There's Always More Going On Than We're Aware Of...

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His Track Record is Perfect!!!

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TRUST

I wasn't looking for one word for the year.  But it came to me.  And then it was confirmed over and over. So who am I to fight?  This is it...my word for 2014:

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God stretched me and strengthened my faith in 2013, but I know He wants me to trust Him so much more.  With everything.  Especially my kids.

Just today He helped me to trust Him in a new way with my children...accepting the reality that they will grow up to have various issues (just like I do!!) and that He will be there to faithfully grow them and change them and bathe them in His grace.  So I don't have to carry the impossible weight of trying to get them to make all the right decisions in their years at home that would spare them pain as adults (and don't start worrying that I'm not going to parent to the best of my ability - that's not what I'm talking about.) They aren't going to get it all right now (just like I don't) and He will be there with them in every year to come, helping them as they need it.  Oh, the relief that comes with trust.  May God grow me in huge ways this year as I seek to allow Him to enlarge my trust in Him.

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Thankful

 We've had some very sick kids here over the past few weeks, and life hasn't been one big rainbow, but I have snapped a few photos here and there, and wanted to share just a few of the things I'm thankful for in this belated Thanksgiving post.


I'm thankful friends blessed us with apples, and Dan directed an applesauce-making day with everyone helping out so we could get 30+ quarts in the freezer to enjoy through the winter.

 I'm thankful Emmery has a great routine of activities in her high chair after breakfast.  I've been seeking to bring some variety and incorporate some sensory activities, so here she is enjoying stirring, scooping, and transferring wheat berries from dish to dish:

 I'm thankful the kids have befriended the neighbor boy and spent many happy hours in the fields surrounding our house, collecting corn that the farmer left behind at harvest:

 I'm thankful for new opportunities, like husking popcorn from the field and then popping it in our airpopper for a very fresh, local treat!

 I'm thankful my parents could surprise the kids and visit us right in time to celebrate my Mom's birthday.  I'm thankful for my Dad's example of prayer (here he is praying a birthday blessing over my mom before we all dove into an upside down praline apple pie.  Oh yes, we like birthdays!! :)

 I'm thankful Abigail could be distracted from a bit of her misery (she had a fever for 8 days!!) by learning to play Rumikub with Grampa:

 I'm thankful Emmery has a Gramma who fully accepts her and treasures her...and blesses her with tea time and stories!

 I'm thankful for a juicer to aid my children through their battle with a nasty virus, and for DVDs to teach and entertain (here Emmery is snuggled tight to her big sis while Abigail drinks her green juice and they watch a DVD together.)

 I'm thankful Dan's Dad could join us for Thanksgiving and for the gift of happy family memories!

 I'm thankful for this Nativity set we could purchase in Israel many years ago, never dreaming that one day our ten year old daughter would be carefully arranging it at the beginning of Advent.

 I'm thankful for brooms to sweep up broken Christmas tree ornaments and for a God who takes the broken pieces of our lives (including fevers and endless coughing and toddlers who give up naps prematurely and to-do lists that never get crossed off) and makes beauty out of ashes.  He has given me so much peace and joy amidst the current chapter He is writing of my little story.  He is good and I am loved.  What's not to be thankful for?

Important to Remember!!

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 So I need to remember this when my baby girl is screaming unstoppably and I'm trying to simultaneously answer questions coming from a little boy stumped with his math, a big girl at the piano, and big boy working on his writing assignment. I'm right where my loving Father wants me to be!!! (Too bad I didn't have this quote pasted on my kitchen wall this morning. :)

It might not make sense now, but...

Credit: 52Home

When I saw this quote it totally resonated with me.  THIS is why I'm OK with life not making sense.  With it not always going "my" way.  With tough stuff.  Because I've already seen how true this is...that once some time passes (maybe a whole lot of time), I will be able to look back and see how God was working through out each aspect of the journey.  He always has something up His sleeve to work for His glory and our good!!!

Cultivating Grateful Hearts

One of the things that's a REALLY big deal to us as parents is that we cultivate grateful hearts in our children. Ultimately only God can change their hearts, but we are trying to give them as many tools as possible to choose gratitude and trust rather than discontent and unbelief. Last year each child began a journal that they write in several times a week during our Bible time in school. They record gifts/blessings in their life, and then they share them aloud.We pray that the cumulative effect of this exercise produces great fruit in the years to come!

Welcome To Holland!

I read this yesterday and just had to share it with you.  For anyone whose life has not turned out exactly how they planned it, this is for you! (OK, I'm assuming all of you are still reading since I've never met a single person whose life has turned out exactly according to their dreams. :)

Cute tootsies that have nothing to do with this post. :)

WELCOME TO HOLLAND

by
Emily Perl Kingsley.

c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

 http://www.our-kids.org/Archives/Holland.html

This Is Life!

Life does not begin when the baby grows out of her tantrum stage, or when we find the perfect house, or when the mosquitoes die off, or when I get my entire to-do list completed, or when.... Nope. Right here, right now, life is happening, and I don't want to miss it! I'm working on accepting each moment of the day as a gift from God, just the way it is. Sometimes the moment is bursting with joy, sometimes it's exploding with frustration, sometimes it's just so normal it goes unnoticed. I don't want to wait for the perfect smile before I snap a photo to preserve the memory. If the hair was always perfect, the outfit always coordinated, and the background always spotless, then it wouldn't be an accurate memory anyway!! So here are a few snapshots from today. This is life, and I don't want to miss it!!

Working on a crayfish trap before breakfast.

Abigail did the breakfast dishes with a little extra style this morning!!

Emmery loves to run into this little corner in the boys' room and "hide."  This is the face she makes when we ask her to give us a smile. :)

We started "back to school" on Monday.  This year Dan is doing Phys Ed with the kids and part of their daily "homework" this week was to practice some different jump rope exercises.  So fun to see them work as a team and grow in their coordination!

Enjoying an apple juice popsicle.  She knew she wanted the one with the pink holder. And yes, that's a tortilla with peanut butter on it smeared to her chin.

Examining a crayfish they caught!

Sketching the crayfish in their nature journals.  We are doing a lot more notebooking this year, so you can also see Calvin's  pages for Columbus, Van Gogh, and Martin Luther in his notebook

Emmery squeezed into Abigail's lap after dinner with her current favorite book, Are You My Mother?  Emmery has a lot of it memorized and pronounces mother "mu-noo."

And nothing beats climbing into Daddy's lap with a pile of books!!

One Thousand Gifts re-opened

A couple years ago I read One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp.  I loved it (stick with it and you will too!) and was profoundly impacted by keeping my own journal of one thousand gifts.  Very soon after we got the call that Emmery's little brother would not be joining our family, I felt led to pick up this book and re-read it.  It has been EXACTLY what I've needed to help me process this journey and has helped me wrestle through God's perspective on suffering.  Here are a couple quotes that have really ministered to me:
"All God makes is good.  Can it be that, that which seems to oppose the will of God actually is used of Him to accomplish the will of God?  That which seems evil only seems so because of perspective, the way the eyes see the shadows. Above the clouds, the light is always shining." (pg. 88)

Chilling in the stroller while her big siblings swim.

I recently had the privilege of reading Joni Eareckson Tada's most recent book, Joni and Ken: An Untold Love Story.  Any of you who know Joni's story know that she has experienced all kinds of suffering in this life.  Stuff that doesn't make any sense at all.  And yet she has been used by God in ways that (even she would say) would NEVER have been possible if it weren't for the trials she endures.

As Ann Voskamp says, "That which seems evil, is it a cloud to bring rain, to bring a greater good to the whole of the world?  Who would ever know the greater graces of comfort and perseverance, mercy and forgiveness, patience and courage, if no shadows fell over a life?" (pg. 90)

I think we always try to interpret the "God works all things for good..." principle to mean that I have to be able to see that it is good right away in my own life, or else it's not true.  I'm learning that God sees a much higher, bigger picture and is working for the greater good of the whole world (which is what's best for me too. :)  He is always working for our good and for His glory.  If it doesn't seem like it, then it's my perspective that needs to be adjusted, and re-reading One Thousand Gifts has really helped me with this process amidst recent trials.  So thankful God led me to pick it up again!!

Yes, she really is enjoying a little toe snack!

Moving

We have been so blessed with the rental house God led us to last year. It's been a perfect fit for our family, and we've loved being close to church (actually, on the same road!) The house had previously been on the market, but the owners took it off the market and said they would wait til the market improved to try to sell it so we were fine to plan on renting for a while. Well.... God had other plans! Someone who had seen the house back when it was on the market came along and bought it. So it's time for another move. We're getting good at this. :) Some of you may be wondering if we've ever heard of the option of BUYING a home. Yes, and we've even done that in the past. And we've tried to do that here. But God closed some doors and we know for right now it's His plan for us to rent. We're good with that. We are very thankful that He's provided another home for us to rent that, while being farther from church than we'd like, will still be a good fit for our family in many ways. And the house we're moving into is not for sale, so we should be able to stay there until just the right home becomes available for us to purchase! There are not many rental homes available in this area, so God truly is taking care of us!! So, we're packing away, and all the kids are very involved in the process, and three of them are very helpful. :)

Honestly, I didn't have a very good attitude for a while about this move.  But God's brought many things to my attention to help me process it in a way that is pleasing to Him.  This quote was one of those things:

"When one door of happiness closes, another opens.  

But so often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us." 

- Helen Keller

Christmas 2012

This was my best Christmas yet. I had just finished reading Anything by Jennie Allen. I devoured it in less than 48 hours.  I'd waited months for my turn to get it through the library but now I have to buy my own copy so I can go back and highlight and loan it to as many of my friends as possible. Reading this helped to soften my heart before God and make me hunger for Him more.  It reminded me of what I already knew...that I'm wasting my few breaths on earth if I live for my own comfort and happiness.  I've got all of eternity to be comfortable and happy.  Right now I'm here to live out my little part in God's story and I good and well better be listening to Him each day to hear what that is.





 I've been reading in Isaiah where God makes it clear that we are here for His glory, and we watched some Louie Giglio sermons that reminded me in powerful ways how big our God is.

So with a softer heart and a hunger for Him to increase and me to decrease, Christmas was a time of worship and joy.  On Christmas Eve Day we had our shepherd's dinner (actually a lunch) and remembered their part of the Christmas story.  Then we went to church and worked in children's ministries. When we got home we gathered around for some fun holiday snacks and read a special story.  Christmas Day we slept in, ate incredible food, exchanged stockings (we sent the kids on a treasure hunt for theirs), selected gifts for Gospel for Asia, watched How Great is Our God by Louie Giglio, and had a candlelight worship time singing praises to the King who came as a Babe. This year we enjoyed a little Advent book by Nancie Guthrie, Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room.  It's one of the best advent resources we've discovered!

 I've not been very successful with my camera recently, and I also didn't want to be so busy trying to take pictures that I wasn't fully present in the moment.  So although I don't have a ton of photos, I'm grateful for how God blessed our season of celebrating the gift of Jesus and wanted to share a few of our treasured resources with you!  Hope you and your family had a blessed Christmas!

Getting ready for our Shepherd's Lunch

Shepherd's Lunch by the fire

Emmery examining her new doll

Checking out an art book from Grandma

His Timing is Perfect

Source: fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net via Daniele on Pinterest

We are making plans to rent another house that is on the market while we continue to search for a long-term housing solution.  Honestly, I wouldn't have planned to move at the same time as we are starting school, and preparing to travel for my sister's wedding, and Dan working extra hours because of a big project, but faith in God includes faith in HIS timing, and this is what He has for us now.  So bring it on, Lord!  We trust you!

Recommendation: Kisses From Katie

A few friends whom I highly respect recommended this book to me, and I just had the privilege of reading it to our children.  Wow!  What an inspiring, challenging, eye-opening book about a young woman who is living as though God really did mean what He said in His Word regarding loving others.  I know it looks different for each person, but this book left all of us with a greater desire to listen to God and seek out ways to love those around us.  Why do we so often live as though life is all about us?

We regularly read missionary biographies to our kids (George Mueller, Amy Carmichael, etc), but it was great to be able to read them a story of someone who is currently living so we can pray for her.  I noticed that this book left us all with a heightened sense of gratitude for what God has blessed us with, and we pray each day that He will show us how we can give.  For we definitely have much more than we need!!!

I highly recommend Kisses From Katie by Katie Davis.  We were able to get it through our library system!

Loving Life's Little Moments

The other days the kids were sitting around the table working on their school and Calvin was enjoying a moment "talking" with Emmery (she's taken quite a fancy to her big brother, and they have long conversations. :)  I looked at them and was overwhelmed with gratitude that we could all do life together, and that because we're homeschooling, the older kids have numerous opportunities through the day to interact and bond with their baby sister.  They take full advantage of those opportunities (full disclosure: that means they sometimes actually fight with each other about whose turn it is to bask in her smiles and cooing.  Yes, fighting over a good thing is still fighting.  We're working on it.)
I am one blessed Mama!!

Patience

This photo has nothing to do with patience, but I thought it was precious

I was so thankful when I ran across Ann Voskamp's post today on patience.  I need patience as a mom.  I need patience in every area of my life - with people, with circumstances, with unknowns... You will love the insights Ann (author of One Thousand Gifts) has on patience, so I hope you have a moment to click here and be inspired.

Perspective in Waiting

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Are you waiting for something?  I am waiting for a couple things, so I was greatly blessed to read this quote by Paul Tripp this morning.  (Credit to Girl Talk for directing me to this.)

"...Waiting on God isn't about the suspension of meaning and purpose. It's part of the meaning and purpose that God has brought into my life. Waiting on God isn't to be viewed as an obstruction in the way of the plan. Waiting is an essential part of the plan. For the child of God, waiting isn't simply about what I'll receive at the end of my wait. No, waiting is much more purposeful, efficient, and practical than that. Waiting is fundamentally about what I'll become as I wait. God is using the wait to do in and through me exactly what he's promised. Through the wait he's changing me. By means of the wait he's altering the fabric of my thoughts and desires. Through the wait he's causing me to see and experience new things about him and his kingdom. And all of this sharpens me, enabling me to be a more useful tool in his redemptive hands." -emphasis mine (click HERE to read full quote)