A Hymn for Sunday

What I'm Reading

I just finished Heaven by Randy Alcorn. I mostly enjoyed it, although I found that he repeated himself a lot a points.

I also recently finished 7 Men and the Secret of their Greatness by Eric Metaxas. I liked it a lot; it's basically short biographies and their willingness to sacrifice for something greater than themselves.

Currently, I'm reading Amazing Grace by Eric Metaxas. It's about William Wilberforce, one of my heroes. It's going slowly, though, because I keep getting distracted.

I'm starting Housewife Theologian by Aimee Byrd. I like her writing; she writes for women without being all girly.

I'm also on a Stuart McLean kick; I'm loving the Vinyl Cafe. I'm also reading some Noel Streatfeild; I really loved a couple of her books as a child (Ballet Shoes and White Shoes), and I'm enjoying relaxing with her books.

I'm also reading some of the Trailblazers books that I plan to put in the church library for the kids. It's an excuse to read some simple biographies.

A Hymn for Sunday

Teaching Math

It's math month in the home school room. The first week, we learned about Euclid and some geometry (shapes, perimeter, angles, and symmetry). The second week, we learned about Pythagoras and his theorem, as well as odd/even numbers, triangular numbers, and perfect numbers. Next week, we're learning about Fibonacci so we can see the beauty of the Fibonacci sequence. There's a bit of adding and subtracting thrown in, and basically fun with numbers.

The most fun part is teaching the little kids (grades 1-3) things like the Pythagorean theorem and how to do square numbers and all sort of math that they've never heard about. They have no clue what I'm talking about, and I'm not sure how much they remember (although they could all explain right angles to me a week after I taught it, so there's that), but they just have so much enthusiasm for it, and they're so delighted when they understand something. They haven't reached a point where they think that they can't do it, so they listen eagerly and make the connections and love it!

Seriously, we have this conversation all the time:
One (or more) of them: I don't understand that.
Me: I know, but I'm going to explain it to you, okay?
Them: Okay!

And then I explain it, and they get it (to whatever extent), and we're all happy.

It's a bit more challenging with the bigger kids who already know that some learning is really hard, but even they try learning what I'm teaching. The best part is that they aren't afraid to say when they don't understand, so I can try again. And some of them already know some of what I'm teaching (and most of them can do the basic math behind the concepts), so that helps.

So far, math month has been a lot of fun.

This Week

This week has been a bit much. I'm not adjusting well to the time change, there were some issues at work, and I'm feeling a bit let down by some friends (although I'm trying to think the best in that situation). Overall, I've been a bit down this week.

I've been doing my best to keep going, to just do the next thing. I'm not sure how many times I've recited Psalm 139, remembering that God is with me no matter what, and that He is in control (He had my life planned out from before I was born).

And I've prayed a lot. Sometimes they were longer prayers, and sometimes they were short,
disjointed prayers for help to get through this next thing or the next moment. I've prayed for forgiveness and patience and understanding and help.

I'm trying to be thankful (and I have so much to be thankful for) and to praise God in everything and to find the good things in life.

I want to be like Job in chapter 1. Everything was about as bad as it could get, and he didn't pretend that it was good, but he also didn't give up. He grieved and he worshiped God, and he did not sin.

About Friendship

I've been thinking about friendship lately. I always found it difficult to make friends; as a child, I was the one on the sidelines, never quite fitting in, and usually picked last. I didn't seem to see the world the same as other people, and I didn't like the same things.  Looking back now, I can see that I grew up with a very small number of people (in elementary school, my class had (I think) 12-15 people). There simply wasn't enough diversity within the group to accommodate someone who wasn't quite the same, and there were a couple strong personalities to dictate how things were done. Growing up, though, I didn't understand that and I thought that there was something wrong with me and that I would never quite fit in. I think that it kept me from reaching out for a long time, because I was afraid of being rejected.

This is what I realized this week: I have a lot of friends now, ranging from "casual acquaintances for light, surface talk" through "pretty good friends" to "friends who are like family" and "she who knows way to much about me for us to ever stop being friends".

Some of them came from others reaching out to me, but a lot of them came from me not being afraid to reach out. I started inviting people over for dinner (starting with families of my Sunday School students, and then other families in the church), and getting to know them. Sometimes it proved that we could be friendly but not really friends, but other times it's resulted in an unexpected friendship as I learned that we thought alike in many ways, that we laughed at the same jokes, and that we were all "of the race that knows Joseph" (see Anne's House of Dreams by L.M. Montgomery).

What I've learned is that "if you want to have a friend, you have to be a friend" is true, although you have to accept that not every attempt at reaching out will end with a friend. Sometimes you just don't click, and that's okay. It doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with you or them; it just means that you need to try with the next person. And sometimes other people are afraid to reach out, and it's nice for them if you do the work of starting a friendship.

Also, it's okay to not have a lot of really close friends. I'm pretty happy with a very, very small circle of "kindred spirits" in my life (see Anne of Green Gables). If you look at friendship as a set of concentric circles, there are only a couple people in my inner circle, a few in the next circle, a lot in the third circle, and then the others start to blur together (it gets too hard to categorize friendships after a while). That's the way friendship works.

Chapter 15

Pastor James is still preaching through 1 Corinthians (and has been since April 3, 2016). To be fair, Pastor Mike has preached a lot in there (almost all of Ephesians and part of Ecclesiastes as well as a few other sermons), and James has also preached on other passages here and there, and there has been the occasional guest preacher. It hasn't really taken him almost 3 full years to get through 1 Corinthians (although we're not done yet).

I've really enjoyed these sermons, even the ones that hurt (I'm looking at you, nine sermons on love from chapter 13). It was a good hurt, one that brought healing. Other sermons were more cerebral (as Pastor James put it), and gave me things to think through; those ones appealed to the student in me.

These past few weeks have been different, because now we're on chapter 15 and the glorious truths of the gospel and the resurrection and the future hope. These sermons have given me great joy and delight.

I'm really just here to sent you there to listen to them. Enjoy!