Greetings from a very dusty and dry Vermont. We have been in need of rain and we finally got some. We were so thankful because after our little drain pipe dried up, we needed to find another place to water our raised beds. And it was down the very steep hill at the bottom of the ravine. We have a stream there and it is going really well (for now, thank God). It is just down the hill and through territory infested with pesky (according to Chet) squirrels and chipmunks. So the first morning, after the demise of the drain pipe, I went to start the watering. We do this first thing and it usually takes a while. The kids and I were supposed to water the plants but as I scrambled down the hill I was just overcome with this intense feeling of not being able to do this. I was crying and throwing a fit, because the kids were not helping me!!! Come on, now, all right. This is what we have to do!! And just this feeling of entitlement came over me. My back hurt, my legs were going to be tired and I had just had it. I threw the bottles into the water and sobbed defiantly! Why was this all so hard! Couldn't we live like everyone else and have running water and a spickit for our plants. Well, of course we could, but that is not what we have right now. The kids and I have been learning about meekness and it is basically giving up our rights to anything. It doesn't mean that we will never have running water and we don't want it. It means being content with not having running water, living out of boxes, sleeping on the floor, cooking on a 2 burner camping stove, storing some food in coolers outside, having no floor or walls and running to the town when we have to go or the outhouse or the little girls woods. It means I need to be content with what I have been given. Some days this is harder than others.
Like for instance, Tom has been building his own saw mill. Yes, his own saw mill. He researched it and is slowly and painstakingly putting it together.
The door to Narnia
Diving down, not head first!
I wish this thing had a manual
I think this will work
How did we get up here?
I hope the tree is strong enough
So it is not going too well (from a worldly standard). The thing is really impressive and it looks like it could work, but it is not working at this point. He is getting closer and closer to the point of working it but in the meantime, I still have no floors or bathroom or walls, stairs to the upstairs and so on. It dawned to me that even though I could insist on the right to have Tom hurry up and finish these things, I really didn't have the right to. That right belongs in God's very capable hands. It seems that this is a very hard lesson for me to learn because He seems to be bringing it up over and over again. When the house was on the market, it sold exactly at the right time and I should not have spent time fussing and complaining over how it was not selling. The sawmill will be built, the house will be finished in God's perfect timing. Whether or not Tom will finish it before he has to go back to work is entirely up to Him since He know what needs to be done. The only thing I can do is to control my heart and my attitude before a righteous God.
Go Logan!
So other than that we have been quite busy. Logan and I are doing really well with school. We would like to finish by the 14th of June, the date of our evaluation. We are sprinting along in history (his favorite) and are getting through science (it is bug time :)). Language lessons are flying by and we are well on our way. We have finished our cursive book. My mother sent Logan a special fountain pen from Germany and he is loving it. He is still loving swimming and is doing really well.
Sean now has 2 clients up here. The first one came about 3 weeks ago and they are neighbors of ours down the street. They have 3 minies (Sean is used to that). The other one is this weekend and it is a trim in New Hampshire. He is really happy about that and I don't think he minds sharing that. He now has magnets for his truck with his logo and his info on it. Looks really professional. I am so glad for him He was able to attend one of his friend's graduation from college here in VT last weekend. He was really happy that he was able to do that.
Natasha is on the other computer right now filling a job application out for a local super market. She is just going to see what comes of it. We are still planning on a graduation this summer.
this is my garden!
She has been helping one of the ladies from church with her garden. She is loving it. This lady is so wonderful and she is teaching Tasha so much about gardening and about herbs. They have a lot of fun digging in the garden and she actually put a fat, gooey worm on Logan's shoulder yesterday morning. Logan took a large leap and screamed like a little girl because he thought it was a huge spider. This is my daughter who wouldn't get her hands dirty! My she has come a long way. It is a good thing Logan forgave her. It could have turned ugly!! We could have had a worm fight on our hands.
The garden here is coming along just fine. We were in desperate need for rain and we did get it. Things are going well. We were just replanting today because some things just haven't come up yet.
Peach blossoms
Rain for the plants
The trees were flowering, of course not the apple trees. The peaches and our grapes flowered and so we were quite happy about that.
Chet is still hanging in there well. We have upped his food (a lot!) and he is quite a chubby German Short haired Pointer. I laugh at him and tickle his belly sticking up when he is laying down. He still has some issues but he will make it. He was hilarious the other day. He was chasing another chipmunk and the thing just disappeared. After looking around and sniffing he became quite indignant that the thing didn't just show up to let him chase it. So with an indignant sigh, he marked his spot right where the chipmunk had disappeared and walked away. Tom was laughing quite hard at him.
Really it is still cold here!
Mouse!?!?!?!?
Other than that, yes Logan had his first driving stint the other day. I am glad to say the car, the driver and the passenger are recovering well. No, kidding. He did well. He pushed the gas and break and Tom steered . I guess that is what boys do up here. There ain't much else to do really. Oh, yes of course. There is always a house to build.
This weekend there may be some tree felling. Then we may go and see bald eagles. We tried to do that on Mother's day but Tom conveniently twisted his ankle. Yes, I know. He was faking it. He just wanted to sleep. Anyway, so I hope the weather will be as nice as it was last weekend. I am dying to see them.
That reminds me, happy Mother's day all you mothers and God bless.
Enjoy this song.
Friday, April 19, 2013
Hello my dear friends. I hope you are having a wonderful beginning of spring (if we can call it that). We have had an interesting start of our first spring here in VT (that is Vermont for my wonderful German people and "Hallo Ihr lieben in Deutschland. Ich vermisse Euch alle."). Ha, I still can type in German. Actually it is code for "I don't believe there is spring in this state". No, just kidding. Really, it has been a wonderful month. Tom has been so busy with all the things around the house. There is not a whole lot to report. Basically things are normal, normal and normal (if you count living without running water normal). Logan and I are very busy with school. We have some catching up in to do in some of the subjects. But I am confidant that we will be finished at some point. I still haven't gotten used to the fact that it is only Logan really who is doing school with me on a regular basis.
Natasha is quite independent and she is taking some on-line classes and she really enjoys that. She is pretty much on her own with her other studies. She is preparing to work on a thesis in history and still enjoys studying about homeopathic remedies for the home and family. She went to a job fair here and actually found something which interests her. One of the museums is looking for an Intern to help with their tours and explainations of the history. She loved doing that in CT and would like to continue it. The only thing is now she would get payed for doing something she likes. It is right up her alley: this museum deals with historical machines and I think guns also. It is so her :).
We are studying flight :)
So on most days it is Logan and myself. I must say, I can't get used to the lack of stress in this situation. I now only have one grade level to contend with and to keep "entertained". On most days I find myself thinking, "Boy this is the life." Logan is actually getting to the point where I don't have to help him with everything (yeahhhh) and he is starting to think of things to study on his own. He recently, while studying the history of Acadia (Canada), decided to write a small story which he is illustrating and all. We are on chapter 9 or so. So at the end I will bring the whole story to Staples ( I will have to charter a plane and find one near here) and make a hard bound copy of it. I am so excited about that because I could not get him to write before this year. I am so happy about that. We are going to have evaluations coming up soon. I am a little nervous about that since I don't really know what the state expects. But I am hoping and praying that we did a good job this year. We are not done by all means, because building a house and schooling is rather difficult. I am happy with the things we have done, over all.
Sean is doing really quite well. He is still working for his boss. He is eager to leave but is willing to wait until an opportunity is upon him. He has been busy driving around to all the barns in the area and introducing himself. He has had some good introductions and that is a good way to get his name out there. He actually got the call from someone and went and trimmed that horse. It seemed to be happy when Sean was finished with him. He went down to CT this weekend to do my friend Julie's minnies and Tasha went with him. They got to stay with Grandma and Grandpa over Saturday night. His truck is doing well but we have all these tires lying around now. He as at least 3 sets of tires for his truck.
Our wood for the winter is all gone.
Well, I guess I have a couple of pairs of shoes so his truck needs a couple of sets of tires. It's just that my shoes fit into my closet (well, I don't have one yet but stay with me here).
Tom is doing well. He is looking to do something for work so we are looking around for different things. There are a few possibilities for him. His latest project was making maple sugar. That took a while. Of course we still don't have an oven hooked up, so he had to use an outside oven. It actually worked really well. He finished this project yesterday and of course we all had to sample the finished work. Tom, however, had to continually monitor the process of the maple sugar so throughout the day he was "testing".
Sugar, sugar!!!!
Yummmmm! Wait the spoon won't come out!
Yes, well. We went for a walk after things were done. I walked, he bounced all over the place. At one point I thought he was going right into one of the spring pools because he was bouncing around it. When we got back, he crashed. Went right to sleep but it was not a bad crash (in regard to corn syrup). So he woke up refreshed. But he kept mentioning that he could still taste the sugar. Very funny. The sugar is quite firm, rather like solid molasses. It is actually quite good. The kids enjoyed scraping the pot.
Maple sugar/molasses
Me, myself and I are all doing well. We spent a wonderful weekend at a women's retreat here in Keene. I got to spend the weekend with my friend Lisa, who invited me, and Nichole P. and other women. That was a real treat and God really was there. I loved it. I am looking forward to the real spring, whenever that shows up. Although today I am rather bright again (recall the bright T-shirt from an earlier blog).
The house is coming slowly. It really is a process that requires such patience on my part. If a contractor had built it, we would be done, but what is the fun in that? Tom has been focussing on outside chores, such as building cold frames. These are like little greenhouses and allow us to put our plants in them when the weather is still a little too cold.
So, like anything Tom does, we now have 19 of them!! Yes, 19. They look pretty cool. Also he moved our generator up so he doesn't have to kill himself when he has to turn it on and off. He built a little hut for it to muffle the sound. It's pretty cool. No, we still don't have any running water, or bathroom. First we have to have the floors, so Tom has to come up with something ingenious to cut our wood into boards. He is working on that with Logan. Top secret!! I'm kidding but if you ask I may have to put you into the shed until the thing is built, which can be anywhere from a week to a year, depending. Life is great, isn't it.
Strawberries!
The generator, people!
Our army of cold frames!
Tom and I were having a discussion (we usually have that when we are "alone" in the basement) and I told him that I don't like to think outside the box. Riotous laughter followed. I don't know why. He reminded me of the whole praying for adventure thing. Why does he keep on bringing that up?? Is it my fault we are living in the sticks without water etc?? Really, I ask you. I'm playing around, really. No, no we don't have the whole running water thing. Really, I think it is overrated! Okay, okay I will try to be serious. If you can't laugh at yourself laugh at other people (Tim Hawkins quote). This family is blessed with a lot of togetherness. Last night, Tom and I were trying to have a "private" discussion. We mentioned something and Sean was discussing with us why he had to know what we were talking about. So much for privacy! A house without walls what I wanted. Well, I sure got it. Tom and I were in stitches because eagle ears was listening. Very funny!
I hope you are all doing well. I leave you with a picture of our dog, now healthy again and sunbathing today in the yard. We miss you and hope you are well.
And also I will leave you with a comedy thing from Tim Hawkins. He cracks me up!
Happy Easter, belated, to everyone. I hope that you were able to have a
great weekend. We had a wonderful time. We ventured into civilization
and headed south to CT. It was a really great weekend. We got to see my friend Donna and her family in the morning for a little while. That was really nice. Then in the afternoon we visited with Sharon and her family. The time rushed by too quickly as we had such a nice time. We then rushed to Grandma and Grandpa Perreault's for a wonderful dinner of pizza (we polished off 2 pizzas) and a quick time to visit. Of course this visit included brownies and comics for the kids. They are so happy when Grandma and Grandpa save the comics for them. They chuckle for days and reread them constantly. Very funny. Then we all crashed at Tom's brother Doug and his family. We brought the dog, of course, and were a little worried on how he would act around the cat. He is notorious for chasing the cats. When he goes on his "vacation", my friend Julie always mentions that the cats move out when he shows up. But we had no problems at all. There a moment when he felt a little spunky and began to sniff the cat's tail. I could tell he was thinking of mischief, but he was so good and was very obedient. But enough on the dog. You all know how much I love him but moving on. We spent the next day with Doug and his family, always a lot of fun. We were blessed to go to church with them. Always love going to Wintonbury. We then had a lot of food and the kids had an Easter egg hunt. Let me qualify kids. Logan and his cousin Christina are really the only eligible contestants, but there were other cousins from Nichole's family. We were so blessed to be able to hang out after and just have good conversations. The kids were playing a killer game of Ninja in the basement. So it was a really nice weekend.
The house is continuing to come along nicely. Tom just finished the wooden panels downstairs. As I was leaving today to come to the library, he was working on cutting floorboards. He bought me a nice rug to put under our chairs. It really looks kind of cozy. We are trying to make it a home. It really is, but it doesn't look complete yet. A couple of weeks ago Tasha set up her room to have some privacy. It is really quite cute
Natasha's future room
The outside right now is a great big mess. We are in what Vermonters call, Mud Season, and yes it is quite muddy. After our weekend in CT, we came back quite late on Sunday and Logan sunk into the mud and partially lost his shoe. Poor kid. He was half way asleep. Well, he woke up quickly when he stepped into snow and lost his shoe. I want to mention that, even though the calendar proclaims it to be spring, it is not. 32 degrees today!!!
I have been quite busy. Tasha and I have done a lot of traveling in the last two weeks. Natasha has a really good friend in Pennsylvania, and she was missing that friend a lot, so the weekend before we took an impromptu trip (about 5 hours) to their house. We decided not to let anyone know, but made sure that they didn't have anything going on. So, early, early on Sunday morning we set out to PA. We got lost!! And then we got lost again!! But all in all, we made great time. We were there pretty much on time and didn't really disturb church too much (other than Tasha and Esther running out of the sanctuary screaming in delight). We spent two days with them and the girls had a wonderful time. They were able to talk in person, not just on the phone. Natasha did get to drive on the way home and we didn't get lost. She did great!
Dancing to Britt Nichole
Tasha can move!!!
I feel the need to encourage those of us who are walking according to what the Holy Spirit is telling you, who are walking in Christ. I don't know why. This morning Logan and I were reading about the adulterous woman. I just love that story. To me it is a most encouraging story. I love how Christ doesn't even really acknowledge the Pharisees, who are trying to trick Him. I love the way He, the I Am, takes the woman to a new place. A place of complete forgiveness, complete rest, peace. He has forgiven her and restored her. What a wonderful thing. He just asks her to do one thing. Do not sin! Do not separate yourself from Me! Logan and I talked about that for a while. A person, who is personally forgiven by Christ is not going to go off and sin, i.e. separate themselves on purpose, when Christ has made them whole. I just love that. This is one of my favorite verses in the scriptures: Romans 8:1
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
I pray that you are strengthened and encouraged by this. Enjoy the week. Send me a line if you feel like it.
Hello everyone, and how is everyone today? Spring, I hear it approaching and dare I say that it is not far off? We will have to see. We just had a glorious week. The weather was wonderful and warm. Even the dog was happy on some of the days. He is still struggling with is a nasty cold and gets really cold at night. As you can see, I was even wearing a T-shirt (and a nice bright one). I figured both Natasha and I could be really illuminating if we both wore our glow-in-the-dark shirts. The room was quite brighter because of us.
This has been a very busy month for us, in terms of life. We are actually getting back to that, slowly but surely. Sad to say but my baby, Logan, had now joined the "Pre-teen" age. He has grown into a very sweet young person. As you can see, he is still very silly. He comes up with sayings, I can't possibly share. He usually has us cracking up at least once a day. He just celebrated his 11th birthday and it was a really nice time for him. I really didn't want to invite a lot of people because, well, our house is not finished and there are holes and such all over the place. The only thing Logan wanted was for his friend Eric to come and visit. We also got together with Grandma and Grandpa on Saturday (our thermometer in the car measured 63degrees) in Greenfield. After a nice lunch at Friendly's (Logan's favorite restaurant) we spent the day shopping. It was a gorgeous day and I actually walked around without a jacket.
Chet in snow
We shall conquer
Logan got to try out his present from Grandma and Grandpa. He went snow shoeing. He had a lot of fun. He didn't go very far but he had a better time than Tom, the dog and me, who kept on sinking into the snow. We had a nice time just walking around in the snow but it was a little chilly.
A Red tailed Hawk
Yes, those are eagles
Logan and I had a chance to go to the VINS, which is a bird of prey sanctuary. I hope Doug knows where this is going :) We had a nice time there. The facility was beautiful but boy it was ccccoooollllddddd. We spent quite some time there, looking at the different birds. We were the only people there, basically. But it gave us a chance to really come up close and personal with some of the birds. The hawk in the picture is a female and her handler brought her to a classroom to have her fly around and to do some training. She was not interested.
So as you can see and hear we are trying to get to a routine life here in VT. It is kind of hard but we are so blessed to be here and even though there are such inconveniences in our life, we are just living to the best of what God gives us.
Usually you know that I have the video at the end of my blog but I just felt that this time I would have it in the middle of the blog. Sean, Tasha and a friend of hers, Jo Ti, went to a concert last night given by Casting Crowns. I hope most of you know how much I love music. I credit my wonderfully talented mother for my love of music. That and God really speaks to me through His music. So, the concert was wonderful. We were late!!! And we hit a traffic jam (yes in VT) as we got to the place. Then we were wandering around for about 15 minutes (in really cold weather!) until we found the venue . It was held at the University of Norwich, and I was glad that Sean's friend Mac goes to the school. He was able to call him and get directions to the hall where the concert was(thanks Mac). So we got there and Casting Crowns was not on stage yet. The place was packed (it was in the gym). We got seats in the nose bleed section and really couldn't see too well (no small people jokes here). I was so blessed by the evening. The music was wonderful and it was almost as though we were all sitting around the fire and they were just jamming with us.
Tasha and Jo T
The reason I chose this song to share with you in because something Mark Hall shared with us. He had a friend who was going through a lot of stuff, this is when he was younger, and because of where Mark was at the time, he couldn't share how much Jesus loves us with him. It was too late for his friend, who committed suicide.
That is serious. I am not proposing religion here. Not at all. I don't care if you are Catholic, Mormon, Muslim, Protestant, or whatever religious congregation you favor. I want you to take a moment, please, please and listen to me. I would love to share this with you. You see, Jesus, the son of God, God Incarnate, loves YOU!!! It doesn't matter what you have done, whom you have hurt or how much hurt you have experienced. Jesus came not for me only or for my family. He doesn't care who goes to church every Sunday or how much money you give to the poor. He cares for YOU, not your "righteous" acts. He came to earth, became flesh and blood, for YOU and ME! However, He will NOT force Himself on you. He is quite the Gentleman. He is waiting for you to come and approach Him. And only when you have come and approached Him, the way you are with all you junk from the past, will He say: My Child, I will take your hand and we will go together. Don't fear, I have taken care of all the junk in your life. That was my job to take care of that. Please, please take a moment to really think about this. We don't know what tomorrow will bring. We only know that we will end up somewhere, and I have stated this before. Heaven or hell!!!!! Satan is real and he is fighting for your soul. The difference is, he is not a gentleman. He will do with you whatever he wants. Mind you, just because we don't come to Him, doesn't negate that He is waiting for us to come to Him.
This is my prayer for you. I hope you know I am in earnest. Each and every one of you is precious to me and trust me, I am nothing. Christ is much more real than I am and He is waiting for you. What are you waiting for?
Hello everyone again. I just thought I would update you on what is going on here. As usual, I am so glad we are here at this beautiful place. We have had some fun in the last couple of weeks but I want to continue a little on my last blog. When I left you guys I was lamenting that the cold weather had caused us to go through our supply of wood (hence heat) a little too quick, and that poor Tom was out there almost every other day chopping up our wood. I just wanted to give this testimony of how great our God is so that is why I'm coming back to that. I had finished the blog and was pulling up our ROW when I saw that Sean had parked his truck so that I couldn't pull in after him. I knew there was a major storm coming the next day or so and that we were going to have to move the car for the plow to be able to plow us out. As I got out of the car (yes I was grumbling a little), I saw a whole lot of wood behind his truck. I thought to myself, wow, Tom was busy while I was slouching off at the library. I felt a little bad and then I walked into the basement. The whole wall next of our stove was filled with wood and there was wood stored in front of the stove. Sean, Tom and Tasha were bringing in the wood. Tom told me where the wood had come from (stay with me for a little longer here:)). I had run into our pastor a week or so previous while buying a new handle for Tom's ax (he goes through them a lot) and had just told him how much time Tom spends on chopping. Pastor told me that if we ever get into trouble that we should call him and all the guys from church would come and help with the wood chopping. I assured him that we had enough wood around (10 acres worth), but it was just taking away from building while Tom was chopping. We agreed that it took time and he shared some horror stories of his childhood chopping wood. Well, I guess with the storm coming up, he really didn't want us to be chopping and finding ourselves without wood, so him and an elder came and dropped off a lot of dry, hard wood. I was really thankful and just want to say that, God knows what you are going through, whether you want to believe it or not. He is not some god that doesn't care what we are going through down here. He sent Christ, so that He would know the difficulties we are facing every day, so that God can sympathize with us. We are never alone. It just feels like it because we are so stubborn and want to do things our own way (been there, done that).
There was a lot more.
We weathered the storm better than CT did. We didn't lose power at all (hahaha) and were nice and toasty. It was beautiful just to watch the snow coming down. We got a bit and the next day the kids were all out there having a blast. The plow had made some impressive mounds and Logan sled down this for a little bit. Then Sean had the brilliant idea to have a mega sledding (up hill) behind the truck. They did this for about an hour and you should have heard Logan laughing. I tried to get a movie out of it but couldn't. Sean and Tasha spent a nice weekend with their cousins last weekend for a concert that was postponed from the weekend of the storm.
taking a ride on the sled
The rest of us were able to go and find out what Chester had to offer in terms of a winter carnival. We had a terrific time. They had two teams of sled dogs and were giving free rides. It took two hours before we were able to get on the sled and by that time my feet were huge chunks of ice. But I have to say it was a blast seeing the joy of those dogs when they were told to go. They were howling when they figured out that it would soon be time to get going. Very funny. Unfortunately for Sean, they had to leave before they were able to get on the sled, but I'm sure there will be another time for him to do that. After the excitement of the sledding (and hot chocolate), Logan and Tom attempted to slide down this rather large hill. The sled did not want to cooperate with them at all. So it was a bit of a downer but over all, we had a great day. I got to defrost my feet once we got home. The next day brought a cold and headache, but I would do it again.
Since then we actually have lights and plugs that work. I was thrilled when I was able to flip a switch for the first time and "Let there be light"! It was so much fun. The wall you see in the picture also now has wood paneling and no longer has the wonderful insulation motive. So things are moving along. We just had a couple of great days schooling (thanks Keisha) and are waiting for what is next.
I am glad to notice that the days are getting longer. The sun is out so much more and we just love that. I can't believe it is almost March. Logan is turning 11 in a couple of weeks. Have a wonderful day, and I say: To God be the glory!
Hello again my dear friends. I hope you are all staying nice and warm in this cold weather. The temp was 10 degrees this morning! Fun, fun. There are a lot of things going on here as there are everywhere in the world. We got to take a quick trip to CT a few weeks ago and I picked up a wonderful book on the way home. This book was a real inspiration to me and I want to share a few things God has shown me through that book and His word and how it has affected me. The book is called "Kisses from Katie" and is written by a young woman who was called to Uganda when she was 17 years old. She is now in her early 20s. As I started reading the book, I thought, wow, this is just like my life right now. This young lady had a burning desire to go to Uganda (of all places) in her senior year of high school. Her parents reluctantly allowed her to go of the Christmas holiday and it became clear that she had found her home. She came back after graduation and God has done some amazing things in her. And it is not the things she is doing that are amazing, although they are amazing too, it is what He is doing in her heart. She went to Uganda expecting something, but what she got was so different than what she expected. She came from an upscale area in the states, from wealthy parents who expected her to go to college, have a career and a happy marriage. What she got is a thriving ministry, and 15 adopted daughters! But again, more important she allowed God to change her while. She opened her heart to His wishes, even though she was tired, tired and spent.
Why am I sharing this with you? Because at this point in my life I am experiencing the blessings of opening up your heart to God completely, and allowing Him to do what He needs to do, with or without running water, electricity, and bathroom, etc. I love how she puts it: "I am human, and that means I have emotions. I can fear, laugh, cry,..." I like that, but what I have been learning is that even though we are human, we need to watch how we respond to the fear, laughter, and pain/sadness. If I let the fear take over, I have moved myself out of Christ's loving arms and I have basically told Him that He can't possibly manage to see me through my situation; I am in control, not Him. I know that He can get me through any situation I am in, but the question is am I letting Him be my Savior?
We were reading Ps 78 the other day and God started to talk to me as I sat down to journal about it (yes I have started to journal but I am not very diligent with it). What got me in this Psalm was that God gave the Israelites everything they needed while they were in the desert and yet they still complained and lusted for things that God had not provided. That is me over and over again! I get impatient waiting for God to provide just what He has desired for me. There is nothing wrong with asking God to provide for somethings, because He delights in giving us things, but when I get dissatisfied with what God is giving me and then going out to get the things He is not providing, there is a problem.
I do understand why the Israelites wandered. I only need to allow
myself to be distracted for a millisecond and my mind will start to
wander down paths I really shouldn't allow it to go. My job really is
to remember Christ's work. If I start to listen to the deceiver and my
mind is distracted, I can redirect it immediately and start to focus on
Christ. Remembering His promises allows me to be steadfast wherever He
puts me. As soon as I realized I'm allowing myself get freaked out I
have a choice. That is to take a deep breath and focus on Him or
continue my freaking out.
When I read this book but Katie Davis I was struck by how God provided everything, and I mean everything for her. She couldn't do anything for herself, but God provided what she needed, not wanted. One thing struck me and that was when she traveled back to the states after having adopted some of her daughters. She had been faced with extreme poverty, with relying on God 100% every waking moment of her day, and when she traveled back to the states, she was overwhelmed with a sense of loss. She couldn't rely on God the way she had in Uganda because everything was so available. There is nothing wrong with that and she was able to get through that but I know how she feels. When we are struggling through the day because there is no water, electricity or bathroom, I have to rely on Christ a lot more than if I could just turn on the switch and voila, light. I am not saying we should all live in the woods of VT, without water and electricity (I would love the company and so would Natasha:)) but the point God made in my heart was that even though Moses, Abraham, Joseph and a few of the others were extremely rich, they did not depend on their wealth, God still was able to use them because they were willing to let go of their own ideas and allow God to work His perfect will in them. That is how we are perfected. We allow God, through Christ and the Holy Spirit, to do whatever He sees fit. That is how we get joy, peace and love and live perfect lives.
For me, I can't do that in a place where everything is right there available for me right now. I have to struggle a little bit. That is why I, personally, feel that this experience is so good for me. I know that the kids are also being grown. He is stretching them and molding them into something that will be useful for Him, wherever He sees fit, doing whatever He wants them to do. For me it is amazing to experience that, even though we still don't have water, indoor plumbing or interior walls, He will give me the strength. I don't have to worry about wondering if we will have enough wood to make it through the winter. He already has provided because He knows we need to stay warm. I don't have to worry if my kids will have a job, because He is guiding their steps even more than I can.
I thank you for your time, that you are spending, reading this. I hope it helps you in some of the things you are going through, and if not, I hope you can rejoice with me in how God is growing me and maturing me. And it will give you a chance to better pray for me (I always appreciate that!).
Speaking of growing and maturing, the title of my blog is life continues and that it certainly does. Every day Tom gets up, starts the stove and does what he does every day. He chops wood for our fire so we can stay warm. I used to get so upset because nothing gets done on the house, but really God is providing the wood, the heat and right now that is really important. He keeps reminding me that the house will be finished. I feel so bad for Tom because chopping that wood is not easy and his skinny body goes through a lot when he chops the wood. I am so thankful that God provides and I totally rest in the fact that He is in control, no matter what. Ahhhh.
My wonderful daughter has been driving me around town a lot. It is kind of boring, because I haven't had to scream in fear or anything like that. The other day we were traveling into town and I actually complained
Starting just right
that she was not making this learning thing interesting for me. The audacity!! The other day, after a wonderful dusting of snow, we decided to drive around and have her take some pictures. The dog needed to have a good run and Logan was just itching to get out. To my, how should I put it, demise, Logan is getting really good at pitching snowballs, even through the window of the Subaru as I am trying to hide from him.
No you don't!
The day was wonderful because we were able to walk on the ice and have snowball fights and make snow angels. The dog had a blast! He ran next to the car and just had such a great time. We stopped by the new covered bridge and I can see that I will have even greater trouble crossing it, since the tracks are a lot farther apart. I shudder to think that I will have to cross that thing! The bridge is beautiful, though.
Logan on ice
Then we put in more windows!!! YES! Upstairs is now nice and light up.
Windows upstairs
Have a wonderful day, everyone.
By the way, the website to Amazina ministries is really good (the young woman who wrote the book). If you want to check it out, here it is: http://amazima.org/
