Tom comes home earlier on Fridays and we relax and enjoy a glass of wine before dinner.  I look forward to Friday evenings.  We rarely ever go out on Fridays--we just stay home and take it easy!

Saturdays are busy, busy, busy; full of activities and chores and shopping and errands and that's fun, too, but Fridays are the best!

I'm grateful for a new, awesome resource I just read about at Nathan Bingham's blog:  Covenant Radio, soon to become 24/7 streaming Reformed radio! 

Starting 11/30/09, Lord willing, we will have a full 24 hour programming set each day, including rebroadcasts of Covenant Radio programs, more teaching and exposition, music and more.

Wow!  Look at the schedule that's lined up fo for the week of November 23rd:

6-8 AM: Bible Reading and Music
8-9 AM: Old Testament Study: The Book of Genesis by Dr. Joel Beeke
9-11 AM: Music
11-12 Noon: Systematic Theology Lectures: Reformed Theology 101 by Greg Cumbee
12-1 PM: Music
1-2 PM: New Testament Study: Book of Romans by Dr. Alan Cairns
2-3 PM: Music
3-4 PM: Church History Lectures: History of the Reformation by Dr. Joe Morecraft
4-5 PM: Music

I am so thankful for all the great resources online!  We are rich!

Thanks, Rebecca for collecting all our thankful posts in one place!

Fast forward thirty-one years.  Our days are full--our boys, our grandson, our home, our lives together and still the days seem to drag between about 4 and 5:30 as I anticipate Tom coming home from work.  Sometimes it seems as though 5:30 will never come!  Because I still love him--even more than I did when we got married--and I still look forward to being with him every day.

Happy 31st Anniversary, Tom!  I love you!

I need only read my daily Dictionary Word of the Day to find something for which to be thankful this morning.

As many of you know, I am in the third year of leading a Bible Study in the book of Hebrews.  Three years and still not finished?? you may be thinking.  Yes, that's a long time but it's a complex book and its subject matter illumines both the Old and the New Testaments and develops a detailed picture of the Person and the Work of Christ--in other words, there's a lot there!!

This is not the first time I've studied Hebrews by any means.  I had a very good working understanding of the content and the author's purpose before we began this study, but the difference this time is the addition of the use of commentaries and the benefit we have all gained by the exegetical skills of some remarkable men of God.

Each week, I begin my preparation with my own inductive study of the text, using a Bible study method that I've cobbled together from many different sources and techniques over the years.  (Someday I'll sit down and write a post about how I go about it.)  Then I go to the commentaries--Calvin, Aquinas, Owen, Richard Phillips, Matthew Henry and sometimes Gill, and Stedman.  THAT's where the 'real' exegesis comes in!  No matter how carefully and diligently I have done my own study, I am always amazed at how much more there is to learn from the text!  Each one of those men bring their God-given gifts and their education and knowledge to their work and I, a middle aged woman in Chicagoland living today in America, receive the benefit of all that!

When my friends Carol and Dorothy and I get together to discuss what we've learned in our week's study, we all benefit from each other's preparation.  Dorothy reads John Brown and Carol reads Matthew Poole and another 'dead theologian' whose name I can never remember (Geoffrey Something. . .)

Pooling it all together makes for a lively discussion.  Our commentators don't always agree, so that makes it interesting and even when they do, they often come to the same conclusion through different means.

Exegesis.  It's a good thing.

Pop on over to Rebecca Writes and see what other bloggers are thankful for!

Pop over to Rebecca Writes and see what other bloggers are thankful for

This morning, he added a new part to the chase; he has to say hi to a picture that was taken of me when I was around four years old.  He is quite attached to that picture today.  He points and smiles and flirts with it.

I'm so thankful for the opportunity to spend some time with my grandson today.  I had some other things planned but I'm not worried; it'll all get done.  For now I'm playing with Elliott. . .

I'm thankful that my new sourdough starter is working and that I had JUST enough flour to get the loaves kneaded and shaped.

Most of all, I'm thankful for my friend, Heidi, who coached me along last year when I first started playing around with sourdough after many sourdough-less years.  Take a look at the beautiful loaves she makes!  She's a true bread baking pro!

Want to see what others are thankful for?  Rebecca is collecting all our thankful posts in one place.  If you're writing thankful posts, be sure to let Rebecca know!

Hebrews 4:9  So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 10 for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

Christ for the world we sing;
The world to Christ we bring
With loving zeal;
The poor and them that mourn,
The faint and overborne,
Sin-sick and sorrow-worn,
Whom Christ doth heal.

Christ for the world we sing;
The world to Christ we bring
With fervent pray'r;
The wayward and the lost,
By restless passions tossed,
Redeemed at countless cost
From dark despair.

Christ for the world we sing;
The world to Christ we bring
With one accord;
With us the work to share,
With us reproach to dare,
With us the cross to bear,
For Christ our Lord.

Christ for the world we sing;
The world to Christ we bring
With joyful song;
The newborn souls whose days,
Reclaimed from error's ways,
Inspired with hope and praise
To Christ belong.

Trinity Hymnal #371

It is a blessed thing to study the Scriptures.  It is a privilege not only to read the Scriptures for ourselves, but to hear them read by others.  It is not sufficient for our blessedness that we read and hear the Scriptures, but we must obey the things that are written.

Matthew Henry

I thought he might be stiff and sore this morning but he's feeling fine!  Praise God!

There's something to be thankful for at all times!  What are you thankful for today?  See what others are thankful for at Rebecca Writes.