Some Great Cosmological Questions...

The only credit I can take for this, is knowing the person who wrote it :-).

"Is it possible for the universe to be infinite - could it have possibly existed forever? If the universe has existed forever, there could be no beginning for it. Without a beginning, the universe could not be in progress... whatever is causing change now would have already occurred in the boundless past. Time would really be meaningless and progress is defined by time - it is state with relation to time. Yet we know that the world is falling into decay... if such a process had been occurring forever, order would not now exist, and could have never existed in the first place since in order for order to have been decaying over an infinitely long period of time, its extent must be infinite. Progress always occurs over a definite period of time, especially progress which is spiraling downward like our universe is - entropy. So if we look backwards at the progress of our universe, it would be progressing upward toward order - given the assumption that the cosmos is eternal. If there were ever a point where it reached order, that would be a beginning, a point when the process of decay started. But behind that point would lie "another" infinity of time, during which all possible changes would already have occurred - if change could indeed occur in infinity. You can argue backward forever, literally, and never reach a point where change could have started that would not have been already preceded by an infinite amount of time. And infinite things don't have beginnings, they always have been. Progress is by nature a thing bounded by time, and so cannot be applied to things which are infinite, which are not bounded by time. If you can think of it mathematically, progress is the amount of change per unit of time, and if the amount of time that you multiply this proportion by is infinite, so then is the amount of change which results. And since at any "point" in infinity there is an infinite amount of preceding time, the amount of preceding change that would have occurred - were there a process ongoing - would be infinite. As such, there would never have been, not be now, and never will be a point in time when there would be any change left to occur. And since there never was such a point, such a process could never have started. The only way for it to start is for something else to have started it, something else which is not in progress, never has been, and never will be; but is capable of creating existence which has a beginning and an end, and as such is in progress."

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Couldn't Have Planned It Better

A funny thing about our family, or the child line-up rather, is that we were born in ballroom dancing partners :-). Every time there was an even number of children, the boy/girl ratio was evenly split.

Peter and Chloe

Ruby and Gabriel

Duncan and Tirzah

Luther and Olivia

We all learned to dance at reasonably young ages, but now the littler ones are way ahead of me :P. Duncan and Tirzah tango together quite well for their ages (11, 9) and they can be seen here, though the choreography has been updated since the video was made... and Luther and Olivia are way ahead of me, attending a ball at the respective ages of 6 and 4.

Here they are...

...and...

They even danced!!

It's Magic <3

If I lived in my own fairytale, would it look like this?? It would, and it does, because I do :). You see, a fairytale is made up of a wonderfully mysterious thing called 'magic'. Pictured here is the very thing I speak of – me in my fairytale – have you ever wondered how new life is brought forth from something that has lain dead for so long?? All at once, everything is transformed by the warmth and light from the sun, and it is called Spring. It's magic... one may not fully understand it... how can these things happen?? How can something as beautifully magnificent as a tree grow and blossom from such a tiny and seemingly insignificant thing as a seed?? It's magic.

God is the ultimate life-giver... to Him we owe our all. Every breath is a gift from Him which we do not deserve... We deserve death, yet he gives us life. Spring is a beautiful picture of how we are renewed in Christ. We can do nothing on our own, yet, it is the Son that gives us life.

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray—
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
Amazing love! How can it be,
That thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

Tim Hawkins

Verses That Struck Me Today...

"Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead." ~Philipians 3:8-11

"If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." ~Colossians 3:1-4

"Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell." ~Philipians 1:18-22

"May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." ~Colossians 1:11-14

Just For The Record...

I was encouraged to archive this...

My first mile:

Before I left...

...and after I got back :P.

Hugo on Slothfulness

This is an excerpt from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.

"My child, you are entering through laziness into the life most laborious of existences. Ah! You declare yourself a loafer! Prepare to labor. Have you seen a terrible machine called the rolling mill? Beware of it, it is a cunning and ferocious thing; if it but catch the skirt of your coat, you are drawn in entirely. This machine is idleness. Stop, while there is yet time, and save yourself! Otherwise, it is all over. Once caught, hope for nothing more. To fatigue idler! No more rest. The implacable iron hand of labor has seized you. Earn a living, have a task, accomplish a duty, you do not wish it! To be like others is tiresome! Well! You will be different! Labor is the law; he who spurns it as tiresome, will have it as a punishment. You are unwilling to be a workingman, you will be a slave. Labor releases you on the one hand only to retake you on the other… you have refused the honest weariness of men, you shall have the sweat of the damned. While others sing you will rave. You will see from afar, from below, other men at work; it will seem to you that they are at rest. The laborer, the reaper, the sailor, the blacksmith, will appear to you in the light like the blessed in a paradise. What radiance in the anvil! To drive the plow, to bind the sheaf is happiness. You idler… drag your halter, you are a beast of burden in the train of hell! To do nothing, that is your aim. Well! Not a week, not a day, not an hour without crushing exhaustion. You can lift nothing but with anguish. What will be a feather for others will be a rock for you. The simplest things will become steep. Life will make itself a monster about you… behold your future. Idleness, pleasure, what abysses! To do nothing is a dreary course to take, be sure of it. To live upon the substance of society! To be useless, that is to say, noxious! This leads straight to the lowest depths of misery.”

Go to the ant thou sluggard...

Anticipatience

Ever since I was little, I've loved running my own house... whether it was make-believe with my doll collection, or taking over when mother is gone. I have done all this with the sincere hope that I will one day get married and raise a family with the husband the Lord has given to me. To me, this is the highest possible calling a woman can have, and there is no greater desire in my heart! However, I have to wait... and now it's alot less time than I had to imagine when I was 6, 11, or even last year. I've gone through various times of waiting, bearing each at different levels of impatience, but it is now my favorite idea. I know it sounds absurd, but let me show you why:

Webster's 1828 Dictionary defines the word 'wait' thus:

"To rest in expectation and patience."

Hmmm... it's not saying that to wait could be bliss is it?? Why, I think that is exactly what it means. When one waits for something, the focus should not be selfish, only concerned with the here, now, and the deprivation he/she is undergoing, but to look ahead to what lies in store, to rest in hope that one day, the desire will be fulfilled, or the blessing received. In particular, marriage. The key to how the 'wait' is borne lies in where the focus is.

This is exactly like the bride of Christ waiting for her sweet communion with her Lord. What do you think would happen to us, as Christians, if we focused on the here and now?? For me, there are a million reasons why I would be in utter and complete despair, simply because I see where I am now, and I wouldn't be trusting in what God has in store for me... even next. Simply trusting that He will carry you safely through takes an eternal focus. It is only by His grace that we can look to what lies ahead. It is a difficult life, that of a true believer in Christ... it is full of hardships and trials.

"Though with a scornful wonder
men see her sore oppressed,
by schisms rent asunder,
by heresies distressed;"

Yet He gives us grace to make it through. Imagine... the final communion would not be so sweet were not these trials sent to sanctify us beforehand... they show us how undeserving we truly are, and how completely helpless we are without, and dependent we are for salvation on, Christ, our Saviour.

"from heaven he came and sought her
to be his holy bride;
with his own blood he bought her,
and for her life he died."

To truly wait, is to rest in the sweet comfort and protection that God is in control – and that His timing is absolutely perfect, flawless– that He knows what is best for us. Too often we question His authority when we don't get what we want, when we want it. Why?? Such ludicrousness. And it is only when we see the disaster we were saved from that we realize that He does know best (and we know less than nothing about it), but we forget again all too quickly. Is our faith really so small??

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life."

Our hope should be in Christ, our focus, eternal rest.

"one holy Name she blesses,
partakes one holy food,
and to one hope she presses,
with every grace endued."

Expectant patience. That's what it is. The trials make the fulfillment all the sweeter.

"Mid toil and tribulation,

and tumult of her war
she waits the consummation
of peace for evermore;
till with the vision glorious
her longing eyes are blessed,
and the great Church victorious
shall be the Church at rest.

Yet she on earth hath union
with God, the Three in one,
and mystic sweet communion
with those whose rest is won.
O happy ones and holy!
Lord, give us grace that we
like them, the meek and lowly,
on high may dwell with thee."