communion

read this today...

“Seek every day to have closer communion with Him who is your Friend…
True Christianity is not merely believing a certain set of dry abstract propositions: it is to live in daily personal communication with an actual living person – Jesus Christ. ‘To me’, said Paul, ‘to live is Christ.’ ” (Phil 1:21).
~ J.C. Ryle

endless counting

more things i'm thankful for...

i'm surrounded by endless examples of His mercy and grace

He is only good.

Where was I?

Seems I was lost

and didn't even know it.

forgot all about how i'm trying to live life more thankfully.

got wrapped up in my anger over not being able to control things.

not being able to force my four year old to hold still for xrays.

not being able to get what i want when i want it.

angry at my lack of control...

i stilled myself for a moment and remembered this truth...

"you can only feel one feeling at a time"

then i started naming the gifts...
-bright blue skies
-healthy (and strong willed!) kids
-roof over my head
-silly laughter in the back of the minivan

the Holy Spirit melted away my anger and replaced it with joy...

the realization that i am not in control...but HE is...
ahhh PEACE!

the now

read this quote the other day...

“...the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this life.

I did not live in the moment enough.

This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night.

I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed.
I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.”
~Anna Quindlen

such a heavy blessing, such a sacred burden, is this parenting of many small blessings.

eucharisteo

Robert Louis Stevenson has said...

“The man who has forgotten to be thankful has fallen asleep in life."

holidays at home

christmas came early...with thanksgiving!!

thanks to my awesome sister and bro in law, we have a new-to-us camera!

aren't these pics nice!!??

PLUS...gram and Papa joined us in LA for thanksgiving!!!!

we had a not so traditional dinner of tri-tip and ribs! (and a trip to the beach)

the food, the fun, the time...everything was awesome!

it all went by way too fast and we miss gram and papa terribly!

we enjoyed every moment with them...we are still naming those moments as things we are thankful for!

family...such a sweet gift!

small ones

she's like holding sunshine in my arms...

these days they go by so quickly...

i turned around and years have slipped by!

happy number four small one!