Westwoods

     Nobody told me how hard it would be to let your firstborn go off for his first really big event, free from his mother looking over his shoulders.  I realize, it's a little hard to explain and probably most moms don't spend as much time as I do trying to figure out every emotion that passed through their lives.  I'm weird that way.  I think I'm being brave and before I know it or am willing to admit it, I'm in over my head with trying to figure out what's going on.        Two friends called the morning Laife left for boys camp and asked how I was doing. At that moment I was fine.  I got called in to deliver the mail and was busy all day. It didn't even bother me till three in the afternoon, when I was finally home from work and starting the house chores here at home.  I kept walking by his room and feeling funny. I had to keep reminding myself where he was.  Every time I accidently looked...

I have three beautiful books to read and instead I feel this incredible need to write. That’s frustrating, because what I have to say is hard to articulate. Why do other people find it so easy to explain what they’re thinking? And how do other people process things without much ado when I have to look at the thing from all the different angles and talk so much about it. Nobody really wants to know what I’m thinking so why do I feel like it’s so all-fired important to write it or say it or share so many thoughts? OK. So the thought that won’t let me go this week was God’s provision. God provides everything we need for every day. When the family is sick for weeks on end; I praise God for a house, food, medicine, and clothes where with all we are able to get better under the best of conditions. What if we lived in a grass hut in the scorching sun with no food or water that was clean enough to drink? Why am I so blessed? When peace doesn’t reign in the house like I think it s...

   I've been thinking about kindness...  I never used to have as much trouble with it as I do now that I am older and "more mature".  Or maybe I was always unkind naturally and am finally noticing.   Someone recently mentioned the old saying about how we are like a cup filled with something and that when we are bumped what spills out?    Also, in trying to teach the children to be kind to each other... How do they learn kindness if their very own mommy has trouble with it?  I think to get to the bottom I have to realize that it is plain selfishness that makes me grouch at them when the kids ask another question.  It's selfishness when I have to be grouchy about helping someone do a five minute chore.  Interruptions are part of the big picture...  It's like the cup of water being bumped.  As my husband likes to say..."It's part of the story."    One goal for this new year... Practice kindness.  Devel...

"Mommy, I think that to God we are so little that we're like His little toys."  {She watched  "Toy Story 2" last night.} I guess she might have a pretty good perspective... When Toria was four, just after she started going to Sunday School, she became very convinced of her hunger one day...  She came to me with flashing blue eyes and got in my face and said..." Mommy, you know the story of that guy that ate the pigs food in the Bible?   THAT'S how hungry I am!" Kids have a way with words for sure...  Now must go clean the windows for the first time in a very long time...

K.  Here's my pretty....  Yesterday  I needed pretty so I came in here to blog about it and afterward it disappeared...  My point was that seeing "pretty" makes me think of the good in life and to thank God for all of it...  Not only the roses but also the bugs on the roses.  Just being thankful for what is...  Because God is... To take a moment and breathe deeply of the goodness of God and all the blessings in your life right now even if there are a few icky things to deal with today... To thank God for the family He's given you and and all the little treasures He's added in the past ten years.  To remember what it is I love and treasure about my marriage.   To worship God for all His goodness to undeserving me...

They are attempts to say what's on the heart. To explain why I did what I did. Words. Words. Words. Why so many of them? Words can do so much. They can tear something to bits. They can heal and soothe a broken spirit. They can bite and devour. They can encourage and build up. Words show my attitude. Words show the emotion I'm feeling at the moment. They have no secrets. The words I use can be taken opposite of what I'm trying to express. So much involved in communicating... Sometimes I communicate best by listening in silence. True communicating takes more than words. Words by themselves are just that. Communicating takes proper timing. Is my attitude showing? What is it showing? Are my words gentle and kind? Words... so easy to say. So hard to undo. So hard to say what I'm really thinking. So humbling. Not fun to be misunderstood. Wish I could fix things by using more words. Realize the redundancy of that. God's Word... Thy Word i...

A leap of faith... When all else is gone and I have nothing else to hold on to... Fear about the kids turning out to live for Christ... Fear about our stuff in life. How are we handling everything? Is it what God wants?... etc... Sometimes just fearing fear its self... Deuteronomy 1:29-33 Then I said to you, "Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them{giants}. The Lord you God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes. And in the desert. There you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a Father carries his son, all the way until you reached this place." " In spite of this, you did not trust in the Lord you God, who went ahead of you on your journey, in fire by night and in a cloud by day, to search out places for you to camp and to show you the way you should go... It takes faith to believe it. It's faith in what I cannot see that gives hope... I noticed again the fire by night and the cloud by day that...

So, I'm showing my laziness if I keep quoting from books... I admit I have been sneaking in a few reads. The summer memorization with the kids is failing miserably. They know a part of Psalm 23. Laife says he knows it already because he learned it in school but I noticed he can't say it through to me. Hmmm.. It just got warm enough to enjoy summer fun. Bruce set up our tiny, little pool and every afternoon possible you will find them in there playing with a set of snorkelers[ is that a word?] and what ever other crazy game they can come up with. Yesterday, Laife showed me how you can lasso all the crud in the pool into the middle bottom part... First you go in a fast circle around the perimeter of the pool five times{very important} and then jump out. This is a technique called "whirlpool". Also, was just thinking what you could possible find to snorkel in a two and half foot deep pool? OK so the quote...Sutter's Crossing by W. Dale Cramer.... ...

In talking about loss... "And if I let myself concentrate on the loss, I would lose everything. That's the trouble with grief. It's cannibalistic. It makes you focus on yourself until you end up gnawing off your own foot trying to make the hunger pains go away." Great warning to self-focused attitudes. God knows what He's doing without my help... Wow!