Entries from my journal...

I was thumbing through my journal this morning and it occurred to me that maybe it would be a good idea to post some of my thoughts here at the kitchen table. I use my journal for writing down all sorts of things -- travel diaries, thoughts that occur to me, studying particular passages of Scripture, and assignments for Bible studies I’m doing. Here are a few random entries...

June 18, 2004 --”The year is speeding by, and already it is June. I delight in having my quiet time on the screened porch, surrounded by greenery, fresh breezes, and birdsong.
“I’ve been reading through the Gospels, and today was in Mark 1. In the account of the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, it says that when she was healed, she ‘rose and ministered unto’ Peter and his friends. I imagine she served them a meal. How often we suppose ‘Christian service’ to be some grand and glorious work, when most often it is doing the everyday things as unto Him.” I liked this quote:

“A great many persons are always sighing for opportunities to minister to Christ, imagining some fine and splendid service which they would like to render. Meantime they let slip past their hands the very things in which Christ wants them to serve Him. True ministry to Christ is doing first of all and well one’s daily duties.”
-- J.R. Miller, Come Ye Apart

January 9, 2005 -- “Just wanted to quickly record here a beautiful sight we saw on the way to church yesterday morning. Every ice-coated stem of weed or grass sparkled like crystal icicles. And the smooth surfaces of new snow looked exactly as if they had been sprinkled with white glitter. Oh, the amazing beauty of God’s creation, and the ‘treasures of the snow’!”

May 12, 2005 -- “Out for a daily walk, I spotted it on the roadside: a gorgeous violet, with leaves as glossy and healthy and blossoms as deeply purple as any well-tended houseplant. Yet what were its surroundings? Dry, inhospitable gravel. It stood out against a background of stony gravel and sparse weeds, yet it bloomed so extravagantly. Just another illustration of how we’re to bloom where God plants us, how we are to rise above our circumstances, and how we’re to stand out from the world around us.”

February 8, 2006 -- “I’ve been impressed [through the study God’s Wisdom for a Woman’s Life] with the crucial importance of living out my faith before my children. Even though they are grown and gone, with families of their own, and my structured times of teaching them are long over, yet they are observing me and my actions and reactions to the issues of life. I don’t want them to see someone who is shallow or is merely ‘playing church’. I want them to see an example of victorious Christian living and true faith. I liked this quote I found concerning Eunice: ‘Timothy received the gift of life twice from his mother. She gave him birth and then showed him what a life of faith could be.’
“May I be consistently showing my children what a life of faith looks like in daily practice! To do this, I need to stay close to the Lord and live in obedience to His Word.”