Faithful Father

#1: Q. What is your only comfort
in life and in death?

A. That I am not my own,
but belong—
body and soul,
in life and in death—
to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.

He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood,
and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil.
He also watches over me in such a way
that not a hair can fall from my head
without the will of my Father in heaven;
in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.

Because I belong to him,
Christ, by his Holy Spirit,
assures me of eternal life
and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready
from now on to live for him.

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#26: Q. What do you believe when you say,
“I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth”?

A. That the eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who out of nothing created heaven and earth
and everything in them,
who still upholds and rules them
by his eternal counsel and providence,
is my God and Father
because of Christ the Son.
I trust God so much that I do not doubt
he will provide
whatever I need
for body and soul,
and will turn to my good
whatever adversity he sends upon me
in this sad world.

God is able to do this because he is almighty God
and desires to do this because he is a faithful Father.

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#27: Q. What do you understand
by the providence of God?

A. The almighty and ever present power of God
by which God upholds, as with his hand,
heaven
and earth
and all creatures,
and so rules them that
leaf and blade,
rain and drought,
fruitful and lean years,
food and drink,
health and sickness,
prosperity and poverty—
all things, in fact,
come to us
not by chance
but by his fatherly hand.

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#28: Q. How does the knowledge
of God’s creation and providence help us?

A. We can be patient when things go against us,

thankful when things go well,
and for the future we can have
good confidence in our faithful God and Father
that nothing in creation will separate us from his love.
For all creatures are so completely in God’s hand

that without his will
they can neither move nor be moved.

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#129: Q. What does that little word “Amen” express?

A. “Amen” means:

This shall truly and surely be!

It is even more sure

that God listens to my prayer

than that I really desire
what I pray for.

 (Heidelberg Catechism)

Summer 2016

The past 2 months:

Finished the never-ending year of thesis projects

We had forgotten what a coffee table devoid
of research paraphernalia looked like

Graduated

Processional Selfie

Went to Arizona (BTC 2.0)

Driving through the Sonoran Desert

May or may not have gone on a joyride around the NAU campus in this at night

Braved the hordes of stoners and overpriced concessions of Summerfest to see one of my favorite bands play

Young the Giant put on a delightful performance

Got some good views of Milwaukee as we walked along the lakefront

I kind of love my city

The other day, I realized I'd go mad if I didn't do something academic soon, so I pulled out some of my best papers from college in order to start revising them. I'm hoping I can get them to be high quality enough to be potential journal articles. We will see. Also finally doing the edits for my English thesis.

This year, I've been reading Dorothy Sayers' mysteries, and I'm about 100 pages into Gaudy Night. Pretty much from the first page, I knew this would become one of my favorite books. Besides the mystery narrative, I love how it explores women's place in academia, and what I think a lot of us struggle with in feeling like there has to be a choice between pursuing what feels like two competing callings (research and relationships). Reading the book has illuminated many of the issues I've begun to think about post-graduation. My thought processes about my future tend toward an either-or, all-or-nothing attitude that results in two equally-unsettling pictures of me 15 years from now: Reformed-Nun-Devoted-to-Academia or Overwrought-Mother-Mourning-Missed-Opportunities. Both are kind of terrifying.

Grad school will be over before I know it, and.....then what? I hate the type of person who defines him/her-self by their schooling (I've listened to them talk and their humble bragginess is slightly insufferable), which makes me all the more anxious to make sure I'm actively involved in the church. But to cast a glance in the direction of the feminist soapbox, it's very difficult to establish yourself as a single woman in the family-dominated culture of the church. Not being male, it's easy to feel that my potential contribution is marginal at best. (For the record, I stand in firm agreement with the biblical teaching on the church officers being exclusively male).

Based on conversations I've had with other single people, I think that sense of displacement is pretty common; things are great when you have a community of likeminded, similarly-placed people around you, but being the only one can be incredibly alienating (and when you're a confessional Reformed Baptist, the latter is often the case). There is much to be said for learning from the wisdom of those around you who are not in your demographic, but how do you replace the unique kind of fellowship, accountability, and encouragement that comes from having Christian peers? What does it mean to embrace biblical femininity when half the descriptions of virtuous womanhood do not apply to you? I've been asking myself these questions a lot lately. Ultimately, we will only find happiness and contentment in submission to the will of God. Furthermore, God never puts us in a position where there are no opportunities to serve the church in some way or another. Amidst all my questions, these truths have been invaluable in not going crazy.

That got way heavier than I intended, but I suppose a lot of those thoughts were bound to come out here eventually. Living the dream.

In which I fall further in love with typology

“For I will be like a lion to Ephraim
And like a young lion to the house of Judah.
I, even I, will tear to pieces and go away,
I will carry away, and there will be none to deliver.
I will go away and return to My place
Until they acknowledge their guilt and seek My face;
In their affliction they will earnestly seek Me.”

“Come, let us return to the Lord.
For He has torn us, but He will heal us;
He has wounded us, but He will bandage us.
“He will revive us after two days;
He will raise us up on the third day,
That we may live before Him.
“So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord.
His going forth is as certain as the dawn;
And He will come to us like the rain,
Like the spring rain watering the earth.”

 Hosea 5.14-6.3

I'm reading Hosea today, and it occurred to me that its story is a lot like a dark counterpart to the Song of Solomon. Both focus on "romances" between two human individuals which in turn act as pictures of God and the Church. The Song of Solomon tells the narrative of redemption from the standpoint of our union with Christ having already been established, and it's much nicer to read than Hosea. The latter, though less pretty, is just as important. It's like following the events of our salvation in real time: We the readers watch in horror as we witness ourselves, in Gomer and Israel, abandon Christ and defile ourselves in sin. We find ourselves facing the chilling wrath of God - "Since you have forgotten the law of your God,/I also will forget your children" (won't find 4:6 on a Christmas card any time soon). But finally, as He always does, God promises us hope in redemption. I love the Christological undertones of 6:2: "He will raise us up on the third day."

"But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places with Jesus Christ, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." (Ephesians 2.4-7)