Colombian roast
Beep! A thunderstorm begins
Steamy happiness

HT to Douglas Wilson:

Present Your Bodies as Spiritual Worship (Exhortation)

Over the years we have emphasized the importance of ritual. Rituals are significant in the Bible, and they ought to be significant to us. We have also emphasized the importance of worshipping God with our bodies and not just with our minds. We have sought to resist the temptation that many Reformed Christians deal with, which is the idea that God gave us bodies as carrying cases to get our brains to church.

And of course, it would be better to have your mind at church and your body elsewhere, than to have your body at church and your mind elsewhere. But fortunately, we don’t have to choose, and under ordinary circumstances, we must not choose. And so here is a brief reminder of the doctrinal reasons for some of the very physical things we do in our worship of God.

We sing throughout the service, which should be strenuous, we kneel in confession, we eat bread and drink wine, and we raise our hands in the Gloria Patri. We worship God physically for three reasons.

First, we believe that Scripture requires this kind of thing of us.

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I’ve been going back and reading some of my favorite posts. Some of them have been especially convicting and encouraging to read, remaining true even in hindsight.

Here are three posts to whet your appetite for reading through archives. Enjoy!

God is Awake (Also published online at Nolan Chart)

The Great Physician’s Nurse

Nipping Biting

Some huge changes are in the works here at the Albrecht house - job/move and health related.

However, in my heart, I haven’t quite come to terms with them yet.

Even though I have a lot to write, I’m reluctant to “make them real” by posting them to my blog. Perhaps once these changes have corresponding calendar dates, I’ll be ready to write about them publicly.

One thing to note - I did turn in my Academic Package to become a Bradley Method instructor today. I will find out in about six weeks if it passed inspection

Stay tuned, and please pray.

Much love,
SJA

My friend Sally is letting me borrow The Red Tent. Despite all my interest in childbirth, I have never read it! I’m about halfway through the book.

Here’s a beautifully-written description of the burial of an infant who died after being a prematurely born:

“I held my sister, who was never given a name, and who never opened her eyes, and who died in my arms.

I was not afraid to hold that small death. Her face was peaceful, her hands perfectly clean. It seemed she would wake at any moment. The tears from my eyes fell upon her alabaster cheek, and it appeared that she mourned the passing of her own life. My mother came to take my sister from me, but seeing my sorrow, permitted me to carry her to burial. She was shrouded in a scrap of fine cloth and laid beneath the strongest, oldest tree within sight of my mother’s tent. No offerings were made, but as the bundle was covered with earth the sighs that poured from my mothers’ mouths were as eloquent as any psalm.”

I love how, within a few short moments, it seems like he was never gone.

Doesn’t help when songs like this one come on at 3:04 a.m. :

Throw Me a Rope
KT Tunstall

I want you between me and the
feeling I get when I miss you
But everything here is telling me I should be fine
So why is it so, above as below,
That I’m missing you every time
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One of my new favorite blogs to read is the Art of Manliness.

Two great posts I’d highly recommend reading are:

14 Ways to Affair-Proof Your Marriage The post is thorough, thoughtful, and well-written. I appreciated the reminder regarding sexual tension in mixed company - not to “rationalize it away.”

and

Write A Love Letter Like A Soldier (Dude! Her name was Sarah!)

(Still have all the letters Tom wrote to me before we were married….)

Happy reading

GMax GM68 Crusader Helmet w/ LED
Status: Shipped

On its way, baby.

Yes, I’m kicking and screaming. Yes, it does feel like my teeth are being pulled out - and I can tell you what that feels like both literally and figuratively!

God is putting little beacons of light in my path. Admittedly, they are hard to use because my frustration and anger are great and my walls are very high at the moment. My soul feels like my body does when I’m growling through my 30th (girl-style) push-up. One foot in front of other other, numbly, feeling like stopping, yet trusting that the ground will not collapse underneath me.

I’m praying that the Lord will keep working in my heart, and I am begging Him not give up on me.

This was sent to me from my mother-in-law< - check out her new blog!):
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Daily devotions for 06-21-2008:

Title: How to Do the Job You Don't Really Want To Do
Author: Elisabeth Elliot
Book: A Lamp For My Feet

Certain aspects of the job the Lord has given me to do are very easy to postpone. I make excuses, find other things that take precedence, and, when I finally get down to business to do it, it is not always with much grace. A new perspective has helped me recently:

The job has been given to me to do.
Therefore it is a gift.
Therefore it is a privilege.
Therefore it is an offering I may make to God.
Therefore it is to be done gladly, if it is done for Him.
Therefore it is the route to sanctity.

Here, not somewhere else, I may learn God's way. In this job, not in some other, God looks for faithfulness. The discipline of this job is, in fact, the chisel God has chosen to shape me with--into the image of Christ.

Thank you, Lord, for the work You have assigned me. I take it as your gift; I offer it back to you. With your help I will do it gladly, faithfully, and I will trust You to make me holy.
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On Sunday (15 minutes late to church, but we made it in time for the sermon!), Rev. Dr. Don Stone was our guest pastor and he gave an exposition on Romans 6. From the sermon, this quote made it to my feeble notes: “There are no shortcuts in the cultivation of character.”