Words.

These are the words we had read at our wedding. I love them.

I love that they were part of the day we started our marriage; I'm continually surprised by how often they come to mind and help shape the life we are creating together.

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“When over the years someone has seen you at your worst,

and knows you with all your strengths and flaws, yet commits him- or herself to you wholly,

it is a consummate experience.

To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial.

To be known and not loved is our greatest fear.

But to be fully known and truly loved is a lot like being loved by God.

It is what we need more than anything.

It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness,

and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.”

-from The Meaning of Marriage, by Timothy Keller

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“I might seem to be comparing something great and holy

with a minor and ordinary thing,

that is, love of God with mortal love.

But I just don’t see them as separate things at all.

If we can be divinely fed with a morsel and divinely blessed with a touch,

then the terrible pleasure we find in a particular face

can certainly instruct us in the nature of the very grandest love.

I devoutly believe this to be true.

I remember in those days loving God for the very existence of love

and being grateful to God for the existence of gratitude…

 I realized many things I am at a loss to express.

There is no justice in love, no proportion in it, and there need not be,

because in any specific instance it is only a glimpse or parable

of an embracing, incomprehensible reality.

It makes no sense at all,

because it is the eternal breaking in on the temporal.

So how could it subordinate itself to cause or consequence?” 

from Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson

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“...Watching him and watching myself in my memory now,

I know again what I knew before, but now I know more than that.

Now I know what we were trying to stand for, and what I believe we did stand for:

the possibility that among the world’s wars and sufferings

two people could love each other for a long time,

until death and beyond,

and could make a place for each other that would be a part of their love,

as their love for each other would be a way of loving their place.

This love would be one of the acts of the greater love that holds and cherishes all the world.

...And so I had put myself in [his] hands,

mindful also that he had put himself in mine.

We were each other's welcomer and each other's guest.

And so we had come to our place."

-from Hannah Coulter, by Wendell Berry

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"I thank my God every time I remember you,

always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all...

For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you

will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound still more and more

in knowledge and depth of insight,

to the glory and praise of God.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.

Rather, in humility consider others more important than yourselves.

Each of you should look not only to your own interest but also to the interest of others.

In your relationships with one another,

let your attitude be the same as Christ Jesus, 

who emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant.

Always be full of joy in the Lord.

Let your gentle spirit be evident to all.

The Lord is near."

-excerpts from Philippians

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I miss this space! Maybe I will try to use it regularly again.

If you are interested: these days, for whatever reason, glimpses of my life are more often found here.

When happiness and wonder meet.

"Gratitude

is

happiness

doubled by

wonder."

-G.K. Chesterton

to wonder...

to be filled with amazement, awe, or astonishment,

as at something surprising or extraordinary.

Yes. Yes, yes, yes. By this recipe for gratitude, then I am the most grateful person ever,

because I've never been happier,

and I still can not believe it...

I'm in love with the kindest and best person I know, and he's in love with me,

and we're getting married and going to make a home and a family together.

Forgive the sappiness. It is written in full sincerity.

Right now is a very, very lovely and joyful time for me,

and I don't want to forget for one minute to be grateful for the wonder and happiness of this season.

Our mouths were filled with laughter,

our tongues with shouts of joy.

Then it was said among the nations,

"The Lord has done great things for them."

The Lord has done great things for us,

and we are filled with joy.

-psalm 126.

This momentary gift.

"Let it be heralded with joy:...

Marriage is not mainly about prospering economically;

it is mainly about displaying the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church.

Knowing Christ is more important than making a living.

Treasuring Christ is more important than bearing children.

Being united to Christ by faith is a greater source of marital success than perfect sex and double-income prosperity.

...Life is precarious, and even if it is long by human standards, it is short.

“What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:14). “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring” (Prov. 27:1).

So it is with marriage.
It is a momentary gift.

It may last a lifetime, or it may be snatched away on the honeymoon.

Either way, it is short.

It may have many bright days, or it may be covered with clouds...

But if we set our face to make of marriage mainly what God designed it to be,

no sorrows and no calamities can stand in our way.

Every one of them will be, not an obstacle to success, but a way to succeed.

The beauty of the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church shines brightest when nothing but Christ can sustain it.

Very soon the shadow will give way to Reality.

The partial will pass into the Perfect.

The foretaste will lead to the Banquet.

The troubled path will end in Paradise.

A hundred candle-lit evenings will come to their consummation in the marriage supper of the Lamb. And this momentary marriage will be swallowed up by Life.

Christ will be all and in all. And the purpose of marriage will be complete.

To that end may God give us eyes to see what matters most in this life...

And may that Treasure so satisfy our souls...
that the marriage-watching world be captivated by
the covenant-keeping love of Christ."

-John Piper, This Momentary Marriage

Costume Party.

This was my third fall sewing Halloween costumes for my friends' little ones (who are also my friends!)...

always a highlight of my year...

But this year had the extra help

of a most helpful, patient, and ever long-suffering model.

You know you have a keeper when.

.perhaps we know a dozen, maybe two.

"God does ten thousand things

in every deed.

Perhaps we know a dozen,

maybe two.

But not enough to judge before He's through."

-John Piper

i have mixed feelings about John Piper,

but ever since i first heard this quote,

i've loved it and seen the truth in it.

lately it has been echoing in my head and heart more true every day;

all the crazy ways things have been woven

that i never could have imagined,

making me laugh and marvel and repent and give thanks.

"Aslan," said Lucy, "You're bigger."

"That is because you are, little one," answered He.

"Not because you are?"

"I am not.

But every year you grow, you will find Me bigger."

-Prince Caspian

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I love that reading aloud to each other has been a part of Ben's and my relationship since our very first date, the one neither of us was sure was a date. We're working our way through The Chronicles of Narnia, which to my shame I had never read past The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. I can't get enough- I love every one more than the one before.

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I have no idea why I haven't written much in months. It's been a rich season, for sure (see above), but I don't think that's why I haven't. I miss it, and the deeper reflecting writing can lead me to. I hope to do more this fall.

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This is a way late update, but: Matt and Mitch got married. It was the best.

...loving Smitten Kitchen's pumpkin muffins (three times this fall so far);
I double the pumpkin pie spice and put in a full 15 oz can of pumpkin instead of just one cup. Especially amazing with a simple maple-cream cheese frosting.



my quote wall makes me happy.

what happens when you leave your car door unlocked in a small town:
you get back to find someone left you $20.





Saturday morning six-year-old soccer games.

She had a surprise for us. It was... her pink toothbrush!!

 

 

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He is looking bigger to me, this year.

the trembling thought.

...for Thou hast stirred the trembling thought

that man is not alone.

-from this,

ht: Mere and Everett

Set down here precisely.

all quotes from this.

"I praise each day splintered down,

splintered down and wrapped in time like a husk,

a husk of many colors spreading,

at dawn fast over the mountains split."

"If the Greeks had looked at Mount Baker all day,

their large and honest art would have broken,

and they would have gone fishing,

as these people do."

"'Teach me Thy ways, O Lord'

is, like all prayers,

a rash one..."

"All day long I feel created.

I can see the blown dust on the skin on the back of my hand,

the tiny trapezoids of chipped clay, moistened and breathed alive.

There are some created sheep in the pasture below me,

sheep set down here precisely,

just touching their blue shadows hoof to hoof on the grass.

Created gulls pock the air, rip great curved seams in the settled air;

I greet my created meal, amazed."

"Had she been new, or old?

Had she mated and laid her eggs,

had she done her work?"

"Of itself it is nothing,

but the view,

as they say,

is good."

"Is this the only final beauty:

the color of any skin in any light

and living, human eyes?"

"You spill your breath.

Nothing holds;

the whole show rolls."

"...all the landscape's occasions,

to all its weathers, colors and lights."