love to paint

19 days and counting...   An update on how we're doing.  Home buying is so complicated and stressful.  This week has us trying to live "normally" while waiting for pieces to fall into place.  This week was the termite inspection.  Thankfully, it came back just fine.   I'm trying to think about Christmas and being prepared.  I'm also trying to plan for Thanksgiving.  I'm trying be present. What it comes down to is this:  trusting God is a simple thing to say, but not such a simple thing to do.  In some ways, I think it is easier to trust God in the hard parts of life.  It feels as if there is no other option.  It's often hard to trust God with the things we desire most.  We fear disappointment and that what we want is not what God wants for us.  Or at least I do.   This is the place I'm in.  Taking each day as it comes.  Trying to focus on what I need to do.  Trusting that God will fit the ...

Last week our pastor preached on Psalm 23.  What struck me the most was when he pointed out that it says "Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil."  He pointed out that it says walk.  It doesn't say run, hop, skip, fly, or jump.  It says walk. This week, he preached on Psalm 24. A Psalm of David.   1  The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof,    the world and those who dwell therein, 2 for he has  founded it upon  the seas    and established it upon the rivers.   3  Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD?    And who shall stand in his  holy place? 4  He who has  clean hands and  a pure heart,    who does not  lift up his soul to  what is false    and does not swear deceitfully. 5 He will receive  blessing from the LORD    and  righteousness from ...

My brain is a jumble of thoughts and stress right at the moment.  I'm trying to calm down, but I'm not being entirely successful at it.  You see, my mom moved across the country to come live near us a week ago.  This week was filled with the normal homeschooling schedule and activities plus helping my mom get her car (it was shipped), have it inspected and registered, get her driver's license, and switch her Medicare supplement provider.  It was a very busy week.  I saw God's fingerprints all along the way.  My mom had such a great attitude about everything.  She lessened what could have been a lot more stress for me than it was. From the day she arrived, my husband and I began talking together and with her about where would be the wisest place for her to live.  Within a few days, we realized that we didn't want her to buy a house in our neighborhood because we want to move.  We want to move closer to our church family and be a part of peo...

Just like a child, I want to cry out, "It's not fair!" Do you ever feel like that? I know that God is sovereign--I trust Him, but I still find myself sad tonight. I haven't seen my mom since last Christmas. She was supposed to fly in tonight, but then a snow storm decided to hit us which cancelled all flights. I hoped, but expected it to get cancelled. Still, I didn't expect her not to be able to come until Tuesday. Tuesday!!! I will only get to see her for 4 days before she has to head home. My heart is heavy and sad tonight. My mom means a lot to me--she is my very best friend and I have missed her and so have the girls. I trust God and His plan in all of this.

Letting Go is always hard. Trusting is even harder. They should always go hand in hand, but sometimes they don't. It's easy to turn inward sometimes when we let go of things instead of turning to God and trusting. In our hurts and struggles, we cry out to the Lord, but we can also harden our hearts if we don't choose to trust God. I love Jerry Bridges definition of what that means (in my words) to choose to look to God and glorify Him by trusting His love, His plan, and His goodness instead of giving in to ourselves and our desires to wallow in our struggles and pain. I come back to the verse in Psalms that God laid on my heart when I had miscarried Hannah before Autumn. It was "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." I find great comfort in God's reminder that He will heal my heart in His timing and in His ways.