This made me cry today.

Here is a passage from John Flavel's book, 'Facing Grief' that was helpful for me:

"Before this relation whose loss you lament came to know life, the time of your enjoyment and separation was unalterably fixed and limited in heaven by the God of the spirits of all flesh; and although it was a secret to you while your relation was with you, yet now it is a plain and evident thing that this was the time of separation before appointed; and that the life of your relation could be no means be protracted or abbreviated, but must keep you company just so far, and then part with you.

This position has full and clear Scripture authority for its foundation. How full is that text in Job 14:5, "Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with You, You have appointed him his bounds that he cannot pass." The time of our life, as well as the place of our habitation, was fixed from all eternity past. It will greatly conduce to your settlement and peace to be well established in this truth - that the appointed time was fully come when you and your dear relation parted - for it will prevent and save a great deal of trouble, which comes from our after-reflections. Oh, if this had been done, or that omitted; had it not been for such oversights, etc. my relation would be alive this day! No, no, the LORD's time was fully come, and all things concurred, and fell in together to bring about the pleasure of His will. Let that satisfy you: had the ablest physicians in the world been there, or had they that were there prescribed another course, as it is now so it would have been when they had done all..... The LORD's time was come; your relation lived with you every moment that God intended them for you before you had them with you.
And let none say the death of children is a premature death. God has ways to ripen them for heaven whom He intends to gather there eventually, which we know not. In respect of fitness they die in a full age, though they be cut off in the bud of their time. He Who appointed the seasons of the year appointed the seasons of our comfort in our relations; and as those seasons cannot be altered, no more can these. All the course of providence is guided by an unalterable decree; what falls out casually to our apprehension yet falls out necessarily in respect to God'd appointment. Oh, therefore be quieted in it. This must needs be as it is."
 
Thank you, dear friend for sharing with me what has comforted you in the past.  This is also a good reminder as we contemplate God's soveriegnty in our children's lives.

I'll be home from Christmas

The Christmases I've spent at my house have been few and far between.  No matter where I've lived, Christmas just isn't Christmas if it isn't spent in Tucson.

The getting there is always great, and the being there is wonderful when managed well (we had a few socializing burn-out years before we figured out the right timing for our family). 

No matter how well my trip went, I always return a little weary, a little sad, a little too bootylicious for my pants.

I was going about the business of getting through the end of vacation doldrums (laundry, cleaning, unpacking, grocery shopping, cooking) in relatively good-if-snappy spirits when I was abruptly reminded: "God is faithful and will equip for all that needs to be accomplished!"

Well, there's a cold dash of water to the spiritual face!  I guess I need to add two more things to my laundry list: prayer and a long steep in the word of God!

Green Acres?

I just love it that the media is all hyped up on living green.  The next sentence is always about consuming something new that's "green".  Look!  This family tore out their old, energy wasteful kitchen and replaced it with EVA/BPA-free, Energy Star, yammer-yammer, Gobbledy Gook, thereby reducing their cabon footprint to one inch!  Aren't they wonderful.

It's pretty typical that Americans can stick a huge house on a "green" acre and pat themselves on the back for consuming less.

A friend and I were talking recently about how christians consume at the same level as the world.  My daughter said yesterday about her play kitchen, "When this one dies, I'll just get this new one." Isn't her mother guilty of the same thoughts? All my favorite shirts are my new ones, etc.  Didn't someone say that we spend where our hearts lie?

I've been hearing more and more christians talk about living off the land.  Throwing off the fetters of the city to be self-sustaining.  Milking their own cows, farming their own grains, growing their own vegetables.  These are all noble, if a bit romantical ideas.

But there's a reason why most farmers are born to their vocation.

Tilling the ground is HARD, people!  We were made to work, yes, but, "cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.  By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return."  The people I know who live off their land LOVE working the earth.  They LOVE growing things.  They get excited--heck, they get degrees to learn the earth better.  (Those of you who've read this blog know how I feel about gardening.)

And do we even indeed sustain ourselves? No, "I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them."

We are to look to our heavenly Father for our daily bread, and to thank him for that which we have.  I look around my house and...I have A LOT.  Yet, most times it's not enough.  I'm tempted and fail again and again to buy and buy and buy, and then what do I have?  A house full of stuff that's useful, but unused.

I've thought about these two ideas before: God's blessings to us, and the waste that being a consumer produces, but never put the two together until another friend was bemoaning her infant carseat which has been through 3 children now and is missing it's base. I can sympathize with that.  My infant carseat has been through 3 kids, too, and it's looking a little ragged.  Here's the amazing thing: her conclusion was, "but it's what God has given to us, and it's still useful!"

My mother-in-law is one of the greenest people I know in these terms.  I have seen this woman save smidgens of food left over, only to add them to some other little smidgens to make something truly impressive for dinner.  My favorite example of this was when we were packing up her mother-in-law's house.  Dinner rolls around, and we're thinking: take out.  But Beth, she goes in the pantry, finds a couple of cans of something, thows it all in a pot and out pops restaurant-worthy minestrone soup.  This saved us time, money, and trash costs (not a trivial thing in Seattle where the trash police comes and checks on how well you're recycling).  She doesn't think: What can I buy?  She thinks: What can I make with what I have?

Let's do the work that God has called us to do in the time that He has called us to do it, and try not to pretty up the edges.  I'll happily plan my vegetable garden, but I'm going to trust God to grow it, and try really, really hard not to get that kitschy aliens-carrying-off-the-garden-gnome statue.

Where have all the periodicals gone?

I guess you know you're not mainstream enough when all your favorite periodicals get cancelled.

Last year, when Cottage Living and Mary Engelbriet's Home Companion were cancelled, I thought the cut backs were all over.  Phew!  At least Cookie made it.

Turns out, that was only the first wave.

Now I have to put up with Southern Living instead of Cottage, and Lucky instead of Cookie.  These are pale, pale substitues.  Now I have no design magazines that don't consider 2,000 square feet a small house, and no parenting magazines that don't try to tell me how not to discipline my kids. 

I guess I must turn to blogs now, like the rest of Mom America.  I'm sure there are some good ones, but I'm tactile, people.  TACTILE!!!!!!!!!! 

Now I get catalogues, which is dangerous.  I'm increasingly tempted by all white rooms and starting to consider $300 for a side table a good deal.

Winter for Dummies...

Winter conditions do not maintain a constant temperature.  Occassionally, in the middle of a thaw, the temperature will drop suddenly.  This causes all the puddles of melted snow to freeze.  Likewise, all run-off from a house gutter will freeze.

Use extreme caution when leaving the safety of home to get the mail.  If you have a downspout right next to your mailbox, you likely will have a large, watery-looking patch of ice directly beneath your mailbox.

Warning: should you succumb to the ice, do NOT attempt to stay upright by grabbing onto your mailbox!  You will only injure your hand and look like an idiot.

STOWAWAYS

I don't know about your house, but at mine, we occasionally find stowaways.

What's a stowaway?



Well, a stowaway is when you go to make the guest bed, peel back the covers and find a stuffed animal lovingly laid to rest. Or, when you open up your lunchbox at work, and find a truck parked perfectly so it can pull right out and go on its way.

One of our most recent and pervasive stowaways is this wall rock that you see pictured above.

Yes, a rock.

Some small child found this rock and brought it in doors. Another small child pilfered a piece of sticky-tack, affixed it to the back of the rock, and stuck it to the wall in our entryway. Walking down the stairs, a parent spied the new addition to the wall, inspected it, determined it to be what it was, and removed it.

It appeared again the next day.

And the day after that.

And the day after that.

This stowaway is now a semi-permanent resident of our entryway wall.

I heard our daughter laughingly pointing it out to her friend a few days ago, and knew myself to be what I was:
A bamboozled, befuddled and bedraggled parent

favorite blog post

Confession: I don't read blogs, I read books that are occasionally based on blogs.  When I want ideas for a creative project, homeschool activities or the weather forecast, I search the web.  When I want to read something entertaining, I turn to books.

I picked up a book a long time ago that made me laugh outloud called Why Girls Are Weird by Pamela Ribon.  Further research revealed that the book was based on this woman's blog.  Now, most of you (who are probably blog readers; since you're reading my blog, I guess you figured out that whole dashboard thing--can you teach me?) are probably like,

"Duh!  Pamela Ribon is a pioneer in the blogosphere." 

And I'm like, "Pamela Ribon has published two books.  She's a guppie in the book world."

Anyway, one of my favorite pieces of written comedy was contained in that book (the book itself was kinda whiny when not really, really funny, but that's kind of discriptive of chicklit anyway), and I'd like to share it with all of you:

http://www.pamie.com/February99/01February99.shtml

Scroll down to the picture and start reading.  The writing is worldly, but not *too* profane.

I'm now interested in Julie and Julia by Julie Powell.  A book based on a blog that now has a movie out on DVD. 

I'm way behind the times.