To Change a World | Guest Post

by Melanie Anderson

unset Park is a little piece of fairytale on the coast of one of the Great Lakes, about twenty or so minutes from where I live.  It looks like just a hill with the lake in the distance until you are a couple feet from the edge and realize you are standing at the top of a wall of rock falling to the thin rocky beach below.  It is one of my favorite places to go to.  It feels like, for a brief period of time, I can actually step into a fairytale world, or at least the Atlantic coast.  I could sit on the edge of one of the crags or stand on the beach below for hours, watching the sun's journey towards the western horizon and thinking.  Because the whole atmosphere is very conducive for thinking.

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 On a recent visit to Sunset Park, I decided to watch the sunset alone from the beach at the foot of the crags.  It's a rocky climb down, but if you just find the right place, it's not to steep.  I climbed down to the edge of the water and sat on a log that had, some time back, tumbled down from the height above.  I watched the waves rushing towards my feet and then falling back again into the vast expanse of water, which, at our point in the lake, looks like it could go on forever to the edge of the world.

As I sat there at the edge of the water, my mind deep in thought, I realized what I want to do with my life.

Daughters-in-Waiting

by Hillary McFarland

Note: Recently I asked my readers on facebook what topics would be helpful for where you are right now in your life, in your faith, and your walk with the Lord as you sort through the sensitive issues addressed here at Quivering Daughters. I received excellent feedback and will be working on articles based on those suggestions for the future, but want to extend that request here, too. What topics would you find helpful, encouraging, or pertinent? Please leave a comment or email me at hillary @ quiveringdaughters dot com. 

ithin the conservative homeschooling movement, women who stay at home until marriage are often considered “daughters-in-waiting,” while those who do not are sometimes considered rebellious or worldly. I know and respect many who are stay-at-home daughters and wrote an article entitled Daughters in Waiting: Adult Daughters at Home which is included in my book.

This Beautiful Crushing

For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through 
Jesus Christ. (John 1:17)
Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel 
that has crushed it.
~ Mark Twain 

by Hillary McFarland

n intriguing story in the Old Testament recounts the life of a young orphaned girl named Hadassah. Initially chosen to become the Queen of Persia because of her beauty, a perspective of this calling offered by her cousin Mordecai also bears wisdom for us. He said,

“For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4)

Queen Esther's brave reply, with her own life on the line, bore the fruit of life for her Jewish brothers and sisters. 

“...I will go to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish!”

If I perish, I perish. This resolve and commitment is required of us, sometimes, too. Actually, it's something Jesus talked about as a requirement for discipleship.

     Occasionally people ask why I didn't focus more on the sins of quivering daughters in my book.

God's Prescription for Your Discouragement

by Eric Pazdziora

     I've been saving this for a rainy day, and I think it's gotten sufficiently damp. This got its start a few years ago as a comment on someone else's blog post and quickly gained a life of its own.
     The blog post in question was written by a person who had recently become a Christian and felt guilt and remorse over their past sins. "At the time," they wrote, "I thought nothing of it, but now I feel dirty and ashamed. I feel I have let God down and that my relationship with Him will never be at its best because of my indiscretion."