What Next?

(FYI- I did not write this. I was knocked upside and over the head with a two ton brick by this reading today. Thought I'd share, and highlight the especially heavy parts to accept. If you have extra verses to throw my way on these, I would appreciate you sharing them!)

"If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them" (Jn 13:17)

Determine to know more than others. If you do not cut the moorings, God will have to break them by a storm and send you out. Launch all on God, go out on the great swelling tide of His purpose, and you will get your eyes open. If you believe in Jesus, you are not to spend all your time in the smooth waters just inside the harbour bar, full of delight, but always moored; you have to get out through the harbour bar into the great deeps of God and begin to know for yourself, begin to have spiritual discernment.
When you know you should do a thing, and do it, immediately you know more. Revise where you have become stodgy spiritually, and you will find it goes back to a point where there was something you knew you should do, but you did not do it because there seemed no immediate call to, and now you have no perseption, no discernment; at a time of crisis you are spiritually distracted instead of spiritually self-possessed. It is a dangerous thing to refuse to go on knowing.
The counterfeit of obedience is a state of mind in which you work up occasions to sacrifice yourself; ardour is mistaken for discernment. It is easier to sacrifice yourself than to fulfil your spiritual destiny, which is states in Romans 12:1-2. It is a great deal better to fulfil the purpose of God in your life by discerning His will than to perform great acts of self-sacrifice. "to obey is better than sacrifice." Beware of harking back to what you were once when God wants you to be something you have never been. "If any man will do... he shall know."
June 8
My Utmost for His Highest
Oswald Chambers

The Vespers

Okay... so this band caught my eye on Noise Trade (love that website... if you do not know about it google it! As much free music as you can handle, and you just have to dig a bit to find the good stuff!) At first, I was attracted to this free album because of their band name. The Vespers.
If you didn't know this about me, I'm a sucker for traditional. Anything that hints at liturgical, I'm interested. I don't know why, and I often feel guilty for wanting MORE of that rooted-in-history repetitious worship, but I still love it. So, of course I had to take a listen.
Then I was hooked... Tight-knit harmonies?- double check. banjos and mandolins?-check. upright bass?-check. lovely lyrics?-check.
I downloaded "Tell Your Mama". And proceeded to listen to it over and over and over. :)
Then I googled the band and then watched a few youtube videos. I could do without the boys' long hair and one of the brother's facial hair- but who am I to judge when the rest of it is so fantastic?
Check out their official video...

Love this old-timey foresty feel. The dress-up costumes? Can't get over them! The playing in the creek?? Goodness, love it. The cute little sparklers fading and then the lights strung up in the green leafy boughs as twilight nears? Love.

No Hot Water?

We have not had hot water for a month, give or take a few days. It's bothersome. Especially when the excuse is, "we're cleaning the pipes." Every year? A whole month for pipe cleaning? All over the city? Puh-lease.There's got to be another excuse. I'm begining to think cultural norm, springtime rite of passage, or (sigh) just another moment for Father to personally teach me that I'm selfish and to look outside myself.

So today, when I got home and accidentally turned the handle on to the hot water side (it's an 11-mo habit)... and saw this >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I lost it a little bit.
Pipe cleaning?
(Pun-iful side note: I like the kind of pipe cleaners we use for arts and crafts. This is a different kind of pipe cleaning. Clearly.)

The water we had during the winter was both hot hot hot, and posessed a lovely clear color. Definitely not this rusty, cold-ish stuff coming out of the tap at the moment.
Lately we have been boiling water on the stove to wash dishes and I have busted the breaker to everything electric in our apartment multiple times because the tiny electric shower head that we borrowed to give us slightly warmer than ice cold water uses massive amounts of electricity every time I run the water longer than 1.5 minutes.
To say I'm looking forward to hot running water again is understating quite a bit!

In the same post I do have to say... Thank you, Father, for running water. :)