“…Why do we cherish being forgiven by God? There are answers to this question that would dishonor him, because there are benefits from forgiveness that a person may love without loving God. We might say, “I cherish being forgiven by God because I hate the misery of a guilty conscience.” Or “… because I hate the prospect of pain in hell.” Or “…because I want to go to heaven to see my loved ones and have a new body with no sickness.” Where is God in these reasons for cherishing forgiveness? In the best case he is there in all these reasons as the real treasure of life.

If so, then these delights are really ways of cherishing God himself. A free and clean conscience enables us to see more of God and frees us to enjoy him. Escape from hell at the cost of Christ’s blood shows us more of God’s commitment to merciful holiness and his desire for our happiness. The gift of seeing loved ones highlights God’s  wonder in creating relationships of love. Getting a new body deepens our identification with the glorified Christ. But if God himself is not there in these gifts-and I fear he is not for many professing Christians-then we do not know what forgiveness is for.”

John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life

The Goal of Life- Gladly Making Others Glad in God

I am a young lady, whose everyday friends, and church members are older than I am. They are all much more wise and have a few more years to their name. I am with them at church and during the weekdays. I can count on one hand the number of friends I have that are “around” my age. I am not in a youth group, I attend a small country church where the majority of attendees are above 35, and I am an only child. Many would call me very unsocialized because I really do not have many homeschooling friends that I am close to. Yet I have so many dear friends that I cherish and we have friendships just like any other two people excepting the mere fact of our ages.

In an age, where young adults are forced and taught to “be with people their own age” it is even more necessary for us to be with people older and wiser. We, as growing men and women (mentally and physically), need to have those who are more experienced and aware than we are around us and teaching us. *Of course those teaching us need to be godly role models* They may not know the latest trends but in an age where generational communication is dying, trends fall out of the picture.

What if we split up a pride of lions. We placed the young ones with no experience in one area, and the older more grown lions in another area. Neither would come together at all. Those young lions would not know how to do most of the things they should be doing because no one who knew how was there to teach them. They would sit and play along the ground, when in a pride they would be learning to hunt and kill, and be learning how to feed their family. But instead, because of hanging around with all of the other lions who weren’t old enough to know how and weren’t aware of their natural duties, most or maybe all of the young lions never really grew up or learned how to live on their own wisely. No one was there to teach them not to take on an elephant by themselves, no one was there to teach them successful hiding, and no one was there to show them how to stay alive.

In a sense (that was a primitive example) that is what we are doing today. The younger people don’t associate with the older people, but stay in their own age groups and never really grow up.

The post Christian culture of today is really due to lack of generational communication. Those Christian men and women had a duty to raise families for the Lord, and to see that their children walked in the truth. Some did, others did not. Those that did not, their children and grandchildren taught their children what they were taught, and it did not include church, fellowship, or Christian principles.

“It takes generations to go from barbarianism to civilization, but it takes only a generation to go from civilization to barbarianism” -Ken Ham

In the end, the quantity of our friends is hardly important as to the quality of friends.

For the past few weeks, Mom and I have been attending a Knitting Class at our local library. I was taught to knit around 3 to 4 years ago and really haven’t progressed. I knew how to knit and purl and bind off, yet I lacked the essentials of productivity. In short, I didn’t know how to make anything. But now I am learning how to read a pattern and talk while knitting:) Here are the two patterns I will be working on next. One is a felted coin purse, and the other is a multi-coloured scarf. Two of my favourite things: felted wool, and scarves:)

Mom and I also went to the beach on Tuesday to get in some good reading time. I finished up The Princess Adelina while she worked on Do Hard Things. The weather was perfect, and I got a little tan.

And for creativeness, I have been making homemade envelopes out of brown paper bags from the grocery store. They are very crisp and elegant. Although I may have to actually part with one of them. And also, I am in the process of making a prairie dress which I am hoping to wear for my sixteenth birthday.

(Click on the picture for self explanatory instructions)

This Saturday we are planning on buying a tent for our camping trips. We used to have a camper, but the poor thing was more of a burden than a blessing. I love to camp, however, every time we do camp my books smell like campfire smoke.

And I am currently reading through Creators by Paul Johnson. Excellent book so far. I really enjoyed the quote at the beginning of the book: “People do not always discern the creative element in their lives and work. But those who do are more likely to be happy.” Most of my life I have been sure that I am not creative. Yet, God made us all creative in many different ways. So when we announce in a crowd that we are “not really creative” we are undermining God’s ability to make us in His image. No “buts” about it.

The past few weeks, my family and I have been house hunting, looking for a suitable place to move.  We have found a few homes which we liked a lot and were excited about, yet they were not as available as we had hoped. So we carried our disappointed hopes home to wait for the next available opportunity. Another home came our way, and then it too was not in the proper price or acreage as we once again had hoped. So our routine went.

Then Mom said to me, “This is how a lot of dating goes. But that’s why we are not going to date, but eagerly wait for God’s timing.” In truth, finding love is a little bit like finding a house. We look, and when something catches our eye, we become joyous and hopeful of a future in that house or relationship. Then, when things don’t work out, we carry our hopes (or in the case of dating, broken hearts) to the next home. Every time a home appears that we like, we become anxious and start fantasizing, and we don’t even know the price. And when things don’t work out, we fall into another state of disappointment. Then when we look back, we see how many homes we thought we would buy but never did.

I admit, that I am one who fantasizes. A lot. I am blessed (or cursed:) with an overactive imagination. I can think long enough on something, that I can then envision more than I want. And when we house hunt, I imagine all of our furniture, books, and animals happily situated in each one, just to pack them back up until the house we do move to comes along.

And when we do the same thing over love, marriage, and romance, we tend to fantasize and dream beyond what we know is practical. We may have just seen someone once and start fantasizing just because.

After what Mom said to me, I am going to try and stop fantasizing over every house we come to, and the same goes for marriage. I am going to treat house hunting like courting and not dating. I will wait, pray, and get to know the house before I start picking out colours for the rooms, and do it all in God’s timing, not my own.

I was reading the book, Better English by Norman Lewis, and I came across this quote:

“Don’t do nothing I wouldn’t do” is called “incorrect” because such a grammatical pattern is not customarily used by educated people.”

Even though it does contain a double negative, if we aren’t doing nothing, then we must be doing something See how long a conversation can last based on this one quote.

I am pro life. I stand firm on that fact, and yet if people wanted to discuss the viewpoint with me, I probably wouldn’t have much to say to them other than that “Abortion is still murder of a child” But, what if the person needed further convincing, and they were the type that needed proof in facts and statements?

I checked out the book ProLife Answers to ProChoice Arguments by Randy Alcorn from our local library and I must say that I have already added it to my list of books to have in my home. I will not go into a deep review, but this book needs to be read by every American, for “no single issue has divided Americans so sharply as the issue of abortion.”

I would recommend (BUY THIS BOOK NOW) it to every prolife supporter and every prochoice supporter.

Millions of lives are at stake.

Most everyone has at least heard of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, yet a sad majority of American’s have not read this book, and I was in this category. The first time I remember hearing about Uncle Tom’s Cabin was in the movie, The King and I when the play is put on before the kind and his ambassadors. However, this summer’s reading was composed of Les Miserables and Uncle Tom’s Cabin; two of the greatest books written, in my mind.

Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote this book during a time, when our country was battling slavery and the consequences it had upon our native men and women. Stowe, an abolitionist, wrote this great novel, to try and bring the reality of slavery to every home and show those who had no intimate contact with slavery, the horrors that gallivanted through the plantations. So, in 1851, this little woman had published one of the most influential books in American history.

As I read Uncle Tom’s Cabin, I was riveted by the message she so beautifully brought to life in my mind, and I imagined myself as a person amidst the conflict of slavery, reading this book. The story line is fascinating as a whole, and yet it is much more captivating in it’s Christianity. The characters that are believers are strong, firm in their faith, and a constant light throughout this shadowed tale. Uncle Tom and Eva, the protagonists, are encouraging in their faith and how they project their happiness to all around them. The story does show the unthinkable cruelties to the slaves, but the gospel message penetrates the deepest sorrow and pain-giving the suffering hope through their trials.

Uncle Tom’s willingness to share the gospel and allow everyone to hear the word is breathtakingly beautiful. And the angelic Eva St. Clare is my favourite character. Even at her young age, she is for the glory of the Lord in all she does, and her spiritual mentality is encouraging and edifying. This is truly one of my favourite books ever written.