Oh, the Cuteness!

Just a Thought

This is the magical time of day. As the sun sets, it sends its light to stream in through the windows to transform everything it touches to pure gold. Mind you, this doesn’t happen when the sun is awake and fresh. No, this magic only happens as the tired sun is leaving the sky for the night.
Just like “a flower in a crystal vase... lights up the room as it withers away,” somehow as some things fade away they give even more beauty than when they were first born. The same must be said for us. Is the death of a saint ugly? No, it is the final bloom of beauty that reaches around the world and up to the heavens as our Lord and His angels rejoice at the homecoming of a precious child.

A New Beginning

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”
- Semisonic “Closing Time”

Our kitchen project is coming along nicely. As I type this my hands, arms, forehead and hair all have splotches of brown paint on them. Today I painted the doorposts between the kitchen and dinning room. Anyone who has ever lived in this house should know what that means- I painted over our height chart. Granted, this was a newer chart that had only a few names with marks next to them to gauge that person’s height, but still it was the principle of the thing. I was painting over my memories.

I know I’ve mentioned this type of thing before back when I had an email list instead of a blog, but I’m still struggling with the fact that I am the one that is changing my childhood home and undoing the work my mom did here. This has also been coming up as I’m working in our yard, trying to turn it back to grass. It’s so weird to be digging up the rocks that I helped to put there in the first place. There are some of them that I can even remember picking out at the creek because their shape or color was so extraordinary.

I know it’s okay to change things in and around this house. I know that I should change things here because this is my house now. But it still feels weird. And it still hurts sometimes.
In a way, I am glad that I get to be the one to redecorate this house. I think it’s healing for me. I’m not trying to sound all psycho-babbly or anything, but I really do think that. Sometimes I have a hard time letting go of the past so this situation really is the best for me. You can’t hold on to the past when you’re painting over it.

I still have my memories to hang on to and when those fail I can always borrow a few from my siblings. My mom’s kitchen was an amazing place and I hope that my kitchen will be just as wonderful. I hope it, too, is a place where delicious food is prepared as if by magic and a place where too many people try to cram themselves into. My mom’s kitchen doesn’t exist anymore- that is, it doesn’t exist in its material form. It is still an amazing place in our minds, hearts and memories. And no amount of paint can ever cover that up.

That's Why We Say Thanks Everyday

Thanks to James' blog post, What if there were no DSL?, I've been struck with all the blessings that God has bestowed on me. I'm sitting here at my computer (we don't have DSL by the way) just being happy that I live in a house I love with a small bunch of people that I absolutely adore. I love the life my God has given me- one I certainly don't deserve. Our God is so good it boggles the mind.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

My Therapy

I’ve always known that I’m not quite right in the head, but I am becoming more convince of it every day. For example, there’s the fact that I like to clean. I mean, it’s scary the way I enjoy dusting. Yesterday I decided that I wanted to clean really well in the living room. I moved all the furniture, cleared out all the toys that had gotten stuck under the couch, swept, “Swiffered”, and dusted. I even dusted the floor molding and yes, even the tops of picture frames. To a bystander I wonder if the room even looks that different from before I cleaned it, but to me it feels like a breath of fresh air. I think I was able to keep my sanity yesterday simply because I knew that the floor under my couch was dust free. It’s weird I know, but that’s what being a homemaker does to some people.

Risk Is Right

Security. Insurance. “Just to be on the safe side.” Sound familiar? As Americans we are obsessed with the idea of being safe and not taking any risks. Why? Because we’ve been taught that we have to succeed. Failure is deemed the worst possible thing that could possible happen. Now the question is, Are we as Christians supposed to be buying into that mindset? The answer is obvious: NO!

I’ve been reading a book by John Piper entitled Don’t Waste Your Life so a lot of these thoughts are either from this book or because of it. Something that he writes very strongly about is the idea that risk is right. Jesus calls his followers to risk everything for Him. When He first called his disciples they answered His call by leaving everything. They left their families, their jobs and their possessions behind. That’s some risk. How about that poor widow who gave her last two coins? Again, a huge risk, but Jesus says nothing but praise of her. He doesn’t launch into a speech about how she should have planned ahead and saved her money or invested it. Instead He says that she did exactly the right thing. And think of any martyr you have ever heard of. Is there any greater risk to take than to put your life on the line?

Here we are in modern America. How does this willingness to risk everything show in our lives? As I‘ve been reading Piper’s book and asking myself that same question, these are some questions I’ve come up with: How do I spend my money? Do I give enough of it away or do I hoard it and claim to be “saving for the future.” When I speak to others am I too concerned with being politically correct and not offending anyone or am I bold in my speech? Do I care too much about what others think of me or am I willing to be thought a fool for the sake of the Gospel?

I hope I’m not coming across as if I have all the answers to how every Christian should live his life. I’m clueless here. I’m simply paraphrasing what I’ve read in a book written by a man far wiser than I am. I have many more thoughts on this topic, but they will have to wait for another time. I hear my children stirring in their rooms and it’s time for me to put aside my rant and start mothering.

I’d like to leave you with a very important thought. No matter what you risk and no matter how you fail, Jesus will never leave your side. Hunger, famine, nakedness- even the sword cannot separate us from His love. He is, and will always be, our only true security.

A Long Short Story

Once upon a time there lived a boy named Carl. Carl lived with his Father and Mother in a nice, but rather small house. Carl was the kind of boy that grownups call a “nice boy.” Carl did well in school and he got along well with other kids, but he didn’t have a best friend. Sometimes, especially on rainy days, Carl felt a little lonely.

Carl’s parents were very nice people. They were the type of grownups that kids could actually talk to. Carl and his parents did talk quite a bit about lots of different things, but their favorite thing to talk about was Carl’s uncle. His uncle was very rich and lived in a great big house someplace far away. Carl didn’t know how far away it was because he had never been there. Even though his uncle wrote lots of letters to Carl, he had never once sent an invitation to come visit him. So Carl has never met his uncle, but he knew he was a very nice man. Carl and his parents, who had never been invited to the uncle’s house either, would talk about this uncle say how splendid it would be to get invited to his house and they would dream about all the nice things they would eat there and think that maybe he would give them lovely gifts- and not just on their birthday, but on every Tuesday and oh, my, how they dreamed about that house!

One Thursday afternoon when Carl came home from school ready to show his Mother his report card ( if you remember I said he did well in school so you can bet there were a lot of good marks on it) his Mother told him some surprising news. His cousin, Karen, was going to come live with them for a while. Carl had never met Karen and he wondered what she would be like.
“It’s too bad she’s not a boy,” he thought, “ we’ve could’ve been best friends.” But Carl decided that he was going to be very nice to Karen anyway. Carl was that sort of boy.

A few days later Karen arrived. Carl was surprised! He hadn’t thought his cousin would be so fun! Carl and Karen liked each other right away. Karen had such ideas about fun things to do and amazing games to make up and play and change the rules halfway through and all sorts of things that Carl had never thought to do before. Sometimes Karen did things a little backwards and thought Carl was being silly for wanting to do things the normal way.

Karen loved to splash in puddles during a rain storm. Carl had always been told that he should never go outside when it was raining or else he’d catch a cold, but Karen said that was just something that grownups have to say and no one really believed it. So every time it rained Carl and Karen were outside splashing around like their lives depended on it.
Carl was never lonely now. He almost forgot what it was like to be alone. He and Karen did everything together. It seemed that everything they did and every game they played was better because Karen was with him. She somehow made the sky bluer and the rain wetter and the air was always sweeter when it whipped her hair about. She would tell Carl stories about how trees were really people in disguise and Carl knew she must be right because when she told him where to look for their eyes and noses and fingers he always saw them right where they should be.
“Karen,” said Carl one day after they had been singing with an old maple tree, “ Will we always be best friends? No matter what?”
“Oh, Carl,” said Karen, “Of course we will. No matter what.” And they shook hands on it.

One day- quite a long while after Karen had first come to stay- Carl was walking home from school carrying a large rock that he had found at the playground and he knew Karen would love it and get very excited about it. The rock was rather heavy and his arms were getting tired, but he didn’t mind at all. He couldn’t wait to give it to Karen and see her eyes light up as she thanked him. And then she’d drag him to the backyard and show him exactly where to put it and tell him that it was the most beautiful rock she had ever seen. Carl was thinking about all this as he walked in his front door. His Mother met him in the entryway with tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Carl, Karen isn’t here anymore. She got an invitation from your uncle to go and live with him and she had to leave right away.” Carl was stunned. He dropped the rock. It fell on his left foot, but he didn’t feel it. He turned and ran out the door. He climbed their favorite tree and cried for a long time. Eventually he went back to his house for supper even though he wasn’t hungry.

As the days passed Carl tried to get used to not having Karen with him anymore, but as hard as he tried he couldn’t do it. Nothing was the same without her. The trees hid their faces and didn’t talk to him anymore and when it rained the puddles didn’t ask to be splashed in. Carl tried to jump in a few, but he just got wet. He tried to not be mad at his uncle for taking Karen away. After all, he could invited whomever he wanted. But it just didn’t seem fair. Carl remembered when he and Karen would sit by the pond and talk about how nice it would be if they got invited to go to their uncle’s house together. Karen had always heard about their uncle the same as Carl had and they both thought that his house must be the nicest place in the world. And now Karen got to go live there and Carl didn’t.

One day Carl had to stay home from school because he had a headache. He tried not to think about the fun games Karen would have thought up to keep him from getting bored while he was sick. Instead he looked through all the letters his uncle had ever sent him and read and reread all the parts that talked about how nice his house was. Carl’s Mother came into his room holding a tray with his lunch on it. She set the tray on his bed, kissed his forehead, asked if he needed anything else and left the room. Carl started to eat his lunch and was surprised to see an envelope sitting on his lunch tray. It looked like a letter addressed to him. It was from his uncle! He ripped it open thinking that just maybe it had some news about how Karen was and if she missed him and if she was coming back soon. Imagine his surprise when he saw that it wasn’t a letter at all- it was an invitation! A plain white card with nine words written on it: “Come, my boy, it is your turn at last.”

Carl jumped out of bed not even noticing that his headache was gone. He ran to get his suitcase from his closet and then suddenly realized that there wasn’t anything he wanted to bring with him. He ran downstairs to the front door and throwing it open, he ran outside.
The next thing that happened was very strange. Instead running on the sidewalk in front of his house, as Carl had expected to be, he was running across a grassy field and his neighborhood was nowhere in sight. Instead there was only one large house some distance away and it was toward this that Carl was running.

As Carl was running he started to notice the strange new surroundings. The grass he was running on was softer and greener than any grass he had ever seen before and the sky above him was bluer and closer than the sky he was used to. There were small ponds scattered around with lush exotic looking flowers surrounding them. The house Carl was running toward was bigger than he had thought at first- it was more like a mansion really, but not stuffy and stern like some mansions can be. This mansion was airy and friendly and when the sunlight hit it the house looked like a bright cloud floating in the blue sky.

The other thing Carl noticed was the enormous amount of people that were walking about and talking in small groups and some were sitting by the ponds dipping their feet in the cool, clear water. As Carl got closer all the people stopped whatever they were doing to look at him and they all smiled and waved. Some even called things to him, but he wasn’t quite close enough to hear what they said. A couple people started cheering when they saw him, but he had no idea why. And then he didn’t care why because there, straight ahead, running toward him with her hair streaming, was Karen. He started running even faster and in less time than it takes to write it all down he was hugging her and she was hugging him and saying, “You’re here at last! It’s even better than we imagined it! The trees here dance and the flowers smile all day long! Look at this rocks here- did you ever think it possible? Even the pebbles look like diamonds! Carl, I’ve made something for you! Come on, let me show you-”
But she broke off what she was saying because walking toward them was the owner of the beautiful house and the gardens and the stones that looked like diamonds- their uncle.

As his uncle got closer Carl could see that he was smiling. And it wasn’t that polite smile that grownups sometimes do, but a real smile, the kind that hurts your face if you do it for too long. Carl knew that smile was just for him. Now he knew why he had wanted to come to this house so much. It wasn’t the house or the nice things and it wasn’t even Karen. The real reason Carl had wanted to get to this house was to see that smile. Carl walked slowly toward his uncle and sank to his knees, burying his face in grass before his uncle‘s feet.
“Thank you,” Carl whispered, “thank you.”

My Thoughts

(This is one of those posts that I'm not too sure about posting. Sometimes being honest is a scary thing.)

Mother’s day is in two days. I find that I am having a hard time coming up with the right words to express how I feel about that day so I will have to rely on pictures and quotes to speak for me.

Lay down your sweet and weary head
Night is falling- you have come to journey’s end
Sleep now and dream of the ones that came before
They are calling from across the distant shore

Why do you weep?
What are these tears upon your face?
Soon you will see- all of your fears will pass away
Safe in my arms
You’re only sleeping

What can you see on the horizon?
Why do the white gulls call?
Across the sea a pale moon rises
The ships have come to carry you home

And all will turn to silver glass
A light on the water
All souls pass

Hope fades into the world of night
Through shadows falling
Out of memory and time
Don’t say we have come now to the end
White shores are calling
You and I will meet again

And you’ll be here in my arms
Just sleeping

-From the Return of the King soundtrack





I hate the taste of tears
It makes me think of pain
Of pieces of my shattered heart
Flowing through my veins


I guess what I’m trying to say is this: I hurt. I miss my mommy. I hate Mother’s day.
Well, I guess I can find the words to express how I feel. I don’t think I’ll always feel like this. Perhaps a day will come that my heart won’t shrivel up at the sound of Mother’s day’s approach. Maybe someday, but not today.

A Prayer Request

As you, my faithful readers, well know my husband, Joshua, and I have two beautiful little kids. And you also know that we are eagerly anticipating the day that God will add more little tykes to our family. Here’s where it gets complicated. Late last year, in the beginning of October I had a tubal pregnancy and we lost that little baby. Any medical professional will tell you that once someone has an ectopic pregnancy the chances of it happening again are greater than in someone who has never experienced one. So here I am, impatient to be holding a little baby again and yet I’m scared. What if it happens again?

Naturally, I’ve been praying about this a lot. The more I pray the more Jehovah has been giving me peace. I keep telling myself to trust Him- He’s never failed me yet. But what I HAVEN’T been saying to myself is: “ Don’t worry, God won’t let it happen again.” Because you see, it may very well happen again. I am not saying this out of bitterness or despair, but simply out of honesty. Yes, it may be my loving Father’s will that my heart break again as we lose another baby. It may be His will that Joshua and I never again know the joy of holding a newborn child of ours. But then perhaps it is His will that we will be blessed with thirteen more healthy babies that will grow into Godly disciples. I don’t have a clue what He has planned for our family, but I do know that whatever it is will more beautiful than I can imagine. And I need to remember that beautiful does not always mean painless.

So as I have been praying for a healthy baby to hold and love I’ve also been praying that God would do whatever is in His perfect will to do. And I pray for the grace to be able to accept it.

Having opened my heart to you all and showed you my fears, will you please pray for us? Pray that we really would trust Jehovah with the future of this family. Pray also that He would indeed grant us our desire for another child. And then watch with us as we wait to see what our good God will do.

It Has Begun!

The desire to redo our kitchen has carried on through many generations- well, two at least. But, behold, just a few weeks ago the change has finally begun! We have started with the sink area and are going to slowly work our way around the rest of the room. It’s going to take some time, but it will be well worth it!
( My siblings and Jeremy, please try to control your emotions. I know this transformation means almost as much to you as it does to me. )


Before
After





It's so shiny isn't it?