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Today is my first day of class at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary. Booya!

This term I am taking Hebrew 1, Systematic Theology, History of Christianity, and Personal Evangelism.

I’m excited. I’m also a little nervous because I forgot which classes I have when. Not to mention, I don’t have the room numbers.  But, that just makes for a more exciting first day!

Most deeply, I feel grateful to be here. God, without doubt, has given us some things we asked of him. Although we do have some things that we are trying not to worry about, at the end of the day, it’s Him. It’s all Him, and we’re all His.

So, I’m at the library right now. McMath Library if you’d like to come by and visit. It’s on Barrow Rd. Near the house with all the external decor.

I’m just chillaxin’.

That’s one of our girls behind me. She’s waiting on one of the computers to open up.

One thing I’ve noticed about this library is the quantity of books. It’s like this place is book-obsessed. I’m going to look into it. I’ll let you know if I get to the bottom of all this bookishness.

Great news! I have all the copies of Bridge to Terabithia that I need! I received 4 in the mail last week and just got an email saying that 10 more were on the way! You people rock!!

If anyone would still like to help, I could use some comp notebooks.

I now have 4 copies of Bridge to Terabithia in my possession. Thanks to your awesomeness!

And, since we’re still short 9 books and 13 notebooks, I thought I’d make one last call for help.

Summer hits the Promise House on June 5th, officially. And, summertime is, uuummm, dangerous. Let me explain.

Imagine with me, if you will, 9 pregnant, hormonal, emotional teens with nothing to do, cooped up in a house all day, for three months. It has the potential to be the longest 3 months of our lives. So, we get prepared. The key is activity. Lots of it.

And that brings me to my plea. Along with classes and outings and games and a bunch of other stuff, I’m going to get the girls reading this summer. And, hopefully, writing too. So, I need about 13 copies of Bridge to Terabithia and 13 composition notebooks. Would you like to help?

There are lots of used copies on Amazon for a couple of bucks or less (plus shipping). Or, maybe you have an old copy laying around that you don’t need anymore. It doesn’t have to be in perfect condition, just readable.

If you’d like to participate in the Bridge to Terabithia Round-Up just send copies of Bridge to Terabithia and Composition Notebooks by May 15th to:

Promise House
c/o Arkansas Baptist Children’s Homes
P.O. Box 552
Little Rock, AR 72203

If you have any questions, email me: thefamilybush [ a t ] gmail.com.

Thanks!

Every once and a while I’ll have a really stressful dream. It usually is somewhere along the lines of me being in college, the semester is almost over and I realize that I have forgotten to attend a class the whole semester and now I desperately scramble to try to make up work and get ready for the final. Or, I will have forgotten about some important work that I can’t pass without and I’ve only a few days to get it in.

That dream came true. I’m in an online class at The Southern Baptist Seminary out of Louisville, KY. It’s a class on the New Testament. The thing is, this class is in Spanish. That’s my excuse for what happened. I got the syllabus at the beginning of the semester and I read it, but not very well. I just skimmed it and focussed on what books I needed and the work that was due the soonest. Unfortunately, I never really went back and read it over really well. I had a paper due October 1st and November 15th and I didn’t realize it until last week. Talk about almost losing my lunch. It was that old bad dream feeling . . . except it was for real!

Anyway, I emailed the professor and he was very graceful and said I could turn them in still. Thank you Dr. Hatfield!

Hitting the Books

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or the other of these destinations . . . . There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations — these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit — immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.

- C.S. Lewis

Spirit of the living God, be the Gardener of my soul. For so long I have been waiting, silent and still — experiencing a winter of the soul. But now, in the strong name of Jesus Christ, I dare to ask:

Clear away the dead growth of the past,

Break up the hard clods of custom and routine,

Stir in the rich compost of vision and challenge,

Bury deep in my soul the implanted Word,

Cultivate and water and tend my heart,

Until new life buds and opens and flowers

Amen.

- Richard Foster, Prayers from the Heart, p. 3.

This is such a great idea. William Mounce has put out a English / Greek interlinear text that follows the English word order (instead of the Greek). This makes it possible to understand the Bible on a deeper level without having to be a Greek expert. Check it out here.

Jesus lived in this broken, painful world, learning obedience, through the things that he suffered, tempted in all the ways we are, and yet remaining without sin. We are, to be sure, reconciled by God by Jesus’ death, but even more, we are “saved” by his life (Rom. 5.10) — saved in the sense of entering into his eternal kind of life, not just in some distant heaven but right now in the midst of our broken and sorrowful world. When we carefully consider how Jesus lived while among us in the flesh, we learn how we are to live — truly live – empowered by him who is with us always even to the end of the age. We then begin an intentional imitation of Christ, not in some slavish or literal fashion, but by catching the spirit and power in which he lived and by learning to walk in his steps.

- Richard Foster, Streams of Living Water. Pg. 1.

I am, O God, a jumbled mass of motives.
One moment I am adoring you, and the next I am shaking my fist at you.
I vacillate between mounting hope, and deepening despair.
I am full of faith and full of doubt.
I want the best for others and am jealous when they get it.
Even so, God, I will not run from your presence. Nor will I pretend to be what I am not. Thank you for accepting me with all my contradictions.Amen.

- Richard Foster, Prayers of the Heart. p. 4.