Life with children puts a whole new spin on the way you think about yourself as God's child. Far from warm, fuzzy moments at times - it's a pull, a friction, a slow molding of our will to His.

In so many ways, the effort it takes to speak love and sweet fellowship with a child, makes me more mindful of God's good love to His heavenly children.

I'm a child. I'm disobedient. I'm loud and running wild somedays. I'm falling down and crying and testing Him instead of trusting.

And He loves me anyway.

It sounds hard and impossible when I say it that way. It seems impossiblewhen you look into the little defiant face of someone who needs grace and yet you're struggling to find it.

But He gives it anyway. To me - and I need to deep breath and give it to them.

An imperfect analogy, but Life right now.

 

~Liv

Photo Challenge Week 4: Self-Portrait

~Liv

Photo Challenge Week 3: I Dreamed a Dream

Peachy.

Sometimes it takes the coldest and windiest of days to make us remember summer the best. 

Sometimes it's the shivers that stir the mind, and you think, 'yes. i remember that once upon a time...yes, and it was warm all day long. And you didn't even think twice about it.'

Sometimes it's the taste. A peach, swimmy with syrup - that makes you recollect what fresh is. It's like the flavour of summer stopped in time; bottled, sealed and labelled in the cupboard. Summer flavour in January, no less. That certainly jogs the memory. 

And sometimes, it's the touch. The fabric, the shell; it moves your memory to a certain afternoon. You think about the way it feels to go barefoot, and the road you took to that store. 

It all helps me remember. A few August days, and how we drove to where the orchards are, and the friendly faces, and how we had jam for breakfast.
We listened to the blues on the way back, the car loaded down, almost overflowing. We took some unexpected turns, and followed the antique signs, and were determined to find that fabric store.

And when we got home, we sat on the porch in the rumbling, drippy beginnings of an evening's summer storm, and peeled peaches until dark. I made six bottles of jam that night. We were giddy with stickiness and juice stains. 

I finally used that fabric a few weeks ago - on a day when the roads couldn't be travelled - and the wind whistled (really and truly) around the window. It helped me recall - and I thought about the gifts of last summer.

And I thought, sometimes, the remembrance is all that gets us through the stormiest of days. When things are cold. When things are dark. When closed roads keep you from others. Remember the early sun-up mornings, the touch of sweet on your tongue, the smoke of bonfires, smiles in the dusk of a late-night porch sitting. Remember the Grace. 

This will keep you warm.

~Liv

Photo Challenge Week 2: Made with Love

Because it is not easier, cheaper or faster to make it, but means so much more.

Real life is...

melting down the not working-gooey fudge to pour on top of brownies, and burning it black in the pot. Double fail.

Serves me right for making such things - 8:30 pm, after Zumba class.

~Liv

Because being grateful for the little things...

...is what helps us to be grateful for the bigger things.

"Through Him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise..."(Hebrews 13:15)

"Giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.."(Ephesians 5:20)

"Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe..." (Hebrews 12:28)


~Abigail

Resolution

As part of my New Years over-thinking and maudlin pondering - I decided this would be the year I do a photo challenge. Not wanting to expend all my puny energies in one place, however, I skirted around the photo-a-day idea, and settled for a 52 week project, with one assignment a week. Fair enough?

~Liv 

This week's photograph: Resolution

"La joie du Seigneur est notre force."

My children are memorizing the phrase "La joie du Seigneur est notre force" (The joy of the Lord is our strength).  It's a simple phrase, but it is becoming my mantra these days.

  Living true joy is what gives us strength to see the beauty in what the world tells us is mundane or even inconvenience.

 May the joy of the Lord fill your hearts in this new year.

 ~Abigail

Cutting Edge

Over the holidays, Dad brought out a stack of  old orange books to peruse. The do-it-yourself  research tools, before Pinterest.

And they are certainly useful little volumes. Among your average instructions for  children's toys, tool buying and gardening ideas - there were some sections devoted to technology.  They even offer helpful tips for fixing snarled cassette tapes. Eg; "The most common cassette problem is the jammed cassette whose tape won't move. But the cure is usually simple: Hold the cassette three or four feet above a hard surface and drop the cassette so that it lands flat. Do this several times, including at least once on each side."

In the 1985 edition, there is woodworking patterns for computer workstations and updates on New High Tech Products. Like a new way to "pack information onto the familiar 5 1/4 inch floppy disk", and a snappy ergonomic invention - the computer chair.

 

Best of all, however - we see the kind of handyman the 80's produced.

 

Drink it in. Not only does this fine specimen make his own Adirondack lawn furniture; but he has leisure to sit about and juggle in full tennis regalia, while his adoring lady friend looks on.

 

They don't make men like that anymore.

~Liv