Lilley of the field

When my sister graduated high school and was preparing for college I wrote her a long letter of things I had learned my first few years of college and encouragement of truths to remember. Well, now she has reached another milestone of being engaged and so I thought I'd write another letter about that process. I would like to share a piece of what I wrote and pray it is an encouragement for many! Some people paint marriage to be all rainbows and butterflies and others like to keep reminding you how hard it’s going to be- which I'm sure both do out of good intentions. I like to try in genuine conversations with people to be real about the joys and the trials. Because it is hard, but you only work hard at something you love and care about. It is hard work unifying two people who simply have different goals, passions, desires, dreams, and personalities and then toss in the mix how we are all sinful, selfish people! But the best thing about marriage is foun

I wanted to follow up my last blog post on anger with a post of praise. A praise of God and a praise of friends. On Wednesday, after writing the blog, I knew I should ask for prayer. These are times when you know you need someone and sometimes you take that bold step to ask and sometimes you hesitate and hold back. I always regret hesitating, I never regret asking. We are people who need prayer and there is something powerful about asking for prayer. It is humbling. It frees your burdens. You realize you are not alone. You realize the power of God through prayer. So there never seemed to be a good moment at house church to ask people because we just had a potluck and not our regular gathering of prayer and scripture reading. Finally people started leaving. I thought, "Oh well, next time I guess." Andrew and Mackenzie were deciding whether they wanted to leave or stay. And let me tell you, it was not a natural time to interject with, "Well, I was actually thinking may

I have struggled this week deeply with being overtaken by my emotions- the main one being anger. That is a little scary for me because I am not usually angry. I would like to blame it on the end of the semester and the kids being crazy at school and busy christmas and tensions rising, but I simply can't. I must do two things. 1. I must take responsibility for my actions and feeling. 2. I must refute lies and accusations and giving into negative emotions with truth. James 1 says, " but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own  evil desire and enticed.   Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin;  and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. Don’t be deceived,  my dear brothers and sisters.   Every good and perfect gift is from above,  coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights,  who does not change  like shifting shadows.   He chose to give us birth  through the word of truth,  that we might be a kind of firstfruits

Mmm... this one was too good not to share. It's my first pureed soup. Amazing if I may say so myself. Aaron and Morgan agreed. Total cook time: 1 hour and 15 minutes. Ingredients: 1 butternut squash 1 tart apple 1 large sweet potato, peeled and cubed 1 small onion, chopped 2 large garlic cloves, chopped 3 carrots, peeled and sliced 2 T. butter 3 c. chicken broth (or veggie broth for a fully vegetable soup) 1 c. half and half olive oil salt and pepper dash of cayenne pepper 1/2 t. curry powder 1 t. dried sage dash of cinnamon Directions: Cut the butternut squash into 4 sections and lay on a cookie sheet. Cover with olive oil and salt and pepper and roast for 30-40 minutes at 400 degrees or until soft. Meanwhile, melt butter in large dutch oven. Add onion, garlic, sweet potato, and carrots. Saute for 10-15 minutes until a little brown. Add 3 cups chicken broth and apples and bring to boil. Remove the butternut squash, scoop it out of the skin, chop roughly a

I haven't written about school in a while it seems. There's been nothing too noteworthy. It feels like we hit that slump just before Christmas where every one is blowing their nose so much we could fill a small pool, the kids are sporadic in attendance, and you wonder... is anyone even learning anything? Well today, I have two great moments. In one I wanted to kiss my kid on the head and shout, "You are learning!!" in the other, I wanted to pee my pants laughing and I was at a complete loss for words. Moment #theyareactuallylearning: I have a student who struggles, and I mean struggles, to retain anything related to number and letters. I just don't get it. A year and a half and it feels like we're getting nowhere. The strange thing is, he can recall characters from books SO well. Books that we read 6 months ago, he can still name the characters. So why can't he look at a 1 and say, "1?" I don't know. BUT I did decide a couple weeks ago to

Peace. That is the candle for week 2 of advent... at least the meaning I like to assign. It can also be known as the preparation candle which can tie into peace very nicely. God opened my eyes yesterday to a new way of viewing peace. Peace is often talked about in the church and here's how it's often discussed. We are a people who desire order and calm and often find ourselves in the midst of a storm feeling like we have no peace. Christ has come and those who believe in Him have peace. It is not absence of the storm, but knowing God is present in the midst of the storm. We have peace. (all true by the way) But our faith is not just a way to have peace, our faith is the means with which we make peace. I started thinking about making peace instead of just having peace.. Peace is something that can be offered- to make peace with a brother or sister- to make a treaty of peace with an enemy. A peace offering says, "I am on your side. We fight together." Jesu

This post may make me cry- I should get the tissues ready just in case. I arrived home at our little home, turned on the christmas tree lights which I love so dearly, unloaded the groceries, got into my jammies (yes it's 6:30pm), wished Morgan and Sam fun adventures on their date, and hunkered down with my computer for a quiet night in- alone. Aaron is in California for a business trip and he has left on his birthday. Although, I will say I don't mind that he left behind a very nice size of leftover birthday cake. However I can not make any promises about it lasting until his return on Thursday. So aside from that, I thought it would be a nice time to post here since it's been a while. I had this great idea of doing some advent "series" of posts... but I missed the first day of advent already. Good thing I have no formal expectations for this blog. "Series" are I suppose for the hardcore and committed bloggers. But I will still write about advent today