>I enjoy slow mornings, and today I am thankful for those days when things slow down a bit and you just smile and take the time catch unto some reading, and post a picture of “yellow”… (my daughter invited me to play along ….)
May you enjoy slowing down a bit this weekend.
Under His sun and by His grace,
Joy is the word my friends over at three from here and there chose for the photography prompt this time. When you get an invitation like this one, the hardest thing is to choose which photography deserves to play along.
After so many thoughts I found this one
Joy is holding hands with the one your soul has loved for 63 years.
It is joy to hold wrinkled hands with more passion and sweetness than the first time they did .
It is joy to be able to walk through the Valley of Death where shadows of sickness and pain, and weariness follow you all day, but your beloved keeps holding your hand tight.
It is real life.
It is joy.
Love that knows how to hold hands like this helps you live joyfully.
My grandfather turned 91 years old, and has been married to my grandmother for 63 years. (This is 7 months ago, the first time I wrote about their love story)
They are the most beautiful couple, in love, always holding hands, always talking about their memories and present love. Always laughing and looking for opportunities to kiss and hug.
They live their moment with passion and joy. They laugh of the future, they hold hands in such a way that it seems that they don’t want to be apart, not even for a moment.
They do not want to let go.
They cling to each other’s love.
Their hands, their lives have mengled into one.
Joy is fighting to find its way through the heaviness and pain.
Joy, love, one hand over the other.
Always holding hands.
Their story of love is not a fairy tale, is a love story that has happened in real life.
They came into this marriage knowing, believing that it was a covenant forever. They have walked through valleys and mountains, but haven’t given up on their love.
They have been always holding hands.
Costly pearls have fade away through the years, but not their love.
This is an example of grace that we behold, and want to follow.
This is the way my children long to live their marriage.
We have seen it, we are witness to this, holding the hand of the lover of your soul is joy indeed.
Forever in love.
This is real, this can happen.
Marriage is a Covenant for life.
Love and kisses and holding hands are part of being in that covenant.
It is not a fairy tale.
It is joy indeed.
Note: All the pictures of my grandparents holding hands, I took, and they did not notice! They were engaged in a good conversation with my children at the family table. It was not easy, but I am so glad I did.
Please keep them in your prayers…my grandma is struggling with health issues, and my grandpa is still finding strength to hold her hand.
Friday is here, and so is my sister. This is the second part of this series; part I is here.
So grab your cup of tea and enjoy while you read.
The images on this post are also from Claire B.
Light meets our Daily Life...
His perfect light meets us even in the kitchen, over some muffins,
and a godly conversation with our children.
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Teaching our kids God’s Word, is a great privilege which we often take for granted; many often figure that our children’s spiritual growth will come out from Sunday School and that as long as they are familiar with Bible stories (Noah’s Ark, Daniel in the lion’s den, Jonah, Adam and Eve, David and Goliath…) and have a favourite one, we are doing well. Oh! How little we value God’s Word! How little we treasure His law! And how little we fear His teachings!
If we could focus in teaching our kids God’s Word, read it reverently, and when we pray, pray focusing on what we are saying, studying faithfully, and asking Him to open our eyes and the eyes of our kids to understand what we read, to change our hearts, and to see Jesus Christ throughout the Bible as the only hope for us. Many read as a habit, routine or even as a hope that if I do all that I need to do, I’ll be good with God. Do we read to our kids, not just the story of Daniel as a cool story with lions in it with angels and a great miracle? But a story where we see God’s sovereign hand throughout the whole book, teaching us that God does as He pleases, and He bends the heart of whomever He wants to bend. We can see God’s character, God’s mercy, God’s providence, God’s wrath, God’s forgiveness… Much about God’s character is shown to us through each of these stories.
We see Jesus Christ, the promise the hope.
Why not teach our kids ALL about God? We are often afraid that they are too young and that they may not understand. But they understand! They need those truths now that they are young; they need to understand them now and anchor them in their hearts. We are obliged to do so if we profess to be Christian parents. They need to fear God and be wise. We need to teach them stories written in the Bible like the one in 2 Kings 2:23-25 to understand the dangers of mocking others. We need to teach them that Jonah, was not a fantasy story, but was real, the people he was asked by God to preach to, were sinners; and we can see God’s sovereignty, God’s judgement, God’s faithfulness, His patience, His love, His wrath! God does as He pleases! We can trust this God in the Bible and teach our kids, that they too can trust Him.
We need to show them who God is in everything we do and say. We need to be a witness of Christ inside our doors, before we are a witness to the world. We need to live Christianity in the secret of our house if we want our kids to follow Christ. If the world is more persuasive than their religion, they will follow. But when they know Christ, love His laws, know the doctrine to defend their faith; then Christ, His love and His forgiveness will be far more persuasive for them than any treasure the world may offer.
That is why, for as long as we are parents, we need to bring our kids to the cross, bring them to the knowledge of Him who died for them, explaining their need and dependence in Him. Forget for once about self-esteem and teach them to find their value in God alone, in that sovereign Lord who does as He pleases. They will know who you are talking about. They will know that Lord is in control of all and their souls can rest in Him. If they are good at something is because God made them good, therefore that must use that for God’s glory. If they lack abilities, also the Sovereign God gave them that so that they will not boast in themselves, but go to Him and ask.
We need to bring them to Christ, to the cross and to their need and absolute dependence on Him every day, every hour, every minute of the day.
May God give us grace to live our lives showing all that Christ is to our family.
Norma.
This is a repost from the archives.
The pictures on this post are from Claire B.
Aren't they great? Thank you, Claire for letting me use them.
This is the second Thursday I share about the book we are reading together at Challies.com The book is The Bruised Reed by the Puritan author Richard Sibbes.
My comments on chapters 1 and 2 are here.
This is not an easy chapter, this is a chapter that brought tears to my eyes. Its words are like spades, they reached deep within my soul.
Sibbes, reminded me on how my spiritual life started, with little faith, with a “small beginning of grace” . And I just can’t but think how even that little portion of faith was given to me as an undeserved gift by my Father in Heaven, and was enough to save my life from an eternity far from Him.
So broken, so bruised, so dirty was my life, but He reached and gave me His saving Grace to “strive to perfection, and to keep me in a low opinion of myself“
He saw me; He reached to me, a bruised reed, and did not break me forever, He did not despise me.
Little beginnings full of grace. That is all we need.
Grace upon grace.
Grace for every day.
Small changes soaked in His grace.
Grace came and changed me, it gave me eternal life, but “grace does not do away with corruption all at once, but some is left for believers to fight with. The purest actions of the purest men need Christ to perfume them; and this is his office.”
The thorns of my flesh, are there, every day, to remind me of my desperate need of Him. To remind me that I am a bruised reed , to “preserve me from those two dangerous rocks which our natures are prone to dash upon, security and pride…”
I am in a daily journey to heaven…and “even as a candle in the socket shows its light, and sometimes the show of light is lost; so sometimes “I am” well persuaded of myself, sometimes at a loss.”
So here too, I see His light shining on this bruised reed, which is my own life.
A repost from the archives
The journey continues,
and Claire B.'s pictures from her 365 light project,
are my inspiration this week.
Remember, that Claire will be with us this coming Saturday.
Thank you, Claire!
Light comes in through the window and lights up our home.
The night has gone, and God has opened our eyes to a new day.
The coffee is ready and the routine is awaiting.
This is my life, our life, a routine, a circle of tasks and chores, a to do list; and night and day.
We can not evade it, there is a cycle, and we are in it.
But if I am a Christian, there is more to do this, there is Light coming into my daily life.
When I sit and open my Bible, and pray and see His light coming into my heart, I know there is a purpose in what I am doing today.
I am not only living for the moment, I am living for Him, because of Him.
I am where He wants me to be today.
When I see light coming through my window, I remember.
His light is with me, in my home, in the dining room, in my daily life.
I believe His words, He has called me, I do not walk in darkness.
His light has shone on me!
“Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
John 8:12
A repost from the archives.
“For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.” (2 Cor. 4: 6-10 ESV)
O Lord, let me not forget today
that I am a jar of clay,
a jar of clay in which you have decided to place a treasure;
the treasure of the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Amen
Daily On My Way to Heaven 