TenThousandBeside

Ladies, to simplify MY life, this is where my readings and reflections will be posted.  You can visit here when you are on the computer and send out your GMG, and if you don’t want to take the extra step, then you can “subscribe” and every time I post a gmg reflection, you will get notified in your email box.  Sound good?  Here’s what HIT ME LIKE  A TON OF BRICKS  today…..see if it rings true for you!  (actually this is only part one due to time.)

THE BAD NEWS   “If prayer is the central function of the new life of faith, the very heart-beat of our life in God, it is obvious that our prayer life must become the target against which Satan directs his best and most numerous darts……..he understands better than we do what prayer means to ourselves and to others…….if he can in one way or in another weaken it, his prospects of stealing our life in God without us even noticing it are the best……..this is the most painless and quitetest way and the way which creates the least sensation.  He desires above all else to provide himself with servants who think that they are God’s children and who are even looked upon as children of God by others……and he has an excellent confederate in our own bosoms: our flesh which is at enmity with God (Rom 8:7); and our old nature realizes that it can expect nothing but mortification every time we really approach God in prayer.  It is important for us to bear this clearly in mind.  By so doing we will, in the first place, be able to account for something which we formerly could not understand, namely, the aversion to prayer which we feel more or less strongly from time to time.”

THE GOOD NEWS  “Our disinclination to pray should not make us anxious or bewildered.  It should merely substantiate to us the old truth that the “flesh wars agains the spirit.”  We will have our sinful nature with us as long as we live here below, and we must endure the discomfiture occasioned thereby.  But we should deal with the unwillingess of our flesh to pray in the same way aw we deal with all the other sinful desires ou our flesh….We should take it to God and lay it all before Him.  And the blook of Jesus Christ will cleanse us from this sin as it does from all other.”  Praise God!

More tomorrow from this AWESOME book by Ole Hallesby, written in 1930, called (you guessed it!) PRAYER.  Love you ladies!

In response to feedback since the blog started I offer the further following random tidbits “about me:”

*the name of the blog, springdrops, comes from John 4:7. John 7:37ff, and Psalm 23.  I pray the living water that sustains me spills into your life; that the cup of blessing overflows to you; that this blog is a drop of God’s grace for you.

*I am married to a man who I’m still crazy about after 19 years of marriage. I have never met nor heard of a person I like better than my husband ~ he’s admirable, true and noble, plus he has broad shoulders :0) and is a caring self-sacrificing father~ and I thank God every day for the wonderful gift of Jeff’s love for me. We have five children, my kids are a delight, and I love and enjoy all of them more than I ever imagined.

*I quit facebook and started this blog because Facebook for me has felt like going down to a designated corner of town and calling out self-focussed tidbits at any passersby who I am remotely familiar with; or publicly screaming private sentiments to those I’m close to. A blog feels, to me, more like giving your dearests a standing invitation for tea in your living room.  Except there’s no tea…..

*My musical preference turns out to be folk, though I never thought I’d say that.  I’ve come a long way since VanHalen.  🙂  Like other stuff too still, but Andrew Peterson and Sandra McCracken are very soothing to me.

*weaknesses: idealism aka “not living in reality” as my sister calls it,frequent and intense sarcasm, laziness, faithlessness, and cowardice.   strengths: sense of humor, optimistic, idealistic, and knowing that I can boast in these weaknesses because his Grace is sufficient to cover them all, to help me to overcome them, to help me press on despite them.

*I don’t like tortillas or blueberries. Blech!  This is surprising to most people.   Now tortilla CHIPS, and blueberry MUFFINS/PANCAKES/SYRUP/PIE….that’s a different story.

*my favorite weather feature is WIND.  I love storms, and I love the windows open in my home, no matter the weather outside; so I can be in touch with the outdoors. On the other hand, I’m not thrilled about camping…..I fear “drunks with guns” at campsites thanks to the Reader’s Digest “Drama in Real Life” story I read at age 10………….*I am a rehabbed coffee-holic and now just a social drinker of coffee and a tea addict.

*I have a split personality: as the youngest of 5 (by 8 years)  I am half uptight achiever and half relaxed happy-g0-lucky.  I can never predict which me is going to come out each day and could give you all the reasons both of these people should try to be more like the other in certain ways….which only compounds the problem. Thankful I can relate to many different kinds of people.

*I am a dreamer, always trying to tweak my life to its ideal as I perceive it could be at the moment ~  and then remembering that I need to stay right where I am and stick to answering a clearly evident call, and wait on the Lord to reveal next steps. He often does this through my “both feet firmly on the ground” husband, and I’m so thankful for that.

*I dream of living in a large farmhouse (on a minimum of 20 acres containing a patch of woods but also lots of wide open spaces, especially surrounding the home) in the country (but near enough to the next home that we don’t feel totally isolated and vulnerable to serial killers and child abductors) with Jeff working from home, and we both homeschool all our children.  There will be time in each day for subjects like auto mechanics,  practice with firearms & explosives, as well as musical instruments; but also training in logic, theology, literature, and latin.   We will read all of Tolkien, Lewis, Dostoyevsky and Dickens….and all kinds of history books and biographies and modern favorites like David McCullough, Keller, Eric Metaxas, and  and JI Packer.  And while the boys are shooting their guns in the woods, Eden and I will sew and bake and run on the country roads and garden and craft and decorate and provide childcare for lots of other families so there’s always a baby in the house.   We’ll keep care of the horses and learn jumps all together.  To make sure we don’t lead an insular life, we will also keep an apartment in the city which we live in for half the year  and use to feed (they will receive the aforementioned baked goods as well as other home grown organic fresh vegetables, fruit and eggs) the homeless and some foster children (who we end up adopting and homeschooling back in the country.)   Instead of this, we live in a suburb, close enough to the next house that I can hear the Cubs game when my neighbor listens on his back porch; and we send our teen to the public school where their idea of literature is anything written since 2007; I have homeschooled each of my children at some point but not enough for me, and I am so overdrawn on time that adoption for us would probably be illegal.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m very thankful for my life.  I’m just fleshing out for you the “I’m a dreamer” statement I made earlier.

* I once was a lawyer but now can’t recall what subrogation and indemnify mean, let alone “res ipsa loquitor.”

*I learn the hard way.

*I love to read — nonfiction.

*when I went to college the only vegetables i liked were carrots, corn and cucumber & the only fruit I liked was apples and pears.  How did I get by so long NOT EATING strawberries, oranges, broccoli, cantaloupe, watermelon, sweet potato, bell peppers, spinach, grapes, peaches, nectarines, asparagus, etc?  I have a picture of myself at 21 years of age wearing gloves to stem strawberries because I didn’t want to touch those yucky things!  Silly!  Sheer determination to be normal is what changed me.  But the plain blueberries I still just can’t do.  🙂

*i used to be a night owl but now i’m an early bird

* i hate cell phones and facebook, but I love blogs and biblegateway.com!

Hope that helps!!!       ~Denice