http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J95rAr0gOFU&feature=related
Why are you striving these days
Why are you trying to earn grace
Why are you crying
Let me lift up your face
Just don't turn away
Why are you looking for love
Why are you still searching as if I'm not enough
To where will you go child
Tell me where will you run
To where will you run
And I'll be by your side
Wherever you fall
In the dead of night
Whenever you call
And please don't fight
These hands that are holding you
My hands are holding you
Look at these hands and my side
They swallowed the grave on that night
When I drank the world's sin
So I could carry you in
And give you life
I want to give you life
Cause I, I love you
I want you to know
That I, I love you
I'll never let you go
By Your Side
Tenth Avenue South
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
My Aunt Marrianne
My Aunt Marrianne was diagnosed with Pancreatic and Liver cancer yesterday.
My dad left a message for me to call him ASAP when I get off of work. There are only now a couple of reasons I can think of this combination of emotion relayed by my father of urgency and somberness. Now his sister is dying. Prognosis is poor, a double hit from two sides, Pancreatic, one of the fastest growing cancers and invasion of two different organs.
Life is passing quickly. I can see it vividly. I am not at the age of my parents, but it is not just fleeting thought these days like before. It is a steady and fast progression("a breath") towards Heaven and seeing my heavenly Father one day beyond this fading earth.
I will try to visit her this Friday.
What will I do? She loves drinking tea, a small biscuit (my dad suggested), old book, talk of rich hymns, read a piece of her mother's diary, knit, look at old pictures, or just sit and enjoy being together. She is a home body more than any person I know in the Cassidy family. She enjoys comforts and warm lights in a cool quiet place. She welcomes me gladly to sit and talk anytime like one of her own and impart her years of wisdom. I love you Aunt Marrianne.
My dad left a message for me to call him ASAP when I get off of work. There are only now a couple of reasons I can think of this combination of emotion relayed by my father of urgency and somberness. Now his sister is dying. Prognosis is poor, a double hit from two sides, Pancreatic, one of the fastest growing cancers and invasion of two different organs.
Life is passing quickly. I can see it vividly. I am not at the age of my parents, but it is not just fleeting thought these days like before. It is a steady and fast progression("a breath") towards Heaven and seeing my heavenly Father one day beyond this fading earth.
I will try to visit her this Friday.
What will I do? She loves drinking tea, a small biscuit (my dad suggested), old book, talk of rich hymns, read a piece of her mother's diary, knit, look at old pictures, or just sit and enjoy being together. She is a home body more than any person I know in the Cassidy family. She enjoys comforts and warm lights in a cool quiet place. She welcomes me gladly to sit and talk anytime like one of her own and impart her years of wisdom. I love you Aunt Marrianne.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
When He Returns
I know I look through this "glass darkly" and "soon" Christ will come for me. Now I must live all to the glory of God, completely, with every breath.
I wrote this letter for Jennifer and Andrew on their Wedding Day.
December 27, 2008 at 11:00
Jennifer and Andrew Dixon made a Covenant to Love each other.
Dear Andrew and Jennifer,
I remember when I met you about a year ago. You both were new in attending our singles care group. You had visited a few months and then shortly after was the break up. Jennifer, I know you were dumbfounded and spent hours either in your room sulking, reading your bible or praying to God. Many times I remember hearing you talk about how you believed simply that God always had Andrew for you. Even though this break was complete at the time, it was like nothing had ever changed in Jennifer’s mind; you loved Andrew the same and months later. Andrew, you were spending your days sitting at the feet of Jesus, surrendering yourself to the hands of God with much prayer and that was your focus.
Jennifer, I have always felt very comfortable and at home with you. I have appreciated the time we have spent together, talking over coffees at Liquid Highway, sitting at the pool, and walking outside...you are like friend that I never lost time to pick up where we left off last.
Andrew, I have always considered you like a dear brother. You have a passion for God and live it fully, here, and now. God will use you to spur others in the truth (continue to have passion for knowing and studying God’s Word carefully). You are a affecting the lives of those around you even now. I believe God wants to use you in a wonderful unique way that others will not be able to. I love the watching the testimony of CHANGE that is blaring in your life today. You shine brilliantly in the contrast of knowing where you came and who you are in and because of Christ. Thank God for the power of this testimony to believers and unbelievers.
We have good memories to look back on this past year. Fall hikes, amusement parks, playing games, singing Masquerade professional opera style, Roman studies, and care groups. These will be treasured memories.
My prayer for you...
God as Jennifer and Andrew begin this life together. We acknowledge and rejoice in your work that you have a purposefully brought them together. Thank you for Andrew and the powerful testimony from his life and Jennifer the opportunity she now has to follow him in serving beside him. I pray for Andrew as he loves Jennifer, as Christ loves the Church, that Jennifer will feel his pleasure. I pray for Jennifer as she loves Andrew that, he will feel her pleasure. I pray that you will give them a selfless for each other and a love for You God above all else. I pray that you will use Andrew and Jennifer to draw men to your wonderful gospel, your name be glorified. In Jesus Name.
Amen.
I love you.
Wendy
I wrote this letter for Jennifer and Andrew on their Wedding Day.
December 27, 2008 at 11:00
Jennifer and Andrew Dixon made a Covenant to Love each other.
Dear Andrew and Jennifer,
I remember when I met you about a year ago. You both were new in attending our singles care group. You had visited a few months and then shortly after was the break up. Jennifer, I know you were dumbfounded and spent hours either in your room sulking, reading your bible or praying to God. Many times I remember hearing you talk about how you believed simply that God always had Andrew for you. Even though this break was complete at the time, it was like nothing had ever changed in Jennifer’s mind; you loved Andrew the same and months later. Andrew, you were spending your days sitting at the feet of Jesus, surrendering yourself to the hands of God with much prayer and that was your focus.
Jennifer, I have always felt very comfortable and at home with you. I have appreciated the time we have spent together, talking over coffees at Liquid Highway, sitting at the pool, and walking outside...you are like friend that I never lost time to pick up where we left off last.
Andrew, I have always considered you like a dear brother. You have a passion for God and live it fully, here, and now. God will use you to spur others in the truth (continue to have passion for knowing and studying God’s Word carefully). You are a affecting the lives of those around you even now. I believe God wants to use you in a wonderful unique way that others will not be able to. I love the watching the testimony of CHANGE that is blaring in your life today. You shine brilliantly in the contrast of knowing where you came and who you are in and because of Christ. Thank God for the power of this testimony to believers and unbelievers.
We have good memories to look back on this past year. Fall hikes, amusement parks, playing games, singing Masquerade professional opera style, Roman studies, and care groups. These will be treasured memories.
My prayer for you...
God as Jennifer and Andrew begin this life together. We acknowledge and rejoice in your work that you have a purposefully brought them together. Thank you for Andrew and the powerful testimony from his life and Jennifer the opportunity she now has to follow him in serving beside him. I pray for Andrew as he loves Jennifer, as Christ loves the Church, that Jennifer will feel his pleasure. I pray for Jennifer as she loves Andrew that, he will feel her pleasure. I pray that you will give them a selfless for each other and a love for You God above all else. I pray that you will use Andrew and Jennifer to draw men to your wonderful gospel, your name be glorified. In Jesus Name.
Amen.
I love you.
Wendy
Thursday, December 4, 2008
no comparison to seven miles deep
Rom 5:20 "Moreover the law entered, that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:
Rom 5:21 That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord."
"our effort to taste, to see, to enjoy, to admire the glory of God now is like taking a a little thimble to spoon out the Pacific Ocean, if you enlarge the thimble to the size of the Pacific Ocean, it would still be a thimble compared to the Ocean of the Glory of God which has No shores and No bottom."
John Piper
Infinite duration to taste and see the glory of God....
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Romans
"if you are not made compassionate by your self understanding as fallen; you don't know yet how bad you are, and how good God is to you"
Jonathon Edwards
"this docterine teaches us to think no worse of others than of ourselves; it teaches us that we are all companions in a miserable helpless condition which under a revelation of divine mercy tend to produce mutuel compassion and nothing has a greater tendancy to promote those amiable dispositions of mercy forebearance, long-suffering, gentleness, and forgiveness than a sense of our own extreme unworthiness and misery and the infinite need of divine pity and forbearance and forgiveness together for with the hope of obtaining mercy"
Jonathon Edwards
"this docterine teaches us to think no worse of others than of ourselves; it teaches us that we are all companions in a miserable helpless condition which under a revelation of divine mercy tend to produce mutuel compassion and nothing has a greater tendancy to promote those amiable dispositions of mercy forebearance, long-suffering, gentleness, and forgiveness than a sense of our own extreme unworthiness and misery and the infinite need of divine pity and forbearance and forgiveness together for with the hope of obtaining mercy"
Monday, November 17, 2008
Doulos=Bondservant
Matthew 6:24
No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot, serve God and mammon.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
A Closing Prayer
A prayer from my dearest loving mother Evelyn M. Cassidy read to me over the phone:
A Closing Prayer
"Gracious and glorious Father, because you are rich in mercy, and great in love, and sovereign in grace, we ask that you would make this little book a window onto the panorama of your glory, and a skylight to your supremacy in all things. By the truth-loving power of your Holy Spirit grant that the glass pane would be clean—that what is faithful to your word would be confirmed, and what is not would be forgiven, not confusing. We ask that your cloud-banishing illumination would be given to our minds, and that spiritual understanding would fill our hearts, and that according to the command of your apostle, we would grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. May we see the spectacular sins of the world as horrible as they are. And may we see the holiness of God as pure as it is. And may we see the rule of God over the sin of man as righteous as it is. And thus grant the steel of ultimate reality to strengthen the spine of our faith, and sweeten our lips for the bruised heart. Put the ballast of biblical truth in the belly of our little boats, lest the crashing waves of calamity in these changing times cause us to capsize in the sea of trouble. And according to your apostle's warning, forbid that the increase of our knowledge would cause the increase of our pride. Rather, O God of infinite wisdom, reveal, with all our understanding, the unfathomable sinfulness of our hearts without Christ, and the infinitesimal smallness of our strength in comparison to yours, and the absolute dependence of our life on you, and the unfathomable depths of your judgments, and how dim is the mirror in which we see. Grant to our minds and hearts new and deeper capacities to see and savor the glories of Jesus Christ. With every new glimpse of his glory in your word, let there awaken new affections in our hearts. Ignite our souls to treasure Christ in a way that destroys our sinful lusts and delights the deepest recesses of our being and displays his truth and beauty to a world that does not know that this is what it needs more than anything. And from this all-satisfying treasuring of Christ may there flow a liberation from selfishness, and a triumph over bitterness and anger, and a freedom from worry and fear, and victory over depression and discouragement, and the severing of every root of sensual lust. All this freedom, Lord, we seek for the sake of love. Grant that our contentment in Christ would be a dissatisfied contentment, eager to expand by including others. Grant that the joy of the Lord would not be a solitary joy, but the strength to sacrifice for the good of others, even those who hate us. May brokenhearted boldness and contrite courage attend all our deeds of compassion and all our commendations of Christ to a lost world. Awaken in us tender affections for those who hurt, and self-forgetful attentiveness for those in our presence. And in this treasuring of Christ for his supreme glory and this overflowing love for others, may Jesus be exalted above all things— honored, admired, adored, esteemed, enjoyed, praised, extolled, thanked, and worshiped. May our light shine in this world so that people see you in our sacrificial deeds of love and our uncompromising words of truth and give glory to your hallowed name, Father. Through Jesus Christ, your Son, Amen."
by John Piper
A Closing Prayer
"Gracious and glorious Father, because you are rich in mercy, and great in love, and sovereign in grace, we ask that you would make this little book a window onto the panorama of your glory, and a skylight to your supremacy in all things. By the truth-loving power of your Holy Spirit grant that the glass pane would be clean—that what is faithful to your word would be confirmed, and what is not would be forgiven, not confusing. We ask that your cloud-banishing illumination would be given to our minds, and that spiritual understanding would fill our hearts, and that according to the command of your apostle, we would grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. May we see the spectacular sins of the world as horrible as they are. And may we see the holiness of God as pure as it is. And may we see the rule of God over the sin of man as righteous as it is. And thus grant the steel of ultimate reality to strengthen the spine of our faith, and sweeten our lips for the bruised heart. Put the ballast of biblical truth in the belly of our little boats, lest the crashing waves of calamity in these changing times cause us to capsize in the sea of trouble. And according to your apostle's warning, forbid that the increase of our knowledge would cause the increase of our pride. Rather, O God of infinite wisdom, reveal, with all our understanding, the unfathomable sinfulness of our hearts without Christ, and the infinitesimal smallness of our strength in comparison to yours, and the absolute dependence of our life on you, and the unfathomable depths of your judgments, and how dim is the mirror in which we see. Grant to our minds and hearts new and deeper capacities to see and savor the glories of Jesus Christ. With every new glimpse of his glory in your word, let there awaken new affections in our hearts. Ignite our souls to treasure Christ in a way that destroys our sinful lusts and delights the deepest recesses of our being and displays his truth and beauty to a world that does not know that this is what it needs more than anything. And from this all-satisfying treasuring of Christ may there flow a liberation from selfishness, and a triumph over bitterness and anger, and a freedom from worry and fear, and victory over depression and discouragement, and the severing of every root of sensual lust. All this freedom, Lord, we seek for the sake of love. Grant that our contentment in Christ would be a dissatisfied contentment, eager to expand by including others. Grant that the joy of the Lord would not be a solitary joy, but the strength to sacrifice for the good of others, even those who hate us. May brokenhearted boldness and contrite courage attend all our deeds of compassion and all our commendations of Christ to a lost world. Awaken in us tender affections for those who hurt, and self-forgetful attentiveness for those in our presence. And in this treasuring of Christ for his supreme glory and this overflowing love for others, may Jesus be exalted above all things— honored, admired, adored, esteemed, enjoyed, praised, extolled, thanked, and worshiped. May our light shine in this world so that people see you in our sacrificial deeds of love and our uncompromising words of truth and give glory to your hallowed name, Father. Through Jesus Christ, your Son, Amen."
by John Piper
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