On Grief and Losing a Mother

Now there is one thing I can tell you: you will enjoy certain pleasures you would not fathom now. When you still had your mother you often thought of the days when you would have her no longer. Now you will often think of days past when you had her. When you are used to this horrible thing that they will be forever cast into the past, then you will gently feel her revive, returning to take her place, her entire place, beside you. At the present time, this is not yet possible. Let yourself be inert, wait till the incomprehensible power… that has broken you restores you a little, I say a little, for henceforth you will always keep something broken about you. Tell yourself this, too, for it is a kind of pleasure to know that you will never love less, that you will never be consoled, that will constantly remember her more and more.

~(1907) Letter from Proust to Georges de Lauris, whose mother had just died. Translated from the French by Richard Howard.

Chapter One of the Great Story

"You do not yet look so happy as I mean you to be."

Lucy said, "We're so afraid of being sent away, Aslan. And you have sent us back into our own world so often."

"No fear of that," said Aslan. "Have you not guessed?"

Their hearts leaped and a wild hope rose within them.

"There was a real railway accident," said Aslan softly. "Your father and mother and all of you are—as you used to call it in the Shadow-Lands—dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning."

And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.

~ The last page of The Last Battle, The Chronicles of Narnia.

I read these lines to a friend tonight with tears my eyes. In the last novel, Susan is missing—she's not in Narnia with the other children. Susan is named as "no longer a friend of Narnia." The novel explains that she had chosen lipstick and nylons instead. And so, the books end, and her brothers and sisters have died in a train accident and are now in Narnia—in Heaven—forever. The Susan part of the story breaks my heart. I told a friend tonight not to be a Susan. And I read her this last chapter as something for her to look forward to. With tears in my eyes.

We Are Made to Cry out for Permanence When...

God made us in such a way that if we try to turn that moment of touching into a spiritual, emotional, personal moment of union, our hearts are going to cry out for permanence, for promises of faithfulness. Our hearts say in that moment you may touch me because you have promised never to leave me or forsake me. You may have me because you are me. We are so made that we cry out for permanence when giving away our most precious gifts...Therefore, that kind of touching belongs in marriage.
~John Piper, from a talk I heard on YouTube about the dangers of premarital sex. He's right about this. And it's heartbreaking.

We Must Go to the Scriptures to Determine What Is Needful for Women to Do

"It is not sufficient for churches that hold to male headship simply to compile a list of things that are permissible for women to do. We must go to the Scriptures and determine what is needful for women to do. God pronounced gender-aloneness "not good" in the Garden, and the same is true in the church. He did not give His benediction of "It is very good" until man and woman stood side by side, equal but different.
      The church must boldly articulate a robustly positive perspective of womanhood and woman's role in the church, and the church must equip older women to disciple younger women to think and live according to this perspective. If a local church remains silent on this issue, women are unequipped to fulfill their covenantal calling."

~p. 42, Women's Ministry in the Local Church, J. Ligon Duncan & Susan Hunt

Manufacturing a God of Your Own

"Beware of manufacturing a God of your own: a God who is all mercy, but not just; a God who is all love, but not holy; a God who has a heaven for everybody, but a hell for none; a God who can allow good and bad to be side by side in time, but will make no distinction between good and bad in eternity. Such a God is an idol of your own, as truly an idol as any snake or crocodile in an Egyptian temple. The hands of your own fancy and sentimentality have made him. He is not the God of the Bible, and beside the God of the Bible there is no God at all.

Beware of making selections from your Bible to suit your taste. Dare not to say, ‘I believe this verse, for I like it. I refuse that, for I cannot reconcile it with my views’. Nay! But O man, who art thou that repliest against God? By what right do you talk in this way? Surely it were better to say over EVERY chapter in the word, “Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth”. Ah! If men would do this, they would never deny the unquenchable fire."

~J.C. Ryle

Augustine's Evolving Thought on Indwelling Sin

In 359 Augustine acknowledges that a Christian still experiences the lusts of the flesh, but does not sin. At this point in his theology, he defines sin as the consent of the will to obey, or to act according to sinful desire. Simply having sinful desire is not personal sin... However, by the opening decades of the fifth century, Augustine's harmartiology expands. He begins to see sinful desire itself as personal sin and in need of the absolution brought about through the Lord's Prayer... While he only sees it as a venial sin and not mortal, it is still sin that a Christian must bear until the resurrection of the body. Augustine comes to see sinful desire as sin because it falls short of the perfect love of God and neighbor, which is the ultimate end of the law."

~Christopher T. Bounds, "Augustine's Interpretation of Romans 7:14–25, His Ordo Salutis and His Consistent Belief in a Christian's Victory Over Sin," The Asbury Journal 64, no. 2 [2009]: 24). 

A Little Kingdom I Possess

A little kingdom I possess 
where thoughts and feelings dwell, 
And very hard I find the task 
of governing it well; 
For passion tempts and troubles me, 
A wayward will misleads, 
And selfishness its shadow casts 
On all my words and deeds. 

How can I learn to rule myself, 
to be the child I should, 
Honest and brave, nor ever tire 
Of trying to be good? 
How can I keep a sunny soul 
To shine along life's way? 
How can I tune my little heart 
To sweetly sing all day? 

Dear Father, help me with the love 
that casteth out my fear; 
Teach me to lean on thee, and feel 
That thou art very near, 
That no temptation is unseen 
No childish grief too small, 
Since thou, with patience infinite, 
Doth soothe and comfort all. 

I do not ask for any crown 
But that which all may win 
Nor seek to conquer any world 
Except the one within. 
Be thou my guide until I find, 
Led by a tender hand, 
Thy happy kingdom in myself 
And dare to take command. 

~Louisa May Alcott, A Little Kingdom I Possess
Mrs. Eva Mun­son Smith, in her Wo­man in Sacred Song, 1885, p. 668, gives Miss Al­cott’s hymn, A little king­dom I pos­sess, and prints a note thereon from Miss Al­cott, dated Con­cord [Mas­sa­chu­setts], Oct. 7, 1883, in which Miss Al­cott says that "this hymn is the only hymn I ever wrote. It was composed at thirteen, and…still expresses my soul’s desire."

The Role of Christian Disciplines in Deepening Faith but Not in Receiving Grace

"[When preachers] present the Christian disciplines in isolation from the grace that motivates, sanctifies, and secures, such a portrait [of a readily-vexed God] necessarily emerges. If devotion to disciplines procures out position with God, then grace becomes something we manufacture by our works, making grace meaningless. And since no degree of human diligence can compensate the Lord for all we truly owe him, an insistence on more exercise of disciplines to satisfy God only makes those most honest about their merits less sure of their standing. Brownie points count for little in an economy in which absolute holiness remains the only acceptable currency.
   The true efficacy of spiritual disciplines is not their power to bribe God but their usefulness in opening our hearts to the expanse of his love and deepening our faith in his power and presence. Spiritual disciplines are not ways to barter for God's affection but means to feast on the bread of his Word so that we are strengthened and encouraged in our daily walk with him. The practices of prayer, Scripture devotion, and worship enable those made righteous by Christ's work to take in more of the spiritual nutrients that God freely and lovingly provides for the wisdom, joy, and power of Christian living."

~Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching, pg. 280