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On Friday, we had an enchanting night out to celebrate six months of married life. Dinner at a fine Italian-style restaurant on Cockle Bay, a random interlude of Christ-centred rap music, then an evening of enjoying each other’s company, and reflecting on the amazing partnership, the astounding gift God has given us. Even in just six [...] We’ve arrived back from two weeks away in William’s birth town of Kuching, Malaysia. It was an excellent time to really take a breath, get to know the extended family on the Chong side of the tree, and have our spiritual batteries recharged, so to speak. Several observations about Kuching, and Malaysia: It’s hot! Temperatures ranged from [...] 
We’ve now updated our wedding website with the long-awaited wedding video! Our good friend Dennis has been working on this (and the rest of the footage) since February, so it’s definitely a labour of love. I hope you’ll enjoy it, especially for those that couldn’t make it on the day! Please visit our wedding website to view [...] Thought I would just briefly share a song that has filled my mind all day for the last week or so. Text is copied and pasted from Sovereign Grace Ministries. As William said to me – what a powerful refrain. Those of you who knew me a little younger than I am today will [...] If you’ll forgive the incomplete sentences, these are my hastily scribbled notes from the Impact conference session 11 by Russell Hohneck. As always with notes, an exactly accurate representation of the sermon isn’t always possible, so this may not summarise his entire message perfectly. I think the full sermons will be available eventually [...] (Syndicated from Cheryl’s deviantart journal) — At STAND conference 2010 the keynote speaker was Conrad Mbewe, a reformed pastor from Zambia nicknamed “the African Spurgeon.” The sermons for the whole conference are available here and are free to download. These are the notes that I personally took from Session 3 [...] This morning I woke up freshly irritated by a couple of sins I’d already committed in the first few seconds of consciousness. As God would have it, this occurred around 4:00 am. So, I had at least two hours before dawn, to stew on my/others’ shortcomings, which eventually boiled into those of the [...] Our church is currently going through a series on the theology of suffering (and, of course, the sovereignty of God). These lyrics from the sovereign grace CD Come Weary Saints, by Mark Altrogge, come to mind.
Perhaps most poignant to me in suffering is a church sister, one of my closer friends, whom I think I mentioned before. Her very young daughter has a life-threatening heart condition, and the medical experts on her case a couple of weeks ago have finally said there is nothing more they can do. Can you watch your child die? Can you bury your own child, who is so vibrant and unique? What did she do to deserve this? God, why are we suffering? While He creates calamity (Isaiah 45:7) and rains on both the righteous and unrighteous (Matt 5:45), our holy, just, merciful, patient, infinitely loving God does not author sin and suffering. We recall that He also allowed His own Son, whom He loved, to die. He was sinless and therefore least deserving of suffering, but Christ received the greatest suffering of all. So why injustice? Why must my child die? Because of God’s purposes, which are higher than ours. In His loving, perfect, compassionate wisdom, He allowed it. Oh, God, you are a wonderful, glorious, mysterious God. One day all tears will be wiped away, imperfect made perfect, death reversed, and You will be glorified as much as You finally deserve. Til then, we seek Your glory with every stumbling breath we breathe, our continual sins covered by Your blood, and even in the depths of our suffering, we know that You are still God, and You are still good. [...] Christians often say they are “saved.” By this they define their “christianness.” I remember the Revival Hymn video. At one point Leonard Ravenhill asks:”If I was to ask you tonight if you were saved? Do you say, ‘Yes, I am saved.’ When? ‘Oh so and so preached, I got baptised and…’ Are you saved? What are you saved [...] |
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