A Quiet Simple Life | Sallie Borrink

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:23

A Quiet Simple Life

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Sallie Borrink

Two Reasons I’m Prioritizing Sleep


A number of months ago, the nurse practitioner said something that stuck with me. She mentioned that the reason we often have to go to the bathroom shortly after we go to bed is because our body starts removing all the fluid inflammation more efficiently once we are lying down. This was relevant to me because I was experiencing swelling in my lower legs. I noticed on the nights when I slept longer, there was a difference in my ankles. (I’ve always had slim ankles except when pregnant.)

I haven’t had time to write about some of the changes I’ve made this year, but one of them is going to bed much earlier. My goal is to be in my bed by 10:15 and lying down and reading on my Kobo by 10:30. That might not sound early to you, but in recent years I have often been up until 12:00 or even 12:30 without getting to sleep until 1:00. 

The extra time sleeping has had a significant impact on my legs. I have had no swelling since I started doing this. I think my body simply wasn’t getting enough time to do its job.

The other reason I’m prioritizing sleep is for the sake of my brain. There is research regarding how the brain removes waste while we sleep. My brain is very busy all day long. It needs more of a break and that is one of my goals for this year. I have also noticed that by getting more sleep, I feel more mentally clear. How much of it is simply the rest and how much of it is the waste removal, I don’t know. But there is definitely a difference.

I’ve always known sleep is important and I’ve written about sleep many times. But it has been a good reminder at this point in my life to make it a priority again.

Photo credit

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We Are Living in The Truman Show


If you’ve never watched the movie The Truman Show, I highly recommend you do so. If you watched it many years ago, consider watching it again. After all you’ve lived through in recent years, you’ll see it through a totally different lens.

Caroline and I watched it for one of her cinema studies last year. The parallels to what we are living through are eerily familiar and unsettling.

The good news is the freedom we will find on the other side. But make no mistake about it. Americans are in the process of discovering everything around them is a carefully constructed lie.

I feel sorry for the people who are truly clueless and are just now figuring out something is terribly wrong.

And we’ve barely even scratched the surface.

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We’re All Sick (Updated)


January 31 update:

Caroline and I went to the doctor yesterday. She has something going on in her Eustachian tube. I had a chest xray and have some low-key bronchitis. Thankfully not the pneumonia that is all over the place. We’re on the mend, but it has been slow.

The timing of this illness is interesting. I had been thinking about making some significant changes around the early part of the year, but got sick before I could implement them. I have been reminded of this post of mine from 2005: He Drew Me Aside – “I Needed the Quiet” by Alice Hansche Mortenson. 

Original January 26 post:

If you follow my other website, you already know our family has been sick because I mentioned it in the inauguration day post comments. I think I’m on the mend enough to start getting back to some of my extra activities.

David came down with whatever this is 11 days ago. I’ve been sick for 9 days and Caroline has been down for 7. David and I are past the stuck in bed phase, but Caroline isn’t.

We’ve been told by our doctor’s office and people we know who have had this that it lingers. We’re hopeful when each of us hits the two week mark we’ll be feeling as close to 100% as possible.

Other than the sound of coughing, our house has been pretty quiet. This is one of those colds that features a cough and significant fatigue so there has been lots of laying around and not much conversation. I told David and Caroline I am beyond ready to get back to a normal routine. It has been weeks and weeks of everything but normalcy. I doubt I’ll get it this week since Caroline was the last of us to become ill. But we need to be to that point next Monday – come hell or high water.

I cannot believe it is almost February.

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The Angry Christian Men Who Disdain Women


One of the indicators of the truly godly men led by the Holy Spirit in the days ahead will be this.

Can a Christian man control his righteous anger toward what ungodly women have done in this culture and not allow it to influence how he relates to his sisters in Christ?

There are some very vocal, angry Christian men who want their proverbial pound of flesh. You can feel their disdain towards women when you interact with them or read them online. It’s so obvious. They don’t care if you are a sister in Christ. In their mind and theology, your place is to shut up and go away. They are sick of women with opinions and don’t want to hear anything from a woman. They don’t care about the merits of your remarks. You simply have no place speaking to a man, especially if he decides you are correcting him (see the comments on my post Joel Webbon on Women | Vision Forum 2.0 and Patriocentricity Again).

I honestly fear for the women in many of the very Calvinist and Reformed circles. The pendulum swing the other way will be a complete overcompensation. Many of the wives, daughters, sisters, etc. in the churches and homes will bear the brunt of it.

The Vision Forum and early 2000s patriarchy movement was driven by a desire to follow God and the Bible in the midst of a sick culture. While there were some bad actors who made terrible decisions, I do think many of the men who got involved with it had good intentions in the beginning. But it spun out of control for a variety of reasons and became a huge mess.

Although the words might sound similar, the men who espouse patriarchy today have a different motivation. The men of before pointed out the evils of feminism and Marxism while offering solutions. The men today are much more locked in on the female perpetrators. Many men will assume you are a feminist perpetrator even if you are a Christian. If you aren’t sold out to patriarchy, then you are suspect. And it probably goes without saying that if you are espousing opinions in public on anything other than child-rearing and cooking, then you are probably a closet feminist and therefore the enemy. 

These men are motivated by a desire to capture the culture and righteously punish those who did wrong. They will say they are doing it for the Lord, but I am doubtful that is driving some of them. In their zeal, I expect they will become ruthless. In their desire to make sure things are done the right way, they will congratulate each other that they are the ones who will do patriarchy “properly” because no one has ever done it as correctly as they will. (Isn’t it the socialists who express the same general idea?)

I sincerely hope I’m wrong. I hope wiser heads prevail. But there are some very mean and angry men who are ready to take over “in the name of Christ” as soon as they get the chance. 

Avoid being under their influence in real life at all costs. If you interact with them online, have a thick skin and don’t back down. Random men on the internet have no spiritual authority over you. Their convictions regarding their understanding of certain Bible verses have no authority over you. You have the Bible and Holy Spirit. 

I think this could get very, very ugly and make the previous debacle look like a picnic. 

In a related topic, I’m now reading Neither Complementarian nor Egalitarian: A Kingdom Corrective to the Evangelical Gender Debate.

Neither Complementarian nor Egalitarian: A Kingdom Corrective to the Evangelical Gender DebateNeither Complementarian nor Egalitarian: A Kingdom Corrective to the Evangelical Gender DebateNeither Complementarian nor Egalitarian: A Kingdom Corrective to the Evangelical Gender Debate

So far, I highly recommend it for anyone who feels that neither camp has done a good job of providing answers to the important questions. I’ll write more as I continue and finish it. 

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