verses from Joel

“Yet even now,” declares the Lord,
“return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
and rend your hearts and not your garments.”
Return to the Lord your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love;
and he relents over disaster.
Who knows whether he will not turn and relent,
and leave a blessing behind him...?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I will restore to you the years
that the swarming locust has eaten,
the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter,
my great army, which I sent among you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For the day of the Lord is near
in the valley of decision.
The sun and the moon are darkened,
and the stars withdraw their shining.
The Lord roars from Zion,
and utters his voice from Jerusalem,
and the heavens and the earth quake.
But the Lord is a refuge to his people,
a stronghold to the people of Israel.

(Joel 2:12-14, 25; 3:14-16)

Jeff

I was picking out Jeff's clothes today, and he saw them in the drawer, and pointing to something said "pink. pink." (He doesn't have anything pink in there.) I said something about it not being pink, so he said "yellow. yellow." (He didn't have yellow there either.) Then I pulled out a shirt and held it next to him to measure and see if it fit, and he said "too big." I said it wasn't too big, so he said "too tight" (which it wasn't either). Obviously he knows what a group of terminology refers to, though he doesn't have the specifics down.

peace

O LORD, you are my God;
I will exalt you; I will praise your name,
for you have done wonderful things,
plans formed of old, faithful and sure.

Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us.
This is the Lord; we have waited for him;
let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.

You keep him in perfect peace
whose mind is stayed on you,
because he trusts in you.
Trust in the LORD forever,
for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock.

O LORD, you will ordain peace for us,
for you have indeed done for us all our works.

(Is.25:1,9; 26:3-4,12)

today

Today I am looking down. Disappointed to not be pregnant this time around (how do my friends do it, who wait years to conceive??). Discouraged to have kids (sick again!) with colds enough to stay home from Sunday School, maybe church. Wondering why God put me here instead of on the mission field. Why God put others in the US who would rather be overseas. Doesn't He want missionaries? It's humbling to remember that God doesn't need me to get His work done. That He chooses my place and has put me here.

It's so hard to live here. Hard to escape the materialism that sucks me in. So easy to live my comfortable life and not want to be bothered by those in need, whether here or overseas. It seems easier to be a real Christian in a foreign country, where you have to trust God more every day for everything; where poverty stares you in the face on a regular basis and doesn't let you stay comfortable in your (relative) wealth.

Of course, God doesn't put you anywhere where it is impossible to obey Him, to be Christlike, etc. So obviously it must be possible to live as an on-fire, real Christian who lives sold-out for Jesus, here in America. I just wish I knew how. It feels like "my stuff" and "my life" just sucks me in like quicksand, and I don't know how to keep my eyes on the Kingdom.

Chalk it all up to "that time of the month" if you will, when emotions are more unstable anyway. But my guess is that those emotions and thoughts are really always there, under the surface somewhere, just kept from expression during the more emotionally stable days.

I know I'm supposed to be looking to Jesus, and resting in His providence, and His care for me, and the fact that He will complete what He began in me. That He put me here, and will teach me what He wants to teach me, here and now, in these circumstances. But at the moment I'm just human and being myself.

But will I ever change? Will I ever have the self-discipline to go to bed early so that I'm not tired and cranky the next day - especially on Saturday night? Maybe I need to pray more deliberately about things like that.

---------------------------------------

Maybe God knows that if I were a missionary, I would think myself to be doing something good for the Kingdom, rather than accepting a humble place of "nothing" where He has put me. Maybe if I had more children then I would be proud to have more than three (which I am so glad He has given me!). Maybe self-discipline would make me proud to be self-disciplined. Or health would make me proud that MY family was healthy.

What He really wants of me is to make me run to Jesus. There is no fruit without clinging to Him, resting in Him, trusting His righteousness. When will I learn this?!

"Many times the Lord loves you too much to give you the things you are praying for, because He wants to give you something better: Christ-likeness." (Paul Washer)

the Sullivans

Read their story if you are feeling sorry for yourself:

http://bandssullivan.blogspot.com/

And pray for this young man, left a widower with a little baby.

(Dawn (Gardner) Braun takes some of the pictures of the baby on this site).

kids update - November 2009

Jeff is 18 months old now. He started walking a month or so ago, and now is working on talking. He can say a lot with just a few words and lots of inflection! He adds new words about every day, it seems. He wants to do what the big girls do - read the books they read, go outside when they do, drink juice because they got some. He's all boy and loves everything that bounces or has wheels. Oh, some funny things Jeff says: pear is "prrr", bear is "brrr", and ear is "rrrr". And water is "oioioioi" (don't ask me why!). And "thank you" is "ga-cum" (as in, you're welcome?).



Emily is 3 yrs, 3 months old. She can read and is improving that ability every day. She still loves the computer. And dolls/bears/etc. Her current favorite is brown bear (well-loved enough to have his nose fuzz rubbed off) and the stuffed sea turtle we got on our last Myrtle Beach trip (October), and the knitted squares blanket Grandma made her when she was a baby. She's growing up so much! Looks like a big girl now, especially since her hair has grown out.



Katherine is 5 1/2. She still loves to read, and has just gotten into the "Best in Children's Books" set I had growing up (though I'm sure I acquired some since then). http://www.lib.usm.edu/~degrum/html/research/re-bestindex.shtml Now I need to go catalog which ones I have, so I can find and acquire the others! Katherine is growing up so much too. She still loves being outside, building with Legos (though we haven't done that much lately), and more recently, "making things" out of paper and scissors. She learned how to make snowflake-style patterns (http://highhopes.com/snowflakes.html) though usually with square papers.

Lincoln Log house (inspired by Little House on the Prairie log house) - we've been reading through the Little House books recently

We also finally went on a train ride, just for fun, since Katherine wanted to ride a train. It was just a "there and back" morning trip from Burlington to Greensboro, but it was nice enough.

Unerring Widsom

"Unerring wisdom ordained your lot, and selected for you the safest and best condition...

Remember this, had any other condition been better for you than the one in which you are, divine love would have put you there.

You are placed by God in the most suitable circumstances...

Be content with such things as you have, since the Lord has ordered all things for your good."

Spurgeon (Evening, Nov.11 - from "Morning & Evening")