Live Like A Narnian

(photo credit: Jason Price of Priceless Photography) 

My Family: [back, left to right] Jacob, Emily, Annie, Daddy, Mama,

Ellen, Josiah, Hannah, Ben [front, left to right] Trey, Mercy, Sarah

Dedication:

(Read ‘blog’ for ‘book’)

Take this book in Thy wounded hand,

Jesus, Lord of Calvary,

Let it go forth at Thy command,

Use it as it pleaseth Thee.

Dust of the earth, but Thy dust, Lord,

Blade of grass, in Thy hand a sword-

Nothing, nothing, unless it be,

Purged and quickened, O Lord, by Thee.

                                           ~Amy Carmichael

About me: 

Emily Riley is my name,

Heaven is my station,

Pontotoc is my dwelling-place,

And Christ is my salvation.

            ~Old Sampler Rhyme

My name is Emily Nicole Riley. I am the twenty-one-year-old eldest child of Leslie and Christy Riley. I live at home in Pontotoc, Mississippi, with my parents and eight living siblings, Trey (18), Ellen (17), Jacob (14), Hannah (13), Ben (12), Sarah (10), Annie Lou (6), Mercy(3), and Josiah(1).

I am a sinner saved by grace and a daughter of the King of Glory. My family and I attend Christ Community Church in New Albany, Mississippi. I’ve been homeschooled for almost my entire life. I ‘graduated’ in 2006 and am currently continuing my education through independent study of theology, history, literature, logic, philology, music, astronomy, writing, worldview, law and government, and of course, homemaking. My ambition is to follow the leading of my Lord and Saviour wherever it may take me. 

I enjoy reading, writing, music (listening to it and playing it on the piano), being with my family,homekeeping (cooking, laundry, cleaning), pro-life work, talking, learning (especially history), astronomy, and food (cooking and eating). I am also an incurable Janeite (Jane Austen fan) and ‘Hobbi-phile’ (lover of Hobbits).

The Apostles’ Creed

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth:

And in Jesus Christ His only begotten Son, our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried; He descended into hades; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God, the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

A few of my favourite things:

(Please note, none of these are exhaustive or in any particular order.)

Books

nonfiction books/authors:

Elisabeth Elliott (Let Me Be a Woman, Passion and Purity, Quest For Love, Shadow of the Almighty, Through Gates of Splendor), A. W. Pink, Charles Spurgeon (Treasury of David, Morning and Evening, Sermons), C. S. Lewis, Amy Carmichael (If, Mimosa, Ploughed Under, Lotus Buds, Kohila, Gold By Moonlight, Knowing God (J. I. Packer), The Hidden Art of Homemaking (Edith Schaeffer), Marriage to a Difficult Man (Biography of Sarah Edwards), Female Piety (John Angell James), The Practice of the Presence of God (Brother Lawrence), Christian Hymns (the Evangelical Movement of Wales), Sonnets From The Portuguese (Elizabeth Barrett Browning), I’ll Take My Stand (Twelve Southerners), So Much More (Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin), Free Grace and Dying Love (Susannah Spurgeon)

novels/novelists:

Jane Austen (Emma, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Persuasion, Sense and Sensibility), J.R.R. Tolkien (The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings), Elizabeth Gaskell (Wives and Daughters, Cranford), Charles Dickens (David Copperfield, The Pickwick Papers), Elizabeth Prentiss (Stepping Heavenward), C.S. Lewis (Space Trilogy, The Chronicles of Narnia), Robert Louis Stevenson (Kidnapped, David Balfour), Sir Walter Scott (The Heart of Midlothian, Ivanhoe), Mother (Kathleen Norris), The Shepherd of the Hills (Harold Bell Wright), G. A. Henty’s historical fiction, William Shakespeare (Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing), Sherlock Holmes

poets:

William Shakespeare, Amy Carmichael, the Beowulf Poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Alfred Tennyson, Robert Burns, G.K. Chesterton, Robert Louis Stevenson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, some Rudyard Kipling, Christina Rossetti

children’s books:

Winnie-the-Pooh stories & poems (A.A. Milne), The Chronicles of Narnia (C.S. Lewis), Beatrix Potter’s tales, The Hobbit & Farmer Giles of Ham (J.R.R. Tolkien), A Child’s Garden of Verses (Robert Louis Stevenson), Little House series (Laura Ingalls Wilder), Anne of Green Gables series (L.M. Montgomery), Love You Forever, Understood Betsy (Dorothy Canfield Fisher), Charlotte’s Web (E. B. White), A Little Princess (Frances Hodgeson Burnett), Just-So Stories (Rudyard Kipling)

(Anybody noticing a British theme here?)

Music

styles:

Classical, Celtic, Appalachian, Piano, Hymn Arrangements, anything involving Hammered Dulcimer, Lullabies 

classical masters/pieces:

J.S. Bach, George Frederick Handel, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Antonio Vivaldi, Franz Schubert, Peter IlyichTchaikovsky, Johann Pachelbel, Canon in D (Pachelbel), Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake (Tchaikovsky), Brandenburg Concerti (Bach), Messiah & Water Music (Handel)

more modern music:

Michael Card, Rich Mullins, Keith Green, John Michael Talbot, Fernando Ortega, Steven Curtic Chapman,  Bobby Horton, Michael Card’s lullaby albums (Come to the Cradle, Sleep Sound In Jesus, and Close Your Eyes So You Can See), Soundtracks from Sense and Sensibility, The Lord of the Rings, The Patriot, Fiddler On The Roof

hymns:

‘Before the Throne of God Above’ (Charitie Lees de Chenez), ‘Be Thou My Vision’ (Ancient Irish), ‘Show Me Thy Face’ (Bernard of Clairvaux), ‘Onward March, All-Conquering Jesus’ (William Williams), ‘Praise to the Lord, the Almighty’ (Joachim Neander), ‘Mighty Christ From Time Eternal’ (Titus Lewis & Graham Stuart Harrison), ‘Take My Life’ (Frances Ridley Havergal), ‘Rutherford’s Hymn’ (Anne Ross Cousins)

Movies

The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Pride and Prejudice (1995), Emma (both versions), Sense and Sensibility (1995), Persuasion (1995), The Princess Bride, Gods and Generals, The Patriot, Luther, Amazing Grace, Miss Potter, David Copperfield, Wives and Daughters, Cranford, Ben-Hur, Fiddler On The Roof, The Incredibles, Bella, Faith Like Potatoes, documentaries: The Monstrous Regiment of Women, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed