Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

Those who Hope in the Lord will Renew their Strength: a guest post from Jennifer from Diary of 1

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Jennifer lives in the Pacific Northwest and is a wife and mother to four children. She currently runs an online sports business with her husband. Jennifer has a BA in Political Science and French, a Masters in Teaching, has taught in public and private schools, and also spent several years homeschooling her children. Jennifer blogs at Diary of 1


In this post, Jennifer writes about experiencing God and hope in the very depths!

Welcome, Jennifer, and thank you!

Jennifer


Those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint. (Isaiah 40:31).
“Your pace will change from a sprint to a marathon,” she counseled. These words brought immense hope to my soul on the heels of a few exhausting years that did indeed feel like the 50-yard dash on replay every hour of my day.

The thought of a marathon panics some, but its pace is slower, steadier than the sprint, and yes, we still have a race to run, but perhaps it didn’t have to kill me?
I had been waiting for this comfort, and many translations in fact interpret the words “hope in the Lord” as “wait on the Lord.”

Following the meltdown of a business I was involved in, following the slander, the emotional pain, the despair of such magnitude I thought I might die of it, I discovered the truth that those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.
This renewal of strength is conditional of course, as all of God’s promises are, on a decision I had to make: would I hope in the Lord? If so, then I could soar with the wings of an eagle! I could run and not grow weary! I could walk and not be faint! These are miracles, all humanly impossible, for who among us can sprout wings or never tire or feel faint after endless movement?
I remember praying to God to make me invisible. For the first two weeks after this business collapse – and, without going into the details, I will simply reveal that I was unjustly accused of many things, including financial improprieties – I couldn’t leave my house (except for the picking up of the raw fragments of that business), held there by my own almost manic despair.

I certainly didn’t handle all business details well, and made some unwise, irresponsible and naive decisions, but this, Lord? This was too much.

My husband did the shopping, errands, and all necessary functions of life as I half-lived, my movements like a lizard’s tail that moves after it’s been dropped from the body. When finally I did have the strength to make one small trip to the store, I got through it by praying, “Lord, please let people miraculously look right through me. Make me invisible. I can’t handle people and their slander and their bitter words.” I yet had no hope and felt no grace.
I lived for a long time in fear and mistrust, which may be the antithesis of hope. Fear of never recovering, mistrust of the intentions of everyone, afraid of sleeping, for then the shadow of death settled in. And then came the period of the sprinting, sometimes running hard to prove I was something, sometimes running hard just to get away. I was wounded too much to hope, I thought. I couldn’t speak and I was mute and knew no one and no one knew me.
I lived in the Psalms during the dark days as in no other season of my life. In fact, I believe I never before even remotely had an emotional connection with the Psalms, with the pursuit of enemies, the sheer agony of despair that David cries out about. I never before needed Hope like I needed it during those years. I cried out to the Lord out of the brokenness of my spirit as I had never before cried. I could almost physically feel my mind splintering.

And behold, this hell is the very best opportunity to experience Hope, though who would want to live in these dark David-like caves? But who was called a man after God’s own heart?
“Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall.” These words precede the promise in Isaiah 40:31. In my own strength and youth (immaturity), I was weary and had utterly fallen. I needed Hope.
It took time, but gradually I re-entered normalcy as best I could, and bit by bit He renewed my strength. I would still be in that cave were it not for this promise of God: Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. God-sent friends thoroughly loved me through these months and years, believed in me, lifted me up, and indeed still lift me up, like the wise woman who shared the gift about the marathon. I clung to His Word. I was as the deer who panted for water.
Biblical hope is powerful and mighty to save. This hope is an expectation that positively, absolutely the thing will come to pass. The hope we’re waiting for is always God’s salvation, both His eternal salvation and the salvation we need in the daily moments of life. It’s beyond me, yet I must actively participate.

I found that Hope required me to move. I wanted to lie in bed in my despair but it was in the rising up, pursuing Him through prayer, worship, and meditation upon the Word, that Hope changed me.
Hope renews, and I’m also learning that it’s a daily renewal. Hope yesterday was for that day. Today? I need it fresh. Because sometimes, I still hear a graceless word and want to crawl in a cave and am overcome by fear and mistrust.

As Vincent McNabb, Irish scholar and priest,once said, “Hope is some extraordinary spiritual grace that God gives us to control our fears, not to oust them.” I pray daily for that special grace to have Hope for the day, for new wings and fresh feet.

The surprising “reward” for my only long fast–breaking a coffee addiction

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God promises rewards—sometimes open and public ones—for those who seek him in the secret places and in secret ways. (Matthew 6 1-17).

I had a serious coffee addiction as an undergraduate and graduate student. I pretty much had a cup on my desk through the day. One day, I decided to count how many cups I had—and it was 17. And so I tried to reduce it to 16, then, 15, 14, etc. But I never did manage to reduce it sufficiently to kick the habit!
Drinking coffee to help you concentrate when you are flagging because you need fresh air, a nap, or exercise is like flogging a dying horse. You will get some more action out of the horse, but it will die sooner.
And so it was with me. I think my coffee-fuelled overwork—I could sit and read for 14 hours at a stretch, with breaks only for meals in my twenties—led to frequent burnout. It set me up for adrenal fatigue from which I have slowly been recovering for the last few years. It also got me into the habit of crash and bust cycles of work—definitely not sustainable.
                                                 * * *
In my second year of marriage, I was disgusted with the weight I was gaining with a suddenly sedentary life of reading and reading! 27 pounds that first year of marriage!! So I naively thought I would stop eating till I lost weight. I tried to fast, and just drunk water with a twist of lemon, and tried to read Scripture.
I survived for 3 days—and felt ill for most of it as the residual toxins from years of poor eating habits were burned.
And when I gave up—prematurely!!—I found I couldn’t stand the thought of drinking something so toxic as coffee. I hadn’t gone on the fast to kick the coffee addiction—it was a side benefit!! That was 20 years ago, and I haven’t had more than the occasional cup of coffee, generally in coffee shops with friends, since then.
I do however drink green tea, which has numerous documented health benefits!
                                                * * *
I haven’t tried a long fast since then, and don’t believe I will. Fasting seriously lowers one’s metabolism—and I need to increase mine. On the other hand, a Daniel fast (eschewing particular “pleasant” food for a season, as described in the Book of Daniel), can only bring physical and spiritual benefits, especially if one turns to God instead of turning to food or sweets or chocolates for comforts or highs.
And isn’t it exciting that God himself promises us a reward when we fast, or pray or give? And that the reward is unspecified? Because God is good that makes  receiving this secret, unspecified reward so much more exciting!!

On the Importance of “Sabbaths”

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Okay, I’ve worked for two Sundays in a row to keep a deadline I had neglected in a most cavalier fashion. And so I am going to take a two day mini-retreat from 8 p.m. today to 8 p.m. on Friday.
Working on Sunday is always a very bad idea. The rest every seven days is  enshrined in Judeo-Christianity and Islam, and possibly in our bio-rhythms, what the Germans call ‘zeitgeber,” “time-keeper.”
During World War II, Great Britain experimented with 10 day “weeks,” then 74 hour weeks, but found that accidents dramatically increased and people could not maintain the pace. After experimenting, they found that a 48-hour work week, with regular breaks, plus one day of rest each week, resulted in maximum efficiency.
And so, I know that even if I force myself to write for the next couple of days, it will be inefficient. My mind, body and spirit will protest; they know I need a break.
And it’s going to be a lovely one: brunch with friends on Friday, and then a mixture of napping, walking, gardening, tidying up, praying, reading Scripture, and light reading. With my regular blog post a day, but hopefully not demanding ones. I know it doesn’t sound like much of a rest, but in fact the physical activity will give me a complete mental rest.
Thomas Merton: “Man was made for the highest activity, which is, in fact, his rest.”

The price for some things has to be paid. If we skip our weekly day of rest, we will burn out sooner, and need to take a week or month or less pleasant Sundays. If we neglect our health (as I have for too many years) sooner or later, we will pay in diminished productivity. We pay for neglecting relationships in increased stress. And so on.

 How about you?  When’s your next scheduled rest?

 

The 20 Best Ways to Rapidly Develop your Blog

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Dreaming Beneath The Spires


 1  Read a good blogging book
Judging by Jeff Goins’ other material, his Intentional Blogging Course should be good.
2 Post every day
In my opinion.
Firstly, you will get into the habit of daily writing, which is the most useful habit a writer can have.
Secondly, after a year or two, you will find writing becomes swift and easy. After two years of daily blogging, I can get a first draft of a post in 20 minutes, and get it revised and posted with an image and links within an hour. Not always, but very often.
Thirdly, the surest way to get loyal readers is if people can come to your blog daily, knowing there will be something somewhat interesting and thought-provoking. I get irritated when I visit blogs which are irregularly updated, and get out of the habit of visiting.
3 Write as well as you can
Not as well as you can’t. One learns to write by writing and reading, and by daily writing, you will soon become a whole lot better. When I look back to last year’s posts, I am surprised at how much better I’ve become, over a year of daily “publishing” posts!
4 What should you write about?
Follow your bliss. Choose something you can write about every day without getting bored. I tried 3 blogs: a literary blog, a “life, love, culture and the universe” blog, and a Christian blog. The latter was the most absorbing, so I incorporated the other two into it.
However, while everything I write is from the point of view of a Christian, I do have occasional “secular” posts like this one, or updates on my family, our travels, my reading, and myself!! And a few photo-essays.
The ideal post length is 250 to 800 words, to which I mostly adhere. If the subject is important to me, however, I make the post as long as it needs to be!
4 Blogging is a new form. It is capacious, and as varied as bloggers are. Read other blogs in your niche to find out what the form can do.
5 Comments  
 Leaving comments on other is the best way for a new blogger to introduce herself and build blogging relationships.
For the first two years, I visited the blog of everyone who left me a comment, and left one in turn.
I can no longer do this, alas, partly because I started doing “real” writing in addition to blogging. And partly because of my limitations of organization and energy. And besides, blogging is busy!!
5B Responding to Comments is Sheer Good Manners!
I have neglected responding to comments when too many came at once, and I was busy, and then I fell further behind, while hoping to catch up with the old ones. Some of those commentators have never returned.
I myself never comment again and often won’t revisit a blog if I have left a long, carefully thought out, deeply felt comment, and the author does not respond.
So respond to comments, as long as you possibly can. It’s just good manners!
(Though, as blogs grow, this may not always be possible!)
 6 Twitter and Facebook
I haven’t figured out what I am doing on my Twitter, and just hope I am not annoying people!!  So the only authoritative thing I have to say about Twitter is that I enjoy it!
However, engaging on twitter has been responsible for my blog readership’s tripling in six months.
And it has introduced me to several bloggers, and several interesting people. And I hope to “learn” it.
Facebookis another nice way to meet and keep in touch with bloggers.
Ah, do you see the black hole of the blogosphere opening before you? Seek God as to how much time you should spend reading blogs. I used to limit it to 30 minutes, but now read my favourite blogs as they pop up on Facebook.
Your blog probably needs a Facebook fanpage for the increasingly number of people, who, like me, only read blogs on Facebook.
8 Give and you shall receive.
If you want links, give links. If you want comments, leave comments. If you want page views, read blogs. If you want retweets, retweet. 
I say this shame-facedly, again, as because of limitations of energy and organisation and absorption in my own writing, I am failing on all these counts. When I remember, I try to be generous
Give value. Be a blessing to your readers.
I sometimes write a post for the pleasure of writing and sharing experience and ideas or working something out.
However, I often ask myself: Is this going to help my readers? Be a benefit to them? Inspire them? Do some good?
If not, I put it on the back burner (unless I feel a silly broody love for the idea).
I truly like my readers, those I have met in real life, and those I have met in cyberspace, and want to write things which might be a blessing to them.
10  The greatest pleasure of blogging is the community.
When I come across a blogger on the same wavelength, who writes on the same subjects in the same way, I put them on my “radar,” read their blog, and if possible, try to meet up in real life.
Many writers whose books I have loved have been disappointments in real life. But I have met, oh, at least 20 bloggers in real life, and all of them have been as I imagined from their blogs, lovely, or, in one case, not-lovely but as I expected! Perhaps with daily blogging, it’s harder to keep a mask in place.
The friends I have made through blogging have been one of the best things about blogging!
And, of course, some blogging friendships will help your blog; some will be a delight, though not directly helpful for your writing; and some friends you will be able to help. But, all that is secondary to the joy of friendship!
11 Honest blogging grows your blog most rapidly.
Don’t bother to appear nicer than you are, or more spiritual. It will ring false, and be less interesting. A) People will smell a rat; b) Blogging will no longer be a joy!
Our hearts hunger for truth. To really know people. Their real lives and emotional contours. Memoir is one of the fastest growing genres. An honest blog is captivating. Be yourself, be real, and the note of raw undefended honesty and immediacy will shine through and captivate readers.
It’s important spiritually and for your writing to be honest and real, even if you sometimes disappoint your core audience. I am trying to push through barriers of propriety, and fear of alienating my audience to be more honest.
I am sometimes told, “Anita, this post does not show you in a good light.” And I leave it up, thinking, “Why should I give the impression that I am perfect? It is showing me in an honest light, if not a flattering one!”
Because one person who will not be alienated, but in fact, will be rather pleased by my honesty will be the Lord Jesus (even when I have got my thinking wrong!)
12 Controversy, negativity and attacks get more page views than positivity and inspiration—but at a (too) high price
I occasionally write negative posts for the therapeutic value as I work something out; or because I feel angry and indignant about something. Or because I truly believe hypocrisy or injustice or abuse should be exposed,
Doing negative posts is not wrong. Jesus said lots of negative things about the religious hypocrites of his day, for instance.
But negativity extracts a cost from the blogger, in terms of one’s own mental state and happiness. So I try to minimize them.
I also ignore hostile comments, and try not to get sucked into fruitless arguments and controversies in which I have little interest.
Attack is a double-edged sword. Only use it when it needs to be used!!
Remember what Jesus said about those who take up the sword…
But remember too that he can heal wounds inflicted by swords!
Incidentally, I no longer follow predominantly negative blogs, twitter streams or facebook feeds. I want to keep my thinking as positive as possible. You too will be happier if you do not follow predominantly negative, sarcastic or “bad news” blogs.
13 Track your page views and analytics daily. Understand your audience
Use Google Analytics, and track your stats everyday. The most important metric is Unique Monthly Visitors. Then, when your stats drop, you can use some of these suggestions or Pro-blogger’s suggestions to keep growing.
Also track the page views each post receives. That way, you will understand your audience.
Negativity, attack and scandal always get views, but I attempt to minimize such posts them for the sake of my own soul.
My theological posts surprisingly get a lot of views, perhaps because I tackle theology in a layperson’s language and style. So I am going to do more of them.
Gardening and travel are popular, as well as time and life management and some embarrassingly personal posts.
Monitoring your stats will let you know what your audience loves, and what makes them yaaaaawn!
It will tell you when your titles let you down and sink an otherwise good post. The title is the most important line in the post. Many a good post has vanished because of a boring, non-descriptive title chosen at the last minute. And has been resuscitated with a good title.
14 Design Matters

Everyone likes pretty things.
My blog’s appearance was a weakness for a long time. I am kind of fond of it now, though it can do with improvement.
Please give me some feedback on its appearance!
15 Your Archive will be your Best Friend.
If your blog grows, most of today’s readers will not have heard of you a year ago.
It’s wasteful to write a long beautiful post which will languish unread in your archives. After my second year of blogging, I have started posting about three archive posts each week, which I have freshly edited. I zero in on the main point, cut the fluff and add value. The end result is always a better post, since it retains what has stood the test of a year’s thinking.
Not every post, of course, is worth reposting. I probably repost the best 5 or 10%.
Use Link Within to increase your page views.
 16 Guest Posts grow your blog.
They do take energy and organisation and correspondence (and ironically, for me, more work than writing out my own post!!) and I haven’t done one for a while, but probably will return to them.
I use them when I have a question I want answered. Do the meek inherit the earth? Can the years the locusts have eaten be restored? Can the Lord really renew our strength so that we soar on wings like eagles? Or I have done series on my interests like favourite books or Christian heroes.
17 Pray before you write. Read Scripture before you write.
Doing the former will save you immense time. Your unconscious, or God’s spirit in your unconscious will give you ideas, and sort out the post in the most logical and effective fashion.
Reading Scripture gives me ideas for what to write, and sometimes condemns what I had been planning to write!!
19 I believe a worker is worthy of a hire, and a blogger should earn something from her labours.
I have barely monetized my blog, though have had cheques from Google Adsense, and sold some of my own books through my blog.
I will probably explore ways to monetize my blog.
I would be grateful for your ideas on monetization.
19 All that is alive grows. Beware of plateaus.
Last August, I realized that I had to increase my readership, or I was wasting my time blogging.
And so applied some of these tips. My blog tripled to 15,000 page views a month (according to Blogger stats) within six months. Since mid-Feb, however, I have plateaued.
So if the Lord gives me strength and energy, I will soon make another push.
And I welcome your ideas on how to grow my blog.
20 Have fun.
Blogging is life-enhancing, and has many benefits. And it should be fun.
Don’t hesitate to write the bad posts to get them out of the way, for the good posts to come. The niggling small posts sometimes need to be written to get the skill to think about and write the big posts. And sometimes what we thought was a trivial idea was just the tip of the iceberg of an important post.
If you don’t love it, and are not enjoying it, just stop!! Blogging should be a joy, not a misery.
Though please don’t stop reading my blog.
So, what have I omitted? Please share your tips.

Evangelism should begin with Jesus, and with the Gospel as He presented it

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Evangelism should begin not with abstract theory, but with Jesus, and the the Gospel as he presented it. “The Gospel according to Jesus”
Here is a summary of the Bible in 221 words according to DA Carson.
God is the sovereign, transcendent and personal God who has made the universe, including us, his image-bearers. Our misery lies in our rebellion, our alienation from God, which, despite his forbearance, attracts his implacable wrath. 
But God, precisely because love is of the very essence of his character, takes the initiative and prepared for the coming of his own Son by raising up a people who, by covenantal stipulations, temple worship, systems of sacrifice and of priesthood, by kings and by prophets, are taught something of what God is planning and what he expects. 
In the fullness of time his Son comes and takes on human nature. He comes not, in the first instance, to judge but to save: he dies the death of his people, rises from the grave and, in returning to his heavenly Father, bequeaths the Holy Spirit as the down payment and guarantee of the ultimate gift he has secured for them—an eternity of bliss in the presence of God himself, in a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness. 
The only alternative is to be shut out from the presence of this God forever, in the torments of hell. What men and women must do, before it is too late, is repent and trust Christ; the alternative is to disobey the gospel.
Yeah, I believe it (though I strongly question “the only alternative” bit). But it does extract all poetry from our faith.
E. M. Forster says, “Yes, oh dear, yes, the novel tells a story.” For, as Woolf and Joyce began to experiment with stream of consciousness novels, the novel became capable of doing so much more.
So too, yes, oh dear yes, these summaries of the Gospel– as John Piper’s shorter summary here the gospel: the good news of Christ crucified in our place to remove the wrath of God and provide forgiveness of sins and power for sanctification– are accurate.
But they are the gospel for intellectuals, the gospel for those who think abstractly, for those with a sufficient theological vocabulary or cast of thought. I confess they do not send my pulses racing.
A far more effective way of presenting the Gospel—the Good News–is to present it in the way Jesus did, with an appeal to the emotions and imagination. It should be presented as the satisfaction for our deepest needs—as bread, water, wine, light–all metaphors Jesus used. It should use metaphor, imagery, parables, and story.
When we present it in the simple way Jesus did, the Gospel has an immediate appeal to the mind as well as to the emotions. It is capable of being understood by a 5 year old child and a 50 year old academic, and speaking to both of them, stirring both their emotions and spirits. It can appeal to the learned in Oxford or Harvard, as well as to people in, let’s say, Chad, Afghanistan or Belize, who might not have the same formal education but have the same human heart.
Evangelism should not start with theory and abstractions, even simplified ones like the four spiritual laws. Presentations of the Gospel should start with Jesus, and present the Gospel the way he did.
 Okay, let’s try. Is it possible to condense the Gospel, the Good News as presented by Jesus in 221 words?
I came not to call the righteous but sinners; not to judge the world, but to save it. 
Repent and believe the good news.
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind. Love your neighbour as yourself.”All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.
Don’t be afraid. Do not worry about anything at all.  Peace I give you. Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. 
I teach so that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be full.
When you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.
If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, nothing will be impossible for you.
He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me, and I in him.
Take and drink; this is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in memory of me.
My Father will give you another counsellor—the Spirit of Truth.  He will be with you and in you. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.
Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.

The Arithmetic of Counting Blessings

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 I have started to keep a gratitude journal, noting five things a day I am grateful for. Like the hawk I saw float over the fields of Garsington. My pink rose bush in prolific blossom.

And the very fact of slowing down and giving thanks, even, especially, when I am stressed or sad, does induce what Michael Hyatt calls “a change of state.”

* * *

I picked up Selwyn Hughes, The 7 Laws of Spiritual Success from one of George Verwer of Operation Mobilization’s “Take what you want; Give what you want” book tables, which generally have excellent books.

The rest of this post consists of notes I’ve speed-typed from Hughes’ excellent chapter, “Counting Blessings.”

“Thou hast given so much to me

Give me one thing more

A grateful heart.”  George Herbert

                                                                                                       * * *

Sir John Templeton, financier and philanthropist who gives away millions of dollars every year says that when he awakes, he lies quietly on his bed, and thinks of five new ways in which he has been blessed. He believes is this one of the chief reasons why peace and contentment flood his life.

John Templeton–For every problem people have, there are at least 10 blessings.

* * *

Charles Spurgeon–”It is a delightful and profitable occupation to mark the hand of God in the lives of His ancient saints and to observe his goodness in delivering them, His mercy in pardoning them, and His faithfulness in keeping his covenant with them. But would it not be more interesting and profitable for us to notice the hand of God in our own lives?”

* * *

“Count your blessings.” Impossible advice. Our arithmetic is not good enough.

When we exhort our soul to praise the Lord, our emotions follow. A law of the personality and of life: what we think about will soon affect the way we feel. Rational Emotive Therapy is based on this idea–“Change your thinking, and you change your feelings, and the next consequence is a change in behaviour.”

We would be much calmer and more confident in the presence of new troubles if we remembered vividly the old deliverances; if we had kept them fresh in mind, and been able to say, “The God who delivered me then will not desert me now.”

John Newton:

“His love in times past forbids me to think,

He’ll leave me at last in trouble to sink.”

Auden–“Let your last thinks be all thanks.”

William Law, “If anyone would tell you the shortest, surest way to all perfection and happiness, he must tell you to make it a rule to yourself to thank and praise God for everything that happens to you. For it is certain that, whatever seeming calamity happens to you, if you thank and praise God for it, you turn it into a blessing.”

In everything give thanks–for everything works out for good. “God can take the worst thing that has happened to you, and turn it into the best thing that has ever happened to you.” 

The risen Christ is the greatest reminder that even the evil of the cross can be transformed into a new and exalted life.

It is a law of the soul that the more we focus on what we have rather than what we don’t, the more the soul begins to thrive.

The Dance of Intimacy and the Dance of Anger

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About twenty years ago, when we were newly-weds, Harriet Lerner’s books, The Dance of Intimacy and The Dance of Anger were recommended to us.

Essentially–it’s been a while since I read them–the books view relationships as a dance.
You each have your steps. If you work together in creative, productive ways, the relationship flourishes.
But we also have less creative, stylized, conditioned ways of dancing. You know: boring, predictable. She passive-aggressively pushes his buttons. He explodes. And so on.
And then, a week later, the same, boring, sordid dancing. Getting nowhere. Spinning round and round the dance floor in circles.

The good news is that it takes two to tango. Two to continue in a frustrating, unsatisfying, unproductive dance. 

And either one can just change the steps.
                                                 * * * 

I am slowing down in numerous ways. One way is that I try not to react instinctively. I try to be quiet and think. In fact, if possible, I try not to react at all in heated moments, until I have had time to think and pray, and my emotions settle, and I can act rationally.
Jesus is a great role model for “giving no answer.” Not everything needs to be answered. One can simply be silent.
I am learning—and for a formerly hot-tempered, high-spirited woman like me, this is an amazing realization—that I do not need to answer anger with anger, a harsh word with a harsh word. I can simply be silent. I can change the steps of the dance.

Yes, that is an amazing realization for me–that at any time, even in middle age, we can change what we thought were our personalities or characters. We can give a gentle answer, or no answer. We can learn to be gentle and silent, instead of dancing in the exhausting, consuming dance of anger.
In Christ, we are free—and empowered–at any stage of our lives, to change our habitual actions. And thus to change our characters, for character is the result of habitual actions.

George Herbert. Love

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     LOVE (III)
        by George Herbert

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
        Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack
        From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
        If I lack’d anything.
“A guest,” I answer’d, “worthy to be here”;
        Love said, “You shall be he.”
“I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,
        I cannot look on thee.”
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
        “Who made the eyes but I?”
“Truth, Lord, but I have marr’d them; let my shame
        Go where it doth deserve.”
“And know you not,” says Love, “who bore the blame?”
        “My dear, then I will serve.”
“You must sit down,” says Love, “and taste my meat.”
        So I did sit and eat.


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