Strength in Weakness

As I reflected this morning on part of our conversation last night at the book club, I remembered this post that I wrote three years ago. It is a timely encouragement to me, and I think to my friends at the book club last night, to remember the gospel. Jesus saves sinners! May we run to Him, confessing our sins and failures and may we rejoice in the mercy we find! Our weaknesses remind us of our desperation for Him and for His grace...

Despite the fact that my children are growing up and can now dress themselves and bathe themselves (yes and amen!), I well remember those exhausting days when they were young and I was overwhelmed. I remember one particularly trying day that included a trip to KMart resulting in a meltdown. Mine. I remember crying out to God--quite literally--in my frustration, saying "I can't! I can't DO this! I just can't!"

Through my tears, I sensed the Holy Spirit speaking to my heart: "That's right. You're exactly right. You can't. But I can."

A couple of months ago as I was praying, I found myself asking for strength to handle this situation, and for God to take care of this other, and for me to be able to handle this, and for this circumstance to change, and so on. Then I turned to my devotional reading for the day which included 2 Cor. 4:7,

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

While there is certainly nothing inherently wrong in asking God for strength or the ability to handle a certain situation, I realized in my prayer that particular morning I was really asking God to make me "untouchable." I wanted strength, not to show off His treasure in my weakness, but to no longer be weak. I was tired. I was overwhelmed. I wanted Him to take it all away. Or at least allow me to handle it all.

You know those fiber cement pots? That's what I was asking God to make me: strong, beautiful, indestructible, able to handle anything. Don't get me wrong here. God has strength to give us, His all surpassing power for we who believe. But it is strength in our weakness. Power from Him, not from us.

I am no fiber cement pot. I am the jar of clay: ordinary, common, cracked, brittle. Easily broken and of little worth. But, though I am weak, He is strong and His strength is best shown, not in fiber cement, but in the baked dirt of the clay jar. Consider what John MacArthur says in his must-read book, Hard to Believe:

Paul called those who carry and preach the treasure of the true gospel..."earthen vessels." "Earthen vessels" is frankly too dignified a term...This is a cheap baked clay pot, unrefined, ugly, breakable, replaceable, valueless. It's the little pot in which you put your plants.

The contrast is staggering. We have this treasure of the glorious light of the gospel, the one shining in our hearts, the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ, in us--in cheap earthenware...

...we're baked clay. We're privy pots. The advance of the gospel will never occur on account of us.

I can't. He can. He calls me, not to handle it all thank you very much, but to boast in my weakness so He may be strong. As Paul says in 2 Cor. 12:9,

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.

I was praying for God to take away my weakness; Paul boasts in his. Why? So he could know the power of Christ. This challenges me to be grateful for those things in my life, those circumstances, those weaknesses, that keep me desperate for His grace and His power. Not only to be grateful, but as Paul testified, to delight in those weaknesses.

And then I will find His grace sufficient and His power made perfect, not in my strength, but in my weakness.

May God's all surpassing power shine through this pot of baked dirt...

"Baked Dirt," originally published May, 2007

San Diego

As I told you in a previous post, yes there are a couple of previous posts from back when I used to blog, I accompanied my husband to sunny San Diego. He went for business; I went along for the ride. We had a great time! Good food, beautiful scenery, wonderful weather, fun sightseeing, plus the added benefit for me of making new friends at the conference he attended. All in all, a great trip!

I have to give props to my blog friend Kelly from Love Well. When I mentioned we would be going to San Diego, one of her favorite places on earth, she sent me an email with recommendations for eating as well as must-see destinations. I think we hit nearly every restaurant on her list, save one, and most of the sites! Thanks, Kelly, for giving us an insider's view of some of what San Diego has to offer!

And what it has to offer is a lot! There's, of course, the zoo:


With pandas!


The San Diego zoo is amazing, well deserving of its celebrated status. We loved it. A few more shots from the zoo:



Here's the view from our hotel room. We were on the bay and enjoyed seeing all the yachts and sailboats:


We also toured a decommissioned aircraft carrier, the Midway. Pretty cool! And huge! It's amazing to see how thousands of sailors functioned together as essentially a small city. We were all the more intrigued because my brother served on an aircraft carrier during his six year stint in the Navy. He spent part of his deployment on the Nimitz who happens to be currently docked in San Diego.

The flight deck on the Midway:


The Midway on the right; the Nimitz off in the background to the left:


San Diego is gorgeous. We did a little driving up the coast, without our camera sadly enough, and were struck by the cliffs and the inlets that mark the Pacific coast. Very different from the Gulf (now more than ever, sadly enough).

I am so glad I was able to tag along! And I must thank the grandparents who looked after the kids (and did laundry and shuttled kids and did more laundry) so that I could go. It was a lot of fun hanging out with some of the other conference spouses as well.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the weather! Temperatures in the sixty's! Yes, that's right--a far cry from the nearly hundred degree heat/90+ percent humidity we have returned to. Have I mentioned I'm ready for fall? Now more than ever!

In which I pretend I am writing a decorating blog

So, as you know, we have been blessed with new hardwood floors, thanks to Whirlpool (who manufactured a fridge that would leak ten years after it was purchased) and our homeowner's policy (that covers damaged wood floors due to leaky fridges). You may remember this is what we were dealing with:


Here's my den with the new floors. Note the old, ratty sofas worn out after ten years of the kind of use and abuse that can only be delivered by a family of six (5 of which are male, enough said):


Behold, the old is gone!


The new has come!


Yes, new floors AND new sofas! I'm fighting to not place my joy in the temporal things of this world but I'll have to admit to you: it sure is fun, getting new stuff. While it lasts.

And, because it's my blog and I want you all to know how cheap I am (new sofas notwithstanding), I give you the following synopsis of my decor (if it could rightly be called such):

• The end table with drawers we saved from the dumpster when my husband's grandmother died.


• The botanical print was a wedding gift.


• The floor lamp I got on clearance at KMart for maybe $15.


• The wooden shelves my sister gave me.


• The dishes on the shelves also salvaged from my husband's grandmother's stuff doomed for the dumpster and some my mom gave me.


• My mom made the curtains and the pillows on the sofa as a birthday present for me a few years ago.


• The black endtable my mother in law gave us when we got married and had zero furniture. It was brown, shiny laminate that I painted many, many years ago, recently touched up.


• The lamp on the black table also a KMart clearance item bought so long ago I have no idea how much I spent.


• The armoire my parents asked us to store for them many years ago and, well, we still have it. Funny how that works.


• The coffee table we purchased from Service Merchandise (y'all remember Service Merchandise?) more than ten years ago. How do you like the Nester green?

Here's a close up of my painted pine table.

• The tray a gift from my sister.


• The wire basket from my sister also. Bless her heart, she and mom both work hard to keep me all decorated and such.

Oh, and while I'm posting pictures (anyone still reading?), here's the other coffee table I painted last week, the one I bought at a thrift store for $19. I put it in our living room/computer room/library. I don't have a before shot but it was pretty bad.



So there you go: my brief venture into the world of decorating. As I told you before, it is sure to be short-lived, and actually if you could see the rest of my house you would no doubt tell me to put down the paint brush and pick up the vacuum already. Before I do so, in order to make myself feel better and less guilty about such a spiritually anemic post, I will remind myself of the following....

Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. (Luke 12:13)

But to whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. (Philip. 3:7-8)

Jesus is better than new sofas and new floors! Yes and amen!

Offering Hospitality's Recipe Swap: Picnics

The girls at the Offering Hospitality blog are hosting a monthly Recipe Swap, this month's theme being PICNIC RECIPES. I have to tell you, for someone as hospitality- and recipe-challenged as I, picnics are a tough category. I know what I would like to take on a picnic--my friend Diane's chicken salad for instance or the pepper jack pimento cheese from the local grocery store's deli--but when it comes to things I myself would actually make to take on a picnic, well, the list is pretty slim (PB&J and a bag of Sun Chips, anyone?). However, after some thought, I determined brownies would be a great accompaniment to any picnic, don't you agree? Besides, I make pretty good brownies if I do say so myself...

BROWNIES

1 cup butter (the real stuff), melted
2 cups sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract (the real stuff)
4 eggs
3/4 cocoa
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt

Grease 9x13" pan. Stir together butter (melted), vanilla and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, stirring well after each addition. Add cocoa, stir together until well blended. Add flour, baking powder and salt; stir well. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 30-35 minutes or until they pull away from the sides of the pan.

You could probably use a mixer but I stir it all together by hand with a wooden spoon.

Looking for other great picnic recipes? Check out the Recipe Swap at Offering Hospitality!

Linkworthy

Some recent posts that have either challenged me or encouraged me or both...

If Bella Were My Daughter (Take 2) by Mary Kassian
What would I do if my daughter became infatuated with a boy who was very nice, and obviously cared for her, but who had a dark side, and was, in fact, a “lost soul”? What clues would tip me off that their relationship wasn’t healthy? What would I tell her? What signs should I warn her of, so that she might be cautious when she sees them ? So many young women blindly follow their emotions. They don’t know how to be wise and cautious. They don’t know the tell-tale “signals” to look for that indicate that a relationship isn’t healthy.

Women's Ministry as a Means of Grace by Wendy Alsup
We must be humble women who are honest about our sin. Instead, so often we are a mix of shame and pride. We’re ashamed of ourselves because of what others have done to us and what we, in turn, have done to others. And we’re too proud to admit it to anyone. We must become women who value CONFESSION. I don’t know where the saying originated that “confession is good for the soul,” but I believe it’s a concept that is taught first in Scripture.

Before I Die and After, Too by Rebecca Writes
...we could have done any one of those things after his diagnosis if he’d wanted, because for some of the time, he was well enough to travel. But for him, the terminal diagnosis took things off his before-I-die list, and the items added were not spectacular, one-time activities, but new ordinary tasks.

Is it okay for moms to have jobs outside the home? from the Desiring God blog
Those are the kind of dreams I want to offer the younger women that are coming along so that they don't think, "If I don't get a career and make lots of money and be equal with men in pay and time and everything, I've somehow sold out to something small or something that doesn't require intellectual capabilities."

Grace in the flesh of a little boy, one of Amy's Humble Musings
Raising kids is a tough job. Just when you figure stuff out, puberty hits. God has promised to give us grace if we will ask for it. The central part of being a Christian, of living like one, is having faith and then asking God for more faith to believe him, to trust his promises, to raise our children to love Him too.

When I did that, God gave me Charles.

For the Young Mother: Ministry, Guilt and Seasons of Life from 9 Marks Blog (HT: Justin Taylor)
This season in your life is just that—a season. And each season is a divine calling from our Creator and King. Organizing a new church event is important. Teaching your little boy to be kind to his sister is also important. But which one can best be done by you during this season? Serve God well by ministering to your children first. Very soon they will be grown and gone and all those uniquely teachable moments will be gone. And you will have ample opportunity to serve Christ outside your home in the seasons ahead.

Friday's Fave Five

My blog friend Carrie recently posted a list of summer reading recommendations. Ever the innovator (or, not), I thought I'd share some of my own favorite titles, incorporating my list into Susanne's weekly Friday Fave Five carnival. Five fiction recommendations and five non fiction in no particular order from my ever growing list of (far more than five) favorite books:

FIVE FAVORITE FICTION/MEMOIR TITLES
1. I Will Carry You: The Sacred Dance of Grief and Joy by Angie Smith. Read it with a tissue handy.

2. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford. Loved it.

3. Ava's Man by Rick Bragg. Read it for Bragg's beautiful prose.

4. Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast by Robin McKinley. Carrie recommended it to me and now I recommend it to you. A sweet story that is in many ways remarkably similar to the Disney film. I loved it.

5. For pure fun, Pamela Aiden's Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman trilogy. Yeah, it's fan fiction, Pride and Prejudice style, but, like I said, it's fun. The second in the series is not my favorite but the first, An Assembly Such as This and third, These Three Remain are perfect summer reads for the Jane Austen fan who doesn't take herself too seriously.

FIVE FAVORITE NON FICTION TITLES
1. Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Okay, so I'm reading this one now but I can already tell you-it's an important book. Well worth the investment in time and money.

2. Dug Down Deep: Unearthing What I Believe and Why It Matters by Joshua Harris. An informal though weighty look at doctrine and theology.

3. The Long Way Home: An American Journey from Ellis Island to the Great War by David Laskin. History buffs will find this interesting and intriguing.

4. What Is the Gospel? by Greg Gilbert. An primer on the most basic of questions: what's so good about the good news?

5. Rescuing Ambition by Dave Harvey. A fantastic encouragement to godly ambition that is downwardly mobile.

What are your favorites of the week, bookish or otherwise? Link up at Susanne's and check out other favorites!

Status Report, July

Sitting...out on the porch. It's a nice morning, for July. There's even a breeze. It's pleasant.

Drinking...coffee, black.

Missing...my two youngest boys. They are spending the week at my parents'. I will go get them this weekend.

Returning...to blogging, maybe? I don't know yet. Perhaps.

Reading...Spiritual Depression by Lloyd-Jones. Good stuff, a must-read for any believer struggling with the fight for joy, which I'm thinking is probably all of us at some point in our lives. He pulls no punches and dispenses Truth with the kind of blunt straight talk I need. I like it.

Also reading...Joy, one of Lydia Browback's devotionals. Do you sense a theme going on?

Loving...my new hardwood floors. Love them. They are so pretty, making one thankful for a leaky fridge and a good homeowner's policy! Maybe I will post pics sometime soon.

Pretending...I am the Nester. Do you read the Nester's blog? She's inspired me to various and sundry decorating projects around the house. What? Me? Projects? Yeah, I know! Crazy, isn't it? I've been painting an old beat up coffee table I bought at our local Downtown Rescue Mission thrift store. It's black. I'm also painting another coffee table, one of the Spanish pine tables that were so popular in the early 90's; in true Nester fan fashion, I chose the grey green she painted her pine armoire. It's a little out of the box for me but I think I like it. We are also retiring our old, beat up sofas and getting new--I'm excited!

Wondering...when and why I started caring about my house and its decor. It's about time but I imagine it's a phase that will pass soon enough!

Watching...the World Cup and terribly disappointed in the US's loss last week. As you know, we are a house-full of soccer fans! And then there's "the Tour" (de France) that begins Saturday. We are also a house-full of cycling fans! So much sporting excitement!

Anticipating...a trip to San Diego with my husband in a few weeks. California! I've never been to San Diego or to California or anywhere on the west coast. I still can't believe we're going!

Stressing...over the logistical nightmare that accompanies my husband and I both being out of town. Complicated doesn't begin to describe it.

Praying...for wisdom and strength to persevere in parenting. It only gets harder, doesn't it?

Remembering...the events of July two years ago, the heartbreaking roller coaster ride of grief and disappointment, of obedience and the Lord's gracious provision. A church split is hard, an understatement if there ever was one; a church plant isn't easy either. But the Lord is good and He is faithful! I am glad He brought us here and I am glad too for the friendships that have persisted through it all. I love my church and I profoundly thankful to be a part of the work the Lord is doing in and through us; I will continue to love my old church as well. Indeed, how can I not? We served the Lord together for many years! May the Lord use both faith families to reach our community with the gospel of Jesus Christ! To God be the glory!

Realizing...it's already 9:30 and I must get up and get busy (but don't you love those occasional lazy mornings?). I am reluctant to come in; it's so nice out here on the porch! On today's to-do list: purchase paint and primer for my son's room and begin painting. I may also go look at fabric to either re-upholster or slipcover a chair in the den. No, I won't be doing any upholstery or sewing of slipcovers myself; I do have my limits!