Wednesday, Jan. 2. Dull. I find, by experience, that let me make resolutions, and do what I will, with never so many inventions, it is all nothing, and to no purpose at all without the motions of the Spirit of God; for if the Spirit of God should be as much withdrawn from me always as for the week past, notwithstanding all I do, I should not grow, but should languish, and miserably fade away. I perceive, if God should withdraw his Spirit a little more, I should not hesitate to break my resolutions, and should soon arrive at my old state. There is no dependence on myself. Our resolutions may be at the highest one day, and yet, the next day, we may be in a miserable dead condition, not at all like the same person who resolved. So that it is to no purpose to resolve, except we depend on the grace of God. For, if it were not for his mere grace, one might be a very good man one day, and a very wicked one the next. I find also by experience, that there is no guessing out the ends of Providence, in particular dispensations towards me--any otherwise than as afflictions come as corrections for sin, and God intends when we meet with them, to desire us to look back on our ways, and see wherein we have done amiss, and lament that particular sin, and all our sins before him:--knowing this, also, that all things shall work together for our good; not knowing in what way, indeed, but trusting in God.

Jonathan Edwards, quoted by Sereno Dwight in "Memoirs of Jonathan Edwards," Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 1 (East Peoria, IL: Banner of Truth, 2005), xxiv.

this reminds me of my mom

Many were the prayers presented by parental affection that this only and beloved son might be filled with the holy Spirit; from a child know the Holy Scriptures; and be great in the sight of the Lord. They who thus fervently and constantly commended him to God, manifested equal diligence in training him up for God. Prayer excited to exertion, and exertion again was encouraged by prayer. The domestic circle was a scene of supplication, and it was a scene of instruction. In the abode of such exemplary servants of God, instruction abounded; that which the eye saw, as well as that which the ear heard, formed a lesson. There was nothing in the example of those who taught to diminish the force of instruction; there was nothing in social habits which counteracted the lessons of wisdom, and infused those principles which in after-years produced the fruit of folly and sin. On the contrary, there was every thing to enlarge, to purify, and to elevate the heart, and at the same time to train the mind, to those exercises of thought from which alone eminent attainments can be expected.

Sereno E. Dwight, "Memoirs of Jonathan Edwards," The Works of Jonathan Edwards, (East Peoria, IL: Banner of Truth, 2005), xii.