30 January 2018

Abba's Child - quotes from chapters 1 - 3

I love it when God gives just the right book to read at just the right time.  Just one of His many kindnesses to me lately.  I've been a big fan of Brennan Manning for a long time - and have known about "Abba's Child" for a while...but haven't ever read it (though I've recommended it to others...that's risky business: recommending what you haven't read!  but I believe in Manning that much!).  
The library had a really great book sale a few months ago...the day we went, you could buy a brown paper grocery bag and fill it for $5.  Abba's Child (the above copy!) was just one of the treasures we put into our bag (if I had to guess, I'd say we got about $200 worth of books in that blessed brown bag!).  So I'd heard of the book...and even had it on my shelf...but still hadn't read it.  And then, about 2 weeks ago, I felt that gentle nudge and heard the sweet prompting of the Holy Spirit saying "start reading Abba's Child."

And what a delight it has been. What a gift to be reminded of my place as His beloved.  

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the first 3 chapters...all are from Manning unless otherwise noted.

Chapter 1 
We cannot assume that He feels about us the way we feel about ourselves - unless we love ourselves compassionately, intensely, and freely.

When I relapsed, I had two options: yield once again to guilt, fear and depression; or rush into the arms of my heavenly Father - choose to live as a victim of my disease; or choose to trust in Abba's immutable love.


Whether you understand it or not, God loves you, is present in you, lives in you, dwells in you, calls you, saves you and offers you an understanding and compassion which are like nothing you have ever found in a book or heard in a sermon. - Thomas Merton

...acknowledge out utter nothingness before him.

They are more displeased with their own shortcomings than they would ever dream of being with someone else's they are sick of their own mediocrity and disgusted by their own inconsistency.

Being the beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.  -Henri Nouwen

We learn to be gentle with ourselves by experiencing the intimate, heartfelt compassion of Jesus.  To the extent that we allow the relentless tenderness of Jesus to invade the citadel of self, we are freed from dyspepsia toward ourselves, Christ wants us to alter our attitude toward ourselves and take sides with Him against our own self-evaluation.

If I make anything out of the fact that I am Thomas Merton, I am dead.  And if you make anything out of the fact that you are in charge of the pig barn, you are dead.  Quit keeping score altogether and surrender yourself with all your sinfulness to God who sees neither the score nor the scorekeeper but only His child redeemed by Christ. - Thomas Merton

dare to live as forgiven men and women

Chapter 2

His heart is buried with Christ in the Father's love...

We are made for God, and nothing less will really satisfy us.

Prayer is essentially...the breathing of our own deepest request to be united with God as fully as possible. - Jeffrey Imbach

Whatever is denied cannot be healed.

Come to grips with our selfishness and stupidity...

The art of gentleness toward ourselves leads to being gentle with others...


You belong to Me and no one will tear you from My hand.

The longer you spend time in the presence of Jesus, the more accustomed you grow to His face, the less adulation you will need because you will have discovered for yourself that He is Enough.  And in the Presence, you will delight in the discovery of what it means to live by grace and not by performance.

Chapter 3
...the highest spiritual development was to be ordinary...

...the story of an ordinary man whose soul was seduced and ravished by Jesus Christ.

Define yourself radically as one beloved by God.  God's love for you and his choice of you constitute your worth.  Accept that, and let it become the most important thing in your life.

Encounter God in the ordinariness....in our simple presence in life.

You are the beloved, and all I hope is that you can hear these words as spoken to you with all the tenderness and force that love can hold.  - Henri Nouwen


The indispensable condition for developing and maintaining the awareness of our belovedness is time alone with God.  In solitude we turn out the nay-saying whisper of our worthlessness and sink down into the mystery of our true self.

Our identity rests in God's relentless tenderness for us revealed in Jesus Christ.

...in my brokenness, in my powerlessness, in my weakness that Jesus was made strong.

At certain times in our lives, we made an adjustment in the course of our lives.  This was one of those time for me.  If you were to look at a map of my life, you would not be aware of any noticeable difference other than a slight change in direction.

...an ordinary evangelical man who had encountered the God of ordinary people.  The God who grabs scalawags and ragamuffins by the scruff of the neck and raises them up to seat them with the princes and princesses of His people.

Has the thunder of "God loved the world so much" been so muffled by the roar of religious rhetoric that we are deaf to the word that God could have tender feelings for us?

...being alone with the Alone, experiencing the transcendent Other and growing in awareness of one's identity as the beloved...

Failure to recognize the value of mere being with God, as the beloved, without doing anything, is to gouge the heart out of Christianity.  -Edward Schillebeechx


26 January 2018

quotes and people and other thankful things


  • "this apple juice touches my soul."  - monique
  • nick got home early!!
  • "if we're kind and polite the world will be right." - paddington
  • "wake yourself up and look to God." -o. chambers
  • purring kittens
  • seeing instagram reminders of lasting impact on the AFM


  • soft pj pants
  • laughing with kj at silly gifs and pictures
  • TIME with ella and will - rich, meaningful, comfortable, enjoyable!
  • hotdogs with the camp family
  • "let wilderness turn cartwheels...an extravaganza before God." psalm 96:12/13
  • all things LAUNCH! groupon, atmosphere, cleanliness, company, car ride


  • costa rican coffee
  • re-establishing cash family routines
  • knowing beth is praying
  • the kindness of God to keep on teaching us, shaping us, leading us
  • cooking in the kitchen with eli
  • bombay bay date night


18 January 2018

snow much.


  • first chapter of Abba's Child
  • double socks
  • facetime silliness with nick


  • steak at yaya's
  • even though the trash hasn't been picked up, it WILL get picked up (that's not true for alot of places in the world)
  • friday night with the walls: slime + dinner + cookies + pictionary + mini nerf gun war (and especially being thought of and invited)


  • mail from the hamers in ireland 
  • we have a backsplash!!  
  • cash girls + slime (and a box that contains it all)


  • the themes, beauty and amazing music/choreography of "the greatest showman"
  • fruit. 
  • love that looks like a tea party 

  • sickness doesn't last forever
  • starbucks from amanda
  • trader joe's treats (and especially the friend that brought them!)

  • uneventful games of uno (no fits thrown!)
  • tiffany's company (and help moving the piano!)
  • the throne emma created (and especially peace and happiness in her school work)


  • celebrating krissy with cinnamon rolls
  • nick's got dependable guy friends
  • the beauty and wonder (and fun!) of the snow



12 January 2018

a friend on the Africa Mercy used this phrase to caption a picture on instagram once...
my heart is overwhelmed and in need of so much more of Heaven in my atmosphere. - mel toh
i love it.  i don't know if mel even knows how significant of a prayer that has become for me.  maybe i'll let her know. thought some of you might like it, too.

more heaven in our atmosphere, God.  more of You.  Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  come, Jesus, come.  Holy Spirit, you are welcome here....flood this place and fill the atmosphere.  

somewhere around 7,000


  • prayer week at CCC
  • roomful of kids listening to God  (thankful for the adults, too...just especially thankful for the emphasis put on helping our kids hear from the Lord)
  • a new to me - and really significant - African proverb.


  • everyone made it back safe and sound from the ski trip
  • emma's welcome home scavenger hunts for nick, eli and caroline 
  • african fabric library bag from her days in the academy on the AFM being used as a library bag here in the states (not sure if we were supposed to keep it...but they never asked for it back...and it's special to her...i don't think they mind :))


  • worship.  so good. 
  • teaching textbooks math + emma = happy math 
  • impromptu fire pit marshmallow roasting with the best of friends


  • fun dollar spot finds at target
  • finding the things i wanted at valley rescue...and then finding out that some of them are 1/2 price! 
  • painting rocks at the library


  • joylanefarm.com 
  • josh and katie's visit (and knowing they'll be back in a few weeks!)
  • not one but TWO nights of going through the KK drive-thru and getting a mixed dozen (extra thankful for the giftcard that made it possible!!)

  • testimonies and reminders that God is in control and HE IS GOOD (no matter the circumstances- HE IS GOOD!)
  • lockers! (now to figure out how/when to get them home!)
  • the outcome of football games has no impact on my worth and value. 

05 January 2018

wind CHILL factor.

Feeling the need to record this - mainly because I have a label called "learn something new everyday"...

I learned something new.

It's WIND CHILL FACTOR.
Wind-chill or windchill, is the perceived decrease in air temperature felt by the body on exposed skin due to the flow of air. Wind chill numbers are always lower than the air temperature for values where the formula is valid
For my entire existence I have thought it was "Wind Shield Factor."  Not entirely sure why - something about being cold and needing to shield yourself from the wind and cold - ...but wind shield is sure what I thought, that's what I said, that's what was in my mind.  Until the other day.

Wind Chill Factor makes so much more sense than Wind Shield Factor.


Makes me wonder what else I have wrong in my mind.  (though most anything has to be better than thinking "hide it under a bushel, NO!" was actually "hide it under a bush, hell no!" as a kid in Sunday School.)

That is all.

a bit of what He's pouring out...


  • new package of flair pens!
  • guests in everbe cottage
  • lapful of kitties

  • "we cannot contain what You pour out." He's so generous. 
  • sharp knives - wow...didn't know what i'd been missing
  • fireworks and friends for new year's eve


  • the chance to help nick with projects
  • lots and lots of time with Emma 
  • good reminder:


  • "do what makes you the most healthy, loving version of yourself." - maria goff
  • "i have a lot less than i did...but i still have plenty." - emma's comment after cleaning up/out her room
  • organization and labels

  • yaya's willingness to pinch hit and clean between cottage guests while we went to warrenton
  • day trip to warrenton - celebrating MaMa, papa's fried chicken, GA game
  • free movie at the Infantry Museum