Emily Rachelle Writes

I haven't had a Friendlight (friend spotlight) in a good while.  Since Friendlights were inspired by my favorite posts of Bailey's, and her most recent post is a beautiful expression on friendship that touched my heart, I decided to bring them back - if only for today. Bailey from Big House in the Little Woods

Bailey from Big House in the Little Woods   I had friends -- I couldn't help myself -- but they weren't good enough. They all had some fault... I don't quite know how it happened, but a few years later I have several close friends who look nothing like me at all. Not a single one of my best friends is the same denomination as I or likes my same books or shares my same convictions or agrees with me in every single way. In that sense, we're not likeminded -- not in the sense I was searching for. Then again, I found girls who looked just like me -- homeschooled, skirt-wearing, homemakers-in-training types who had nothing in common with me. We weren't likeminded, in that sense, at all. I could not spill my heart in front of them like I could my other, different friends. I wondered at that for a long time. Really, it isn't a mystery at all. I had stumbled upon the profound truth that most "Biblical" Christians have sometimes swept unde...

I was invited to join this weekly posting link-up.  While I already have bloggy plans (and NaNoWriMo to work on), I wanted to share it with you. Erin from Courage Through Christ and Rebecca from Blessings Every Minute of My Life I am hosting a weekly blessings themed blog challenge along with Rebecca from Blessings Every Minute of My Life! Here is how the challenge works. Each week, there will be a theme or topic such as family, friends, Bible verses, etc. Both Rebecca and I will each do a post on a way that God has blessed us through the particular weeks theme. For example, if the theme is family, we would do a post about a family member that has been a blessing to us over the past week. Now here is where it gets fun. You all will then have a whole week to do a post of your own that follows the challenge theme and link it back to either my blog or Rebecca's using the challenge button located either on my sidebar or Rebecca's sidebar. The challenge...

Bailey from Big House in the Little Woods People have been convinced for two millennia that Jesus will return and return quickly, in our timetable. In terms of economy, morals, culture and persecution, I would not myself pin our time as the perfect pitch of turmoil. The Great Depression was horrible. So was the French Revolution. Rome's decadence. The World Wars. The Reformation period. For as many hits the world has taken, the current Western famine still has some pretty good pickings left. Things are lurching along at a troubling pace, undoubtedly. But while a good portion of Christendom predicts gloom and doom, I and many others hold out for hope. Hear me out. So much of Christianity has been wrapped up in Western culture that we think that losing the latter will lose the former. If America falls, all is lost! If we don't return to the Greatest Generation, we're doomed! If we don't wear suits and hats to church, we're heading for decay! Read...

Bailey from Big House in the Little Woods ...we define ourselves by marriage. Our unmarried years are marked by filling hope chests, overcoming crushes and trying to keep that binding verse: "She does him good all the days of her life." For all practical purposes, we're married to him presently. This becomes sticky when we start making life decisions. We fear going to college because what if that super cute, super spiritual boy at home won't pursue us if we're in another state? Or we go to college because that's where we find the good ones (to paraphrase godly women). We don't start this project or pursue that interest because, well, it doesn't really look good on a homemaker's transcript. Once precariously in the position of eligibility and yet perhaps on the brink of fifty years of spinsterhood, we stop asking, "What is Your will, Lord?" and start asking, "How will this help me find a husband?" This is frustr...

I know this post will be controversial; please, if you agree or disagree, the comment box is open to all opinions.  I have long felt this way about this popular series, but have never found the words myself.  Personally, some of Bailey's posts combined with my own thoughts and this post (its points on books in general and contentment) have made me rethink my stance on several issues.  I'd love to add your beliefs or thoughts to my considerations. Jane from Reviews by Jane   Romances today are unrealistic and have absolutely no purpose except make single girls fantasize about what they want to have and married woman uncontent with what they do. Most of them are painting images that are unpractical and are going to leave women disappointed with they life they have. Don't get me wrong, my opinion isn't that love stories are evil. Some of my favorite books have a side romance in them. But when the book focuses only on the passion with no discretion,...

Carlotta from pastor's girl's ponderings It's taught me that nothing is perfect -- no human, no blog, no situation, and most definitely not my life. When it comes to blogging, there are some trials I share on here, but this is not a dumping ground for every single thing that is going wrong in my life. That is what my diary is for. Honestly, the things that upset me every day are trivial and simply not worth rehashing. This space is a visual journal and a place to be creative, a place to remember the little things and chronicle my photographic journey. That's not to say that life can get overwhelming; on the contrary, I sometimes succumb to tears just wondering how I can possible be able to get everything done in time. These past few weeks have been incredibly wonderful and at the same time so overwhelming at the same time. Having my sister here completes us, but it's a balancing act, really, trying to fit in work and other tasks that still need to be done w...

Sarah Grace from Breezes Through the Meadow Almost every future homemaker in-training has a vision of what they would want to be like as a homemaker...right ? Or is it just me ? As a little girl, I wanted to be like Laura Ingalls Wilder, the genuine frontier girl. She stuck it out when times were rough. Each day she tackled the tasks ahead, trampled the hardships down, and always wanted to be a help to her family. Did I mention that she paid for over half of Mary's college tuition, and almost never wanted to spend a dime on herself ? She was sacrificing..But, as reality hits, I know that I would never be a Laura Ingalls Wilder. Read the rest of this post here .... Visit Sarah Grace here .....

Anna from The Daughter of a King I was frantic. I couldn't find another shirt - the one I had on was stained - my grocery list wasn't ready, I was about to cry, had been grouchy to Isaac and Becca, which made me feel horrible, and it was all my fault. I hadn't heard her tell me that we were going shopping today - two days before I was ready! Why must these things happen to me? WHY? I looked up at the wall with a tortured stare, consumed with my own pathetic misery, unhappy, unable to feel thanks that I was at least able to go shopping for the family groceries. Then, there, among the frantic racing and raging a mental picture flashed before me. I saw Jesus standing just on the other side of my closet door. His robes were white - almost glowing- in their spotlessness, His face seemed to shine. I, even in the mental image, was still crazily plowing through my closet, close to tears and raging, inwardly. Read the rest of this post here ... Visit Anna...

Bailey from Big House in the Little Woods We preach the gospel as if heaven is the end goal in salvation: "Make sure you know where you're going when you die! It could happen any minute, you know." Christ died, so it goes, so that we can end up in heaven, as opposed to hell -- so we could walk the streets of gold eternally instead of fester and burn at the other end of the spectrum. That has much more appeal than the happiness of being free from sin, enslaved to Christ. Most "Christians" today are happy with a heaven without Jesus. Heaven to them is just a welcome relief from hell. That's the most exciting aspect about it. They'll see their friends. They'll be blissful forever. They'll sing songs and wear wings and occupy a mansion. We're just glad to get out of a hard world. But our primary obsession about heaven should be that finally, finally we see Jesus face to face. We'll be rid of the sin that clouds our relat...

This week's Friendlight Friday is from a blog, but it's a special website blog. I feel very strongly on this issue and have since I first discovered it less than a year ago. This article is written by Lindsay and was posted on Abort73 I can only conclude that many of you have never made the choice that I did. If you had, wouldn’t you have told me more… because you care about me, right? You would have told me about the way the clinic smells of blood and death. You would have told me that undergoing a surgical abortion would be the worst pain I would ever experience. You would have told me that you can hear and feel the tissue being ripped away and sucked out of your body , and that even years later I wouldn’t be able to stand the sound of a normal household vacuum cleaner. You would have told me that they make post-abortive patients leave out of the back door because they don’t want anyone coming in to know what someone looks like going out. You would have told me tha...

AnnaKate from Just Us Girlz God has blessed me with so many times that I simply want to jump back into. There are two times that stand out in my memory, however, and strangely enough they both occurred in my mom's home state, Arizona. The first was about three years ago, when we traveled out for my grandfather's wedding. Jared and I were excited for three reasons, the first being obvious: our Pap-Pa was getting married again! Second, we were finally going to see the family we had heard so much about, the family my mom had grown up with. Third, we were going to the Grand Canyon the day after the wedding. This is where the moment picks up; I remember driving back from the Canyon, my eyes tracing the long flat lines of the red clay earth that surrounded us. Read the rest of this post here ... Read more about AnnaKate here ... 

Cathy from Periwinkle Confessions When I vowed to commit myself into an intimate relationship with Him, that meant I would have to consider if my dreams are a part of His. It sounds like marriage, actually. That His heart would be my heart. His plans would be my plans. How his heart beats should be how my heart would also beat. And I would have to submit and let Him lead, ALL OF THE TIME. Because He is my Lord and my God, and He loves me and cares for me. And honestly, thinking about it now… I`ve never been that intimate as I should, as I have promised. I thought that intimacy with Him meant to follow orders, to listen to His commands so I would live a good life. I thought intimacy just meant praying, and singing and sitting on my desk reading the Bible every morning.   Read the rest of this post here ... Visit Cathy's profile  here ... 

Bethany from A Pocket Full of Posies What Makes A Woman By Albert N. Raub, Normal Fifth Reader, 1878 Not costly dress nor queenly air; Not jeweled hand, complexion fair; Not graceful form nor lofty tread, Nor paint, nor curls, nor splendid head: Not pearly teeth nor sparkling eyes, Not voice that nightingale outvies; Not breath as sweet as eglantine, Not gaudy gems nor fabrics fine; Not all the stores of fashion’s mart, Not yet the blandishments of art; Not one, nor all of these combined, Can make one woman true, refined. Read the rest of this post.... Bethany's latest post... 

Today I decided to try something I'm calling Friendlight Fridays.  Every Friday, I'll share a post from one of my blogger friends or a blogger I love, and leave a link for anyone who likes it to follow that blog.  (The name was a cross between 'Friend' and 'spotlight.'  If anybody has a better idea, I'd love to hear it in the comments.  Follow-Me Friday didn't seem right and Friendly Fridays... well, I wasn't sure.) So this week's very first Friendlight is... Bailey! from Big House in the Little Woods (Big surprise, right? I couldn't help myself.) Random Acts of Kindness On a wet afternoon, the pavements slick with rain, the sky still grumbling over the busy streets, a woman makes her way through a row of parked cars. She carries a Walmart bag and a swing in her step, and as she passes each tear-streaked windshield, she takes a single flower from her bag and nestles it, carefully, atop the wipers. She sp...