Birth Announcement ~ A Guest Post by Lauren

He may have already stopped hoping by the time Hope was born.

Over 400 years of silence from God overshadowed this man’s ancestors.  It was a silence that rivaled the 430 years of Jewish slavery in Egypt.  And this Jew, born in the Egypt that had enslaved his ancestors, thought he may as well have been hoping for a resurrected Moses liberator as for a Messiah after all that silence. 

The way this man Philo saw it, it was time for God to step out from behind His curtain and once again declare “I AM.”  But Philo Judaeus wasn’t seeing even a rustling of the curtain, so he decided to yank it aside himself.  Moses was lost up on Mt. Sinai, and Philo took his cue from an impatient Aaron, building his own Messiah in one Greek word: logos. 

He used a little dab of Plato, a good helping of Hebrew Scripture misinterpreted as merely allegorical, and sprinkled his new creation with the other philosophies of the day. 

He married philosophy with God and birthed his own mediator between God and man: logos, which in his mind meant “reason.” 

Meanwhile, the true Logos was being born of a virgin in a forgotten stable in a conquered Israel. 

Philo, looking back on the baffling centuries of silence, said that God was unknowable.  He said that the world was senselessly evil, and that since God could not come in contact with such blackness, He could not have directly created it.  This is where Philo’s logos came in, the neither unbegotten nor begotten second-in-command to God, the mystical mediator of God’s powers to humanity, the philosophical substitute for the Messiah. 

Meanwhile, the true Messiah was getting to know fishermen and tax collectors.  He, as one with God, was performing miracles and changing lives.  He was getting dirty and tired and hungry in villages and on roads, yet He was utterly and completely God at the same time.

Philo saw his logos as “reason:” impersonal, archangelic, the Idea of Ideas. 

Yet the Messiah on the cross was not impersonal, nor merely angelic, nor a mystical idea.  He was Someone greater: the Word become flesh who dwelt among us (John 1:14). 

“In the beginning was the Logos” carries with it a declaration as weighty as the entire history of the world:

Jesus is the Logos who spoke the world into existence.

Jesus is the Logos who fulfills the Ten Logoi: the Ten Commandments.

Jesus is the Logos who declares “I AM.”

Jesus is the Logos who broke 400 years of silence.

Jesus is the Logos who was seen by human eyes and touched by dirty human hands and heard and known by His creation.  He was just as much the Word when He was in Mary’s uterus as He was when He was bleeding on the cross or sitting at the right hand of God. 

Yet Philo may have already stopped hoping by the time Hope was born, settling for a God who needed the universe to avoid a death of loneliness and a logos no greater than the limits of Philo’s own human creativity.

But when John divinely penned, “In the beginning was the Word” and “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” God divinely shattered Philo’s idol of reason and his convenient pseudo-Messiah that fit his culture, emotions, and demands of God. 

With “In the beginning was the Word” God divinely shattered the convenient idols of my age, too: the pseudo-Messiahs that fit nicely into my boxed traditions of who I think God should be.  John used the very Greek word Logos that Philo had twisted, with all the weight of the Jewish history, and bridged the way to the the Word for both Gentiles and Jews.

It was the birth announcement of our Hope.  And with that, 400 years of silence was shattered by the Word, crying in a stable.

Lauren’s best friends are her family–her parents, Steve and Jennifer, and her five siblings. She is passionate about history, good music, and being a feminine woman in a feminist culture. You’ll find her blogging at One Bright Corner with her twin sister, Mikaela, and typing behind-the-scenes on the Christian Heritage blog and newsletter. When she’s not doing that, she loves teaching music, being outside, and ministering with her family!


{photo credit}

I Mean, Logically, It's Impossible ~ A Guest Post by Benjamin

{Psst. If you just got here, don't forget to hop over to Monday's post and enter the give-away drawing! Two books that I totally love are waiting for a happy home!}

The Naturalist viewpoint is the most prominent in academic society. One cannot enter a study of the sciences and not be bombarded with this concept, and why not? It is scientific, reasonable, and really the only logical set of answers for reality. Let’s examine some of them, shall we?

The world began billions of years ago. From completely natural phenomenon, the entire universe came into existence via some form of explosive energy. Then, over billions of years through the process of natural selection, life and the division of species evolved into what it is today. The process has not changed, and we are still in the midst of it!

Well, actually there is no proof that the earth is billions of years old (how could there be any direct proof about the age of the earth?). In fact, in a uniformitarian environment, our planet could not have continued to its current state – due to erosion, for example, we would be a giant ocean planet. In addition, it defies the First Law of Thermodynamics to think that everything could come from nothing. And while macro-evolution has never been observed, we’ll still call it science, despite the fact that science is an observational study…

But of course, it’s all completely logical…

Let’s move onto faith and science. Faith and science should not be intermixed at all – one is a personal view of their inner self, while science is what actually explains the world around us. Your five senses, and the equipment built by man, are the only things we can trust. No, faith has absolutely no place in science.

No, of course my “worldview” doesn’t affect how I view data at all. Scientists have absolutely no bias based on their personal beliefs, unlike every other human-being on the planet. And yes, our senses have deceived us on multiple occasions, and our equipment is bound to fail at certain points. No, I’ve never seen an atom, and I definitely DO NOT have faith that it exists, I just believe it without seeing it…

Yes, well, um… final point:

If you can’t see, touch, smell, taste, or hear it, it absolutely cannot exist – it’s simply random firing of neurons in your brain. Look at us – we only rely on what we can for sure predict to be true. Human philosophical inventions have no place in modern society – only what is observed to be true.

Gravity? Well, yes, it exists and we can measure its effects, but to actually touch it… um… macroevolution? Well, it hasn’t been observed, just deduced from microevolution… Numbers?... well, numbers are… they’re…

But I assure you, all our assumptions are completely realistic, rational and observable. I mean, logically…

…

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. – Romans 1:20-23

Ben is the younger [big] brother of SarahJayne. In addition to composing rather satirical pieces, he enjoys composing music, re-enacting at the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, and working at Hewlett-Packard. He’ll be graduating from college in May, after which he plans to travel the world… or at lease France, England, and China. He used to blog once-upon-a-time at White Knuckles, which his older {little} sister hopes he will resume upon graduation.

The Grown-Up Neverland ~ A Guest Post by Karlena

I know that most of you are probably tired of hearing bad news about the sorry state of the world today.  You might feel fed up with people constantly repeating more evidence of a society in demise.  Perhaps you find it depressing to hear of the news of the day.  Please, bear with me.  The following news is too important for you to ignore.

PETER PAN HAS GROWN UP!

And not just Peter Pan either.  Wendy, John, and Michael have all grown up with him.

 

“How do you know”, you ask.

Simple.  Just listen to the way today’s adults talk (or “speak”, as my mother would have said!).

Children everywhere are being subjected to horrendous things, like “soup”.  When did adults stop serving “pottage” to their “crew”?  Instead of combining their “pottage” with a “Dagwood”, kids are expected to eat “sandwiches” with their “soup”.

And whoever heard of telling a child to “stop eating with your mouth open”?  I remember when adults said fun things, like, “Quit masticating like a cow”.

Why, when I was a child adults understood that kids wanted to be told, “Your conveyance awaits”.  Nowadays you only hear, “Get in the car”. 

I, personally, am about fed up with that nasty new phrase, “Use your inside voice, dear”.  Is this not truly atrocious?  Who decided to stop telling children not to be so “boisterous”? 

I am sure that you have heard some adult say, “Walk your feet, honey”.  (I always wonder if the young person has the right leash?)  Why should children “walk their feet”?  Has no one taught them how to “tippy-toe softly- we don’t want to wake the mice babies”?

When did we forget the beauty of words?  How did we allow our day to day activities to rob us of the great vocabulary of yesteryear?

When did we forget the joy of hearing the words, “an egregious error” roll off our tongues?  I remember enjoying that saying so much, I would whisper it to myself at night!  I thank God for a mother who said, “THAT was an egregious error”!

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Mother was no grown up Wendy.  She understood how words could change everything.  That is why she never said, “You kids go play outside”.  She said, “I think that there is a new foreign country somewhere in the backyard.  Why don’t you children go explore it?”

Father also enjoyed using words that were worth saying.  In fact, he enjoyed using words of too many syllables to be written down here!  Father is a theologian and always believed that his kids are bright enough to know what “justification”, “redemption”, “sanctification”, and “eschatology” meant. 

I think that Dad and Mom understood that words were gifts from God.  They also understood that it is through words that we are introduced to God!

Do adults still read aloud to their children from the Bible?  Or do they think that their children are too dumb to understand what God has written to them?

As a child of God, I am thankful that He did not choose to speak to me in simple, nursery rhyme fashion!  Nor did He write a simpler “child’s version” of the Bible.

Let’s stop treating our children as though they are too weak to be given large ideas and big words.  Allow them to grow into theologians and sesquipedalians.  

It is truly a sad world to live in when we reduce our language to words of single syllables.  Let’s emancipate the minds of children everywhere!  It is time for Peter Pan, Wendy, John, and Michael to find their way back to Never Never Land.

Let me encourage you to try a few new phrases on your fledgling brood this week:

“Eschew obfuscation”  instead of “Stop making things so difficult!”

“Allay that cacophony” in place of “be quiet”

“Galloping is prohibited” rather than “stop running”

Take a cue from our Heavenly Father.  Use big words to express even bigger ideas to little ones with even littler understandings!  They, like you, are able to comprehend much when spoken to in love!

In addition to her love for sesquipedalian phrases, Karlena is someone who loves the LORD with her whole heart. She is an encourager, a fellow book-lover, a good friend, and a lovely example of a virtuous woman to all of us blessed enough to know her. Happily married to her high school sweetheart (who is Prince Charming in disguise) for the past 20 years, she has 10 of the world's most beautiful children with him.

If I Could Bless You ~ A Visit from Mikaela

We met a little over 22 years ago. I was cramped and content in a small, dark place, and she, or rather, her voice, floated somewhere beyond the confines of all I knew. I wanted to meet her! Months passed, multiplying my age, and at last we looked upon each other's faces.

 

We were both rather unimpressed. 

 

I had to learn to walk, and to want to play, but even so it was settled {and obvious} very early on: God had picked us out to be the best of friends. Since then, simply, we have been. Dear readers, meet Mikaela. Book addict, music teacher, fabulous bread-maker, and veritable source of knowledge on just about any subject her life touches (seems that way to me, at least) ~ she co-blogs with Lauren at One Bright Corner. Her writing and insights are always a blessing to me, as I hope they are to you, today. Meet Mika!

"Mikaela, I heard the most amazing song at the conference in Texas!" Mama told me shortly after she had flown home. I couldn't have been more than twelve, and I don't remember anything she relayed to me about the content of the conference - except the amazing song she had heard. She ordered the music and a CD of it right away, and our family heard "The Blessing Song" by Dennis Jernigan for the first time.

May the Lord answer you in the day of your trouble;

May the name of the Lord be your strong mighty tower.

May He grant you your heart's deepest dreams and desires;

May He answer you each time you call.

Several years later, the young people of my church learned this song. We practiced and prepared. We knew the words, the melodies, the harmonies. Nevertheless, the spirit of the song I didn't understand until we were there on stage singing for 100 people. And suddenly, I was overwhelmed as I sang out a blessing with my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ to my brothers and sisters in Christ. There was nary a dry eye in the church - and the Holy Spirit was moving.

May He pour out the blessing of heaven;

May you cast your cares on Him and daily fall.

May you live to see your children's children;

May the Lord Jesus be your All in All.

As a family, we sang "The Blessing Song" for Mama on her 40th birthday and for Grandpa on his 70th birthday. Imperfect voices, earnestly voicing every word.

 

May the Lord Jesus Christ satisfy beyond all measure;

May His Word light your path; may His peace guard your heart.

May your days be filled with gladness, joy and peace through any sadness;

Filled with love that will not depart.

Then, in 2011, we huddled together in a hospital room. Bobcha was dying, and we were saying our good-byes, knowing that after we left and drove the 360 miles separating our home from her hospital, that we would never see her again on this earth. So we sang a blessing to her. We broke and we cried - we hardly made it through - but we sang those words so familiar to us by now.

 

May your strength be renewed like the eagle;

As you run the race may joy flood every part.

May your memories all be sweet in each parting;

May the peace of Christ rule in your heart.

 

Last year, our family went through many trials. And suddenly, in God's sovereign plan, Mama was in Georgia preparing for surgery, and the six of us kids were home. Praying. Wishing we could be there to hold her hand. Worrying. Wishing we could be there to kiss her before she went in to surgery. Praying. And wishing some more. So, the night before her surgery, we sat down and recorded ourselves singing "The Blessing Song" with honest, raw tears streaming down our faces and sent the video to Mama. We were singing about life and joy and God's mercies and goodness when we were verily in the midst of trouble, pain, and hardship.

 

May His Word be to you health and life, joy and treasure;

May your home be a light; may the Lord guard your ways.

May the Lord be your shepherd;

May His goodness and mercy follow after you all your days!

 

Many of these words are taken directly from Scripture (such as Psalm 20), but they're no magic incantation. This is no blessing of prosperity and ease. This is the blessing of martyrdom and family and most of all communion with God Almighty that triumphs over any weakness, desperate circumstance, or real-life nightmare. This is the power of blessing someone in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

May His mercies be new every morning;

May His grace and Holy Spirit help you stand.

May you live your life to die for the gospel;

May you hold to His unchanging hand!

 

Have you given a blessing to someone? Through song, words, or prayer? Bless and be blessed, for the giver of the blessing is just as blessed as the recipient.

 

May the Lord answer you in the day of your trouble;

May the name of the Lord be your strong and mighty tower.

may He grand you your heart's deepest dreams and desires;

May He answer each time you call.

May He answer each time you call.

Beauty from Ashes ~ A Visit from Kaytra

If I had to choose one person for whom this was true

It would be this girl.


Seriously. Whether we're studying Scripture, planning parties, or discussing C.S. Lewis, I can guarantee two things: tea, and laughter. Kaytra is a "PK, lover of tea and chunky sweaters, and an avid traveller." She also happens to be one of my dearest friends, and blogs happy thoughts at scraps of reality. Since age 13, she has had continual health challenges, but as she continues to seek the LORD and His blessings, she continues to be an encouragement and inspiration to those around her. Ladies and gentlemen, here's Kaytch!

Have you ever felt like you’re the only one going through a trial or temptation, and no one could possibly understand what your experiencing, even if they tried? Do you ever give up praying because you don't know how to talk to your Father about your inner intestine and bowels? {yes i just said that}
 

Have you ever looked into your fridge and slammed it shut because you are so discouraged because 99.9 percent of anything good in there is not digestible to you and will make you feel like you’re going to collapse at any moment from being lightheaded, bloated, inflamed and miserable? 

{i forget to add commas generally when i am venting.}

 

Have you ever cried out to the Lord asking Him, "Why me?!" 

"Why this?" 

"Why now?"

 

I feel like i am in a marathon, and although i have already crossed the finish line, i can't stop because i realize that i'm chained to a treadmill. 

{i need to work on my metaphors}
 

Sometimes i am so discouraged that i just decide not to eat at all, which leads to a "nasty Kaytra," which leads to hurting peoples feelings and more importantly hurting God.

 

Because He is there, He knows me, and He has designed me this way. 

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"Let affliction come~God has chosen me. Poverty, you may stride in at my door, but God is in the house already, and He has chosen me. Sickness, you may intrude, but I have balsam ready~God has chosen me. Whatever befalls me in this vale of tears, I know that He has "chosen" me."

I read this about an hour ago, and I just started weeping.

 

I was chosen for affliction.

 

This broken and disease-ridden body of mine was chosen ~ to fulfill His purposes.

 

Not mine. He has chosen me for affliction, and i so desperately want to be worthy of that choice.

 

I know now that suffering is a not a sin. It is a precious opportunity, and one that i do not want to miss.

 

It is His choice of blessing for my life. Because often, hidden blessings take on an ugly and hideous disguise. 

 

Someday, I believe, God will eventually remove the layers of that disguise so that I can truly see how He used my IBS for His glory and for my good.

_________________________________________

 

"For I know the plans that I have for you, says the Lord, plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome." ~Jeremiah 29:11

 

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"Through floods and flames, if Jesus lead, I'll follow where He goes."

"Blessed Are..." ~ A Visit from Jennifer



Uncle David & Aunt Jenn

Before the role models of babysitters, teachers, and professionals-of-your-sphere, there are, and ever shall be, aunts. "Tante Jenn" - travelling all the way from Loches, France for our party this week - is just such an example. With a contagious joy in life, a wonderful laugh, and a beautiful story of obedience to the Lord {she & my uncle & two cousins left their 'normal' lives & newly-remodelled dream house in the states to become missionaries}, I treasure every conversation we have {even more so, now that she lives half-way across the world!}. She blogs about the lessons, joys, and challenges {and sometimes good ol' funny stories} of ministering in a different culture over at Four For France.

 

Friends, allow me to introduce my aunt, Jennifer.

Do you have one of those friends for whom everything always seems to go well? I do.

She lives in a big house that is delightfully decorated. She has three bright-eyed children and a hard-working, faithful husband. She is popular, fit, and cute to boot. She is the type who plans out her life months, sometimes years in advance, and nothing ever seems to interfere with her agenda. She has a warm and open personality, a joyful countenance, and a deep love for Jesus. By her own admittance, she has never really suffered.

So it seemed the most natural thing in the world to me when she blithely stated, "I'm just so blessed."

Yet, when she said it, my heart beat seemed to grow heavy. I squinted, trying to assess my recoil. While I believe her statement was an expression of genuine gratitude, something about it chaffed. Finally, gently, I whispered, "People who suffer are blessed, too."

"Oh, I know," she said, a little too quickly, and on we went to other subjects.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

I can't stop thinking about that brief conversation. I wonder if there is a disconnect in our understanding of blessing. What does it mean to be blessed?

According to the dictionary, it means "divinely favored." But it can also mean "blissfully happy."

 

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

I know that every good gift is from above, and indeed, the pleasing circumstances of my life are blessings. But if I stop there, might that be too narrow of a view? Isn't it also true that God blesses us in and through challenging circumstances?

And while I don't think we need to go looking for trouble or inviting disaster into our lives, I do sometimes wonder if our relentless pursuit of our own comfort and glory could be barriers, rather than pathways, to blessing.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

What if I chose the "discomfort" of living in a smaller house so that I might be more generous? What if I sought opportunities to serve others so that I might be more humble? what if I turned the other cheek instead of defending my "rights"? What if I demonstrated love to someone who treats me with indifference or even hatred? Do I need to wait for calamity to come to me in order to experience the blessings that Jesus speaks about in Matthew 5? Or could it be my calling to engage in suffering no matter my circumstances?

 

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.



The Blessing of Health ~ A Visit from Bronwyn

Good morning, everyone ~ look who's here! This is a dear friend of ours, Bronwyn. Wife of Heiko, mother of five, health-food authority, flower arranger, artist...she wears many hats {and aren't they all pretty?}. I'll be quiet now, though, and let her talk.

Everyone, meet Bronwyn.

Hi, I'm Bronwyn from over at CleanGreenStart, and I'm super excited and honored to be a guest blogger here for Sarah's Bloggy Birthday Party! Since Sarah's theme this week is Blessings, I decided to write about the blessing of health because, ahem, I do write a healthy home blog (sometimes masquerades as a Paleo recipe blog). I tend to think about healthy stuff a lot. :-)

Have you ever pondered the blessing of good health? If you're youngish, it may be something you've never considered, since we tend to take it for granted until we lose it. It tends to be the older generation, or those with chronic disease, who extol the joys of the health they once possessed. They will tell you that it is the basis for enjoying most of life's other blessings.

Health As A Blessing
Health is a blessing which is bestowed upon us, given to us, without our effort or merit.

Kind of makes me think of some other blessings. Salvation. Earth's beauty. Children. Grace.

If we arrive at adulthood in good health and with all our parts and pieces, we can hardly take much credit for it. Good genes, sufficient nutrition, and shielding from toxic exposure are gifts our parents, especially our mothers, bestow upon us before our birth. Our habits of diet, hygiene, and exercise, and our preventive and interventional medicine as children are directed by our caregivers.

To be alive, is to have some measure of health. We should be filled with gratitude to our parents and to God for the measure of health that we have.

Health As A Stewardship
But, not unlike some other blessings, health is entrusted to us as stewards. It does take effort to keep it. To nurture it, and at times to restore it.

This takes knowledge. And wisdom. Especially when several conflicting paradigms of knowledge compete in our health decision-making.

To vaccinate, or not to vaccinate? Herbs or medicine? How to stretch a family budget for the best food choices?

So we ask, we seek, we knock.

God, what is Your design?
Doctor, what are the options? The side effects?
Grandma, how do you prepare food in traditional healthy ways?
Friend, how do you budget organic? Where do you shop? Got some recipes?
Chemist, what chemicals should we avoid on our skin and in our homes?
Husband, is this a priority for our family?
Farmer, what are your growing practices? Your chicken feed? Your fertilizers?
Dentist, what are whole-body impacts of this treatment?
Nutritionist, how do you read a supplement label? Can this be obtained in food?
Midwife, how can I work towards a healthy birth?
Salesman, will this product off-gas into my home?

It takes time. Diligence. Missteps, and backtracks, and learning. Stewardship always does.

And again, I'm brought back to gratitude for those who have invested in me (and continue to do so) by book or in person to make their knowledge available to me. I'm grateful to God for planting some of them in my path even before I asked Him! Whether by diligence on our part, or by unmerited favor, health is a gift He bestows.

A Blessing We Pass On
If you are a parent, you recognize that stewardship of your child's health is part of your role as parent.

If you are not yet a parent, that stewardship has already begun in the choices you make. A study done in recent years found that the most significant factor in the health of infants was the nutrition which the mother received in the ten years prior to their birth.

How cool is that? To have a part in passing on one of God's blessings to another; our own child!

The Blessing of Disease
Huh? Wait...we were talking about health. It was all rainbows and ponies. Can disease be a blessing too?

I didn't think so. Not with chronic fatigue as a young mom...it was zapping the life out of my life. How could God bless me through that?

But it was illness that made me ask why, to read, to seek help, and make changes, and my husband and children have all benefited. I've met so many people in clinics, at nutrition meetings, on farms, on my blog. They help me, and sometimes I help them, and sometimes I get to witness to them of God's other blessings. God used illness to stretch my faith in His promises, and I learned to rely on His strength in a new way.

I'm really, really grateful my health has returned, because it wasn't fun to be without it. But I can attest that God can even use disease as a blessing.

How has God blessed you with health (or disease)? What are you learning right now that makes you a better steward of this precious gift?