Ingratitude and contempt

I really needed this reminder and am sure I will need it again and again so am posting so I don't forget it!

"But, perhaps, you say, "I cannot love my neighbours, because for all I do they return ingratitude and contempt."

So much the more room for the heroism of love.

Wouldst thou be a feather-bed warrior, instead of bearing the rough fight of love?

He who dares the most, shall win the most; and if rough be thy path of love, tread it boldly, still loving thy neighbours through thick and thin. Heap coals of fire on their heads, and if they be hard to please, seek not to please them, but to please thy Master; and remember if they spurn thy love, thy Master hath not spurned it, and thy deed is as acceptable to him as if it had been acceptable to them.

Love thy neighbor, for in so doing thou art following the footsteps of Christ.

Spurgeon, Charles (2011-01-10). MORNING AND EVENING: DAILY READINGS 

"Here is the opportunity offered. Be patient. Wait on the Lord for whatever He appoints, wait quietly, wait trustingly. He holds every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year in His hands. Thank Him in advance for what the future holds, for he is already there. "The LORD is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: thou maintainest my lot." (Psalm 16:5)."

Elisabeth Elliot

New necklace

I have loved Hope of My Heart's jewelry for years, so when she recently had a sale I ordered a necklace and I love it. There is a charm for each one of the kids and it is special to me. I'm a big fan of sentimental jewelry, I have this, the pearls John gave me for our second anniversary, the single pearl pendant necklace I wore at our wedding, and a peachy colored pearl necklace that was a courtship gift. I have a couple other necklaces, but these are the ones that are special to me. Next up, I want to try my hand a making a wedding dress necklace (made from a fabric scrap), and I have a coupon code to use later at Hope of my Heart. It's fun thinking of ideas for another special piece. And to answer the question that might come up from me making a necklace representing all my kids, no, I don't know whether we will have another baby or not in the future, BUT if we do, it will be easy enough to add a charm  for that little one too :-)

Our church

"Great joy, especially after a sudden change of circumstances, is apt to be silent, and dwells rather in the heart than on the tongue."

Henry Fielding

This quote that came up in my facebook memories from four years ago feels like an appropriate way to describe the feelings I have now about our church, though it's not quite so simple. Mostly joy at the Lord's provision, but some questions and anxiety as well over different details. I've been meaning to update on here since this blog is my journal of sorts, and it feels like a safe place since hardly anyone knows about it or reads it :-). I know from my own experience I will have times of doubt and fear in the future and few things are more comforting to my fears than remembering how the Lord has provided in the past. "Hitherto has the Lord helped us," which in itself is a good reason to write all this down.
But anyways...... I am feeling so thankful for our church. These past years of not truly having a church were hard for multiple reasons and caused struggle for me in different ways. It was hard to know what to do under the circumstances, though in hindsight we probably should have done something a lot sooner. As a person who is nervous about change, I could probably say that about a lot of things though. 

Recently it has been made very clear to us that the answer to our prayers for a local preaching station was a no, (at least for now, who knows what the Lord has planned for the future, to our eyes even that seems unlikely), that there was a lack of commitment to meeting regularly in our group, and quite simply the fact that our needs were not being met by watching church on tv, and a long distance session (that we were seemingly forgotten by). However in spite of all that it was a scary step to move on and look. Almost a year ago we visited a PRC church thinking since they were a Psalm singing denomination it could maybe fill our need. But after our visit it was clear this was also a no, due to some pretty major differences between us, and a two plus hours drive one way. That in itself was discouraging, that our first attempt was a no. But the Lord is merciful, and eventually we finally pulled ourselves together and went and checked out the local (45 minutes away) OPC church. We were nervous about some differences in convictions,and about some stuff we had heard, but knew we had to try, and we were reminded that the Lord has not left the church, who are we to? That was about 7 weeks ago.

As it turned out some of our fears turned out not to be true. Yes, we do have some disagreements over the regulative principle,and there are some elements of worship we can not participate in, but for the first time in years I am looking forward to church,  I'm finding myself hungry again, instead of coming home feeling discouraged and empty. I can't thank the Lord enough for the gift of that. It is wonderful to be hearing good live sermons, to have my children in church, to sing a Psalm or two every week. I know it's not perfect, that raising our children here will have it's own unique challenges, and we don't know what will happen, or where we will be when our custody days are over. But for now the Lord has given us a pastor who is willing to meet and give us godly counsel, who is teaching us. We're being taught, fed, helped, and encouraged and I thank God so much for that. He is good. These verses from Isaiah 30 have been on my mind and heart these past weeks -

 "And therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the Lord is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him. For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem: thou shalt weep no more: he will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry; when he shall hear it, he will answer thee. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers: And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left."

Because we all need a laugh sometimes

February days

Serious girl.

A Dukie project.

Duke discovered chalk.

Playing with snow.

Greek pizza. It was amazing.

Duke loves to help make cookies.

I cleaned and organized the pantry.

Caroline put her horse down for a nap.

Watching Daddy shovel snow.

Reading while I clean the bathroom.

Gifts from Aunt Adri!

Balloons!

"Swuggling."

Amazon packages are fun. I'm loving having Prime!

It was 39 and felt so good to get outside!

When you get involved in a family conversation on fb and the kids are entertaining themselves.

Nap time.

Helper Duke.

Play doh.

One of our favorite dinners.

When you're stressed and really want to sleep so you ask for some moonshine....

God's providence

A favorite quote on providence that we used on our wedding invitation and also is framed on the wall in our bedroom.

.......God's providence. As usual the other evening John and and I were on the couch watching an episode on Neflix (I think this time it was Bones). I love our quiet evenings together once the kids are down for the night, the toys are picked up, everything is tidy, the day's work is done, and I can relax and enjoy some adult time with my husband :-). When we watch the pause button gets hit a lot (true story, since I like to prop my feet up on the coffee table I've gotten quite good pausing the tablet with my big toe. I'm sure any readers really wanted to know that, haha) and anyways this time we were  discussing a trial we are in the midst of and got into a good talk on God's providence. It was encouraging and helpful to me, so I thought I'd post what I remember here to come back and look at for a reminder in the future when I am feeling discouraged by life.

What we mainly talked about was our past singleness. Not everybody knows this, but John and I met online in December of 09 through a Christian singles site. I had kind of been pushed out of my comfort zone to put up a profile and John saw it and messaged me right away. We talked a little, but his circumstances overwhelmed me at the time, I realized I was not ready for that, and wisely told him right away. John asked if we could still be friends, and I agreed. What followed was over the next couple years we messaged each other every couple months, asked how the other was doing, sometimes messaged about a particular post on facebook, but in general kept up with the other one's life in a friendly way. There was nothing at all romantic about the relationship though I confess the thought of us marrying someday was kind of there in the back of my mind from time to time. Those years were plain old hard ones, sure plenty of happy memories, but very hard as the Lord had a lot to teach me about being a Christian, life, communication, etc, etc. Let's just say we both agreed that we were very glad we had not married when we first met each other. It would have been hard, harder than it is now for sure, and neither of us was ready. The Lord had a lot to teach us as singles before He started teaching us as married people!

Yet as we could see all that, we saw the Lord's kindness is letting us get to know each other enough to be comfortable together very quickly when we actually met in person. What we realized later too was that neither of us talking to anyone else in the same way. John was the only man I was messaging with, and although he talked with a number of other women in his search for a wife, I was the only woman he was writing to somewhat regularly, and he didn't have that kind of relationship with anyone else.

It truly is so comforting to me to look back and be able to see God's hand and how He has worked out details in our lives in a perfect way. Yes, there are still questions I don't have the answers to as to why the Lord has, and is allowing certain things, but I know that He is doing all things well. Hence my writing all this down to remind myself next time I am all stressed and forget this lesson. That happens regularly by the way. It's comforting too as I look at our church situation and the difficulty we have been through with that (though things are better than they were. I'll have to post on that eventually), to know God has a plan, to see problems in the family and to know that again God has a plan in that and most likely someday we'll see the good in it!

 Every creature is that to us which God makes it to be, and from him our judgment proceeds. As we must see the events that shall occur in the hand of God, so we must see the hand of God in the events that do occur, and acknowledge him with thankfulness when we have reason to call it his good hand.

Caroline said

"I'm so pretty," Randomly one day as we were walking down the stairs. She's so humble. Sigh.

I wanted to get my hair trimmed and mentioned that I needed to ask Grandma about getting it done. Later when talking to Grandma we found out that Caroline had already gone and set it all up for us,and Grandma had already planned on it. Ooookay.

Caroline working on her second catechism question, "The word of God which is containers in the old and new testaments...." Lol. 

Caroline assured me that wolves eat hay. Not little girls.

Watching a video with a crying baby, "Mama look, she has crying stuff on her cheeks. Little drips. I get that when I cry too!"

"Yes Caroline, those are tears."

Me, "You're a good helper, Caroline."
Caroline, "Thank you, Mama. That's very nice of you."

"Mama, I found a nail. It's in my tummy now."
Me (slightly panicky), "Where did you find it? What did it look like? Where is it?"
Caroline, "It was on my thumb. Now it's in my tummy."
Me (after recovering from mini heart attack), "Don't bite your fingernails, Caroline."
Sigh, life with toddlers. ...

Caroline climbed on my back and was trying to ride me when I was down on the floor with the kids. 

"Caroline, be careful.  You don't want to break me."

Caroline, " Oh! Then you would be trash!"

Thanks, Caroline.