If I have any worth,
it is to live my life
for God.
~St. Patrick~
Take a peek here and here for handy information about
the real St. Patrick
while you wear green and eat lamb stew
Photo Challenge, Week Eleven
Week Eleven: Landscape in Reflection
Pi Day
For March 14th, I embraced my inner geek and surprised my hubby with pies.
It was, indeed, a happy Pi day. Turkey pot pie, followed by pecan pie. Delish.
Photo Challenge, Week Ten
Week Ten: Portrait, Environment
Here is my little girl… in her child’s-version of her someday-environment!
I love it. Little future homemaker.
Barefoot, in a vintage dress, making cupcakes & tea.
And then, just for fun, I used a post-process to give it an illustrated effect!
Photo Challenge, Week Nine
Week Nine: Shadows
This week’s inspiration of shadow takes on a visceral, gutteral frame for me.
You’ll notice I ended up with a black and white version of my own shadow on a stony path.
Shadow is the absence of light. Or at least the blocking of light.
I have spent years feeling lost in shadows.
Walking on a stony path, groping for the Light.
Things look skewed when you just focus on the shadow.
Perspective is different in the shadow.
So while this may seem like a juvenile, easy attempt at capturing “shadow” for a photo challenge,
this was actually a very thought-out and well-provoked subject.
It hit home.
I understand shadows.
In a large sense, they feel like home to me.
But here’s the thing: notice that I didn’t say darkness.
It isn’t that there isn’t Light, or that I don’t see the Light.
It’s that I realize the Light has to overcome something
in order for its potency to mean something.
Light needs darkness
for its counterpart.
That is what makes Light so amazingly stunning.
And when it comes to shadows, we truly see that juxtaposition.
~…~…~
Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery’s shadow or reflection…
&
Reality is harsh to the feet of shadows… but will you come?
~C.S. Lewis~
Four Months
Four months ago, I first laid eyes on this precious boy. In that amount of time, he has basically doubled in size, and quadrupled our joy. His golden hair, blueberry eyes, dimpled hands, and contagious cheer has each of us continually mesmerized. We are fully in love.
Bliss-Full
I had expected to feel defeated. To wake up every day still longing for more.
That’s the honest truth.
But when someone said to me at the mall on my birthday (and maybe it’s simply because, who honestly goes shopping at posh J.Jill during naptime with four little kids in tow?!), you certainly have your hands full after I answered her question about the kids’ ages… I smiled, and replied, yes; blissfully, happily so.
After so desperately wanting half a dozen kids filling my home, to feel full of bliss and contentment that I can not adequately describe is truly humbling and beautiful. It is a gift from God.
I don’t feel defeated. I do not daily yearn for what-will-not-be.
Joy fills my home, and supersedes the sorrows.
Rather than defeat, I feel a sense of peaceful victory.
God gave us the courage to push through.
And He gave us the grace to overcome.
And these four little miracles who fill my home are just so downright blissful themselves.
Joy, wonder, excitement, creativity ~ it is in every corner of the home, every hour of the day.
And while the duties of my days have their monotony, their frustration, their dull sheen at times…
the joy and gratitude and marvel of my life truly take the monopoly.
Take a peek. Because these little people truly fill my heart with bliss.
I discovered that at the heart of my misery—beyond the homesickness and sense of failure—was a misunderstanding about faith. I had confused faith in God with faith in what God could do for me. I had been viewing God like a mystical vending machine: I inserted my prayers, pulled the handle, and expected the desires of my heart to pop out the bottom slot. It turns out God has very little in common with Pop-Tarts. And what makes me happy is not necessarily what draws me closer to the God who knows my every nook and cranny. It turns out He loves me enough to say no when, as every parent understands, saying yes would have been so much simpler, with less call for temper tantrums.
~Lisa-Jo Baker, Surprised By Motherhood, p100~
Homeschool, at a glance
This is what you might see of our homeschooling routine this week, if you glance in my windows.
A mosaic, slathered in grace.
Education is a mosaic of beauty. The various coloured fragments are interrelated.
~Elizabeth Goudge, Linnets & Valerians, p68~
You say grace before meals.
All right.
But I say grace before the concert and the opera,
And I say grace before the play and pantomime,
And grace before I open a book,
And grace before sketching, painting,
Swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing
And grace before I dip the pen in the ink.
~G. K. Chesterton, “A Grace,” Collected Poetry~
Photo Challenge, Week Eight
Week Eight: Landscape, Panorama
The sunrise was so beautiful!!
The perfect setting for my first panorama experiment.
Life in the Weeds
I was gritting my teeth through the morning… two crying in one room while two squabbled in another… one wetting her pants while another filled his diaper… two boys throwing up hands because of math problems while the baby throws up milk because I didn’t pat out his burps while I want to throw in the towel at the sight of a dog tracking in mud-and-who-knows-what… costumes and matchbox cars and crayons and sippy cups strewn all over the house…
I am smiling though my body aches and my soul is stretched, because I know there is no other choice.
But there is a struggle going on while I nearly drown myself in self-doubt and self-loathing. Yes, this day feels like an exercise of futility. But does that mean that it is not valuable? Deep in my heart I know that it is invaluable, but that is an intangible & invisible price tag.
Then at noon my phone rang. It was my husband, calling to check in on my day. When I heard his voice, it felt like a drink of cold water when you are really thirsty. I needed that. And when he asked how my day was going, I said, “tell me about your day” – to which he said, “that good, huh? tell me how things are.” I sighed and walked to the bathroom. It’s funny how a bathroom can become a place of refuge, of comfort and quiet. The rest of the house may be a busy, noisy, bustling, messy place ~ but my bathroom? I can close out everything else, even if just for five minutes. So I did. Well, except for the kids calling me from the other room, and the sleeping baby strapped to my chest. But you know. That is basically the same as being alone. 😉
I poured out my thoughts (anxieties, fears, self-doubt, struggles, frustrations) to my generously listening husband. I emptied myself.
And then he poured his thoughts back to me, seeking to fill me back up.
I may have cried while he did.
He encouraged me, it is hard to see the fruit when we are still planting.
And, it is hard to see when you’re in the weeds. You have to be able to step back and see where you came from.
My husband took the time amidst his own busy workday to encourage me in mine.
I don’t get graded or adjudicated or reviewed to find perspective.
But my husband can see my emptiness. Especially when I am not too proud to lift the veil and let him see it.
Sometimes all I see are the weeds that need pulled out. And when the plants are still small, the weeds and the seedlings can actually be hard to distinguish. I need a fellow gardener sometimes to give me perspective and remind me that I am still planting, still watering; the harvest at this point is in tiny portions. Someone else’s eyes may better see the good growth while surveying the land, while I am on my knees in the furrows, hands covered in dirt and eyes focused on the weeds.
My job isn’t to wonder how great the harvest will be. Not yet.
It is to keep planting good seeds, keep watering, keep fertilizing, keep plucking out the weeds, to let the sunlight in, to patiently wait while the tiny plants take root.
Someday it will be easier to see the work that has been accomplished.
Right now, all I need is to be this empty vessel, this diligent planter, this person who takes five minutes to cry “alone” in the bathroom and then gets back digging into the dirt.
I need to remember that only eyes of faith can see the beauty of future fruit even when life feels lived in the weeds.
Oh Lord, help Thou my unbelief.