Saturday, January 15, 2011

Objects of the Divine Love - the Intolerable Compliment

"If God is Love, He is, by defintion, something more than mere kindness. And it appears from all the records, that though He has often rebuked us and condemned us, He has never regarded us with contempt. He has paid us the intolerable compliment of loving us, in the deepest, most tragic, most inexorable sense....
When Christianity says that God loves man, it means that God loves man, not that He has some 'disinterested', because really indifferent, concern for our welfare, but that, in awful and surprising truth, we are the objects of His love. You asked for a loving God: you have one. The great spirit you so lightly invoked, the 'lord of terrible aspect', is present: not a senile benevolence that drowsily wishes you to be happy in your own way, not the cold philanthropy of a conscientious magistrate, nor the care of a host who feels responsible for the comfort of his guests, but the consuming fire Himself, the Love that made the worlds, persistent as the artist's love for his work and despotic as a man's love for a dog, provident and venerable as a father's love for a child, jealous, inexorable, exacting as love between the sexes. How this should be, I do not know....We were made not primarily that we may love God (though we were made for that too) but that God may love us, that we may become objects in which the Divine Love may rest 'well pleased.'"
     - C. S. Lewis

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Update

I haven't posted in awhile, but here are the newest updates. I have now returned to work. I will be returning to the classroom and will be a tenured professor of philosophy at the Northwest Campus of TCC. I'm very excited about the return to teaching and the classroom and am looking forward to being a part of the campus where I began my TCC teaching career. It appaers that you can go home again...:-).

As for my foot, we're still in the healing process. Things are progressing but slowly. I've still got the picc line and the antibiotic infusions and probably will have them as long as the foot has an open wound. However, as we measure the wound each week it grows smaller, so my time on the walker grows shorter with each passing week. Teaching on a walker will be a new adventure for both me and my students. Karen will be glad when I am able to walk and drive again so she won't have to be my taxi.

Missed everyone at church on Sunday because Karen didn't want us out in the bad weather, that didn't turn out to be so bad...lol
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Thanks for your continued prayers!

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Christmas in Birmingham

Tim and I drove to Birmingham on Christmas Eve Eve to spend a few days with our kids. It was a long drive but we made it and had such fun for three days with our family. We spent Christmas Eve cooking (yes, we made German Chocolate cake and Grandma's potatoe salad!), talking and attended the Christmas Eve service at First Methodist. That was an adventure just getting Tim at the right door and finding the elevator to go to the sanctuary on the second floor but the service was so meaningful and worth all the work to be there.

We gathered at Katie and Matt's home for Christmas morning. Upon arrival, we had new stockings "hung by the chimney with care" for all of us. Thank you, Katie.

The tradition of matching PJs was still alive and well at least for one more year!
We exchanged gifts and laughed and cried and laughed until we cried with some. What a wonderful morning for all of us! Thanks for all the surprises!

The grand dogs were having a wonderful time with all their new toys. Of course, Maggie Mae couldn't quite figure out why all these people were at her house. They were happy to snuggle with Tim and me for our Christmas afternoon naps while the kids went to their respective in-laws for visits.
We made some new family photos that I hope you enjoy. We did have a white Christmas with snow in Birmingham on Christmas Day. It was wonderful - just enough to be pretty but not stick to the roads. Katie and Matt with Maggie Mae in front of their house with the snow falling -

Mary Beth and Caleb -




Katie and Mary Beth with Tim sitting on his walker -



Matt, Katie, Tim, Karen, Caleb and Mary Beth -



We had a great time just enjoying family. We are looking forward to 2011 and all it holds for each of us!