Grace and Glory

Musings from the Threshold

Category Archives: Linkage

Slugs and Bugs

We first watched these videos a couple weeks ago and hadn’t watched them or sung the songs since. Tonight, I heard Stephen singing Tractor, Tractor in the living room. He remembered the tune and everything. So I pulled them back up and he was thrilled to watch them again. And now you get to share in the fun! That Andrew Peterson is such a multi-talented fellow. Enjoy.

In Baby news, I had an encouraging prenatal today. Baby is nice and low, in a good position, with good heartones. I’m enjoying getting to wait at home in my own space, and am looking forward to whatever timing God has for this little one.

God’s Love for Me

I was touched today by this story from the Compassion International bloggers trip to Kenya.

No, that’s not it. I was broken. Ugly cry kind of broken.

That this young man can demonstrate such faith in God’s love for Him in the midst of one of the nastiest slums in the world… it simply brought me to sobs of repentence for my doubting heart. We all have “slumy” areas of our lives and hearts, don’t we? And isn’t it easy to begin to doubt His love? Yet HE never falters!

GOD LUV’S ME
Enough to Feed me,
Bless me, and
Give me hope for the future.
Amen.
~Eliud’s daily prayer

The LORD is compassionate and gracious, Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness. Ps. 103.8

My heart is full of thankfulness tonight for my Heavenly Father’s love. May I keep His love at the forefront of my mind and heart.

Stages

Ann Voskamp shares some lovely thoughts on life-stages in how to assemble the parts of a life when beginnings end & kids grow up. To get the background to my thoughts below, read Ann’s post first.

I’ve been there. Watched Jonathan take down the crib for what I thought was the last time. Sorted through and gotten rid of most of the baby clothes, saving only favorites and a few extra “just in case.” Placed my desire for more children on the proverbial altar, and found peace and joy in acceptance of moving on to the next stage of our lives.

And now, I promise-swell.
Grateful for the unexpected, not having lost the lesson of acceptance.
His plans, not mine. For His glory and my good.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Rom 15:13

Sometimes It Causes Me to Tremble

I was thoroughly enjoying listening to my Randy Travis Glory Train CD while I puttered around in the kitchen this afternoon. It’s full of wonderful songs, and there’s just something about Randy Travis’s voice (for those of us who love country music, that is).

I posted lyrics to one of my favorites in my Facebook status this afternoon. So rich and true:
He never promised that the cross would not get heavy
and the hill would not be hard to climb
He never offered victory without fighting
but He said help would always come in time.
Just remember when you’re standing
in the valley of decision and the adversary says give in
Just hold on, our Lord will show up and He will take you through the fire again

Another one that has become a favorite is “Where You There (when they crucified my Lord)?” I’ve heard this song many times throughout my life, and I have to admit, I never “got” it. Just seemed a bit non sequitur to me… of course I wasn’t there!

But this past August (August 11th, while I was out for a walk/run, to be precise), the beauty and message of this song finally touched my heart. It became not about whether or not I was there, but caused me to ponder all of these events, and somehow they became more real to me:
when they crucified my Lord
when they nailed Him to the tree
when they pierced Him in the side
when they laid Him in the tomb
And glory hallelujah – when He rose up from the grave!

It truly caused me to tremble. And to literally hit my knees with my face to the ground, again surrendering, as I was shaken to the core with the magnitude of my Savior’s sacrifice and love for me. It still causes me to tremble, and I can rarely hear the song without tears.

I couldn’t find the Randy Travis version to share with you, but here is a great rendition from Johnny Cash (with the Tennessee Three, the Statler Brothers, Carl Perkins and the Carter Family).

I pray it causes you to tremble.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7u6eRrxuKU&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6&border=1]

Goal-setting

The Simple Mom blog has been having some great posts about goal setting lately, like 20 Questions for a New Year’s Eve Reflection, 20 Questions for Planning New Year’s Goals, and Ring in 2010 with Tangible, Reachable, Optimistic Goals.

However, for me, the last week or so has just not been conducive to reflection and contemplation of goals. So I loved this post today called A Holistic Approach to Setting Meaningful New Year’s Goals. Yes! This fits so well with where I am (this year, and probably every year).

Some highlights:

If winter is for reflection, spring is for action. The planning and preparation that you do in winter, will naturally lead to the energy and focus of acting on your goals come springtime.

…

Winter is a season of introspection, lower energy, and reflection. I start the reflection process in January. I use January and February to dig inward, learn from the past year’s lessons, gaze ahead and consider where my energy should be directed.

When I honor myself with time and attention, I am startled at the goals I come up with.

Once I’ve set my goals and aspirations, I put in time to make a plan for achieving them so I can give myself the support and preparation I need to be successful. This action plan generally begins to really ramp up and pick up energy just as spring comes on the scene. The freshness and new energy of the world around me fuel my commitment.

There is also a helpful looking exercise to help you consider balance in your life and identify areas that need more focused attention.

Hope this is helpful to some of you!

Blog Reading Tools

This morning, the Nester posed the question How Do You Read Blogs? I found it interesting that by the time I got around to commenting (#30-something), no one had mentioned my favorite blog-reading tool. So I did my best to explain it in my comment. Then I realized I should also share this niftiness with you!

I love Google Reader and have used it for a long while now. It saves me much time by letting me know when one of the blogs that I read has a new post, so I don’t have to go clicking through bookmarks to check blogs that may or may not have updates. Plus, if one of my bloggy friends disappears for a few months, I automatically know when they come back!

My one frustration with it was that if I wanted to see the actual blog, or if someone didn’t have their whole post go to the feed, I would have to open the link in a new tab.

But google has added a new wonderful feature that solves this frustration! Shawna told me about it and I’ll try to explain … the NEXT button!

The “Next” button is a link that you can drag to your favorites bar. When you click it, whatever tab you are in will automatically go to the page of the next post in your reader. It’s the handiness of google reader without having to miss out on the beauty of the actual blogs – nifty!

Here’s how you can get it: Go to your Google Reader and hit the Settings link. There will be several tabs across the top… go to Goodies. Under “Put Reader in a Bookmark,” there is a link that you can simply drag to your favorites bar to add the Next button.

One other note: those of you who have been with me for a while know that screen “real estate” is valuable to this claustrophic woman. I hadn’t had a favorites bar at the top of my browser since I found out I could make it go away! But I put it back to give the Next button a trial run, and yes, this tool is handy enough that I’m willing to give up that precious piece of screen real estate to have it.

Give the Next button a try and let me know if you like it!