God is good

Despite how I feel or what I go through
Whether circumstances be bad or good
Whether people hate or love
or are hated or loved
Whether I love or hate
or am loved or hated

He loves.
He is good.

The end.

"God judged it better

to bring good out of evil 

than to suffer no evil to exist." 

(St. Augustine)

thankful . . .

full of thanks .

in a contemplative mood . . .

but without much to write about.

so i shall just chatter away whatever thoughts my mind delivers to the tips of my fingers. Like that. Just. Whims, I suppose.

Hm.


Okay, well, five minutes of nothing have just passed. I don't intend to just sit in front of a screen forcing my brain to evoke non-existent stuffs. Does that make it existent? Saying that they're "non-existent"? Hm. Nothing. It's nothing, but it exists, right? Hm. If everything were gone, then nothing would still exist. Hm. Hm hm hm.

Just kidding.

i need more yarn .

Belatedly realized we finally crossed into the cool threshold of November. Was intently crocheting the threads of my life away into what I had imagined would become a scarf......which I later unraveled back into its threadly state because there wasn't enough to make one. Oh well.

I've stated before, and I'll state it again . . . I lub Novembre! And for what reason(s), I don't know! Alls I do know is that Time herself is diligently threading these months away and is quickly finishing up the last few touches of this year.

I wonder how many scarves Time has.

I really like this picture. Hehe.

~_~

purpose . . .

❝ The purpose of your life is far greater than your own personal fulfillment, peace of mind, or even your happiness. It's far greater than your family, your career, or even your wildest dreams and ambitions. If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God. You were born by His purpose and for His purpose. ❞

 -Rick Warren (The Purpose Driven Life)

shocked ;

& more shocked that i was shocked.

Humility, the Right End
(*note: "The Screwtape Letters is a fictional correspondence between a senior tempter, Screwtape, and his protégé, Wormwood. In this letter Screwtape attempts to explain the great Quarrel between the Enemy (God) and the 'father' of all tempters, Satan.")

❝Screwtape continues his examination of the virtue of Humility:

To anticipate the Enemy's strategy, we must consider His aims. The Enemy wants to bring the man to a state of mind in which he could design the best cathedral in the world, and know it to be the best, and rejoice in the fact, without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it than he would be if it had been done by another. The Enemy wants him, in the end, to be so free from any bias in his own favour that he can rejoice in his own talents as frankly and gratefully as in his neighbour's talents--or in a sunrise, an elephant, or a waterfall. He wants each man, in the long run, to be able to recognise all creatures (even himself) as glorious and excellent things. He wants to kill their animal self-love as soon as possible; but it is His long-term policy, I fear to restore to them a new kind of self-love--a charity and gratitude for all selves, including their own; when they have really learned to love their neighbours as themselves, they will be allowed to love themselves as their neighbours. For we must never forget what is the most repellent and inexplicable trait in our Enemy; He really loves the hairless bipeds He has created and always gives back to them with His right hand what He has taken away with His left.❞

-The Screwtape Letters
-A Year with C. S. Lewis

*tear.

졸업을축하축하축하!!!!!!!

E !

사랑하는 우리 딸 ㅈㅎ !

졸업을 축하해, 우리딸이 졸업을 하는데 엄마 눈에서는 사랑에 눈물이나오는구나.

대견스럽고 자랑스럽단다,

고마워 엄마딸 우리 E!

그리고 사랑해

더욱 고마운 것은 하나님을 더 많이 사랑 할 줄아는 하나님의 사람이 된것에 대해 정말 하나님께 감사하고

기쁘단다.

장래일도 복있는 축복들이 우리 딸을 기다리고 있으리라 생각해.

매일 매일 삶이 기쁨의 날들이되길 기도하며

딸을 사랑하는 친구같은 엄마가 되고 싶어하는 사랑하는 엄마가...........

졸업 축하해요...

--------

키워줘서 고마워 옴마야....
;___;

the Golden Rule.

¹² So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7

^39b ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Matthew 22

_________
human nature: We hold ourselves in the highest regard.

banana yoshimoto.

"Sometimes people put up walls not to keep others out,
but to see who cares enough to break them down."

~~~

life = time



time = life

"We Couldn't Make It Up"

❝Besides being complicated, reality, in my experience, is usually odd. It is not neat, not obvious, not what you expect. For instance, when you have grasped that the earth and the other planets all go round the sun, you would naturally expect that all the planets were made to match--all at equal distances from each other, say, or distances that regularly increased, or all the same size, or else getting bigger or smaller as you go further from the sun. In fact, you find no rhyme or reason (that we can see) about either the sizes or the distances; and some of them have one moon, one has four, one has two, some have none, and one has a ring.

Reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed. That is one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It is a religion you could not have guessed. If it offered us just the kind of universe we had always expected, I should feel we were making it up. But, in fact, it is not the sort of thing anyone would have made up. It has just that queer twist about it that real things have.❞

- C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

works in progress:

workmanships (workmenship?) in progress.

______________________

¹⁰ For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2, NIV)

¹⁰ For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. (NLT)

❝Everyone who believes in God at all believes that He knows what you and I are going to do tomorrow. But if He knows I am going to do so-and-so, how can I be free to do otherwise? Well, here once again, the difficulty comes from thinking that God is progressing along the Time-line like us: the only difference being that he can see ahead and we cannot. Well, if that were true, if God foresaw our acts, it would be very hard to understand how we could be free not to do them. But suppose God is outside and above the Time-line. In that case, what we call 'tomorrow' is visible to Him in just the same way as what we call 'today'. All the days are 'Now' for Him. He does not remember you doing things yesterday, He simply sees you doing them, because though you have lost yesterday, He has not. He does not 'foresee' you doing things tomorrow; He simply sees you doing them: because, though tomorrow is not yet there for you, it is for Him. You never supposed that your actions at this moment were any less free because God knows what you are doing. Well, He knows your tomorrow's actions in just the same way--because He is already in tomorrow and can simply watch you. In a sense, He does not know your action till you have done it: but then the moment at which you have done it is already 'Now' for Him.❞

- C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

God already sees us in our most perfect and best state of being.



*masterpieces in progress
*predestination, free will

learn to love.

{Living Life: quote from The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren}
{felt a heavy need to repost}

❝Life is all about love.

Because God is love, the most important lesson He wants you to learn on earth is how to love. It is in loving that we are most like Him, so love is the foundation of every command he has given us: "The whole Law can be summed up in this one command: 'Love others as you love yourself.'"

Learning to love unselfishly is not an easy task. It runs counter to our self-centered nature. That's why we're given a lifetime to learn it...

Why does God insist that we give special love and attention to other believers? Why do they get priority in loving? Because God wants his family to be known for its love more than anything else. Jesus said our love for each other--not our doctrinal beliefs--is our greatest witness to the world. He said, "Your strong love for each other will prove to the world that you are my disciples."

In heaven we will enjoy God's family forever, but first we have some tough work to do here on earth to prepare ourselves for an eternity of loving. God trains us by giving us "family responsibilities," and the foremost of these is to practice loving each other.

God wants you to be in regular, close fellowship with other believers so you can develop the skill of loving. Love cannot be learned in isolation. You have to be around people--irritating, imperfect, frustrating people....❞