Early B'day celebration...enjoying ice-cream at Foster Freeze / squash and egg plant from our garden
Birthday presents...bedroom set (a combined gift from my husband, my brother Sam and my parents), shirts that are exactly my style-modest and classy (my husband knows me very well), pretty earrings (two pairs from Cameron and one from my in-laws) and South Indian cook book also from Cameron. We went away for the evening to Little India for some yummy Andhra food and shopping while Anita watched our kids.
A very healthy birthday gift from Georgia!
Authentic gift from my homies, Chris and Naomi...curry plant and yummy lunch from Karma. Sarah and I celebrated both of our birthdays by going out to eat at Olive Garden and then for a pedicure. It was a week long of celebration! Thank you to all my family and friends for celebrating it with me.
Recently ladies from our church finished a book study called Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken. As we celebrate our birthdays and anniversaries each year, I'm reminded of these thoughts that are so well written by the author.
"If, indeed, we all have a kind of appetite for eternity, we have allowed ourselves to be caught up in a society that frustrates our longing at every turn. Half our inventions are advertised to save time-the washing machine, the fast car, the jet flight-but for what? Never were people more harried by time: by watches, by buzzers, by time clocks, by precise schedules, by the beginning of the programme. There is, in fact, some truth in 'the good old days': no other civilization of the past was ever so harried by time.
And yet, why not? Time is our natural environment. We live in time as we live in the air we breathe. And we love the air-who has not taken deep breaths of pure, fresh county air, just for the pleasure of it? How strange that we cannot love time. It spoils our loveliest moments. Nothing quite comes up to expectations because of it. We alone: animals, so far as we can see, are unaware of time, untroubled. Time is their natural environment. Why do we sense that it is not ours?.....Then, if we complain of time and take such joy in the seemingly timeless moment, what does that suggest?
It suggests that we have not always been or will not always be purely temporal creatures. It suggests that we were created for eternity. Not only are we harried by time, we seem unable, despite a thousand generations, even to get used to it. We are always amazed at it- how fast it goes, how slowly it goes, how much of it is gone. Where, we cry, has the time gone? We aren't adapted to it, not at home in it. If that is so, it may appear as a proof, or at least a powerful suggestion, that eternity exists and is our home." p. 202-203
As I rejoiced and celebrated another year of God's faithfulness in my life, I'm filled with thankfulness for all He has done in all these years. The Psalmist says it so well:
"If, indeed, we all have a kind of appetite for eternity, we have allowed ourselves to be caught up in a society that frustrates our longing at every turn. Half our inventions are advertised to save time-the washing machine, the fast car, the jet flight-but for what? Never were people more harried by time: by watches, by buzzers, by time clocks, by precise schedules, by the beginning of the programme. There is, in fact, some truth in 'the good old days': no other civilization of the past was ever so harried by time.
And yet, why not? Time is our natural environment. We live in time as we live in the air we breathe. And we love the air-who has not taken deep breaths of pure, fresh county air, just for the pleasure of it? How strange that we cannot love time. It spoils our loveliest moments. Nothing quite comes up to expectations because of it. We alone: animals, so far as we can see, are unaware of time, untroubled. Time is their natural environment. Why do we sense that it is not ours?.....Then, if we complain of time and take such joy in the seemingly timeless moment, what does that suggest?
It suggests that we have not always been or will not always be purely temporal creatures. It suggests that we were created for eternity. Not only are we harried by time, we seem unable, despite a thousand generations, even to get used to it. We are always amazed at it- how fast it goes, how slowly it goes, how much of it is gone. Where, we cry, has the time gone? We aren't adapted to it, not at home in it. If that is so, it may appear as a proof, or at least a powerful suggestion, that eternity exists and is our home." p. 202-203
As I rejoiced and celebrated another year of God's faithfulness in my life, I'm filled with thankfulness for all He has done in all these years. The Psalmist says it so well:
Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
Psalm 90:1-2
And now to end with one of my favorite hymns by Isaac Watts:
O God, our help in ages past,
our hope for years to come,
our shelter from the stormy blast,
and our eternal home.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
Psalm 90:1-2
And now to end with one of my favorite hymns by Isaac Watts:
O God, our help in ages past,
our hope for years to come,
our shelter from the stormy blast,
and our eternal home.
3 comments:
What a lovley bedroom set! Elegant and yet not too fancy. I like it!
+Belated Happy Birthday, Joanna. Nice pictures, Cam looks great and the children have grown so much. Miss seeing one of the birthday lady. Also enjoyed the profound thoughts. Love to each of you from us. Hugs.
+Belated Happy Birthday, Joanna. Nice pictures, Cam looks great and the children have grown so much. Miss seeing one of the birthday lady. Also enjoyed the profound thoughts. Love to each of you from us. Hugs.
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