Psalm 8

¹ LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory
above the heavens.

² Through the praise of children and infants
you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.

³ When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,

⁴ what are mere mortals that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?

⁵ You have made them  a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned them with glory and honor.

⁶ You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
you put everything under their  feet:

⁷ all flocks and herds,
and the animals of the wild,

⁸ the birds in the sky,
and the fish in the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.

⁹ LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

We are beings of great worth. Only a little lower than God. Most definitely lower, but as the word says, only “a little lower.” That to me suggests that we have such tremendous potential. It also makes sense that we are designed to love one another. God has given us himself, but he also gave us each other – these are the beings worthy of companionship, worthy of spending this one wild and precious life with. These are whom we are to experience and share great love with. All to give the more glory to God, the one who made us, and taught us to love.

Crowned with glory and honour despite being mere mortals. What a gracious God! Who do I perceive as crowed with glory… honoured by God himself? It’s nice to imagine myself in that seat, but it doesn’t really “stick” in my understanding. I don’t feel the aura of glory or feel particularly honoured… although, when I contemplate what Christ did for me, I do shut up (God has done so much for me, why me?).

Ah, my beloved, you and I were created a little lower than God. Yet sometimes I fear talking to you with complete honesty. Sometimes I do not entrust myself to you fully, I hold back, there are walls I do not even know the extent of. Sometimes I find it hard to hope for things to be glorious, knowing there are already so many things we’re dealing with, and there are more we haven’t even scratched the surface of. I want to be honoured, feel glorious with you. I want to be completely transparent, knowing where you are, having nothing to hide.

What Women Want

A great TIME article about the state of women now compared to forty years ago.

College campuses used to be almost 60-40 male; now the ratio has reversed, and close to half of law and medical degrees go to women, up from fewer than 10% in 1970. Half the Ivy League presidents are women, and two of the three network anchors soon will be; three of the four most recent Secretaries of State have been women. There are more than 145 foundations designed to empower women around the world, in the belief that this is the greatest possible weapon against poverty and disease; there was only one major foundation (the Ms. Foundation) for women in 1972. For the first time, five women have won Nobel Prizes in the same year (for Medicine, Chemistry, Economics and Literature). We just came through an election year in which Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Tina Fey and Katie Couric were lead players, not the supporting cast. And the President of the United States was raised by a single mother and married a lawyer who outranked and outearned him.

A good ol’ quote or two

“The ultimate purpose of marriage is the greater glory of God — and God is most greatly glorified when His gifts are rightly celebrated and received, and His covenants are rightly honored and pledged.”

- from this dreamy eyed fellow, Albert Mohler, via the marriage blog

“Marriage is the source of great and unspeakable happiness. Yet because of sin it is not unmixed happiness. But marriage is not first and foremost about making us happy. It is for making us holy. And through the covenant of marriage two Christians pledge to live together so as to make each other holy before God, as a testimony to Christ.”

- not sure who this is from, but I think it’s the same guy

Matt Tapley’s Blog

You may or may not know of Matt Tapley.

He is a pastor and worship leader, and one of those guys that I would love to be able to preach like one day. His daughter is currently going through what I can only presume to be treatment for cancer. He started a blog October 4th when she was diagnosed, and as of today it contains six posts. It’s mind-blowing and shutting me up and making me think.

You should read it.

MattTapley’s Blog

This is how you apologize

Full article here.

…a lack of awareness, dismissive or denying behaviours suggest a lack of empathy. An apology lacking in awareness sounds like this: “I’m sorry that you feel that way?” Or an explanation for one’s behaviour is substituted for an apology, or no apology is forthcoming.

The hallmark of a genuine apology is the sincere effort to recognize another’s pain and the resulting effort to alleviate it.

I just finished reading that book I was telling you about… It Came from Within…

and it’s gold. GOLD.

I think it gave me the best advice I’ve ever heard on forgiveness. I’ll try and quote it more precisely later but basically, your feelings don’t have to match up with your forgiveness. When remembering (because we can’t forget) brings up emotions, don’t try to shut ‘em up, but do remind yourself that the issue is forgiven.

Another gold wisdom nugget: Anger has to do with feeling like someone OWES us. It’s not just about what someone DID but about what you feel they TOOK from you (you owe me kindness, you owe me friendship, you owe me respect, etc.). Once you figure out what you wanted (and recognize that most of the time, you can never be repaid), you can cancel the debt.

“You don’t owe me, you don’t owe me, you don’t owe me anymore: From one forgiven soul to another, you don’t owe me.”

I’m still hurt, sometimes, when I remember the things I need to offer forgiveness for. But forgiveness is a decision, not a feeling. :)

La Tour CN

I am from Toronto, and yet that tall spikey landmark I had only ever experienced from the outside…

’til last night.

I used to really resent my parents for leaving out this experience from my childhood, this integral part of my Torontonian roots.

Now, the CN Tower-sized hole in my heart has been filled.

What’s more, is that I got to witness a U2 concert, if only from above, and if only for about 15 minutes (before it got boring watching the thousands of tiny dots and listening to barely discernible music).

It was an evening of surprise. I got home, and my husband had done some internetting and wanted to bring me to “someplace new” for dinner. It’s one of the highest rated sushi places in Toronto (New Generation, if you’re in the area). It was packed, smelled a bit like bleach (we could see the dishwashers from our seat near the back of the restaurant), but the service was very quick and the food was SO GOOD (you didn’t even notice the bleach smell after a while). We were stuffed and the price was cheaper than all-you-can-eat. Oh, and free green tea (which seems to be the standard in a lot of places) and complimentary ice cream afterwards, just makes me so happy.

After this we hopped back on the subway and began walking. I had no idea where. Soon I was amongst a host of people walking towards the Sky Dome – er – “Rogers Centre”, for U2. I didn’t think for one second that Will was bringing me to U2. I guessed CN Tower, but his evasive response was convincing enough that I ran through my head alternate possibilities. There could be the lake, or maybe a restaurant for coffee and tea, but my mind wasn’t racing. I was just kinda going with the flow. Deep down I was still suspecting, however, that our date was going to be the CN Tower.

Then, when we had almost walked past the place where we’d have to turn in order to get in, we turned.

It was a great surprise. I’ve always wanted to go. And I just so happened to bring my camera, which made it perfect.

Yay. Romance.

The Duggars

…kinda scare me.

http://www.duggarfamily.com/

But I like their advice for newlyweds, which they got from whoever counseled them before they got married.

Go without a pet and a tv in your first year of marriage. Learn about each other, sans distraction.

Good stuff.

The other bit of advice they had was to not tease one another, even as a joke. Because even jokes can hurt, and tear you down. They called them “seeds of divorce” which seemed a bit extreme, but considering how often people divorce, I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch. They said it was their job, as husband and wife, to “build each other up.” I like that.

Blessings

things I’m really grateful for. that make life good. an exhaustive list would be impossible.

picture of the grapefruit from smittenkitchen.com

Being rather than doing

I’m sure it’s profound and I could write a lot on it…

but right now, I’m just content with the fact that in the last two days,

I have come home from work,

made delicious meals,

and spent time with friends

without any agenda

no list of things to do looming over my head.

And it’s felt like summer.

Hot and humid and peaceful.

Reading Magazines

I have only ever had one subscription to a magazine, and that was Relevant. Half of the reason I bought it was the graphic design, the other half was for the Christian content. It focusses heavily on music, which doesn’t interest me one mote, but it was an enjoyable investment for a couple years.

My only other interest was in food magazines, which my dad would pick up for me from time to time.

I didn’t realize quite how much I was out of the loop on all things popular culture…by not reading magazines.

Friday night we did an exercise with the youth where we split up into teams and had each group assemble “the perfect teenager” from what they found in magazines.

We created frankensteins – I think the point of the exercise was that there is no perfect teenager and when you start piecing yourself together from bits and pieces of other people’s ideals you end up with a monster … or something.

Anyway, the three mags we got were “O” (Oprah’s blowing bubbles on the cover – oy), Tiger Beat (Jonas Brothers on the cover, OF COURSE, (I love that the girls in our youth group don’t like Twilight or the Jonas Brothers and listen to funky punk music (Family Force Five, how would you categorize them? Is funky punk a genre?)), and finally, Marie Claire).

After I rescued O and Marie Claire from the recycling bin (there was some sort of raspberry crumble on the O magazine which really grossed me out), and scolded our precious youth pastor for throwing them out, indignantly crying “They cost five bucks each!” to which he exclaimed, “What?!” and to which I responded, “CHyea! And those were the cheapest ones!” I brought them home to read.

And I discovered things I have been insulated from. Things that break my heart.

1) Neon is in this summer. Yes. Neon.

2) There is a religious following of “the latest fashion trends”, and Marie Claire is it’s  Holy Book.

3) If I were to judge women based on O or Marie Claire, I would say their only interest in technology is that which keeps them looking younger, and slimmer.

4)Everyone is having sex and cool moms are ok with their 16 year olds doin’ it.

Number 4 is what brought me to my blog tonight. There’s an article in O about mothers and daughters and “the Talk” and all things related to it. O and Seventeen did this big survey on how well we think we’re communicating and whether or not it’s going over as well as we think. You know,  “we” being mothers and daughters.

And I reached a point, after the third story of teenage girls losing their virginity and becoming sexually active with their high school boyfriends, that I almost started to cry.

When I think of the girls at my youth group, all around sixteen years old, I feel tremendous emotion for them. They are bright, they are funny, and they struggle through all the normal terrors and joys of high school. I am excited for their successes, I feel their pain, and I believe they’re going to do great things.

I couldn’t imagine having a daughter that age, and loving her so much more than I love these girls I see just once a week, and knowing she was sexually active with someone less than deserving of this most precious (and I believe, holy) gift.

They say most women feel “sad” and “disappointed” when they find out their daughters have become sexually active.

What makes me sad is that so many of them think it’s normal, and feel pressure to conform. Those that do conform aren’t getting what the world is telling them it’ll bring, and those that don’t conform (by choice or otherwise) feel unwanted, uncool, or maybe even unloved.

:(

Disclaimer: I rarely write on sex, although I’ve got lots of opinions on it. I just haven’t found myself particularly skilled at articulating my thoughts in ways that don’t make me sound like a prude. The truths I believe are beautiful, and bring freedom. A good resource, if you really want to know the beauty of what God has planned for sex and marriage, is this blog, by Sherri Warren. She never comes across prudish.

I like pretty much everything she writes, but a heads up, her blogs are a bit long. This is a video of her I stumbled upon just now. The poem at the end is great. :)