thoughtcollision

[thoughtcollision]

The leaves were more gorgeous than ever; the first touch of frost would lay them all low to the ground. Already one or two kept constantly floating down, amber and golden in the low slanting sun-rays.

Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South (via deadpoetsmusings)

[thoughtcollision]

[thoughtcollision]

Don’t introduce me to your parents unless you plan on marrying me bc they’re going to love me & ask about me for the rest of your life lol

[thoughtcollision]

i greatly admire and esteem steven bencarz.

[thoughtcollision]

“we know our liberties, we know our rights, we know how to fight a very good fight, just grab that last bag there and turn out the light, we’re taking our church to the moon.” laugh-out-loud funny and so beautiful

[thoughtcollision]

An Alice in Wonderland commission ! Trying to pick some imagery that’s not used as often - the knitting sheep rowing past scented rushes, the giant crow as big as a storm cloud, & the rabbit’s rabbit shaped house.

[thoughtcollision]

Never mind if you cannot feel His presence. He is there, never for one moment forgetting you.

Elisabeth Elliot, Passion & Purity (via godlywoman)

[thoughtcollision]

[thoughtcollision]

People are complaining about Christmas stuff being up but man, I could do Christmas stuff all year. More specifically, the getting-ready-for-Christmas. I could do Advent quite a lot of the year. I love O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. It’s easily one of my top three or four favorite hymns. Because, really, there’s a lot of the Christian life that I feel can be readily summed up by singing “Rejoice, rejoice!” in a minor key.

[thoughtcollision]

God bless you.

on my mind:

the urgency of global missions. the goodness of congregational hymn-singing in good acoustical spaces. the strange ways we hold tension in our bodies. November air. the long trailing out of God’s goodness to us, to me, over time and seasons. the myriad connections between people in criss-crossing communities. how thoughts keep drying up and dissipating when i try to explain them out loud. old regrets about renting and not buying my constitutional law textbook many long years ago. how to moderate student discussion. those people you’ve known all your life, weddings, shoulders, a parade of good news, how it all runs through all of life from top to bottom. God’s patience with me, my sinful foolishness. a list of people I need to email at work about students and grades and missing assignments.

[thoughtcollision]

why have we stopped wearing cloaks and capes. this is ridiculous. the human race is a failure

[thoughtcollision]

I’m not my stretchy pants, and my stretchy pants aren’t me, and I’m not me*

My pants are no-zipper dress pants--basically leggings. I found them at Kohls and thought, “praise Jehovah.” But lately, the pants are doing this thing when they stretch, which is that the little stretchy threads central to the makeup of these pants and which function to hold the pants on the body, snap when they are stretched. And when the stretchy threads snap, they fray and stick out of the pants and begin to appear like little hairs along the seam. Whyyyy. 

 So here are these imposter pants, not doing what they are made for, which is to stretch in a normal fashion without sprouting little hairs along the seams, and they just can’t get it right. And I can relate to these poor pants. I have a number of responsibilities in my various communities, and I am at the basic level executing these responsibilities, but I also feel like an imposter producing weird little byproducts out of grief and uncertainty. And the result--like the hairy seams on a pair of work leggings--is awkward. Awkward conversations and emotions and Friday nights. My life and my future and my church are all very different then they were, and I’m trying to see clearly.

They say that when things are going untoward one month, they are certain to mend the next. But gosh, its clear that we’re not in the garden anymore. And my recent disappointments are a constant reminder for that.  In a way it helps, knowing that it wasn’t meant to be like this. But now we’re here, and this also wasn’t a back-up plan, because Christ was crucified before the foundation of the world and farther along, we will know why all of this happens. This awkward world down here is ultimately for the better because Christ has come and Christ does reign and one day we will be in the new heavens and earth, the remade garden/city thing, and we will going about our work in the easiest and most joyful way, and we will all be radiant and full of Him for whom we were made. But I have not figured out how to constantly hope for that, yet. And I still have my pants on, and I still have 2 years in my contract. And even so, Praise Jehovah.

[thoughtcollision]

I’m on a couch in my parents’ basement. I am writing a paper about Shakespeare and The Secret Life of Daydreams from Pride and Prejudice is playing and in one hour, my mom and dad will descend to watch the 5th episode of Stranger Things with me (at their request!). I am single again. Things are old and new. If God loves me (he does) he is planning all the events of my life and not a day is out of his command. Christ reigns.

Also. When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within, upward I look. 

Also, the Loveliness of Christ by Samuel Rutherford. 

My new thing is cafe con leche with cafe bustelo, if you know what I mean...

Also, the Darcy’s Letter track is playing now and it is perfecttt.

[thoughtcollision]

[thoughtcollision]

If men can do so much for a corruptible crown, how much more should you do for one which is incorruptible! Awake to a sense of the misery of being a slave. For fife, and happiness, and liberty, arise and fight. Fear not to begin and enlist under Christ’s banner. The great Captain of your salvation rejects none that come to Him. Like David in the cave of Adullam, He is ready to receive all who apply to Him, however unworthy they may feel themselves. None who repent and believe are too bad to be enrolled in the ranks of Christ’s army. All who come to Him by faith are admitted, clothed, armed, trained, and finally led on to complete victory. Fear not to begin this very day. There is yet room for you. Fear not to go on fighting, if you once enlist. The more thorough and whole-hearted you are as a soldier, the more comfortable will you find your warfare. No doubt you will often meet with trouble, fatigue, and hard fighting, before your warfare is accomplished. But let none of these things move you. Greater is He that is for you than all they that be against you. Everlasting liberty or everlasting captivity are the alternatives before you. Choose liberty, and fight to the last.

 J.C. Ryle, Holiness

[thoughtcollision]

Weak faith is true faith—as precious, though not so great as strong faith: the same Holy Ghost the author, the same Gospel the instrument. “If it never proves great, yet weak faith shall save; for it interests us in Christ, and makes Him and all His benefits ours. For it is not the strength of our faith that saves, but the truth of our faith—not the weakness of our faith that condemns, but the want of faith; for the least faith layeth hold on Christ, and so will save us. Neither are we saved by the worth or quantity of our faith, but by Christ, who is laid hold on by a weak faith as well as a strong. Just as a weak hand that can put meat into the mouth shall feed and nourish the body as well as if it were a strong hand; seeing the body is not nourished by the strength of the hand, but by the goodness of the meat.

—The Doctrine of Faith, by John Rogers, Preacher of God’s Word, at Dedham, in Essex. 1634.”

[thoughtcollision]

got rid of facebook for the time being so may be here posting quotes and whatnot. :)