I had so much fun this month working through my goals and keeping them in mind a little bit every day! So, on to how I did. 1. Get a job. Nope. Still unemployed. And I'm really unsure about still looking around and applying because my school schedule for next semester is going to be busier than it's ever been--going four days a week instead of two. But we'll see what happens.
2. Make a craft. Sort of... I made this scarf after seeing this tutorial, and I really love it! But my dad said it didn't really count since it was only sewing a piece of fabric together at the ends. To which I say, it was certainly a feat for me! I'd never even used the sewing machine before. But I am planning on actually making some Christmas presents for my family sometimes next week, so yes, I'll have made a craft, even if it is a few days late.
3. Cook something. Again, sort of. I made a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, but that's so simple, I don't really know if I'd count it. I'm going to try and start cooking more, though; it's actually not as bad as I thought it'd be.
4. Write Christmas letters to all of my Compassion children.Yes!
5. Finish memorizing 1 Corinthians 1. This chapter has been giving me grief. I have made so much progress, but I'm not quite finished with it. The way I memorize is that I just read through the chapter once every day during my devotions. Memorizing individual verses never really worked for me; I had a hard time sticking everything together. Usually I take about a month for each chapter, but this one's a bit longer than the others I've memorized. I'll be done soon though!
And now on to my goals for December and into January. I'm going to make a separate post with my resolutions for 2013 at the beginning of January. These are just my smaller goals for this specific month.
1. Complete 1 Corinthians 1 and move on to chapter 2, along with reviewing 1 Timothy. When I'm in the middle of memorizing a new chapter, I often let other chapters slip, so I'm going to try to do both at once.
2. Write in my journal every day, focusing each day on a resolution from Jonathan Edwards. This will take me more than two months--there are 70 resolutions--but over this first month I want to try and work on consistency. I've been doing it for a few days now, and I really like it! It's nice being able to go through these resolutions one by one. They're so powerful!
3. Floss. Every single day. I am usually very consistent about this, but I skip a day or two here and there. I want to try and stop doing that because my new insurance plan doesn't cover dental, so who knows when I'll be getting my teeth looked at again! I want to keep them healthy, as much as is in my power to do so.
4. Read at least three good books. I want to stay busy while I'm out of school, and I figure this is a good way to start. I'm going to try and finish "Tramp for the Lord" and "The Cost of Discipleship", and then I'll find something else. By "good" I mean "edifying". I'm reading "All's Quiet on the Western Front" too, but that's not really edifying. I'm going to try and finish it, but I also want to read something else that's better for me spiritually.
5. Be in bed by midnight every night. My time at Glorieta murdered my previously awesome (= responsible) sleeping schedule. I want to get back on track with it again, especially since I have an 8:30 class next semester and I don't want to fall asleep. Or die. :)
Lately I've been thinking about the resolutions I made for 2012, and wondering if I'd actually accomplished any of them. I'm planning on making a separate post on how I did on each of those at the end of December, but I got an idea from this blog to set five goals each month for me to accomplish. I think it'll be good motivation for me. I'm going to call it the "Let's Resolve" series. Resolve may be a bit of a strong word for some of these goals, but it helps remind me of Jonathan Edwards and the seriousness he had about his goals in life. Some of these goals may be quirky or funny, but some may also be very serious and weighty. I want to have a driven mindset for those certain goals. Each post will be somewhere in the middle of the month since that's when today just happens to be. So, here are my goals for November 2012! 1. Get a job. I have been unemployed since I finished my summer at Glorieta and, to be honest, I've loved it. I really don't like working and have loved having so much freetime, but it's time for me to start being a responsible adult again and get back into the workforce. The only problem is, no one seems to be hiring these days! But I know God will provide the perfect job for me, in his timing. :)
2. Make a craft. I really want to make a bunch of cheap, cute presents for my friends this Christmas, and I found an awesome tutorial that was exactly what I'm looking for. I'll make sure to post about it once I actually make something!
3. Cook something. A dessert, a meal for my family, anything. Much as I loathe cooking, it's a necessary part of life that I need to get used to! 4. Write Christmas letters to all of my Compassion children. I've sent money for their Christmas gifts already, but I want Djamsel, Majoie, and Cristian to know through my words how much I love them and wish I could personally be with them for the holidays!
5. Finish memorizing 1 Corinthians 1. I've been working on this chapter for about a month now, but not as hard as I should have been. I'm going to do my best to finish it within the next month, and move on to chapter 2! I think I'm really going to enjoy setting goals for myself each month! I already had a really great time coming up with these.
How do you like my new layout and blog name? I love it so far. :)
For today I wanted to include some excerpts from books, and some Scripture, that tells of the beauty that love is. Happy Valentine's Day!
This first excerpt is taken from "Passion and Purity" by Elisabeth Elliot, and speaks of what she was learning as she learned to trust God in her relationship with the man who would become her husband, Jim.
*Love interprets things in favor of the one loved. I had a long way to go to learn that, but the principle is clear enough in Paul's description: "Love is patient...never selfish, not quick to take offense. Love keeps no score of wrongs... There is nothing love cannot face; there is no limit to its faith, its hope, and its endurance."
The trouble, of course, is that we must learn to love people. People are sinners. Love must be patient when it is tempted (by the delays of other people) to be impatient. Love must not be selfish, even if other people are. Love does not take offence, though people are offensive sometimes. There are wrongs, but love won't keep score. there are things to be faced, but nothing love can't face, things to try love's faith, discourage its hope, and call for its endurance; but it keeps right on trusting, hoping, and enduring. Love never ends.
Then a drop of heavenly love
Fell upon me from above,
And by secret mystic art
Reached the center of my heart.
-- Charles Spurgeon
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! It is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although its height be taken.
Love's not times fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with brief hours and weeks,
But it bears out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
-- William Shakespeare
I just like this song by Frank Sinatra. I think it's sweet.
When Jonathan Edwards was twenty years old, he wrote a love letter to the woman who would later become his wife, 13-year-old Sarah Pierpont. I think it's really beautiful to see what qualities he valued in her most.
They say there is a young lady in New Haven who is beloved of that Great Being, who made and rules the world, and that there are certain seasons in which this Great Being, in some way or other invisible, comes to her and fills her mind with exceeding sweet delight; and that she hardly cares for any thing, except to meditate on Him—that she expects after a while to be received up where He is, to be raised up out of the world and caught up into heaven; being assured that He loves her too well to let her remain at a distance from Him always. There she is to dwell with Him, and to be ravished with His love and delight for ever. Therefore, if you present all the world before her, with the richest of its treasures, she disregards it and cares not for it, and is unmindful of any pain or affliction. She has a strange sweetness in her mind, and singular purity in her affections; is most just and conscientious in all her conduct; and you could not persuade her to do any thing wrong or sinful, if you would give her all the world, lest she should offend this Great Being. She is of a wonderful sweetness, calmness, and universal benevolence of mind; especially after this Great God has manifested himself to her mind. She will sometimes go about from place to place, singing sweetly; and seems to be always full of joy and pleasure; and no one knows for what. She loves to be alone, walking in the fields and groves, and seems to have some one invisible always conversing with her.
This song is sweet too.
Finally, here is a reminder of the best love there is: the love of God.
**When God Weeps
“The face that Moses had begged to see—was forbidden to see—was slapped bloody (Ex. 33:19-20). The thorns that God had sent to curse the earth’s rebellion now twisted around his own brow…
“On your back with you!” One raises a mallet to sink in the spike. But the soldier’s heart must continue pumping as he readies the prisoner’s wrist. Someone must sustain the soldier’s life minute by minute, for no man had this power on his own. Who supplies breath to his lungs? Who gives energy to his cells? Who holds his molecules together? Only by the Son do “all things hold together” (Col. 1:17). The victim wills that the soldier live on—He grants the warriors continued existence. The man swings.
As the man swings, the Son recalls how He and the Father first designed the medial nerve of the human forearm—the sensations it would be capable of. The design proves flawless—the nerves perform exquisitely. “Up you go!” They lift the cross. God is on display in His underwear and can scarcely breathe.
But these pains are a mere warm-up to His other and growing dread. He begins to feel a foreign sensation. Somewhere during this day an unearthly foul odor began to waft, not around His nose, but His heart. He feels dirty. Human wickedness starts to crawl upon His spotless being—the living excrement from our souls. The apple of His Father’s eye turns brown with rot.
His Father! He must face His Father like this!
From heaven the Father now rouses Himself like a lion disturbed, shakes his man, and roars against the shriveling remnant of a Man hanging on a cross. Never has the Son seen the Father look at Him so, never felt even the least of His hot breath. But the roar shakes the unseen world and darkens the visible sky. The Son does not recognize these eyes.
“Son of Man! Why have You behaved so? You have cheated, lusted, stolen, gossiped—murdered, envied, hated, lied. You have cursed, robbed, overspent, overeaten—fornicated, disobeyed, embezzled, and blasphemed. Oh, the duties You have shirked, the children You have abandoned! Who has ever so ignored the poor, so played the coward, so belittled My name? have You ever held Your razor tongue? What a self-righteous, pitiful drunk—You, who molest young boys, peddle killer drugs, travel in cliques, and mock your parents. Who gave You the boldness to rig elections, foment revolutions, torture animals, and worship demons? Does the list never end! Splitting families, raping virgins, acting smugly, playing the pimp—buying politicians, practicing exhortation, filming pornography, accepting bribes. You have burned down buildings, perfected terrorist tactics, founded false religions, traded in slaves—relishing each morsel and bragging about it all. I hate, loathe these things in You! Disgust for everything about You consumes Me! Can You not feel My wrath?”
Of course the Son is innocent. He is blamelessness itself. The Father knows this. But the divine pair have an agreement, and the unthinkable must now take place. Jesus will be treated as if personally responsible for every sin ever committed.
The Father watches as His heart’s treasure, the mirror-image of Himself, sinks drowning into raw, liquid sin. Jehovah’s stored rage against humankind from every century exploded in a single direction.
“Father! Father! Why have You forsaken Me?!”
But heaven stops its ears. The Son stares up at the One who cannot, who will not, reach down or reply.
The Trinity had planned it. The Son endured it. The Spirit enabled Him. The Father rejected the Son whom He loved. Jesus, the God-man from Nazareth, perished. The Father accepted His sacrifice for sin and was satisfied. The Rescue was accomplished.”
-- Steven Estes and Joni Eareckson Tada
We love because He first loved us.
1 John 4:19
* excerpt taken from "Passion and Purity" by Elisabeth Elliot, page 169
** excerpt taken from "Boy Meets Girl" by Joshua Harris
They say there is a young lady in New Haven who is beloved of that Great Being, who made and rules the world, and that there are certain seasons in which this Great Being, in some way or other invisible, comes to her and fills her mind with exceeding sweet delight; and that she hardly cares for any thing, except to meditate on Him--that she expects after a while to be received up where He is, to be raised up out of the world and caught up into heaven; being assured that He loves her too well to let her remain at a distance from Him always. There she is to dwell with Him, and to be ravished with His love and delight for ever. Therefore, if you present all the world before her, with the richest of its treasures, she disregards it and cares not for it, and is unmindful of any pain or affliction. She has a strange sweetness in her mind, and singular purity in her affections; is most just and conscientious in all her conduct; and you could not persuade her to do anything wrong or sinful, if you would give her all the world, lest she should offend this Great Being. She is of a wonderful sweetness, calmness, and universal benevolence of mind; especially after this Great God has manifested Himself to her mind. She will sometimes go about from place to place, singing sweetly; and seems to be always full of joy and pleasure; and no knows for what. She loves to be alone, walking in the fields and groves, and seems to have some one invisible always conversing with her.
-- said of Sarah Edwards, by Jonathan Edwards, her future husband
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