The Heavenly Man

So I finished the book The Heavenly Man shortly before our trip to Philadelphia, and I thought for sure I had posted something about it, but I just looked and it's not there so I must have imagined that.

Well I read the book because I wanted to learn more about China. The Heavenly Man is about a man who became a christian in China during a time of great persecution. It's his story of bold faith and incredible trust in God in the midst of intense physical persecution. He was imprisoned multiple times, beaten to near death many times, seperated from his family, and still for the most part was filled with joy and peace and continued to spread the good news of Christ.

I felt the book was a little slow to suck me in, but I kept reading it and pretty soon I couldn't put it down. The things that encouraged me the most were the stories of incredible protection and provision that he told. God cared for him in amazing ways, like once allowing him to literally walk right out of a prison, past several guards, and evidently not be seen by them. We serve an amazing God!

Trip to Philly

So two weeks ago Jeremy and I were packing for a long weekend in Philadelphia. We went out there to attend the CCEF (Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation) annual conference. Each year they pick a topic to focus on and this year it was about fear and anxiety. There were several general sessions, and about 16 elective sessions to pick from. We learned about all sorts of things - from obsessive compulsive disorder, to fear of death and aging, to helping fearful children, to responding when the terrible things we fear actually come true. It was a lot of information to take in! When we first got back everyone was asking us about the conference and what the highlights were, and so on. I wasn't sure how to sum it up then, and I'm still not, but now I know what has stood out to me the most. Ever since we got back I just keeping thinking about the fact that God gives us grace FOR THE MOMENT. We all have things we fear or tend to feel anxious about, but until those things actually come true for us we will not receive the grace to handle them. I know this to be true, from my own life and from hearing about other people's experiences, but I think I still tend to forget it. So it has been so helpful for me to dwell on that the past two weeks. There's no sense worrying about something that might happen in the future, because God isn't going to give me the grace to handle those things until they actually happen. If He gave us the grace now, we wouldn't realize our need for Him. Am I making sense? I think they said it much more eloquently at the conference.

So, we enjoyed the conference and we even had some free time to go exploring. We saw a few historic places in Philadelphia and we spent a great afternoon in Valley Forge National Park. That's where the pictures were taken.