Sleep, sleep, old sun, thou canst not have repass’d,
As yet, the wound thou took’st on Friday last;
Sleep then, and rest; the world may bear thy stay;
A better sun rose before thee to-day.
(John Donne)
Category Archives: Holidays
Being Your Valentine
The above note was photocopied and distributed to every female student at Hyles-Anderson College on Valentines Day, 1990. The text reads:
Feb 1990
Dear Valentine,
During the last year, you have prayed for me, followed me, loved me, and been thoughtful of me. You have brightened my life, lifted my spirits, and encouraged my soul.
Thank you for every smile, for every note, for every Reese’s Peanut Butter cup, for every cheer in chapel, for every song expressing your love for me, and for helping me to make it during the past year.
I love you and glad you are one of my “Youngins.”
Your dad away from home,
Bro. Hyles
Tops of 2012
2012 is all but gone. This year we watched people win Olympic gold. Hammond had yet another scandal. The Northeast had a superstorm. America elected a President. SFL went on a field trip to Sri Lanka. It was a very busy year.
Time for our year-end round up of stuff that happened here on SFL! (The most-viewed posts on SFL in 2012 all had to do with Jack Schaap’s fall from grace but I’m not going to include any of those in my selection.)
Top 10 posts arbitrarily picked in no particular order
10. A Modest Proposal
9. How It All Began
8. Christmas Trees
7. Top 10 Things Fundies Expect People To Say
6. Easter
5. A Baptist Timeline
4. Commandments Concerning Motor Vehicles
3. Shepherds
2. Love Defined
1. Sunday School Catechism
Award for Adorableness goes to Dancing IFB Mom.
And if you haven’t read about the World Vision trip I took to Sri Lanka in August do feel free to go back and peruse those posts. It was the most amazing event of my year.
SFL Flashback: Watch Night Services
This video was originally featured on SFL in August of 2010.
SFL Flashback: A Living Lord
This post was originally featured on SFL in December of 2010
If your family read the crucifixion story every year before opening your presents, you may have been a fundamentalist. For to a fundamentalist, the Incarnation is often seen as little more than the first step on the road to Calvary. For unto us a Son is given and his name shall be called Doomed, Condemned, Destined for Destruction. He was born to die.
But we do our Savior a great injustice if we give the season a tragic tone as if this Baby should be mourned as merely mortal. Consider too the years of his humanity as a child, his miracles, his compassion, his wisdom, his teachings of love for others, his laughter and tears and hunger and weariness experienced as a God who condescended to become a man and walk among us. He was born to Live.
And yes, he was betrayed and mocked and falsely accused and beaten and crucified…but the story doesn’t end there either! For of his own will he defeated death and rose from the grave, comforting his grieving friends with words of Everlasting Life. He was born to Live.
Remember the words of his promise that he will never leave us or forsake us and that he is that friend who is closer than a brother. After our years of struggle and pain are ended we too will live with him in an eternity where there will be no darkness or pain or dying ever again. In him we will finally be truly alive. He was born to Live.
Dear heart, if you want to remember the Reason for the Season as you gather on Christmas Day this year, do not mourn as if Christ’s life was only given to be consumed in the seeming tragedy of his death. Read instead these words: “Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen.”
He was born to Live.