Bloom!

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- Today, we are privileged to share with you this beautiful poem by our friend Rebecca . We hope it blesses you as it blessed us! - Sweeter Love by Rebecca Woodbury - Today, be patient, small heart of mine. Look not about, but rest in a love divine. Tomorrow, perhaps, God may choose to bring, Another to love - this time an earthly thing. - But today, small heart, look quick away, From meaningful glances and men just wanting to play. Quiet the longings that spring from within, And turn from the ache to find rest in Him. - Though sweet may be this song of love, Let not a flirting eye distract you from above. You, my heart, have already been claimed, And Jesus has your Prince been named. - So today find joy in a love superb, Gracious, compassionate, more than what's deserved. Give Jesus your wantings, give Him your needs, For He will supply, if only we believe. -

- - A trace of where we've been on the web this week... - The Value of Boundaries This week, Revive Our Hearts host Nancy DeMoss is talking with Mary Kassian, author of the book Girls Gone Wise . Yesterday they talked about setting boundaries in our relationships with guys. Nancy comments, "When it comes to our relationships as women with men, there are just some wisdom ways of thinking and living. You and I have both seen the heartache and the heartbreak and the devastation when women don't put those hedges, those boundaries in place. They end up becoming so much more vulnerable to sinning and to being sinned against." - Grad School As Worship Matthew John wrote this post over at The Line , and while we're not in grad school, we found it a refreshing reminder of how we can worship God through our daily work and school. As he writes, "The deeper we search for truth and meaning in the world the more we who place our faith in God see His fingerprints all over e...

- "I pray for you, that all your misgivings will be melted to thanksgivings. Remember that the shadow a thing casts often far exceeds the size of the thing itself (especially if the light be low on the horizon) and though some future fear may strut brave darkness as you approach, the thing itself will be but a speck when seen from beyond. Oh that He would restore us often with that 'aspect from beyond,' to see a thing as He sees it, to remember that He dealeth with us as with sons." Jim Elliot -

- What do you fear? If you’re like me, you read that, thought good question, and skipped along without answering it. I don’t like thinking about my fears either. Some of them are bigger than others – I fear something terrible happening to the people I love, for example – while others are smaller, like the haunting fear of getting lost on my college campus and missing an important class or exam. The latter isn ’t that unreasonable, I suppose, given my terrible sense of direction. - But I digress. - Quite frankly, we live in a scary world. All you have to do is pop open your internet browser and you’ll see a headline of the latest terrible and senseless tragedy. Our friend gets cancer. Haiti, a suffering country already, is crushed by that earthquake. We watch as our best friend’s heart gets broken – or ours does. - It’s enough to make me – an optimistic and worry-free person by nature – want to crawl under my covers and never come out. But I want you to climb out of your fig...

- - A trace of where we've been on the web this week... - The Rigors of Love An interesting and excellent essay on faith and Christian love, published on the NY Times blog The Stone. It's worth reading! (HT: Steve Lutz ) - Amazon Prime for Students I'm awfully excited about this - students with a . edu email address get a free year of Amazon Prime. This means free two-day shipping on anything and everything, and lots of other perks as well. And they won't automatically charge you when the year's trial is over! - How to Turn Off Facebook Places Facebook seems to keep finding fun new ways to reveal all sorts of information about us. If you don't want the whole world to know that you're at, say, the yogurt shop - here's how to turn Facebook Places off. - Jesus Calls Peter This is for pure fun. Josh Harris's amusing comic on what it means to "follow me". - grace & peace, Megan, Joanna, and Jessina -

- - Continuing our weekly conversations . . . - The deal: Each Thursday, we announce a question of the week. We seek to ask questions that spark interesting conversations, whether it simply be about books, traditions, spiritual disciplines, more theological matters, or anything related to life in general. You can join in our conversations two ways: - 1. Leave a comment with your thoughts! - 2. Or, if you prefer, post an answer on your own blog and leave us a link to your post so we can comment and add to the conversation. If you post on your own blog, you are welcome to use the picture above as long as you link back to us somewhere in your post. - This week's question... In yesterday's article , Amy wrote, "If we do not know why we spurn the things of this world and choose God's ways instead, then are we fully honoring God?" What do you think? Do you think reading widely can be a safe tool to help us better understand the "things of this world...

- Continuing with our Wednesday Book Discussions, we're republishing this insightful article by Amy Leonard from our August 2007 issue. Enjoy! - - Why Read Classics? In years past, if you peeked in on a day in the life of Amy, you would likely have seen me curled down deep in my "comfy chair," reading Christian romances or mystery novels - not classic literature. In my mind, literature was dull...boring...blase. Of course, attempting Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness in ninth grade did not help me think of literature as accessible and enjoyable. Still, even milder classics left a bland taste in my mouth. - Today, if you peered into my room, you might find me in my white armchair, feet propped up on my antique foot stool, reading a novel by Chaim Potok or Virginia Woolf, or maybe a memoir by Lauren Winner , or a book of essays by C.S. Lewis. - What changed? - Well, I came to the realization that I knew very little, and I wanted to remedy my sorry state. T...

- "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only ...to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same." C.S. Lewis -

-  Dear Sisters in Christ, - When life changes, we learn it's possible to gaze forward and backward at the same time. I've found this doubly true this past year between college and law school. When law school preparations weren't reminding me of starting college, then my job as a college admissions counselor was. Considering the ways I've changed in five years from a Virginia college freshman to a Massachusetts law student has made this year both disheartening and encouraging; I'm confronted with my lingering sin, yet reminded of God's great grace. It's a privilege to share with you about God's work in my life - and honestly, it was hard to choose just one area! Yet as I thought about the ways God has increased my trust in His goodness, my thoughts turned to friendship. - The summer before starting college, I prayed for friends I hadn't even met. After being part of a small home school group, I was excited to attend a college where I w ou...

- - A trace of where we've been on the web this week... - Goodweave Raffle In her article 5 Steps to Fighting Slavery , Gracy Howard mentioned an excellent organization, Goodweave . Goodweave rescues children from the child handmade rug industry and provides schooling for them, while also selling child-labor-free rugs. And this year they're having a raffle for one of their beautiful rugs to raise more money for the children. Check it out! - We want Bloom! to be a fun webzine , resource, and community for you girls. It's our goal to provide challenging and encouraging articles and resources to build us all up as we journey together. But for those of you who miss the old format of the blog, where we occasionally mentioned what was going on in our little worlds - well, we each do have our own blogs, and today we thought we'd share them with you! - Jessina's blog : Cherry Hill Photography - Megan's blog : Journey through Life, Faith, and College - Joanna's ...

- - Continuing our weekly conversations . . . - The deal: Each Thursday, we announce a question of the week. We seek to ask questions that spark interesting conversations, whether it simply be about books, traditions, spiritual disciplines, more theological matters, or anything related to life in general. You can join in our conversations two ways: - 1. Leave a comment with your thoughts! - 2. Or, if you prefer, post an answer on your own blog and leave us a link to your post so we can comment and add to the conversation. If you post on your own blog, you are welcome to use the picture above as long as you link back to us somewhere in your post. - This week's question... - We would love to know and benefit from the things you've been learning! Is there anything God's been teaching you lately that you'd like to share? -

- Wednesdays are our "book days" around here. And today, Jessina and I are sharing what's on our to-read lists for this August. (Joanna is currently with a remote tribe in Panama, and will be throughout August - so I think it's safe to say she's not doing much reading this month!) Please feel free to share what you're reading this month, too - we'd love to hear! - Jessina: - 1 Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy by Jostein Gaarder 2 Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home by Richard Foster 3 Living the Christian Year by Bobby Gross 4 The Story of Art by E.H. Gombrich 5 Travel Photography Masterclass ed. by Ailsa McWhinnie 6 Confessions by St. Augustine Megan: - 1 Trusting God by Jerry Bridges 2 So Long, Insecurity by Beth Moore 3 Story: Substance, Style, Structure, and the Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee 4 The Invisible Touch: The Four Keys to Modern Marketing by Harry Beckwith 5 Culture Mak...

- “I realized anew that, just as we must learn to obey God one choice at a time, we must also learn to trust God one circumstance at a time. Trusting God is not a matter of my feelings but of my will. I never feel like trusting God when adversity strikes, but I can choose to do so even when I don’t feel like it. That act of the will, though, must be based on belief, and belief must be based on truth.” Jerry Bridges -

- - Thanks for your patience as we took a week off. Today we're back and sharing part three of Megan's series that she's compiled from a speech her father gave. If you haven't already, make sure to read the introduction, part one, and part two: Part I: Think Small, Because Small Changes the World Part II: Stand on Your Head, Because the World is Upside Down - Part III: Swim Upstream, But Stay in the Stream - The Bible tells how, during the time of the exodus out of Egypt, Moses sent twelve men to scope out the promised land. Ten came back with a daunting report: the land is inhabited by giants, it has high walls, it is heavily fortified. Only Caleb and Joshua dared to offer a dissenting opinion. And if they hadn’t, the Israelites might still be wandering. - This is your heritage. - You come from the bloodline of Joshua and the heritage of Caleb. Don’t stop now. - Be willing to swim upstream, to do things differently, to be that one Joshua voice offering a dissenting...