Weekend pondering - waiting for hope

Strive to be one of the few people who walk this earth with the ever present realization - every morning, noon, and night - that the unknown that people call heaven is directly behind those things that are visible. 
   
                                           - Streams in the Desert ~ July 26

The whole, short devotion is wonderfully encouraging. 

Here's another excerpt:

"Dear Lord, You have made waiting beautiful and patience divine. You have taught us that Your will should be accepted, simply because it is Your will. You have revealed to us that a person may see nothing but sorrow in his cup yet still be willing to drink it because of a conviction that Your eyes see further than his own." 

Is that not beautiful and oh so true, if we could but swallow it? 

Swallow the truth of accepting His will because that's what we believe right? That He is God and a good God. That He actually has a will and we are not just going from one thing to the next for no good reason. That even though there is sorrow, there also is peace and joy walking with God, who cares for each one of us more than we are able to comprehend. That He sees it all and all at once! He is God and has not the constrictions we have! 

Do you see the hope or is it hiding behind the visible? 

Look up! He is there! Ready to help! Ready to give peace and comfort to your soul! 

Happy Saturday. May you be dwelling upon the vastness of the Lord this last weekend of July.

I heard a hushed voice

...... "that God was waiting in the depths of my being to speak to me if I would only be still enough to hear His voice."  - Streams in the Desert, pg. 255, A.B. Simpson

Do you hear Him?

Close your eyes and try to concentrate.

Drown out the sounds of dogs barking and machines whizzing.

Do you hear Him?

Tell yourself to shush. Don't worry about the bill needing to be paid, the laundry crumpled in the corner.

Spill your heart out to Him if it helps to calm you. Then be still. Know God. He is there and wants to whisper sweet words of life to you. 

Let Him overwhelm you. Let Him share His heart with you. Let Him reveal the answer to your problem or encourage your heart to just wait a wee bit longer, the answer will be coming shortly. 

Open up the dialogue with God and He will keep the conversation going quite wonderfully.  

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It was a hectic night of a cranky baby. An early morning of challenging myself with a new photography shoot. A nice visit with a couple of my girl friends. Coming home to extra kids and making lunch. All blessed things, just busy. Late this afternoon I was washing fruit and staring at my wilting roses and decided to take a few pictures. Then I laid down, rested and talked to God. The down time wasn't long but I found myself thinking over what God and I had talked about the rest of the evening. I was comforted and sent out again to finish the day. 

And so the story continues........ what will He say next? How will I respond? It's a conversation that will never end and never be boring or irrelevant. It's a conversation I long for more and more. 

Summer is:

Fidgety reading,

a spoonful of honey, 

building a fort and spending the afternoon in it with your brother,

eating blueberries and tickling toes, 

eating salmon for dinner one night and frozen pizza the next, 

watching a movie and deciding you must be a flying dragon or at least try to be one, 

realizing your Dad wants to fly just as bad as you, 

and potting beautiful plants in orange pottery. 

That's what the first weekend of Summer looked like for us. 

What are you up to? 

Share the washi tape

My older sister seems to know everything. I don't know how she does it. Maybe it's a first born thing. Maybe after you are born, God pulls you aside for just a sec and says, "Now, looky here. You are the first born of this little family and soon enough you will have sisters and brothers and they will all look up to you so you're going to need a little extra something. A bit of knowledge to pass on. So here you go," at which He supernaturally, because we are talking about God, puts some great stuff there into that firstborn's mind. 

You see, awhile ago, my sister was on the phone with a friend and her friend is telling her all about this awesome stuff called washi tape. "You can use it for just about anything", she says. And at that, my sister says, who don't forget is the first born, "Oh yeah. I've been using it for years! It's great!" Her friend at hearing this, is a little disappointed. She says, "Why didn't you ever tell me about it?" Hmmm. You see, my sister, Michelle is her name, never thought to tell others because she thought others knew about it already. I find myself in conversation sometimes, feeling a bit shy when I talk of something because I think surely they have heard this all before. But that is just not the case all the time. 

So I am here to share something new (to me) in hopes that if you have never heard of, in this case an author (did I lose ya?), then you can join the party!! 

Does the name G.K Chesterton ring a bell? 

If you are like me, you may have heard the name or seen a quote at some point and that is about as far as it went. Can I encourage you to grab one of his books? I have only read this one and it's free! This guy is a great story teller! I bet you can't read it without smiling. I hope you do read it and smile. 

Next on the list, will be Orthodoxy and then The Complete Father Brown Series. 

Chesterton has a bunch of books and rightly so. He is an interesting cat. 

And that my friends is all I wanted to share with you today. 

Share your knowledge! The world needs to know about washi tape and Chesterton. 

What have you recently found out about that you want to share? 

Weekend ponderings

It was an interesting 30 minutes. First I listened to this show, then I read chapter 9 from Blue Like Jazz, titled, " Change. New starts at Ancient Faith". 

I have never listened to Tom Woods' show before but sometimes, well often times on the internet, you come across something and it leads to something else and pretty soon you can't recall how you ended up where you did. But there I was and so I listened. 

"Politics is downstream from culture.......  if you want to change public policy, you have to change culture..." - Steve Deace

Made me think, "What am I doing to affect American culture?" 

So then I opened the book and read the aforementioned chapter and it's basically about a guy who started leading a college Bible study, said all the right things, did all the right things, but lost his first love, who then needed to take a break and seek the Lord again. 

Go! Do! 

Rest! Be still! 

Two very different commands and ideas. 

I sat there in my bed thinking through the last few minutes and how it all applied to me. 

I prayed and this is what God told me: 


"Choose righteousness. 
You know that River Run for Orphans race coming up? Run.  
You know those four children in the next room? Raise them up in the Lord. 
You know that husband of yours who works his hiney off to support his family? Encourage him. 

Choose to be apart of the many good things that are happening all around that will change our culture, that will build up people and gently encourage them to walk with Me."

If we serve out of the overflow of love coming down from God we will continue on and this culture will be affected. The key is to not lose our first love. The key is to be all about Jesus. Not politics. Not food. Not jobs and how to school our children. When we lean fully on Christ and seek Him, all those other things will fall into place. 

Happy Saturday to you all! May you be thinking big thoughts and doing small things to help bring about a beautiful culture that glorifies God. 

Feeding your imagination

If you know me or have read this blog even just a few times, you will know that I am a simple girl. I don't write about grand things. Well, that's not true. I write about the grand things of life in a non-grandiose kind of way. :) I mean isn't all of life grand in some way or another?

I dream of using a large vocabulary and knowing how to put the words together just so and making them sound beautiful at the same time. I am not there, yet. Semi colons; they still get me! But I like to read and that is a great way to learn. This blog is a fun way for me to grow in those areas also. 

And, oh the reading!  I just finished this fantastic book called Paradise Lost. Have you heard of it? I have to laugh a little writing that question out because  I am sure most of you have, but to be honest I hadn't until just a few weeks ago. Kind of funny because it has been around since the 17th century! It's a good one. It is the first classic I have read!

Have you ever heard people talk about going to Israel and how when you go and actually see what it looks like, smell the smells and walk through the towns where Jesus walked, the Bible comes to life? 

This book does that for me! I won't be going back in time to the fall of man and I can't go into heaven to see what all goes on up there(not yet!), but Mr. John Milton uses words in such a descriptive way, I feel like I am right there in the story. 

It paints a detailed picture of "Paradise Lost". Mainly the fall of Satan and the angels that decided to follow suit, the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve and what their days could have been like, and the anguish of Adam and Eve when they ate the forbidden fruit.  There are beautiful conversations between God and Jesus and between Adam and Eve and saddening/maddening conversations between the devil and the rest of the fallen angels plotting against God's treasured humans. 

Paradise Lost has been a wonderful book for me. The vivid pictures it has painted helps me envision what happened. It has given me the experience of "going there." That's what a good book will do for you! It has helped me think through creation and how it must have been for our ancient parents to have gone through what they did. It reminded me of God's grace and mercy and His decision to give us freewill.  It is a book that will stick with me for a long time. 
I wish everyone would read it! 

Just this last week, I have realized that I do not learn well by listening. I am definitely a visual and kinesthetic learner. Although I will say that being a Christian and going to church for 22 years, I have learned things from sitting quietly and listening, so all those years of church going have not been in vain. 
It's been an interesting week with this newfound knowledge. I have known my children's learning styles but for some reason have never thought about my own. All this to say, I have really enjoyed reading this year and I feel like the combination of reading and writing things down as I go, AKA journaling and keeping the dictionary close by, helps to concrete the info in my ever forgetful brain. 


What have you been reading? What have you been learning about yourself? 

Things learned in May

1. You have to be very careful when transplanting tomatoes. Their roots are super sensitive. Broccoli and cabbage need to go in earlier than the middle of May. It's getting hot and they don't fair so well in the heat. Potatoes are easy to grow. We do live in Idaho. 

Oh, please survive. I want to eat your fruit so bad!

2. Kids love to do it (whatever *it* may be) themselves if at all possible. Don't step on their toes. Let them fail and learn from it. But sometimes even when they know how, they love Mom to do it for them. Like making breakfast. One day they are all empowered on knowing how to make their own food and the next morning they are wanting to sit on the couch and have their mama serve them. It's all good. 

3. Yerbe Mate Chocolatte doesn't make great ICED tea. Keep that one HOT. 

4. Archimedes was born in Syracuse and Paul the Apostle traveled through Syracuse during his missionary travels. Random books coming together. I love when that happens! Archimedes and the Door of Science and the book of Acts from the Bible. 

5. There is a tender and important balance between taking photos to remember an experience and just letting it be experienced for the goodness of what it is and not having any hard evidence that it happened. I have not mastered this but am attempting to find that balance and enjoy the moments for what they are without having to run and get the camera. 


Chatting at the Sky has a link up. I read Emily's book, Million Little Ways early this year and found it very inspiring. Her blog is just the same. 

What have you learned in May? 

For the love of words

I keep seeing book lists for the summer.  I don't have the slightest idea what I will be reading a month from now, as I am more of a free spirit, live by the moment kind of gal, but these are the hopefuls to finish by the end of June.

A bit random. Ministry of Motherhood I have read before. I am into Paradise Lost by just 2 chapters. Messenger is in The Giver series, and an easy and quick read. I have started A Tale of Two Cities about 3 times and have never gotten into it. I am hoping it will be different this time. The Light Between Oceans has to do with water and a baby lost and wanted and will probably make me cry. 

Happy reading!