so... i won’t show you the new couches because i have not finished sewing all of the pillows and i want you to see the FINAL product and be blown away...
but i will show you how many youth we can have sit in the family room now...
and the answer is 36.
9 on the long couch (the 10 foot long one and only 7 were on the couch. 2 sat on the WIDE arm rests) and 5 on the other one. and 112 kids around the table and some various and sundry other places in the room.
and as crowded as that room is... my calendar is just as packed. BUT i am thinking of reprising my “a post a day in may” for the THIRD year in a row.
thinking about it...
so while i ponder that, you can ponder some greater thoughts ...
from this website... tolle lege. which means “take up and read” and is from st. augustine’s confession where he heard a voice telling him to “tolle lege” (take up and read) and he began to read the gospels and converted to Christianity.
it is where i read wonderful things like this...
“It is only when you deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow your Lord that you begin to experience the transcendent humanity for which you were created. Remember, Christ’s call to you is a rescue.
In asking you to deny yourself and follow, He is giving to you what you could never earn or achieve on your own. You will not find it in your marriage, in parenting your children, in accumulating possessions, in the esteem of friends, in theological knowledge, or in the most beautiful location.
Christ offers you what you cannot earn and what the physical creation can never offer: the all-surpassing glory of knowing Him. This is the world’s best prize. This is the universe’s best meal. This is the only thing that will give life meaning and fill you with lasting joy.
The final question: in your everyday situations and relationships, where are you finding it hard to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Christ?”
–Paul David Tripp, A Quest For More: Living For Something Bigger than You
or this gem...
“Only where Christ’s death for sin is taken with apostolic seriousness can the rains of divine restoration wash human hate away and moisten seeds of love. The prospects for real and lasting forgiveness in the many trouble spots of the postmodern world depend on the grace God grants as the gospel of His reconciling Son is proclaimed, believed and applied.”
R. W. Yarborough, “Forgiveness and Reconciliation”
and this one...
“How does one come to love? The heart of man is so base that it cannot love unless it has first seen the benefit of loving… God took His Son and sent Him into our mire, sin, and misery and poured forth the entire story of His mercy that we might boast of all His goods as though they were our own.
He made Himself a beloved Father and He gave us His Son, poured out His great treasure most generously and sank and drowned all our sins and filth in the vast sea of His great goodness so that the heart cannot but let this great love and blessing draw it to love in return and then be prepared willingly to fulfill the divine commandments.
Otherwise the heart cannot love. It must find that it has been loved first. One cannot love first. Therefore God comes, takes hold of the heart, and says: Learn to know Me.– Why, who are you?– I am Christ. I have plunged into your wretchedness. I have drowned your sin in My righteousness.
This knowledge softens your heart. Therefore you cannot but turn to Him. In this way– when one learns what Christ is– love is taught.”
–Martin Luther, What Luther Says: An Anthology