Thursday, May 21, 2009

Bury Thy Sorrow

Go bury thy sorrow, the world hath its share;
Go bury it deeply, go hide it with care.
Go think of it calmly, when curtained by night;
Go tell it to Jesus, and all will be right.


Go tell it to Jesus, He knoweth thy grief;
Go tell it to Jesus, He’ll send thee relief;
Go gather the sunshine He sheds on the way:
He’ll lighten thy burden—Go, weary one, pray.


Hearts growing aweary with heavier woe
Now droop ’mid the darkness—Go, comfort them, go!
Go bury thy sorrow, let others be blessed;
Go give them the sunshine, tell Jesus the rest.




"The au­thor of the hymn was the daugh­ter of a min­is­ter. When she wrote these lines she was liv­ing with her bro­ther, whom she great­ly loved. He also was a min­is­ter, and had the usu­al cares and bur­dens to car­ry that are in­ci­dent to a pas­tor’s life. To him she con­fid­ed all her joys and sor­rows. One day, af­ter hav­ing dis­closed to him some pe­cul­iar tri­al which she was en­dur­ing, she was re­proached by her con­science for hav­ing need­less­ly add­ed to his al­ready num­er­ous cares. She stood by the open win­dow, and saw the long, hea­vy sha­dows cast by the tall pop­lar trees across the lawn, and the thought came to her:

“That is just what I have done to my brother! Why did I do it? Why did I not ra­ther bu­ry my own sor­row, and al­low on­ly words of cheer and bright­ness to reach his ears?”

With such thoughts in her mind, and with tears of re­gret fill­ing her eyes, she re­tired to her lit­tle at­tic bed­room, and there wrote the hymn above."


O! How this makes should make us realize how selfish we can sometimes be! We can be so wrapped up in our own sorrows, that we never look to see whether others are suffering or not, and we needlessly put more on their burden by unloading ours upon them!

This young woman obviously had a selfless demeanor. I do so earnestly wish that I could assume such a position. To abandon our sorrows, and comfort and encourage those around us in whatever grief they might be feeling, would be a way to be looking to the interests of others, as it says in Philippians 2:4.

There are many times when we undergo trials and tribulations of many kinds. Take the instance of Cyrano de Bergerac... the play. He falls in love with the beautiful Roxane, but he is asked to woo her for a more handsome, but less articulate young man, Christian. Cyrano does this, and wins the heart of Roxane... but not for himself—for Christian. The young couple are married and live happily, but Cyrano sacrificed his love for Roxane in order that Christian would be enabled to marry her. He buried his own sorrow deep within his heart, and performed an act of love towards Roxane by wooing her for the man that she would love and be happy with. (Now I'm finding it hard to articulate... I can't seem to say very well what it is I want to say.. :P)

But back to the hymn...

I know from experience that when any member in the family is not happy, it affects everybody else's mood. However, if that person, no matter what they were going through, could offer a cheerful and good-natured word, then who knows what encouragement it would bring! This brings to mind the verse to a poem...

"The ill-timed truth we might have kept—
Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung!
The word we had not sense to say —
Who knows how grandly it had rung!"

I can't seem to express my thoughts the way I want to. That's rather frustrating, you know. But I want to say something along the lines of this...

The people who truly love you care about you (obviously). So, when you are undergoing some affliction, it will matter to them. They will not just pass it by indifferently, but they will fervently pray for you, they will worry about you. And sometimes, you might unburden yourself so much that you never even think of what might be occurring in their soul. They might be happy to simply have you be oblivious to their affliction, but how much better it would be to listen then to talk, to encourage rather than complain! Some people hide their sorrow so well that you would never guess what affliction is occurring in the labyrinth of their soul. Some make their sorrow public. But even so! Whatever it is, we should always seek to be attentive, and to encourage and comfort where it might be needed. :)

But anyhow... I just had some thoughts on that subject that I wanted to share. :)

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Adrenalized With La Rochelle

So, yesterday Rachel came to visit! (Oh, and I call her La Rochelle because... I do...) Actually, she came up because she participated in something called National History Day. She wrote a paper about Thomas Edison, and went all the way to the State Competition, won first place, and is going to Nationals in Washington DC in June! Hurrah! But anyways, there was this reception for the National History Day people in Cleveland, and... uh... she came for it and took advantage of the opportunity by staying with us! (Hurrah, again!) Right now she's hugging me saying, "I'm so happy I got to stay with you guys!" What can I say!

So anyways, whenever we two are around each other, ever single care that we've had is entirely abandoned, because of the immense encouragement we are to each other. But this goes really far... I mean, we get not just hyper, but adrenalized. I've posted some pictures of her visit so far. As most of you know, she's an amazing photographer, and so I posted some examples of her amazingness. :P



Talk about red lips... :P

Isn't she sooooo cute??

Um, no comment?

Rachel seems to have a talent for taking pictures of people when they're in the middle of doing something... Like, chewing an apple. :p

My little boy Boo! :)

Okay, so the only reason that I posted this blurry picture is because one of my eyes is blue, and the other is green. I just thought that was weird/cool!

Aw...

This picture is amazing... She's so sweet and "innocent" in it... I just wish it was like that all the time. *huge wink*

I don't know what it is about Tirzah... She's so photogenic and I can't help posting pics of her. :)

And the only reason I post pictures of me is because this is *my* blog. ;)


I *love* Rachel's face! It's so classic!


Is that really what I look like when I read my emails?? I need to smile more. :P

On the way to the Western Reserve Historical Society for National History Day reception. :)

Wow... Talk about beautiful.


Okay, so I love this picture of Rachel. She hates it. :P


aw...

She's so unbelievably adorable...


Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters...


LOL! Olivia's face is hilarious!


And WHY do I post embarrassing pictures of myself on my blog? I don't even know. My self-esteem level has dropped 40%.

Monday, May 18, 2009

The Adventures Of The Hopkins Family With Their First Attempt At Making The Formidable Dessert Formally Called Lemon Meringue Pie And The Consequences

I always thought that anyone could bake; that it did not require talent beyond knowing your ingredients and measuring items etc. But I have since been proven wrong.

Last Tuesday we celebrated my father's father's 90th birthday. (It was originally May 10th, but Tuesday was the day that all his children could gather together.) His favorite pie is Lemon Meringue. In our attempts to honor our grandfather we (out of respect for the people involved in making this pie, I will not list any names) attempted making one. However, it was our very first time. It was then that I learned that anyone can bake, but there are only some people who can bake something that is actually edible. Observe the picture below.



How could such a dreadful catastrophe such as this occur? The pie crust has sunk down, the mixture underneath the meringue is burned, and the meringue itself is flat. Of course we were all in a deplorable state. We stared at each other, and the pie, said "oh no" and "oh dear" and "oh well" a great many times, and then it was time to go food shopping. We wouldn't have time to mend our error.

GRANDMOTHERS TO THE RESCUE!

Have you ever listened to your grandmother talk about the recipes that her mother used to make? Does your grandmother make those good old time recipes that just they can make because they have the old time touch? My grandmother does. And she saved the day. Quickly looking at the clock, she thought she could whip up two of her famous lemon meringue pies before we had to leave. And so she started. And here is where I discover that it does take talent to bake. Observe the picture below.



A true Lemon Meringue Pie....

So, this is how the pie SHOULD look like. The pies came out of the oven, were thrown in a box, and then we left. The timing was absolutely perfect, and dear Nana saved the day. Of course, this talent can be passed down, if she teaches us how she does it, but we'll never forget this incident when we tried to make lemon meringue pies and failed. :P

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Ramblings Of A Tired Girl

I'm sitting here trying to think of something to post about, and realizing that that's a rather pointless thing to do. However, I've decided I want to write something right now because the idea of going upstairs to read Great Expectations isn't very thrilling right now... and I would like to do something thrilling. Writing is thrilling, you know, at least for me. :D The reason Great Expectations can't be described as thrilling is because Chloe told me how it ends, and it renders me extremely sad, you know, because I don't like it when people can't marry the person they love.

I was reading the Bible yesterday, and I saw in 1 Corinthians (I think it's 1 Corinthians?) the passage that says: "Do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature." I think that's what it says. Anyhow, I was really convicted, because for an extremely long time I did not like the idea of growing up. Can't say that right now it's too appealing, but honestly I was convicted. I want to be a child. I delight in those little childish things. I really love being a girl, and I'm filled with a kind of bliss (ya know... bittersweet...) when I look on all those memories I had from my really early days. I'm still young, but I'm furiously enjoying my youth as passionately as possible, because these days will never come again, and I know that I'll miss them. But that verse convicted me. I do need to be mature in my thinking. I was a child, but I'm growing up, and my thinking needs to grow up with me. I'm not exactly sure how to be mature in one's thinking, but I do think that it can start with studying the Scriptures, and one thing I dearly want to learn is wisdom, which will help me be mature in my thinking.

Do you know, I'm rather sorry that I can't write anything better than that tonight. It's almost impossible you know, for me to do better tonight. I'm in a strange state of mind, and that state of mind is telling me (I don't know which part of me) that I need to go to sleep. And as an end note, I don't like it when my foot goes to sleep, because it means that it's going somewhere that I want to go without me.


*****Because I Think We're Nonsensical*****


I don't even know why I humiliate myself like this. ;)



"parting is such sweet sorrow..."

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

*****Because I Think She's Pretty*****




Honestly, I think I have the prettiest sister in the world.