Loves of Life
I have many loves in life. My Savior is #1. Period. End of report. However, that seems to be more of a I think or rather feel it was before mortality and I am certain it is after mortality and I KNOW I can't make it through mortality without Him. That said I shall move on to loves of life, or mortality.
Family has to be #1, with the understanding that the definition of a family is husband + wife. Kids? That's the frosting on the cake. Then I think my next greatest love is learning. It was always from books. I read dictionaries and encyclopedias and any and everything else I could get my hands on.
Textbooks were always challenging-my mind just doesn't (thank Heaven's) think that way. But I love learning so much so that even textbooks are better than nothing.
When I read books I find little gems and treasures that endear the book to me. I want to share a couple now. And I think I'll open this up again as the months of 2009 pass to add a few more.
As I was reading 'First Light' I came across a passage that just opened the floodgates of tears. Emotions, pains, despair that I haven't felt for decades. So much of the pain I had felt as a child when being teased by peers and feelings of rejection from my parents. I think the author catches and shares so well the situation from an observers perspective. What do you think?
"It had kept him company when children mocked him. Peniel the potter's son! Penniel the cracked pot! Clumsy! Ugly! Useless! Evidence of God's displeasure! Peniel the flawed creation!
Peniel leaned his head back against the marble pillar and listened... Mothers. Children. Angry, impatient voices. Blind hearts who did not see anything.
"Come here! You! Listen to me! Did you hear what I said?"
"Stop that right now or I'll have a word with your father and I mean it."
"Mama, Tobias pulled my hair."
"Tabitha splashed water on me."
"He started it."
"I'm hungry."
"Can we go now?"
"Stop it! I've had enough! You drive me crazy! Your father will hear about this!"
Did they ever look at one another? Peniel wondered. Did they ever stop long enough to really see one another's hearts?
Did these mothers raise their heads and see...?"
This next quote is so clear to grasp. The character, Peniel, age 17, had been blind in the above passage. In this next quote (from 'Second Touch') he is still in the first 24 hours of having received his eye sight.
"Morning has broken." Yeshua spoke at last.
"Yes. I feel it. I hear it! Listen! Listen to the cock crow!" Then Peniel followed Yeshua's gaze to a ragged beggar sleeping in a deserted doorway. A leper, judging by the stink. What was such an outcast doing here? Was he dead? "So... this is what the world looks like in the light."
"Darkness is a comfortable place. The candle of Adonai illuminates suffering which most would rather not see."
..."My ears saw their misery. Oh!" Peniel thumped his hand against his chest to indicate his pain. "I'm afraid, Lord. Afraid of what my heart'll feel now that I have eyes."
Added on 2/1/2009
Lily (from 'Second Touch') became a leper when she was only 12 years old. She was cast out from her family and found her way to the valley where the lepers lived. Having a nature of a pleasant, loving and accepting child, she found herself of the same nature-but just sick and her eyes wide open to the seriousness, inevitableness and stages of the disease she would face. But get this-after 6 years of this, of losing her fingers on her left hand, of losing her ears, she still prayed to the God of the New Testament, Yeshua. What I found most interesting, and wanted to share here, are the titles she addresses him by as she prays.
Inventor of Love
Awesome One
Soaring One
Inventor of the Senses
Creator of Me and Them and Us (Help me! Help me see them, not with my eyes, but as You see them.)
Compassionate One
Father of the Fatherless
God of Promises
God of Hope
God who knows I'm afraid
Inventor of Love
Knower of Our Souls
Family has to be #1, with the understanding that the definition of a family is husband + wife. Kids? That's the frosting on the cake. Then I think my next greatest love is learning. It was always from books. I read dictionaries and encyclopedias and any and everything else I could get my hands on.
Textbooks were always challenging-my mind just doesn't (thank Heaven's) think that way. But I love learning so much so that even textbooks are better than nothing.
When I read books I find little gems and treasures that endear the book to me. I want to share a couple now. And I think I'll open this up again as the months of 2009 pass to add a few more.
As I was reading 'First Light' I came across a passage that just opened the floodgates of tears. Emotions, pains, despair that I haven't felt for decades. So much of the pain I had felt as a child when being teased by peers and feelings of rejection from my parents. I think the author catches and shares so well the situation from an observers perspective. What do you think?
"It had kept him company when children mocked him. Peniel the potter's son! Penniel the cracked pot! Clumsy! Ugly! Useless! Evidence of God's displeasure! Peniel the flawed creation!
Peniel leaned his head back against the marble pillar and listened... Mothers. Children. Angry, impatient voices. Blind hearts who did not see anything.
"Come here! You! Listen to me! Did you hear what I said?"
"Stop that right now or I'll have a word with your father and I mean it."
"Mama, Tobias pulled my hair."
"Tabitha splashed water on me."
"He started it."
"I'm hungry."
"Can we go now?"
"Stop it! I've had enough! You drive me crazy! Your father will hear about this!"
Did they ever look at one another? Peniel wondered. Did they ever stop long enough to really see one another's hearts?
Did these mothers raise their heads and see...?"
This next quote is so clear to grasp. The character, Peniel, age 17, had been blind in the above passage. In this next quote (from 'Second Touch') he is still in the first 24 hours of having received his eye sight.
"Morning has broken." Yeshua spoke at last.
"Yes. I feel it. I hear it! Listen! Listen to the cock crow!" Then Peniel followed Yeshua's gaze to a ragged beggar sleeping in a deserted doorway. A leper, judging by the stink. What was such an outcast doing here? Was he dead? "So... this is what the world looks like in the light."
"Darkness is a comfortable place. The candle of Adonai illuminates suffering which most would rather not see."
..."My ears saw their misery. Oh!" Peniel thumped his hand against his chest to indicate his pain. "I'm afraid, Lord. Afraid of what my heart'll feel now that I have eyes."
Added on 2/1/2009
Lily (from 'Second Touch') became a leper when she was only 12 years old. She was cast out from her family and found her way to the valley where the lepers lived. Having a nature of a pleasant, loving and accepting child, she found herself of the same nature-but just sick and her eyes wide open to the seriousness, inevitableness and stages of the disease she would face. But get this-after 6 years of this, of losing her fingers on her left hand, of losing her ears, she still prayed to the God of the New Testament, Yeshua. What I found most interesting, and wanted to share here, are the titles she addresses him by as she prays.
Inventor of Love
Awesome One
Soaring One
Inventor of the Senses
Creator of Me and Them and Us (Help me! Help me see them, not with my eyes, but as You see them.)
Compassionate One
Father of the Fatherless
God of Promises
God of Hope
God who knows I'm afraid
Inventor of Love
Knower of Our Souls
Comments
Amazon has more than 12 books entitled, _First Light_. I'm assuming this is the one by the Thoene's.