Temptation, Elsie and the X Factor

It's been a busy weekend but good. My grandparents just celebrated 50 years marriage (an amazing achievement) and of course there was family here visiting for the occasion.

Anyway, the title of the post ... starting with the Elsie books, I have to admit they're one of the best I've ever read. Set in the 1800s so not entirely up to date, but you get a bit of history lessons in there added onto the story of a little girl with amazing faith. The first two were books I've had about two years and just love.

Book 1, Elsie's Endless Wait, was quite tear-jerking because we see Elsie living in a house full of six aunts and uncles close to her own age, who mistreat her. It's not only their teasing, their mother often claimed that since she was no blood relation she couldn't excuse a punishment as she would her own children, so for that reason in the very first chapter she is punished through no real fault of her own. Yet she is then consulting her Bible and reminding herself that Jesus bore worse than that patiently.

But the main focus is her endless wait to meet her father, which does happen in this book, but they conflict slightly as he doesn't agree with her strict principles. He is a very determined man, and we see a glimpse of what is to happen in the next book, Elsie's Impossible Choice. She had strict principles about the Sabbath, as to what is or isn't suitable to do on a Sunday. If you think that's easy back in the 1800s, by reading this it is not. The real conflict is caused by her refusing to read a newspaper on the Sabbath. A small thing maybe, but it all built up to a big thing and she suffers HUGELY.

So after reading those I wondered about trying out the Sunday idea .... which was easy enough at first but these past few months it has got so much harder to keep the faith that I'm doing the right thing. Back to another part of the title post ... X Factor. I don't watch TV much nowadays, but got a bit hooked on X Factor last year and it's hard to stop once you've started - it's quite good actually.

The only problem that arose this year was that it was extended for the whole weekend with the results on Sundays. I thought it would be simple to just record and watch another day, but because we are so busy and it's hard not to find out when you're out on Mondays, it just became much tougher than I anticipated it to be. I haven't seen the final yet so that's 4 hours to catch up on tomorrow.

When you're making things complicated for yourself, I admit I was tempted to give up and just watch it at the usual time. MANY times. I never thought I would ever say that, but there you go.

However, luckily the Bible has something to say about that:


"No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful, He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it." 1 Corinthians 10:13

Children and stuff ...

Well, this is a collection of thoughts really, but I wanted to blog it all into one. Firstly, the other day while on a public bus I saw a toddler of about one or two years old sharing all the sweets in their packet with another kid. I did find that kinda sweet and it's a great start to kids learning to share early.



And an interesting conversation my mum was telling me she had with a five-year-old. Obviously I'm not going to name names or write out the entire conversation, but she had been learning about "Baby Jesus" in school and asked heaps of questions. When all her questions had been mostly answered, she asked "How do you know all this?" When told it is in the Bible, she responded with "What's the Bible?"



Quite honestly, that question is a bit frightening! What has this world come to, that kids have never heard of the Bible? We were discussing how much you can actually tell a kid when they aren't your own. Our church runs a group for kids and most that come aren't from Christian families, but just jumping on the bandwagon, so to speak. Just last week we were trying to tell them what we read in the Bible is all real, something I actually never considered during my childhood. Of course, when you start on teaching kids what's real and what isn't, you come back to that guy at the top of this post.


Santa. Sometimes if parents have to tell their kids Santa's not real, they then think Jesus can't be either. How exactly are kids supposed to understand what's real and what isn't? And is this Santa stuff really worth it? Anyone got any thoughts on this stuff?


Speaking of which, Christmas is just around the corner!

Thankfulness

I was just reading up on a couple of blogs, both American, as a lot of the blogs I read are, and they are trying to find one thing to be thankful for every day, in the run-up to Thanksgiving. Of course we don't celebrate Thanksgiving here, but it did get a few things going for me....

Main thing: why is it that people who have the tough life seem to find it easier to be thankful? Then we, the perfectly ordinary people, seem to grumble and moan all the time! I'm not saying I don't - I complained this morning about it being cold. But I do think if we think hard about it each day, we CAN find something to be thankful for. After a whole term of wondering if this college course I'm doing was the right thing to do, and not really having friends, and losing heart a bit with my faith, the right people just came into my life at the right time!

God is good!

Last thing- my blogroll now has every blog I'm following on it, just to make it easier. Check out this one and this one in particular for the thankfulness in hardship!

The Gospel According to Harry Potter

That's the title of a book I read some time ago. It refers to "glimmers of the gospel" in the books. I've been a fan of Harry Potter for years but went slightly off it when I became a Christian, but since got back into them, and this book was a great help. It was written before the final three Harry Potter books were written, so I suppose you just need to figure those ones out for yourself. :)

Song lyrics are actually what makes me think the most. And today I actually made a connection between "When I survey the wondrous cross" and Harry Potter. This is an old hymn I know quite well by now, it's a favourite in our church. But ironically the line I connected with Harry Potter comes from the new version, Wonderful Cross: "bids me come and die and find that I may truly live".

I connect this part with the ending, or almost, of book 7, Deathly Hallows, Harry realises he must surrender himself to defeat Voldemort, but since there was a part of Voldemort's soul in him, all that happened was that the Horcrux in him was destroyed, thereby granting him life.

So, our salvation is summed up in that song lyric. Just like Harry, we know we must die, i.e. surrender ourselves to God, and because He loves us so much, we are then saved from hell by His grace and we may live!

P.S. Back to the previous post... sadly the baby has not survived. Hard to understand why, but I know God has His reasons.

Give this Christmas away

The title of one of the songs which I heard yesterday that has really made me want to make a difference this Christmas. This is the first, which came from the Big Idea (Veggie Tales) website. In my music collection it was followed by "Hands of Love" by Michael Harcus.

Putting these two together it had lyrics like "If there's love in your heart, don't let it stay there", "what about the people out in the cold, the starving and the hungry, by no fault of their own". There is a Christian company called Blytheswood, and through them we fill shoeboxes of Christmas presents for the poor. I haven't yet done anything for them this year, but these songs have encouraged me to do something, however big or small.

I also want to ask prayer for one of the families whose blogs I follow. The Stansels had sextuplets prematurely, and now only 3 are left. One is possibly going into kidney failure and they may have to say goodbye to this one too. I have seen this happen on another family blog, but with lots of prayer, that baby survived! Please lift them up in prayer and stop by their blog to give them some words of encouragement.

Weakness

I want to share a little bit of scripture, and a song lyric since I love these :)

From "Power of Your Love" by Darlene Zschech it says "I've come to know the weaknesses I see in me will be stripped away by the power of Your love". I love that - it's a very comforting bit.

I've been reading a lot of Joni Eareckson Tada recently and I would recommend them. The original Joni is a bit graphic, but The God I Love and Ordinary People, Extraordinary Faith are really rather awesome. It was in one of these books I found this bitty from the Bible I'm going to share now:

"To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12: 7-10)

Little Wonders

A blog question the other day asked "what is your favourite blog?" Now there are a LOT that I follow, so this was a tricky question. But in the end, for now, I think Little Wonders takes the spot. Why?

You can see little Zoey's picture to the left of this blog, with a link to the blog. See her smile? You'd never know this child has gone through as much as she has. You'd never know this child is seriously ill. If a child as young as that can zoom through things like that with such ease, then surely we ought to be able to take anything that comes our way. It's hard, I know, but just remember Zoey whenever something bad but considerably smaller than what she has comes your way.

"Assuredly I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:3, NKJV

oh yes, and Eilidh, if you're reading this -





























HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!