Friday, April 27, 2007

Four Years of Friendship

Since mom of Caleb's friend of four years is blogging over here, I am taking the opportunity of posting a couple pictures of the two friends taken four years apart, one taken at our home in 2003 and the other at Emma Prusch as blogged by our friend...

How fast time flies and how grateful we are for God's abounding grace in their lives. May they both be drawn to our Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior and grow in faith in Him!

A Mighty Fortress

In our morning devotion, God has blessed Caleb and me through the Psalms and now we are on to Proverbs, a good book to read together for parent and child! As for our hymn of the week, we are singing "A Mighty Fortress is Our God." I am not very good with the old English language and so I sometimes find myself not fully understanding what I am singing when it comes to certain old hymns. Now with Caleb, I am forced to study more carefully what the words mean because he asks for its meaning after every single phrase. It sometimes takes us over 15 minutes to sing just one hymn!

It might have been easier just to sing "Jesus loves me" with Caleb. But I am also convinced of the value of teaching him from young great hymns of the past and to exult in foundational biblical truths through praise. And what wonderful opportunity God is using to teach me as well. Indeed a mighty fortress is my God as Martin Luther penned it, "Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing."

Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;
The body they may kill: God's truth abideth still,
His kingdom is forever.

These words from Martin Luther's hymn ring so true to me, especially after having listened again to John Piper's message entitled "Doing Missions When Dying is Gain" on Desiring God's podcast yesterday. I pray that my hope is built not on goods or kindred (yes, kindred!) or my mortal body, but on my Lord Jesus Christ alone, a bulwark that never fails!

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Spring Break at Yosemite

We were granted a few quiet days at Yosemite Valley last week to enjoy family time and the beauty of God's waterfalls, pine trees, and more. Andy's work has been very busy. He receives an average of 100 emails a day at work, which is quite absurd. How does one survive in the Silicon Valley in this environment?! He went back to work this week with over 700 emails to process. So the little getaway was a much needed time of refreshment for the three of us.

We did much hiking around the park and up to waterfalls. Getting splashed by the waterfalls was a big thrill for Caleb. Anywhere we went, we were surrounded by the beauty of spring. Whether in a grand waterfall or a tiny pine-cone branch the size of Caleb's index finger, we see God's design and beauty. We are humbled by His gracious allowance for us to experience all this despite our fallenness.

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Monday, April 09, 2007

Easter Message

Yesterday, Pastor Ken preached from Hebrews 13:20-21 for his Easter message. The week before he had mentioned that it was going to be an evangelistic message and for us to invite unbelieving friends. I had completely forgotten about this until after the worship service yesterday, at which point I realized there was nothing about his delivery that was different from all his other ones. This was not because all his other sermons were also "evangelistic" but because he didn't package the gospel message any different than when he preached from other passages in the bible. In fact, the gospel was always preached in every single sermon of his.

Another fact that came to mind was that I actually did bring with me (as far as I know) an unbeliever. And that is my four-year-old. And I am grateful to God for the whole gospel that is preached every Sunday. No cute little re-packaging of the gospel to make it attractive in the world's view. Even if 90% of it goes way over Caleb's head just because of his age-related comprehension, I am grateful for the 10% of unmodified truth that he can understand.

This morning, as the song "He is Lord" from one of our children CD's was playing, Caleb looked at me when he heard the line "He is risen from the dead" and gave me an emphatic nod and a smile. I think he's gotten the Easter message down for as much as his little head can understand. "Christ the Lord is Risen Today, Alleluia!"--this is our hymn for the week.

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