I think that chilly Saturday mornings are one of my favorite things.
I love waking up and having the freedom to lay under the covers for a few moments. Being warm when it’s supposed to be cold. Perfect.
Christian and I are going to go to the gym this morning, and then to the grocery store to pick up some ingredients for a casserole I’m making for our church’s annual Reformation Day picnic. I think it’s going to involve broccoli and cheese and probably a fair amount of butter.
Tonight I’m going to see High School Musical 3 with some of my closest friends. We haven’t all hung out in a long time, so I’m looking forward to being able to do something fun with them.
I’ve really been enjoying podcasts on my iPod. I’ve downloaded most of the sermons from First Pres, which is what I started with, but I’ve also enjoyed episodes of The Boundless Show and some NPR programs like Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me, This American Life and Fresh Air. They help the time go by really quickly at work.
In case you read through RSS or Facebook, I’ve changed the look of the blog, and I think I really like it. Part of that was because I perhaps kind of deleted the CSS I had before, and so it wasn’t really like I had much of a choice. But it gave me a chance to try something different, something I like even better. It also kept me up far too late last night.
Happy Reformation Day, friends.
I mentioned the other day that you could downoad an audio version of Pilgrim’s Progress for free. The offer’s still good; it goes through the end of June.
I’m only in the third stage of Part 1, but I’m enjoying it so much. There’s so much to take in. As Christian (my boyfriend) said to me today, it’s like a book full of sermon illustrations. Not that I so much need sermon illustrations for anything, but still.
My favorite passage so far is from when Christian (the book character) leaves the Palace Beautiful and is headed to catch up with faithful. The four virgins walk with him a little bit of the way, and they discuss his former life…
PRUDENCE: Do you not think sometimes of the country from whence you came?
CHRISTIAN: Yea, but with much shame and detestation. Truly, if I had been mindful of that country from whence I came out, I might have had opportunity to have returned; but now I desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.
PRUDENCE: Do you not yet bear away with you some of the things that then you were conversant withal? (Chelsey: Basically, she’s asking if he still struggles with sin.)
CHRISTIAN: Yes, but greatly against my will; especially my inward and carnal cogitations (Chelsey: thoughts and temptations), with which all my countrymen, as well as myself, were delighted. But now all those things are my grief; and might I but choose mine own things, I would choose never to think of those things more: but when I would be a doing that which is best, that which is worst is with me.
PRUDENCE: Do you not find sometimes as if those things were vanquished, which at other times are your perplexity?
CHRISTIAN: Yes, but that is but seldom; but they are to me golden hours in which such things happen to me.
PRUDENCE: Can you remember by what means you find your annoyances at times as if they were vanquished?
CHRISTIAN: Yes: when I think what I saw at the cross, that will do it; and when I look upon my broidered coat, that will do it; and when I look into the roll that I carry in my bosom, that will do it; and when my thoughts wax warm about whither I am going, that will do it.
PRUDENCE: And what is it that makes you so desirous to go to Mount Zion?
CHRISTIAN: Why, there I hope to see Him alive that did hang dead on the cross; and there I hope to be rid of all those things that to this day are in me an annoyance to me: there they say there is no death, and there I shall dwell with such company as I like best. For, to tell you the truth, I love Him because I was by Him eased of my burden; and I am weary of my inward sickness. I would fain be where I shall die no more, and with the company that shall continually cry, Holy, holy, holy.
only help my unbelief 