Monday, July 18, 2011

A Book Review

Once a month, our community group leader (small group leader) coordinates a book review. I was happy to present a few books this past Saturday which helped me throughout my illness. These books really helped keep my mind in check. I thought I'd share the handout with you, since I shared it with the ladies in our community group. When your mind fails you, fill it up with encouragement.

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Book to Review:
Psalms
A Path Through Suffering Elliot
Beside Still Waters Spurgeon
Battling Unbelief Piper

I am so grateful to share with you today. I went through many phases and emotions, and carried a much lighter burden than one would expect from first glance of my circumstances. God has met me at every turn in my relationship with Him. God has met us in our marriage at every turn. God will meet you at every turn in every time, precisely where you are.

Psalms
Reasons & Practice
• I ran to Psalms every morning.
• David and I have a lot in common. I thought things like, “God, there’s this and this and this, and I know you are sovereign and put me together before there was time. Thank you.”
• Reassured me that the Lord knew my body better than anyone
• Turned my despair to praise
• Turned my anxiety to faith
• Drew me into the Word

A Path Through Suffering
Reasons & Practice
• Elisabeth is an excellent example of one who has suffered and throughout this book gives clear pictures of coloring our world with God’s grace.
• I love the imagery at the beginning of every chapter, putting our circumstances into a visual picture of plants, trees, and flowers growing.
• She draws you towards the Lord’s truths.
Excerpts
Chapter 6
How hopeless the naked wood of a fruit tree would look to us in February if we had never seen the marvel of springtime!

Sometimes the state of our souls seems as hopeless as the state of the trees in wintertime. Nothing can possibly be happening, God has forgotten us, the idea of springtime is preposterous.
The naked wood, bare and brittle and dry, s as much a pat of the tree’s life as the sap’s rising in spring. The Lord is still in charge, still moving in mysterious ways even when He gives the enemy or our souls permission to trouble us . . .

Chapter 4
It is when the death of winter has done its work that the sun can draw out in each plant its own individuality, and make its existence full and fragrant. Spiritual growth means something more than the sweeping away of the old leaves of sin – it means the life of the Lord Jesus developed in us.

In God’s management of the affairs of men suffering is never senseless. We can find plenty of good sense in the metaphor of pruning found in the Gospel of John.

Beside Still Waters (Spurgeon)
Reasons & Practice
• I stood on this book in thought. I read one page a day and pondered throughout each day and sometimes kept the same one for multiple days.
• Brought to waiting rooms, any idle time, I fed my mind with the truths in this book. It lived in my purse.
Excerpt
Some of you are perplexed with a multitude of anxieties about your life. You do not know what to do. One plan was suggested, and for a time it seemed the best action. But now you have doubts. You are bewildered and you cannot see Providence’s clue. You are lost in a maze. Indeed, at this moment, you are depressed.
You have tried various ways and methods to escape your present difficulty. But you have been disappointed and are distracted. Your thoughts have no order; they drag you in opposite directions The currents meet and twist as if you were in a whirlpool.
My perplexed friend, remember the children of Israel at the Red Sea. The sea was before them, rocks were on either side, and the cruel Egyptians roared in the rear. Imitate Israel’s actions. “Do not be afraid. stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which He will accomplish for your today” (Ex 14:13). You reply, “I cannot be quiet. I am agitated, perturbed, perplexed, tossed, and distracted. What shall I do?”
“In the multitude of my anxieties within me, Your comforts delight my soul” (Ps. 94:19). Turn your eyes to the deep things of God. Cease from an anxious consideration of seen things, which are temporary, and gaze by faith on things that are eternal.
Remember, your way is ordered by a higher power than your will and choice. The eternal God has fixed your every step. All things are fixed by the Father’s hand. He who loved us from before the foundations of the world has immutably determined every step of our pilgrimage.
It is a blessed thing, after you have been muddling and meddling with your anxieties, to throw your burdens on the Lord and leave them there.
• -Charles Spurgeon, Beside Still Waters, pg. 95

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

A Gratefulness Endurance Test

This week is definitely a testimony and a test of my endurance. For example, the morning started off with me teaching 90 kids a brief dance choreographed to "Green Eggs and Ham" from 'Seussical, The Musical,' in 10 minutes for their physical warm-up. It wouldn't have been so strenuous if I had someone else do the dance while I explained it. But, hopping on one foot while kicking three times in the air, where you literally punch the air with your foot at a 45 degree angle was the first three counts, and the last 5 counts were curling up into a ball then springing open into the formation of an X. Well, that could have been the end of my day right there, but it kept going. All for the better.

We are in the middle of "Covenant Kid's Choir Camp" at our church, and I'm having a blast. I basically leave the camp each day hoping they'll let me come back and teach again the next day. At my former job, they never gave me free reign of the microphone, and here I have access to 4 microphones all day long (it's only 3 hours), and they are amplified throughout the entire 1st floor of the building (very large). That's not really why I love it though, there are 90 kids clothed in excitement, gratefulness, and eagerness to learn. Last year we had 2 vocal teachers and a pastor, and this year we have 3 vocal teachers, 2 instrumental teachers, and a pastor. Did I mention 90 kids? The more the merrier.

I feel like a walking testimony of God's grace displayed in front of these kids, because I am not only able to walk around and teach (and sometimes dance) with energy, but my voice is back. I was not able to sing (nonetheless talk) throughout December and January, and now I am going on my 4th day of singing, on and off for long periods of time throughout each day. Is this the gift that I can now use again, when back in December I came to grips with possibly never getting it back? Yes. Just when I'm about to become frustrated with my limit to how much I can do, I remember moments where I wore sunglasses during church and sang mentally while the congregation was standing and singing out loud.

I have had my share of not-perfectly-comfortable moments this week. Like, carrying in 2 precious sleeping children up 2 flights of stairs and feeling my lower back slow down and legs fade until I crash into my own nap. Knowing that even though I feel mentally awake, I need to take breaks and not exert too much physical energy to save up for the end of each day, where dinner and bed time would need my saved up strength. Today I hovered between nausea, hand cramping, oncoming of a sore throat, extreme tiredness, fatigue, ocular migraines, anxiety, emotionalism, jealousy, wanting to pick-a-fight, complaining, stress, fear, and pure excitement and gratefulness that I could be doing anything at all. Notice I said, "hovered between" because I am so glad that the narrow path kept me from getting sucked into any of them. There is only One who carves out the Way and only God's steady direction in my thoughts could keep me planted on it. Like a little mono-rail line. It seems so skinny. Maybe because the path is precise and appears to float through mid-air, yet is firmly grounded.

I'll take it.

I was feeling inspired by a woman I met yesterday. She said, "If I live another 6 weeks, I'll be 93. My children say I'm just stubborn, and I say, well, what am I going to do, sit home and die? I'm going to go out and do things . . . I have 40 great-grand children. . . They say I have lasted this long because I know how to pray. That's all I can do for people is pray. If someone does me a favor, I just keep praying for them constantly. But you better watch out, [then she stuck her firm, strong, and long wrinkled finger in my face] because my prayers are answered."

I guess getting sucked into gratefulness wouldn't have been that bad. Maybe that's like arriving at Magic Kingdom on the monorail. It is truly freeing to be grateful.