Status Updates From Secure in the Everlasting Arms

^The vow creates the couple, not the couple the vow.^

^A holiday is a holy day, meant to be hallowed—meant also to hallow the rest of life. Alexander Schmemann says that to the man of the past, “a feast was not merely a ‘break’ in an otherwise meaningless and hard life of work, but a justification of that work, its fruit, its—so to speak—transformation into joy and therefore into freedom.^

^Any who long for holiness must learn that that quality cannot be merely “bestowed” on us. Holiness is a lifetime process which requires suffering.^

^I wish I knew the author:

Help me to live this day quietly, easily;
To lean upon Thy great strength trustfully, restfully;
To meet others peacefully, joyously;
To face tomorrow confidently, courageously.^

^But I always remember the donkey—he was not proud. He knew that the palms and hosannas were not for him. They were for Jesus! So when I’m given compliments I make a little bouquet of them at the end of the day, and I give my bouquet to Jesus.^

^Thanksgiving brings contentment.
[…]
Discontent dried up the soul.^

^The trivial round, the common task,
Will furnish all we ought to ask—
Room to deny ourselves, a road
To bring us daily nearer to God.
(John Keble, 1822)^

^The world is full of noise. As Wordsworth said, “Late and soon, getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.” Might we not set ourselves to learn silence, stillness, solitude?^

^It is always possible to do the will of God. In every place and time it is within our power to acquiesce in the will of God.^

^He [George MacDonald] writes, “Questions imply answers. If God has put the question in my heart, then He must hold the answer in His. I will seek them from Him. I will wait, but not until I have knocked. I will be patient, but not until I have asked. I will seek until I find. He has something for me. My prayers shall go up unto the God of my life” (Unspoken Sermons, First series, “The Higher Faith”)^

^But in the meantime, the world must be shown. There has to be living proof that some men and some women today actually love God and will do exactly what He says.^

^Mystery is something we must all come to terms with. "If God were small enough to be understood He would not be big enough to worshipped." (Evelyn Underhill).

^C.S. Lewis said that God whispers to us in our joys, speaks to us in our conscience, and shouts to us in our pain.^

cont’d

And it’s amazing what rest comes from the gentle fitting of self to its sphere.^

^John S. Dwight (1813-93) said, “Rest is the fitting of self to its sphere.” If in my “sphere” I find things out of place through someone else’s fault this is my opportunity to fit myself, to give a little, to do the small thing that should have been done by the other. Love is very patient, very kind, never rude, never selfish.

^We learn to love Him as we learn to “frame our heart to the burden,” as Samuel Rutherford said.^

^As I reminded my daughter Valerie’s (in the book I wrote as a wedding present to her, Let Me Be A Woman), you marry a sinner. There simply isn’t anything else to marry. So the husband sins against the wife and—let us wives not forget—he, too married a sinner.^

^But having been at this a good number of years, I am more and more aware of the difficulty of helping people to turn their eyes to Jesus. The world is, as Wordsworth put it, too much with us.^

Wordsworth again! I’m seeing it in so many different books!

^John Henry Newman (1801-1890) wrote, “To take up the cross of Christ is no great action done once for all; it consists in the continual practice of small duties which are distasteful to us.”^

cont’d

Do not crave so much to be perfect, but let your spiritual life be formed by your duties, and by the actions which are called forth by circumstances. Do not take overmuch thought for tomorrow. God, who has led you safely on so far, will lead you on to the end. Be altogether at rest in the loving holy confidence which you ought to have in His heavenly Providence.” (St. Francis de Sales)^

cont’d

New treasures still, of countless price,
God will provide for sacrifice.

The trivial round, the common task,
Will furnish all we ought to ask;
Room to deny ourselves—a road
To bring us daily nearer God.

”Go in all simplicity; do not be anxious to win a quiet mind, and it will be all the quieter. Do not examine so closely into the progress of your soul.