Thankful Thurday

I’m thankful for

• long daylight hours to grow my garden in a short summer season.
• beautiful sunsets through smoky skies.
• windows to brighten my home naturally.
• electric lights. I’m thankful I live after electricity was harnessed and lightbulbs were invented.
• winter lights, too—the moon and the aurora. They will brighten my nights when summer is over.
• the Light who came into the world.
• this verse, my favorite: “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:6, ESV)

Linked Together: On Prayer

Right Attitude

• Boldness: Aaron Armstrong quotes J. C. Ryle on holy boldness in prayer—not the kind of presumptious boldness that demands things of God, but a confident boldness that results from realizing “the believer’s privileges.”
  
  
• Gratitude: Thabiti Anyabwile answers Question 39 of the New City Catechism.
  
  

  NCC Q39: With what attitude should we pray? from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo. 

Good Books

• Valley of Vision. I use it frequently, especially at the end of busy days. Here’s some of the story behind this collection of Puritan prayers (Justin Taylor).
  
  
• Psalms. Josh Blount says “the Psalms are one of God’s provisions to strengthen our prayer lives” (The Blazing Center). There’s an appropriate Psalm for almost any life situation. I’m partial to laments—inspired words, words approved by God, recorded for us to use in difficult circumstances.

Thanksgiving After Recovery from the Small-pox

Sally Wesley before she was scarred by smallpox.Sing to the Prince of life and peace
Let every tongue my Saviour bless
So strong to help in danger’s hour, 
So present in His healing power,
And from the margin of the grave
So good a dying worm to save.

Can I forget the solemn day
When grappling with my foe I lay?
O’er my weak flesh from foot to head
The loathsome leprosy was spread,
The foulest plague our race can feel, 
The deadliest fruity of sin and hell.

The poison boil’d in every vein,
The fire broke out in raging pain,
I sunk oppress’d through all my powers,
With bruises, wounds and putrid sores,
My body racked in every part, 
And sick to death my fainting heart.

Jesus beheld my last distress,
And turn’d the current of disease,
He stopp’d my spirit on the wing,
And chased away the grisly king;
His wonder-working arm I own,
And give the praise to God alone.

He in the kind physician came,
(Bow all to Jesus’ balmy name!)
Amidst my weeping friends He stood,
And mix’d the cordial with His blood,
Display’d His head-reviving art,
And pour’d his life into my heart.

Brought from the gates of death, I give
My life to Him by whom I live;
Raised from a restless bed of pain,
I render Him my strength again,
And only wait to prove His grace,
And only breathe to breath His praise.

—Charles Wesley

This hymn was written a few years after Charles Wesley’s wife Sally nearly died of smallpox. (They lost their toddler son to this disease at the same time.) It’s a thanksgiving hymn I’ll never have occasion to sing—and that’s something to be thankful for, too.

Kim Shay’s post quoting Richard Baxter reminded me of Charles and Sally Wesley. In the quote, Baxter advises men not to put too much value on physical beauty when seeking a wife, but to “[b]ear in mind what work the pox or any other withering sickness will make with that silly beauty you so admire.” 

According to Michael Haykin, after she recovered from small pox, Sally Wesley’s face was “deeply marred” by scars, and she “looked twice her age.” If you’re curious about the damage small pox can do to the skin (I’ll admit I was.), here’s a photo.

Charles Wesley, by the way, continued to call his wife beautiful, even with the pox scars.

I recommend Michael Haykin’s lecture on the marriage of Charles and Sally Wesley. (There’s also a transcript, if you prefer reading to listening.)