Some Good Resolutions for the New Year

It’s the last month of 2021 and we are starting to look forward to a new year. For some of us that means thinking about what we want to change or improve in our lives. Here are some helpful resolutions for any Christian from Harriet Beecher Stowe. You might consider putting them on your list:

“Let us all resolve–First, to attain the grace of SILENCE. Second to deem all FAULT-FINDING that does no good a SIN, and to resolve when we are happy ourselves, not to poison the atmosphere for our neighbors by calling on them to remark every painful and disagreeable feature of their daily life. Third, to practice the grace and virtue of PRAISE.”

If we could all do this in 2022,,we’d be happier and so would those around us!

For more about Harriet Beecher Stowe see

Harriet Beecher Stowe by Noel Gerson — Book Review

A Lenten Quote

The Cloud of Witnesses

Final Questions For Lent

“There are often bound to us, in the closest intimacy of social or family ties, natures hard and ungenial, with whom sympathy is impossible , and whose daily presence necessitates a constant conflict with an adverse influence.  There are, too, enemies open or secret, — whose enmity we may feel yet cannot define.  Our Lord, going before us in this hard way, showed us how we should walk.  It will be appropriate to the solemn self- examination of the period of Lent to ask ourselves, is there any false friend or covert enemy whom we must learn to tolerate, to bear with, to pity and forgive?  Can we in silent offices of love wash their feet as the Master washed the feet of Judas?  And, f we have no real enemies are there any bound to us in the relations of life whose habits and ways are annoying and distasteful to us?  Can we bear with them in love?  Can we avoid harsh judgements, and harsh speech, and the making known to others our annoyance?  The examination will probably teach us to feel the infinite distance between our divine Ideal, and change the censoriousness of others into prayer for ourselves.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe

I’ve come to really appreciate the work of Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of the famous anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.  She was a staunch Christian and prolific writer.  For more of Harriet, see these posts:

A Lenten Quote

Harriet Beecher Stowe by Noel Gerson — Book Review

For more on the topic of self-examination:

Examine Yourself

Examination of Conscience

 

 

A Lenten Quote

“Nothing could make the period of Lent so much of a reality as to employ it in a systematic effort to fix the mind on Jesus.  The history in the Gospels is so well worn that it often slips through the head without affecting the heart.  But if, retiring into solitude for a portion of each day, we should select some one scene or trait or incident in the life of Jesus, and with all the helps we can get seek to understand it fully tracing it in the other Scriptures, etc., we should find ourselves insensibly interested, and might hope that in this effort of our souls to understand Him, Jesus Himself would draw near, as He did of old to the disciples on the way to Emmaus.  This looking unto Jesus and thinking about Him is a better way to meet and overcome sin than any physical austerities or spiritual self-reproaches.  It is by looking at Him, the Apostle says, ‘as in a glass’ that we are ‘changed into the same image, as from glory to glory.'”

Harriet Beecher Stowe

For more information on Harriet Beecher Stowe go to these posts:

Harriet Beecher Stowe by Noel Gerson — Book Review

The Cloud of Witnesses

The Cloud of Witnesses

A while back I read a biography of Harriet Beecher Stowe Harriet Beecher Stowe by Noel Gerson — Book Review and discovered she was much more than the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.  Today I found one of her quotes, and would like to share it, particularly as Hebrews 12:1-2 is my life verse The Cloud of Saints

“We are encompassed about by a cloud of witnesses, whose hearts throb in sympathy with every effort and struggle, and who thrill with joy at every success.  How should this thought check and rebuke every worldly feeling and unworthy purpose, and enshrine us, in the midst of a forgetful and un-spiritual world, with an atmosphere of heavenly peace!  They have overcome–have risen–are crowned, glorified;  but they still remain to us, our assistants;  our comforters;  and in every hour of darkness their voice speaks to us:  ‘So we grieved, so we struggled, so we fainted, so we doubted;  but we have overcome, we have obtained, we have seen, we have found,–and in our victory behold the certainty of thy own.'”