Saturday, January 31, 2009

Sam Storms on Edwards on Heaven

Last week while hanging out at the Burg's Vern and I, during our lengthy discourse, somehow wound up on the topic of heaven which reminded me of this sermon. It has been years since I listened to it but it is one of the best talks on heaven that I have ever heard. Sam Storms gave it at Piper’s Jonathan Edward Conference 6ish years ago. I listened to it on Friday while driving and it rocked my world all over again. If you have never listened to it (or even if you have) you should set aside an hour sometime during the next week and listen to it. It is that amazing.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse.

I don’t know about you all but we definitely hit the New Year running. Our first married Christmas and New Year were awesome but time off went by way to fast. We have already moved into our new house and Allison has been back at school for a week…..ridiculous.

So as part of starting off 2009 right and preparation for our trip to France this summer we have instituted “study hours” at the house. Really just for me b/c Allison has to study all the time and she is a great student and very disciplined. (Did you know that she got a 4.0 her first full semester that she was married) So Tuesday and Thursday evenings are now study time. I am reading two books one on French Culture (Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong) and one on Islam (Answering Islam). I am also listening to lectures from an Intro to Islam Class on biblicaltraining.org as well attempting to learn French via Rosetta Stone. I say this so that you will ask how it is going and thereby hold me accountable to edumacating myself.

In parting I would like to leave you with an example of the French I have been able to learn, with the assistance of my wife: “Il dort avec les poisons” Translation “He sleeps with the fishes.”

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Don't call it a comeback

“We must repent from our sins in sackcloth and ashes.” (Titus Burger, age 4)

As I meditated on the harsh rebuke that Allison and I received for not keeping our blog up to date the words of young Titus came to mind and seemed quite fitting. We would like to take this opportunity to apologize. We have no excuses just a blog with very few posts.

There is a temptation to make our attempt to regularly update our blog a new years resolution. However I am not sure if I have ever actually made one and I am positive if I did, or tried, I would not keep it. Therefore we will simply say that we are going to try to do better. It was an encouragement to know that people actually read it and wanted us to write more and our hope is that this, rather than a resolution, will motivate us to blog.

I am going to encourage Allison to post photos from events that she does and I will try to keep you abreast of what the Kitchens’ are up to. I would also like to post links to articles that I read b/c
1. I have nothing other than that to contribute to this blog and
2. I find them to be extremely informative and think that you will enjoy them as well.

We hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Years. We look forward to hearing from you.

Love
Alli and J