G R A C E ' S J O U R N A L

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

24 Things I Love about Andrew

This is for my husband's 24th birthday that just passed.

1. He loves the Lord
2. He has an insistent and zealous passion for holiness
3. He’s humble
4. He’s teachable
5. He’s inquisitive (Such a rare quality. This also betrays a humble spirit)
6. He’s beautiful. I love his face.
7. He loves our son so much. He is so tender to him.
8. He’s very gracious.
9. I love the way he loves me – so tender, yet raw; so constant. He wants to know me more and more, yet still increases in his love for me!
10. He makes me better. He improves me. And when he knows how to do something and wants me to know how to do it too, he teaches me how to do it.
11. He’s very patient as I stumble through the lessons.
12. We enjoy New Jersey together. We enjoy New York City together. We enjoy the rain and the fall together. We enjoy everything together.
13. We love practicing hospitality together.
14. We love seeing God work in people’s hearts through ministry.
15. He’s open-minded.
16. He’s a diligent worker and loves to work – anything from working in a grocery shop to being an engineer. He excels when he sets his mind to it.
17. He’s very efficient and helps me learn to be more effective too.
18. He’s a servant, always wanting to help others.
19. We have so much fun together and laugh together. We can talk about anything together. I’ve never ever had that with anyone.
20. He’s a great listener.
21. He’s a wonderful spiritual leader and perfectly suited to lead me – able to stand up to and withstand my strong personality, yet gentle and not overbearing. I really respect that.
22. He is careful not to break me, frustrate me, or stifle me. He encourages me and attentively keeps track of my strengths so that he can help me cultivate them. He wants me to be the most enhanced version of what God has made me. How mature and not self-centered for one no more than 24 years old!
23. When he realizes he needs to do something or change something, or realizes something is right, he doesn’t procrastinate but takes care of it right away.
24. He is a picture of the gospel. How gracious and how faithful the Lord has been to Him! How He has transformed him into a new creation!

To sum up, I love Andrew because he’s Andrew. Others may share similar characteristics – although I don’t think I’ve met anyone with all of them – but none of them are Andrew.

2 Corinthians 5

Our Heavenly Dwelling

¹Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. ²Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, ³because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. ⁴For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. ⁵Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

⁶Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. ⁷We live by faith, not by sight. ⁸We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. ⁹So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. ¹⁰For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

The Ministry of Reconciliation

¹¹Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience. ¹²We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart. ¹³If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. ¹⁴For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. ¹⁵And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

¹⁶So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. ¹⁷Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! ¹⁸All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: ¹⁹that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. ²⁰We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. ²¹God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

G R A C E ' S J O U R N A L :

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Wednesday, September 21, 2005

24 Things I Love about Andrew

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

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