ABOUT

I’ve kept a blog for about thirteen years.  

This is the re-launch of that blog.

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At the start — in my late 20’s — I was just trying out my finger-wings. It was both exhilarating and frightening to craft ideas into coherent sentences and then release them into the great world.  

Over all these years of writing I’ve lost my infatuation with self-expression, taking the editing process personally and a drive to both conquer and change the world, or die trying (thank God).  

I’ve written posts about those things with which I’m well-aquainted: mothering (we have four children ages 18 down to almost 2), marriage (it’s been 20 years now), education (10 years of homeschooling and everything in between), waiting, failing, suffering, hope, gratitude, prayer, spiritual formation, women’s issues, biblical truths (I have a BS in biblical studies and love the Word of God), foreign missions, cross-cultural adjustments and experiences (we live and serve as missionaries in Mexico).  I’ve even written a book, acquired by Inter-Varsity Press (2009), mainly for mothers on their spiritual development and that of their children.

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The writings are my tracks, the proof of my pilgrimage. They are some of the things I’ve noticed along the way and worked to assimilate into my ever-growing person and that of my family. For this writer, there is no true understanding without working it out in words, for I work inductively. Often there have been a thousand more words behind the ones I’ve written. I’ve yet to experience the satisfaction of fully reaching the roof of articulation to express all the wonder and depth and profundity and beauty of life.

Now, after all this I’ve found myself (into my early 40’s) at a summit. There is so much ground I’ve covered, and yet I want to go higher in, for there are mountains left to explore and those mountains call.  Much of the old angsts and wrestlings are gone. Much healing into wholeness has transpired. Some things are just settled, and some things are not worth the time and energy.  Perspective brings maturity and an accepted identity. 

So now, I want to write about and unpack from different angles, perhaps my greatest discovery so far of which I now hold fast:

Happiness comes through holiness. 

It is not as if this hasn’t been proclaimed before, for nothing is new under the sun. But, many things are said and remain as just words until they become embodied through one’s particular life in a way only they can testify to it. I desire my life to give breath to this beautiful truth.  It is the natural outflow of the Gospel of Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit. 

So this, this is the theme which I will arrive back at again and again here in this blog space.  This is the theme which many saints whom have walked before us also declared: 

“God would make us happy, but he can only make us happy by making us holy.  Happiness and holiness are cognate truths…they are twin sisters.  He must be happy who is holy…Sin in the parent of all misery; holiness the root of all happiness.” – Octavius Winslow

“Man…was made holy for this end, that he might be happy in enjoying God.” – Anslem

“Augustine and Aquinas recognized that the heart of the Christian life is learning about happiness…” – Paul J. Wadell

“A holy life, according to the book of Psalms, results in a happy life…a life lived in keeping with God’s teachings.”  -Mark Futato

“To be holy is to see God as he is and to become like him, covered in Christ’s righteousness.  And since God’s nature is to be happy, the more like him we become in our sanctification, the happier we become.” -Randy Alcorn

“The holiness and happiness of man…these are things that God loves.  These things are infinitely more agreeable to his nature than to ours.”  -Jonathan Edwards

“Holiness is the royal road to happiness.  The death of sin is the life of joy.” – Charles Spurgeon

“How little people know who think that holiness is dull.  When one meets the real thing…it is irresistible.  If even 10% of the world’s population had it, would not the whole world be converted and happy before a year’s end?”  – C.S. Lewis

“Goodness and holiness are not only the way to happiness, but happiness itself.” – Matthew Henry