By Elizabeth Prata
The quarantine/lockdown has certainly been beneficial in giving me time to catch up on my reading and to watch shows, even adding new shows to my queue. I got caught up in some videos, bingeing especially at the beginning of the lockdown. But I’ve settled since then and I monitor my intake now! Continue reading “Prata Potpourri: Videos!”
By Elizabeth Prata
I don’t know about you, but I love music. Since I converted my tastes run to to Christian music, my favorite is Southern Gospel quartets and hillbilly bluegrass. I enjoy classical, too. If I listen to secular music my tastes run to ’70s artists like Paul Simon and other soft rock. GotQuestions gives some Christian principles on whether or not to listen to secular music.
My mother loved classical music and would put that on first thing while she was making her coffee, and have it on all day I grew up on Beethoven and Mozart, and I’m glad, because I like classical music now too. Continue reading “Prata Potpourri: The Music Edition!”
By Elizabeth Prata
We are in the throes of summer, gardening, bird watching, picnics, hikes, and all the rest that comes with summer. I hope the weather is pleasant for you and your time is full of making memories and family fun. It’s also a time for festivals.
In Maine they have Windjammer days, in Alabama there’s the Secret Stages Music Discovery Festival. Colorado hosts the Scandinavian Midsummer Festival, while Georgia holds the AthFest Music and Arts Festival. Indiana has their Crawfordsville Strawberry Festival while Connecticut has their Blueberry Festival at Sweet Wind Farm. Summer festivals are fun and there is sure to be one near you. Summer is also a time for reading so here are a few essays that hopefully pique your interest! Continue reading “Prata Potpourri: Christian Mom Thoughts, Universal phenomenon of religion, Point of no return, more”
By Elizabeth Prata
I absolutely love fresh cut flowers. I think they are so pretty. But they fade quickly, so usually I admire them in the grocery store aisle and leave them where they are. At Kroger they have a marked down section for cut flowers that are a bit wilted. Once in a while I see a bouquet in the sale aisle that aren’t TOO far gone and I buy a bunch, like I did last Wednesday.
For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. (James 1:11a) Continue reading “Prata Potpourri: How to spot a conspiracy, top ten preaching pastors today, good cheap eats, Dr. Lori, more”
By Elizabeth Prata
I started a Gratitude Journal. I’m grateful every day, and I often express that gratitude in prayer. But I don’t remember these expressions from day to day or month to month. God is faithful and providentially supports me every day, and I decided it was important to keep a record of His faithfulness so I can see the bulk of His work and graces to me in toto. Ultimately praise reflects back to His glory and I want to always shine a light about His glory working in my life.
I have never been good about keeping up a journal though. I love collecting notebooks and journals but rarely fill them up. I like the journals better than what I put inside, lol. I love this journal. It was a gift and I’ve been waiting to put it to a certain and good use. The leather is butter soft, the pages are thick, the size is perfect and the clasp is solid. I’m hoping that the need to praise and exalt him, and the quality of the journal I’ll enjoy when handling it will inspire me to keep it up.
Here are various items for your perusal. I found them edifying, I hope you do too.
Don’t forget how dead we were. Do we remember how desperate our spiritual condition was? David Murray speaks of it in his sermon summary Spiritual Resurrection. His full Sermon notes & infographic here.
On defending and protecting your kids from these evil days, Peachtree Baptist Church Pastor’s Wife has some thoughts.
Susan Lafferty muses on weeds, actual and spiritual.
Darryl Dash said he took up someone’s encouragement to read the Bible in 40 days, and greatly benefited by it.
The Sound of Collective Grief, as many people had plans for April, including weddings, that had to go by the wayside…
We also grieve that we are not able to gather as a local body.
When you have an eternal perspective, you can be sad at the passing of the man who killed your father, and rejoice that you will see him again in glory. Mincaye is now passing through the gates of splendor.
You know the fake smile and the “Oh, I’m just fine!” when you ask at church, Why you should avoid stoicism and fake-happiness when suffering hits
We all need other people. Yes, even now. Even me.
Adam Ford’s reasons for selling the Babylon Bee. He now runs Disrn.com
Glenna Marshall reminds us ladies to Keep coming to the Lord
Check out Amy Spreeman and Michelle Lesley’s podcast A Word Fitly Spoken, their latest podcast was, How Does the Holy Spirit Lead Us?
Justin Peters Ministry does a monumental work in showing The Modern Prophets and Faith Healers Utterly Destroyed by COVID 19. Please watch!
Always interesting and helpful, Reagan Rose’s Redeeming Productivity Show
Even if this doesn’t apply to you this is still a fantastic and insightful treatment of the issue of Pornography and the Church. It isn’t an issue for me but I was blown away by the discussion. DB Harrison and Virgil “Omaha” Walker nailed it again.
I enjoyed this discussion at Women Encouraged between Bethany Barendregt and Summer White about feminism, all the more important for us ladies to prepare our minds for discussions such as these with Hulu’s massive hit Mrs. America, the series look at the epic battle in the ’70s as second wave feminism rose between conservative women led by Phyllis Schlafly and feminist Gloria Steinem.
Bethany was talking with Summer Jaeger about feminism and how Christian women should examine this worldview. We hit a variety of related topics in our conversation including legalism, faithfulness, Bible reading, agreeing with God, and cultivating discussion about hard topics with our friends.
By Elizabeth Prata
We have a few weeks to go before we’re sprung and can go out to the world again. The President of the United States called a state of national emergency, and we are told by executive order here in Georgia to stay at home. We are not to go out except for necessary trips, and when we do, we are told to stay 6 feet apart from each other and to wear a face mask. This is due to the global pandemic COVID-19, which has struck almost all nations on earth after originating fin and escaping from China. Our school has been cancelled for the rest of the year and non-essential businesses are closed. We may not gather in person for church.
I wonder in ten years as I look back on this essay what I will think or feel. It is all so surreal right now, will seem to be a bad dream to me in the future? Something I look back on from heaven because I’ve died from the pandemic, natural causes, or have been raptured? Time will tell what God is doing through this, but we know for sure that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose“. (Romans 8:28). Try changing “What is happening to me?” to “What is God doing? I can’t wait to see!”
Meanwhile, how many photographs can I take of the yard? The forced sheltering in place has sure stretched my creativity on shooting the same scenes over and over! How many books can I read? Should I worry that my reading list has turned grim?
Love in the Time of Cholera
One Hundred Years of Solitude
The Great Influenza
A Journal of the Plague Year
The Stand
The Bell Jar
Just kidding! Just kidding!! I’m actually reading Contagious Christian Living by Joel Beeke, Man Overboard! Jonah, by Sinclair Ferguson, and the biographical novel The Whisper of the River by Ferrol Sams.
This is a time where if you have been fed a diet of cotton candy, you are discovering about now that you have nothing to stand on. Has what you wrapped yourself with melted away at the first sign of trouble? If you have been fed a diet of meat and as everything is stripped away you see you are standing on the Rock, you are in good shape.
I hope you are doing well, staying healthy and sane in this topsy-turvy world. Here are a few links to peruse for your consideration-
Always keep in mind the bigger picture:
The Promise of Peace in a Troubled World
We can be thankful in the providence of God to be living in a time when that [global deaths via black plague] doesn’t happen. And what we face now would be considered in comparison to that a very minor concern. And yet, because you have an entire world of people cut off from any eternal hope, everything becomes fearful to them. For those who do not know the Lord Jesus Christ, who have no true hope after death, it’s reasonable to fear, it’s reasonable to be concerned about death and because they face, as we know, divine judgment and eternal punishment.
What elements of the Gospel are important when we share? Here is 9Marks with a short list
The toilet paper shortage…We’re all at home, that’s why!
RedeemTV, A ministry of Christian History Institute and Vision Video, has clean programs for your viewing. Free for now.
Darryl Dash has a point, we need more than tips if we’re going to make it through the next weeks. We need meat.
Ruth Clemence says ‘I am not stuck at home, I am safe at home.’ As a stay-at-home mom her routine hasn’t changed much, she shares 9 Truths that Quiet My Soul in Quarantine
Tim Challies shares how to Build Your Home Theological Library. I know I’ve found that during this downtime in the lockdown I have ‘shopped’ my own shelves and enjoyed reading books that I have wanted to read for a long time. I also have a stack ready to share with friends as they run out (and come get them from a safe social distance)
Do you craft? Kathryn in Do It On a Dime has some tips for crafting from your at-home stash
There is one swear in this short video. Wives will immediately understand this video! I hope you laugh.
By Elizabeth Prata
It’s March already! How are you doing with your New Year’s Resolutions? LOL. I didn’t make any but I admit that though I printed out Challies’ Reading Challenge and picked the Avid level (4 books/month) I have not read as many books as I’d planned. I am disappointed in myself. I will do better this month. So far I’ve read “Behind a Frowning Providence”, “Just Do Something”, and “From Death to Life” as well as several stories in my “Fireside Book of Dog Stories” and being halfway through an Agatha Christie mystery.
March seems to be coming in like a lion. We have received so much rain in February (and January too) that it broke records. More record breaking rain is on the way for the first week of March. Continue reading “Potpourri: From Ordinary Father and Ordinary Family to Giant Fancy Things.”
By Elizabeth Prata
I went on an archaeological dig once. It was in Tuscany, Italy. We were trying to find structures that would help date the land and buildings of this particular property. Its owner, an Italian Count, was hoping it would date back to Charlemagne. It turned out I made a significant discovery, one they hadn’t expected! They became soooo excited when the structure I was digging became known once again to the light of day. What did I discover? What was so exciting? A latrine! Continue reading “Prata Potpourri: archaeological discoveries, riding a camel, lost gift certificate, how to open a book, more”
By Elizabeth Prata
It’s January, a time of year I’d not enjoyed in the past, when I was living in Maine. It’s cold, frigid, dangerously cold, and snowy. And icy. And cold. Did I say cold? Here in Georgia a cold day is temps in the upper 40s and that only lasts a few days. Then it’s warm again.
I will love New Jerusalem when the temperature will always be perfect and nothing coming from the sky will hinder, annoy, or destroy. As it is, my view in my yard is pretty good for a January day: Continue reading “Prata Potpourri: Diapers & Doxology, Gilley reviews Girl, What if that couple shows up? and more”
By Elizabeth Prata
My cat. Don’t let the sweetness fool you, he is running around like a nut yelling his head off. I’ll miss him as I head back to school this morning. Many of us are returning to our regular routines after the holidays. We say, well, ‘back to real life!’ but the real life we have is hid in Christ. The real life we have is in heaven as citizens of the kingdom of eternity. The real life we have is in His grace saved by faith, a wonder and a joy. The real life we have is eternal, begun now, but continued at death.
Have a great day everyone! Enjoy these links I’ve rounded up for you. Continue reading “Prata Potpourri: Christ-honoring AM routine, the First Seminary, Power of a Word, Sad Love Songs, more”
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