Soul Food | Friday Favorites, No. 07

This magazine was one of my Friday Favorites over on Instagram a few weeks ago, but somehow I missed sharing it here. I have been so blessed by Set Apart magazine from the very first print copy several years ago and even before when it was purely online. While it's beauty has much to recommend itself, more importantly the truth the articles have spoken to my heart have been soul food. 

While the summer issue has been in our home for many months, I had not read more than a few article until recently. These words came wonderfully timed for my heart a couple weeks ago, when I was feeling particularly unfit and weak for God's calling on my life. I love how God's timing is always perfect!

Verses to ponder.

Friday Favorites, Episode 03

- Rapunzel cherry tomato -
So sweet and flavorful! And their growth habit is simply beautiful.

- freshly weeded and dug dirt -

- "Brave By Faith" free audio book by Alistair Begg -

Sights of Christmas

Old and New Treasures

In February we women used up some used-book-credit which we earned by donating many pounds of used books to our local store. Hannah and I added some of our favorites to our collections, and we all found a few new treasures.

September 5: Product Tags

Some parts of business seem to take endless amounts of time and have so many steps. Designing, printing, cutting, corner rounding, hole punching, string cutting and attaching product tags is a case in point. Doing the afore mentioned on the deck while listening to a good audio book helps.

Heavy Packing

I packed my basket with much yarn and reading for a family day at the lake, but as usual I mostly did nothing. Will I ever learn to pack lightly?

Behind the Couch

...is my basket of everyday life. Yarn, books, stationary, pens, tablet - all within handy reach and lug-ability.

...to all the exiles

"...to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile... Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce..." (Jeremiah 29:4-5)

Have you ever felt like you were in exile and not in the place you were meant to be? A less than desirable job? A family in turmoil? A lonely community? A body that is sick and weak? A house that is falling apart and no funds to fix it? A loved one lost and with them, your heart?

Perhaps this passage from Jeremiah is for you and me just as it was for the Israelites. Babylon was not their ideal, but it was where God placed them... for good reasons.

To preserve them

To refine them

To bring them to a greater realization of who they were created to be - whole, not fractured as we all are by sin-nature

To gain their full attention

To become their only and true Hope

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope" (Jeremiah 29:11).

Wholeness, future, hope. Aren't these the opposite of what you would expect from an exile experience? Yet God promises these things to the soft in heart, and He never, ever lies. "...I will fulfill to you my promise..." (Jeremiah 29:10)

As we wait, abide in our loving Heavenly Father and abound in this place of exile, He will bring beauty and joy into that land. "But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare" (Jeremiah 29:7).

Do you see Jesus' blessing in the land of exile? Ask for it. Seek it. He will give it to you. He never, ever lies.

Thou shalt not be overcome.

 

When the body is broken we yearn for strength, for something to fill the gap so keenly felt. And so we eat food that brings the healing nutrition and drink the water that satisfies and purifies. We find refreshment. Sometimes the refreshment is deep and we gain much strength for the day before us. Yet more often the food and drink are only just enough to keep us to the next meal or snack.

 

So often at those times of bodily brokenness our souls are also broken. The journey is too much for us, and we need that heavenly Food and Drink lest we die inside. God gives it to us daily and it is enough. Sometimes what is given feels only just enough. But the truth is it is always more than enough.

 

"He said not: Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be afflicted; but He said: Thou shalt not be overcome."

(Amy Carmichael, Rose from Brier, 1933)

 

There is always enough, more than enough, in Christ Jesus!

Winter Holiday

Hannah and I are reading Winter Holiday to Dorothy or to each other as we find need. We have already relished many evenings of other "Swallows and Amazons" books over the last year. What fun to reread the books that our family enjoyed so much together when we were young!

P.S. Yesterday was Dorothy's fifty-sixth birthday, so guess what we did last night. Sat around the fire as a family and read. Family time and being read to -- two of Dort's favorite things!

P.P.S. Arthur Ransome's "Swallows and Amazons" series is a bit tricky to track down, but well worth the effort.

Family Read Aloud Night