Peace...in the midst of a raging storm

Sitting on top of the heater vent...

Sipping a cup of English breakfast tea....

Looking at the rain drops that have accumilated on the window overnight....

Admiring the beauty of an antique school bell that sits on my dinning room window sill....

Week 2 of operation peace underway.

Last month I was working on contentment. Not just with the "things" in my life, but also with the
situations and circumstances. Learning to be grateful and thankful for all things. Even the difficult ones.

I have not yet reached that place in full....
because the being isn't really the point....it's the becoming. 

"Reaching for the prize that is before us..." "Pressing toward the mark...."
"Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our Faith...."
Those are becoming/doing things. Not "I've arrived" things.


2012 has been one of the most difficult years of my life as well as my extended families lives.
We are facing a trial that is monumental and overwhelming and scary and upsetting and frustrating and
mind-numbing and very difficult. Something that none of us ever thought that we'd have to face.
However, it's here. We are walking through it. Each in their own way.

I can speak only for myself...yet, I also can see the havic in my families faces and voices as they
walk this road as well....but it has been debilitating. As much as we try to escape the thoughts
of "what if" and "why" and "how could this happen" and "who are these people that we thought we knew"
the feelings of anxiety only grow stronger and then the terrible numbness begins to set in.

I heard it said once that worry is like a rocking chairs. It gives you something to do but it never takes
you anywhere. This experience has humbled me and made me more aware of my daily need of
God's freedom. Understanding, flexiblity, forgiveness, true forgiveness that is, reconciliation, trust,
letting go and letting God work out the details, giving others the freedom to process it how they need to.
All those things are a work in progress right now in my life.

I am so grateful that I have the Lord and His precious Word to rest upon. As I lay in bed and the scenes and scenarios once again arrest my brain, the Hidden Word of God begins to pop up. Things that I know are truth, yet I struggle to accept. Parables that I have heard since childhood are brought to my mind by the Holy Spirit. I know them, I hear them, I understand them, I teach them....yet now, it's time to live them. That's much harder than reading or teaching them.

I say that I forgive, yet I don't want to face what forgiveness means. Restoration.
I say that I trust God, but that means not continually picking the anxiety of the unknown back up.
I say that I love, but right now I don't want to forget the past wrongs.
I say that I am humble, however I seem so much better in my own mind than they are.

Matthew 6:25 - Jesus I know you say this to me daily....but it's hard to live out right now.
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life."
vs 34: "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of it's own."

Live in the now. Allow the Lord to hold my future. Yes, that's what I have to chose.

I Peter 5:6-7: "Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you."

The French version says literally, "Unload on Him all your cares." The Greek word for cast means "to hurl." The Phillips translation of verse 7 says, "You can throw the whole wight of your anxieties upon him, for you are his personal concern." (Linda Dillow)


George McDonald wrote, "It has been well said that no man ever sank under teh burden of the day. It's when tomorrow's burden is added to the burden of today that teh weight is more than a man can bear. Never load yourself so, my friends. If you find yourserlves so loaded, at least remember this: it is your own doing, not God's. He begs you to leave the future to Him and to mind the present." 


J.B. Meyer made this plain when he said, "This is the blessed life - not anxious to see far in front, nor eager to choose the path, but quietly following behind the Shepherd, one stop at a time. The Shepherd was always out in front of the sheep. He was down in front. Any attack upon them had to take him into account. Now God is down in front. He is in the tomorrows. It is tomorrow that fills men with dread. God is there already. All the tomorrows of our life have to pass Him before they can get to us." 


If I'm not worried about tomorrow, because God's got it....then I can focus on the joys of today. 

The Love Chapter for Mothers

I read this over at Proverbs14verse1.blogspot.com and it was so good!

The Love Chapter for Mothers based on I Corinthians 13:


If I talk to my children about what is right and what is wrong, but have not love, I am like a ringing doorbell or pots banging in the kitchen.

And though I know what stages my children will go through and understand their growing pains, and can answer all their questions about life and believe myself to be a devoted mother, but have not love, I am nothing... 

If I give up the fulfillment of a career to make my children's lives better and stay up all night sewing costumes or baking cookies on short notice, but grumble about lack of sleep, I have not love and accomplish nothing...

A loving mother is patient with her children's immaturity and kind even when they are not; a loving mother is not jealous of their youth, nor does she hold it over their heads whenever she has sacrificed for them.

A loving mother believes in her children; she hopes in each one's individual ability to stand out as a light in a dark world; she endures every heartache and backache to accomplish that.

A loving mother never really dies. As for homebaked bread, it will be consumed and forgotten; as for spotless floors, they will soon gather dust and heelmarks. As for children, right now toys and friends and food are all-important to them. But when they grow up, it will be their mother's love that they will remember and pass on to others. In that way, she will live on.

So care, training, and a loving mother reside in a home, these three; but the greatest of these is a loving mother...

-by Dianne Lorang 

My precious baby boy woke me at 3:45 AM and said that his tummy hurt very badly.

It is now 3:25 PM and he has thrown up 16 times. 

I mean really thrown up! Not just gagging. 

It just breaks my heart to see my kids sick. 

He was so sweet when he woke me up though because 

he kept apologizing for having to wake me up 

and then as I was cleaning up he kept saying that he was sorry. 

I told him that this is what Mommy's are for...

to show love when you need it most!

Forgiveness

Linda Dillow writes, "Author Philip Yancy called forgiveness an unnatural act. He's right. It does feel unnatural. However, forgiveness is not a feeling but a secret choice of the heart. God uses conflict to teach us this truth." This morning as I was praying and struggling over a certain situation, I happened to open a book that I'd been reading and set aside for many months and this was the exact paragraph that I had left off on. It is completely amazing to me how God works in such mysterious and loving ways. I asked Him to help and He did by having me stop at this exact place months ago and begin reading again right when I needed it. Now the hard part is actually doing it....