shawnethomas

Sometimes in the process of looking for one treasure, you inadvertently find another.  That happened today, as I was searching through one of my very favorite books, The Letters of Samuel Rutherford.  (Rutherford was the pastor of a church in Anwoth, Scotland, in the 1600’s, but was removed from his pulpit during a time of persecution, and sent into exile.  He continued to minister to his congregation through his letters, which were preserved in this gem of a book.)  I was looking for a specific quote for Sunday morning’s sermon, but my search was continually interrupted by the need to record yet another line from one of Rutherford’s letters that I just felt compelled to save in my illustration file.

In one of his letters, to Lady Kenmure (an aristocratic woman in his congregation who had endured many “losses and crosses”) I found that Rutherford wrote the following: “Anwoth is not heaven; preaching is…