13 Hours of Rain

...I fast from the blog world. I desperately need to focus on God and His truths during this season of preparation.

Loving God, I ask You to give Rain complete knowledge of Your will and to give her spiritual wisdom and understanding. Then the way she lives will always honor and please You, the Lord, and her life will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, she will grow as she learns to know You better and better. I also pray that she will be strengthened with all Your glorious power so she will have all the endurance and patience she needs. May she be filled with joy, always thanking You, the Father. You have enabled her to share in the inheritance that belongs to Your people, who live in the light. (Colossians 1:9-12 NLT)   AMEN   Thank you B. :)

I spent my entire twenties waiting for Prince Charming. With mixed feelings, I watched many of my friends walk down the aisle, beautifully arrayed in gleaming white, toward the man of their dreams. As the perpetual bridesmaid, I was left behind once again , with a boutique of flowers and another dress... To read the rest of this post, please visit Our Journey Home for my monthly contribution to Family Friday !

Endless circling. Waiting and wondering. Thinking, thinking, thinking. Trying to solve that perpetual problem but not finding a satisfactory solution. More circling. More waiting. More thinking. And praying. A holding pattern, that's what I'm in. Just as a pilot awaits instructions from air traffic control as to when and where to land his or her aircraft, I anxiously listen for God's guidance in more than one area of my life. I believe moving to this new community has been one of the best decisions of my life. (I can't believe I just wrote that!) Leaving dear friends and family behind has actually aided me in gaining new perspectives on certain issues that I thought I had already resolved. In many ways, I believe I am in a better place mentally and physically than I was two years ago. Mentally, I am less influenced by the materialist voices of my society and culture. Physically, I am a few pounds shy of the weight I was in grade twelve. :) I attribute these positive c...

Wake up. Eat breakfast. Pack diaper bag. Get dressed. Rush out the door. Park car. Get inside. Hang coats. Grab bulletin. Find a seat. Sing worships songs while pacifying little children. Shake a hand or two during the ever-so-brief-hi-how-are-you hand shake time. Try to get our kids to behave as songs interchange with offeratory and announcements. Rush kids to nursery when they lose it. Attempt to take in a sermon while exhausted. Sing closing hymn. Run out, say "hi" to a few people, grab kids, go home. That's church. To tell you the truth, if I had to completely depend on my Sunday morning experience to make real connections with people, I'd be a very lonely woman right now.    Let's be honest. The typical Evangelical North American "Sunday Morning Church Service" is structured to highlight the individual rather than the collective. Here are some of my observations: Our musical worship offers a false sense of community. Many of our songs are wri...

Opening up a brand new box of Crayola Crayons , How I love the smell, the brilliant array of hues, the call to creativity. Listening to an old, yet cherished, collection of music, The memories flood back, hips sway, dancing begins! Opening my eyes after a full night of uninterrupted, my-kids-didn't-wake-up-once-exclamation-mark, SLEEP, Followed by a bowl of oatmeal graced with a little brown sugar. Drinking tea, In the morning, In the afternoon with a touch of sweet something, In a moment with someone special. The domestic and the very-minuscule-crafty-side-of-me: The joy in making a meal that elicits delightful "mmmms" from my family, The satisfaction in cleaning and organizing a room, The delight in documenting a moment in my kids' lives through scrapbooking. What are some of your simple pleasures?

Should I sell cherished, sentimental, hardly-worn clothing and jewelry and give the money to the poor? Should I let go of dreams of a brand-new kitchen and complete a low-cost, "just paint the cupboards" renovation to free up funds for developmental projects in third-world countries? Should I adopt international children to address the call to look after orphans and widows? Should I sell my spacious home and move to a more humble abode so I can be less in debt and more free to give? Should I stop purchasing Christmas gifts for my family so I can gift others overseas with farm animals or clean running water so necessary for their survival? Too many questions. I'm scared of the answers. But I must ask regardless.

Hard to believe!? It's past February 1st already. I'm not one to make New Year resolutions. Maybe I've become cynical in my old age (te he) and secretly believe that it will all come to naught in a month or two (well, I guess the secret is out). But, I find it amazing how God is impressing new direction in my life in spite of my reluctance to make official goals. In a way, He is resolving His ways into my thinking and I can only give the Holy Spirit credit. Spend less. Give more. We recently purchased a new vehicle. The acquisition was costly for us, but my husband and I believed it was wise to invest in quality over quantity (i.e. one good reliable vehicle instead of two mediocre ones). Ironically, spending more on a vehicle was the impetus to re-evaluate our budget and trim extra expenditures. I've been trying hard to watch the sales and purchase items at a lesser value. I'm attempting to eliminate wants and focus on needs, which is much more...