A City Life For Me

Our day started out like this... And finished up like this...   "Praise ye the LORD. O give thanks unto the LORD; for He is good; for His mercy endureth forever. Who can utter the mighty acts of the LORD? who can shew forth all His praise?" Psalm 106:1-2  

There is a Nor'easter moving up the coast, so we decided to move our travel plans up a day.  The road from home to Ben's parents in the Berkshires (MA) is a two lane winding road, so we didn't want to drive it in 8-12 inches of snow!  Having arrived around midnight last night, we enjoyed watching the white winter wonderland develop as we made preparations for a "white Thanksgiving".  Here are a few shots from the day...   The kids couldn't wait to get outside, so Ben took them out to the parking lot to play in the snow.  He wrote their names in the snow!  I was happy to watch from the window in my PJ's and with my coffee in hand!   Giant snowman with not too much snow on the ground yet!      Waiting to get out the door!  This is the first snow storm they've really been able to play in...   She didn't seem to mind falling very much!   Everyone enjoyed playing outside for a while!   I thought she...

Something the Lord has really been teaching me lately is about choosing to rejoice even when I don’t feel like it or when my circumstances don’t seem to “deserve” joy.  I shared a little about this here. Today is Monday, and I don’t know how Monday’s go around your house, but they are usually rough around here.  We are often recovering from a long day in ministry on Sunday (with no naps for the children), and driving home after evening services (sometimes arriving very late).  Then there is the unpacking, the grumpy attitudes to deal with, and the normal to-do list in order the get the week and routine rolling on a good schedule. But God’s Word tells us that no matter what is going on around us, we can rejoice! Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls:  18 Yet I will rejoice...

Some insta-pictures from the last couple of weeks… Nehemiah LOVES to play with the sunglasses! Giant Lite-Brite at the Crayola Factory in PA Lunch with my little firefighters at the Firehouse Subs while Ben had a meeting with the guys… Her new smile! Book time in a MA nursery    Picnic on Mommy’s birthday – it was 65 degrees!  Right – Liberty dug this Reese cup wrapper out of the trash to finish licking clean.  She was very upset I had taken it away! Gretchen.  A red Doberman at our host’s home last week.  Nehemiah was terrified at first, but then he made her into his best bud! This is how late my kiddos slept on November 1st!  Mommy was soooo glad!

Someone said to me recently that from my blog posts it seems as if deputation is a big vacation.  I usually just post the sunny side of things, so as not to be a complainer.  The truth is that, like anything, there are very hard moments in deputation.  When I choose to focus on the good parts (and writing a blog post helps me to do that), I can easier choose to be joyfully despite the challenging moments in all of this “fun” travel. I had a long post written with some of the challenges that I face on each trip.  I thought maybe I should be “real” and transparent.  I thought it might help my praying friends to pray better.  But after sitting on it for a while, I scrapped the post.  I don’t think it would be productive for me to dwell on those challenging things.  I dwell on them enough as it is.  I am learning that “taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” means even those dissatisfied, complaining thoughts.  There is a ...

Time flies so quickly!  The twins are over 18 months now.  Life is fun, full, and very tiring!  I think that twins at this age is much more weary-ing that newborns twins and feeding shift during the night!  You would think that with only 800 square feet in our home and two small bedrooms, that it would be easy to “keep tabs” on the twins.  But it not!  I am constantly in a frenzy trying to keep them out of trouble and accomplish anything (like homeschool, dishes, and dinner).  Then once you catch them in trouble, you have to be consistent to correct them.  Soooo much work! What are the twins like?  They are very alike in some things.  They love to eat.  And if one gets a snack, the other wants one too.  They love bananas, and broccoli, and anything pasta.  The love to hold hands when we say “Time to pray” at the table, and they have half-closed squinty eyes (making sure they don’t lose any food during the prayer . Nehem...

Today I am particularly thankful for my church, and my pastor.  We were able to be in our sending church last night.  It was so nice to sit in the services and just drink in everything!  The text was the shortest verse in the Bible… “Rejoice evermore.” I didn’t know I would have to apply it so soon. It’s nothing big, but a million little things that interrupted my plans for today.  That changed the flow of how I thought things should work.  Little things that can often derail me or cause lots of frustration.  And thought I was very frustrated at moments today, each time I could hear a whisper in my ear, “Rejoice evermore.” It’s a counter-cultural message.  Stop thinking about yourself, get your eyes off your circumstances, and rejoice – because of who God is.  Rejoice and be thankful for what He has done, what He is doing, and what He is going to do.  It’s not about us – it’s all about Him. So when the toilet plugged up, the kids were sc...

I didn’t get this done yesterday… but our baby girl turned 5 yesterday!  I know I already shared about her birthday celebration last week, and some of her personality “quirks” at this age.  Here are a couple of pictures from her birthday dinner.  She has equisite taste for a five year old.  I asked her what she wanted me to cook, and she said, “Mom, I want a Brooklyn pizza.”  She already knows it’s the best in the world! Five years passed so quickly! Birthday cake…she wanted another princess cake! My grown up girl We had the Barker’s over to help us celebrate.  Addie and Elaine are buddies! Nolan.  He was so excited to wrap her gift, make her card, and then tell her what was inside!  He couldn’t wait for her to rip the paper off, so he jumped in helped her! Happy Birthday Elaine!