Showing posts with label quotes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label quotes. Show all posts

Sunday, March 3, 2013

My Hobbit-ness

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I've been Waiting.

For the words to come...

so I can be a writer again.

With something to say.

I've been avoiding writing because...

then I may have to face some of the stuff that makes life hard...
             and breakable...
                       and hurtful.

I started writing because I felt God wanted me to be honest and let my faulty life, my slip-sliding walk with Him be on display. 

Not because it is comfortable. 

Not because I like sharing my stubborn wrongs. 

Not because I like looking like I've failed more than I have succeeded. 

But, instead, because He wanted me to. 

Perhaps in my messiness others can see that the Christian walk isn't perfect. My prayer is that my translucent life will be comforting to someone who is seeking God's truth. I am a walking Poster Girl for the 'you don't have to be perfect to become a Christ Follower' bit of truth you have heard preached to you. 

So now, back to writing. Or avoiding writing.

We have found ourselves in a bit of a life dilemma. One of those 'one more things' that feels it may just break open a flood of tears that doesn't stop. It isn't a sudden surprise but instead a slowly creeping knowing. Not a knowing I wanted to have. 

We are praying God will give us a clear leading on our next step. I am secretly hoping for a neon sign or a certified letter saying: DO THIS! The Preacher Man has faith that would move hills but even he is feeling a bit mystified.

I am a planning with provision kind of woman. 
I like things to be safe...
                                  and comfortable...
                         and repetitive...
                               and constant.

I am not okay with shifting sands under my feet and moving floor foundations. I get nervous when there isn't a plan in place for our future. I am a creature who loves habit. 

I love my morning coffee and my fuzzy socks. I like the quilt that my grandma made and my comfy spot on the couch. I enjoy lunch with Raspberry Leaf Tea and checking the mail at 1:30. I really like it when my day runs in order.

I guess you could say that I'm sounding a bit like a Hobbit.
“Sorry! I don't want any adventures, thank you. Not Today. Good morning! But please come to tea -any time you like! Why not tomorrow? Good bye!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit 
Adventure is not on my list of great wants. Take your Elven chain mail and Orc sword and be gone with you.

Yet I think in some small (or big?) way God is going to be bringing us to a new adventure. I don't want to face it and would rather hide in my Hobbit Hole having a cup of tea and a biscuit. With some chocolate.
 'I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it's very difficult to find anyone.'
'I should think so — in these parts! We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!'
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
Hobbit Hole
The LORD has a plan though. It most likely does include making me late for dinner once or twice. It also includes so much more than that. It is a chance to put my belief, faith, and trust into action. 

In the book Why? by Anne Graham Lotz, she describes it this way:(emphasis mine)
"Because while belief is the consent of the mind and faith is a choice of the will, trust is a commitment of the heart."     
So my heart better get to trusting. Not that it is easy. Not knowing what will happen. Not knowing if we will fall or rise. If it will be harder before it gets easier.
 “It was at this point that Bilbo stopped. Going on from there was the bravest thing he ever did. The tremendous things that happened afterward were as nothing compared to it. He fought the real battle in the tunnel alone, before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
So I think we will begin with the Going On. The taking of a step forward in Blind Obedience. Against what others may think or may say. Against what I would think or say. Does not God show time and again that those that trust Him do not go without His blessings? It is necessary though, to remember His blessings are not necessarily our wants.
 “Where there's life there's hope, and need of vittles.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
His blessings are there for us if we but wade through our shallow whys and why-nots. 
 “The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places.
But still there is much that is fair. And though in all lands, love is now
mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps, the greater.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
 We are going to step into the tunnel and see what the LORD has in His plan for us. Not my plan.
 “There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
The best part of the personal pep talk? You have all shared in it with me! So no more not writing because I don't have the words. No more being ashamed of my humanness. You are going to get a bare soul sharing of my inadequacies and on top of it I'll occasionally throw in a recipe or a tip. A beautiful picture and a way to be healthier. God will get the glory because it is all because of Him!

8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways    and my thoughts than your thoughts. ~Isaiah 55:8-9

Always Blessed,
Gretchen :)  

Quotes found at: Good Reads and Good Reads
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Saturday, February 2, 2013

Dear Sunday School Teachers...

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“Dear Sunday school teachers, wait upon God for that which you are to teach—
take it warm with love out of the very mouth of God—
and then speak it for God out of your own mouth. Good will surely come of such teaching as that!” 
~ Charles Spurgeon
1892, Sermon #2286



Always Blessed,
Gretchen :)

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Wednesday, January 16, 2013

The Beauty of Tea

There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be much diminished by a nice cup of tea.  ~Bernard-Paul Heroux


Find yourself a cup of tea; the teapot is behind you.  Now tell me about hundreds of things.  ~Saki



All true tea lovers not only like their tea strong, but like it a little stronger with each year that passes.  ~George Orwell, "A Nice Cup of Tea"



The best quality tea must have creases like the leathern boot of Tartar horsemen, curl like the dewlap of a mighty bullock, unfold like a mist rising out of a ravine, gleam like a lake touched by a zephyr, and be wet and soft like a fine earth newly swept by rain.  ~Lu Yu




You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.  ~C.S. Lewis 




A Proper Tea is much nicer than a Very Nearly Tea, which is one you forget about afterwards.  ~A.A. Milne





Bread and water can so easily be toast and tea.  ~Author Unknown


Tea time..........

Always Blessed,
Gretchen :)


Possibly Linking With:
Cornerstone Confessions
Wisdom Wednesdays and Link Up
No Ordinary Blog Hop
Frontline Moms Friday Fun
The Welcoming House


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Monday, December 31, 2012

A Kindlier Dozen


And ye, who have met with Adversity's blast,
And been bow'd to the earth by its fury;
To whom the Twelve Months, that have recently pass'd
Were as harsh as a prejudiced jury -
Still, fill to the Future! and join in our chime,
The regrets of remembrance to cozen,
And having obtained a New Trial of Time,
Shout in hopes of a kindlier dozen.
~Thomas Hood



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A dozen. 12. An easy number. Not too big and not too small. Even and clean looking.  
Pleasing to the eye is the number twelve. 
Easily divided, multiplied and added.  
An able goal can be 12 lbs. Or 12 thank yous. 
Twelve more smiles in a day.
Good things come in twelve. 
12 eggs.
Dozen donuts.
Twelve hours and 12 dollars.

A Year. Twelve Months. Twelve new beginnings every single year. 
Twelve last-day-of-the-months to assess how it went. 
Twelve turns of the moon to watch it shift and change, grow and shrink like shadows.
Twelve months to enjoy our seasons flowing into each other like ripples on the lake.

Twelve chunks of time linked together and filled with mundane chores and beautiful moments of grace. The days run together in succession of do this-es and do thats and occasionally we pause for a moment and watch our children be the amazing creatures they are. 

Sometimes life feels on top of the world like you have your own personal ray of sunshine from God warming you into cat in the windowsill complacency. Oh how we like that sunshine and those easy peasy days.

Sometimes it feels like if that one more thing happens just one more time the thin thread of sanity might just break. Sometimes those threads are stuck straining and holding you together for far more than just one moon cycle. It can start to feel a bit tiresome hanging over that pit for so long. Two months? Four? A year?

Some years are just like that.

To God Be the Glory in those days.
 When you cry yourself to sleep from fear.
When your head swims with unpaid bills.
When your stomach turns because of relationships that worsen instead of strengthen.
When the house is constantly in need of repair...
and the children are fighting out their emotions...
and the teenagers are struggling with growing up lessons...
and your friend is possibly sick with cancer...
and your own health is in question...
and your husband is gone so often you feel like a single parent sometimes...
and there is a death in your family that you just can not wrap your mind around or fix your heart from quivering at the thought of his last days...


Some Years are just like that.  God can still get the Glory.

A dozen months to feel kind of miserable in a self wallowing, private, pity party sort of way. To lament your troublesome life. A whole year to hang on to that fraying thread of...
HOPE. 

Honestly, Hope in Jesus is all you really have. 
When all else is out of control and wrong. 
He is there.
When there are no answers and no way it seems out of the situation.
He is there.
When you stop relying on yourself.
He is there.

There are no promises for a top of the mountain sunshiny spa day. So frankly, some years are going to just stink. The LORD uses this though. He uses our human messes and our frustration. He uses our lack of understanding. He uses our life experience and asks us to trust Him. Have Hope in Him. 

18 “Forget the former things;
    do not dwell on the past.
19 See, I am doing a new thing!
    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness    and streams in the wasteland.  ~Isaiah 43:18-19


That wasteland can stretch forever. One thing after another until you feel the breaking point. Until it seems you may never feel calm again. But the wasteland is real. It is part of our journey here.  It is integral for God's plan in your life. Embrace it and learn from it. Trust in Him. He is your Hope.

1 There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:
2     a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3     a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
4     a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5     a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6     a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7     a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,8     a time to love and a time to hate,    a time for war and a time for peace, ~Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
Dear Lord, please give us a kindlier dozen this year. I'm ready for some sun.


Always Blessed,
Gretchen :)
Verses all from www.biblegateway.com


Possibly Linking With:
Cornerstone Confessions
Wisdom Wednesdays and Link Up
No Ordinary Blog Hop
Frontline Moms Friday Fun
The Welcoming House


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Monday, December 24, 2012

Merry Christmas Quotables!


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Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time.  ~Laura Ingalls Wilder

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At Christmas
A man is at his finest towards the finish of the year;
He is almost what he should be when the Christmas season's here;
Then he's thinking more of others than he's thought the months before,
And the laughter of his children is a joy worth toiling for.
He is less a selfish creature than at any other time;
When the Christmas spirit rules him he comes close to the sublime...
~Edgar Guest
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Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree.  In the eyes of children, they are all 30 feet tall.  ~Larry Wilde, The Merry Book of Christmas
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Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fire-side and his quiet home!  ~Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers, 1836
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Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.  ~Norman Vincent Peale
 
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He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree.  ~Roy L. Smith

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I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.  ~Charles Dickens

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Instead of being a time of unusual behavior, Christmas is perhaps the only time in the year when people can obey their natural impulses and express their true sentiments without feeling self-conscious and, perhaps, foolish.  Christmas, in short, is about the only chance a man has to be himself.  ~Francis C. Farley

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When we recall Christmas past, we usually find that the simplest things - not the great occasions - give off the greatest glow of happiness.  ~Bob Hope
 
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Like snowflakes, my Christmas memories gather and dance - each beautiful, unique and too soon gone.  ~Deborah Whipp
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It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.  ~Charles Dickens

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For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.   Isaiah 9:6

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Merry Christmas from my Family to yours! May the LORD Bless You and Yours Today and Every Day. May His Spirit live in you and transform your life!
Christmas Blessings! 

Always Blessed,
Gretchen :) 



Possibly Linking With:
Cornerstone Confessions
Wisdom Wednesdays and Link Up
No Ordinary Blog Hop

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