Tending to what's important...

So, the holidays and vacation have thrown me completely off-kilter, and since my home and my wonderful family are more important, and I can't share about fruit I'm not actually bearing, I'm taking the next couple of weeks to get schooling and the housework (seriously, you should see this place!) under control.  I've had lots of great learning experiences lately, so I'll be back on February 1st to get back to sharing with my words what God is growing in my life.

Speaking of February 1st, there's a wonderful community of women just chomping at the bit to share and encourage.  I'm so excited about the new site, Sisters in Bloom where so many of my friends will be meeting and writing.  Go visit and see the beautiful video to introduce and whet your appetite for what's to come.

I've been going through and trying to organize my old posts (I've been here for 5 years, can you believe it?) and so you don't miss me too much, I thought I'd post some of my favorites below.

See you soon!

• Sight
• Opening our hands
• Love letter from the Creator
• Letter to a newly married bride
• 12 things I can give him this Christmas- for free!
• Forgive. Rinse. Repeat.
• Who are your EGN's?

A tropical hiatus

I've been rather quiet here, and on Twitter and Facebook.  For good reason.

I've been enjoying my hubby on a small island off of Venezuela called Aruba.

It's been rough, I tell you.

Kids had tons of fun with grandparents, aunt and uncle and cousins.  Getting spoiled rotten, I assume.  And we sat on sunny beaches, wind whipping our hair, tiki hut and 50 spf keeping us from sunburn.  We read a lot, dozed, snorkled, and spent time reconnecting with each other and God.

For someone who experiences God's voice through images, I had no lack of ways to sense His presence.  He rewarded me with clear guidance and conviction, words of wisdom and words of correction.  He is ever faithful.  Even on an arid, tropical island.

I have so much to learn and pray I'll be faithful in my responses.  With my marriage, my children, our homeschool, our service...

But I need to remember that dependence is the key to growth, not white-knuckle control over my own moments, my own goals.  It's time to turn back.

What are you learning anew this week?  How does the Lord teach you?
  
(I have a post up at Heart of the Matter called "Fishies and Encouragement", a little story from my daily life.  Check it out!)


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It's here and I'm not ready...

2012 jumped in front of me with thumbs in its ears and tongue sticking out.  It spit raspberries and laughed, waggled its fingers and whooped.

Then it ran, taunting, as I tried to catch my breath and follow.  But I had to just rest against a tree and get my bearings.  I'm still not really ready.

I know the newness is here.  I have always been a resolution-maker and a word-chooser.  Being an optimist by nature, even though the date of January first really doesn't mean anything spiritually, I have always met the beginning of the calendar with butterflies in my gut, excitement pulsing through my veins, knowing that this year would be the year I got it all together.

Last year I decided I wanted to be free.

I chose the verb "free" but instead tried to live the adjective "free" and the noun "freedom".  Yet as 2011 came to a close I realized that the two sides of the coin called freedom baffled me with their oscillation:

• I am already free.  Was already free last January first, and didn't need to actively seek what I could already claim.
• On the flip side, I came face to face with the truth about my humanness, and learned more about how to accept my failings than about how to break decades-old chains.  In very real ways, I don't feel free.  There was a big learning curve on that one.

So I tried to figure out what word I would want to define my new year.  This is the year I will more fully embrace the fact that realness is more important than masks, and that grace is a much more powerful motivator than judgement.  In all of my searching and pondering the word that kept popping into my mind was respond.

Respond to my children, my husband, my own fears and doubts, my long-sleeping dreams.  Respond in real ways to the whispers of the Holy Spirit when it comes to serving and giving, breaking down walls and reaching out.  Respond in love, respond with grace, and respond always from the heart and not from the chain-laden prison of the "should".

I am hopeful that the search for freedom will continue and gain purpose through this responding, for it is the action of response that will lead to the opening of the heart, and as the heart swells, chains will inevitably break and fall away.


I would love to know your word, your goals, our resolutions for the new year.  Leave a link so I can visit and encourage...

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Investment

We have these awesome white towels, in two different textures, which were given to us as a wedding gift.  At the time, I kind of thought, "Towels?  Seriously?", but they soon settled comfortably into neatly stacked piles on a shelf in our master bath.  We use them day in and day out, wash them weekly, bleach them occasionally, and still they do the job.  They are the absolute best towels in the house.

They are beginning to fray ever so slightly at the edges, and I'm actually a bit sad about that.

Twelve years they have served us, as towels in the other bathrooms have come and gone.  Those towels have seen plenty from their perch- some good, some not so good, and some downright ugly.  They've lasted through rushed moments, loving moments, fights, and cold shoulders.  They've heard choice words and sweet nothings, children's whines (including plenty of my own, if I'm honest) and family giggles.

I have to admit that I'm am often more about convenience than investment.  I'll often buy the thing that will get me through to the weekend, rather than next year.  I don't always have the foresight and patience to put in the effort required to meet a future goal.  My eyes are usually clouded to the realization that better quality and more money in the short term translates to longevity and savings in the long term.

But when it comes to my marriage, 

I remind myself to make the investment.  

More than anything else in my life on this earth, 

my relationship with my husband is worth it.

What can I do today, this hour, this minute, to invest in next year, ten years from now, or when we're old and gray?  How can I learn to always recognize the "best towels" for my marriage, and not just make quick, impulse choices out of convenience or ease?

And, of course, I ask you the same question.

What choices are you making today?

Are you investing in the best for your marriage?

Merry Christmas!

May the joy, peace, hope and love
of the Savior accompany all
of your celebrations.


See you in the New Year, friends!

To take you into the weekend....

I've read so many wonderful posts this week that I just needed to share them.

Enjoy, and happy weekend!

• All homeschools should have one common factor: grace, at Educating Laytons
• Another beautiful post about grace, at Caroline G
• Joy shares her grace story at Stacey's
• A post from Maggie Hogan about giving ourselves grace: How NOT to do it all at Christmas
• Beauty and grace and real from Kris and Heather this week.  Just stunning.

{And I'm sharing over at Heather's today, a story of my own grace journey...won't you visit?}

Open letter to fellow blogging women...

I am a real flesh-and-blood woman.

I make real messes, yell real loud, and have real doubts.  I glare real daggers at my husband when he's done something I don't like, I have a real problem with patience, and I often cry real tears of frustration when things don't go as I had planned.

And I sometimes think, when I read your blogs, that you are simply not real.  That you don't make messes, never yell, and always have spotless faith.  That your marriage, your homeschool, and your housekeeping are light years better than my own.  Do you think the same of me when you read my words?

To be perfectly honest, I think this is a bloggy epidemic.

Why else would we often try so hard to simultaneously put on a pretty, well-kept bloggy face and yet worry we're not doing enough?

Why else would we feel the need to write about how our lives are so out of balance and wonder, "Is anyone else out there feeling what I'm feeling??"

I think we are all desperately crying out to know, truly and tremulously, that behind every carefully-packaged post and neatly-and-conspicuously-placed feedburner box, is a woman who is just trying to find a place and a voice.  A mom or wife who simply needs to be heard.  A daughter-sister-friend who wants to be a part of community.

That's what I want.

I often wonder if blogging is merely an indulgent way to say "Look a me!"  I'm not sure if I should be writing, if I belong here, if I'm just being selfish.  I am intimidated by those of you who have bigger blogs than me, no matter how many times you say you're just a regular gal.  I don't want it to be that way, but I'm just being real.  I love reading the real posts, the raw ones, the ones where you admit something that makes me sigh with relief.  And that's why I try to write those posts too.

Something real about me?  Today at a bloggy-turned-local-real-life friend's house, my children embarrassed me by going on and on about how much the chocolate sprinkles looked like poop.

Seriously.

So I need you to give me more real.  I love the real.  It makes me feel like we could be kitchen friends.  As if you could pop in and hug me and not care that I stumble over my real life words, instead of carefully structured and edited ones.

I promise to love your real, if you'll love mine.


Sincerely,
Christine
 

Linking up with Joy

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