Now I know you are going to think I have flipped my lid (as though you did not already think so) but yesterday, I cataloged my closet.

Huh?

Yup, I wrote down EVERYTHING I own; from sweaters to cami’s – scarves to shoes.  I recorded color, I recorded weight, I recorded the season in which to wear it; I documented it all.  Sounds like a fun afternoon, huh?

Why?

Well, it is quite simple; I can’t get dressed in the morning without major trauma and significant time loss.  Since many of you know my proclivity toward tasteful clothing, you might be thinking I stress because of discontent; I don’t like what I own.  Quite the contrary!  When I shop I am quite purposeful.  I only buy what I consider to be classic; items that will stand the test of time.  That is one of the reasons I wear so much black and white!  It is never identifiable to any certain genre.  Actually, and sad to admit, the reason for my angst simply comes down to comfort; I HATE being uncomfortable.

I HATE jeans.

I HATE shorts.

I HATE pants.

I should have been born when they squeezed the air out of you and poured you into a dress.  When I was in junior high I would beg my mom to let me wear dresses on Saturdays.  I couldn’t wear them to school because in the ‘70’s dresses weren’t cool.  But I could wear them on weekends!  And I did.  Off to the grocery store, out to Montgomery Ward, down to Krauss’ to see my dad; I simply loved my flowing dresses.  But now I am a stay at home wife and most days dresses are not very practical.  So I sit.  I sit in my closet and I ponder.  And I think.  And I try things on.  Then I rip them off.  Then I try on some more.  Then I rip them off and stamp.  Then I hang everything back up. Then I start over with the first outfit and the whole process starts again.

Guess what time of the day I finish.

So remember back to Counseling the Incompetent Counselor?  Remember how I confessed on the worldwide web  my proclivity toward SLOTH?  Well, I tripped over another word from the Lord while I was reading Holiness.

“The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.” Proverbs 13:4 Actually, Ryles version that he quotes in his book says “but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat.”

While meditating over the chapter called “The Cost” and reading that to follow Christ would cost me my self-righteousness and sin, I stumbled headlong into the cost of “my love of ease.”

“He must take pains and trouble, if he means to run a successful race towards heaven.  He must daily watch and stand on his guard, like a soldier on enemy’s grounds.  He must take heed to his behavior every hour of the day, in every company and in every place, in public as well as in private, among strangers as well as at home.  He must be careful over his time….”

Here, Ryle is telling us that, in order to have a soul that is ‘fat’ with righteousness, he must be careful of his time – public and private.  Which means I have to get up out of the closet.

So back to cataloging.  I’m sure everyone else reading my blog also has oodles of time to do this, but I think in the long run it is going to be such a tremendous help and save precious time.  Check Copy That over the next days as  I share my next great idea…

I’ve been back on my feet this week.  Sort of.  But it certainly feels as though I accomplished more when I was sick!  I guess when reading is your daily task, and you are forced into a seated (or horizontal!) position, it isn’t so hard to do.  It’s when I’m mobile that I get distracted.

I was happy to be able to get back to the chiropractor a few times; love that man….   This particular chiropractor is quite unique though; different from my past experiences with this profession.  First, and as I have discovered when I watch new patients enter, difficult to comprehend; there are NO appointments. Doctor is in every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 9:30 am – 12:30pm and then again from 3 o’clock to 6 o’clock.  You simply show up and Terri Ann or Kay acknowledge your existence, pull your chart, and place you in a sort of first-come, first-serve invisible line.  The highlight of many a day is my study of human psyche on the patients that wait at the door at 3:00 pm.  Oops, that would include me.

Anyway, another odd little detail is that, although I am there for back/neck problems, the Doctor rarely touches my back.  There is no manipulating, no neck cracking (woohoo!), no pushing or prodding.  Nope, instead there is this wonderful table –much like the massage chairs used at a Pedicure.  You lie on your back and the table rolls beneath your body.  Unfortunately, and I have yet to kick Kay when she does this, but the machine gets turned off after only 2 short minutes.

Slightly MORE unusual is that Dr. Bowker is also an acupuncturist.  Interesting philosophy.  However since most of my medical experiences have been less that fruitful I thought, “hey, what the heck, I will give it a try.”  He doesn’t chant or anything weird anyway.

So Tuesday I go in his office and he asks, “is it okay to use this needle?”  He has never actually asked that before, he usually just pricks my skin without a word.  So I say yes and he takes my right hand and POP! in goes the needle.  Now here’s the rub.  And I mean RUB.  When he is determining where to push the needle in he presses until he finds the area that hurts.  HURTS!  And THEN he sticks a needle in it.  AS IF that wasn’t bad enough, and again—he has never done this before—he starts twisting the needle.  Back/forth, back forth/ OW, OW, OW OW!  I’m now at the point of biting my lip to prevent the tears; who wants to be a wimp and cry from a 1” straight pin?  Finally, and thankfully, he removes the needle.  I literally had to ask for a note so that I could be excused from activities for the rest of the day; my hand would not operate!

He tells me this will help my sinus infection (of which he was aware I had) and I should start noticing a difference quite soon.  I guess sometimes, in order to get better, we will have to endure some pain.

That is what reading Holiness was like this week.

You see, I am all about sanctification.  I took this class on sanctification so that I could grow in my understanding of it and share it in thee most effective way.  I accept as true that salvation (justification) is free and unearned in any way by man.  But I believe there are “gospel obligations”; that those who belong to Christ Jesus “crucify the flesh.” (Gal 5:24) So imagine my surprise when I found in my reading words that actually convicted me; the already convinced! (the vastness of my sin nature is astounding)

When first “Dr.” Ryle asks “is it okay to use this needle,” I say, “sure! I already believe what you are about to say.”  He then presses until he finds the spot that hurts and in this case, it is the chapter entitled “The Cost.”

Poke.  He hits the spot.

“The cost of being a true Christian is what a man must be ready to give up if he wishes to be saved.  It is the amount of sacrifice a man must submit to if he intends to serve Christ.”  Notice “Dr.” Ryle mentions the cost of salvation, but he also mentions the cost of serving!

Back/Forth, OW!

“What does it cost? I grant freely that it costs little to be a mere outward Christian.  A man has only got to attend a place of worship twice on Sunday, and to be tolerably moral during the week, and he has gone as far as thousands around him ever go in religion.  All this is cheap and easy work:  it entails no self-denial or self-sacrifice.  If this is saving Christianity, and will take us to heaven when we die, we must alter the description of the way of life and write, ‘Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to heaven!”*

Back/Forth/Back/Forth, OW!

“He must cast away all pride and high thoughts, and conceit of his own goodness…. He must be willing to give up all trust in his own morality, respectability, praying, Bible reading, church going, and sacrament receiving and to trust nothing but Christ Jesus.  Now this sounds hard to some.  I do not wonder.  ‘Sir,’ said a godly ploughman, ‘it is harder to deny proud self than sinful self.  But it is absolutely necessary.’ To be a true Christian it will cost a man his self-righteousness.”

That wasn’t a statement to the unconverted.

Back/Forth/Back/Forth/Back/Forth, OW!

“For another thing it will cast a man his sins.  He must be willing to give up every habit and practice which is wrong in God’s sight.  He must set his face against it, quarrel with it, break off from it, fight with it, crucify it and labor to keep it under, whatever the world around him may say or think.  There must be no separate truce with any special sin which he loves.  He must count all sins as his deadly enemies and hate every false way….Our sins are often as dear to us as our children: we love them, hug them, cleave to them and delight in them.  To part with them is as hard as cutting off a right hand or plucking out a right eye.  But it must be done… He and sin must quarrel, if he and God are to be friends…Christ is willing to receive any sinners.  But he will not receive them if they will stick to their sins.”

Back/Forth/Back/Forth/Back/Forth/Back/Forth, OW!

There is more, but after biting my lip really hard I couldn’t actually stop the tears. It will have to wait for the next post…

* “For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” (Matt 7:14)

“We cannot live to ourselves only in this world.  Our lives will always be doing either good or harm to those who see them.  They are a silent sermon which all can read.  It is sad indeed when they are a sermon for the devil’s cause and not for God’s.  I believe that far more is done for Christ’s kingdom by the holy living of believers than we are at all aware of.  There is a reality about such living which makes men feel and obliges them to think.  It carries a weight and influence with it which nothing else can give.  It makes religion beautiful and draws men to consider it, like a lighthouse seen far off.  The day of judgement will prove that many besides husbands have been won ‘without the Word’ by a holy life (1 Peter 3:1)  You may talk to persons about the doctrines of the gospel and few will listen, and still fewer understand.  But your life is an argument that none can escape.  There is a meaning about holiness which not even the most unlearned can help taking in.  They may not understand justification, but they can understand charity.”  JC Ryle

How come, when you’re busy and running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off, all you can think about is sitting down for just 10 minutes of quick shut-eye?  And then how come, when you’re sick and the only thing you can handle is sitting, you can’t stop thinking about how soon you can get up again and run around?

Never happy.

So this was a rude interruption to life.  Just when Fall breaks into full swing I find myself glued to the couch.  Nothing severe mind you (no worries, mom doesn’t read my blog…but JUST in case…)  Doctor called it a “virus” because “flu” sends people running to the ER where they actually contract H1N1.  His words.  Call it what you want, I don’t feel good and I am none too happy at the prospect of missing all of my classes this week.  Praying that the five days I walked around sick to my stomach before my ailment got a label count as part of the progression.

This present calamity has served as an awesome opportunity to ponder though.  In reference to my Counsel of the Incompetent Counselor (before I try and run around “cured” too soon) this crummy bug reminds me that I still have a sickness. Well, the crummy bug AND the new books I am reading (for my class at RTS) which I have nothing but time to read.

Holiness

by John Charles Ryle

and

Sin and Temptation

edited from the works of John Owen by Dr. James M. Houston

My pursuit of understanding Sanctification more fully is what sent me packing a backpack in the first place.  As Justification is the act performed once and for all at Calvary, Sanctification is the work “for which every believer is responsible.” (Ryle) “…even as he chose us before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless,” (Eph 1:4) and “…predestined to be conformed to the image of his son…” (Rom 8:29)

If you remember my review of Because He Loves Me, however, you will recall that “we must not now throw away all thought of God’s grace and ‘get to work’….A skewed perspective on God’s activity in our sanctification will result in an overemphasis on outward conformity…it will breed moralism.” (Fitzpatrick)

See why I need an institution of higher learning?

Anyway, I will be reviewing Holiness with you, continuing on my path of Counseling the Incompetent Counselor as is fitting, and supplementing my knowledge of how to do this with Sin and Temptation (sounds fun, huh?)  All the while drinking gobs of tea, water, propel and cranberry juice….and not a single germ will pass through the airwaves.  Gotta love the internet.

“There has been of late years a lower standard of personal holiness among believers than there used to be in the days of our fathers.  The whole result is that the Spirit is grieved and the matter calls for much humiliation and searching of heart….The cure, I am convinced, is to be found in a clearer apprehension of the nature and sinfulness of sin.

We must go back to ‘the old paths.’  We must sit down humbly in the presence of God, look the whole subject in the face, examine clearly what the Lord Jesus calls sin, and what the Lord Jesus calls doing His will.  We must then try to realize that it is terribly possible to live a careless, easy-going, half-worldly life, and yet at the same time to maintain evangelical principles and call ourselves evangelical people!  Once let us see that sin is far viler and far nearer to us, and sticks more closely to us than we supposed, and we shall be led, I trust and believe, to get nearer to Christ.  Once drawn nearer to Christ, we shall drink more deeply out of His fullness, and learn more thoroughly to ‘live the life of faith’ in Him, as St. Paul did. Once taught to live the life of faith in Jesus and abiding in Him, we shall bear more fruit, shall find ourselves more strong for duty, more patient in trial, more watchful over our poor weak hearts, and more like our Master in all our little daily ways.  Just in proportion as we realize how much Christ has done for us, shall we labor to do much for Christ.  Much forgiven, we shall love much.”

JC Ryle ~ Holiness, 1879