Archive for January, 2006

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What Then Is The God I Worship?

Tuesday, January 31st, 2006

An excerpt from Augustine’s confessions:

What, then, is the God I worship? He can be none other but the Lord God himself, for “who but the Lord is God? What other refuge can there be, except our God? You, my God, are supreme, utmost in goodness, mightiest and all powerful, most merciful and most just. You are the most hidden from us and yet the most present amongst us, the most beautiful and yet the most strong, ever enduring and yet we cannot comprehend you. You are unchangeable and yet you change all things. You are never new, never old, and yet all things have new life from you. You are the unseen power that brings decline upon the proud. You are ever active, yet always at rest. You gather all things to yourself, though you suffer no need. You support, you fill, and you protect all things. You create them, nourish them, and bring them to perfection. You seek to make them your own, though you lack for nothing. You love your creatures, but with a gentle love. You treasure them but without apprehension. You grieve for wrong but suffer no pain. You can be angry and yet serene. Your works are varied, but your purpose is one and the same. You welcome all who come to you, though you never lost them. You are never in need yet are glad to gain, never covetous yet you exact a return for your gifts. We give abundantly to you so that we may deserve a reward; yet which of us has anything that does not come from you? You repay us what we deserve, and yet you owe nothing to any. You release us from our debts, but you lose nothing thereby. You are my God, my Life, my holy Delight, but is this enough to say of you? Can any man say enough when he speaks of you? Yet woe betide those who are silent about you! For even those who are most gifted with speech cannot find words to describe you.

Coram Deo! Graciebird

Posted in Christian | 2 Comments »

In 1492

Tuesday, January 31st, 2006

The Only Important Part

In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue. That’s all that matters.

Wikipedia is an ineresting way to get information.

A couple of questions for your consideration; ;)

Was Columbus Jewish?

Did capturing slaves from the islands lead to the first major battle between the Spanish and the Indians in the New World?

These are interesting questions to ponder and are up for discussion.

You can read the article about Columbus here.

Coram Deo! Grace

Posted in Thoughts | No Comments »

Pinocchio

Saturday, January 28th, 2006

Pinocchio is a creepy movie. It freaks me out. Little boys that turn into donkeys and wooden dolls that can talk. Bad guys that steal little boys and take them away to places where they are allowed to be as wild as they want. My conscience is a cricket and the story involves a whacky toymaker whose brain has gone cukoo by having to listen to dozens of clocks chime every hour.

The chase scene with Monstro is pretty thrilling though…

Coram Deo! Graciebird

Posted in Thoughts, Weird | 10 Comments »

A Few Thoughts on Perfection

Wednesday, January 25th, 2006

I want to talk right, feel right, look right, do right, think right, and know right. I want to accomplish 2 hours of math and get every problem correct. I want to love my brothers and sisters perfectly and without ceasing. I want to read my bible in the morning without forgetting.

I all want these things, and most of us can’t say that we haven’t wanted them. But achieving perfection in our daily lives is much harder than just talking about it. There is much more to it than just thinking good thoughts and imagining life perfected. I would like to imagine a perfect life, but I know that I cannot get there unless I try, and I can only do all things in Christ who strengthens me.

These past mornings I have been striving very much to keep up my regular bible reading. I will by no means feel that I can just easily remember and pick up a bible to read it in the mornings. Though I might do it over and over hundreds of times, I know that sometime in the future I will forget to sit down and read it in the morning. I feel ashamed sometimes, knowing how very little I do read the bible. This is God’s word, and it is rumored to be bread to eat and water to drink. I feel that I shall find these rumors to be true, and I pray that God will daily increase my zeal to read His word.

I am working towards perfection, and I know who my model is. It is Christ Himself.

Coram Deo! Graciebird

Posted in Christian, Learning | 5 Comments »

Jesus I My Cross Have Taken

Saturday, January 21st, 2006

This is a hymn that we are going to sing on Sunday. Since my accomplished sister (much more accomplished than me) is the one playing most of the music for church I got to sing this before Sunday. The words are very uplifting.

1. Jesus, I my cross have taken,
All to leave and follow Thee.
Destitute, despised, forsaken,
Thou from hence my all shall be.
Perish every fond ambition,
All I’ve sought or hoped or known.
Yet how rich is my condition!
God and heaven are still my own.

2. Let the world despise and leave me,
They have left my Savior, too.
Human hearts and looks deceive me;
Thou art not, like them, untrue.
O while Thou dost smile upon me,
God of wisdom, love, and might,
Foes may hate and friends disown me,
Show Thy face and all is bright.

3. Man may trouble and distress me,
’Twill but drive me to Thy breast.
Life with trials hard may press me;
Heaven will bring me sweeter rest.
Oh, ’tis not in grief to harm me
While Thy love is left to me;
Oh, ’twere not in joy to charm me,
Were that joy unmixed with Thee.

4. Go, then, earthly fame and treasure,
Come disaster, scorn and pain
In Thy service, pain is pleasure,
With Thy favor, loss is gain
I have called Thee Abba Father,
I have stayed my heart on Thee
Storms may howl, and clouds may gather;
All must work for good to me.

5. Soul, then know thy full salvation
Rise o’er sin and fear and care
Joy to find in every station,
Something still to do or bear.
Think what Spirit dwells within thee,
Think what Father’s smiles are thine,
Think that Jesus died to win thee,
Child of heaven, canst thou repine.

6. Haste thee on from grace to glory,
Armed by faith, and winged by prayer.
Heaven’s eternal days before thee,
God’s own hand shall guide us there.
Soon shall close thy earthly mission,
Soon shall pass thy pilgrim days,
Hope shall change to glad fruition,
Faith to sight, and prayer to praise.

Coram Deo! Grace

Posted in Christian, Songs | No Comments »

Back Home

Saturday, January 21st, 2006

Finally! We were beginning to wonder where they were!

A welcome back to the Blacks. Thanks be to God for keeping them safe on their journey.

Coram Deo! Graciebird

Posted in Adventure, Blogging, Christian | 2 Comments »

Singing

Wednesday, January 18th, 2006

The feeling of my heart pulsing as I close my eyes is taking over my body. My blood is racing and flooding my cheeks. My forehead and hair are damp with sweat and I feel as if I’m floating as I walk along, a feeling I’ve had many times in my dreams. I make it sound as if I am sick, on the contrary, I have never felt more alive than when I finish my twenty minute jog.

I think it was friendship that inspired me to sing. If my friends are able to sing so beautifuly, then I certainly want to try and at least mimic their voices.

I am not sure however, if my sister can stand me singing beside her for much longer. When I really use what the Lord gave me, and that’s volume, then I think that she has a hard time hearing the notes that she is playing. It is a lot of fun, though, to just jump in and start singing the songs that she plays.

I hope to impove. I find that hymns are really good warm ups for my voice, and that The Phantom of the Opera songs, aren’t quite as hard as they sound. I like The Prince of Egypt vocals, but they have a lot of Jewish words in them that I avoid pronouncing. I am also enjoying the sounds of Beauty and the Beast and Les Miserables, though we had to take a marker to that one.

Did you know I’m coming down with a cold?

O sing unto the LORD a new song: sing unto the LORD, all the earth.

Coram Deo! Graciebird

Posted in Songs, Thoughts | 3 Comments »

Pride and Prejudice

Saturday, January 14th, 2006

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

” . . . I could easily forgive HIS pride, if he had not mortified MINE.”

“Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.”

“A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony, in a moment.”
“The power of doing anything with quickness is always prized much by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance.”

“Mr. Wickham is blessed with such happy manners as may ensure his MAKING friends–whether he may be equally capable of RETAINING them, is less certain.”

Mr. Collins was not a sensible man, and the deficiency of nature had been but little assisted by education or society . . .

“Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.”

“For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?”

” . . . it is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are the result of previous study?”

Coram Deo! Gracebird

Posted in quotes | 7 Comments »

Impress Them On Your Children

Tuesday, January 10th, 2006

If only my half baked, unfinished and unpolished ideas would finsh and refine themselves by themselves. Now I sound repetitive, but I have so many ideas, what am I to do with them? I suppose that I could sell them.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.

Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:5-9

If I were somebody else, I would take it into my head to sit down and write out an exra long, five page post about the article that I just linked to. I would go over it, bit by bit and reason with you, explain it, rail against the whole stupidity of mankind, or I might just calmly critique it. I could sway you with powerfully charged words, meant to stir up emotions inside of you, words do that, you know. But I won’t and I don’t need to this time, that article said it all. Of course, I might write something in a journal or a letter, or sometime in the far off future I may post something here, even though I said that I wouldn’t, people do that, you know, but I won’t.

The afore mentioned verse was just a brief, but powerful, short but meaningful, simple but complex verse to tell us in so very few words that we need to love God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all of our strength, and when we do that we will obey His commandments, not just a few of them but all of them, from the ones that we think don’t matter, to “Thou shalt not kill” and this particular one from Dueteronomy 6, all are included. Because when we do love God with all our heart, soul and strength, we will pass on His laws from age to age, and tell our children why they do it and when we see them pass it on to our grandchildren, then we can rest in peace. Then, perhaps our generation will survive.

Not for our glory, but for God’s!

Coram Deo~ Gracie

Posted in Christian, Family, French, German, Irish, Learning, Thoughts | 4 Comments »

Civilizations

Tuesday, January 10th, 2006

Take the time to read this article slowly. It will be worth it.

My mom read this to me and my dad yesterday. She got it from Cindy’s site.

I plan on writing more on this later.

Coram Deo! Graciebird

Posted in Christian | 3 Comments »

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