Sisters, You Have Permission to Leave an Ordinary Life

I found this article by  Melissa Kruger very timely and encouraging. I'm at that age and stage of my peers writing and publishing books and doing all sorts of amazing things. I've found myself feeling a bit inadequate and wondering if I'm missing something. This article really helped me to get a better perspective on what my ambitions should be.

Riots in John Piper's Neighbourhood

 This article: Riots in John Piper's Neighbourhood is well worth the read. Read it all- the best is at the end!

Narnia

Katie and I have been enjoying making our way through The Chronicles of Narnia. It's such a treat for me to start reading through them again and get to see how much Katie loves them! 
She made a Narnia wardrobe:

Some of my favourite parts:

“Logic!” said the Professor half to himself. “Why don’t they teach logic at these schools? There are only three possibilities. Either your sister is telling lies, or she is mad, or she is telling the truth. You know she doesn’t tell lies and it is obvious that she is not mad. For the moment then and unless any further evidence turns up, we must assume that she is telling the truth.”

***

“They say Aslan is on the move – perhaps has already landed.” And now a very curious thing happened. None of the children knew who Aslan was any more than you do; but the moment the Beaver had spoken these words everyone felt quite different....

At the name of Aslan each one of the children felt something jump in its inside. Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror. Peter felt suddenly brave and adventurous. Susan felt as if some delicious smell or some delightful strain of music had just floated by her. And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and realize that it is the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of summer....

“Oh, yes! Tell us about Aslan!” said several voices at once; for once again that strange feeling – like the first signs of spring, like good news – had come over them.

***

“Aslan a man!” said Mr Beaver sternly. “Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-beyond-the-Sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion – the Lion, the great Lion.” 

“Ooh!” said Susan. “I’d thought he was a man. Is he – quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.” 

“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs Beaver; “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.” 

“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.

 “Safe?” said Mr Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ’Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.” 

***

But as for Aslan himself, the Beavers and the children didn’t know what to do or say when they saw him. People who have not been in Narnia sometimes think that a thing cannot be good and terrible at the same time. If the children had ever thought so, they were cured of it now. For when they tried to look at Aslan’s face they just caught a glimpse of the golden mane and the great, royal, solemn, overwhelming eyes; and then they found they couldn’t look at him and went all trembly.

***

And they made good laws and kept the peace and saved good trees from being unnecessarily cut down, and liberated young dwarfs and young satyrs from being sent to school, and generally stopped busybodies and interferers and encouraged ordinary people who wanted to live and let live.

A Marriage Offer

All glorious is the princess within her chamber,

her gown is interwoven with gold.

Psalm 45.13

Christopher Ash:

Preaching to a society of young women in London in the eighteenth century, the great preacher George Whitefield said this to those who would refuse Christ: 

“Hereby you choose rags before [instead of] robes, dross before gold, pebbles before jewels, guilt before a pardon, wounds before healing, defilement before cleansing, deformity before comeliness, trouble before peace, slavery before liberty, the service of the devil before the service of Christ. Hereby you choose dishonour before a crown, death before life, hell before heaven, eternal misery and torment before everlasting joy and glory. And need there be any further evidence of your folly and madness, in refusing and neglecting Christ to be your spouse?” 
(Sermons, volume 1, page 117-18) 

This exhortation should be heeded by all of us, female or male. It is the utmost folly to refuse to be incorporated by faith into the bride of such a bridegroom!

A Question of Visitors

Katie, Jonny and I have been studying Shakespeare using this brilliant Usborne book:

We've just finished Hamlet and for it we made a puppet theatre and retold the story: 

Spending time with neighbours on the roof:

Two little girls from next door are pretty bored (especially as it's Ramadan now) and love popping over and doing things with our children:

 

On the subject of visitors, we've been finding this in-between phase of the corona lockdown really tricky. There was a victory celebration in our city over corona (everyone went onto their roofs and let off fireworks and fired guns: 13 got injured- we decided to make a hasty retreat inside when we heard all the guns). But after the celebrations the number of cases started to rise again. We have though been having visitors and we really can't tell them they're not allowed in. One family came to visit all the way from their camp. It's definitely a new path we're walking- as is the whole world- and there are so many unknowns. It was, however, lovely to have our friends visit (even though it meant school had to stop); I really have missed them.

 We've been having some amazing thunderstorms recently:

We went out for an explore in the hills near our neighbourhood:

Tigris has had two more kittens!

Jonny has taken up woodwork:



Lockdown blanket number 3 finished! This one is for Jonny and I'm running out of wool (as you can probably tell by the strange colour combos!):

Podcasts

Here are some podcasts I've listened to recently:

Speak Life: We Must Talk About Abortion  An interview with Vaughan Roberts

Speak Life: Homeschooling

Speak Life: Faith on the Front Lines An interview with two Christian doctors

Speak Life: How to Fight Corona Brain An interview with Emma Scrivener

Speak Life: How Christianity Got Dominion  This is an absolutely fascinating interview with historian Tom Holland. It's the kind of one you need to listen to a few times to get the most out of it- it is so densely packed with fascinating insights. Here's the link for the interview on youtube:

Here's another helpful Speak Life resource:

Good Book Company: Abortion  Interview with Vaughan Roberts and Lizzie Ling

Good Book Co: A Surprising Story of Coming Out and Coming To Faith  Interview with Rachel Gilson

Good Book Co: God Cares Who We Sleep With Interview with Sam Allberry

Good Book Co: Making More Room for the Psalms in Church Life  Interview with Christopher Ash

Knowing Faith I love this podcast. I've been particularly enjoying the discussions through the Book of Acts

Her Spirit Interview with Rev Kate Botley about life and triathlons

Ask Pastor John: How Should We Dress For Church?

BBCSounds: Coronavirus Newscast

And here's a song we've been enjoying:

Mortal Hostility

They wander about for food,

and howl if not satisfied.

Psalm 59.15

Ash:

Like ever-hungry dogs, they “howl if not satisfied”. And they never will be satisfied until they have David dead. Nothing less will do. So long as God’s king lives, their rebellious hearts can never be quiet; they will always have the appetite for more hostility. It was the same with Jesus: “Crucify him!” was the only demand that his enemies made. It is the same today with the persecuted church of Christ; nothing less than the removal of all things truly Christian will satisfy a hostile world. Of course, when the church is not truly Christian, the world may be very satisfied, for they need not oppose a church that is assimilated to their own values. But when the church follows their king faithfully, mortal hostility is assured.