Tracing The Divine: November 2014

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

A Secret Garden

Sarah came to visit!!!

Rehearsal for the magnificent Haydn's Creation

Excited!

The following collection is titled: The digression of an all-night work session.

10:30 PM The optimistic Sugar High

12:30 AM: The unproductive, Pinterest Scrolling sugar low. Acorn Squash

1:30 AM: The moment I realize this will take all night.

Dramatic Shadows forebode the long hours to come.

2:30 am: Confused by these many, many lists and grids

3:30 AM: Loopy

4:30 AM: Almost there

6:00 AM: Nap Time

I must say that the meeting I was preparing for this during this night went extraordinarily well.

The next day brought weather like this.

So we made our own sunshine by hanging out and eating the yumminess above.

Friday Night a group of us went to see Interstellar

Then Dave and Austin and I came back and made cider and sat by the fire and ate (really good) chocolate and philosophized about art and music and whatever else our happy, tired brains thought of.

Winter inside and out of the window.

If you do not yet know the intense joy of putting up a new, perfectly clean shower curtain, I wish that joy to come upon you soon. Oh happy day :)

Cleaning, organizing, talking to mum, texting Sarah Beth and reading Lewis and Valley of Vision on Sunday afternoon.

Sunshine on a cold, cold day

Getting to do what I love to do every day with such precious little ones.

Practice time on a glorious concerto (Mendelssohn)

Starting in on this masterpiece today

A gorgeous aria on the classical radio station

The coziness of the heavy winter comforter

As I loaded these pictures, I was once again privately bemoaning the fact that many of the very dearest, deepest moments of the last two weeks aren't represented here. But then I smiled to think, again, that this is perhaps as it should be. The very dearest moments are ones which are only captured by the pen of God. It struck me that this canvas on which they are etched - our minds - is very much like Eden: a place of beauty and naked vulnerability. In this place is recorded with absolute sacred privacy the deepest, unashamed, unpolluted ecstasies of the heart, the quietist unuttered whispers of happiness, the aching relief which has no words at all. This is a place in which we have always the choice to walk in sweet fellowship with our maker savoring this beauty in worship to him alone. What will that day be like when we - the ransomed church - stand before Him in the new heaven and the new earth, our veils of fallen flesh thrown back and secret joys made known without jealousy or fear or shame or pride, but only worship for all eternity!

Sunday, November 9, 2014

"Like Newborn Babes"

So very thankful for the Word of God and his people tonight. Bible study on Friday night was especially encouraging and challenging. That time and the truth in it has followed me into these last few days (which feels like the last week :P) with such strength and joy. I pray that it continues into this coming week. May Christ be our best thought, our burning desire, our deepest passion, our consuming thought. Those are strong words, but so is our capacity for desire. To the degree that we are passionate, feeling beings may our passion find it's goal and answer in Christ. May we thirst for the scriptures like a newborn crying out for nourishment. May we faithfully and intentionally purge our minds of what is not toward Christ so that we have maximum capacity to receive and minimum distraction from truth and genuine beauty. We have been created to strain toward and mirror eternity with Christ in these present moments. Austin and I jokingly say to each other "I have hunger!!" when we're starving for dinner. I want to keep growing until I wake up every morning and say "I have hunger!!" for the Word of God. My soul must be literally starving for truth of God and I cannot function properly until I have feasted deeply there.

I've been captured lately by a phrase from a recent sermon by Josh Moody out of Romans 4. After a long description of all that Christ is and all that he has accomplished in the Gospel, he said "when we see this we will find that contentment is too weak a word!" This has been echoing in my mind over and over. If I truly see who Christ is then all else gains unutterable significance. Ordinary beauty is doubled, tripled, infinitely multiplied. In Christ, contentment is too weak a word, not too much to ask in this life. Remaining in Christ is so far from my current state. But tastes of it seem to be glimpses of heaven. I know what I'm fighting sin for now.

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Shopping list: I must be teaching boys! :)

A Saturday afternoon treat from my co-worker Ms. Lisa.

Austin played an incredible weekend of hockey! These pictures are super blurry, but they are just proof of how much his handwork has paid off! He skated hard, made tons of awesome plays both nights and lead the team so well as chaplain. I couldn't be prouder of the man in that #11 jersey!