Category: Recommendations

pride won’t get us where we’re going

What a beautiful weekend… especially beautiful if I count from Thursday (sweet dinner) to tonight (Micah Project). Here are a few pictures from the sweet dinner. I pulled these off facebook… as you can see, the girls were happy as can be to have something to take home!

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This morning, I listened to a sermon by John Piper before going to church (and between my frequent checks on the pumpkin cake in the oven). I love the way we can turn a passage over and over and never examine it fully. I suppose that is part of the mystery and what makes the Gospel so marvelous. The sermon, though in two completely different perspectives, gave a good look at the sin of pride. It made me think of this song by Thad Cockrell. I have no connection to TV, but I think the grammy’s are on tonight (judging by all the facebook status updates). I’m sure there are some amazing performances, but this song sure deserves a listen.

Through the power of God alone we can overcome the temptation of pride, which leads to all sorts of unbelief. Oh, that we would believe!

Speaking of believing, today my home church presented the news of our student mission team along with prayer cards and 25 prayer cards were picked up! I am so very, VERY blessed to feel the encouragement and support of these beautiful people all the way down here. But, more importantly, to see that they are excited about my students taking steps to love and serve those around them. Praise God that we are BLESSED to be A BLESSING!

I wish I could write pages more, but you’ll have to fill in the blanks yourself because my battery is going to die. I’m going to pick up a book and call it a night!

let LOVE fly like cRaZy
tomorrow, but ALWAYS!

Posted on by Caroline 3

God will lift up your head

God Will Lift Up Your Head
Image via Wikipedia

Today, I’m claiming this! Jars of Clay put the Truth to song and it seems to be the backdrop for my morning.

God will lift up your head

Give to the wind your fear
Hope and be undismayed
God hears your sighs and counts your tears
God will lift up, God will lift up, lift up your head

God will lift up your head
God will lift up your head
God will lift up your head
Lift up your head

Leave to His sovereign sway
To choose and to command
Then shall we wandering on His way
Know how wise and how strong
How wise and how strong

Through waves and clouds and storms,
He gently clears the way
Wait because in His time, so shall this night
Soon end in joy, soon end in joy

——–

“O my God, I am too ashamed and disgraced to lift up my face to you, my God, because our sins are higher than our heads and our guilt has reached to the heavens.” Ezra 9:6

Amen!

Posted on by Caroline 0

fight, fight, fight, fight, fight for this love

“every day won’t be no picnic,
love ain’t no walk in the park.
all you can do is make the best of it –
can’t be afraid of the dark.
just know that you’re not in this alone
there’s a place in me that you can call home
whenever you feel like we’re growing apart
let’s just go
back, back, back, back, back to the start

anything that’s worth having
it’s sure enough worth fighting for”

This morning, I’m in one of those “cup runneth over” kind of moods. I’m sure Vampire Weekend (a band long before the ridiculous and strange vampire craze swept the ocean of tweens all over the world) was not thinking in the same sense when they sang the above song. But, this morning, as I sing out loud these words in my house, I’m kind of dancing to a different love story.

CHRIST is coming! He saw a relationship with me worth FIGHTING for… and that makes my heart feel just the right amount of full. I’ve been watching this Christmas story re-telling on replay and it’s only added to the beauty and mystery… reminding me of the awe with which we should all anticipate Christ’s birth. It’s so simple.

 

are you going to

let LOVE fly like CrAzY

today!?

Posted on by Caroline 0

NERTZ at Denny’s at 10 pm

Denny's
Image via Wikipedia

I just wanted to update you to let you know that playing Nertz at Denny’s (newly opened and strangely popular here – not ghetto at ALL) at 10 pm is what EVERYONE should be doing on Friday night.

No, seriously.

Posted on by Caroline 2

Friday Frenzy

Here’s a few recommendations to warm up your Friday:

  • If you want to give PRESENCE (instead of presents with a pricetag) this Christmas, check out the Advent Conspiracy

  • Here’s a way to spice up your holiday gift wrapping, if you DO choose to wrap something up, from ohjoy!
  • I just thought this was worth noting – CUPCAKES have officially passed bacon in google searches this year. This is pretty monumental, because I know people who are as loyal to both sides of this issue. Read this article for the details.
  • This is probably my favorite suggestion for today: Read this article posted at Desiring God about a divinely appointed taxi ride. Please read it – you won’t be disappointed.
    A diagram of how a hand of Nertz is set up and...
    Here's how you play a hand of Nertz!
  • I love the game Nertz. I love it. Sometimes my love for this card game causes an embarrassing amount of theatrics, but that makes me love it more. So, tonight my friend Sarah and I will endeavor to teach several students how to love the game like we do. Here is a little video sample of one family playing Nertz. I’m pretty sure you’ll love it if you try it!
  • Lastly, I just found this musician, Kenneth Padgett, via the Desiring God website. He has a project called Joy Eternal where he adapts inspiring, reformed books into song. Take a listen!

I hope your Friday is full of WONDERFUL WONDERFUL things!

let LOVE fly like CrAZzzzY

Posted on by Caroline 2

beautiful things

Makoto Fujimura at FFM 2009
Image by jystewart via Flickr

So many beautiful things have happened today and it’s not even 8:45 am!

Here are the two link-related ones:

First, I discovered this last night and I could watch it a million times. Art+Truth=BEAUTIFUL. Here is a description from the Crossway website about this amazing project:

Makoto Fujimura, one of the century’s most highly regarded artists, has illuminated the Four Holy Gospels. Fujimura is known for his use of traditional Japanese Nihonga techniques and his passion for reconnecting Christian faith with fine art. This will mark the first time in nearly 400 years that an illuminated book of the four Gospels has been undertaken by a single artist.

Check it out HERE! Watch the video here!

Second, this morning I read Andrée Seu’s article on weakness and I’m tempted to let out a hearty AMEN right here in my office chair. We make so many excuses for ourselves and then try to justify our whimsies and failures with Scripture. It’s like we’ve resigned to the idea that “we are sinners, so of course we’re going to be weak and fail.” I could say so much more on this, but Andrée says it so well!

Here’s her last paragraph:

It is time to stop re-infecting ourselves with bad theology. If someone wants to keep repeating that we Christians are “weak,” please let him always clarify the statement with the adjectives “physically” or “psychologically.” Say that we are tired, and weary, and perplexed. But let’s lose the morbid and counterproductive self-image of the Christian as “Sinner” and (morally) “weak.” Paul gives instructions for self-image, as he does for other areas of Christian life: “You also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ” (Romans 6:11).

Hope you are encouraged today by these two beautiful things!

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 2

who am i kidding?

I can talk a big talk, jump a big joy, and sing a strong song… but, today I’m humbled because my sin still tangles me.

I’m frustrated… and that hour workout did nothing to chase it away. No surprises there.

Songs that got me through today:
Sara Groves‘ new album – seriously, do yourself a favor and chime in with the ladies of this prison to sing the songs of Christmas. It’s a privilege, to be sure. You can download the album for free on her website!
Brooke Fraser‘s song Flags breaks my heart because it forces me to dig deeper and cling to God’s promises. I’ve got to believe this today.

“You who mourn will be comforted
You who hunger will hunger no more
All the last shall be first
Of this I am sure

You who weep now will laugh again
All you lonely be lonely no more
Yes, the last will be first
Of this I’m sure

Sia‘s song “I’m in here” is easily a song to get depressed to. But more than that, I am sad because she is singing a clamoring anthem of so many who are crying out and desperate, but hear no response.
Lovelite is part of an amazing network of musicians called Come and Live. These guys are about glorifying God with music and making it available to us … for free. If you passed by me at a stoplight today, you probably heard me belting this Lovelite song, “There You Are” because I needed to be reminded that whenever I am faithless He remains the same.

“And if ever I am faithless
I can’t escape Your greatness
From the brightest of places
To the infinite spaces
There You are, there You are”

Sometimes you just need some instruments in your life. For me, right now, that’s Jeremy Larson‘s circadian cues (a sneak peek at his new album) and a song by Victoire called, “A Song for Mick Kelly.” I don’t know much about the latter band, just like this song (download it free here).

Lastly, I just downloaded (because of my “friend of the blog” status at Tim Challies) this Sovereign Grace album called “Sons and Daughters.” That got some airplay today and I’m glad it did.

Now, I’m going to be honest. If I take the advice I shell out every single day, then I am going to go digging. I’m going to grab my shovel and dig until I find the deepest promises. Then I am going to anchor myself and brace for the storm. That’s what I’m going to do, because who am I kidding? I’m pretty rotten and sinful and I need a Savior as much as my students do!

Posted on by Caroline 0

lovely links

I’m about ready to call it a night. If you read my last post, you might be surprised to know that the disaster on my bedroom floor has not resolved itself. In fact, it has somehow worsened.

I don’t mind.

I just want to leave you some encouragement tonight by way of some links. I hope this Sunday evening finds you tucked inside a well-worn love.

Sara Groves has started the “season of giving” early with her live Christmas CD, recorded at a women’s prison in Illinois. You can download the whole CD of goodness from her website.

Part of the reason for the creative mess on my floor is this idea I got from my roommate: art journaling and altered books. I know it’s probably been around the craft block several times and I’m new on this street, but I LOVE this idea. I will be working on some versions for Christmas presents, even though I am finding they take a LOT of work!

This last link is one I plan to muse on more later. I love the Gospel Coalition, as you might know, but especially the recent talk of art and its place in the church. I’m kind of chewing on some of the same questions and these insights are so helpful as I dig deep to know what is the heart of God in this. Here is the article, titled, “Art For, From, and Facing the Church.”

Hope you start your Monday off

letting LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 0

and He shall reign forever and ever!

Wow. This is lovely!

Please watch and enjoy this amazing event! Here’s the description from Youtube:

On Saturday, October 30, 2010, the Opera Company of Philadelphia brought together over 650 choristers from 28 participating organizations to perform one of the Knight Foundation’s “Random Acts of Culture” at Macy’s in Center City Philadelphia. Accompanied by the Wanamaker Organ – the world’s largest pipe organ – the OCP Chorus and throngs of singers from the community infiltrated the store as shoppers, and burst into a pop-up rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s “Messiah” at 12 noon, to the delight of surprised shoppers. This event is one of 1,000 “Random Acts of Culture” to be funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation over the next three years. The initiative transports the classical arts out of the concert halls and opera houses and into our communities to enrich our everyday lives. To learn more about this program and view more events, visit http://www.randomactsofculture.org. The Opera Company thanks Macy’s and the Friends of the Wanamaker Organ (www.wanamakerorgan.com) for their partnership, as well as Organ Music Director Peter Conte and Fred Haas, accompanists; OCP Chorus Master Elizabeth Braden, conductor; and Sound Engineer James R. Stemke. For a complete list of participating choirs and more information, visit http://www.operaphila.org/RAC. This event was planned to coincide with the first day of National Opera Week.

 

Posted on by Caroline 0

social networks; freedom networks

Dalit girl, Andhra Pradesh, India
Image via Wikipedia

Thanks again to social networking, I’m making more amazing connections. Yesterday, via Twitter, I talked with The CO, a band who shares a love for Honduras (Troy came here in July) and also a love for living a life redeemed with a purpose to restore. The band promotes the Dalit Freedom Network through their music and presence on Brite Revolution. I love how they are using the gifts God has given them to make louder the call to respond to the broken.

The Dalit Freedom Network works in India to restore the dignity and freedom of the lowest caste (Dalits).

This is the kind of thing that gets me excited on a Tuesday… social networking that supports freedom networking.

Seems to me like it

lets LOVE fly like CrAzY

Posted on by Caroline 0