Happy Thanksgiving :: And November Newsletter

Happy

 

Thanksgiving

Dear Friends!

This holiday has taken on such renewed meaning in my life since I met her and read her book.

I started my own list, which is pretty much how I started this blog,  and it’s somewhere in the 1600’s, but I know enough to know that that’s just a tiny, tiny glimpse of His gifts.

I can say from the depths of my heart, as the Bible is so clear as well, that it is so easy to pin my lack of contentment, anger, doubt, fear back to a lack of thanks.  Since I began this journey I’ve known times when the way to life was to thank Him, BUT I WOULDN’T!  How’s that for learning the obstinacy of my own heart?!  But, even here, there is thanks.  Thanks that this light shines and the darkness is easier to recognize for what it is too and this is the real truth :: the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

And for all of you who follow our journey, here is Our November Newsletter that updates you on our family and the ministry we are called to in Central & Eastern Europe.

May You be FILLED with Him and His Great Love for YOU today and no matter the joy or sadness that a ‘family holiday’ can bring, may YOU know the depths of His love for you…TODAY.

Five Minute Friday :: Remember…

Remember…

and this day when I hold you in my arms and you four big years now.  and I cuddle you and I remember how I held you when you first came to the BIG doctor’s office and you so tiny and this world so big.  and I lost it when you cried with your first shots and it takes a piece of me today, 4 years later when I cuddle and you cry because it hurts.

And I cry for all that hurts in this life and I can’t protect you from it.

And I think of how just last night you sigh at dinner and say you are sad having to give back all of our houses, our Florida house, Colorado house, first Pennsylvania house and now this second you know we will leave soon.  And your little heart is weary born into this sojourning family following the bigness of God leading us across an ocean.

And so I remember how He is writing your story.  It is bigger than your mommy and daddy’s calling and it is bigger than shots that hurt to protect you and it is bigger than all that we will fail you in and that this whole world will fail you in and you with your big heart feeling the shots and I feeling them right with you.  And I remember that the pieces that this Mama’s heart is breaking into are the very heart of God given to me for you to intercede for you and to make a Home where He is all the hope and refuge and strength and tender grace to see us through this long journey home. 

Stop.

Five Minute Friday: On Forgetting

Got five minutes? Here’s a great way to spend them. {straight from Lisa-Jo’s the 5 Minute Friday Queen…}

1. Write for 5 minutes flat without editing your voice.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. Pony up the comment love for the five minuter who linked up before you.

I love reading what you write – it’s five minute art that lasts a lifetime. And it gives me a chance to give one of you a little somethin’ somethin’ from DaySpring, who I love more than cotton candy!

 

 

This week the My Beloved Photo Frame is up for grabs.

OK, are you ready?

Give me your best five minutes for the prompt:

 

 

 

 

On Forgetting….

Go:

I fear forgetting.  For isn’t that the way it should be?  When Israel of old went far away from Yahweh, it was because they forgot.  forgot His faithfulness and deliverance countless times and doubted and fled to false gods and ways…forgetting made them lose the way.

I fear the forgetting.  The losing the way.  The forgetting where I come from…it was hard when the time I spent on the farm as a little girl equaled the time I’d been away.  Now it’s double away to what was spent there.  I forget often the smells which to a farm girl were home.  I forget the early rising to do chores and the diligence in working together to make a life.  I long for the togetherness of us five and our mama and papa…

Now, this week, 9 years since she went Home…away from here.  I fear the forgetting of her voice and ways…I fear that her memory will distance and I won’t live like I ever had her.  I fear our collective forgetting of what it was to come together in her last days.  I fear the forgetting of family itself as brother goes to the other side of this country and I go over an ocean.  Will we ever be together again in this life?

Maybe not.  So what does NOT forgetting mean when it is all but memory and the tangible touch is not possible?  Is it living your life like it is so real you wouldn’t be alive without it?

Stop.

M.I.A. Come find me!

Hey Friends,

Please go here for a fun poem on being M.I.A. these days and some recent pics of the kiddos.  

Trusting there is Joy in your Journey:-)

He is always and ever faithful even when we are faithless...Hallelujah, What A Savior!

Five Minute Friday: Motherhood Should Come with…

I love this Gypsy Mama…here is this week’s prompt straight from this encouraging woman that blesses so many:

For five minutes flat. The rules are easy.

1. Write your heart out for five minutes and show us what you’ve got.
2. Tell your readers you’re linking up here and invite them to play along.
3. And most importantly, go visit, read, and encourage the fellow five-minuter who linked up right before you.
   {Pretty please turn off word verification for the day to make this easier!}

Easy peasy.

Oh and there’s always a little fun something-something in it for one five minute artist. Last week I got to give away this All Things Are Possible Water Bottle to random winner Abby@Fan the Flame. (Yeah, that’s me!)

This week DaySpring’s Love Letters from God Flower Pot is up for grabs.

OK, are you ready? Give me your best five minutes for the prompt:

Go:

Motherhood should come with…

Grace. oodles and oodles of Grace that falls like syrup down big stacks of pancakes and oozes onto laps and hands and sticks with love and smiles at all the mess. 

Grace that runs to fields and oceans lakes and pools with little toddling feet that grow and grow too quickly.  Grace to see and be free to enjoy and throw away ‘shoulds’ and with caution to the wind and wild abandon to dive in deep and en-JOY all that this little soul gives!

Grace to look deep into eyes that are so vulnerable from day 1 and that never lose that even when hard hurt covers with scales and threatens to stay forever.  Grace to pursue and Him who gives greater grace when deepest mother heart has lost hers.  Grace to win an enemy with love that will not die.  Grace to fight for all the best all the days of ones’ lives who you know will break your heart but that Grace will see what cannot be seen and fall to knees and cover whatever comes…

Grace to live, laugh, love and to hold tight and tender from day 1 until in life you part…Grace to never fix but to receive the story He writes over your life in this hallowed journey and theirs as they love you and you walk with faltering steps holding His hand all the while.

Grace for all to be what they are created to be.  And when you realize Mother is deep, deep imprint, to let what flows from soul spill out in song and color Life as it is meant to be.

Stop.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Precious Mama’s the world

over whoever and wherever

and however you be Mama!

Grace is Real and yours in this

messy journey where love and

Gospel and God who is All,

Above all and Through All

covers!

May all the love you give come

back manifold this Mother’s

Day and always

 

As of Late

Lately, I’ve been realizing how little I truly love.  (doing Loving Well by Beth Moore with my wonderful small group from church.  suffices to stay started with a bit of pride, asked Him to show me my heart…and He very much did.)

Lately, I’ve been seeking to love better by receiving His love and not settling for ‘no’ as it regards if I will love another.  I must love…and not in indifference or numbness but in thought, word and deed.

Lately, I haven’t been enjoying my kids as I know is the life-giving path I need.  I’m praying to BE HERE. PRESENT. AND LOVE THEM BY SIMPLY BEING WITH THEM.

Lately, I’ve been learning about homeschooling through the homeschool pre-school my friend, Anita, and I have been doing.

Lately, I’ve been saved by beauty, in particular sunsets and glorious moons, but I’m praying it grows to seeing the beauty in the four walls where I live.

Lately, I’ve started writing a Twin Book with my…TWIN!  Very early and we may poke at it for years, but we’ve started and were raised, ‘you start something. you finish it!’  It will be a wonderful keeper of us as we move to being an ocean apart.

Lately, I’ve had the chance to bless my best friend and neighbor, Anita.  She has blessed me immeasurably since I moved to Florida…become family.  Been everything a friend (or sister) could be…I was able to nominate her and she won ‘Woman of the Week’ for our Christian radio station!  (funny aside, they announced it this morning, but played the pre-recorded message of another winner! oops! first time it’s happened.  They recorded me yesterday morning and I knew they’d have to edit, but joked, ‘it really was bad! they had to use someone else’s!’…they’ll run it next week, Thursday morning at 7:20am)

Lately, I’ve been overwhelmed with our overseas transition.

Lately, I’ve wondered if I should just let go of ‘order’ in this year of transition…

Lately, I’ve been so encouraged to walk more intimately with my husband as he’s joined the blogging world He’s my hero and I cannot wait to follow as he shares more intentionally the conversations he has with others about the Gospel.

Lately, I’ve been stressed about money/finances and been breathing in and out and feeding on Philippians 4:4-8 in particular.

Lately, I’ve been so blessed by these free sermons of Tim Keller’s that are all from the Story of the Prodigal Son and go with his book, ‘The Prodigal God’.

Lately, I’ve been seeing how inconveniences are preparing me for when I will not have some of things I have here…over there…in Eastern Europe.

Lately, I’ve been wondering what life will look like this same time next year.  Colder (for sure)…and so much more…different.

Lately, I’ve been carrying a beloved couple in my heart (our hearts) and tears have been close and praying Romans 8:26-39 for them as times are uncertain and the extent of cancer unknown…

Lately, I’ve wondered almost constantly if I’m a good mom.  I always feel like I’m falling short and this certainly doesn’t get me anywhere better.  The Gospel is hard to receive when you realize your failures are affecting little impressionable people.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about my Dad and have written several posts that include something about him, like how he has prayed with a Papa heart for me (and my husband, kids, siblings, spouses, and kids and many more) every day since either of us can remember

Lately, I’ve been wondering about my two blogs.  The one is my ‘family and ministry blog’, though very much just the family side and I’ve been posting less and missing more of bringing our friends and family far away into the life we live where we are. That’s because I noticed that a fire was so lost inside of me I was forgetting who I was in the doing and then watching (i.e. tv, movies, to ‘relax’ etc.) because I was tired and all of these thoughts of something more were there, I just didn’t do something about it until I started my ‘writing blog’.  But, lately, I’ve been longing to bring the two together. somehow.  Or at least feel like the friends and family I’ve lived near and we’ve shared life that are my reason for keeping up the family blog can share life as my new and dear bloggy friends do even though we’ve never met.  And, vice versa.  I want my blog friends to share more of my family’s life.

So, lately, I decided to make this my first post that I am posting exactly the same in both of my blogs.  Family and friends, I would love if we connected not only here, but there.  And blog/writing friends, I would love if we shared more of the daily stuff that I post here (with some of you, we do!)  And maybe someday I’ll figure out a way to have it all come together in one place. 

What have you been up to lately?

So thankful to find out about this monthly link up, ‘As of Late’, hosted by Christy at CrittyJoy, through my blog friends Natalie and Jen.

Also with Michelle at Lost in the Prairies for Caffeinated Randomness on Fridays

Join us?