A Thankful Heart

How can three weeks in one's life feel more complete and satisfying than three whole months otherwise?

Goodness, my heart is full.

My beautiful new goddaughter was born on the 22nd of May! Her name is Rosalie Hope and she weighed a whopping 9lbs 13.5oz!!

Of course, the plan was that she would be born while I was there staying with her lovely family for 9 days to be on hand to help with their 2-year-old, my other goddaughter Lily! But... babies come when they come... And instead she was born the day Charles and I were headed off to Ireland!

The stunning Dingle Bay
County Kerry, Ireland

I CANNOT get enough of the live traditional Irish music in the pubs!

Oh.My.Heart.

I am so captured by the beauty of Ireland

...And by this handsome man I love.

Ross Castle on Lower Killarney Lake
Killarney National Park, Ireland

Ross Castle

One of our highlights of the trip: we hired a rowboat and rowed out onto the lake surrounded by mountains on all sides and with Ross Castle in the background! It was stunning...
And I had my own handsome gentleman rower :)

Rowing out into Lower Killarney Lake

Mmmm, the Irish beauty
Killarney National Park, Ireland

Ice cream made from the milk of the rare Kerry cow!
Mine was Baileys flavoured :)

Baileys Coffee! Mmm, mmm, good.

My tall, dark, and handsome stud enjoying a Guinness in Ireland :)

Our trip lasted effectively only 2 and half days, but it was so perfectly wonderful being back in my beloved Ireland and with my beloved man! Something about the wide open, expansive beauty of Ireland gives me a sense of God's nearness. The majesty to be seen from every vantage point points me to His majesty. Oh, I am SO thankful for Ireland! And for the precious moments spent with Charles there. I know it sounds silly, but somehow I am constantly surprised by the strength of my own love for this man. I just assume I can't feel any more love for him than I already do, and then all of a sudden, I realize that it goes deeper. We're both caught unawares by the power of this romance He's given us. So thankful...

We arrived back in London on the Friday, and Saturday morning Charles spoiled me rotten with a Wowcher.com deal for a champagne breakfast at the Hilton in central London! (Gotta love such Groupon-esque things. This date would have normally cost 52GBP just for breakfast and we got it for 19GBP!). London's been having it's first taste of summer this past weekend, and we spend the rest of the day popping in and out of the city's famed museums and walking barefoot in the city's parks :) Then to finish off the day, we went to a stand-up comedy club on the south bank of the Thames (I found this deal on Groupon.com because my man loves stand-up. Neither of us had ever been to an stand-up comedy gig in such an intimate setting of just 20 people or so! Really cool!) I got to wear a pretty "out on a date" outfit and feel fabulous out-and-about London (the fact that my life has me and out of this city so often still shocks my little small-town MN girl heart!) with my handsome man who thinks I'm beautiful. This is what every girl should get to experience :)

And one final note from the week: my wonderful grandpa turned 80 back in Minnesota!! My whole extended family got together to celebrate. My farmer/carpenter grandpa from the Nebraska prairies has taught me a few things about what it means to be a good man-- from his big teddy bear heart quick to shed a tear at the tender moments to his giant, work-hardened hands quick to defend and protect his family or indeed the vulnerable of all kinds. His lasting legacy in my life has been how very protected he makes me feel, and so cherished... I love my Grandpa so!

It's amazing how refreshed I feel. It's incredible how sweet it is to feel so much happiness for an extended period of time when you've spent time in the low places. Continually, my good God teaches me about the nature of hope; the nature of trust. I return to my current state in life today and it doesn't fill me with excitement. Some things I prayed so hard and so deeply for have yet to happen so this return is not sweet like it might have been... but I know that I can trust Him. Because He is good. And his plans for me are for my very best, and for His glory. I know this, because I know He loves me, and cannot act outside of that love...

So here's to the giver of good gifts, the maker of good memories, this kind, kind King who created magical places like the wild terrain of Ireland, and who lovingly shaped my handsome man and planned our meeting from the dawning of time. This kind, kind King who safely delivered sweet baby Rosalie and brought her Mummy safely through the scares that led to a C-section birth. This kind, kind King who gave me this Grandfather who has always made me feel loved and cherished, even in his hard, farmerish way :), and has brought him through 80 years of life experience (including 60 years of loving married commitment to my Grandma!) This kind, kind King who knows so intimately the desires of this achey little heart of mine, and who knows so intimately His best for this same little heart and will move heaven and earth to bring it to that best. I am so thankful He never gives up on me...

What do you have to be thankful to Him for today?

An Enchanting Walk!

I took the most beautiful walk through the Cotswolds today from Winchcombe to Hailes Abbey! 4.5 miles through sheep and cattle fields and over green green hills, past massive, ancient-looking trees, stunningly vibrant yellow rapeseed fields, and trickling streams under a sunny blue sky tempered by fluffy white clouds.

I have to pinch myself-- I have always been so enchanted by this part of God's world and it still amazes me that He gives me days here...

I LOVE The Cotswolds!

 

Lovely Winchcombe Town

Current Events :)

Making sand castles with my treasure hunt group.
That's our pastor in the centre.

Have I mentioned how much I love our church plant Brunnen?

Last weekend we had a lovely church retreat on one of the islands of the southern Archipelago of Gothenburg. I ADORE the islands-- everything moves at a slower pace. Most of them are only reachable by ferry and the residents have no cars there. They are small and quaint and the perfect place for a church retreat! 

That Sunday we had our church service in the community centre for the first time-- we've out-grown the living rooms we've been meeting in! This church is such a blessing to me, these people all joining together with intention-- a desire to please God and hold one another accountable to love people well by sharing Jesus.

Praise God for the way He still uses His Church!

Lily and her daddy!

 And in current events-- I've just arrived in England for a special few weeks!

My darling friends from college, Lizzie and Neil, are having a baby! Any day now, in fact :) And they've asked me to come and stay with them around the blessed event to lend a hand with my scrumptious 2 year old goddaughter Lily, so she'll be taken care of when they're off busy giving birth :) And just during the final days of pregnancy when Mummy's pretty exhausted, and the first days of Baby Smith's life, when there are many adjustments to be made!

I am so excited to be here with my "family away from families" :) They live, you might remember, in one of my favourite parts of England, The Cotswolds, and I am so at home in the little honey-coloured villages steeped in history and green, green rolling hills...

I feel so utterly blessed!

Now it's just a matter of waiting for Baby Smith to decide she's ready to come out into the world :) And after my lovely time spent with Lilykins and her family, I'm off for a much-needed week with my man. England always holds so many blessings for me...

The yummy mummy herself and me and her due date.
Lizzie is seriously like a sister to me. So thankful for her!

They live next door to the ancient village church-- so Lily and I like to skip through the churchyard in the sunshine!

My precious little goddaughter, Lily Joy, is such a delight to me :)

 

 

That's my friends' house just beyond the churchyard. Can you see why I love to come visit?

 

 

 

My Interesting Morning Grappling with Ancient History...

I've been reading up on the historical evidence for the truth of Jesus and Christianity to be able to have informed conversations with my many Atheist friends here in Europe. I don't know if I've ever looked at it so succinctly before-- all the facts compiled in one place (Thank you, Mr. Lee Strobel).

I find it fascinating how no other historical book has so many early copies discovered (we're talking 5,000, as opposed to the under 500 of it's contemporary historical books of the time which no one questions the validity of), and yet comes under such fire as the New Testament. And how the four Gospels were each written between 30 and 60 years after Jesus' crucifixion and still people say the testimonies had been elaborated by legend and mysticism by then with the passage of time, as opposed to other historical figures surviving histories-- like Alexander the Great-- being written, at the earliest, 500 years after, and no one questioning its historical validity.

And, you know, I had NEVER thought about searching for other historical (extra-biblical) accounts of the sky going dark at the time of Jesus' death (Luke 23:44-45) and the earth shaking (Matthew 27:54). A Greek author named Phlegon wrote around 137A.D. about a spectacular event in 33A.D. He wrote, "it became night in the sixth hour of day [i.e. noon] so that stars even appeared in the heavens. There was a great earthquake in Bithynia, and many things were overturned in Nicaea [these places he mentioned were located in modern-day Turkey]." Tertullian (c.160-c.225) says it was a cosmic event, visible in Rome, Athens, and other Mediterranean cities. Goodness... that in itself would make me very curious to seek and find out the truth in these rumours about this great teacher Jesus who so angered the powers that be with his teachings of a coming kingdom of love and grace and his acts of healing and miracles (they attributed it to sorcery, but didn't deny that it was happening) that they gave him the worst punishment of the time-- crucifixion. And instead of hushing these rumours, the passage of centuries since then have only strengthened the number of people choosing to believe. Isn't that a little fishy unless the claims of Christ are true and so have withstood the tests of time?

Strobel went into his investigation of the claims of Christianity as an Atheist wanting to validate and certify his beliefs that it was all nonsense. And I am finding his investigation so incredibly encouraging (and delightful to watch play out!) because at every turn, seeking out academic experts and asking very thorough and intelligent questions due to his legal research and journalism background, he is confronted with mounting evidence to prove TRUE exactly what he meant to prove false... But at the same time as it is incredibly satisfying to read, it is incredibly frustrating because I look around and think, "how can you NOT believe?"

Even in this rather scientific, research-driven style of book I've been reading today, God really challenged my heart. I read of how if we never cracked open a bible and only looked at the extra-biblical historical writings about Jesus-- many of them written by people who weren't Christians, and regarded the new religious movement sweeping their ancient world with some suspicion-- we would come out with a very clear and irrefutable idea of the life this Jesus character lived in historical fact.

"We would know that first, Jesus was a Jewish teacher; second, many people believed that he performed healings and exorcisms; third, some people believed he was the Messiah; fourth, he was rejected by the Jewish leaders; fifth, he was crucifed under Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius; sixth, despite this shameful death, his followers, who believed that he was still alive, spread beyond Palestine so that there were multitudes of them in Rome by A.D. 64; and seventh, all kinds of people from the cities and countryside-- men and women, slave and free-- worshiped him as God" (from The Case for Christ, pg.91, Strobel's interview with Edwin M. Yamauchi, Ph.D, a leading expect in Ancient History)

What struck me from this summary of what is historically known about Christ outside of the Bible, is that the part of His life that is life-changing, that everything hinges on, and which is indeed why Christianity even exists because we believe He was the Son of God-- his resurrection from the dead-- is signified in extra-biblical history only by the witness of the people who believed that He rose from the dead. Without looking at the biblical testimony of all the people who actually saw Him alive after his public crucifixion (over 500 people all at once in one occasion! --1 Cor. 15:6), extra-biblical historical texts also tell of the experience of these people by recording what they did, how they lived in light of this belief-- and despite horrific persecution which is documented extensively, like Nero's reign and the many many many martyrdoms.

It's this belief in Christ's resurrection which still sets Christians apart today. And it's the testimony of HOW WE LIVE in light of it which still bears witness... Tell me, what will the history books have to say about us as Christians bearing witness today? Oh, how I hope yours and my lives just add further evidence to the truth of Christ! It's that truth which sets people free, even today, and there are so so so very many still needing to be set free. Here in Sweden, yes; here in Europe, yes; but also everywhere...

"Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free." -- John 8:32

The evidence on paper goes so far, and then it's a matter of faith. May our lives be testimonies of faith which stand out in history, so that the people around us can't help but look to Him and choose to believe in His grace...

The Wedding Dress by Rachel Hauck

One dress with a story spanning a century. Four brides with four unique lives in four different generations. 

Those two lines probably have you thinking you know exactly what this book is about. Aw, it’s been done before, you say. Maybe so, but never like this. 

Charlotte is a modern woman running a successful wedding dress boutique in the American south and suffering from twinges of panic without understanding why at the thought of marrying her wonderful, family-man, architect, studmuffin  of a fiancé. Orphaned as a young child, she can hardly remember a time she wasn’t lonely, until Tim showed up and won her heart in a whirlwind romance. They were each everything the other had always wanted. So why, then, the feeling that it was all just going too fast?

Emily was desperately in love with Daniel when he left to play ball semi-professionally in 1912. By the time he came back to claim her heart only 5 months later, her father had given his blessing to an offer of marriage from the son of one of the weathiest families in Birmingham…

 Mary Grace fell in love with her childhood chum and in the midst of the Great Depression, he asked her to be his wife and to go away with him to serve the Lord by hosting tent meetings all across the country...

Hillary married her Marine fiancé on a whim just before he shipped out to Vietnam, and only a few months later she received back his dog tags, threw them in a trunk with the dress she wore the day she married him, and welded the trunk shut...

 

One day Charlotte found herself wandering through a random auction when something made her bid on a worn out old trunk, welded shut. The auctioneer wore vibrant purple and when he looked at her, it felt as if his eyes bore into her soul.

Little did she know that the contents of that trunk would connect her life forever to these other three women, and to one of them in ways she could never have imagined…

My cousin calls me a book snob. I don’t read many novels these days unless they are old enough to be considered “classic.” But if I do, they generally have to be Christian ones, because I often find contemporary secular novels a bit too graphic and crude (There are always exceptions, though :)). But, being a supposed “book snob”, I am very sensitive to contrived spirituality or overly-done religiosity in these books, leaving a story flat or shallow (Walking with Christ is REAL LIFE, people, and Christians are human too). Thus, I generally reach for my classics when needing a novel break. That said, it’ll mean something when I tell you that I have literally been purposely dragging out my reading of Rachel Hauck’s The Wedding Dress, luxuriating in its lines, in its love stories, in its twists and turns; savouring the feeling of being lost in the plot of a contemporary Christian novel without a hint of that tell-tale cringe. 

I still wish I hadn’t quite reached the end…

*I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255