Book Meme

I have no idea what a "meme" is but I know that one of my best friends in the whole world tagged me to do it--so here goes...

I was tagged by Christina for this book meme. (It's kind of like an online game of tag. Someone posts questions and answers them, then "tags" the next person who is "it".) Here's what you're supposed to do.

1) Grab the book closest to you
2) Open to page 123, go down to the fourth sentence
3) Post the text of the following 3 sentences
4) Name the author and book title
5) Tag three people to do the same

"And there is nothing that is deformed with any natural or moral deformity; but everything is beauteous to behold, and amiable and excellent in itself... All the persons that belong to the blessed society of heaven are lovely. The Father of the family is lovely, and so are all his children; the head of the body is lovely, and so are all the members..."

This quote is from a book that I bought Brian for Christmas called "Heaven on Earth: Capturing Jonathan Edwards's Vision of Living In Between" by Stephen J. Nichols. Nichols is a professor at Lancaster Bible College and Grad School. In the book he explores the idea that Jonathan Edwards espoused that we ought not to be always looking ONLY to our eternal end (i.e. heaven) but we should, in this life, be considering how God's kingdom has come and is coming through Christ for the here and now. Anything that challenges us to think beyond the Wednesday-night-and-Sunday-morning-ministry mentality is always intriguing to me. As Brian so aptly put it last week (when I was in Phoenix helping Ginger and he was here in Oregon homeschooling all the children for the entire week) "If you didn't believe that your daily routine and responsibilities with the children were your spiritual act of worship, I can see how you'd really wonder about the whole point of your life."

I tag Shonda, Kristi, and Marie to do the next book meme; but I have no idea how to link their names to their blog; so if any of you savvy bloggers are reading this, please enlighten me soon!

Also a confession, "Heaven on Earth" was not the nearest book to me. The nearest one also happened to be "The Valley of Vision"--but since Christina already "memed" it (whatever that means), I thought I'd give you something new to contemplate. I'm so glad that Valley of Vision got a plug though, because next to the Bible, that book of prayers has been the single most instrumental tool that God has used in my life to draw me nearer to Him.

Oh, and P.S. I'm really trying to post some blogs of each of our children in the coming weeks. I didn't do a Christmas letter this year but the children have nevertheless grown and changed significantly.