Based on past performance, many of us can attest that doing a new thing is hard. This is where some of us fall off the cliff — or don’t even try! It takes determination to not allow past performance to thwart us from trying or doing a new thing! Doing a new thing is tough. Especially when that new thing takes will power or money — few of us have much of either. And, as we age, we have this daunting fear that past results (things that were good before they stopped being good) don’t necessarily mean that today’s performance…
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It’s the week before Christmas and all through the house, mother is ____________ and the family feels ___________. I posted this @ Welcome Home on Facebook… but it’s so important that I thought I’d share it here. I’ve been posting brief year-end countdown thoughts on Facebook @ Welcome Home. In the new year I hope to post daily home notes and verses for encouragement. More housekeeping and sorting today. Don’t be afraid to box up stuff you really don’t use — as you’re cleaning and preparing for festive dinners and/or visits from family & friends. Whatever you box up today,…
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I stared blindly at the ceiling as I lay in bed and thought of the evening I’d just spent. Sleep didn’t seem to come easily. Or soon. I couldn’t stop thinking of them… their tender, lineless faces, bright smiles, dark hair and the playfulness of youth in their eyes. And, I couldn’t help but — for a moment — wish that I were once again in the place they were last night — once again a young mother with seemingly limitless opportunities before me — a young mother with a vast clean slate before me. As I stood there sharing…
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I was wondering about the origin of the word, Acronym. And then got to thinking about different acronyms I regularly read. A few, I couldn’t remember the actual meaning — I see some of them every day, but for the life of me, I cannot remember what they stand for. In case you are also wondering: if you want to find acronyms and abbreviations you can look here. This, from Dictionary.Reference.com: Acronym: “1943 coinage from acro-, comb. form of Gk. akros “tip, end” (see acrid) + Eng. -onym “name” (abstracted from homonym; see name). The practice was non-existent before…
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I know. I’d probably grimace if one of my kids started an essay: “Stuff’s going to work out.” But, it’s on my mind today: stuff — and how it works out. But I want to begin by saying: stuff’s probably not going to work out how you thought it would — or even how you hoped it would — but, truly, in the end, stuff’s going to work out. Last year, the year you’ve heard me describe as the most sorrowful year of my life, I heard a song… it was one of two songs that so resonated with me…
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To my precious children… how strange it is to be apart from you this day. How interesting that the Lord would, in His wisdom, goodness and mercy, have us to be a million miles apart on this day. But as I have held you in my heart from the day you were born, so also, I hold you in my heart this day. And I am missing you terribly. But I also know that the Lord is in the details, having orchestrated this whole trip, this is His doing and it is marvelous in our eyes. I genuinely rest in…
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An excerpt of my reading today, finishing the book of Joshua… in light of Mother’s Day tomorrow and in my absence, praying for my children. Joshua 23.6-24.15 6 Be ye therefore very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, that ye turn not aside therefrom to the right hand or to the left; 7 That ye come not among these nations, these that remain among you; neither make mention of the name of their gods, nor cause to swear by them, neither serve them, nor bow yourselves unto them:…
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Living long. I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. I’ve been wondering to my self: what would I be doing today if I had been living long for the last thirty-some-odd years? What would I have accomplished or done differently had I been living long all these years of marriage and motherhood? This train of thought is the sort of along the same track of thinking as the question: How would God have used me (or my life) had my whole life been yielded to Him? Where would I be today if my whole life had been yielded to…
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I received such a beautiful card yesterday. It was a birthday card — but yesterday was not my birthday — well, not technically, anyway. But in a way, it was my birth-day, for twenty-five years ago yesterday I gave birth to our first daughter — third child, first daughter. As I look back, nothing and everything prepared me for that day. O, it wasn’t the gap between her birth and the birth of the son five years previous — though it was. It wasn’t that I knew I was to have a daughter — I didn’t know that; it…
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I snapped this photo one day when one of our little boys was doing dishes for me and when I came in to check his progress, I noticed the dishes weren’t loaded properly — an error that was glaringly obvious to me. Funny thing was, it wasn’t obvious to him. He was actually very proud of how neatly he had put the cups and glasses into the dishwasher rack. I showed him that, while they were neat, they weren’t going to get clean inside because they would only fill with water, they would not be washed out by the sprayer…