Being Lucy, A Cruise to No-where, Who Dat?!, and A Beautiful Slave

New Orleans is definitely an interesting place to live. Two of our very dear friends were married on Halloween and had the reception later that night at Mardi Gras World. For those of you unfamiliar with New Orleans, we love to leave monuments for anything our city might be known for. In this case, we have a warehouse which used to house Mardi Gras floats still under construction. Now it houses old floats and a museum dedicated to the history of New Orleans Mardi Gras rituals. Of course, with it being Halloween, it was also a costume/masquerade party. Thomas and I went as Lucy and Ricky Ricardo - it was awesome. Thomas's blue eyes are the only things that give him away as not fully Latino. Other than that, he totally pulled it off. I, of course, was a fabulous Lucy. : ) (For those of you that know me, you know how fantastic it was for me to pretend to be the star of I Love Lucy.) In these few weeks after the party, we have been quite busy.

For one thing, we were getting ready for our cruise to Cozumel, Mexico. Unfortunately, we did not know of Hurricane Ida brewing in the Gulf. By the time it neared the coast, New Orleans closed its port. Carnival, being the awesome company it is, offered a total refund for anyone wanting to cancel or 50% refund for a shortened cruise to the Gulf without a stop in Mexico. Hubby and I chose the latter and had a fabulous "cruise to no-where" - the actual quote from the company: ). Probably the coolest thing about going on this cruise were the awesome Saints games that flanked the trip. 'Who Dat Nation' rejoice!!! We are 9 and 0!!! The best we've ever done was 7 and 0 - and that was in this millineaum. In other words, we've never played better. Who Dat indeed???!!?!!??!??!?!!??!!

Now, on to business. I watched the movie Taken for the first time tonight. The ending is awesome, of course, with the father recovering his daughter before she is tortured to the extreme, before she drops off the face of the earth. In reality, very few of these young women are ever rescued or ever get the chance to escape. The movie revealed the actual situations many women, girls, and even young boys face. They are drugged and beaten into submission. As I speak out about this disgusting evil, we need never forget one thing. God loves. God sees. God knows. God controls. Those who are "enemies of God" do not understand this. Even we, His children, sometimes do not understand or grasp why our beautiful, gracious, and loving God allows evil to linger.

The fact is, God is working out everything to His glory and the good of those who call Him Father. Brothers and sisters in Christ, please do not turn your head away and think it is impossible to see an end to this because it is not. We can end it. We can at least put a dent in it. Please, do not forget these victims. Please do not stop praying for their captors. Pray like you have never prayed before.

As I write this I am listening to a song I just discovered by a group called Take No Glory. The song is called A Beautiful Slave. The song begins hard, edgy, forlorn, melancholy, abrasive. It ends in a glorious, beautiful, soft, strong and praise-worthy chorus of Jesus Loves the Little Children and He's got the Whole World in His Hands. These "musicianaries" offer their music free-of-charge on their website www.takenoglory.com.

God hears their cries, and they will not go unanswered. God will have retribution. He will pass out judgement. The world will be redeemed, to the praise of God the Father, Jesus the Son, God the Holy Spirit.

John Piper Book Club

I've discovered a new blog in my blogger wanders, and this one is truly a blessing. It is http://thepreachers-wife.blogspot.com/. There are so many fabulous things I could say about this lady's blog, but there is one aspect that I like the most. The encouragement of deep, meaningful theological discussion. One way she is accomplishing this right now, is the John Piper Spectacular Sins Book Club.

By now you should know of my affinity for the teachings of John Piper. I've been wanting the read this book for some time now (ever since the True Woman conference to be exact), but I haven't picked it up due to my present student circumstances. After finding this "book club" I realized that God is sovereign even over graduate school, and I want to share all my extra time with Him. If you would like to join this book club, click on the banner and join in! I was a few weeks late, but that's totally okay. To give you an idea of what this book is about, I figured I would insert a couple of paragraphs from the Introduction, full citatation listed below. I hope you are blessed with God's grace today, and I hope to see you as a member of the club soon!

Piper wrote:

"Jesus Christ, who was in the beginning with God, and was God (John 1:1), created the universe. He did this as God the Father's equal and as his agent. 'All things were made through him' (John 1:3; 1 Cor. 8:6; Heb.1:2). And he did it to display his glory. 'By him all things were created ...and for him' (Col.1:16). By him and for him. All things were created by Christ and for Christ. The Son of God, who has become a human being - the God-man, Jesus of Nazareth - in perfect concert with his Father, created the universe for the display of his all-satisfying glory.

Not only that, he holds it all together with total authority. 'He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power' (Heb. 1:3). How this massive power - to create and uphold the universe - is weilded to display the glory of Christ is the great issue of our time, and of all time.

THE GREATEST DISPLAY OF THE GLORY OF CHRIST

The apex of the glory of Christ is the glory of his grace - treating people infinitely better than they deserve - giving himself for the everlasting joy of the worst of sinners who will have him as their highest Treasure. And the apex of this grace is the murder of the God-man outside Jerusalem around A.D. 33. The death of Jesus Christ was murder. It was the most spectacular sin ever committed.

At the all-important pivot of human history, the worst sin ever committed served to show the greatest glory of Christ and obtain the sin-conquering gift of God's grace. God did not just overcome evil at the cross. He made evil serve the overcoming of evil. He made evil commit suicide in doing its worst evil.

Evil is anything and everything opposed to the fullest display of the glory of Christ. That's the meaning of evil. In the death of Christ, the powers of darkness did their best to destroy the glory of the Son of God. This is the apex of evil. But instead they found themselves quoting the script of ancient prophecy and acting the part assigned by God. Precisely in putting Christ to death, they put his glory on display - the very glory that they aimed to destroy. The apex of evil achieved the apex of the glory of Christ. The glory of grace."



John Piper, Spectacular Sins and Their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2008), 11-12.