A Great Way to Begin the New Year

Read Scripture!

I started my new bible reading schedule.  This two-year schedule has me reading a psalm every day.  I love that! 

Here are some of the best words I know of to begin the new year, from Psalm 1:

1:1 Blessed is the man
 who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
2 but his delight is in the law  of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

3 He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
4 The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
6 for the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.

And another good thought for the end of the year

I am sure many have already seen the bible reading plans that are mentioned on many sites, but I'm going to link Justin Taylor's post for today.  He has a very thorough list of plans.

There are so many ways to aid in our Scripture reading! 

Good thoughts for the end of the year

This year, I read through the bible following the reading schedule from the ESV Study Bible.  The thing I liked about it was that I could print bookmarks outlining the reading schedule for each section, making it easier to flip back and forth.   In 2011, I am going to begin to follow a Two Year Plan that was mentioned at the Gospel Coalition.  I have a lot of teaching to do in the first part of the year, and I am attending two other ladies' bible studies, so I did not want to get behind in my reading, so I think this slower schedule will be a nice change.  The reading plan suggests using this two year plan along with How to Read the Bible Book by Book, but I don't think I'm going to buy that book when I have so many unread books, and am beginning to run out of bookshelf space.

Something else that I am doing is memorizing the book of Philippians by following along with the Moleskine memory plan.  I had a small Moleskine in my desk drawer, so this was serendipitous.

I liked these verses in the last chapter of the book of Isaiah:

66:1 Thus says the Lord:
“Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool;
what is the house that you would build for me,
and what is the place of my rest?
2 All these things my hand has made,
and so all these things came to be,
declares the Lord.
But this is the one to whom I will look:
he who is humble and contrite in spirit
and trembles at my word.

I have always loved that phrase, "trembles at my word."  It is so descriptive.  I want that to be said of me, that I trembled at His word.

Have a blessed 2011, everyone!

Thankful Thursday - the end of the year edition

This is the last thursday of 2010, but it will certainly not be the last "thankful" thursday, because I'm pretty sure I will continue this tradition.  It's good to reflect on God's goodness to us, even in the smallest ways.  When trials come and circumstances squeeze us, we need to remember the record of God's goodness to us personally, as well as the record of God's goodness to his people as recorded in the Scripture.  A life without Scripture may very well end up as a life without thanksgiving.  So, first and foremost, I am so thankful for the Word of God.  I can't even begin to articulate how Scripture has changed me, challenged me, and comforted me in this past year.

I'm thankful for my family.  My husband and my children, while they have all  had their "moments," they continue to be a source of blessing.  It can be frustrating to have children who are basically adults living in my home.  It's not the same as having little children, and it can be difficult at times.  But it can be fun, too, as I enjoy watching them grow.  I remain thankful every day for my husband and his support for me and what I do.  I'm thankful for his job, which provides us with the means to eat and live, and allows me to be here at home with my family.  Even though it is a job that cannot be left at the office,  I'm thankful for it.

I'm thankful that I got to see my parents twice this year.  I had to chuckle when my mother was here for Christmas.  She commented that perhaps I would like to box up some of my many books because, "It feels like you live in a library."  She has no idea what a compliment that was to me.   I'm thankful that my parents are healthy, especially my dad, who was unwell for a while.  He seems more like my dad, and I was thinking while they were here how much I wished they could live closer, so we could have more regular visits.

I'm thankful for continuing to learn and grow, albeit slowly.  I am a little hard-headed at times, and I tend to take a long time learning, but I'm thankful for God's leading and guiding in that.  This year was a year for difficult friendships.  I have had to learn that while we must forgive, sometimes, we can't necessarily trust again, and that has been hard for me.  I have had to learn the difference between letting go and kicking a dead horse.  I am blessed to have two very close female friends with whom I study and learn and pray.  I'm getting to know two new friends, and that has been a huge blessing, because both of these ladies have trod paths that involve extremely deep water, and they have insight and wisdom that I don't have, and can learn from.

And I'm thankful for all of the blog friends I have.  I have so many like-minded blog friends that don't live close to me; I often wish we could all live closer.  But I continue to be blessed by the writings of those people on my blog sidebar, and others.  I am looking forward in April to meeting, face to face, for the first time, two good blogging friends, and that is a blessing. 

There are so many things to be thankful for; we only need to look around closely.

The Power of Pity and Dirty Laundry

I was at a gathering recently where it was announced that the hostess's favourite television show is "The Biggest Loser."  I kind of cringed inwardly.   This show is about monitoring overweight people as they struggle to lose weight.

In the past few weeks, as I have been watching shows on A&E, I have seen a commercial for a television show that features real live drug addicts struggling to overcome their issues.  There is one clip from the commercial where a man and woman, apparently father and daughter, are crying and sobbing and being generally overly emotional.  There is a voice over that has a woman sharing her love of heroin.  Forgive me for not catching the title; I'm usually just so turned off by the commercial that I ignore it.

My kids tuned into the show "Hoarders" in the summer, and I watched for about five minutes as the crew of the show went through a man's yard, which was full of junk, and listened to him sob and experience genuine anxiety at the thought of parting with this stuff.

Wow.  That's entertainment?

This kind of thing is, of course, not new.  Oprah Winfrey, Jerry Springer, Maury Povich, and Dr. Phil all have had their share of tearful, emotional episodes which expose a family or an individual's angst and personal baggage for all the world to see.   Ostensibly, this is to help them cope with it.  Of course, it must occur to many that serious family issues, addictions, and dysfunctionality of all sorts may not be cured in the hour long television show, but doesn't it make for interesting viewing?  We all love to see someone with more problems than we have.  It appeals to our latent voyeuristic tendencies.  These recent programs have simply brought the drama to prime time.  Whether it is the Super Nanny program which teaches parents how to have common sense, or something more troubling, like "Hoarders," this is supposed to be entertainment.

Whatever happened to the day when people's dirty laundry was not aired out for all to see?  I understand that in many instances, personal problems were an unnecessary source of shame for some, and they needed to be addressed openly.  But open dialogue does not mean inviting millions of strangers into our homes to watch.  There is no shame in having a personal problem, but when I make it a source of entertainment for others, in the name of "helping" them, what does that say about me?  I'd say I should change my name to Narcissius.

The power of pity and dirty laundry is overwhelming.  We have gone from hiding people's personal issues to glorying in the shame and dyfunction.  How's that for deconstruction?  Instead of being discreet about our problems, why not worship them and fuel them and tune in the sad stories of others?

We feel sorry for those poor people, and we tune into watch.  What about the millions of other people with serious issues who DON'T get asked to be on Oprah or featured on "Extreme Home Makeover?"  What are the criteria for choosing someone for that kind of thing?  Just how desperate must one be, and how do they measure it?  Is there a "poor, helpless, and desperate" scale out there somewhere?  Is the most pathetic case the one that generates the most viewers?  My goodness, we can't even have legal issues without  without with out Judge Judy intervening.  What's next?  Watching someone in the bathroom?  When I have seen such television shows, I have had pretty low opinions of the participants by the time the show is over.

I can feel sorry for myself with the best of them.   I'm ashamed to admit it to myself.  As a teenager, I can remember thinking that making someone feel sorry for me was somehow a punishment for the offending party.  I believed that my "right" to feel victimized was an excuse for me to behave how I wanted.  In reality,  I had absolutely nothing to feel sorry for myself about.   Ultimately, what does someone's pity or sympathy do for my situation?  How does it help me deal with it?   Constantly portraying myself as a "victim" is tempting, because then I can expect to be treated better than others.  There are indeed real victims out there and they're probably the ones quietly living with it and would rather not be a victim.

It has often been my observation that those who have something to complain about are the most quiet about their sorrow and grief.  Those who have a few hard things are out there singing the blues as loudly as they can.  There are people in the world with real needs, real baggage, terrible circumstances and situations that would make me sit in the corner, catatonic.  They're not on the television asking for "help."  They're coping.  The ones who are shouting, "Hey, look at me, and feel sorry for me," are in need of a swift kick in the posterior.

It is a strange way we regard entertainment in this day.