She's HERE!!!!!!!!!!

Josh and Jemima's beautiful baby girl has arrived: Cherish Mercy!

All 7 pounds and 4 ounces of sweet perfection.

How did God come up with a creation as wonderful as babies?!

I love her to pieces and can't stop nuzzling her soft face and kissing her!

Doing the Unthinkable

To love means loving the unlovable.

To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable.

Faith means believing the unbelievable.

Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.

- G. K. Chesterton

Words You Can't Utter

One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart

that you can't utter.

- James Earl

The Husband Who Isn't What You Wanted

I know, I know... I'm not married so I don't know anything about marriage. I know I don't.

But, quotes like this are too good to pass up.

And if you, married person, resent me posting marriage "stuff" on my blog... just think of it this way: I'm posting it for myself. Because really, I am. :)

"You're just going to need to get rid of the idea that marriage will make you happy. It won't. Once the initial high wears off, you'll just be you, except with twice as much laundry.

Because ultimately, marriage is not about getting something -- it's about giving it.

....The bottom line is that marriage is just a long-term opportunity to practice loving someone even when they don't deserve it. Because most of the time, your messy, farting, macaroni-and-cheese eating man will not be doing what you want him to. But as you give him love anyway -- because you have made up your mind to transform yourself into a person who is practicing being kind, deep, virtuous, truthful, giving, and most of all, accepting of your own dear self -- you will find that you will experience the very thing you wanted all along:

Love."

Tracy McMillan, on the Huffington Post: "Why You're Not Married."

Take My Love

Take my will and make it Thine -
It shall be no longer mine;
Take my heart - it is Thine own,
It shall be Thy royal throne,
It shall be Thy royal throne.


Take my love - my Lord, I pour
At Thy feet its treasure store;
Take myself and I will be
Ever, only all for Thee,
Ever, only all for Thee.

- Francis Ridley Havergal

The Way to Love Anything

“The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.”
-G.K. Chesterton

On Loving

"Happiness comes more from loving than being loved;
and often when our affection seems wounded
it is only our vanity bleeding.
To love, and to be hurt often, and to love again --
this is the brave and happy life."
-J.E. Buckrose

Love That Hurts

You cannot love without risk of pain.
In fact, love at its highest looks and
feels like a bloodied cross.
- Dr. Andrew Selle

Wisdom Full of Mercy and Good Fruits

"But if you have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, lie not against the truth.

This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.

For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.

But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace."

James 3:14-18

"My little children, let us not love in tongue; but in deed and in truth. And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him...

And this is His commandment, That we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as He gave us commandment."

I John 3:18,19, 23

And why do I turn to my own ways so often?!

I want heavenly wisdom today!

Love Is...

The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost. --G. K. Chesterton

Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.--Peter Ustinov

Humility and love are precisely the graces which the men of the world can understand, if they do not comprehend doctrines. They are the graces about which there is no mystery, and they are within reach of all classes... [The poorest] Christian can every day find occasion for practicing love and humility. --J. C. Ryle

People need loving the most when they deserve it the least. --John Harrigan

Love means to love that which is unlovable; or it is no virtue at all. --G. K. Chesterton

Do not waste time bothering whether you "love" your neighbor; act as if you did.As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone you will presently come to love him. -- C. S. Lewis

If we discovered that we had only five minutes left to say all that we wanted to say, every telephone booth would be occupied by people calling other people to stammer that they loved them. --Christopher Morley

To love at all is to be vulnerable. --C.S. Lewis

Getting Married Doesn't....

I first noticed this post on Abigail's blog. I guess it's been a hit, though, 'cause I've seen it on at least four or five other blogs in the last couple of days. At the risk of being redundant, I'm going to post it anyway for those of you who haven't seen it. It's a great article.

A quick snippet:

Getting married doesn't instantly make you selfless... it makes you realize how very selfish you can be at times.

Getting married doesn't make you feel loved... it makes you realize love is more of a decision you make than a feeling you feel.

Getting married doesn't take away loneliness... it makes you realize true companionship comes not when you demand it but rather when you give it to another person.

You can read the entire article here.

* * * *

My brothers are back from Africa with thousands of pictures!
I'll upload a few as soon as I get a chance....

The Danger of Love

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of
your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."
-C.S. Lewis

Scrambled eggs and winter mornings

Last night I was at my friend, Tyana's bridal shower, and her mother-in-law-to-be did a little devotion, sharing collective wisdom from the mothers and grandmothers from both sides of the family.

She shared a story from her personal experience that was just so good that I have to repeat it here.

She said that her friend, Anita, (who's been married for something like 25 or 30 years) and has eight children, still, after all of these years, finds it her joy and privilege to serve her husband out of love. Not just to be a "wife and mommy", but to specifically find ways to serve and bless her husband daily.

One of the ways she does that is by getting up early every morning and making him a delicious breakfast before he leaves for work. That's during the summer. During the winter, not only does she get up and make him a delicious breakfast, but once she has it prepared and he is enjoying breakfast, she hurries out to his car and starts it warming up, scrapes the ice off the windows, and if needed, shovels the snow out of the way! Talk about one wife who finds it her joy to serve her husband, day in and day out after all these years.

Mrs. Shelly Burks who was telling the story said, "I always say, Anita, why do you do that? You're a busy mom! He's a man. You don't have to warm and scrape his car every morning!"

She said that Anita always replies, "Because I love him! I want to do it for him!"

What a refreshing attitude - love that keeps giving - in today's society...

Calvary Love

If
If I have not the patience of my Saviour
with souls who grow slowly;
If I know little of travail (a sharp and painful thing)
till Christ be fully formed in them,
Then I know nothing of Calvary love.


If I have not compassion on my fellowservant,
even as my Lord had pity on me,
then I know nothing of Calvary love.

Amy Carmichael