january's brain dump

It's early February, and I'm feeling reflective.

The darkest month...
January. It felt like two months. There were days that felt like a week, to be honest. Partly because it was bitterly cold. And partly, because I've had more than my usual share of stuff to process.

Trials...
We all have trials of various kinds everyday. Some last a moment and another may last years. One trial has really made me examine brokeness, and the lack thereof in my heart. Here are four quotes I'll keep chewing on:

"The Lord Jesus cannot live in us fully and reveal Himself through until the proud self within us is broken. This simply means that the hard unyielding self, which justifies itself, wants its own way, stands up for its rights, and seeks its own glory, at last bows its head to God's will, admits its wrong, gives up its own way to Jesus, surrenders its rights and discards its own glory - that the Lord Jesus might have all and be all. In other words it is dying to and
self-attitudes."
--Roy Hession, The Calvary Road


“Humility is so shy. If you begin talking about it, it leaves”
--Tim Keller via the DG blog

…let me suggest that you talk to your spouse and to others close to you and ask them questions like these: Do I confess my sin consistently? Do I confess specific instances of sin and not just general categories or general references to sin? Do others find it easy to correct me? Do others know the areas of temptation in my life at present? Do they know the most pronounced patterns of sin in my life at present?
--CJ Mahaney, Humility (actually heard this in a sermon he gave at BBC)

and, most recently...
"The difference between Christian and non-Christian: When a non-Christian is convicted of sin, he sides w/ his sin. A Christian sides w/ God, against himself"
--Mark Dever, via AP's DG PasCon tweets/twitter/whatever

moving on for now...

School
It's January. The time of year that I reevaluate how things are going. I hate thinking about this, really. The boys' school has been a blessing in many ways. But there have also been some disappointments. Time to pray...God has it all worked out.

Bitterly cold weather has benefits, namely, rosy cheeks




Facebook
I've been tagged for that "25 Random things about me" post like a zillion times. I'll do it eventually. I am so random in general that it's hard for me to come up with 25 random things about me. Maybe, I'm taking this too literally.

Laundry
I got caught up late in January and almost ran out of things to wash and Brent said that I needed to stop because there was no place to put anything else clean. Gotta love the small houses.

The Last Day of January
Our beloved Japanese "daughter" returned for a visit and dinner this past weekend. And she brought along her roommates (from Japan, China and Vietnam! cool, huh?!). They were wonderful! They helped make dinner and cleaned up everything while I put Jillian to bed. But, best of all, they were such great conversationalists. We talked about culture and religion and love and that which transcends language and nationality. These are high school girls!!! Oh, how I wish I would have branched out more in high school and gotten to know some internationals. I'm making up for lost time, as seen here!

clockwise from the left are Thao, Youki, Mali, Cita, Avery and Miles
(in the middle are two awesome soups!)

Next post up...
Jillian's latest pictures. I'll give the chica her own post.