Surprised by Oxford

by Carolyn Weber

Your children are only young once. Your marriage provides you a chance to put someone else first daily. Such things refine your soul.”

“The point is, if you have your identity in any of these things, it’s surefire disappointment. Anything man-made—or woman-made, for that matter—will and does fail you. Having my identity in Christ first and foremost gives me the courage—yes, the courage—to live my life boldly, purposefully, in everything I do, no matter what that is.”

Don’t underestimate the power and importance of celebration. It should be our perpetual way of life—we shouldn’t be folks too rushed to say hello, or too beaten to bless, but a people recalling joy.”

“Churches are far from perfect, as fallible institutions, consisting of fallible people, in a fallible world,” Rachel conceded. “But when they do work, there is nothing like them. There is no greater high than experiencing the love of God in action among His people, for His people, and for the world.”

How my friends who grew up in Christian homes took their gifts of faith from their parents for granted! How prayer came as second nature, an obvious problem-solver or comfort or alternative to panic, anxiety, and fear. They took for granted the powerful pause of grace before meals. How oblivious they could seem to the precious and effective armor they had been given: to have the gift of faith from your childhood, to lean into it and grow into it . . . to even have the luxury to rebel against it.

My femininity is not an issue for me; it is a gift from God. The problem lies with how the world deals with my femininity, not with how I was made in God’s image, out of His pleasure. What God created was good.”

God knows each of us so well and for so long—since before the beginning of time—that He knows what best touches our hearts. And”—he gave me a wink—“our heels.”

Yes, Caro, He works in ways that surprise us—in order for us to know Him and choose to live with Him forever. For not only is He a merciful God, a great God, and a personal God, but He is also a serendipitous one, found in places we might never imagine, or rationalize, for that matter.