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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Happy Birthday To Me!


Today is my birthday! I wanted to share the perfect-for-me birthday gifts I received from Caroline and David.

They love me so much they went to seven stores around the greater Grand Rapids area to find my favorite candy bars in stock. The Enjoy Life Ricemilk Crunch is the only candy bar I’ve found that I can eat and they are so good. Very sweet, but so good. I now have a little stash of 10 to last me for a bit along with my Enjoy Life Dark Chocolate Morsels.

Caroline and David happened across the Conspiracy Theory board game while Christmas shopping. They thought it sounded like fun (and appropriate!) so they bought it for me. We’ve had a lot of fun playing the game after dinner during the winter months,

I was surprised how many conspiracy theories I had never even heard of. There were some I knew of but had never read anything about them. But there were many that were completely new to me. I need to take a few minutes and add some of them to my list of conspiracy theories and weird stories. LOL!

Anyway, all that to say that we’ve gone through all the cards that came with the original game so David and Caroline purchased the 2018 Expansion Pack for my birthday. There is also a Travel Edition that I imagine will eventually make its way into our home.

I’m very blessed to have a husband and daughter with whom I can celebrate my birthday and enjoy all the quirks of real life. God has been very good to me and I’m thankful. ♥

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The Centurion’s Faith


Luke 7:1-10

When Jesus had concluded His discourse in the hearing of the people, He went to Capernaum. There a highly valued servant of a centurion was sick and about to die. When the centurion heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders to ask Him to come and heal his servant. They came to Jesus and pleaded with Him earnestly, “This man is worthy to have You grant this, for he loves our nation and has built our synagogue.”

So Jesus went with them. But when He was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends with the message: “Lord, do not trouble Yourself, for I am not worthy to have You come under my roof. That is why I did not consider myself worthy to come to You. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell one to go, and he goes; and another to come, and he comes. I tell my servant to do something, and he does it.”

When Jesus heard this, He marveled at the centurion. Turning to the crowd following Him, He said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such great faith.” And when the messengers returned to the house, they found the servant in good health.

Matthew 8:5-13

When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came and pleaded with Him, “Lord, my servant lies at home, paralyzed and in terrible agony.”

“I will go and heal him,” Jesus replied.

The centurion answered, “Lord, I am not worthy to have You come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell one to go, and he goes; and another to come, and he comes. I tell my servant to do something, and he does it.”

When Jesus heard this, He marveled and said to those following Him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west to share the banquet with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! As you have believed, so will it be done for you.” And his servant was healed at that very hour.

John 4:43-54

After two days, Jesus left for Galilee. Now He Himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown. Yet when He arrived, the Galileans welcomed Him. They had seen all the great things He had done in Jerusalem at the feast, for they had gone there as well.

So once again He came to Cana in Galilee, where He had turned the water into wine. And there was a royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged Him to come down and heal his son, who was about to die.

Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will never believe.”

“Sir,” the official said, “come down before my child dies.”

“Go,” said Jesus. “Your son will live.”

The man took Jesus at His word and departed. And while he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was alive.

So he inquired as to the hour when his son had recovered, and they told him, “The fever left him yesterday at the seventh hour.”

Then the father realized that this was the very hour in which Jesus had told him, “Your son will live.” And he and all his household believed.

This was now the second sign that Jesus performed after coming from Judea into Galilee.

Berean Standard Bible
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Late Winter Days at Home


Our little family has been busy with working, learning, and living during these late winter days. We’re under a winter weather advisory today with multiple inches of snow expected. The weather is expected to turn a bit warmer after this so I suspect this will be one of our last blasts of winter weather this year. I’m enjoying the lazy lake effect snowflakes coming down outside my windows.

Caroline decided she wanted to teach herself Swedish using the free Duolingo app so she started off on that adventure. We have multiple connections to Sweden including the fact that I have a Swedish heritage and she has some online gaming friends in Sweden. So these were the motivations for the interest in that particular language. She asked me if I wanted to work on a language and I told her I did.

I had already pulled up some learning German videos on CensorTube a few months back, but hadn’t found anything I liked. So I took the Duolingo placement test earlier this week. After these many years decades since studying two years of German at Michigan State, I was able to place in Level 7. Now that I’m in the language every day, I’m able to advance pretty rapidly as things come back to me. (I made some dumb mistakes in the placement test due to the passage of time.) David took one year of French in high school so he decided to do the French.

So we’re all doing our ten minute lessons every day. It’s fun to do something different. I have always wanted to learn another language beyond German, but there was never a good time for it. I lean toward Dutch or Swedish next. We’ll see how the German goes.

We’re currently without a dryer until the repairman can come next week. Caroline has been introduced to the interesting experience of line-dried towels that are stiff as a board. What a revelation! LOL! I don’t use fabric softener in my towels so they are very NOT soft.

I’ve continue to republish old posts. Over the past week, I republished a bunch of free homemaking printables I had taken down. I’m not done yet, but there are quite a few there at the moment if you are interested. It’s something I can do while listening to videos or podcasts in the background. Keep checking back because I probably have at least another dozen to do.

I wasn’t sure what to do about being back on Facebook and so I didn’t do anything much at first. It’s really weird on there right now compared to other social media platforms I use that are much more active. But I think I’ve found what I’m supposed to do on Facebook so I’ve started posting a little bit each day. I’m still active on Gab and set up a separate Truth Social account for my second website. I’m also using Twitter for news research and frequently repost on there.

I haven’t been posting much on this website. Partially it’s because I’ve been busy posting on my other website (now here under News) and partially because I’m not sure what I want to do here. I’ve had a couple of ideas, but I don’t want to start something unless I’m certain I will follow through. I’ve thought several times about starting up my A Quiet Simple Life podcast again. I only intended to stop for a short time in 2019, but then life took over and I haven’t gotten back to it. The downside is it requires a level of production rather than simply recording something and posting it here on my website.

I thought about simply making voice recordings about different topics (home, faith, homeschooling, etc.) and embedding them here in posts, but I’m not sure. It makes more sense to make videos because I can put them on multiple platforms. That, however, requires a lot more time. With homeschooling high school, time is something I have to use carefully.

So that’s kind of the bottom line around this particular place. I’m not sure what I want to do here so I haven’t done much. And I know I sound like a broken record, but everything is so broken right now online that it makes it impossible to know what’s working, what’s worthwhile, etc. Maybe this is a season of letting things go fallow here for a bit?

I also took on a new responsibly at church this year. I am happy to do it and it’s a good fit for me. But it does add one more thing to my mental list of things to keep up on so that has been a factor as well. It involved a lot of extra meetings in February so that was another thing I’ve been focused on.

So that’s a little bit of our life right now. We’re all doing well and are keeping busy with the different things God has called us to do at this point in time. I hope you and your family are doing well. Please leave a comment and tell me what you’ve been doing during this last part of winter!

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The Asch Conformity Experiment and Going Against the Group


The past three years have been a significant test regarding societal pressure to conform. We’ve all been pressured to conform in some way whether it was work, church, friends, family, groups, athletics, medical, government, etc. I don’t think anyone escaped it. It was too pervasive and the stakes were too high.

I would guess that most people who read this website are non-conformists in several areas of life and were already wired that way prior to the past three years. You’ve probably made unconventional choices throughout your life and were willing to go against the tide once again.

I doubt this was the last time we’ll face this kind of pressure. We don’t know what might be coming next, but I thought it was worth our time to remind ourselves that it takes courage and faith to stand against the crowd. Not just once, but over and over.

Here’s a four minute video about the famous Asch Experiment that you might find interesting. Remember this post and video when we’re told to deny what we know and can clearly see with our own eyes.

Stay humble, stay awake, and keep your eyes on Jesus.

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