Surpassing all others...

"Whether God handles me tenderly, or gives me over to torture, i love HIM. He is my reward, the builder of the city i long for, the treasure beyond the the riches of egypt, and the possession that surpasses all others and abides for ever!" - John Piper

I know that it is true: He Himself is better than life itself. 

For He's a great God

I haven't posted for so very long. And i wish i had. There's so much i could have shared about God's goodness and faithfulness and tenderness and mercy to me. So much i could say thank you for. For now, i will just say that He is good. And i am thankful. I may start a new blog soon, for doodles and creative writing. This one seems to have almost come to a natural end. I'm not sure yet?!

O to grace...

"O to grace how great a debtor, daily i'm constrained to be. Let Thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee."

- Robert Robinson

The eye of the storm

Harbour me in the eye of the storm.

I'm holding on to the love you swore.

- John Mark McMillian -

Workspaces..

I don't have a proper space to work in, so always end up using our dining room table, or my bedroom floor. Anyway, yesterday i realised that even if i don't have my own little office i can still make whatever space i use each day look kind of neat and pretty to inspire me!

How great

"How great are You Lord, how great is Your mercy, how great are the things that You have done for me. How great are You Lord, Your lovingkindness, is filling my heart as i sing, how great are You Lord. How great is Your love, it reaches to the heavens. How great is the heart that sought and rescued me. How great are You Lord, how great is Your mercy, how great are the things that You have done for me." - Robin Mark

Saviour please, pilot me

"I will arise and follow you over

Saviour please, pilot me

Over the waves and through every sorrow

Saviour please, pilot me

When I have no more strength left to follow

Fall on my knees, pilot me

May your sun rise and lead me on

Over the sea’s, Saviour pilot me "

- Song lyrics by Josh Garrels

Never.

"Stick to that word "never." It is worth its weight in gold. Cling to it as a drowning man clings to a rope. Grasp it firmly, as a soldier attacked on all sides grasps his sword. God has said, and will stand to it, "I will never leave you!"

"Never!" Though your heart often faints, and you are sick of self, and your many failures and infirmities; even then the promise will not fail.

"Never!" Though the devil whispers, 'I shall have you at last! In little while, your faith will fail, and you will be mine!' Even then, God will keep his Word.

"Never!" Though waves of trouble go over your head, and all hope seems taken away. Even then the Word of God will stand."

- J. C. Ryle (via Desiring God)

Waiting

Paintings by Brett Amory. I like his style.

For one wild moment

"...when we are very young children we do not need fairy tales: we only need tales. Mere life is interesting enough.... [nursery] tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water." - Chesterton

A broken and contrite heart

“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” - Psalm 51.17

"Being a Christian means being broken and contrite. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you get beyond this in this life. It marks the life of God’s happy children till they die. We are broken and contrite all the way home—unless sin gets the proud upper hand. Being broken and contrite is not against joy and praise and witness. It’s the flavor of Christian joy and praise and witness. I close with the words of Jonathan Edwards who said it better than I can.

All gracious affections [feelings, emotions] that are a sweet [aroma] to Christ . . . are brokenhearted affections. A truly Christian love, either to God or men, is a humble brokenhearted love. The desires of the saints, however earnest, are humble desires: their hope is a humble hope; and their joy, even when it is unspeakable, and full of glory, is a humble brokenhearted joy. . . . (Religious Affections [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959], pp. 339f.) "

- John Piper

The valleys

There are some encouraging verses in the Bible about valleys. Verses that testify to the truth that God is a God of the valleys, as well as the hills (1 Kings 20.23).

In Hosea 2.15 God promises to make the valley of Achor (trouble) a door of hope. In Psalm 84 He promises that for those who trust Him, He will make the valley of Bacca (tears) a place of springs. And in Psalm 23 He promises that even when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, there is no reason to fear, for He is with us.

I'm grateful for verses like these. They give valley-dwellers and valley-walkers hope. They remind us that God is with us, that He is in control, that He sees, that He turns situations around, and that He can bring good from even the most difficult times. And it's a beautiful thing to have such hope. Hope in itself seems to impart life and joy and peace. You see it in the face of a child as they eagerly wait for Christmas, you hear it in the song of the bird that begins singing before the first rays of morning, and even the lambs seem to skip with joy as Spring awakens a new lease of life on earth. Hope in itself is powerful. But my gratefulness extends beyond mere hope that there are such promises. I really have seen something of the truth of these in my own life, and for that, i am even more grateful. To experience something of what you hope for.... to catch a glimpse of it with your very own eyes, is truly incredible. I can testify to that.

But right now, I'm still walking through valleys. So, i'll joyfully remember what I've tasted of God's faithfulness in the past, I'll put my hope in what He promises for the future, and i'll stand firm on the certainty that He who promises will be faithful once more.

Biro Envelope Drawings

I love these envelope drawings by Mark Powell. They are done completely with bic biros on the backs of old envelopes. Amazing.

World Map Papercut

I've been doing a World map papercut over the last few months. I finally finished it, just before the new year. It's my biggest papercut yet and took a pretty long time - almost 30 hours of cutting and an awful lot longer to draw the design before i cut. I'll post some proper photos at some point, these two are just a tiny snippet.

Beside the manger

Who will celebrate Christmas correctly? Whoever finally lays down all power, all honour, all reputation, all vanity, all arrogance, all individualism beside the manger. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Brick Lane

I was in London at the weekend visiting my dear siblings and i noticed a bit of street art by Swoon. I've posted some of her work on here before, but never actually seen any in real life, so i was quite glad to notice a piece pasted up in Brick Lane. I like her style.

Grace

‎"You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the play and the opera, and grace before the concert and pantomime, And grace before I open a book, And grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing, And grace before I dip my pen in the ink." G. K. Chesterton

Back to the start...

To say that my life has been strange in recent years would be an understatement; it's been more than strange. And at times my mind has been like a maze of confusion which i have felt more than lost in. This has meant that i haven't written so regularly and when i have it's tended to be quite heavy. But i miss writing, and i especially miss writing about the kind of things i first set out to write about. It was my aim back in 2007 to use this as a place to help me practically outwork my desire to think about whatever is true and honourable and just and pure and lovely and gracious and excellent and worthy of praise (phil 4.8). And so i'm going to restart this blog, with my original aim in mind.

I love noticing tenderness and grace and beauty in the every day things.. and i love noticing it in the not-so-every-day things too... i also believe that sometimes tenderness can be seen in and through the most obscure and bizarre situations and i think such expressions of tenderness are worth noting and celebrating.

I'm pretty sure i have no readers any more, so i feel free to start writing without the worry of saying silly things. I'm doing this more as an exercise for myself anyway.. an exercise to keep me focussed on things outside myself, to remind me to lift up my head and keep my eyes open, and to re-train myself to speak about all i love, rather than all i fear. So, here we go....

Hungary

Photos of Hungary by Tamas Dezso

Songs in the Night

"God, my maker, who giveth songs in the night." - Job 35.10

"No man can make a song in the night of himself; he may attempt it, but he will find that a song in the night must be divinely inspired. Let all things go well, i can weave songs, fashioning them wherever i go out of the flowers that grow upon my path; but put me in a desert, where no green thing grows, and wherewith shall i frame a hymn of praise to God?.. Let but this voice be clear, and this body full of health, and i can sing God's praise: silence my tongue, lay me upon the bed of languishing, and how shall i then chant God's high praises, unless He Himself give me the song? No, it is not in man's power to sing when all is adverse, unless an alter-coal shall touch his lip... Since our maker gives songs in the night, let us wait upon Him for the music. O Thou chief musician, let us not remain songless because affliction is upon us, but tune Thou our lips to the melody of thanksgiving." - Spurgeon