Thursday, September 24, 2009
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Happy Birthday!
Elisabeth Elliot Daily Devotional
Title: Happy Birthday -- You're Heading Home!
Author: Elisabeth Elliot
Source: On Asking God Why
A Lamp for My Feet $10.00 (Book)
Happy Birthday -- You're Heading Home!
The cards on the racks simply won't fill the bill. I wander disconsolately past the "Relative," ''Comic," and other categories of birthday cards, even a rack labeled, "These cards are outrageous. Prepare for shock!" What I want to wish on your birthday is not the sort of happiness that depends on the denial of the passing years, or on your undiminished power to get ever bigger and better thrills out of tall bottles or other people's beds. The cartoons are crazy. In fact, they're horrifying, in that they show what a dead-end street the desperate search for happiness usually is. The only cards that suggest the possibility of any other kind of happiness make such exaggerated claims for my feelings for you, in such soupy, mawkish language, and with such wispy or misty illustrations--no, I'm sorry, I can't bring myself to buy them.
What I want to wish you today is joy. I want you to have the happiest birthday ever. Not because you're just exactly the age you've always dreamed of being: the perfect age. Not because you'll be having the splashiest, roaringest party ever, or because you're surrounded by all your favorite fans, feeling marvelous, getting a vast pile of gorgeous gifts. I could merely wish you a happy birthday, but I'll do more than that. I'll turn my wish into prayer, and ask the Lord to give you the happiest birthday ever. I'll ask him for the kind of joy that isn't dependent on how you feel or who's there to celebrate or what's happening.
The people who write those awful cards are doing the best they can, but they haven't much to fall back on. Best to try to forget the hard facts: time is passing, people are actually growing old, happiness is pretty hard to come by in this old world. What is there to fall back on? Can't do a thing about the facts. The misery and loneliness and disintegration and horror are there (Edna St. Vincent Millay put it bluntly: "Death beating the door in"), but who wants to put things like that into a birthday card? Isn't it good enough to settle for cute comics, sweet sentiments, and just have fun? We can at least pretend we're happy. Forget the truth for a day. It's your birthday, and by George, we're gonna frolic!
That's one way to do it, but why frolic for all the wrong reasons? I love celebrations and gifts, a little dinner by candlelight in a quiet place with loved friends is my idea of a happy evening. But it's specially nice to have somebody remind me of something even happier than the bouquets, the balloons, and the bubbly, something that will last out the day, the week, even the coming year, if there is any such thing. There is, you know. Here's joy:
The wretched and the poor look for water and find none,their tongues are parched with thirst;but l the Lord will give them an answer,I the God of Israel will not forsake them.I will open rivers among the sand-dunes and wells in the valleys;I will turn the wilderness into poolsand dry land into springs of water;l will plant cedars in the wastes,and acacia and myrtle and wild olivethe pine shall grow on the barren heath.
(Isaiah 41:17-19 NEB)
A birthday is a milestone. It's a place to pause. Look back now for a minute over the way the Lord has brought you. There has been thirst, hasn't there? You've been over some sand dunes, through some valleys, some wilderness, out on a barren heath once in a while. I have too. Sometimes it seemed that there weren't any rivers, wells, pools, or springs. Nothing but sand. No lovely acacias or wild olives, only barrenness. The trouble was I hadn't learned to find them. I was trying to travel alone. I made the same mistake when I first went to live as a missionary in the South American jungle. After one bad experience of getting lost, I learned to follow an Indian guide. He knew the trails. He could find water to drink (inside a bamboo, for example, if there wasn't a river handy), honey in a hollow tree, fruit where there seemed to be no fruit. I couldn't see them. I didn't know where to look. The Indian did. He could make a cup out of a palm leaf, build a fire in the rain, construct a shelter for the night in an hour or so. I was helpless. He was my helper.
A milestone is not only a place to look back to where you've come from. It's a place to look forward to where you're going. We don't always want to do that on birthdays. If we look back it seems such a long time, the good old days are over, and (here's the hard part) so much guilt clogs the memories. If we look forward--alas. How many more birthdays? What will happen before the next one? Thoughts of the future are full of for
I the Lord your Godtake you by the right hand;I say to you, Do not fear;It is I who held you.
(Isaiah 41:13 NEB)
Parties and presents won't do much for a checkered past or a frightening future. Only the God who was loving you then, loves you today on your birthday, and will keep right on loving you till you see him face-to-face, can possibly do anything about them. "It is I who help you," he says. There is help for all the guilt. Confess it in full. He'll forgive it in full. And I mean forgive. That doesn't mean he denies its reality, sweeps it under the rug, or bathes it in sentiment. There was once an old rugged cross. You know where it was--on a hill far away. And you know what it means--nothing sentimental at all, but forgiveness, freely offered to all of us, the whole price paid in blood by the Dearest and Best.
There is help for your fear too. Express it in full. Let the Lord take you by your right hand and help you. I had to do that with my Indian guide. I simply could not make it across those slippery log bridges, laid high over jungle ravines, without help. I was scared to death. The Indian, who had been over them many more times than I had, held me by the hand.
You've heard those bad news/good news jokes. Well, this isn't cheap birthday card humor. The bad news is that another year has gone by and we haven't done all we meant to do and it's not going to come back to give us another chance. The good news is the Gospel. We can be reconciled to God--sins forgiven, fears taken care of. That old cross, the emblem of suffering and shame, stands between us and our sins and fears, our past and future, and on its outstretched arms we see Love. The Love that would die for us is the Love that lives for us--Jesus Christ, Lord, Master, Savior of the World, wanting to give you (for your birthday if you'll take it) something that will really quench your thirst, rivers among the sand dunes and wells in the valley; wanting to hold your hand, help you, give you--not only a happy birthday, but everlasting joy.
I'm not the least bit bashful about telling my age. I'm glad for every birthday that comes, because it is the Lord, my faithful Guide, who "summoned the generations from the beginning." I look in the mirror and see the increasingly (and creasingly) visible proofs of the number of years, but I'm reconciled. Christ reconciles me to God and to God's wonderful plan. My life is his life. My years are his years. To me life is Christ, and death is nothing but gain. When I remember that, I really can't think of a thing I ought to be afraid of. I can't be sorry I'm a year older and nearer to absolute bliss.
I pray for you on your birthday, that your path, as is promised to the just man, will shine not less and less but more and more; that you will still bring forth fruit in old age; that the Lord will give you a thankful heart like the psalmist's who sang,
O God, thou hast taught me from boyhood,all my life I have proclaimed thy marvellous works:and now that I am old and my hairs are gray,forsake me not, O God....Songs of joy shall be on my lips;I will sing thee psalms, because thou has redeemed me.All day long my tongue shall tell of thy righteousness.
(Psalms 71:17, 18, 23, 24 NEB)
So--happy birthday! If you have friends and parties and presents, be thankful for such bonuses. If you have no friends with you today, no party, not a package to open, you still have a long list of things to thank God for, things that matter much more. A birthday filled with thanksgiving and hope is the happiest kind of birthday. Have one of those! Deck yourself with joy!
Copyright© 1989, by Elisabeth Elliotall rights reserved.
Title: Happy Birthday -- You're Heading Home!
Author: Elisabeth Elliot
Source: On Asking God Why
A Lamp for My Feet $10.00 (Book)
Happy Birthday -- You're Heading Home!
The cards on the racks simply won't fill the bill. I wander disconsolately past the "Relative," ''Comic," and other categories of birthday cards, even a rack labeled, "These cards are outrageous. Prepare for shock!" What I want to wish on your birthday is not the sort of happiness that depends on the denial of the passing years, or on your undiminished power to get ever bigger and better thrills out of tall bottles or other people's beds. The cartoons are crazy. In fact, they're horrifying, in that they show what a dead-end street the desperate search for happiness usually is. The only cards that suggest the possibility of any other kind of happiness make such exaggerated claims for my feelings for you, in such soupy, mawkish language, and with such wispy or misty illustrations--no, I'm sorry, I can't bring myself to buy them.
What I want to wish you today is joy. I want you to have the happiest birthday ever. Not because you're just exactly the age you've always dreamed of being: the perfect age. Not because you'll be having the splashiest, roaringest party ever, or because you're surrounded by all your favorite fans, feeling marvelous, getting a vast pile of gorgeous gifts. I could merely wish you a happy birthday, but I'll do more than that. I'll turn my wish into prayer, and ask the Lord to give you the happiest birthday ever. I'll ask him for the kind of joy that isn't dependent on how you feel or who's there to celebrate or what's happening.
The people who write those awful cards are doing the best they can, but they haven't much to fall back on. Best to try to forget the hard facts: time is passing, people are actually growing old, happiness is pretty hard to come by in this old world. What is there to fall back on? Can't do a thing about the facts. The misery and loneliness and disintegration and horror are there (Edna St. Vincent Millay put it bluntly: "Death beating the door in"), but who wants to put things like that into a birthday card? Isn't it good enough to settle for cute comics, sweet sentiments, and just have fun? We can at least pretend we're happy. Forget the truth for a day. It's your birthday, and by George, we're gonna frolic!
That's one way to do it, but why frolic for all the wrong reasons? I love celebrations and gifts, a little dinner by candlelight in a quiet place with loved friends is my idea of a happy evening. But it's specially nice to have somebody remind me of something even happier than the bouquets, the balloons, and the bubbly, something that will last out the day, the week, even the coming year, if there is any such thing. There is, you know. Here's joy:
The wretched and the poor look for water and find none,their tongues are parched with thirst;but l the Lord will give them an answer,I the God of Israel will not forsake them.I will open rivers among the sand-dunes and wells in the valleys;I will turn the wilderness into poolsand dry land into springs of water;l will plant cedars in the wastes,and acacia and myrtle and wild olivethe pine shall grow on the barren heath.
(Isaiah 41:17-19 NEB)
A birthday is a milestone. It's a place to pause. Look back now for a minute over the way the Lord has brought you. There has been thirst, hasn't there? You've been over some sand dunes, through some valleys, some wilderness, out on a barren heath once in a while. I have too. Sometimes it seemed that there weren't any rivers, wells, pools, or springs. Nothing but sand. No lovely acacias or wild olives, only barrenness. The trouble was I hadn't learned to find them. I was trying to travel alone. I made the same mistake when I first went to live as a missionary in the South American jungle. After one bad experience of getting lost, I learned to follow an Indian guide. He knew the trails. He could find water to drink (inside a bamboo, for example, if there wasn't a river handy), honey in a hollow tree, fruit where there seemed to be no fruit. I couldn't see them. I didn't know where to look. The Indian did. He could make a cup out of a palm leaf, build a fire in the rain, construct a shelter for the night in an hour or so. I was helpless. He was my helper.
A milestone is not only a place to look back to where you've come from. It's a place to look forward to where you're going. We don't always want to do that on birthdays. If we look back it seems such a long time, the good old days are over, and (here's the hard part) so much guilt clogs the memories. If we look forward--alas. How many more birthdays? What will happen before the next one? Thoughts of the future are full of for
I the Lord your Godtake you by the right hand;I say to you, Do not fear;It is I who held you.
(Isaiah 41:13 NEB)
Parties and presents won't do much for a checkered past or a frightening future. Only the God who was loving you then, loves you today on your birthday, and will keep right on loving you till you see him face-to-face, can possibly do anything about them. "It is I who help you," he says. There is help for all the guilt. Confess it in full. He'll forgive it in full. And I mean forgive. That doesn't mean he denies its reality, sweeps it under the rug, or bathes it in sentiment. There was once an old rugged cross. You know where it was--on a hill far away. And you know what it means--nothing sentimental at all, but forgiveness, freely offered to all of us, the whole price paid in blood by the Dearest and Best.
There is help for your fear too. Express it in full. Let the Lord take you by your right hand and help you. I had to do that with my Indian guide. I simply could not make it across those slippery log bridges, laid high over jungle ravines, without help. I was scared to death. The Indian, who had been over them many more times than I had, held me by the hand.
You've heard those bad news/good news jokes. Well, this isn't cheap birthday card humor. The bad news is that another year has gone by and we haven't done all we meant to do and it's not going to come back to give us another chance. The good news is the Gospel. We can be reconciled to God--sins forgiven, fears taken care of. That old cross, the emblem of suffering and shame, stands between us and our sins and fears, our past and future, and on its outstretched arms we see Love. The Love that would die for us is the Love that lives for us--Jesus Christ, Lord, Master, Savior of the World, wanting to give you (for your birthday if you'll take it) something that will really quench your thirst, rivers among the sand dunes and wells in the valley; wanting to hold your hand, help you, give you--not only a happy birthday, but everlasting joy.
I'm not the least bit bashful about telling my age. I'm glad for every birthday that comes, because it is the Lord, my faithful Guide, who "summoned the generations from the beginning." I look in the mirror and see the increasingly (and creasingly) visible proofs of the number of years, but I'm reconciled. Christ reconciles me to God and to God's wonderful plan. My life is his life. My years are his years. To me life is Christ, and death is nothing but gain. When I remember that, I really can't think of a thing I ought to be afraid of. I can't be sorry I'm a year older and nearer to absolute bliss.
I pray for you on your birthday, that your path, as is promised to the just man, will shine not less and less but more and more; that you will still bring forth fruit in old age; that the Lord will give you a thankful heart like the psalmist's who sang,
O God, thou hast taught me from boyhood,all my life I have proclaimed thy marvellous works:and now that I am old and my hairs are gray,forsake me not, O God....Songs of joy shall be on my lips;I will sing thee psalms, because thou has redeemed me.All day long my tongue shall tell of thy righteousness.
(Psalms 71:17, 18, 23, 24 NEB)
So--happy birthday! If you have friends and parties and presents, be thankful for such bonuses. If you have no friends with you today, no party, not a package to open, you still have a long list of things to thank God for, things that matter much more. A birthday filled with thanksgiving and hope is the happiest kind of birthday. Have one of those! Deck yourself with joy!
Copyright© 1989, by Elisabeth Elliotall rights reserved.
Friday, April 10, 2009
recent reads
Thanks to a colleague who introduced me to those twisted fairytales -- re-written classical fairytales. Very funny. Great for lovers of fairytales.
To live happily ever after is a task all princes and princesses should strive to do well. Prince frog knows it very well. So what happens when it's not that easy? This continuation is a bit silly but funny.
Story set in Persia. Everything's so convincingly persian. This Cinderella dropped her diamond anklet.
Same story, only that it happened in ancient China this time.
Look carefully, it's "sleeping BUNNY"!
This Cinderella is adventurous and flew away with the prince in a hot air balloon in the end and of course, they lived happily ever afer.
Totally clueless as to why I remembered this story so well from my childhood. Perhaps it was one of the first few fairytales that I heard. In this story, this mischievous pea did the princess a great favour by telling her that 'there was something big and round underneath the many layers of matresses"!
Oh, do you know what really happened in "little red riding hood". Listen to the wolf's account. He claimed to be telling the Truth.
"Rapunzel" in the 1970s. Not much change in storyline. Only the social setting's different.
After rescuing the little duckling, the big bad wolf finally managed to make some friends. Ya, isn't it unfair that some animals are just born to be evil? haha. This is one of the recurrent topics in those twisted fairytales where the wolves are given a voice to express themselves.
They didn't just live happily ever after like that. They put in effort and made it happen.
Forgive her. She's just too lonely.
Who says princess must be pretty? And that she must marry a prince?
After her father quit the throne, she had to find a way to make herself recognized and she did it. She's so smart.
This big bad pig is terribly bad. But he turns good so easily in the end. No wonder it's a fairytale.
Was rather impressed by the author's imagination. The prince has a mother who's partly ogre!
See Cinderella through the step-sister's eyes.
The step-mother tells the story of 'snow white'. But do you believe her?
This book is hilarious.
This is how it's hilarious.
This emperor comes from a country where nobody wears anything. So everyone has plenty of time doing other things rather than doing chores related to clothes. They are happy that way and then two tailors came and cheated the emperor into wearing something.
THIS, IS DEFENITELY THE BEST AMONG ALL THE STORIES!
To live happily ever after is a task all princes and princesses should strive to do well. Prince frog knows it very well. So what happens when it's not that easy? This continuation is a bit silly but funny. 
Story set in Persia. Everything's so convincingly persian. This Cinderella dropped her diamond anklet.
Same story, only that it happened in ancient China this time.
Look carefully, it's "sleeping BUNNY"!
This Cinderella is adventurous and flew away with the prince in a hot air balloon in the end and of course, they lived happily ever afer.
Totally clueless as to why I remembered this story so well from my childhood. Perhaps it was one of the first few fairytales that I heard. In this story, this mischievous pea did the princess a great favour by telling her that 'there was something big and round underneath the many layers of matresses"!
Oh, do you know what really happened in "little red riding hood". Listen to the wolf's account. He claimed to be telling the Truth.
"Rapunzel" in the 1970s. Not much change in storyline. Only the social setting's different.
After rescuing the little duckling, the big bad wolf finally managed to make some friends. Ya, isn't it unfair that some animals are just born to be evil? haha. This is one of the recurrent topics in those twisted fairytales where the wolves are given a voice to express themselves.
They didn't just live happily ever after like that. They put in effort and made it happen.
Forgive her. She's just too lonely.
Who says princess must be pretty? And that she must marry a prince?
After her father quit the throne, she had to find a way to make herself recognized and she did it. She's so smart.This big bad pig is terribly bad. But he turns good so easily in the end. No wonder it's a fairytale.
Was rather impressed by the author's imagination. The prince has a mother who's partly ogre!
See Cinderella through the step-sister's eyes.
The step-mother tells the story of 'snow white'. But do you believe her?
This book is hilarious.
This is how it's hilarious.
This emperor comes from a country where nobody wears anything. So everyone has plenty of time doing other things rather than doing chores related to clothes. They are happy that way and then two tailors came and cheated the emperor into wearing something.
THIS, IS DEFENITELY THE BEST AMONG ALL THE STORIES! WAHAHAHHA.
I HAD A GOOD LAUGH WHILE READING.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Sunday, March 01, 2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
=D
小轩子一个踉跄跌在地上，让我两天里看到他都忍俊不禁。
“李老师，第５页！”阿伟真是让我不知该怎么生他的气。
小恩的嘴实在太甜，不知她妈妈每天给她吃些什么。
显儿太聪明！实在佩服。而且还很谦虚。希望他一直都这样。
小杰很认真。小锦很正直。
小兴是个非常乐天派的孩子。看到自己组的分数已经有２５０了，高兴得欢呼。其实这２５０分是５组里最低的。
“李老师，第５页！”阿伟真是让我不知该怎么生他的气。
小恩的嘴实在太甜，不知她妈妈每天给她吃些什么。
显儿太聪明！实在佩服。而且还很谦虚。希望他一直都这样。
小杰很认真。小锦很正直。
小兴是个非常乐天派的孩子。看到自己组的分数已经有２５０了，高兴得欢呼。其实这２５０分是５组里最低的。
recent reads
余秋雨 《借我一生》
"The Embers of Heaven" by Alma Alexander
"Survival in the Kiling Fields" by Haing Ngor with Roger Warner
"A Walk with Jane Austen" by Lori Smith (fairly disappointed with this book :( )
"In His Steps" by Charles Sheldon Sunday, January 18, 2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
week1 & 2 verses
2 Timothy 1:7 (New King James Version)
7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
Philippians 4:8 (New King James Version)
8 Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.
7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
Philippians 4:8 (New King James Version)
8 Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.
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