in all is to bend the knee in allegiance to God Who alone knows all; to thank God in all is to give God glory in all. Is this not our chief end? When I only give thanks for some things, aren't I likely to miss giving God glory in most things?
Murmuring thanks isn't to deny that an event isn't a tragedy and neither does it deny that there's a cracking fissure straight across the heart. Giving thanks is only this: making the canyon of pain into a megaphone to proclaim the ultimate goodness of God...
This is not easy: That which I refuse to thank Christ for, I refuse to believe Christ can redeem."


Anyways, I hope it was a blessing to you as well. Until next time...