Link Love

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Some links you might appreciate from the past week. We sung Passover Song during communion this week at my church and I chased down a friend to find out where the beautiful song came from. She told me about The Blood + The Breath by Caroline Cobb, and I haven't stopped listening. Caroline wrote a song for every book in the bible and this is a compilation of 12 of those songs, telling the story of redemption through the word of God. It's rich, deep, theologically robust, and musically enjoyable. Buy the album here.

I never get tired of Jared Wilson's blog. I read very few blogs these days, but I always know at Jared's I'll find three things: gospel-rich writing, winsome writing, and Jesus exalting writing. That's enough to keep me coming back. He's posted some good ones recently, so I'm just going to link to his blog. Do yourself a favor and subscribe.

"What do you do with a broken heart? Not a romantically broken one, but the one all of us carry around, the one broken by the fall. The one that caused David to seduce the hottest girl on campus. The one that caused Peter to not eat dinner with “the losers” (Galatians 2:11–12). The one that causes us to choose almost anything but Jesus." Sammy Rhodes is another writer I'm grateful for these days.

Rewriting scripture (or Valley of Vision prayers) in my own words has been one of the best spiritual disciplines for me. As someone whose heart is stirred most when her mind is engaged best, the rewriting of familiar words has helped me innumerable times to increase my faith. A mother and daughter undertook the rewriting of the Psalms in poetry. Justin Taylor has a bit on Harps Unhung here.

Bob and Julie Mendonza are from my church and have begun a home for children in Kenya. It is not an orphanage in the sense that these kids are available for adoption. No, instead the Mendonza's have already adopted them into their home, Naomi's Village. Their response to the crisis of poverty and systemic evil in Kenya has been to go in, raise up native Kenyans by native Kenyans for the health of Kenya. It is one of the most tangible expressions I've ever seen of Christ incarnate, inhabiting darkness, bringing light. Here's one of the most recent Coming Home stories.