Well, I told myself that I was going to re-read 'My Darkness' before totally spilling about it on-line, but multiple other people want to read it, and I'm so excited for them to, that I figured I would re-read it when I get another copy. I know I want one for myself and one for my youth group's library;) Anyway, before I give you guys a bit of a book review, keep in mind that I'm a very picky reader, and very critical of books. So you know I won't give credit where credit is not due. In light of that, here are my thoughts on 'My Darkness,' by Hayley Gallucci...
First off, about the author...
Hayley Gallucci was my RA in the dorms at Biola University:) She is now married and teaching kindergarten. Hayley taught me what the joy of the Lord is. I mention that because I've heard it said that one can only conceive of as much joy as they can sorrow, as much laughter as they can tears, as much hope as they can hopelessness. Your capacity for pain and your capacity for true joy are reversely proportionate. With that in mind, it makes sense (to me anyway) that someone like Hayley, the "shiny-est" person I know, would be able to write a book like 'My Darkness,' appropriately full of shining light, and deepest darkness...
Secondly, what 'My Darkness' is about:
"My Darkness is a novel about sixteen-year-old Sadie who has the ability to see another world. Tormented by a depressive demon of darkness and a manic foster brother, Sadie's life is a string of rejections and close calls until she meets Mark, her mysterious admirer. Her life begins to turn around, but she faces violent opposition at every turn, including a threat from her brother to leave home immediately or else. With the attacks intensifying, will Sadie survive long enough to embrace the truth, uncover the mysteries surrounding her foster brother and Mark, and escape from the Darkness that surrounds her?" (Product description on Amazon.com)
The story itself is a real page-turner. There is a consistent flow of action that keeps you reading. The main characters are well developed, so before you know it you will HAVE to know what happens to Sadie and Mark next, because they become quite real! I would highly recommend reading this book on a quiet Saturday when you can just keep reading, because you certainly won't want to stop!
And for those who care about these things (any Lit people out there?)
Literary elements...
The battle between good and evil is very vividly portrayed throughout the story in an unconventional way, as Sadie can actually see the angels and demons who make up the spiritual world. (Normally I think this method of portraying spiritual beings is cheesy, but that is because the few other books I've read that incorporate this element do not involve characters responding to what they see as, I think, a normal person would! Sadie, on the other hand, is a very realistic character with believable thoughts and feelings, and her responses to the spiritual world are such that a real person would probably have. This removes the cheesiness that is present in the few other books I've read with angels and demons in them).
Every story needs a source of conflict. In some stories it is opposites colliding. In some, it is characters who are too much alike finding their true colors (at least the disagreeable ones) in each other. 'My Darkness' is full of opposites, along with many varying results of their collision. There is the complete contrast between extreme good and extreme evil, with the consequent full-fledged battle going on. Then there is the partial contrast between hopeful characters and hopeless characters who are caught in between the extremes of good and evil. There is Mark, full of love, hope, and encouragement; and Sadie, full of distraction, discouragement, and a desire for hope that seems lost. Consequently, Sadie cannot understand Mark's goodness, and sometimes isn't sure if it is good.
Personal thoughts...
Some factors that could have contributed to my personal response to 'My Darkness': I am a critical reader, and I get nightmares way too easily. In light of that, I enjoyed the story too much to criticize it, and it didn't give me the creeps like most 'spiritual world' stories do. This is not to say that the demons were not very dark, or the dilemma not very serious. In fact, the depth of the darkness of the situation, and the spiritual forces involved, were very clear. I would highly recommend this book for teens and young adults in particular. It is a great story full of great (but not too great to relate to) characters, with a page-turning plot that will keep you on your toes:)
Here's where you can order a copy!
http://www.amazon.com/My-Darkness-Hayley-Gallucci/dp/1448661986/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252776290&sr=1-1
Friday, September 18, 2009
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
American Idols
I recently read this wonderful article (yes, by John Piper...I DO read other authors, I promise), explaining what constitutes idolatry. When I first read it, I went through his list describing when enjoyment becomes idolatrous, and putting a few of my most prized possessions, experiences and emotions through his filter. I would encourage you to do the same! It's very eye opening, and not just in a "negative" way. You may find your delights wonderfully affirmed! Think of something that is particularly dear to your heart (or stomach, or game-controller thumbs, or hormones, or whatever!), and (sorry Nick) check yourself!
1. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is forbidden by God. For example, adultery and fornication and stealing and lying are forbidden by God. Some people at some times feel that these are pleasurable, or else we would not do them. No one sins out of duty. But such pleasure is a sign of idolatry.
2. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is disproportionate to the worth of what is desired. Great desire for non-great things is a sign that we are beginning to make those things idols.
3. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is not permeated with gratitude. When our enjoyment of something tends to make us not think of God, it is moving toward idolatry. But if the enjoyment gives rise to the feeling of gratefulness to God, we are being protected from idolatry. The grateful feeling that we don’t deserve this gift or this enjoyment, but have it freely from God’s grace, is evidence that idolatry is being checked.
4. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it does not see in God’s gift that God himself is more to be desired than the gift. If the gift is not awakening a sense that God, the Giver, is better than the gift, it is becoming an idol.
5. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is starting to feel like a right, and our delight is becoming a demand. It may be that the delight is right. It may be that another person ought to give you this delight. It may be right to tell them this. But when all this rises to the level of angry demands, idolatry is rising.
6. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it draws us away from our duties. When we find ourselves spending time pursuing an enjoyment, knowing that other things, or people, should be getting our attention, we are moving into idolatry.
7. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it awakens a sense of pride that we can experience this delight while others can’t. This is especially true of delights in religious things, like prayer and Bible reading and ministry. It is wonderful to enjoy holy things. It idolatrous to feel proud that we can.
8. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is oblivious or callous to the needs and desires of others. Holy enjoyment is aware of others’ needs and may temporarily leave a good pleasure to help another person have it. One might leave private prayer to be the answer to someone else’s.
9. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it does not desire that Christ be magnified as supremely desirable through the enjoyment. Enjoying anything but Christ (like his good gifts) runs the inevitable risk of magnifying the gift over the Giver. One evidence that idolatry is not happening is the earnest desire that this not happen.
10. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is not working a deeper capacity for holy delight. We are sinners still. It is idolatrous to be content with sin. So we desire transformation. Some enjoyments shrink our capacities of holy joy. Others enlarge them. Some go either way, depending on how we think about them. When we don’t care if an enjoyment is making us more holy, we are moving into idolatry.
11. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when its loss ruins our trust in the goodness of God. There can be sorrow at loss without being idolatrous. But when the sorrow threatens our confidence in God, it signals that the thing lost was becoming an idol.
12. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when its loss paralyzes us emotionally so that we can’t relate lovingly to other people. This is the horizontal effect of losing confidence in God. Again: Great sorrow is no sure sign of idolatry. Jesus had great sorrow. But when desire is denied, and the effect is the emotional inability to do what God calls us to do, the warning signs of idolatry are flashing.
"For myself and for you, I pray the admonition of 1 John 5:21, 'Little children, keep yourselves from idols.'"
-----------------------
As a somewhat separate topic, I'd like to draw your attention back to #5: "Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is starting to feel like a right, and our delight is becoming a demand. It may be that the delight is right...But when all this rises to the level of angry demands, idolatry is rising." Upon reading this at work, I glanced up at the television mounted in the wall; it is constantly showing Fox News, day in and day out. This was before Michael Jackson died, so there were other things on the news, namely Obama's push for national healthcare. Healthcare...Americans' idol. Here in America, I've realized, we have many gods...we have become a polytheistic nation, as we idolize one thing after another. Citizenship, home-ownership, jobs, healthcare, money, good credit, company success...the list goes on and on. When our country was founded (by men who, more or less, followed God), a declaration was written, The Declaration of Independence to be exact, which declared, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Our country's founders wisely stated that our Creator has given us these rights - the right to live once He has created us at the moment of conception, the freedom to make choices, and the freedom to pursue happiness.
Sometime in the past 350 years or so, Americans have either been led to believe, or have believed out of the grossest part of our sinful hearts, that we, in fact, have the right to much more. We believe that not only is it true that all men are created equal, but that all men remain equal, regardless of character, integrity, courage, love, or work-toward-achievements (or lack thereof). It does not matter anyway - I have rights! "I have a right to prescription drugs, treatments and surgeries, whether I have the means of paying another person for his or her knowledge and skills or not! Denying me healthcare is a sin against me!" "I have a right to employment. Whether I am an excellent employee or not, you simply cannot fire me! I will blame race, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion, or anything else I can think of that will convince a court that you have violated my rights by firing me!" "I have a right to a free education! Whether I do well in school or not should not matter. It is a sin against me to hold me back from the next grade level, force me to learn a new language in order to participate in class, or to deny me a free lunch every day in the cafeteria! I should not have to earn any of this, meet any standards, or do any inconvenient garbage called homework. I have a right to a high school diploma! Along the way, I have the right to treat my teachers as miserably as I want, AND I have the right to be treated with the utmost respect and kindness toward my individuality in return. If this right is violated, my parents will file suit. Good day!" "I have the right to call on the government to fork over extra cash if my business is in trouble. After all, as a businessman I never realized that business is a risky endeavor to be entered into with wisdom and discretion. I certainly should not be responsible for my poor decisions, and have the right to be bailed out." "I have the right to protection from my own lack of insight. If I enter into a gamble and it goes wrong, I have every right to sue the person who 'defrauded' me."
There are thousands of examples of things that are good in real genuine idealistic instances - healthcare is good, employment is good, education is good, doing business is good, investing is good! But when did we wander from "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" all the way to "Life (unless you're smaller than a pea), liberty, the pursuit of happiness, guaranteed healthcare, permanent job security despite performance, success in school without effort, good results in business endeavors, guaranteed return for investment, protection from the consequences of unwisely joining up with dishonest people, protection from any unwisdom on my part, and respect no matter how truly shameful my lifestyle may be..? We have come to believe that anything that we want is a "certain unalienable right," and feel no shame in publicly demanding it.
There was a day when Americans learned from their mistakes, bounced back from their own failures, put their lives back together when tragedy hit, and were even required to take responsibility for their own actions. When did we let the value of life deteriorate so far, demand that unknown strangers protect our liberty with their lives while we refuse to thank them, and make our pursuit of superficial happiness our god? And when...when will we ever learn how horribly wrong we are?
1. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is forbidden by God. For example, adultery and fornication and stealing and lying are forbidden by God. Some people at some times feel that these are pleasurable, or else we would not do them. No one sins out of duty. But such pleasure is a sign of idolatry.
2. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is disproportionate to the worth of what is desired. Great desire for non-great things is a sign that we are beginning to make those things idols.
3. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is not permeated with gratitude. When our enjoyment of something tends to make us not think of God, it is moving toward idolatry. But if the enjoyment gives rise to the feeling of gratefulness to God, we are being protected from idolatry. The grateful feeling that we don’t deserve this gift or this enjoyment, but have it freely from God’s grace, is evidence that idolatry is being checked.
4. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it does not see in God’s gift that God himself is more to be desired than the gift. If the gift is not awakening a sense that God, the Giver, is better than the gift, it is becoming an idol.
5. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is starting to feel like a right, and our delight is becoming a demand. It may be that the delight is right. It may be that another person ought to give you this delight. It may be right to tell them this. But when all this rises to the level of angry demands, idolatry is rising.
6. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it draws us away from our duties. When we find ourselves spending time pursuing an enjoyment, knowing that other things, or people, should be getting our attention, we are moving into idolatry.
7. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it awakens a sense of pride that we can experience this delight while others can’t. This is especially true of delights in religious things, like prayer and Bible reading and ministry. It is wonderful to enjoy holy things. It idolatrous to feel proud that we can.
8. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is oblivious or callous to the needs and desires of others. Holy enjoyment is aware of others’ needs and may temporarily leave a good pleasure to help another person have it. One might leave private prayer to be the answer to someone else’s.
9. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it does not desire that Christ be magnified as supremely desirable through the enjoyment. Enjoying anything but Christ (like his good gifts) runs the inevitable risk of magnifying the gift over the Giver. One evidence that idolatry is not happening is the earnest desire that this not happen.
10. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is not working a deeper capacity for holy delight. We are sinners still. It is idolatrous to be content with sin. So we desire transformation. Some enjoyments shrink our capacities of holy joy. Others enlarge them. Some go either way, depending on how we think about them. When we don’t care if an enjoyment is making us more holy, we are moving into idolatry.
11. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when its loss ruins our trust in the goodness of God. There can be sorrow at loss without being idolatrous. But when the sorrow threatens our confidence in God, it signals that the thing lost was becoming an idol.
12. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when its loss paralyzes us emotionally so that we can’t relate lovingly to other people. This is the horizontal effect of losing confidence in God. Again: Great sorrow is no sure sign of idolatry. Jesus had great sorrow. But when desire is denied, and the effect is the emotional inability to do what God calls us to do, the warning signs of idolatry are flashing.
"For myself and for you, I pray the admonition of 1 John 5:21, 'Little children, keep yourselves from idols.'"
-----------------------
As a somewhat separate topic, I'd like to draw your attention back to #5: "Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is starting to feel like a right, and our delight is becoming a demand. It may be that the delight is right...But when all this rises to the level of angry demands, idolatry is rising." Upon reading this at work, I glanced up at the television mounted in the wall; it is constantly showing Fox News, day in and day out. This was before Michael Jackson died, so there were other things on the news, namely Obama's push for national healthcare. Healthcare...Americans' idol. Here in America, I've realized, we have many gods...we have become a polytheistic nation, as we idolize one thing after another. Citizenship, home-ownership, jobs, healthcare, money, good credit, company success...the list goes on and on. When our country was founded (by men who, more or less, followed God), a declaration was written, The Declaration of Independence to be exact, which declared, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Our country's founders wisely stated that our Creator has given us these rights - the right to live once He has created us at the moment of conception, the freedom to make choices, and the freedom to pursue happiness.
Sometime in the past 350 years or so, Americans have either been led to believe, or have believed out of the grossest part of our sinful hearts, that we, in fact, have the right to much more. We believe that not only is it true that all men are created equal, but that all men remain equal, regardless of character, integrity, courage, love, or work-toward-achievements (or lack thereof). It does not matter anyway - I have rights! "I have a right to prescription drugs, treatments and surgeries, whether I have the means of paying another person for his or her knowledge and skills or not! Denying me healthcare is a sin against me!" "I have a right to employment. Whether I am an excellent employee or not, you simply cannot fire me! I will blame race, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion, or anything else I can think of that will convince a court that you have violated my rights by firing me!" "I have a right to a free education! Whether I do well in school or not should not matter. It is a sin against me to hold me back from the next grade level, force me to learn a new language in order to participate in class, or to deny me a free lunch every day in the cafeteria! I should not have to earn any of this, meet any standards, or do any inconvenient garbage called homework. I have a right to a high school diploma! Along the way, I have the right to treat my teachers as miserably as I want, AND I have the right to be treated with the utmost respect and kindness toward my individuality in return. If this right is violated, my parents will file suit. Good day!" "I have the right to call on the government to fork over extra cash if my business is in trouble. After all, as a businessman I never realized that business is a risky endeavor to be entered into with wisdom and discretion. I certainly should not be responsible for my poor decisions, and have the right to be bailed out." "I have the right to protection from my own lack of insight. If I enter into a gamble and it goes wrong, I have every right to sue the person who 'defrauded' me."
There are thousands of examples of things that are good in real genuine idealistic instances - healthcare is good, employment is good, education is good, doing business is good, investing is good! But when did we wander from "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" all the way to "Life (unless you're smaller than a pea), liberty, the pursuit of happiness, guaranteed healthcare, permanent job security despite performance, success in school without effort, good results in business endeavors, guaranteed return for investment, protection from the consequences of unwisely joining up with dishonest people, protection from any unwisdom on my part, and respect no matter how truly shameful my lifestyle may be..? We have come to believe that anything that we want is a "certain unalienable right," and feel no shame in publicly demanding it.
There was a day when Americans learned from their mistakes, bounced back from their own failures, put their lives back together when tragedy hit, and were even required to take responsibility for their own actions. When did we let the value of life deteriorate so far, demand that unknown strangers protect our liberty with their lives while we refuse to thank them, and make our pursuit of superficial happiness our god? And when...when will we ever learn how horribly wrong we are?
Monday, June 22, 2009
Staying Married Is Not About Staying In Love - Part 1 - by John Piper
Genesis 2:18-25
Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 19 Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." 24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
Between our more substantial sermon series I am taking up a few subjects that seem to me to be urgent. Marriage is always urgent. There never has been a generation whose view of marriage is high enough. The chasm between the biblical vision of marriage and the human vision is, and has always been, gargantuan. Some cultures in history respect the importance and the permanence of marriage more than others. Some, like our own, have such low, casual, take-it-or-leave-it attitudes toward marriage as to make the biblical vision seem ludicrous to most people.
Jesus’ Vision of Marriage
That was the case in Jesus’ day as well, and ours is vastly worse. When Jesus gave a glimpse of the magnificent view of marriage that God willed for his people, the disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry” (Matthew 19:10). In other words, Christ’s vision of the meaning of marriage was so enormously different from the disciples, they could not even imagine it to be a good thing. That such a vision could be good news was simply outside their categories.
If that was the case back then with the sober, Jewish world in which they lived, how much more will the magnificence of marriage in the mind of God seem unintelligible to the world we live in, where the main idol is self, and its main doctrine is autonomy, and its central act of worship is being entertained, and its two main shrines are the television and the cinema, and its most sacred genuflection is the uninhibited act of sexual intercourse. Such a culture will find the glory of marriage in the mind of Jesus virtually unintelligible. Jesus would very likely say to us today, when he had finished opening the mystery for us, the same thing he said in his day: “Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given. . . . Let the one who is able to receive this receive it” (Matthew 19:11-12).
The Biblical Vision of Marriage
So I start with the assumption that our own sin and selfishness and cultural bondage makes it almost impossible to feel the wonder of God’s purpose for marriage between a man and a woman. The fact that we live in a society that can even conceive of—let alone defend—two men or two women entering a relationship and with wild inconceivability calling it marriage, shows that the collapse of our culture into debauchery and barbarism and anarchy is probably not far away.
I mention all this in the hopes that it might possibly wake you up to consider a vision of marriage higher and deeper and stronger and more glorious than anything this culture—or perhaps you yourself—ever imagined. The greatness and glory of marriage is beyond our ability to think or feel without divine revelation and without the illumining and awakening work of the Holy Spirit. The world cannot know what marriage is without learning it from God. The natural man does not have the capacities to see or receive or feel the wonder of what God has designed for marriage to be. I pray that this message might be used by God to help set you free from small, worldly, culturally contaminated, self-centered, Christ-ignoring, God-neglecting, romance-intoxicated, unbiblical views of marriage.
Marriage Is the Display of God
The most foundational thing to see from the Bible about marriage is that it is God’s doing. And the most ultimate thing to see from the Bible about marriage is that it is for God’s glory. Those are the two points I have to make. Most foundationally, marriage is the doing of God. Most ultimately, marriage is the display of God. Let’s allow the Bible to impress these things on us one at a time.
1. Marriage Is God’s Doing
First, most foundationally, marriage is God’s doing. At least four ways to see this explicitly or implicitly are here in our text.
a) Marriage Was God’s Design
Marriage is God’s doing because it was his design in the creation of man as male and female. Of course, this was plain earlier in Genesis 1:27-28, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.’”
But it is also clear here in the flow of thought in Genesis 2:18-25. In verse 18, it is God, not man, who decrees that man’s solitude is not good, and it is God himself who sets out to complete one of the central designs of creation, namely, woman and man in marriage. “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” Don’t miss that central and all important statement: God himself will make a being perfectly suited for him—a wife.
Then he parades the animals before him so that he might see that there is no creature that qualifies. This creature must be made uniquely from man so that she will be of his essence as a human created in God’s image as Genesis 1:27 said. So we read in verses 21-22, “So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman.” God made her.
This text terminates in verses 24b-25 with the words, “They shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” In other words, it is all moving toward marriage. So the first thing to say about marriage being God’s doing is that marriage was his design in creating man male and female.
b) God Gave Away the First Bride
Marriage is God’s doing because he personally took the dignity of being the first Father to give away the bride. Genesis 2:22, “And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.” He didn’t hide her and make Adam seek. He made her; then he brought her. In a profound sense, he had fathered her. And now, though she was his by virtue of creation, he gave her to the man in this absolutely new kind of relationship called marriage, unlike every other relationship in the world.
c) God Spoke the Design of Marriage into Existence
Marriage is God’s doing because God not only created the woman with this design and brought her to the man like a Father brings his daughter to her husband, but also because God spoke the design of marriage into existence. He did this in verse 24: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Who is talking in verse 24? The writer of Genesis is talking. And what did Jesus believe about the writer of Genesis? He believed it was Moses (Luke 24:44) and that Moses was inspired by God so that what Moses said, God said. Listen carefully to Matthew 19:4-5: “[Jesus] answered, ‘Have you not read that he [God] who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said [Note: God said!], “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh”’”? Jesus said that Genesis 2:24 is the word of God. Therefore, marriage is God’s doing because he spoke the earliest design of it into existence—“A man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
d) God Performs the One-Flesh Union
Which leads us to the fourth way that marriage is God’s doing: Becoming one flesh, which is at the heart of what marriage is, is a union that God himself performs.
Verse 24 is God’s words of institution for marriage. But just as it was God who took the woman from the flesh of man (Genesis 2:21), it is God who in each marriage ordains and performs a uniting called one flesh that is not in man’s power to destroy. This is implicit here in Genesis 2:24, but Jesus makes it explicit in Mark 10:8-9. He quotes Genesis 2:24 then adds a comment that explodes like thunder with the glory of marriage. “‘The two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
When a couple speaks their vows and consummates their vows with sexual union, it is not man or woman or pastor or parent who is the main actor. God is. God joins a husband and a wife into a one-flesh union. God does that. God does that! The world does not know this. Which is one of the reasons why marriage is treated so casually. And Christians often act like they don’t know it, which is one of the reasons marriage in the church is not seen as the wonder it is. Marriage is God’s doing because it is a one-flesh union that God himself performs.
So, in sum, the most foundational thing we can say about marriage is that it is God’s doing. It was his doing:
1. because it was his design in creation;
2. because he personally gave away the first bride in marriage;
3. because he spoke the design of marriage into existence: leave parents, cleave to your wife, become one flesh;
4. and because this one-flesh union is established by God himself in each marriage.
A glimpse into the magnificence of marriage comes from seeing in God’s word that God himself is the great doer. Marriage is his doing. It is from him and through him. That is the most foundational thing we can say about marriage. And now we will see that it is to him.
2. Marriage Is for God’s Glory
The most ultimate thing to see in the Bible about marriage is that it exists for God’s glory. Most foundationally, marriage is the doing of God. Most ultimately, marriage is the display of God. It is designed by God to display his glory in a way that no other event or institution is.
The way to see this most clearly is to connect Genesis 2:24 with its use in Ephesians 5:31-32. In Genesis 2:24, God says, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” What kind of relationship is this? How are these two people held together? Can they walk away from this relationship? Can they go from spouse to spouse? Is this relationship rooted in romance? Sexual desire? Need for companionship? Cultural convenience? What is this? What holds it together?
The Mystery of Marriage Revealed
The words “hold fast to his wife” and the words “they shall become one flesh” point to something far deeper and more permanent than serial marriages and occasional adultery. What these words point to is marriage as a sacred covenant rooted in covenant commitments that stand against every storm of “as long as we both shall live.” But that is only implicit here. It becomes explicit when the mystery of marriage is more fully revealed in Ephesians 5:31-32.
Paul quotes Genesis 2:24 in verse 31, “‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’” And then he gives it this all-important interpretation in verse 32: “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” In other words, marriage is patterned after Christ’s covenant commitment to his church. Christ thought of himself as the bridegroom coming for his bride, the true people of God (Matthew 9:15; 25:1ff; John 3:29). Paul knew his ministry was to gather the bride—the true people of God who would trust Christ—and betroth us to him. He says in 2 Corinthians 11:2, “I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.”
Christ knew he would have to pay the dowry of his own blood for his redeemed bride. He called this relationship the new covenant—“This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20). This is what Paul is referring to when he says that marriage is a great mystery: “I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” Christ obtained the church by his blood and formed a new covenant with her, an unbreakable “marriage.”
The most ultimate thing we can say about marriage is that it exists for God’s glory. That is, it exists to display God. Now we see how: Marriage is patterned after Christ’s covenant relationship to the church. And therefore the highest meaning and the most ultimate purpose of marriage is to put the covenant relationship of Christ and his church on display. That is why marriage exists. If you are married, that is why you are married.
Christ Will Never Leave His Wife
Staying married, therefore, is not about staying in love. It is about keeping covenant. “Till death do us part,” or, “As long as we both shall live” is sacred covenant promise—the same kind Jesus made with his bride when he died for her. Therefore, what makes divorce and remarriage so horrific in God’s eyes is not merely that it involves covenant breaking to the spouse, but that it involves misrepresenting Christ and his covenant. Christ will never leave his wife. Ever. There may be times of painful distance and tragic backsliding on our part. But Christ keeps his covenant forever. Marriage is a display of that! That is the most ultimate thing we can say about it.
I have so much more I want to say at this point. So I have decided to stay with this topic next week. Here is where we will go, Lord willing. Genesis 2:25 says, “And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” Why does the biblical story of the foundation of marriage end on that note just before the Fall? The answer will lead us, I think, to some very practical counsel that I pray will help us in our marriages fulfill the great purposes God has for us.
For now, would you pray with me that God will replace in the church and in our land self-exalting, marriage-destroying, unbiblical commitments to cater to our emotional desires with Christ-exalting, marriage-honoring, biblical commitments to keep our covenants?
© Desiring God
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on our website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Desiring God.
Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org
Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 19 Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." 24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
Between our more substantial sermon series I am taking up a few subjects that seem to me to be urgent. Marriage is always urgent. There never has been a generation whose view of marriage is high enough. The chasm between the biblical vision of marriage and the human vision is, and has always been, gargantuan. Some cultures in history respect the importance and the permanence of marriage more than others. Some, like our own, have such low, casual, take-it-or-leave-it attitudes toward marriage as to make the biblical vision seem ludicrous to most people.
Jesus’ Vision of Marriage
That was the case in Jesus’ day as well, and ours is vastly worse. When Jesus gave a glimpse of the magnificent view of marriage that God willed for his people, the disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry” (Matthew 19:10). In other words, Christ’s vision of the meaning of marriage was so enormously different from the disciples, they could not even imagine it to be a good thing. That such a vision could be good news was simply outside their categories.
If that was the case back then with the sober, Jewish world in which they lived, how much more will the magnificence of marriage in the mind of God seem unintelligible to the world we live in, where the main idol is self, and its main doctrine is autonomy, and its central act of worship is being entertained, and its two main shrines are the television and the cinema, and its most sacred genuflection is the uninhibited act of sexual intercourse. Such a culture will find the glory of marriage in the mind of Jesus virtually unintelligible. Jesus would very likely say to us today, when he had finished opening the mystery for us, the same thing he said in his day: “Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given. . . . Let the one who is able to receive this receive it” (Matthew 19:11-12).
The Biblical Vision of Marriage
So I start with the assumption that our own sin and selfishness and cultural bondage makes it almost impossible to feel the wonder of God’s purpose for marriage between a man and a woman. The fact that we live in a society that can even conceive of—let alone defend—two men or two women entering a relationship and with wild inconceivability calling it marriage, shows that the collapse of our culture into debauchery and barbarism and anarchy is probably not far away.
I mention all this in the hopes that it might possibly wake you up to consider a vision of marriage higher and deeper and stronger and more glorious than anything this culture—or perhaps you yourself—ever imagined. The greatness and glory of marriage is beyond our ability to think or feel without divine revelation and without the illumining and awakening work of the Holy Spirit. The world cannot know what marriage is without learning it from God. The natural man does not have the capacities to see or receive or feel the wonder of what God has designed for marriage to be. I pray that this message might be used by God to help set you free from small, worldly, culturally contaminated, self-centered, Christ-ignoring, God-neglecting, romance-intoxicated, unbiblical views of marriage.
Marriage Is the Display of God
The most foundational thing to see from the Bible about marriage is that it is God’s doing. And the most ultimate thing to see from the Bible about marriage is that it is for God’s glory. Those are the two points I have to make. Most foundationally, marriage is the doing of God. Most ultimately, marriage is the display of God. Let’s allow the Bible to impress these things on us one at a time.
1. Marriage Is God’s Doing
First, most foundationally, marriage is God’s doing. At least four ways to see this explicitly or implicitly are here in our text.
a) Marriage Was God’s Design
Marriage is God’s doing because it was his design in the creation of man as male and female. Of course, this was plain earlier in Genesis 1:27-28, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.’”
But it is also clear here in the flow of thought in Genesis 2:18-25. In verse 18, it is God, not man, who decrees that man’s solitude is not good, and it is God himself who sets out to complete one of the central designs of creation, namely, woman and man in marriage. “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” Don’t miss that central and all important statement: God himself will make a being perfectly suited for him—a wife.
Then he parades the animals before him so that he might see that there is no creature that qualifies. This creature must be made uniquely from man so that she will be of his essence as a human created in God’s image as Genesis 1:27 said. So we read in verses 21-22, “So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman.” God made her.
This text terminates in verses 24b-25 with the words, “They shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” In other words, it is all moving toward marriage. So the first thing to say about marriage being God’s doing is that marriage was his design in creating man male and female.
b) God Gave Away the First Bride
Marriage is God’s doing because he personally took the dignity of being the first Father to give away the bride. Genesis 2:22, “And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.” He didn’t hide her and make Adam seek. He made her; then he brought her. In a profound sense, he had fathered her. And now, though she was his by virtue of creation, he gave her to the man in this absolutely new kind of relationship called marriage, unlike every other relationship in the world.
c) God Spoke the Design of Marriage into Existence
Marriage is God’s doing because God not only created the woman with this design and brought her to the man like a Father brings his daughter to her husband, but also because God spoke the design of marriage into existence. He did this in verse 24: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Who is talking in verse 24? The writer of Genesis is talking. And what did Jesus believe about the writer of Genesis? He believed it was Moses (Luke 24:44) and that Moses was inspired by God so that what Moses said, God said. Listen carefully to Matthew 19:4-5: “[Jesus] answered, ‘Have you not read that he [God] who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said [Note: God said!], “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh”’”? Jesus said that Genesis 2:24 is the word of God. Therefore, marriage is God’s doing because he spoke the earliest design of it into existence—“A man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
d) God Performs the One-Flesh Union
Which leads us to the fourth way that marriage is God’s doing: Becoming one flesh, which is at the heart of what marriage is, is a union that God himself performs.
Verse 24 is God’s words of institution for marriage. But just as it was God who took the woman from the flesh of man (Genesis 2:21), it is God who in each marriage ordains and performs a uniting called one flesh that is not in man’s power to destroy. This is implicit here in Genesis 2:24, but Jesus makes it explicit in Mark 10:8-9. He quotes Genesis 2:24 then adds a comment that explodes like thunder with the glory of marriage. “‘The two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
When a couple speaks their vows and consummates their vows with sexual union, it is not man or woman or pastor or parent who is the main actor. God is. God joins a husband and a wife into a one-flesh union. God does that. God does that! The world does not know this. Which is one of the reasons why marriage is treated so casually. And Christians often act like they don’t know it, which is one of the reasons marriage in the church is not seen as the wonder it is. Marriage is God’s doing because it is a one-flesh union that God himself performs.
So, in sum, the most foundational thing we can say about marriage is that it is God’s doing. It was his doing:
1. because it was his design in creation;
2. because he personally gave away the first bride in marriage;
3. because he spoke the design of marriage into existence: leave parents, cleave to your wife, become one flesh;
4. and because this one-flesh union is established by God himself in each marriage.
A glimpse into the magnificence of marriage comes from seeing in God’s word that God himself is the great doer. Marriage is his doing. It is from him and through him. That is the most foundational thing we can say about marriage. And now we will see that it is to him.
2. Marriage Is for God’s Glory
The most ultimate thing to see in the Bible about marriage is that it exists for God’s glory. Most foundationally, marriage is the doing of God. Most ultimately, marriage is the display of God. It is designed by God to display his glory in a way that no other event or institution is.
The way to see this most clearly is to connect Genesis 2:24 with its use in Ephesians 5:31-32. In Genesis 2:24, God says, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” What kind of relationship is this? How are these two people held together? Can they walk away from this relationship? Can they go from spouse to spouse? Is this relationship rooted in romance? Sexual desire? Need for companionship? Cultural convenience? What is this? What holds it together?
The Mystery of Marriage Revealed
The words “hold fast to his wife” and the words “they shall become one flesh” point to something far deeper and more permanent than serial marriages and occasional adultery. What these words point to is marriage as a sacred covenant rooted in covenant commitments that stand against every storm of “as long as we both shall live.” But that is only implicit here. It becomes explicit when the mystery of marriage is more fully revealed in Ephesians 5:31-32.
Paul quotes Genesis 2:24 in verse 31, “‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’” And then he gives it this all-important interpretation in verse 32: “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” In other words, marriage is patterned after Christ’s covenant commitment to his church. Christ thought of himself as the bridegroom coming for his bride, the true people of God (Matthew 9:15; 25:1ff; John 3:29). Paul knew his ministry was to gather the bride—the true people of God who would trust Christ—and betroth us to him. He says in 2 Corinthians 11:2, “I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.”
Christ knew he would have to pay the dowry of his own blood for his redeemed bride. He called this relationship the new covenant—“This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20). This is what Paul is referring to when he says that marriage is a great mystery: “I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” Christ obtained the church by his blood and formed a new covenant with her, an unbreakable “marriage.”
The most ultimate thing we can say about marriage is that it exists for God’s glory. That is, it exists to display God. Now we see how: Marriage is patterned after Christ’s covenant relationship to the church. And therefore the highest meaning and the most ultimate purpose of marriage is to put the covenant relationship of Christ and his church on display. That is why marriage exists. If you are married, that is why you are married.
Christ Will Never Leave His Wife
Staying married, therefore, is not about staying in love. It is about keeping covenant. “Till death do us part,” or, “As long as we both shall live” is sacred covenant promise—the same kind Jesus made with his bride when he died for her. Therefore, what makes divorce and remarriage so horrific in God’s eyes is not merely that it involves covenant breaking to the spouse, but that it involves misrepresenting Christ and his covenant. Christ will never leave his wife. Ever. There may be times of painful distance and tragic backsliding on our part. But Christ keeps his covenant forever. Marriage is a display of that! That is the most ultimate thing we can say about it.
I have so much more I want to say at this point. So I have decided to stay with this topic next week. Here is where we will go, Lord willing. Genesis 2:25 says, “And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” Why does the biblical story of the foundation of marriage end on that note just before the Fall? The answer will lead us, I think, to some very practical counsel that I pray will help us in our marriages fulfill the great purposes God has for us.
For now, would you pray with me that God will replace in the church and in our land self-exalting, marriage-destroying, unbiblical commitments to cater to our emotional desires with Christ-exalting, marriage-honoring, biblical commitments to keep our covenants?
© Desiring God
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on our website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Desiring God.
Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org
Saturday, April 18, 2009
First Degree Righteousness
"How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked,
Nor stand in the path of sinners,
Nor sit in the seat of scoffers!
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
And in His law he meditates day and night.
He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water,
Which yields its fruit in its season
And its leaf does not whither;
And in whatever he does, he prospers."
Psalm 1:1-3
Now, I've read this verse dozens of times, and every previous time, I have thought of "meditate" in terms of contemplation or musing...mulling it over, so to speak. This is a good thing to do - mulling over God's Word in your head - and is Biblical. But this time that I read it, I looked up the word 'meditate' and found:
"Meditate: (verb) 1. (used without an object) to engage in thought or contemplation; reflect, muse. 2. (used with an object) to consider as something to be done or effected; intend, plan." (dictionary.com)
he | meditates : law
That's a make-shift diagram of the key clause in that sentence. The word "in" is used, but based on the context, I would not consider it to create a prepositional phrase, as one does not literally meditate "in" the law of the Lord, as if it were a place. Therefore "His law," in my estimation, is the direct object. 'And he meditates on His law day and night,' could be another way to phrase it.
If 'His law'' is the direct object of 'meditates,' then the second definition given is the more accurate one. This 'blessed' man meditates on God's Word "considering it as something to be done!" He plans on DOING God's Word! This makes perfect sense. You see, I'm sure you've noticed that righteousness is not natural. It is always brought about by something, if not a number of factors such as conscience (which is gift of God to the saved and the unsaved), the prompting of the Holy Spirit, the conviction brought by God's Word, etc, etc. Point being, we cannot sit idly by and expect righteousness to just happen! At the very least we must take action to simply be sensitive to our consciences. We preserve our conscience by not walking in the counsel of the wicked, or standing in the path of sinners, or sitting in the seat of scoffers. We must not allow ourselves to get comfortable with sin (note: walk -> stand -> sit portrays progressive comfortability). We invite the prompting of the Holy Spirit by communing with Him and delighting in His law. We guarantee the working of the Word by meditating on it day and night; and not just musing either! We must consider it as something to be done! We must pursue "first degree righteousness" - fully planned, and intentionally pursued - premeditated.
Nor stand in the path of sinners,
Nor sit in the seat of scoffers!
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
And in His law he meditates day and night.
He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water,
Which yields its fruit in its season
And its leaf does not whither;
And in whatever he does, he prospers."
Psalm 1:1-3
Now, I've read this verse dozens of times, and every previous time, I have thought of "meditate" in terms of contemplation or musing...mulling it over, so to speak. This is a good thing to do - mulling over God's Word in your head - and is Biblical. But this time that I read it, I looked up the word 'meditate' and found:
"Meditate: (verb) 1. (used without an object) to engage in thought or contemplation; reflect, muse. 2. (used with an object) to consider as something to be done or effected; intend, plan." (dictionary.com)
he | meditates : law
That's a make-shift diagram of the key clause in that sentence. The word "in" is used, but based on the context, I would not consider it to create a prepositional phrase, as one does not literally meditate "in" the law of the Lord, as if it were a place. Therefore "His law," in my estimation, is the direct object. 'And he meditates on His law day and night,' could be another way to phrase it.
If 'His law'' is the direct object of 'meditates,' then the second definition given is the more accurate one. This 'blessed' man meditates on God's Word "considering it as something to be done!" He plans on DOING God's Word! This makes perfect sense. You see, I'm sure you've noticed that righteousness is not natural. It is always brought about by something, if not a number of factors such as conscience (which is gift of God to the saved and the unsaved), the prompting of the Holy Spirit, the conviction brought by God's Word, etc, etc. Point being, we cannot sit idly by and expect righteousness to just happen! At the very least we must take action to simply be sensitive to our consciences. We preserve our conscience by not walking in the counsel of the wicked, or standing in the path of sinners, or sitting in the seat of scoffers. We must not allow ourselves to get comfortable with sin (note: walk -> stand -> sit portrays progressive comfortability). We invite the prompting of the Holy Spirit by communing with Him and delighting in His law. We guarantee the working of the Word by meditating on it day and night; and not just musing either! We must consider it as something to be done! We must pursue "first degree righteousness" - fully planned, and intentionally pursued - premeditated.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Post-Holidays Update
Well, things are finally winding down after a very hectic but wonderful holiday season:) Kyle and I spent the weekend before Thanksgiving moving into our new apartment. We are loving the whole "our place" experience, probably moreso than with our last apartment. We're very centrally located, within 3 minutes of four grocery stores, a couple of department stores, the freeway, the bank, and the city park. We're within 15 minutes of both our families. Our new apartment is just right for us, right now:) It's a one-bedroom apartment in the best complex in the valley - not the fanciest, but definitely the best. Soon after moving in, we purchased several things that our apartment 'needed,' (we're being flexible with that term here) many with the help of generous friends and family:) We were given a nice like-new recliner, we bought a sofa/love-seat set for only $150, we were able to afford a nice television, and Kyle built a tv stand, perfectly suited to the odd arrangement of our living room. It wasn't long before the place began to feel homey:) I'll try to post some pictures at some point:)
The holidays were, of course, busy but great:) We spent Thanksgiving with my family, and the day after with Kyle's family, minus Cory who is stationed in Florida. As we transitioned into the Christmas season, we were determined to thoroughly enjoy Christmas - as many of you know, last Christmas was taken over by weddings. So this year, we made a point of including luxuries such as snuggling by the fire, watching Christmas movies, going to see Christmas light displays around town, and even (would you believe it?) playing in the snow!!! That's right, we got snow! Six whole inches of it! In our little patch of desert, that truly is a Christmas miracle;) Kyle and I spent a whole morning walking to the park down the street and playing in the snow:) I realized that Lancaster actually looks quite beautiful when all the dirt is covered up with snow!;)
As part of our determination to thoroughly enjoy Christmas, I took the whole week of Christmas off of work:) It was a WONDERFUL week!:) I got to spend nearly the whole week with Kyle, without worrying about having to wake up at 4:00 the next morning:) That in itself was a beautiful feeling;) We enjoyed spending the week together, alone and with family, and had a great Christmas with both families:)
Soon after Christmas, Kyle's parents got a call from Cory, saying that he would be flying out to visit for two weeks around New Years! That was exciting news, since we all thought Cory wouldn't be able to take leave time this holiday season. Kyle's parents were going to be out of town the first couple of days that Cory was in town - he sprung it as a surprise, so they'd already made plans - so Cory spent the first few days with us:) It has been great seeing Cory again, and we all wish he could stay longer! He will be flying back to Florida tomorrow:( I've grown a little bit protective of my new "little" brother, and will miss having him around. I am hoping that when Cory moves out to San Diego for BUDS (Navy Seal training), he will be able to visit a little bit more often, being a few hours away instead of across the country. We'll see, I suppose:) In the mean time, he has been doing very well in the Navy:)
After all the holiday craziness died down, Kyle and I did take the liberty of spending some gift money that various friends and family sent - we will be sending out real thank you cards, but 'Thank You!' to everyone who sent such generous gifts:) We bought a few lovely accent pieces for our apartment, including a great big clock that now hangs over our fireplace:) It looks great! We also bought some nice Christmas decorations, which will help make our home look more festive for years to come:) The rest of the gift money we received, we actually split, as Kyle was itching to buy a game system, haha. So, we are now the proud owners of an XBOX-360 (which Kyle, Cory, Kevin and Brian are currently playing), haha:) I found a beautiful little sewing kit and some plain white handkerchiefs, which I am embroidering, as well as a few 'new-to-me' teacups for my collection, and a lovely little display stand so that my teacups don't have to hide in the cupboard anymore:) Needless to say, Christmas was a complete outpouring of blessings for us! The best part, in my opinion, is that, in part due to many of the things we've been blessed with lately, our home has become the place to hang out for the young people in our church, whether it be for Bible study, video games, or a pot of tea and conversation! I love hearing the occasional, "Your place is comfy!" or hearing video-game-playing before I even open the door. I wouldn't trade a welcoming apartment for the fanciest house in the world:) I have loved having a full house most evenings, and hope that it stays that way:)
Well, I suppose that's pretty much all the news for now. I really need to update more frequently...I will try! Until next time..!:)
The holidays were, of course, busy but great:) We spent Thanksgiving with my family, and the day after with Kyle's family, minus Cory who is stationed in Florida. As we transitioned into the Christmas season, we were determined to thoroughly enjoy Christmas - as many of you know, last Christmas was taken over by weddings. So this year, we made a point of including luxuries such as snuggling by the fire, watching Christmas movies, going to see Christmas light displays around town, and even (would you believe it?) playing in the snow!!! That's right, we got snow! Six whole inches of it! In our little patch of desert, that truly is a Christmas miracle;) Kyle and I spent a whole morning walking to the park down the street and playing in the snow:) I realized that Lancaster actually looks quite beautiful when all the dirt is covered up with snow!;)
As part of our determination to thoroughly enjoy Christmas, I took the whole week of Christmas off of work:) It was a WONDERFUL week!:) I got to spend nearly the whole week with Kyle, without worrying about having to wake up at 4:00 the next morning:) That in itself was a beautiful feeling;) We enjoyed spending the week together, alone and with family, and had a great Christmas with both families:)
Soon after Christmas, Kyle's parents got a call from Cory, saying that he would be flying out to visit for two weeks around New Years! That was exciting news, since we all thought Cory wouldn't be able to take leave time this holiday season. Kyle's parents were going to be out of town the first couple of days that Cory was in town - he sprung it as a surprise, so they'd already made plans - so Cory spent the first few days with us:) It has been great seeing Cory again, and we all wish he could stay longer! He will be flying back to Florida tomorrow:( I've grown a little bit protective of my new "little" brother, and will miss having him around. I am hoping that when Cory moves out to San Diego for BUDS (Navy Seal training), he will be able to visit a little bit more often, being a few hours away instead of across the country. We'll see, I suppose:) In the mean time, he has been doing very well in the Navy:)
After all the holiday craziness died down, Kyle and I did take the liberty of spending some gift money that various friends and family sent - we will be sending out real thank you cards, but 'Thank You!' to everyone who sent such generous gifts:) We bought a few lovely accent pieces for our apartment, including a great big clock that now hangs over our fireplace:) It looks great! We also bought some nice Christmas decorations, which will help make our home look more festive for years to come:) The rest of the gift money we received, we actually split, as Kyle was itching to buy a game system, haha. So, we are now the proud owners of an XBOX-360 (which Kyle, Cory, Kevin and Brian are currently playing), haha:) I found a beautiful little sewing kit and some plain white handkerchiefs, which I am embroidering, as well as a few 'new-to-me' teacups for my collection, and a lovely little display stand so that my teacups don't have to hide in the cupboard anymore:) Needless to say, Christmas was a complete outpouring of blessings for us! The best part, in my opinion, is that, in part due to many of the things we've been blessed with lately, our home has become the place to hang out for the young people in our church, whether it be for Bible study, video games, or a pot of tea and conversation! I love hearing the occasional, "Your place is comfy!" or hearing video-game-playing before I even open the door. I wouldn't trade a welcoming apartment for the fanciest house in the world:) I have loved having a full house most evenings, and hope that it stays that way:)
Well, I suppose that's pretty much all the news for now. I really need to update more frequently...I will try! Until next time..!:)
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