100 Days List Amendment

A confession: Lily and I have been working on our 100 Days List for about 30 days now. It's so great to get to check off the boxes. I love it.

But I have a confession to make. We've made a slight change to the Ann-lady's rules. There are some days when reading 10 pages 1) doesn't get done, for example when I leave the house at 8 am and don't get home until a good 12 hours later or 2) gets done in the form of 10 pages of my anatomy text book.

Likewise, sometimes memorizing one verse a day means that I have to review the verse I mostly memorized yesterday.

So here are the Talk Time rules (almost as popular as the A Holy Experience rules, don't you think?): if we don't get everything on our list done for a day, then we don't get to check off anything for that day.

For example, if I take my vitamin but I only read 5 pages and I don't work on my memory work at all, then I don't get to check off anything, not even the vitamin. You see, this works out because we're still doing these things for 100 days, they're just not all in a row.

So recently, I have had some very busy days and not everything has gotten done (though I have taken my vitamin quite faithfully) so I haven't made any check marks recently. I have been getting back on track, though, and did all three things yesterday.

Off to do some reading and memorize some of Psalm 139...

2:50 pm

February 18, 2010: first smoothie day of the year!

It is 76 degrees outside. All our windows are open; the sun is shining and we had smoothies for a snack this afternoon! Spring is on the way!

Just a little update around here. Hope your Friday afternoon is going well.

Saturdays

I'm taking a short break from my series on Reading Goals for 2011 to write a short post on why I love Saturdays. Every week I forget that I love this about Saturdays. Usually on Friday I'm thinking, "Only one more day before Sunday. Only one more day before Sunday." But I wake up on Saturday and there's a completely different set of "to-dos" for that day. This is what I love about Saturdays: Everything in the day is getting ready for The Best Day.

Doing all the laundry so that we go to bed on Saturday night in clean sheets, and have a shower with clean towels in the morning. All our clothes are neatly folded and put in drawers; hung in the closet; ironed and laid out for the morning.

Gathering Bibles and notebooks; music and Sunday school lessons so that they're all ready to go in the morning.

Savory smells in the kitchen getting ready to feast the saints in our home tomorrow.

Cleaning bathrooms and dusting furniture.

Finishing up all the projects we started over the past six days.

Going to bed early so we can get up early and enjoy the day.

I love how on Saturday, every time we put our hand to something, it's with this in view: that the Lord's Day is almost here and we're getting ready for it, either by finishing our work in these "six days of labor" or by taking up new work to minister to the Lord's people on His day.

Just my Saturday ramblings this morning. With that in view...I've got some things to get done. The Lord's Day is on its way!

Ten Pages A Day, Part Two

Alrighty, it's time for Part Two. I have to finish this (very) small series quickly before I finish anymore books and out-date my last post.

This time under the topic of Reading Goals for 2011: Books I'm Reading Now and Hope to Finish This Year. Quotes from each coming as I finish them.

The Marvelous Riches of Savoring Christ. The Letters of Miss Ruth Bryan. This is honey out of the rock. I've been reading it for about the past two years because I don't want it to end, but I'm almost finished and selecting some quotes to post will be downright hard. This is one of those books that you never actually finish. I can see it sitting on my bedside table or desk for the rest of my life, and even though I've read and re-read it, I just keep picking it up every morning to read a letter from a dear sister. "Just tell me how it really is. What's really going on before I get into this day." I can't wait to meet Miss Bryan in heaven one day.

Mortification of Sin by Owen. It's quotes like this that are thrownin' me:

"Sin sets its strength against every act of holiness, and against every degree we grow to. Let not that man think he makes any progress in holiness who walks not over the bellies of his lusts. He who doth not kill sin in this way takes no steps towards his journey’s end. He who finds not opposition from it, and who sets not himself in every particular to its mortification, is at peace with it, not dying to it."

That's why I'm reading...

...Looking unto Jesus by Isaac Amrbose....at the same time.

God's Passion for His Glory and The End For Which God Created the World by John Piper and Jonathan Edwards. This is my book club book with Lily which we have been reading together via Skype while sipping tea. Almost like the coffee-shop moments we wish we could have.

A New Biography: Jonathan Edwards by Iain Murray. I started this one a while ago and hope to finish it this year. I've been told I need to read this biography before I read anything, like, for real, by Edwards. So I'm hoping to finish it soon so I can get on to reading some things by Edwards, himself.

God's Way of Holiness by Horatius Bonar. This is the one I started reading while in New York and need to finish.

Given For You: Reclaiming Calvin's Doctrine of the Lord's Supper by Keith A. Mathison. Started this one, too, awhile ago but got side-tracked with Owen. Who wouldn't?

The Letters of Samuel Rutherford (when I finish the letters of Ruth Bryan).

There's Part Two. I'm off to read 10 pages of something....tonight, I think it will be Looking Unto Jesus.

Ten Pages A Day, Part One

The first thing on each first blank for all those 100 days is "read 10 pages." Successfully checked it off 24 days in a row. So maybe, just perhaps, you want to know what my reading goals for 2011 are? I wouldn't be surprised if you don't care. But I always like to know what people are reading so in case you would love to know that about me, here are my goals (as usual, outrageously unattainable, but what would keep me going if I didn't have a goal that took grace?).

This is Part One, because I'm trying to make my blog posts less wordy and more picture-full. That doesn't mean I have any less to say, just that I break it up better.

Part One ~ Books I've Already Read This Year
Part Two ~ Books I'm Reading Now and Hope to Finish This Year
Part Three ~ Books on My Reading List To Be Started and Finished This Year
Part Four ~ The Ben Miller Goal For 2011

(This will definitely be the shortest post in the series because, after all, the year is only thirty-eight days old).

Of Communion with God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost by John Owen. Okay, so I actually finished this on December 30th of 2010, but because I never wrote a post about it, I'm going to slip it in here. I think I can say that this book is no doubt the best book I've ever read. Here are a few quotes that did me in from Section Three on Communion with the Holy Ghost.

"On this account is He [the Spirit] said so often to come forth from the Father, because He comes in pursuit of His love, and to acquaint the hearts of beleivers therewith, that they may be comforted and established" (page 262).

"He willingly proceedeth or comes forth from the Father to be our comforter. He knew what we were, and what we could do, and what would be our dealings with Him,–He knew we would grieve Him, provoke Him, quench His motions, defile His dwelling-place; and yet He would come to be our comforter" (page 263).

And to conclude the whole work:

"If the Spirit dwell not in you, if He be not your Comforter, neither is God your Father, nor the Son your Advocate, nor have you any portion in the gospel" (page 274).

One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. My sister gave me this book in January and I finished it about a week ago. Couldn't put it down. It was an easy way to get my 10 pages a day, done. It's not the normal type of book I read but today it's good.

Ten pages a day. I'm off to do some reading and check it off.