A City Life For Me

Today is my mom’s birthday.  (She’s 29, for those who are wondering!)  I am so thankful for her influence in my life.  I think I appreciate her now that I am a mom myself, and I realize the millions of little, unnoticed tasks that a mother does to keep her children happy and her household running.  I’m sure I have no idea how many sleepless nights she spent with me when I was sick, or maybe even worrying about me and the choices I was making.  How many late Christmas Eve’s she spent finishing homemade gifts and getting things ready for a special Christmas.  How many times she gave up her own time to drive me places or pick me up at work.  Thanks mom – I may not have appreciated it then, but I sure do now! It is hard to raise your kids in a Christian environment with the world all around.  But my mom always made sure we were in church, and Bible study, and youth group activities.  She encouraged us to have devotions and she made sure we went ...

Elaine helped Dr. Steadman hand out his prayer cards at a recent mission’s conference, so he gave her some money to treat the family to ice cream.  Liberty enjoyed the straw as well! Liberty on top of the world! Twinsie book time! Liberty loves sitting at the computer and listening to music while she watches the visualizer on iTunes!

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 ...