Rest & Adventure

A couple weeks ago during communion, where the pastor prayed over my children, he included a phrase asking God to be their rest and be their adventure.

I can not tell you how that has stuck with me.
It has been repeated in my own prayers and in my discussions with my children, and it informs my outlook frequently as we face day to day scenarios as a Christian family.
It is even reflected in how I hope my children look back on their own childhoods: that it was both restful and adventurous.

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Oh God, even in Your 23rd Psalm I can see both Your rest and Your adventure. You take us on daring journeys, through all types of landscape, You show us both darkness and light, shadow and glory. You provide for us with strength, yet You carry us when we are void of it. Thank You for proving Your faithfulness. In the calm and in the storm, in the peace and in the drama.

Isaiah 26:3
You keep him in perfect peace
whose mind is stayed on You,
because he trusts in You.
Exodus 33:14
And He said, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”
Psalm 4:8
I will both lie down in peace, and sleep;
For You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.

Psalm 16:11
You will show me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
2 Corinthians 2:14
But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession,
and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere.
1 Timothy 6:12 / 2 Timothy 4:7
Fight the good fight of the faith.
Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called
and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

Thank You, Father, for Your Word. For how You meet us at every time and in every place.
Thank You, Lord, that my children are Your children; that they belong to You, that You have numbered their days, formed their intellects, nuanced their delights. Thank You for giving them Your love. Thank You for giving them a love for You. Thank You for knitting their hearts in faithfulness.
Do, oh my God, do be their rest. Do be their adventure. Both now and forever. Amen.

A Child’s World

I set my children up with some map puzzles this morning.
The eight year old with one of the world…
The four year old with one of the United States…

But apparently it has been a little while since we’ve done geography on this level,
because the younger one suddenly bursts out,
“Mommy!! Mommy!! Neverland!! I found Neverland!! I found it!!”
and then the older one gets a puzzled look on his face and responds,
“But I thought I had it…”

What puzzle pieces are they holding?
Gabriel is holding the Netherlands
while Asher holds Nevada

Yep. I live in a child’s world.
Where reality and imagination mingle and blend.
Where the idea of Neverland being found on a real map
is as reasonable as a stop in America or Europe.

It is full of wonder and beauty.
As it should be.
Because, after all, our world was made with simple words.
Magic.
God’s best magic.
“Let there be….”

We do live in a magical world,
made by our Father’s spoken command.
If we have the eyes to see it,
we can embrace the fact that fiction is simply a reflection of nonfiction,
imaginary lands a reflection of the magical world in which we actually dwell.

May we have the eyes to see the glory of the world we live in,
a world created by a loving Father for His children to cultivate.

Marshmallow Munchkins

Isn’t there something just completely, inexplicably wonderful about the way children look like
fairytale characters when they play in snow mounds,
bundled up like the softest of marshmallows?!

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I love these marshmallow munchkins.

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Joy Multiplied

The joy of having these four children in my arms is indescribable. Simply incalculable!
And that joy is multiplied by the delight they take in one another.

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Thanks be to God for these immeasurable blessings!

My Wee Bibliophile

Asher has always loved books, with a passion and dedication that has long surprised us, literally from infancy.

And today, a month shy of 3 1/2, we sat together on the couch and he read to me.

I brought out some readers that Gabriel had used when he learned to read, and Asher quickly read me the first six without any mistakes. All by himself. Later, he proceeded to read to his father, his grandmama, and his grandpapa. He was ecstatic ~ we were so proud.

What a delight and a joy this blessed boy has always been… and this is just one more way that he delights and surprises me.
Not even 3 1/2 years old, and sounding out words and reading kindergarten books like a pro. He’d been reading signs to me for a while, but I had not realized somehow that he can actually read!
I’m so proud of my wee bibliophile.

Timelessness

Sometimes a timeless moment in the midst of an ordinarily epic life story looks blurry from the speed and excitement… and it’s extra timeless when my son is wearing a flannel shirt my mother sewed for my brother 30 years ago, and my daughter is wearing the Osh Kosh overalls my brother and I both wore in the early eighties. This was an explosion of an evening in the most mundane little ways, because the sunset was gorgeous, the evening was mild, and the children were so giggly.

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Your life, right now, today, is exploding
with energy and power and detail and dimension,
better than the best movie you have ever seen.

You and your family and your friends
and your house and your dinner table
and your garage have all the makings
of a life of epic proportions,
a story for the ages.

Because they all are.
Every life is.

~Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines, p18~

budding chef

I love this little man-in-the-making for SO many (countless) reasons.
Including his budding chefness.

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The mushroom? Ah!
It is the proof of creation ex nihilo,
the paradigm of the marvelously solid unnecessariness of the world.
How anything so nearly nothing could at the same time
be so emphatically something—
how the Spirit brooding upon the face of the waters could have brought forth this…
well, words fail, and mystery reigns.

~Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb: a Culinary Reflection, p82~

Asher Timothy is 3

How it’s possible for this sweet boy to be three years old is beyond me. Yet everybody insists that he must have turned three long ago because he is rather mature for such a young guy. And thus it is, my little boy who brings happiness to everyone and seems to carry eternity in his eyes, he’s a timeless gift of blessedness. I am so humbled, delighted, privileged, and thankful that he is my son.

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This is perhaps the heart of parenting: despite my aching, desperate baby-love, it’s my job to help him into being a big boy.
It’s my job, my honor, to walk him, quite literally, from baby to toddler to boy to man.
~Shauna Niequist, Bread & Wine, p179~