Valley of Vision ✽ I Don't do Bowling

"Preserve me from a false estimate of the whole or a part of my character;
May I pay regard to my principles as well as my conduct,
 my motives as well as my actions.
Help me never to mistake the excitement of my passions
 for the renewing of the Holy Spirit,
  never to judge my religion by occasional impressions and
 impulses, but by my constant and prevailing disposition.
May my heart be right with thee,
 and my life as becometh the gospel.
....
Give me a large abundance of the supply of the Spirit of Jesus,
 that I may be prepared for every duty,
   love thee in all thy mercies,
  submit to thee in every trial,
  trust thee when walking in darkness
  have peace in thee amidst life's changes.
Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief and uncertainties."

-Excerpt from "The Valley of Vision; a collection of Puritan prayers and devotions", compiled by Author Bennett

This book is one of the best I could recommend, I think, y'all. Each prayer is full of encouragement, conviction, and they are short enough to fit into odd moments -I love it! Mama bought it used a while ago, and it came marked in, although it said "like new". She ordered a new one, because she had actually wanted to do a study through it and needed a clean copy, so she asked me if I wanted to take this one. I've slowly been working my way through it, and I think I'll just start it over when I'm done and make it a constant fixture on my bookshelf, haha :). It's really that good; I think that my top three books for the year have been "Choosing Gratitude", "Fervent", and this one :). I also kind of liked "Aunt Jo's Scrapbook", but only half of the stories would have made it high enough to count, and I liked "The Life and Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien", but I think I actually read half of that last year (I think? I can't remember for sure... maybe it was just before we moved. Either way, it feels like forever ago, and yet it's hard to believe that this year is almost over?!), so those ones were out, which made my choices a little easier to pick from... haha. But I really didn't read that much this year. That is something I definitely want to be making time for again!

At lunch this afternoon...
Tori, to the tune of "It's a Hard-Knock Life": "Don't it feel like the Bri is always bowling, don't it feel like she's never around."
Me: *blank stare* "I have been bowling in my life ONE TIME. And I wasn't good at it." (Not even recently, it was two years ago!)
Tori: "That's two times to many."
Me: "Nuhu-
...what? Two times?!"
Tori: "I saw you at that bowling alley. I mean bowling rink. Bowling alley.
...What is it?"

Oh, and Christmas posts will be coming full fury... after I brave going through all the pictures. Hahaha... it's kind of daunting, y'all, but I'll do it soon :).