Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Echoes and Stars: Tuesday's 10: Reasons to Read Jane Austen's Novels...
Echoes and Stars: Tuesday's 10: Reasons to Read Jane Austen's Novels...: 1. C. S. Lewis Loved Her Work. Listen, would you ask C.S. Lewis, the veteran of WWI for his man card because he loved Austen? I didn...
Monday, September 26, 2011
"Cold, sick, silly."
So many things.
A restlessness--no, a frustration--with myself has been growing in me lately. It's nothing new, but it knocks me out almost every time it comes around. Leaves me staggering for a while.
This time, it's brought with it a sickening conviction of how pathetically childish I've been, particularly this year. This year, throughout which I've felt more grown up than ever before...well, I'm more mature in some respects, but more childish than ever in others. This conviction turns my self-image not into that of a little girl, sweet & pretty, but into that of a worm, grey & low & blind. It makes me cringe, and I've been cringing for a week.
I have no doubt that all this is a bump in the road that I've been placed on by my Daddy. I'm grateful for it, too--for what I know He is doing with it. As I read in what's become one of my favorite things to read now, "sometimes, ... hope's waiting is dark." And, as I find myself here, in this darkened-but-hopeful waiting, I am looking around and asking Him how best to act and work here. I try to remember to look up to Him, more than anything else.
My great desire for that extra close friend--an "anam cara," someone to talk to & lean on when I feel most vulnerable...that's found in Him, in my Daddy. He's closer than any dear sibling could ever be--so why on Earth do I keep longing more for a close "brother," when He's there for me & always has been?! I am exhausted from my ignorant pursuits of others in this respect, and so, I will return to looking up to the One Who's proven Himself through the ages & even throughout the span of my own lifetime.
My Daddy has cemented me in the knowledge of His keeping over time--He's proven Himself to me in times it sure felt like He must be somewhere else & otherwise occupied. Even when I've so often been a spoiled brat, indulging in the pleasures of my sin with my left hand, He holds my right hand, & all of me, firmly through it. So, I will look to Him! I will forget & look down or backward or to either side, too, but He brings me back. His gaze is too wondrous, too terrible, too much my perfect & complete home, for me to turn from it for too long. Amen.
(The title of this post is from the 19th chapter of Jane Eyre.)
A restlessness--no, a frustration--with myself has been growing in me lately. It's nothing new, but it knocks me out almost every time it comes around. Leaves me staggering for a while.
This time, it's brought with it a sickening conviction of how pathetically childish I've been, particularly this year. This year, throughout which I've felt more grown up than ever before...well, I'm more mature in some respects, but more childish than ever in others. This conviction turns my self-image not into that of a little girl, sweet & pretty, but into that of a worm, grey & low & blind. It makes me cringe, and I've been cringing for a week.
I have no doubt that all this is a bump in the road that I've been placed on by my Daddy. I'm grateful for it, too--for what I know He is doing with it. As I read in what's become one of my favorite things to read now, "sometimes, ... hope's waiting is dark." And, as I find myself here, in this darkened-but-hopeful waiting, I am looking around and asking Him how best to act and work here. I try to remember to look up to Him, more than anything else.
My great desire for that extra close friend--an "anam cara," someone to talk to & lean on when I feel most vulnerable...that's found in Him, in my Daddy. He's closer than any dear sibling could ever be--so why on Earth do I keep longing more for a close "brother," when He's there for me & always has been?! I am exhausted from my ignorant pursuits of others in this respect, and so, I will return to looking up to the One Who's proven Himself through the ages & even throughout the span of my own lifetime.
My Daddy has cemented me in the knowledge of His keeping over time--He's proven Himself to me in times it sure felt like He must be somewhere else & otherwise occupied. Even when I've so often been a spoiled brat, indulging in the pleasures of my sin with my left hand, He holds my right hand, & all of me, firmly through it. So, I will look to Him! I will forget & look down or backward or to either side, too, but He brings me back. His gaze is too wondrous, too terrible, too much my perfect & complete home, for me to turn from it for too long. Amen.
(The title of this post is from the 19th chapter of Jane Eyre.)
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