Marriage

How do you describe what it feels to be loved by someone who faces your faults daily, who loves you despite being less than stellar. I created a slide show of my husband, yes my husband- filled with pictures of him and the kids and him and me. Where do the years go and how is it that you see your life on a slide show and the grace and hand of God is so evident it does nothing short of bringing you to a river a tears.

I cannot believe we have been together for 13.5 years and survived so much. Stronger. In love. Fighting. We are fighting for a calling higher than us, higher than we can understand. Ben understands me.....I cannot say that about too many people. I can freak out and cry and he is practical, logical and full of wisdom. How did God know I needed someone like him? To think that Ben was hand picked for me, and I for him, by God, is too much for my heart sometimes. My heart is heavy with love and admiration that God, in his infinite wisdom, would use Ben and I to perfect our love for eachother and in turn mirror that love of Christ for us.

Falling, falling, falling flat on our faces...over and over failing, getting up over and over, trying again and again. Marriage IS NOT EASY. Marriage is HARD WORK. Marriage is WORTH IT. I have a best friend, his name is Benjamin. I have someone who can make me laugh until I cry- his name is Benjamin.

Did I ask for life's circumstances to cloud our laughter, no, but we laugh in the rain, and we laugh in the storms, and we laugh in the rainbows....because, if we stop laughing, we stop loving....if we stop holding in the hard times, we will never be able to hold in the good times. If we give up during the gut wrenching moments, we will never be able to give in the "butterflies in the stomach" moments.

Praise be to God for His grace and mercies are new every morning....great is thy faithfulness! God is faithful. He is woven in our marriage, He is our umbrella of protection, under His wings we find refuge. I can't help but brag on my husband, not because he is perfect but because he is faithful. I can't help but feel overwhelmed by my role as his wife, not because I am perfect, but am weak and made perfect in my weakness. Praise be to God.

Wives, do not give up, fight the good fight. We are our husband's advocates, encouragers and supporters when there are none. Never cut down my husband, because I have his back and will fight you back. Thank you God for Benjamin, for the ability to learn and grow together- bless us with many, many years in love- this will happen through your strength- never our own. Our strength is feeble....we need you. May our marriage be a testimony of your grace and love for us. Mold us. Here is our lump of clay.

Why Do I Do the Things I Naught?

I am having a moment....kind of a downer moment to be honest. I can tell this is the moment where I need to pray because I am allowing circumstantial things to overwhelm me. Some of the things are not even that huge, to be honest- most are not but I am the prime example of allowing one issue to be used as teh shovel to go around and gather every other nook and cranny issue, insecurity or fault and pile it altogether to form a party.

God, please help me to be the kind of wife and mama that you desire for me. I pray that we would look to the future with expectancy and hope and not with fear or insecurity. When life does not seem to go as planned I pray our faith in you would grow stronger. Take all of my insecurities and fears and replace them with your confidence, a kind of strong, quiet confidence that does not fear the future. But that is full of strength and dignity. Take all of my flaws and transform them- through the renewing of my mind.

God give me authenticity, patience and grace. I feel like I'm floundering at times, give me stability.

Our Mayflower Voyage!!!

We are having a blast this week learning about the Pilgrims! Yesterday, we read " For The Light and Glory" about the Pilgrims struggles in Holland, the failed voyage of the Speedwell as well as their voyage on the Mayflower. I have NEVER heard any of these stories! I cannot believe that I consistently, through college, had an A+ in History and so much of the Christian aspects of history were left out or completely omitted. Not under my watch baby.

We are reading a book called " Don't Know Much About Pilgrims". This is a really good read for the kids and points out really interesting facts. For example, " The Pilgrims said prayer after prayer. The sailors said anything but prayers." The kids packed very strategically and into a very small bag the items that they were to take on their maiden voyage. Included was the Bible, a hatchet and sword, some clothes, a lantern and some food. I think they packed pretty well. Austen asked if they kids brought toys- great question! I told him that they probably did not bring many toys, if any at all, due to the limited space and the practicality of bringing only things that served a direct purpose.

Jayden read Psalm 27 while we sat in the lower level of our " Mayflower".  One of my favorite verses from Pslam 27: 13-14

    I remain confident of this:
   I will see the goodness of the LORD
   in the land of the living.
¹⁴ Wait for the LORD;
   be strong and take heart
   and wait for the LORD.
 We then sang some psalms, worshipped God together, then I turned the lights off and we listened to the crashing of the waves, the rain hitting the side of the ship, babies crying, goats bleating, pigs snorting, people getting seasick and the ship rocking.

The kids were dressed in Pilgrim garb ( probably more reminiscent of the Puritan clothing that we all came to associate with Pilgrims), but nevertheless, they looked pretty cute. We talked about trusting God even when life seems very uncertain or scary.

All three kids than slept on the floor of the Mayflower as we sailed through the Atlantic Ocean. Finally, after much prayer someone yelled , " Land Ho!" and expectantly, we peered out to see a vast coastline with low lying beach shrub and our new home that we would call Plymouth.

Finally, Ben has a copy of all our our nations historical documents, one being the Mayflower Compact. We read about the importance of this and I was simply fascinated by it. Our country was actually founded on Godly principals, According to the book, " The Light and the Glory"- this was the first time in all of history that a group of people came together and used the bible as their source on which to draw up their laws and regulations- The Mayflower Compact.

We also completed both boys math, language arts, Spanish and Bible today- what a great day. Now to enjoy some hot apple crisp. Mmm, love me some fall time.

Unassisted Play

Last night Ben and I had the kids go outside to play. The weather is still reaching over 100 during the day so cabin fever has set in and is going crazy right now. We have some large pieces of cardboard boxes that have been broken down and slowly making their way into the recycling, some dirt and some trees in our backyard. The kids, armed with, simply put, only their imaginations headed out to explore.

After about 15 minutes, I peered outside and they were all engaged in a very intense game of throwing " knives and tomahawks" at their target. The goal was to pierce the target ( the cardboard) and thus making a point. We had so much fun watching them take on characters, " Caila ( Riah), Shirley ( Austen, haha), and Doomer ( Jayden). They played this game for over an hour and then again, bright and early in the six o' clock morn.

Free, unassisted play. Imaginative, creative, resourceful play. Play on babies, play on!

never to do anything, without being dressed to the "t"

My Grandma

So last night, or early this morning, whichever way you want to look at it I had a dream about my Grandma. To understand my Grandma, let me just take a minute to describe my feelings and memories of her: soft skin, caring, loving, sometimes happy, sometimes not, huge farm, picking raspberries in the summer, long walks along country roads listening to cicadas, eating cheez curls, the smell of her blankets in between comfort and moth balls, her smile, having her read stories to me, measuring me for new dresses, always sewing, sewing some more, making sure I always had a hat on, even when I didn't feel it was cold enough, playing endless games of hot potato when my brother and I had a horrible case of chicken pox, spaghettios, graham crackers with jelly, vitamins, always giving vitamin, practical, a saver, a giver, my friend.

I had a dream last night that woke me up sobbing. I was pushing my Grandma ( who is 83, almost 84 and not on a single prescription) through the halls of an assisted living place. My Grandma, in real life, is very independent, has had knee surgeries but successfully lives life on her own. I kept saying, " Have you been outside, can I take you outside?" and then as we were walking along the balcony of this multi story building her wheelchair slipped and I was unable to pull her away from danger alone and I kept calling out for help...finally, someone came to assist. In my dream, for whatever reason, she was not able to help herself.

Then, when we made it to a safe spot, I picked her up and carried her in both arms and kept telling her over and over, " thank you, thank you, I love you, I love you". There were kids running in and out of the elevator and we let them go down first. It was almost as if it was their season and my Grandma's was about to pass. I kept saying how I would never want to be a child again, that wisdom gained is worth more than any years of youthfulness- and how true those words are.

I cannot imagine the day when I find that my Grandma has passed on from this life, onto her heavenly home- my heart is so heavy today, but I will tell you- she has invested so much life into me, has given me so much that my heart is overflowed with the special bond you will only find between a grandma and a granddaughter, this is not the " I see you once a year and I'm good" this is , " you invested in me when I was young, now let me invest in you while you are old". I love you Grandma- thank you for always believing in me and loving me.

Wrapping Up Jamestown

What a busy day today. The boys had bible quiz, we all had church, then Awanas tonight and we threw in some school this afternoon. After taking a 45 minute hiatus from life, I went upstairs with newspaper, pretend feathers and face paint. We made Indian headdresses as well as adorned them with symbolic paint of their choosing. Jayden was "Raccoon Claw" and Austen was "Mewolf". I have these three bamboo sticks that I purchased at Target awhile ago and just have not gotten around to buying a large decorative vase to put them in so we used them as a tepee today. Yes, we know that the Indians in Jamestown did NOT live in tepees but limited means means creative solutions.

The boys really enjoyed getting into character and we traded beads back and forth. I pretended to be the settlers from Jamestown and their yellow beads symbolized the gold. I kept trying to cheat them out and trade my blue beads for four of their gold beads- because, as we learned, gold had no intrinsic value to the Indians. We discussed was this kind or honorable of the settlers and how would we feel if someone tried to take advantage of us.

Next, we played uno, in a circle, and if I won I was able to keep all of their yellow beads. I won twice. Finally, we read a couple of books on John Smith and talked about Pocahontas and her role in saving John Smith's life and the good relations between the Indians and the settlers as long as Smith was around. I feel so sad knowing that the Indians were so giving and wanting, for the most part, good relations with the settlers ....and yet, so many were greedy, selfish and had no respect for the Indian's way of life.

A few days ago, we were able to watch a live blacksmith demonstration and explanation on how to forge metal into useful objects, ie: tools and weapons. Jayden practiced forging metal into a knife. Austen had a chance to do it but completely froze up and made his hands go limp the minute I tried to put the protective gloves on him. Then, a spark few past him and , infront of everyone, he started screaming. Quite a memorable moment. Then, later that same day, Jay was able to participate in an archery class. Both of these were very cool as we were learning about Indians and how they hunted with arrows, the findings of arrowheads in Jamestown and then lastly, the blacksmiths within Jamestown and the important role that they played in creating tools and weapons for the settlers. Love how God ties in our lessons to practical applications- always!

Finally, tomorrow we are beginning our three week study on the Pilgrims in Plymouth but we should be receiving a great package of resources from the park ranger at Jamestown in Virginia. Wow, I was so excited to call and talk to the ranger there. He was so helpful and so willing to help with our study. We will definitely come back to Jamestown and do some more activities once our package arrives. I also ordered some travel brochures from Plymouth to be delivered this week as well. The best I can do since we live so far from both locations....also, the park ranger is sending us two Virginia post cards. Yeah!!!

Lord Help Me To Remember.....

to not rush, to enjoy, to breathe, to smile, to laugh, to instruct, to train, to pray, to love, to nurture, to hug, to kiss, to give grace, to be patient, to be gentle, to be soft spoken, to be consistent, to repeat.