This was the crazy freakin' sunset I drove past tonight.

I screamed bloody murder about it to Kym on my cell phone, pulled over, and spent fifteen minutes staring and taking pictures.

 

 

  

The fact that there was a huge beautiful farmhouse with a porch and Christmas lights made me even happier (if it was possible).

Nine years...

And the scene hasn't changed.

.Our Companion.

  

"This is the great mystery of Christmas 

that continues to give us comfort and consolation:

we are not alone on our journey.

The God of love who gave us life

sent his only Son to be with us at all times and in all places,

so that we never have to feel lost in our struggles

but always can trust that He walks with us.

Christmas is the renewed invitation

not to be afraid and to let Him-

whose love is greater than our own hearts and minds can comprehend-

be our companion."

-Nouwen

How to sanitize a Christmas present for your 13-year-old sister.

 

Yes, those would be the bodies of snowmen glued on top of her Hollister gift card.

Let it be known throughout the North Pole that I am no prude, but seriously?!! Someone please explain to me the purpose of a clothing store advertising with pictures of people not wearing any clothes. (...Actually, please don't.) It may be the current store of choice for all the coolest girls in her class (or so I've been informed), but thanks, I am not giving that to an 8th grader.

After some thought, I decided the snowmen were too boring.

Festive as well as decent. Much better. Feliz navidad!

.why Christmas means more to me as an adult.

After HNGR, and cancer, and after a year and a half of post-grad life, and after, I think, a little bit more understanding that, no matter how filled with joy and love my life is (and oh is it!),
this world is not my home and the point of life is not to be happy and without pain.

"The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul,
who know themselves to be poor and imperfect,
who look forward to something greater to come. 
...the Holy One himself comes down to us,
God in the child in the manger.
God comes.
The Lord Jesus comes.
Christmas comes.
Christians rejoice!...

We are no longer alone. God is with us."

-Bonhoeffer, Christmas Sermons

Such comfort and joy in heartache or fear:

with Christmas everywhere around me, I'm reminded...

not that things are easy or painless, but that in all things:

incarnation, He walked our earth, Emmanuel, God-with-us,

He abides in us.

(HT for Bonhoeffer quote)

Watch this.

Please.

I haven't seen something that moved me so much in a long time.

For more back story on this new family, click here.

Christmas Run with the Ramsings.

The parental units of my lovely second family and I headed to Baltimore at a crazy early hour yesterday for the annual Celtic Solstice five mile race.
(So, if you kind of cut corners on training because you're studying for finals, and then getting to and from the car adds a total of four miles, and you do a five mile run... your knees hurt the next day.
Just fyi.)

It was a really, really, really fun day.

I wanted to make sure I was taken seriously, so I dressed for the part.

(Everyone around me was probably intimidated, right?)

 If I could just get these two to lighten up every once in awhile...

Yay us!!

Love Christmas, love running, love making memories, love them.

First day home for break.

"I went in your room and just stared at you this morning for a long time while you slept...

it was really fun."

-My mother.

I'm glad she loves me so much.

(...Pretty sure that's the only person I ever want to hear that particular phrase from, though.)

I love:

Instrumental Christmas music.

Christmas lights.

Professors who care about me as a person.

My cohort all laughing together (even when it's at me...wow what a new group dynamic for me.)

The fact that I have a cuddly cohort. Thank God.

Text from Mere: "Happy Friendaversary!"- it was the annual Rez volunteer breakfast, where last year we sat and talked for two hours.

Email from Josh: "Hi friend! Just wanted to send some encouragement your way this morning..."

Watching movies with my roommate in her bed at night.

Bugging Chet on gchat.

Night runs under starry Oregon skies (I take a buddy when it's afte dark, Mom, don't worry).

My assigned upper-class mentor- she's the best.

Text from Christine Will: "I had a dream that the three of us met at a Panera somewhere in the middle of the US. There happened to be a chalkboard, so we drew friendship maps and talked about how different people have blessed and influenced our lives this year."

Telling a professor who just had her first baby, "He's so beautiful!", and her excited reply, "I know, isn't he?!"

Brilliant sunrise sky shining over a low layer of fog over the vineyards.

Little girls running to hug me when I walk in the coffee shop.

Raspberry syrup in my coffee.

Psalm 139.

Girls' night with cohort friends, and an afternoon with all of us lying talking on my bed.

Cuddling and reading Christmas stories with children.

Newberg Friends Church.

And the kids being adorable in the Christmas pageant last weekend.

Coffee dates with wise older-than-me women in my small group.

The strong women in Wendell Berry's fiction.

Justin McRoberts's version of O Little Town of Bethlehem.

An email from Lindsay ending in, "Okay, time to go feed the baby!"

Baking Christmas cookies with an almost 3 year old.

Lessons learned from baking cookies with an almost 3 year old... if you tell a toddler that eating raw cookie dough is bad for her as you sneak a bite, it does not have the effect you hoped for. And no matter how stern she's being, it is still funny when you hear your cousin-in-law scold her child for throwing a piece of the nativity scene, "You need a time out! That was NOT nice to the baby Jesus!!"

Twenty-two hour whirlwind Seattle trips.

The familiarity of beloved faces I've been looking at for years.

Two-minute mid-work-day phone calls from across the country asking for prayer.

Feeling known and so happy here... and realizing I'm not leaving anytime soon.

Feeling sad after finals because it means the semester is ending.

.long-awaited Holy stranger.

tears are falling, hearts are breaking

how we need to hear from God

You've been promised, we've been waiting

welcome, holy child,

welcome, holy child...

fragile finger sent to heal us

tender brow prepared for thorn
tiny heart Whose blood will save us
unto us is born,
unto us is born


so wrap our injured flesh around You
breathe our air and walk our sod
rob our sin and make us holy
perfect Son of God,
perfect Son of God

incarnate: embodied in flesh; given a bodily, especially a human, form

Rhythms.

"We give thanks for your ordered gift of life to us,

       for the rhythms that reassure,

       for the equilibriums that sustain."

"We treasure from you,

days to work and nights to rest.

We cherish from you,

days to control and nights to yield.

We savor from you,

days to plan and nights to dream."

-Walter Brueggeman,

"Our true home"

parents: mine.

Reading up on Reactive Attachment Disorder at Chapters...

Me via text to both of them: Thanks for warmly and consistently interacting with me in my infancy!!

Obviously without knowing the other's response, they both replied within a minute:

Mom: My pleasure!

Dad: The pleasure was all mine!

They're keepers.

On Psalm 95.

"Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In His hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are His also. For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand. Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers put Me to the test and put Me to the proof, though they had seen Me work."  (Psalm 95:1, 3-4, 7-8)

That psalm is prayed every day in the church liturgy. Of all the psalms, when the church fathers chose what to include, what they thought we need to hear and pray daily, they chose that one. Why?

I first heard that question explored at a service at Rez last winter. I remember how Justin showed the place where the voice in the Scripture changes: from about God, to God speaking. Up through verse seven we are speaking of God, but at verse eight, He speaks to us:


"...on the day at Massah, when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen me work."

That's a reference to Exodus 17. Verse 7 tells us exactly what God is referring to here, what happened at Meribah and Massah. Moses had just led the Israelites out of Egypt, into freedom...


"[Moses] called the place Massah and Meribah (testing and quarrelling), because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the Lord saying, 'Is the Lord among us or not?'".

I was literally breathtaken as I read the words of that psalm, the one the church fathers decided out of a hundred and fifty psalms we need to read every day. Breathtaken with conviction as I saw spelled out, by the Israelites, exactly the question my mind and heart wonder so often.


Is the Lord among us or not.

Is God really guiding this decision I have to make... or not.
Did God see my girls... or not.
Was He with them... or not.
Is any work occurring in my heart... or not.
Am I changing and growing... or not.
Did that conversation happen for a reason... or not.
Does He know how she's hurting?
Is He working in his struggle?
Could my flaws and failures screw everything up?
Does good really come from pain?
Did You know that was going to happen?


Are You among us, or not?

Awareness of that question in my heart has changed my prayers since hearing that sermon.
My prayers in fear; my prayers in uncertainty; my prayers in the various new seasons of the last year; my anguished prayers, still, looking at sweet girls whose lives seem so unfair to me.

I don't have answers. I don't like pain. I hate what those girls- what everyone who's known real suffering- have gone through. I still have very little understanding how the whole our-decisions-affect-our-lives vs. God-is-sovereign-and-guiding thing works.

But I have 'seen Him work', and I know that He is among us.


I may not know what You're doing, God.
I may not understand the balance of Your will and my decisions.
I may not like what You're doing,
and sometimes I may not see if You're 'doing' anything at all.
But, when I ask that question, I can answer: yes.
Whatever it is that You're doing-
yes, You are here. You are among us.

Send a Christmas card to a street kid in Seattle?

From one of the blogs that's had the biggest impacts on my life, an opportunity:

"Would you like to send a Christmas card to a street kid in Seattle?  This is a very simple opportunity to show love to the fatherless by extending kindness to a young person living on the streets – in a big city – where it rains all the time – in the winter – where it can be a dark and frightening place... Would you do a simple “mom task” for a street kid in Seattle?  You can Be That Mom by sending a Christmas card to a street kid that will be tucked into a backpack of supplies and passed out this month. "

More details here:  Be That Mom

Me with some of my faves:

Officially my favorite picture ever.

We had coffee together every week for five years. 

Including on her wedding day.

I talked to her for an hour and a half last night while sitting in a coffee shop...

she was 2,000 miles away, but it still fed (caffeinated?) my soul.

So grateful for her and our friendship.

(photo credit: Yeesum Photography!!)

Oregon life, as told by my phone.

Flipping through the random moments I've captured recently made me smile last night. It is rich, this life of mine.

On a walk alone, with coffee. (This was about a month ago and it's already hard to believe I was in flipflops).

Pumpkins in the window of my favorite coffee shop/bookstore.

Kids playing together in front of church, a few minutes before the service starts.

Screen door in our kitchen, letting in fall air and light.

Cuddly cohort members, on a break during class.

Studying with my sweet roommate.

Friends who show up at the door with ice cream.

Notation on my cousins' calendar.

And catching a parenting moment in the kitchen.

Pumpkin tattoo on the bicep (announced by, "Look at my GUNS!!").

Sunny afternoon, reading and homework.



Current favorite spot for a quiet time.

Breakfast-for-dinner one night at Chels and Ryan's.

Making apple juice after church (no idea, but it was freaking cool.)

Sunset behind pine trees.

.first Sunday of Advent.

"Come, Thou long expected Jesus,

born to set Thy people free,

from our fears and sins release us,

let us find our rest in Thee."

Black Friday Shopping with the Goldberg Girls.

Me and my mama.

Mom: Ooh, look, leopard-print pants!

Allie: Yeah, the world got a little bit worse the day those were made.

Emily: ...Sorry, what'd you say? I was looking for a Starbucks...

Family.

Train organized by my favorite coffee date (who sat in front because he was the ENGINEER, and proud of it.)

Seats: Kitchen chairs.

Train riders: Grandpa Glenn, me, MY MOM WHO IS VISITING!!, Memaw Peggy, Rubes (who you can barely see poking out), and Jodi. Cameraman: Andy.

What, isn't that what your family does after dinner?

.sunday morning.

The Lord be with you. 

And also with you.
Lift up your heart.

We lift them up to the Lord.

 Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

It is right to give Him thanks and praise.

***

It is right, and a good and joyful thing,

always and everywhere,

to give thanks and praise to You, Father Almighty;

our Creator and Lover, O Giver of life.
You make all things and call them good.

You love us into being,

You form us in Your image,

and breathe into us the breath of life.

When we turn away, and our love fails, Your love remains steadfast.

You delivered us from captivity, and made covenant to be our sovereign God.

You stretch forth Your hand to heal.

Through Your Son Jesus Christ,
with Your Holy Spirit in Your Holy Church,
all honor and glory is Yours, Almighty Father,
now and forever.

Journal.

Grateful this morning to be writing in my new journal.

I love it because it's beautiful.

I love it because it was hand-made by a precious woman in Kenya, supporting herself through the Amani organization.

Most of all, I love it because it was sent to me by my beautiful friend Breanne.

For absolutely no reason, other than that she knows I love "journaling like a crazy woman" (according to the note she wrote in the front).

It arrived in my mailbox in kind of a hard week,

and reminded me how filled with love and joy my life is.

For-no-reason presents rock.

 Precious friendships rock even more.

 

Can't wait to spend time with God in the pages,

reminded of the gifts He's given me.

Wonder what your psychologist was like in grad school?

I've written before about my beautiful friend Chelsea, who is one of my favorite favorite people here. We hang out all the time and she is my coffee date buddy and walk-vent-need fulfiller of Newberg. Her husband Ryan and I were assigned to be therapy partners for each other this week and after our respective "sessions" we got slightly unprofessional...

Good psycholog-izing, right?

We love you, Chels!!

So happy.

Yeah they did!!!

*******

While in Wheaton I got this email from Marcile, one of my favorite people at my new church. (I just ran into her at Chapters and she told me about how happy she is that six of their grandchildren are going to make it home for Thanksgiving):

"Emily,

We missed you Tuesday night. You missed a great potato bar with all the trimmings! as well as great fellowship. Christine reported you were on your way to a wedding in Wheaton and we prayed for you that this will be a precious time of renewing friendships and confirming God's leadership to where you are now. We will touch base when you return.

Love, Marcile."

 Yes, it was.

.grateful.

Happy bridesmaids at the rehearsal brunch!

Emily M, Court, THE BRIDE and me at the rehearsal brunch!

Yeah, they had a rehearsal brunch. So cool. They got engaged over a pre-church breakfast at that restaurant.

WEDDING TODAY. SO EXCITED.

Christine is getting married in five days.

 

meg, me, and the bride, small group retreat, july 2011.

beautiful friend, this girl.

.of His simple loving.

I've had a total theologian crush on Julian of Norwich for a long time- I love every quote of hers I've seen but haven't read anything straight through. I'm finally diving into a devotional edition of her Revelations of Divine Love and I am loving it.

I've been praying lately to be more aware of God's love for me; and I've been less-consciously but very actively wrestling with rest, and how to find it. These readings are speaking to me so perfectly. I'm super grateful.

"I saw that He is to us everything that is good and comfortable for us.

He is our clothing which for love enwraps us,

holds us,

and all encloses us because of His tender love,

so that He may never leave us."

"...He showed a little thing,

the size of a hazelnut

in the palm of my hand

and it was round as a ball.

I looked at it with the eye of my understanding and thought: 'What can this be?'

And it was generally answered thus: 'It is all that is made.'

I marveled how it could continue,

because it seemed to me it could suddenly have sunk into nothingness because of its littleness.

And I was answered in my understanding:

'It continueth and always shall, because God loveth it;

and in this way everything hath its being by the love of God.'

In this little thing I saw three characteristics:

the first is that God made it,

the second is that God loves it,

the third, that God keeps it."

"For this is the reason why we are not fully at ease in heart and soul:

because here we seek rest in these things that are so little,

in which there is no rest,

and we recognize not our God who is all powerful, all wise, all good,

for He is the true rest."

"Also our Lord God showed

that it is full great pleasure to Him

that a pitiable soul come to Him nakedly and plainly and simply."

"For the goodness of God is the highest prayer, and it comes down to the lowest part of our need.

It vitalizes our soul

and brings it to life

and makes it grow in grace and virtue.

It is nearest us in nature

and readiest in grace

(for it is the same grace that the soul seeks and ever shall,

till we know our God truly who has us all in Himself enclosed)."

-from chapters 5 & 6

You with ears bent close to our lips.

"...So many words we need to speak
          to you from whom no secret can be hid,
          you beyond us, you with us, you for us,
          you with ears bent close to our lips,
You... and our woes turned towards you, always you, only you,
          yet again you.
Amen."

-Brueggemann,

from "You with ears bent close to our lips: Approaching the Psalter"

Studying, a Skype date, and Soup

Welcome to a grad student weekend...

My life is pretty stable and predictable and boring, and I am so loving that. So so loving it. I love studying every day at the same wonderful coffee shop (yes, they know me by name and drink order), I love that I can count on running into half of Fox's PsyD program and a bunch of new friends from church there (I love going to church half a mile from my house so that we all go to same the coffee shop). I love my rhythm: class, lunch with friends, study, veg with roommate and whoever else is over, phone with people from home, bed (...ok, Bones rerun, then bed). I like that not much crazy is happening... my life right now is getting to know kind people, working hard at a subject I love, lots of Jesus time, lots of sweet cousins, and learning this town and community a little deeper each week.

It suits me... and I'm thankful to be here.


*Here I am yesterday about hour 5 of 7 of working on a lit review.

 

These were taken during a much-needed brain break... but seriously? I am so loving doing this work which feels purposeful and fun to me (most of the time). I feel so lucky to be studying something I love so much.

gchat:

 me: ok im gonna go continue immersing myself in reviewing studies on resilience factors in street children :-D be still my heart.

*I had a lovely long Skype date with the beautiful Kymberly Grove, rocking her last third of HNGR. Here she is in her Thai bedroom (she did not know this screenshot was taken... sorry babe. But you look cute!!)

 

My favorite quote of the conversation:

Me: What, you mean you're not omnipotent?!!

Kym: Yeah, becoming omnipotent's on my to-do list... somewhere below about a hundred GCPs.

(...Only HNGR people may get just why that's so funny.)

*And to top off my exciting Saturday night, I walked to the grocery store for vegetables and cooked my favorite soup. This was life-giving for a variety of reasons: 1) Phone date with Heath while I walked!! 2) Walking outside!! 3) CHOPPING VEGETABLES = awesome prayer time. Don't know why, always works. 4) Cooking from scratch!! 5) Doubled the recipe so there's lots in the freezer so I'LL BE ABLE TO EAT SOMETHING BESIDES COFFEE AND LEAN CUISINES THIS WEEK YESSS.

Recipe below.

 

Black-Olive and White Bean... my adaptation from digthischick's adaptation of the Moosewood Cookbook version.

3 T olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

5 cloves garlic, minced

2 celery ribs, chopped

3 carrots, chopped

2 cans black olives, sliced- save the juice!

2 cups chicken broth

2 cups white beans

1 1/2 cup roasted tomatoes (the blog says to roast them yourself. Um yeah I don't do that. There's a good can of fire-roasted with garlic kind you can find at the grocery store.)

1/4 c fresh basil (or third that if you're using dried. Or more. Basil equals love.)

Salt & pepper to taste

Heat olive oil, add onion and saute 2-3 minutes.

Add celery, carrots, half the garlic, and about 1/3 of the olives. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the olive juice (there should be about two cups) and the chicken broth. Bring to just barely boiling.

Add the rest of the olives, the white beans, and the tomatoes. Simmer 20 minutes.

Add the rest of the garlic, the basil, and salt and pepper. Serve hot. Serves 4ish.

YUM.


...and now I'm self-conscious because who blogs about soup and studying and skype dates?
But I read this and it is the best explanation of why I blog, too.
...And I'm going to stop apologizing on my own blog now.
:-)

.solo Dios basta.

nada te turbe,

nada te espante,

todo se pasa,

Dios no se muda.

la paciencia todo lo alcanza

quien a Dios tiene nada le falta-

solo Dios basta.

let nothing disturb thee,

nothing affright thee;

all things are passing,

God never changeth!

patient endurance attaineth in all things;

who God possesseth in nothing is wanting;

alone God sufficeth.

-st. teresa de avila

the english version is in the mid-day prayer of CDP.

the spanish version is written on the prayer flag Sarah made me before i left for Bolivia.

i love them both.

why do i pray?

I prayed for a sweet friend who's in real pain today.

I didn't know what to pray, because I know too well that she's probably just going to be in pain for awhile.

 

There are verses to send her, but they won't make it stop hurting (I know).

There's encouragement to speak to her, but it won't make it stop hurting either (I know).

As I read and prayed through the reading this morning, verses kept jumping out that I could email her. Each time, a leap of hope came from my heart- "Oh, this fits!". But then a moment later, I would think about where she is right now, and my heart would sink as I realized... "Yes, it fits... but it's still not going to make it stop hurting."

 

What do you pray, when the pain part of the season is unavoidable?

Two nights ago as I lay in bed with her face heavy on my mind, to be honest what my heart pleaded was, "Oh Jesus... please make it hurt less." That was all I really wanted for this sweet friend. I want it to go away. I love her and I don't want her to have to walk through the next few months! I asked God, frankly and with no real attempt at piousness, to please just ease her pain. If it was me, that is what my honest desire for others to pray for me would be.

 

I prayed in trust that our Father could do it and that He wants us to tell Him our real hearts, not what we wish they are- but I prayed it in full knowledge it's probably not going to happen. And I know Him and that He counts our tears and His heart is aching with hers, and that His arms are around her. And I thanked Him for that.

Today, I pray for her pain to ease... and then I pick up my prayer book, and enter these next months with her. 

Months of learning how to pray when prayer will not bring comfort- not the relief-from-pain kind, anyway. It will bring other things: wisdom, and trust, and compassion, and endurance. It will bring a sense of His nearness, and maybe even new ways to sense His hand. As we her community circle around her and pray, my prayer is that our prayers bind this season for good, call His hand over it, guard it fiercely from any purpose other than more love for Him and being shaped more like Him.

And I thank Him that He is better and wiser than me, because that is not what I would choose- not for me and not, right now, for her. I only want it to stop hurting. And He knows that, and in His mercy He takes the choice from our hands. He will hold her. I get to enter into the weaving and binding of this pain for good.

Pumpkin Muffins & A Dance Party: Fall Cousin Movie LOVE!!!

We baked pumpkin-chocolate-chip muffins Friday afternoon!

And then after dinner... we had a dance party to Mumford & Sons. Because, obvs.

I know... I don't know why I get this awesome of a life, either.

We also went on a walk to an insanely-decorated-for-Halloween house down the block and read books and cuddled.

I love fall. And family.

The woman above is Jodi... she is married to my cousin Andy, and I am so unbelievably thankful for that, I cannot even tell you.

To any men considering marriage, my word of request: if you have a little 12-year-old cousin who ten years down the road is going to move away from everyone she knows and need a new best friend- please consider picking a wife who will hang out with her all the time and be the sweetest listener and best coffee-date buddy ever. It's a really, really nice cousin move. Thanks Andy!!

(Andy never really gets represented on here bc usually he's at work when I'm hanging out with the fam. Here he is. Do you think we look alike? Our moms are sisters. I love him a lot.)

"Miracles occur within the rules"- Quote Round-up.

Whenever I read something that I love or want to think more about, but don't have time to journal or blog it, I stick it in my email drafts folder (no idea why). Theoretically this is so I'll go back and reread it later, but generally it takes me a few months to remember to do so. Here's the June-October-ish round-up...

(Certain blogs make frequent re-occurrences) Kisses from Katie:

"And slowly but surely I am learning to trust my Father in the way that my three year old trusts me. Learning to just allow Him to carry me, take me where He wants me and know that I will still wake up in His arms, and in His arms it is safe. Even when I wake up in unfamiliar territory."

"What are you going to do next/with your home/with your children/with your ministry/in five years/when you are older/etc... I am not concerned with what I am going to do. I am interested only in what I am becoming. Each day, I am hoping to become more like the One who created me."

"I believe that this is how He has loved us and I do not pretend to know why. But I know that He who did not spare His own Son will also graciously give us all things we need, and so I cling to believing this is for good."

"...I pray only that they are becoming people who know Him more."

"...And we pray and we pray that we could spill out the grace God has so lavished on us."

Fabs Harford:

"I have traded Him for the fleeting pleasures of this world too many times to count, but He has never traded me.  And He will never trade me.  And He has met me in the pig pen and He has led me home."

  "He doesn’t promise to give me everything I need to never be hungry.  He promises to give me everything I need to not starve to death on the road home to Him."

"There is only one thing I really need.  And it is secure."

Enjoying the Small Things:

"My bottom line in parenting--in special needs, in friendship, in anything--is always this: Most of the time I don't know what the hell I'm doing, but I damn well know how to spend time with my kids--how to have fun."

"It's about deeper relationships with family and friends and creating a loving, caring environment that everyone can flourish in."

Dig This Chick:

"I wonder what firsts will happen today? I wonder... "

"I decided it is a good place to be, excited for next and nostalgic for last."

"So much of diligence is about slowing down and attending to what is in my hand already."

(I actually can't find where I got this quote from, but I think it was here.)

 And then just random others from all over.

"...There are promises connected to everything we experience."

-Urban Servant

"Some people are more interested in knowing God's will than in knowing God."

-Mark Batterson

"The question is not, 'When will we get what we are waiting for?' but 'What will we become as we wait?'"

-Paul Tripp

"The good hostess is the person who makes you feel welcome, relaxed, and part of his or her life." 

-girltalk

"Breathe Him in and let Him exhale from every pore. Aren't we supposed to know Jesus so well that we know ourselves only in Him?"

-In the Heart of My Home

"I’m not saying it’s going to be easy. I don’t have any promises about ease, except: It gets worse. I DO have huge promises about joy."

-John Piper

"We lay our hope, full and tender, into the depths of Him and wait in hope for God to resurrect something good. Good always necessitate long waiting."

-Ann Voskamp 

"He who knows the why for his existence can bear almost any how."

-Victor Frankl

"In working out our callings, we are to perform for one audience, the audience of One."

-Os Guinness

"If you can only remember one thing, this is it: What is legitimate and godly is done in the light, known by others, and doesn't violate biblical standards. Anything you experience that is done furtively, in the dark, and kept secret is nearly always sinful."

 -Carolyn McCulley

"So how do we keep from wasting our trial? We persist in enduring. No matter how long the road. No matter how numerous the setbacks. No matter how deep the disappointment. We must keep before us that glorious destination: "perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." And having done all, we must simply stand." 

-girltalk

"The tricky part is living in the tension without becoming bitter about it. As my last six weeks in Longido approach, I'm trying to be mindful of that; I'm trying to let each day be its own and nothing else, trying not to manufacture experiences but thank God for the ones I have. Thank him for the people I have. Thank him for the sky that seems so much bigger here. Thank him for the dust that covers my feet, and the way the air feels so muggy on my runs at dusk. Thank him for his faithfulness; it's more than enough to make this very-not-Tanzanian-girl very happy in Tanzania for the time she has."

-Sweet Kait, current HNGR intern, Tanzania.

"Also, sorry but you're going to get me started on how much I hate the mobility of the modern world. Because we know such amazing people and have such cool lives and have had the privilege of being a part of amazing communities, we are destined to always miss people and want to be in a million places at once. 100 years ago, people lived in the same places their entire lives, with the same people. But lets be honest, I also love the freedom that modern transportation has afforded us. It has opened us up to incredible relationships and unique learning opportunities. And isn't it better to have this than never step out of our comfort zone? Hmmm the irony of it."

-my beautiful love Hayley, current HNGR intern, Ecuador- via email.
(I looovee her... this made me laugh so much- and I agree.)

"I just feel the present fact that if God weren't petitioning on my behalf, I'd be screwed."

-my dear friend Josh, via g-chat

"This change in the seasons always ushers in one of my favorite family traditions—spending our fall and winter evenings reading books together. Just about every evening we gather in the living room in that time between dinner and bedtime, and for 30 or 40 minutes the family sits while I read to them."
-Tim Challies

"Our rules for the group were to give encouragement as much as we could, and to give advice only once in a great while; we gave rebuke only when absolutely necessary, and we gave condemnation never. This was one of the times when they gave a little advice. They said, "We think you shouldn't pray. We will become your prayer for you."
-Richard Foster

"I believe that prayer truly worked for them, I believe that God heard them, and that even though things didn't necessarily get better, they were at least comforted by the Holy Spirit and that his presence was there with them. I want that, I've wanted that, so I went in search of how to pray like that."

-Foster again- both in a CT interview

"God always does more than we can ask or think."

-Worship Matters

"There is nothing worth living for, unless it is worth dying for."
-Elisabeth Elliot

"After calming the sea he said, “Why are you afraid?” Not because Christians never drown. But they are safe in drowning."
-John Piper again
(wow, I'm fairly verbal about not agreeing with a good amount of his theology, but apparently I do like his one-liners.)

"The essence of the Christian salvation is to say that He is good enough and that I am in Him."
-Martyn Lloyd-Jones

"I can't remember one single regret/
in serving God only/
and trusting His hand..."
-Sara Groves (from whom I got the name of my blog!)

"Today you'll preach to yourself the true Gospel of need and provision or a false gospel of independent righteousness, strength and wisdom."

-Paul Tripp

"The gospel is for tired receivers, not triumphant achievers."

-Tullian Tchidivjian

"Don’t think about what you don’t have or what you can’t do.  Ask yourself, Who can I encourage?  Who can I bless?  Who can I invite to my place for a meal?  Who can I offer to babysit for? ...  But you can be fruitful no matter where you are."
 -The Blazing Center

"Faith is the refusal to panic."

- Martyn Lloyd-Jones
 
"On the day when the weight deadens on your shoulders and you stumble/

may the clay dance to balance you."

-John O'Donohue

And last but not least, from the epic cancelled TV show, Joan of Arcadia: 

Joan: Make Kevin walk, please? I'll just ask this one favor and then I'll never ask for one again.
It's so easy for you. All you have to do is snap your fingers or blink your eyes.
Just let Kevin stand up.
God: People ask me to do things - big things, little things - billions of times, every day. 
Joan: What do you expect? You're God! 
God: I put a lot of thought into the Universe; came up with the rules. It sets a bad example if I break them - not to mention, shows favoritism. Why should one person get a miracle, and not everybody else? Can you imagine the confusion? It's better when we all abide by the rules. 
Joan: No miracles?
God: Miracles happen within the rules.

Holler!

(It's interesting to go back and look at what themes there are- I give basically no thought to it as I do it, just copy and paste something quickly and move on... so it's kind of revealing to see what's been pulling at me instinctively. Lots of trusting God, lots of waiting, and lots of cherishing relationships... the months where I was still working held lots of faithfulness and work ethic. Also, I'm not blogging most of these, but there were lots on adoption and fun homeschooling activities... yeah, maybe not this week.)