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    The Color of Tea: A Novel

    The Color of Tea: A Novel

    4.5 6

    by Hannah Tunnicliffe


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    $9.99

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      ISBN-13: 9781451682830
    • Publisher: Scribner
    • Publication date: 06/05/2012
    • Sold by: SIMON & SCHUSTER
    • Format: eBook
    • Pages: 336
    • Sales rank: 144,138
    • File size: 3 MB

    Hannah Tunnicliffe was born in New Zealand but is a self-confessed nomad. After finishing a degree in social sciences, she lived in Australia, England, Macau, and Vancouver. She currently lives in Sydney, Australia, with her husband, Matthew, and their daughter, Wren. She is the author of The Color of Tea

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    LIVING LOVED

    Knowing Jesus as the Lover of Your Soul


    By PETER WALLACE

    Church Publishing Incorporated

    Copyright © 2007 Peter Marsden Wallace
    All rights reserved.
    ISBN: 978-1-59627-183-8



    CHAPTER 1

    LOVE EXPRESSED


    The Word was first, the Word present to God, God present to the Word. The Word was God, in readiness for God from day one. (John 1:1–2)


    Let's say you're in love with someone, and you want to express the love that fills your heart to bursting. You want, somehow, to articulate the immense, mammoth truth that erupts from the core of your soul. Your brain processes those deep, rich, weighty feelings into words and causes your mouth to speak them aloud: "I love you."

    Of course, saying those words takes little effort. Turning that love into action is another matter altogether.

    In the past few weeks I've been on the receiving end of acts of love from several dear friends. One recent Saturday morning I was awakened by an early package delivery: a gigantic chocolate chip cookie with a note of love and encouragement from two close friends in a distant city. Not long after that, I received an email from a friend who wanted to treat me to an airline ticket to Chicago for a long weekend getaway—just because of love. And I've tried to pass the love along to others.

    Actions like these certainly cost time and money and sometimes even risk. But the ultimate expression of true love—the kind of love God has for us—costs much more.

    Out of a limitless desire to tell the whole of humanity throughout time "I love you," God the Father sent the Son, Jesus Christ. When Jesus of Nazareth walked the earth, he was God in flesh among us. A human being who ate and drank, who wept and laughed, who spent time with his companions and followers and friends, who slept and prayed and taught and got angry and frustrated and fearful—and yet he was still, always, God.

    From the very beginning, Jesus was God: the God who pursues even the forgotten, who welcomes even the unwanted, who loves so much it cost him everything.

    You've probably experienced loving gestures from people very close to you, and maybe some of those acts even took your breath away because of their depth or cost. But all that dims when you consider God's incredible, extravagant gesture. God loves you so much he was willing to die to show you the way to true love.

    Just as the Word was present to God, and God present to the Word, you can be present to Jesus. You can be alive and alert to God's love, to receive it and to share it. You can be continually conscious of God's presence with you and call to you. You can revel in what was, what is, and what will be forever.

    You can choose to live loved.


    * Jesus, sometimes it is impossible to comprehend you. Who were you? Who are you? How can I love you? How can I let you love me? I want to know your love continually. I want to live in it and let your love flow through me. Will you help me? I know it starts with understanding your love, accepting it, knowing it to be real in my life. Will you open my eyes to the real you and open my heart to your loving, indwelling presence?

    CHAPTER 2

    SEE THE LIGHT


    Everything was created through him; nothing—not one thing!— came into being without him. What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by. The Light-Life blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn't put it out. (John 1:3–5)


    Jesus blazes with love. For you. He created you. His fingerprints are all over you. His heart is interwoven with your heart; his love infuses your every cell. He is the source, the creator, of your life—your very existence.

    Jesus lived in such a way as to shine the light of love into every dark corner, including the dark corners of every heart. His love blazes brightly into the darkness in which we huddle for presumed safety.

    If we want to live in his love, we will go to him as our source—our only source—for life. For light. For love.

    We'll stop trying to fill all the open sores in our heart with the world's quick-fix spackle of fake relationships or meaningless sex or mind-numbing activities or other useless, soul-damaging pursuits. We'll stop shoving our genuine, desperate needs into our dark unconscious, where we think they are safely tucked away, but where they fester like rotten garbage in a forgotten corner under the kitchen sink. We'll stop inflating our hearts, our egos, and our hopes through our own meaningless accomplishments, our own silly, temporary solutions. We'll stop avoiding facing our fears and inadequacies and pains and weaknesses because we feel so powerless against them.

    We'll stop all that—and start looking to the Light that gives life, the Light of love that heals our open sores, fills our needs, and gives us hope and strength and wisdom for living.

    Know this: Your life begins and ends with Jesus. His love surrounds you and upholds you. It seeks to fill you and steady you. You can go through life oblivious to his love; you can go off on your own. Or, like John, you can stick close to the one who knows you inside-out, so you can sense his steady, sure, loving embrace.

    Open your heart to the source of all life and love. Open your darkness to the Light.


    * Jesus, I am tired of living my life outside your loving embrace. I am weary of trying to fix things my way or of ignoring the fact that things are even broken to start with. I am done fighting against the relentless gravity of the truth that you, and you alone, are my Life. You are my Light. You are my Love. Open my eyes and my heart to you even more today.

    CHAPTER 3

    WANTING THE REAL THING


    The Life-Light was the real thing: Every person entering Life he brings into Light. He was in the world, the world was there through him, and yet the world didn't even notice. He came to his own people, but they didn't want him. But whoever did want him, who believed he was who he claimed and would do what he said, He made to be their true selves, their child-of-God selves. These are the God-begotten, not blood-begotten, not flesh-begotten, not sex-begotten. (John 1:9–13)


    Picture this: A beautiful young woman stubbornly resisting the love of numerous family members and friends, caught in the grip of addiction and sin. As a result, she has lost her job, her home, even her child. Her loved ones pray for her relentlessly, try to reach out to her; they offer to help her, but she resists.

    Maybe it's her sense of humiliation that keeps her back turned to the love that reaches for her. Maybe her feelings of guilt keep her walled up. Maybe fear of what will happen next keeps her from answering her loved ones' phone calls. Maybe she's so caught up in her problems that she can't even see what's waiting for her: help and hope and unbounded love.

    Each one of us has, at one time or another, been in a similar place as this young woman. Jesus, God in the flesh, walked on this very planet, which he created. He lived in this same world. He came to be with us, the people he had made.

    But they—we—rejected him.

    We were blind to his light. We turned our back on our Creator. We refused his love.

    Today each of us faces a choice, and it is a matter of life and death: Do I want to be in relationship with this God-man? Do I want Jesus?

    John, the disciple Jesus loved, believed that his master, with whom he lived 24/7, was the real thing. In the passage above he makes a promise that's rich with possibilities: If you want Jesus, if you believe he is who he claimed to be, if you follow after him and live within his embrace, Jesus will make you to be your true self. Your child-of-God self. Fully realized, fully engaged, fully beloved.

    And you, like Jesus himself, will be "God-begotten." You will be just as precious and loved of the Father as Jesus himself was.

    Those who don't want Jesus betray their true selves because they will never experience all the joy and meaning and purpose, all the thrill of living, all the light of love that Jesus created us to know and experience and share.

    Choose to want Jesus. Choose to live loved. I get a sense that beautiful young woman finally is.


    * Jesus, the choice seems so simple. Why would I not want you? Yet, when I'm honest, I realize I betray you every day, every moment, through my actions and inactions. I choose now to receive your love, to live loved. Give me the wisdom and strength to make this choice every day. And to be open to whatever happens as a result.

    CHAPTER 4

    WITH YOUR OWN EYES


    The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish. (John 1:14)


    Why do we fear love? Maybe because we've all been hurt in our pursuit of it. We know what it feels like to meet someone—a potential friend or even a life partner—and feel the spark of mutual interest. Our hopes arise: Maybe this person will be the one. Finally, someone who really enjoys me and wants to share my company, someone who will give me love and receive mine in return, in healthy mutuality. Love with no strings and no limits.

    But before long, our hopes dim as the person's true colors are revealed. Why, this "friend" is even more selfish than we are! Disappointed once again, we get up and move on, looking for the next candidate to try to meet our immense need for love and acceptance.

    According to John, we don't need to look any further. Jesus has "moved into the neighborhood." John vouches for this Word-become-flesh-and-blood. With his own eyes, every day for three years, John saw Jesus live and teach and work miracles. He saw Jesus tired and hungry and angry and homesick for heaven. He realized that Jesus was unique, sent from above. John learned firsthand what Jesus' true colors were: he was generous with love and wisdom, totally trustworthy, honest, and real.

    So why be afraid of the love Jesus offers you? It has already been tested and found solid and secure. He has proven his real love, time and time again. Now he wants to prove it to you.

    What if you lived like you believed that? Perhaps you would make that extra effort to spend time with him in prayer, to worship with those who share the same love, to reach out to those who are sick and lonely and haven't yet met Jesus.

    Jesus is with you now. He's ready to help you to find out for yourself what life will be like when you live loved.


    * Jesus, thank you for coming to live among us, to be right here with me. Help me to know you, to see you with my own eyes—your glory, your generosity, your truth, and your love. Dissolve my fear of loving you, my fear of risking my heart that has been broken far too many times. Are you for real? Let me find out today.

    CHAPTER 5

    PLAIN AS DAY


    No one has ever seen God, not so much as a glimpse. This one-of-a-kind God-Expression, who exists at the very heart of the Father, has made him plain as day. (John 1:18)


    How do we get our minds around this God who loves us so much? After all, we can't put our arms around him. We can't see him with our eyes or feel him with our hands. When it comes to knowing and understanding God, I often feel like that poor student with the tiny head in the Gary Larson "Far Side" cartoon, who pathetically complains to his teacher that his brain is full.

    God can seem like an overwhelming abstract principle. A detached observer. A mysterious behind-the-scenes director. Some of us even struggle to believe in this unseen God.

    Yes, the Bible gives us account after account of God's miraculous work throughout history. It spells out all the divine principles and commands and wisdom for living. But as much as we revere the Bible, it too is hard to grasp and to put to work in our lives in any coherent, consistent way. The Bible seems so radical and overwhelming; it's impossible to obey every jot and tittle. So, not only do our brains feel full, but our hearts feel far too tiny.

    God knew we would struggle with this, and love prompted God to approach us, to reach out to us by sending Jesus into the world to show us more clearly who God is. Jesus was unique: a fully divine, fully human expression of everything God is and everything God intended human life to be.

    So, by watching Jesus confront injustice boldly, reach out to sinful men and women unreservedly, challenge faithlessness with burning passion, share love and acceptance with breathtaking liberality, we can see what God is all about. Jesus "exists at the very heart of the Father." Jesus is close beside the Father, intimately and lovingly present. And Jesus invites you to join him there.

    Put aside, if you can, all your presuppositions about God, all your true and all your false pictures of what the Father looks like, all your understandings and misunderstandings about what God is about.

    Come close to Jesus and see God plain as day.


    * Jesus, I feel the need to start fresh and learn about God by being in your loving presence, by seeing how you lived and loved, by coming to know you intimately. Help me to be open to seeing God by seeing you and knowing you and loving you.
    (Continues...)


    Excerpted from LIVING LOVED by PETER WALLACE. Copyright © 2007 Peter Marsden Wallace. Excerpted by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated.
    All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
    Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

    Table of Contents

    Contents

    Foreword by Martha Sterne          

    Prelude          

    Part One: Knowing His Love          

    1. Love Expressed (John 1:1–2)          

    2. See the Light (1:3–5)          

    3. Wanting the Real Thing (1:9–13)          

    4. With Your Own Eyes (1:14)          

    5. Plain as Day (1:18)          

    6. Clean and Ready (1:29–31)          

    7. What Are You After? (1:35–39)          

    8. A Lover's Name (1:40–42)          

    9. Surprising Realities (1:43–46)          

    10. Known, and Loved Anyway (1:47–50)          

    11. The Real You (2:23–25)          

    12. The Moving Spirit (3:5–8)          

    13. The Pure Light of Truth (3:10–12)          

    14. A Whole and Lasting Life (3:16–18)          

    15. Extravagant Love (3:34–36)          

    16. Walking Dead (5:25)          

    17. Satisfying the Hunger (6:35–37)          

    18. Drawn to Jesus (6:43–46)          

    19. Ultimate Intimacy (6:53–57)          

    20. Resisting Love (6:61–64)          

    21. Spiritual Drought (7:37–38)          

    22. Beyond the Horizons (8:23–24)          

    23. Crazy Love (8:49–51)          

    24. Recognizing His Voice (9:35–38)          

    25. Protected for Good (10:28–29)          

    26. A Humble Cleansing (13:4–9)          

    27. The Road to Love (14:6–7)          

    28. Direct Access (16:23–27)          

    29. Right Where He Is (17:24–26)          

    30. The Wine of Love (19:28–30)          

    Part Two: Experiencing His Love          

    31. A Generous Bounty (1:16–17)          

    32. Mere Miracles (2:9–11)          

    33. Open Channels (2:15–17)          

    34. Running to Jesus (3:14–15)          

    35. The Spring Within (4:13–15)          

    36. What Counts Before God (4:23–24)          

    37. No Secrets (4:39)          

    38. Trying a New Way (5:5–9)          

    39. The Savior's Apprentice (5:19–23)          

    40. Paying Attention (5:39–40)          

    41. Stretchable Faith (6:5–6)          

    42. Unexpected Grace (6:16–21)          

    43. Out of the Shallows (6:26–27)          

    44. Trusting the Process (6:38–40)          

    45. A Loving Forgiveness (8:3–11)          

    46. Shining the Light (8:12)          

    47. True Freedom (8:31–32, 34–36)          

    48. Through the Gate (10:7–10)          

    49. A New Level of Life (11:21–26)          

    50. How Deeply He Loved (11:33–36)          

    51. Let Loose (11:43–44)          

    52. Storm–Tossed Glory (12:27–28)          

    53. Children of Light (12:35–36)          

    54. The Beloved and the Betrayer (13:21–27)          

    55. When Jesus Feels Absent (14:1–3)          

    56. Never Alone (14:18–20)          

    57. No Games (14:21–24)          

    58. Parting Gift (14:25–27)          

    59. At Home with Jesus (15:9–10)          

    60. Relentless Beckoning (16:12–14)          

    61. The Eternal Now (17:1–3)          

    62. The Object of Prayer (17:15–19)          

    63. I Am (18:3–5)          

    64. King of Hearts (18:36–38)          

    65. Even Better Blessings (20:26–29)          

    Part Three: Sharing His Love.          

    66. First Steps (2:1–4)          

    67. Agenda of Love (5:41–44)          

    68. Radical Obedience (7:24)          

    69. Energetically at Work (9:2–5)          

    70. Into the Clear Light (9:39)          

    71. One Glorious Flock (10:14–16)          

    72. Fragrant Sacrifice (12:3–8)          

    73. Loving Recklessly (12:24–25)          

    74. Wanting to Serve (12:26)          

    75. A Pattern of Love (13:12–17)          

    76. No Stopping Us (13:34–35)          

    77. Even Greater Things (14:11–14)          

    78. Another Friend (14:15–17)          

    79. Organic Love (15:1–8)          

    80. Life on the Line (15:11–13)          

    81. In the Loop (15:14–15)          

    82. Suffering the Consequences (15:18–19)          

    83. One by One (17:21–23)          

    84. Extended Family (19:25–27)          

    85. Wide Open (20:1–2)          

    86. A New Relationship (20:17–18)          

    87. Words to Live By (20:19–22)          

    88. Jumping In (21:3–7)          

    89. Feeding Sheep (21:17–19)          

    90. In His Hands (21:20–22)          

    Postlude          

    Notes          


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    Macau: the bulbous nose of China, a peninsula and two islands strung together like a three-bead necklace. It was time to find a life for myself. To make something out of nothing. The end of hope and the beginning of it too.

    After moving with her husband to the tiny, bustling island of Macau, Grace Miller finds herself a stranger in a foreign land—a lone redhead towering above the crowd on the busy Chinese streets. As she is forced to confront the devastating news of her infertility, Grace’s marriage is fraying and her dreams of family have been shattered. She resolves to do something bold, something her impetuous mother would do, and she turns to what she loves: baking and the pleasure of afternoon tea.

    Grace opens a café where she serves tea, coffee, and macarons—the delectable, delicate French cookies colored like precious stones—to the women of Macau. There, among fellow expatriates and locals alike, Grace carves out a new definition of home and family. But when her marriage reaches a crisis, secrets Grace thought she had buried long ago rise to the surface. Grace realizes it’s now or never to lay old ghosts to rest and to begin to trust herself. With each mug of coffee brewed, each cup of tea steeped and macaron baked, Grace comes to learn that strength can be gleaned from the unlikeliest of places.

    A delicious, melt-in-your-mouth novel featuring the sweet pleasures of French pastries and the exotic scents and sights of China, The Color of Tea is a scrumptious story of love, friendship and renewal.

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