Summer Highlights

Greetings!

This morning I leave for New York so this is my final blog post until October. My goal was to have a slide show of our summer week together, and with the help of some very patient, dear friends, I think I have mostly figured out the Picasa "thing" and I present to you, our Photo Shoot, Summer 2010:

Enjoy!




I'll share more pictures (lots more) when I get back. I count it a victory to have this much done. Until October...

Blessings to you in Christ Jesus,

Sarah

A Note of Apology

I need to apologize for the lack of posting in the last month (especially after the 2 comments on the previous post).

The exciting news is that I got a digital camera from Mama and Daddy for my graduation gift. Now there will be no more pictures of my creations with my shirt in the background! (I've found it really is amazing what great pictures can be taken when you don't have to stand in front of the computer and hold up the objects you're taking pictures of. A whole new world.) The sad part is, that I don't know how to get my pictures from the picture program that they automatically upload to, to Picasa Web Albums so I can make a slide show of our vacation. Wouldn't it be lovely if I could figure out how to upload them right to Picasa? Does anyone know if there's a way that I would be able to figure out? Emphasis on I.

So, I do have tons of great pictures from our vacation and things I've made and done since our vacation but I'm still trying to figure out how to get them into slide show format. I would appreciate any help I can get on this.

I have also been very busy making 218 wedding invitation for a friend and that has limited my time to work on this picture problem. The invitations are very close to finished and now it's time to get ready to go to New York (in 16 days. I'm sure you are all counting, right?). So, Lord willing, in the next 16 days I will work on this picture problem and leave for New York with fresh posts of our vacation/other happenings.

I do apologize.

Annual Reunion

The time has come!!! Come Thursday, the Blair and Freeman ladies will be reunited for ten days of girl festivities! This has meant a lot to us after being separated about seven years ago. The Freeman family moved to Atlanta, Georgia while the Blair family relocated to Charlotte, North Carolina. We started this "house swap" tradition, and we've kept in close contact ever since. This year, it is the Blair girls' turn to come to the Freemans' house. However, one very significant extension is being added to the normal, seven day visit. Sarah's family is hosting a party in honour of her graduation from high school. So the Freeman ladies will be traveling early to Charlotte to be at the party and to spend the weekend at the Blair house. On Monday, the 26th, begins the seven day vacation at the Freeman house.

...And we have a lot planned! Sarah and I have an outing to Tea Leaves and Thyme, a cute little tea shop in downtown Woodstock, where we will discuss our next book club book. We are hosting a little knitting club and will be joined by several other ladies young and old. Sarah is finally going to meet her email acquaintance, Anna Leigh Page! And on Friday night, we have a sleepover planned with two other sisters coming over...I'm thinking that a sisters vs. sisters game of Taboo is in order. Besides this, we have the exciting change of a new church, Geneva OPC. I know that Sarah is very excited about attending Prayer Meeting on Wednesday night and Worship on Sunday.

So that is the update!

Cheers,
Lily

William Jay - Morning Exercises: July 7th

Hi everyone!

I know, I know....this is supposed to be a post on Watson's Heaven Taken By Storm...well, you'll just have to wait.
We read this in our devotions at breakfast this morning. I'll save the rest of what I have to say for the comments. Enjoy reading...Rev. William Jay's writing is deep, but the language is simple. Cheers!

July 7 "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Romans 7:24

It is commonly supposed that here is a reference to a cruel usage sometimes practiced by the tyrants of antiquity, and which is mentioned by Virgil and Cicero and Valerius Maximus. It consisted in fastening a dead carcass to a living man. Now suppose a dead body bound to your body, its hands to your hands, its face to your face, its lips to your lips. Here is not only a burden, but an offense. You cannot separate yourself from your hated companion; it lies down, and rises up, and walks with you. You cannot breathe without inhaling a kind of pestilence, and "Oh," you would say, "Oh how slowly the parts corrupt and fall off! Oh, how can I longer endure it? When shall I be free? O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" This is very strong, but it comes not quite up to Paul's case. He is speaking of such a wretchedness not without him, but within.

Whatever we may think of this allusion, here is a representation of the sin that dwells in us; it is the body of this death, or, this body of death. It is called a body, to intimate the entirety and universality of the evil. Thus we call a code of laws, a body of laws, and a system of divinity. a body of divinity. And it is a body of death, to mark its malignant effect. Gunpowder is a body of destruction; arsenic is a body of poison; sin is a body of death. It brought death into the world. It has slain all the inhabitants of the earth, and will soon slay us. It has brought upon us spiritual, as well as corporeal death. And it produces a deadness even in the souls of believers, and hinders the operation of those vital principles which that have received from above. By this baneful influence, the tendencies of the divine life in them, which are so glorious, are chilled and checked; and therefore they are frequently wandering in meditation, and stupid in reading and hearing, and insensible in prayer, and dull even in praise; till roused by reflection, they cry, My soul cleaves to the dust; quicken me according to your word.

For there are remains of this evil even in the subjects of divine grace. None of them are free. In many things, says James, we offend all. In all our doings, says the church, our sins do appear. My tears says Beveridge, require to be washed in the blood of Christ, and my repentance needs to be repented of. Those who could die for the Saviour have used the most humbling language with regard to themselves. Sometimes, says Bradford, O my God, there seems to be no difference between me and the wicked; my understanding seems as dark as theirs, and my will as perverse as theirs, and my heart as hard as theirs. Yea, says Paul, at the end of so many years of advancement, I have not attained, I am not already perfect. After this, "Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?"

But observe the distress this remaining corruption occasions them. It is their chief burden and grief. Oh wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death? Paul never said any thing like this of any of his [physical] sufferings. ...

The people of the world judge of Christians by their own views and feelings, and because they love sin, and would deem the liberty to indulge in it a privilege, they think Christians are disposed to take every advantage from the same purpose. But how shall they who are dead to sin live any longer therein? Sin is [the Christian's] abhorrence, and at the foot of the cross they have sworn to have indignation against it for ever. they have a new nature, and as far as they are sanctified, there is as perfect a contrariety between them and sin as between darkness and light. Hence the contest within. The flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these being contrary the one to the other, they cannot do the things that they would. And will not this be painful? ...

... Thus you may drive a sword through the body of a dead man, and no muscle moves; while the puncture of a thorn will pain a living one all over.

What I'm Up To...

Hello Readers!

This is Lily, come back from...school. I'm through with my freshmen year at Reinhardt University and my first year as a music performance major. I enjoyed it all immensely and I am thankful for the Lord's provision and care for me. My studies left me little time for the things I so much enjoy - one of these things being "conversations on the mercies of the Lord in our daily lives". I'm glad to be back! Of course, Sarah and I did try to keep these conversations going on the phone, but it hasn't been the same (I'm sure she'd agree with me).

So I thought I'd share with you what I've been up to. I have the leisure of "self-improving" reading back. I am growing into a bigger C.S. Lewis fan, daily! So I have challenged myself to a Lewis marathon. I am going to read his books over the summer. I've already read Screwtape Letters, Til We Have Faces, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Great Divorce. What inspired me to do this? Over Christmas, I read Not a Tame Lion, a biography and synopsis of C.S. Lewis' life and works. His intellectual defense of Christianity caught me. His words are so clear and his language understandable for the common man. Did you know, that only one of C.S. Lewis' radio addresses still exists? All the other audio cartridges were recycled. Also, if you're interested, Beyond Narnia is a BBC documentary on the life of Lewis. It is very good, directed by the same man who directed Shadowlands.

I think I'll keep this post short and sweet. The next one will be on Watson's Heaven Taken by Storm. It is high time we got our book club moving again!

Cheers!