Week's end with thanks
- Waking up Easter morning to find fresh cut white tulips and a note from my man.
- A resurrected day.
- An amazing Saturday of sunshine! “Feels like” 73 degrees!
- Morning spent down at the river, throwing rocks, “fishing” for salmon, catching sharks.
- Afternoon spent on lounge chair in the sun, reading. Bliss!
- Long walk, alone with my man. No stroller. Praying God graces us with enough years to live empty-nested together. Love my children but oh, I love that man.
- Holding hands.
- Winco prices.
- Triple-layer chocolate cake (Easter is for celebrating!).
- My Little Ponies.
- Encouragement from a friend.
- Women’s Ministry Team. Love those ladies.
- Community Group friends.
- A friend who understands–really.
- Structure.
- Surprise baby shower.
- Banana cake.
- Reading through past year’s posts–God is so faithful!
- Planting seeds with Heidi. Dig, water, wait for the miracle.
- Watching kids rake and dig and til the ground, busy workerbees.
- Leftovers.
- Shampooing carpets.
- Long talks with my man.
- Reminiscing about Dutch’s Boudreaux’s incident.
- Debra’s coffee.
- Pulling weeds.
- Newly designed couch-fort. Better than ever.
- Strawberries and fresh pineapple.
- White tulips fanning out in every direction.
- Potted tulips outside making “S” shape to always lean toward sun. Amazing.
- Garbage service. Also amazing.
- Staying light longer!
- Getting light earlier!
- Sharing embarrassing moments. Really embarrassing moments. Laughing til we cried.
- Nine beautiful ladies at morning prayer. Love that time!
- All living things leaning toward the Light.
- My sick boy falling sleep on my chest–deciding it was a perfect afternoon to kiss his cheeks and smell his breath and read a book with my one free arm.
- Sick kids actually means super-productive day for Mommy as they camp on couch with books and movie. Feel bad for them but it’s a nice change of pace!
- Morning walk by myself.
- Aspirations for getting back in an exercise routine. I think the ankle I injured almost six months ago is probably more than healed! 🙂
- Anticipations of summer.
- Almond milk.
- Crockpot beans.
- Planting basil.
- The Experts’ Guide to Life at Home, by Samantha Ettus.
- Generous Justice, by Timothy Keller.
- Slowing down. Three nights in a row, home as a family. I could get used to this!
- Good reports.
- Watching Jeff & Heidi together, in the backyard planting vinca. Jeff big shovel in hand, Heidi tiny pink trowel in hand. Heidi watching Daddy, mimicking his every move. Pink boots. Wispy curls blowing across her face.
- My sick boy calling from the couch, “Mommy, I love you.”
- A friend reminding me to keep writing these down, persist in thanksgiving even when my heart can’t seem to keep up.
- Gratefulness by faith.
- Generous Groupon gift to Spicer Brother’s produce.
- God’s creative provision.
- Veneer. A great book.
- Pressing through the blahs, knowing they never last forever.
- Cutting wheat grass with scissors. Eating it like a cow; kids thought I was crazy.
- My steady man.
- Simplicity.
- Sovereignty.
F is for a new Feature: The faithfulness of God.
This week my handsome webmaster (who happens to be my husband) added a fun new feature down to your right: This week past years. I love this feature, which enables me to look back at this week’s posts from all the years past on this blog. We sat together and re-read through the crazy story of Dutch’s Butt Paste incident, lessons learned as we navigated the job/church hunt, and reflections from retreats, movies, and songs. SO many things that I had forgotten all about.
This may sound bad, but as I sat with Jeff and re-read everything, I marveled, “This is good stuff!” And that’s not pride.
It’s good stuff because God is a good God.
Because God is faithful, year after year.
We don’t all have blogs (there might be two or three people left on the planet who do not :), but we all have lives. We all have stories. We all have lessons learned and insights gleaned and circumstances where God showed up. THAT is the stuff that builds our faith, the stuff that makes us sit back and say, “Wow, this is good stuff.” This life-stuff that we’re in the thick of–it’s good stuff.
It’s good stuff because God is a good God. It’s all good when He’s in it, amen?
And somehow, friends, we must figure out a way to remember. Whether we write or draw or journal or take pictures …
… or stack a pile of stones to remember the parting waters of Jordan, the miracles of God. Why? Here’s why:
20 And Joshua set up at Gilgal the twelve stones they had taken out of the Jordan. 21 He said to the Israelites, “In the future when your descendants ask their parents, ‘What do these stones mean?’ 22 tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’ 23 For the LORD your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The LORD your God did to the Jordan what he had done to the Red Sea when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over. 24 He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the LORD is powerful and so that you might always fear the LORD your God.” (Joshua 4:20-24)
That ALL will know God is powerful. That all will fear our God. Remembering His work brings God’s glory. That’s why we remember.
So now, what “feature” can we add to our lives that will remind us of God’s power, His faithfulness, His love. Even just a sentence jotted down and tucked away can bring back a wave of memories and fan a flickering flame of faith. Before “all the peoples of the earth” know God’s power we must first know it, truly know it, deep within our own hearts. Let’s remind ourselves any way we can.
Have a blessed weekend remembering His goodness. Thank you so much for reading.
Who cleans out your filter?
It was 7pm, and I just wanted to get the job done. The carpets needed shampooed and tonight was the night to git ‘er done. I was shoeing the kids upstairs to their bath when Dutch asked if he could clean out the filter in the vacuum. (I have no idea why he has such a fascination with cleaning out the vacuum filter, but he does and I certainly will not squelch any natural inclination he has toward cleanliness since he has none to spare.) I began to say no because it always makes a bit of a mess when he does it–little trails of vacuum dust and lint as he takes it to the garbage can.
I just wanted to get the job done–not deal with the mess inside.
But the little mommy-mantra–“say yes whenever you can”–went through my mind, so of course, I said yes.
Good thing! The filter was so over-clogged it’s a wonder that I’d been able to vacuum at all. It was so filthy we went ahead and cleaned out all three filters, dumping, washing, scrubbing–good as new. We fired up the vacuum and it worked wonders.
I was so thankful that Dutch had alerted me to all the garbage on the inside.
In more ways than one.
Yes, more often than not it is Dutch who–directly or indirectly–brings out the “stuff” inside my heart. Most of the time I see it as an inconvenient mess, something which I then have to deal with, trails of dust when I really just want to get the job done. Or worse, I blame him for exposing all the garbage in there.
As if he caused it.
What a common mistake we make, don’t we? We think the people in our lives who rub us the wrong way actually cause the frustration and anger, impatience or annoyance.
No, they don’t cause it, they just reveal it.
“For from within, out of a person’s heart, comes evil…” Mark 7:21
Our “challenging” people don’t put those things in our hearts any more than Dutch put the gunk inside the filter of the vacuum. The gunk is there, he just helpfully pointed it out.
Just like our “difficult” people point out the gunk we have inside. How helpful. 🙂 They pull out the filter whether we want them to or not, and there it is–gunk. Filthiness. It looked fine before! We were happy and put together and everything was great. Why’d they have to go and ruin it all by pulling out that filter and showing how gross it is!
The truth is that they didn’t pull out the filter.
God did.
God is in the business of pulling out filthy filters. He loves us so much He refuses to let us get all clogged up, filthy, inefficient, burning up our motors in frustration because there’s too much garbage to keep things running smoothly. He’ll go to great lengths to expose those filthy filters, to reveal what needs to be cleaned.
But somebody has to point it out. To ask, “Can I clean out the filter, Mommy?” Somebody’s flesh-and-blood hand must pull that thing out.
So He uses people. We might call them enemies or difficult people or “high-maintenance” kids. Whoever they are, God will use them to clean out our lives. To make us useful. Effective. Clean.
To make us fit for His kingdom.
A little process called sanctification.
God never reveals our filthy filters just to make us feel bad. He only reveals that which He intends to clean. If God shows us something ugly, we can celebrate because He’s about to make it beautiful. I may not like the process, pulling all those filters out, making the process longer, leaving that dusty trail–seeing all the ugliness that’s deep inside my heart. But it feels so good on the other side. When the vacuum runs like new.
When our hearts are clean.
After Dutch cleaned out the filter, you know what I did?
Of course, I thanked him. I intend to do much more of that as he continues to clean out my life…
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Your turn: I wonder who might be exposing a filthy filter in your life today? A difficult person or child who exposes areas God may desire to cleanse? Let’s agree with God and let Him clean us out, and gain a new appreciation for those who pull out that filter in our lives. How very helpful they are, agreed?
Simple, Steady, and Equipped: Three great books
If you’ve ever been to our house you can see that we love books. We have an office with books floor to ceiling. There are books on the coffee table, books under the coffee table, old books stacked as decorations, books on the mantle, the windowsill, the end-table. Books in the bathroom, books in our bedroom, books in the kids’ rooms. In fact, I recently had an idea of sometime redecorating the kids’ rooms with framed covers and illustrated pages from vintage children’s books.
And of course books are a constant source of inspiration and vision, the cultivate creativity and give us hope. But I recently read three very practical books that reminded me afresh at what a great resource books can be for the practical details of life. The three books are:
1. Organized Simplicity, by Tsh Oxenreider. I love this girl! She is a genius. Her book is very simple but so helpful. She gives practical advice for major simplification, everything from a creating a simple outline for each day to doing away with the dozens of crazy toiletries in favor of creating all your own from a few simple grocery-story items. Yes, Jeff was a little skeptical when I told him I could make him deodorant from scratch, but I love how Tsh has clear, easy-to-implement ideas and a light-hearted, positive approach. When talking about issues that can become touchy (cloth or disposable, supermarket or farmer’s market), she does a great job of listing pros and cons for both, then giving her own opinion at the end. But she presents all the information in such a humble, generous, positive way. She’s not fanatic or emotional about it—just fun and full of great ideas. Love this book and all the helpful templates she give out free at Simplemom.net.
2. Steady Days, by Jamie C. Martin. Jamie is another blogger-turned-author (like Tsh) and Jamie’s book is similar to Tsh’s but more focused on intentional, professional motherhood. She talks about creating steady days through order, enthusiasm, creativity, and a love of learning. She also has a wealth of knowledge and experience as she raises three children from three different continents! I love her heart for learning, and she’s inspired me all over again to pursue more reading, travel, learning through the wonder of each day. This book gives inspiration and practical helps such as memory scrapbooks (no scrapbook materials necessary!), gratitude journal, and daily inspiration cards. It’s a quick read, but worth it.
3. Kitchen Table Counseling, by Muriel Cook. Muriel is a counselor at Multnomah Seminary, and she taught a one-time class during one of my women’s discipleship classes. Wow. Talk about an amazing woman of God. Again, this book is very practical for anyone who is in a place of helping other women (that would be all of us!). Kitchen Table Counseling focuses on using sound biblical principles for helping all women work through life’s challenges. She gives phenomenal practical advice, as well as clear examples from her own 30-some years of lay counseling. This would be a great resource to have on hand to any of you who find yourself helping friends, co-workers, women in your church.
So if any of that sounds helpful, go check out these books. What are some books you’ve read recently that have helped in the practical areas of your life? Share the wealth! And happy reading…