Merry Christmas!

"'Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion: for, lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee,' saith the LORD." ~Zechariah 2:10

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"'Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord....Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men'" ~Luke 2:10-11, 14

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"For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." ~II Corinthians 5:21

Merry Christmas!

May the Lord richly bless you today as you delight in the One who gave Himself for us!

The Novelteatalkers

Book Club ~ Hidden Art

Good Morning!

Well yesterday Lily and I had our (delayed) weekly chat together. Sometimes the conversations are about church; sometimes about exercising; sometimes about our failing bodies of death (people are always telling me we're too young to talk about that but it's true! We are living in bodies of death. From Mono to a back that is killing me, we're waiting for that blessed day when we shall "awake in His likeness."); sometimes we cover all kinds of topics in one conversation. But yesterday we mostly talked about reading: the book club (or lack thereof), our dullness in reading lately, all the books that keep piling onto our "I need to read..." list, and the (multitude of) books that we're in the middle of.

So, after being inspired yesterday by my dear friend to get back into my reading routines, here is the long-overdue book club post on The Hidden Art of Homemaking.

I have to confess, I did not want to read this book. Lily picked this book and I just did not want to read it at all. So, after extending myself to actually spend the precious $0.99 on the book (I know...so generous!) we book-clubbed at the coffee shop once this summer and after that, it's been sitting on my shelf....Until yesterday.

Lily, obviously, has already finished this book and I have been trying to figure out how to get out of it. What a book-clubber, huh? Lily and I decided that we didn't have to read the whole book (she didn't) but just the chapters that really interested us. Yesterday, I narrowed that down to a manageable two and "finished" The Hidden Art of Homemaking last night. I read the first two chapters (which are more introductory) and consoled Lily with the fact that I spent the $0.99 on the book and can go and read any of the chapters whenever I think I'm lacking in the Hidden Art of.... [gardening.]

The Noveltea Talking Book Club will resume on January 1st with our next book (which I picked and am very excited about!) Heaven Taken By Storm by Thomas Watson. Please feel free to join us. It's a Noveltea Talking New Year's Resolution to really book club this year. So we would love for you to join us as Thomas Watson pours our tea in 2010. Add your comments to our posts and send your thoughts and quotes at girleytalk {at} gmail {dot} com

Have a great Wednesday!

The Novelteatalkers

A Quote for the Beginning of the Week

I read this quote a couple days ago and...well...here you go. Instead of changing the Notable Quotable this week I'm just gonna post this Very Notable Quotable today and hope that it encourages you as it encouraged me.

“Neither let your own accusing conscience, nor Satan the accuser of the brethren, hinder you any longer from Christ. For what though they should accuse you of pride, infidelity, covetousness, lust, anger, envy, and hypocrisy? Yea, what though they should accuse you of whoredom, theft, drunkenness, and such like? Yea, do what they can, they can make no worse a man of you than a sinner, or chief of sinners, or an ungodly person; and so, consequently, such a one Christ came to justify and save; so that in every deed, if you do rightly consider it, they do you more good than hurt by their accusations.”

—Edward Fisher in The Marrow of Modern Divinity