Ingenue Mom

(Need to catch up? I wrote about Chapter 1 here .) Chapter 2: Magnificent Monotony Quotes in italics are Brennan Manning's words from the book This chapter is all about how big God's love is. It begins with a discussion of the perfection and majesty required to create a universe like ours. Looking at the world around us, it is easy to acknowledge that majesty, but Brennan Manning argues that we have a difficulty attributing that same majestic quality to the depth of God's love. We find all sorts of ways and reasons to make His love smaller. This is another thing Brennan (I refer to him by his first name now because I feel like we're friends) talked about in the video I posted with Chapter 1 - the way we allow God's love to become as small and judgmental as we can be. The God of the legalistic Christian...is often unpredictable, erratic, and capable of all manner of prejudices. When we view God this way, we feel compelled to engage in some sort of ma...

I've been memorizing 2 Corinthians 12:9 after reading Chapter 1 of Ragamuffin Gospel . I mentioned before that I haven't memorized scripture like that since high school. I just haven't made it a part of my daily practice. Well, just in the last couple of days, it's made a huge difference!  First I looked at some strategies for memorization & here are the ones that really stuck out to me: 1 - Memorize the Reference This way you can go back & look it up if you forget. 2 Corinthians 12:9 2 - Memorize the Theme or Main Idea This way you know generally what that verse was referring to. 2 Corinthians 12:9 is about God's grace and His power even through my own weaknesses and imperfections. 3 - Focus on the Key Words Again, just a strategy to remember the overall important points and to help you kinda put it together like a puzzle. 2 Corinthians 12:9 important words: grace, sufficient, power, perfect, weakness, boast, gladly 4 - Put ...

First of all, watch this video because it is the reason I wanted to read this book...     I am one of those people who tends to put this list before God of all the reasons why He shouldn't really love me the way His word says He does. I have this running tally of reasons why I'm not good enough, why I'm unlovable. Just reading the back of Ragamuffin Gospel was like, "Oh wow! Someone else like me!" It talks about grace and love, even if we are ragamuffins - dirty, bedraggled and beat up. He still smiles at us, still sees us as the object of His "furious love." I need to read more about this.   Chapter 1: Something is Radically Wrong (quotes from Ragamuffin are in italics) The American Church today accepts grace in theory, but denies it in practice....The emphasis is on what I do rather than on what God is doing.    Right off the bat, he has struck a chord with me in terms of the issues I've always had with the American...