WordPress, you’ve been good to me.  But Tumblr is calling my name.

I won’t be posting anymore on this blog.  If you want to continue to follow me, go here:
MellyFresh

And, of course, I still have my photography blog, which you can view here:

MellyFreshPhoto

But we who are in Christ (who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit by faith in Christ alone) have been adopted by God the Father! He has made us alive in Christ for his own name’s sake! Can the promises of God be revoked? Will you prove to your adoptive father that you are his? What more can you do than Christ? Take no more confidence in the flesh and rest wholly on Christ, repenting of unbelief. (This is a daily prayer for me.)

When you are tempted to revert to legalism, remember that even if you give your body to be burned and have not love, those works are worthless (1 Corinthians 13:3). Only when we realize that we are already secure in Christ will we abound with the works we were created to do, which will confirm even more that we are his.

//taken from the Desiring God blog.

Martin Lloyd Jones

(taken from Of First Importance)

And for the longest time, that has been myself.

What a wicked heart I have if I hold myself above Christ.

—

Pour me out.  Pour me out. I don’t mind.

Take all the things that I’ve traded You in for.

More of You, God.  Less of me.

Please to fancy, if you can, that you are reading a real letter, from a real friend whom you have seen, and whose voice you can seem to yourself to hear wishing you, as I do now with all my heart, a happy Easter.

Do you know that delicious dreamy feeling when one first wakes on a summer morning, with the twitter of birds in the air, and the fresh breeze coming in at the open window–when, lying lazily with eyes half shut, one sees as in a dream green boughs waving, or waters rippling in a golden light? It is a pleasure very near to sadness, bringing tears to one’s eyes like a beautiful picture or poem. And is not that a Mother’s gentle hand that undraws your curtains, and a Mother’s sweet voice that summons you to rise? To rise and forget, in the bright sunlight, the ugly dreams that frightened you so when all was dark–to rise and enjoy another happy day, first kneeling to thank that unseen Friend, who sends you the beautiful sun?

Are these strange words from a writer of such tales as “Alice”? And is this a strange letter to find in a book of nonsense? It may be so. Some perhaps may blame me for thus mixing together things grave and gay; others may smile and think it odd that any one should speak of solemn things at all, except in church and on a Sunday: but I think–nay, I am sure–that some children will read this gently and lovingly, and in the spirit in which I have written it.

For I do not believe God means us thus to divide life into two halves--to wear a grave face on Sunday, and to think it out-of-place to even so much as mention Him on a week-day. Do you think He cares to see only kneeling figures, and to hear only tones of prayer–and that He does not also love to see the lambs leaping in the sunlight, and to hear the merry voices of the children, as they roll among the hay? Surely their innocent laughter is as sweet in His ears as the grandest anthem that ever rolled up from the “dim religious light” of some solemn cathedral?

And if I have written anything to add to those stores of innocent and healthy amusement that are laid up in books for the children I love so well, it is surely something I may hope to look back upon without shame and sorrow (as how much of life must then be recalled!) when my turn comes to walk through the valley of shadows.

This Easter sun will rise on you, dear child, feeling your “life in every limb,” and eager to rush out into the fresh morning air–and many an Easter-day will come and go, before it finds you feeble and gray-headed, creeping wearily out to bask once more in the sunlight–but it is good, even now, to think sometimes of that great morning when the “Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings.“

Surely your gladness need not be the less for the thought that you will one day see a brighter dawn than this–when lovelier sights will meet your eyes than any waving trees or rippling waters–when angel-hands shall undraw your curtains, and sweeter tones than ever loving Mother breathed shall wake you to a new and glorious day–and when all the sadness, and the sin, that darkened life on this little earth, shall be forgotten like the dreams of a night that is past!

Your affectionate friend,

LEWIS CARROLL.

EASTER, 1876.

(from the author of Alice in Wonderland)

Confession is powerful and effective. It turns guilt into forgiveness. It turns regret into hope. It turns slavery into freedom. It turns you from mourning over your harvest to planting new seeds of faith, repentance, and hope. You see, you are not trapped! Things are not hopeless! The Lord, the great Creator and Savior, is the God who never changes, but at the same time he is the God who promises and produces deep personal change. The changes he makes in us are so foundational that the Bible’s best words describing them are ‘new creation.’ God’s plan is to change us so fundamentally that it is as if we are no longer us; something brand new has been created!”

-Paul David Tripp

Your Spirit inside me holds me close

In Your wonderful presence I let go

I cleanse my hands, You burn my heart

I cried out for love, You set me apart

Something serious. Something clever. Something inspiring.  Something funny.

And I’ve started typing just to immediately delete what I’ve written.

But today, all that I can come up with is that this world sucks.  And it hurts.

We are going to be beaten, broken, bloodied and bruised time and time and time again.

And it will never stop coming.  The gut-wrenching circumstances and the pain that steals our breath will never cease to appear.

I can promise you that.

However.

He that is in us is GREATER than He that is in the world.

Therefore, we have hope.

HOPE.

It’s worth fighting for.

Isaiah 40:2

“Speak tenderly to Jerusalem. Tell her that her sad days are gone and her sins are pardoned….”

Your love makes it worth it.

Praise God from whom ALL blessings flow.