Current Tunes: Thunderstorm. God's the greatest musician, you'll find. :D
Current Plans: Reading away the night.
Current Excitement: Spring! Relaxing! Summer's nearness! Leaving the country! GBF week!
Hola mis compadres!
Today has been a glorious, glorious Sunday. Breezy windows open, fan going. Organizing my book collection (I'm quite a LitSnob, I've decided), making feather earrings, going for a walk, practicing piano, talking to Jesus, taking out the trash (finally), eating whatever I feel like... Glorious day. It was HOT today, just classically Missouri. The day is closing out with a marvelous thunderstorm/hailstorm/lightening storm/general racket. Good form, KC! Days like today are why I love my life.
The big news of the moment is-- I'M AN AUNT AGAIN. {See above photo ^^} My sister and her husband have adopted a gorgeous little tyke they've dubbed Charles Gabriel Andreev. I've only seen pictures but he seems to be a winner! He's currently still in his home country, but next Saturday my sister and I will be flying out of MN across the world to go bring him home. I'm suuuuuuuper pumped, as it'll be my first time off the continent. I can't wait to experience a new culture AND meet my brand new little nephew. I'm so glad God gave our human hearts infinite capacity to love, because I already love my baby nephew so much my heart could burst, but I'm finding there's room for more! Praise God, He found my sister a wonderful little son. He knew, when He was knitting Charlie together in his mother's womb, that my sister and brother-in-law would find him and fall in love. He knew that Charlie's parents were in the US, praying for a little one just like him. So that's the headlines- I'm leaving the country and coming back with a new boy in my heart. :D
Here's what's been gripping my heart for the past two weeks: Perpetua by Amy Rachel Peterson. I bought it impulsively from the Forerunner bookstore in January. I loooooove history, especially ancient Rome/Greece, and when I saw this book hiding away in the back my heart leapt inside my chest. I remembered learning a little about Perpetua at Bethel last year. If you don't know anything about her, basically here's the scoop: She was a young noblewoman, not much older than myself, living in Carthage (N Africa, then part of the Roman Empire) 200 years after the death of Jesus Christ. This was a time when the Emperors of Rome were persecuting Christians and had outlawed Christian conversions. Romans of the era believed that Christians practiced cannibalism and incest, and ironically referred to Christians as atheists. Perpetua was a real young woman, and, along with several others, she became a martyr for her faith. We know a little about her story because she kept a brief diary while she was in prison just before her death. We know that her friend/slave Felicitas was 8 months pregnant, but after everyone prayed for her, she went into labor. If she hadn't, she would have had to wait to die until after she'd given birth a month later because it was against the law to torture or kill a pregnant woman. We know the names of several of Perpetua's fellow martyrs. We know that Perpetua's father pleaded fruitlessly for her to recant, even just for his sake. We also know that Perpetua had a young babe at the time of her death. An eye wittness recorded the gory events of her death. If you would like to read the full text of Perpetua's diary, you can do so here. It's quite short, so I encourage you to take a few minutes and read it!
Basically what Amy Rachel Peterson did was take Perpetua's diary and imagine what her life was like before her captivity. How was Perpetua converted? How did she find the strength to give up her son, and who was the father of her child? What events led to her martyrdom. The author masterfully illustrates what Perpetua's life could have been, sticking very close to the given historical facts and to knowledge about daily life in the Roman Empire during that period.
This book has wrecked my heart. I imagine myself in Perpetua's sandals and I don't know what I'd do. When the story starts she's just my age, feeling exactly the things I often feel. She has self-image issues, she wonders about romance, the point of life, social status, and what her friends think of her. She adores her parents and brother, and is the perfect picture of a young noblewoman. After she experiences a dramatic conversion, I find myself again and again in her thoughts, prayers, and desires. Her relationship with Jesus was so tangible, so passionate. And I think to myself, that's the same Jesus I still worship... but what am I doing about it? When I have a problem, I call my best friend or my mom. Perpetua laid it at the feet of Jesus. When I screw up or get caught up in sin patterns, I condemn myself and basically cut off communication with Jesus. In the novel, Perpetua works out her salvation with grace and mercy. I know that in this novel most of the story line is completely fictional, but that doesn't make it any less compelling.
In the end, she dies for her Saviour. Am I willing to do that? She sacrifices everything, and I can't even sacrifice my comfort. Could you? If Jesus asked you to go without Facebook, or your friends, or your food or money, could you? She lived in a time when simply reading the Bible was punishable by death. From where I'm sitting, I see four different Bibles laying out. I'm so blessed, yet I seem to give the very least of myself, my time, and my money to Jesus. Just enough to get by, really.
I believe we'll soon experience a time again where Christians will be actively persecuted for their faith, even here in America. You can feel the tension building already. What are you going to do without your laptops, without your luxuries, without your perfect ideals? What are you going to do when all you have is memorized Scripture and each other to hold onto? I say this to everyone reading this as much as I say this to myself. Christianity is not meant to be your comfort food. You don't become a Christian to feel good and prosper. We need to understand what Christianity, what fellowship, what living with Jesus every second of everyday really looks like.
I encourage everyone, especially you young ladies, to read Perpetua. You can ask my friends and anyone who saw me in the PR- I basically cried throughout the whole thing. But it helped give me perspective on what Jesus intended the Church to look like.
So that's what's on my heart this week and I just thought I'd share it.
Love to all of you from my heart in KC to yours, where ever that may be!
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