Join me on a 31-day adventure?

Hello friends and fellow travelers,

Inscribed in a journal given on my wedding day...

"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered."  - G.K. Chesterton

Evening walk at New Smyrna Beach

Marriage has certainly been an adventure for us. With sand between our toes and the sun slipping behind the skyline, we reminisced over the joys and sorrows we've shared. Thankfulness and joy have blossomed out of the fertile and sometimes broken soil of that first year.... recorded in the aforementioned journal as everyday blessings from God (discussed in this book).  The path is more level now, in many ways, but there are still bumps and valleys.

Christ is very near, and I sense Him lifting my burdens daily.  Though I love worshipping God in song, my heart does not turn there instinctively....  So I've picked up The 30-day Praise Challenge, Becky Harling's newest book.  I want to grow in my desire to praise God for WHO He is, not just the blessings He provides.  I have no idea what this journey will look like...well-said here by Mr. Bilbo Baggins:

“It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

Listen to author Becky Harling share on Midday Connection about her journey through cancer and how praising God changed her life.  She is one of my favorites--author of Rewriting your Emotional Script and Freedom from Performing.  I love her conversational writing style combined with her years of experience as a pastor's wife, mother, ministry leader, speaker, and writer.  Check out her website here.

Would you like to come along on this journey?  I'd be honored to share the road with you.  If you have a blog.... jump in and do the 31-day blogging challenge with me! (Read this post for more info.)

It's my goal to read and share what I'm learning here daily--starting Oct 1st.  I'll post some of the worship music videos suggested in the book as well.  More coming soon...

Bless you, friends.

Ruth

Power of Praise series links:
Praise to the God of all Wisdom
Praise His Strength
Praise the Creator {for beautiful YOU!}
Praise His Goodness

Praise His Unchanging Character
Praise Him for His People
Praise Him in the Waiting
Praise for His Everlasting Love
Praise the Hope Giver
Praise the Conqueror of Fear
Praise the Spirit, our Advocate
Praise the Indescribable One
Praise to the Living Water
Loved by God
Praise the Friend of Sinners
Praise Him for Difficult People

Risking Identity for Christ-like Love

I'm re-reading The Mystery of Marriage as I think through our first year together, looking at how God has worked and how I'd like to see Him work in me in the months to come.  I came across this passage from the book that sums up exactly where I am.  I hope it is encouraging to you as it was to me.  I've recorded some of my one-year thanks down below as well {smile}

From The Mystery of Marriage, by Mike Mason, in reference to losing our self in our love for our spouse:

What is called for is an abandonment so deep and drastic that what we ourselves perceive to be our identity will almost certainly be lost sight of, set adrift.  We must be prepared to enter a no-man's-land, a limbo of self-perception, a state that for any other reason but love would be insanity.  Was this not what the Lord Himself chose to do when He threw away the transcendent, invisible cloak in which He had been wrapped since the beginning of time and became a man--and not only a man, but a tiny baby?  He must have entered some limbo of self-identity, a limbo such that all the theologians of twenty centuries have been unable to pin down exactly who or what category of being this Bethlehem baby was.....it is not that the death of our identities, in and of itself, has any grand meaning or importance.  Such a death may accomplish nothing more than to gain us entrance into a psychiatric ward.  No, what is necessary is to die for another.  If we go out on a limb, we must do it for someone else.  We must get so close to the center of another's soul that we feel the ground slipping out from under us and fear our sanity.  We must come our from our dark, protected corners and go near the edge, consenting to the dizzy, bewildering pull that others are able to exert on us.  For God has not kept Himself immaculately sterilized in some hermetically sealed heaven....We do not really want our Lord to have hair on his body, let alone blood oozing out of His wounds.  We do not really want love to be breathing down our necks.  We never asked for that.  Yet that is the sort of God the Lord is, and the simple truth is that in Jesus Christ this God has drawn far too close to us for comfort, knocking against our heart and leaving a messy broken body on our doorstep.  And this is supposed to be the pattern fo love.  Getting too close for comfort.  Identifying whole heartedly with others, regardless of the messiness, heedless of the risk to our own identity, in order that we might be identified with our Lord Jesus Christ.

Grateful for:

~my Savior and King, who is so patient with me as I learn to love
~my wonderful husband, who is an excellent model of this Christ-like love
~our time here in FL, to get away and really build our new life together
~all the challenges, for they have drawn us closer to Christ and each other
~the many encouraging words we have received from others along the way
~new opportunities springing up to help us grow
~River Oaks church, and the encouragement it has been to us
~our lovely little 2 BD apartment, a place to call home
~new grace for each day
~learning to understand and appreciate each other more every day
~the year ahead, and all the surprises, blessings, and challenges it will bring
~our Faithful Father, King, and Shepherd, who has and will lead us every step of the way

Thankful Prayer

This morning I found Jesus in the quiet...in between my lament and thanks, woven with confession, He was there.  He is always there when we go looking for Him, is He not?  He is in the still moments when we need the reassurance to keep pressing on.  To guide my quiet time this morning, I grabbed my trusty "Devotional Classics" and found the page marked at a discussion of prayer, thankful prayer.  I must share, in hopes that it will encourage you, as it did me, this Multitude Monday:

"In prayer itself there is not fixed order, but both a primary impulse and the experience of praying people show that the first stage may be thanksgiving.  A lecturer to a group of businessmen displayed a sheet of white paper on which was one blot.  He asked what they saw.  All answered, 'A blot.'  The test was unfair:  it invited the wrong answer.  Nevertheless, there is an ingratitude in human nature by which we notice the black disfigurement and forget the widespread mercy.  We need deliberately to call to the mind the joys of our journey.  Perhaps we should try to write down the blessings of one day.  We might begin:  we could never end:  there are not pens or paper enough in all the world.  The attempt would remind us of our 'vast treasure of content.'  Therefore the prayer of thanksgiving should be quite specific:  'I thank thee for this friendship, this threat overpassed, this signal grace.'  'For all they mercies' is a proper phrase for a general collect, but not a private gratitude.  If we are 'thankful for everything,' we may end by being thankful for nothing.  The thanksgiving should also probe deep, asking, 'What are life's abiding mercies?'  Thus gratitude would be saved from earthliness and circumstance, and rooted in Life beyond life.  'Count your many blessings,' says the old hymn, 'and it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.'  This prayer should end in glad and solemn resolve:  'Lord, seal this gratitude upon my face, my words, my generous concern for my neighbors, my every outward thought and act.'"  --George A. Buttrick, A Simple Regimen of Private Prayer

And for my Joy Dare, gratitude list:  3 old things seen new...

~the practice of the morning walk and prayer with my husband, thankful for his strength and protection
~the 50 year old (or more) quilt on our bed, given as a wedding gift from my parents
~photos of old friends hung in our living room, lighting the way with their hard-won victories of faithfulness

and more:
~the grace given by new friends
~lunch-time talks with my love
~good health, winning the hard battle
~Chinese tonight with a dear friend
~my hard-working husband (can I give thanks enough for him?)
~the new bloom of the paper-whites, breaking into this winter day (though it doesn't seem so in FL!)

Have a Blessed and Thankful Day!
Ruth