Aways Learning

I have started reading "Desiring God' again and am amazed at how little I know about this God I serve and love. One of Piper's assertions is that God is Supremely Sovereign. Which I believe but to really believe this you have to believe that God has purposed everything. That nothing can stop His plans and will.

"God says, ' My counsel will stand and I will accomplish all my prupose.' Therefore Job says, 'No purpose of your can be thwarted.' His purposes encompass all things, including sin. Thus the crucifixtion of Chirst was the will of God, even though it was the greatest sin ever committed. 'The lot is cast i the lap, but every decision is from the Lord.(proverbs 16.33)' "

So that's a lot to swollow. This next quote kinda clarified things for me. "How can God be happy and decree calamity? Consider that he has the capacity to view the world through two lenses. Through the narrow one hei s greived and angered at sin and pain. Throught the wide one he sees evil in relation to its eternal purposes. Reality is like a mosaic. The parts may be ugly in themselves, but the whole is beautiful." Piper's main assertion is,

"The chief end of God is to glorify God and enjoy himself forever."

It would be unrighteous of God to value anything more than what is supremely good, whick of course is Himself. So if God plans all of history, the good and bad, and values himself above all, all of history must be good from the view point of an all-knowing and all-righteous God.

So, when I look at my life I feel so much more hope. I can see in the past how God has put things together in my life and how he has asked me to be pained at times. And all this ulitmately brought Him glory...the story of my life is obviously still playing out, but I can rest in the assurance that God would not let my life be wasted because he longs for His own glory through all things. I can only pray that in death and life I can point to Him more and more. ( actually i don't have to hope because He will make it happen whether I want to or not)
I mean the death and resurrection of His son is the first and foremost moment in history that I must glorify God for in this life time.
So I will read on and hopefully learn more about as Piper as, "the cheif end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him forever."
I hope this hasn't been too confusing. Obviously I don't have all my thoughts together. But as I am reminded regularly, life is a journey and to God be the glory for the grace to grow and learn in progressions.

Getting There

Being here at Mom and Dad's has made me realize how much more confident I have become as a parent. I remember being here on past occasions and feeling lost with out my schedule, not wanting to go alone places with the kids, needing them to have thier nap at regular times. But this time I feel so much more relaxed. Elijah has become so much easier to take places, and Grace, well she's a 18 month old that wants to touch everything, but I guess I've just come to grips with the fact. I wish I had given myself more time to grow. I tend to think I have to be good at something right away, and if I'm not I get frustrated, but its taken me 3 years to get to this point. I got to let myself be a work in progress. So now as I look at the parts of my life that aren't complete or perfect I need to be patient. Take a deep breath Amie, there are days and months to come!

Reading

As I said recently I'm deciding to read more. I've just picked up this book. Its about, as far as I can tell, how we live with different ethnic groups and how we see and define ourselves by our ethnicity or not. I love the topic, I love her insights. I don't love the main character, who is a self-absorbed art professor, who neglects his wife, and enjoys looking at other women. There are actually two families that are profiled in this book, one, the family of the main character. They are loud, disorganized, combative with their words and disjointed. The other of the rival art professor, whose family is Christian, relaxed, welcoming, and enjoy each other. (Unfortunately most of the novel so far is given to the first.) The first has a white father and black mother and the second family is wholly black. Anyways, the main character's wife, whom is black, has a lot of ideas about how people look at her and how is is expected to act in return. Sometimes she is right and other times she is wrong. Their youngest son was decided, that although the family lives in a small college town outside Boston, he speaks ghetto, and dresses ghetto, and believes everyone is looking at him negatively. Anyways, all that is very intreaging to me and I want to see if especially and mother and son are freed from their some times self imposed stereo-types. I have one other problem with the book though. The characters swear a lot. In movies this doesn't bother me so much, but when you are reading a book, you have to say the words and I'm not really comfortable with that....so I don't know whether to put it down or not. All this reminds me why I love to read literature from the 1800's - they can introduce revolutionary ideas in elegant under the radar kind of ways. I have a Jane Austen novel waiting for me to read...so should I put this one down for Jane or not. I don't know...I really want to see where she is going with the racial thing.

Okay I've probably bored you all to death...

will it happen?

Not if I have anything to do with it. My son will do nothing that is suggested to him. No that's not true he will willing eat anything with a sugar value over 90%. But peeing on the potty or riding a bike...not going to happen. He got on because we put Grace on and he was upset because she was on the bike he won't ride. Jon thought he could push him for our walk today, but down the road a bit he decided that he had had enough and got off and refused to get back on. Jon, wanting him to enjoy his bike, thought that if he pushed the bike on our walk he might eventually want to get back on, but no, Jon push, carried and rode the bike for the whole walk, Elijah refusing with every suggestion, that he did not want to ride his bike. What a funny kid. We really have just learned that if its not important we can't push him to do it. Jon even bought him a horn for his bike, but no enticing will do.